Halloween Trick

If you know me, you know I don't live for the trick part of "Trick-Or-Treat" during Halloween.

This year, I decided I wanted to try it out knowing what a trickster of a husband I have.

I found this idea on Pinterest.

Yes, I food-colored the milk. I labored over which color I wanted it to be. This color I thought would be the most convincing that something was DEFINITELY weird. Guys, I had to put like 30 drops of food coloring to get the milk this color. And I only dyed 1/4 of a gallon!

I made a milk-based pasta sauce tonight (recipe to come, soooo yummy) and it was most definitely blue. Like, I don't know how you could miss it.

Jer didn't notice.

I asked him if he wanted me to pour him a glass of milk for dinner. Nope, he wanted water.

FINALLY I asked him if he could get me some water out of the fridge. (The Brita lives right next to the milk.)

J: "Honey, what happened to our milk?!"

C: "I don't know, what do you mean?"

J: "It's blue!"

C: "Well why don't you try it and see if it has gone bad."

J: "No I'm not trying it, it looks contaminated!"

So then I told him I food colored it. He thought it was pretty funny, but I think I need to step up my game next time. I still can't believe he ate blue pasta sauce without a question. :o)

And now for the recipe, yours won't be blue unless you dye your milk like I did. :o)

Tuscan Garlic Chicken








Here is the link to the recipe.

My Changes:
*I pounded my chicken first for a thinner piece of chicken (cooks faster and picks up more flavor.)
*I halved the recipe and it worked great.
*I added fresh mushrooms to the sauce. Yummy.
*We used whole wheat linguine.

Game Day Doughnuts

I loved the rain this weekend. It just felt right.

We have been having friends over to watch all the football games this season (thanks for the sweet T.V. MIL and FIL!) And I for some odd reason, feel like I always want to have something to serve to our guests. (Thanks for passing that down to me, mom!)

I have been wanting to do this for a while now and decided to bite the bullet and do it. There are a few things I am pretty bad at in the kitchen. One of them being pie-baking and the other is doughnuts.

I found a pretty safe baked doughnut recipe that I thought I would try out but the more I looked at the real thing, the more determined I got to give it another go.

And after a few recipe adjustments and a couple tries here they are:

Pumpkin doughnuts with buttermilk glaze. I think they turned out quite yummy if I do say so myself. here is the link to the recipe!

*As a side-note, I had to add A LOT of extra flour because the dough was SUPER sticky and wouldn't even roll out. I also had to make more glaze. (Mine came out a little thick, I subbed sour cream for buttermilk and that may have been the culprit. If I had thinned it out with milk I think I would have had the perfect amount.)

**Instead of a doughnut cutter I used the mouth of a drinking glass and a bottle cap, worked just as well. (Made really cute doughnut holes.)


This made TONS of dough so I saved half of it and made the rest today after church. We will be visiting some friends and will bring them along.

You may see some pumpkins in the background picture. Utah Valley-ers. My friend Chelsie informed me of this deal. Macey's pumpkins are only 10 cents a pound right now! I got Jer's HUGE pumpkin (close to 25 pounds) for just over $2! Couldn't believe it, you have to go. 

And this was my game day bundle/lap buddy.

Baby Anabelle. Isn't she cozy? I love getting to hold this little one.

Jer started his job at Chef's Table this weekend and is loving it. The grand total count for jobs is now 3 for Jer and 4 for me. Go us!

Postal Treats

Remember This post? Well yesterday I had some more fun things come in the mail. But this time, most of them I wasn't expecting.

Getting the mail is something I look forward to doing everyday. Why? I don't know. I'm weird like that.

First thing I found was this:

I found this little cutie via Fabulessly Frugal on Facebook. It was $1.29 shipped on Amazon! A necklace for a dollar? Yes please!

Next:

We keep breaking/losing our iphone chargers, so my cute hubby decided to surprise me with a charger in my favorite colors! Pink and green. :o) Again, Amazon. Only a couple bucks!

And last but not least:

Jer visited home a couple weeks ago and his mom was using one of these Awesome Zyliss lettuce knives. It cuts lettuce so that it doesn't turn it brown (like a metal knife would.) My sweet hubby knew this would be something that I would love so he secretly ordered it for me. :o) From.....AMAZON! Lovin' Amazon. And of course it is in my favorite color.

Oh the things that make me happy. :o) Its the little things. 

The woes of being a teacher...

Most blogs you read are mostly positive. Sometimes a little cynical, often introspective. But not usually negative. I'm going to take a moment to vent.

 (Just a little humor to add to my negativity, of course I love my jobs (all of them))

At one of my teaching jobs (I won't mention which) I am having a huge struggle getting my students to be quiet and focus so we can get something done.

The week before last we learned 2 new steps in a 2 hour practice.

Really?!

This week I told them if they could be quiet and learn 10 counts of 8 in the two hours I taught I would bring them a treat. Bribes always work, right? I mean, they always have in the past.

How many steps did we learn?

3. T.H.R.E.E. Tres, Trois.

In two hours!!!

I've been the nice teacher, the mean teacher, the briber, the buddy. I'm out of ideas.

Any suggestions?

Needless to say, I had to make these last night:

Best-Ever Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Here is the recipe. 

*My mom found this recipe on Pinterest and highly recommended it to me. The secret to the delightful texture of these cookies is corn starch! Who'da thunk? I previously posted a recipe with pudding in the batter and I think these two recipes have quite a similar texture. Definitely yummy and worth trying!

Home Sweet Hubby

Today has been a reminder of just a couple reasons I love having Jer often work from home.

Breakfast together.

Today I made pumpkin waffles for us. The recipe was a winner and it made a TON of batter. I will be freezing that for a later date.

Here is the link to the recipe.

These were delicious and oh so fall-esque.

Mid-Day Exercise

 Today Jer and I soaked up the last of the summer-fall transition rays by running a WHOPPING 4 miles!! (OK I know that sounds stupid but Jer had to bribe me with a surprise in order to motivate me, I really have a hard time running.) Today's high is 83 degrees!!

Here is how I really feel about running:

You may have seen this on Facebook. It is the truth, about me anyway.

And NOW! We are going to get my surprise.

You may think, "working" from home, eh? Workin' hard or hardly workin'? Well, it's only 1:00! We still have the whole day ahead. :o)

Ode to October

Today is October 1st. As I settle into a pretty crazy work schedule, I'm determined to keep cooking so we can eat semi-decently throughout the week.

Say hello to my new best friends:

Jer loves these too, since his job is dishes after I cook. The crock pot is the most awesome thing ever UNTIL you have to wash it. It's heavy, and usually takes forever to scrape off whatever is cooked into it. With these bad boys, all you do is line, cook and toss that bag in the trash and you're done. Heaven.

I'm in LOVE with these and I don't care who knows it.

I have decided I am going to do as many crock pot recipes as possible in order to save time and still be able to eat some delicious dinners. To kick off my October of crock pot madness here is the recipe I am now simmering in my wondrous crock pot.

Crockpot Chicken Noodle Soup

Love this recipe because I'm a sucker for the creamy chicken noodle (as opposed to brothy) and it is the perfect thing for a yummy fall dinner.

Usually I make homemade egg noodles (Grandma Carolyn's recipe, but as a time saver I just bought homestyle (good) egg noodles at the store.)

Here is the link.

Enjoy!