When Shea starts working. This is not an if, he’s going slowly insane with the not working. Not because of the girls, just because he’s home and not working. So When he goes back to work we’ll both be working. We need to find a new way to make dinner and eat in a timely fashion. So we are thinking casseroles and slow cooker meals.

What we are looking for are healthy casseroles and slow cooker meals that we can throw in the oven or make first thing in the morning for dinner. I have a few slow cooker meals (Taco Soup, Potato Soup, Chicken ala King, Chicken stew, Beef Stew and Roast). However not all of these are with in our budget right now. Though when Shea gets a job they will be.

I have a few casseroles we can make (Tuna Casserole, Chicken Casserole, Smokey Chicken Pasta [Macaroni & cheese with bacon and chicken). Some of these are not very healthy.

So basically this is a call out for recipes. Would love to hear suggestions!

I’ve been trying to think of some kind of easy to make snack foods that would cover my savory crunch wants. I’ve been trying to think of cracker type breads to make. Today I did a cracker search and came up with with a recipe for Cheddar Crackers. I followed the recipe to the T, but unfortunately my dough didn’t stick together it was all crumbly so I started adding milk, I’d say about 4 tablespoons of milk to make it stick.

I made a quarter of the cracker dough by rolling out with my rolling pin on a floured board and then put on my cookie sheet and baked at 400 for 8 mins before I started to worry about the cheese burning and the smaller crackers getting overly brown.

I sprayed them with butter flavored cooking spray and sprinkled some salt on them.

Everyone loved them. I will be finishing them off for supper with our chicken/ham cheese spread to use up the leftover ham we got from Shea’s folks Easter dinner. Should be a good dinner.

Here’s my modified recipe for Cheddar Crackers.

1/2 c Butter Or Margarine
1 1/2 c Flour
1/2 t Salt
1 t Baking Powder
1 dash Cayenne Pepper
2 c Grated Cheddar Cheese
4 T Milk

Mix dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking powder and cayenne pepper) together. Cut in the butter until cornmeal texture. Add in Cheddar Cheese. Add milk slowly until dough forms sticks together. Roll into a log and put in the freezer. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. When preheat is done, roll the dough thin and bake for approximately 8 minutes.

For those curious the Chicken/Ham Spread is as follows, there really is no amounts.

Boil a few eggs. We typically do 4 to 6 eggs. Cook the chicken and/or ham if it is not already cooked. Grate some cheese (or used the store bought grated cheese). Put the chicken ham and eggs into the food processor. Grind until small, not a puree, but chopped pretty finely. Add the cheese. Add mustard to taste and enough mayo to form a spread. Add spices and seasoning to taste. We like to add dill. Mix throughly.

Great with Ritz Crackers and as a Sandwich.

Last night I walked away from my stove while I was heating up oil to drop rice into for Mexican rice. And I forgot I had done that went back in a few minutes later any my kitchen was on fire. I backed up out of it yelled fire to Shea and proceeded to look for the fire extinguisher since I knew it had oil in it I wasn’t about to drop it in the sink and add water. Thankfully only the pan was on fire. The microwave door is slightly melted, but I’m pretty sure it’s still in decent shape. Its just one expense will have to do if we want to sell the joint lol.

Today I set down to the task of cleaning the soot off of everything in the kitchen. The oven corner no longer looks like a black hole, while not 100% completely clean it’s better than it was.

Shea’s always telling me I’m going to set the house on fire. Yesterday was almost one of those days. The only damage other than smoke damage is the microwave. Though I might be down another pan we’ll see after I clean it out.

I’m thankful the fire extinguisher worked. I’m thankful I caught it before the pot holder and apron next to the stove caught fire or the cupboards above the stove. I said I needed to do a deep cleaning well now I’ll be cleaning a lot more than intended in the kitchen. I’m not sure I can get all the crap off of the top of the cupboards smoke related or not. It’s just not easy to get elbow grease moving up there on a ladder or the counter. But I’m going to wash down all the walls to be best of my ability and scrub my cupboards and make sure my kitchen gets a deep clean. I then really need to do the whole thing to the girls bedroom next.

I need more cleaning supplies tho and possibly a mask so I don’t die from the fumes of the cleaning chemicals. Though I will probably use vinegar in most places – but bleach is a must in the kitchen.

One hell of a way to start the New Year -I don’t recommend this method of jump-starting your New Years Resolutions.

Serious Eats – Starter Along – Sourdough Series was a good read, now I think I’m going to put it into practice. The cold weather has made me think that baking on a regular basis would be a good thing. So today I started my own sourdough starter. This will hopefully help in the keeping the house warmer as well as make the house smell good and have some good bread to eat from. Should be an interesting experiment. I’ll let ya know how it goes.

I’m thinking about getting new pots and pans for Christmas. I am not sure exactly what I want, but I know I want a few things. I want them to be oven proof. I really want a steamer and a dutch oven. A large stock/pasta pot would be nice too, but any large pot works really for pasta.

I’ve found two online at Walmart that are in a good price range for me, that I think fit my needs, but I really am not sure what I want or if these are good brands. I’m going to do some more research on these particular brands but would love to hear what anyone has to say about them.

Kinetic Classicor 11 Piece Stainless Steel Cookware Set

There seems to be a lot of good reviews at the sites I’ve seen, but they are all small in number like 3 or 4 per site.

Better Homes and Gardens 13-Piece Hard-Anodized Cookware Set

I can’t get a picture of this one easily. The reviews are limited here as well. I’m not sure if this one is Teflon coated or not. Not sure I want Teflon or not.

I suppose I’ll have to go see if they have any in stock at the store so I can see. I think I’m leaning towards the stainless steel set right now.

For the past few weeks I’ve had sitting in my cupboards the ingredients to make pepermint bark or what I hoped would pass for it. Yesterday I made it. It’s pretty basic. I melted white chocolate in the microwave, I used the stuff that you use to make an “Almond bark” you can use the chips and would probably melt quicker that way.

I stirred in some pepermint extract into the white chocolate and spread it over a waxpapered cookie sheet and then added Andies Pepermint Crunch peices on top and threw it in the freeze.

About 30 mins later it was solid and broken up and put back in the freezer (mostly to keep it out of little hands too much lol)

Shea liked it. We have an easy to make Dirty Santa gift this year. Cool.

I’m gonna start my from scratch pizza tonight again too, it’ll be a good day I think. We will be trying a bacon chicken ranch pizza instead of a typical peperoni one.

Well it is not really diet worthy notes, but Shea and I love chicken wings. They aren’t the best thing for the diet and I probably make more than we really need. But oh well, its one of few vices we actually have.

I use a Cajun Wing Sauce that is 4 calories per teaspoon. We use about a table spoon before it’s cooked and 1 table spoon after it’s cooked so that is a total of 24 calories for the whole patch. In the packaged of wings I buy there are approximately 17 full wings in them, cut into 3 pieces that gives me 51 pieces. There are 200 calories per 4oz of chicken. I use a 4.5 lb package so that comes to about 3600 calories for the whole batch. So each third of a wing is approximately 71 calories. That isn’t so bad really. We don’t use any additional fat and we drain it half way through to remove the excess fat. Below is the process I use.

Marinate 4.5 lbs of separated chicken wings in 1T of hot sauce mix. I typically marinate for at least 2 hours, today it will be about 4 hours before I start cooking. Toss on a baking sheet and put in a 400 degree oven for 30 minutes. Then I take them out and put them in a bowl so I can dump the oil on the pan and clean off some of the sticky stuff so it doesn’t burn too bad (burnt pans = icky cleaning). Then I put in in the oven for an addition 20 to 25 minutes to crisp up. Then put in a bowl, while it’s still piping hot I pour on another tablespoon of the wing sauce and and mix it all up again.

It’s really really really yummy and much better than the stuff you can get at any fast food joint or wing place because they are baked and not fried. This is supper for tonight with crab boiled baby red potatoes and french fries (for the girlies).