Popular Posts

I dunno about you but I'm often really surprised by my most popular posts.  Right!?!? Anywho, since it's easter weekend and I'm getting into competition season (read: crazy busy, driving all over to see my dancers compete) I thought I'd share my most viewed posts with you.

Most Popular Post - Paint By Numbers

Seriously, if you follow my directions you can create a canvas like this

Most Pinned Post

It's a tie between my DIY Hair Mask and ... 

my Microwave Potato Chips

Do you have a favourite post?  I mean there's almost 300 posts here, so I know it's hard to pick a favourite.  But I want to thank you for making these three posts oh so popular!

Mini Hoop Art

Even though I joke about it, I am proud of my Mennonite heritage.  My Gramma and Grampa are Mennonite, but not terribly strict Menno's. As my cousin says he's a culinary Mennonite!  There's something about spending time with my Grandparent's that means so much to me.  They've taught me so many valuable (Mennonite) skills like baking, woodworking, embroidery, and crochet.  

I've recently taken up embroidery again and I'm having a blast! I started a new embroidery pin board, if you're interested in following me.  I've found some cute patterns that I can't wait to start on.  Here are a couple I've finished so far.   

These are mini hoops that are about  4" wide-ok really 3.5".  So they really are tiny.  The hula girl is 7.5" wide (in diameter, as my engineering husband points out.  He just said something about pi, and circumference .... I stopped listening)

This one's not quite done yet.  I'm going to add some three dimensional elements to it as well.  Do you do any needle work?  Or am I rockin' a lost art? 

House Wife How To's

Compound Butter

Man there's nothing easier than creating a compound butter to impress your guests.  And as the temperature warms up (well, for some of us) it's a great treat with a good loaf of sourdough.

Today I whipped up some roasted garlic compound butters, and here's how.  First I took out 1 block of solid margarine, 1/2 a cup, and let it soften at room temperature.

Then I preheated my oven to 350*.  I cut the tops off of 3 garlic bulbs.  I put one in foil with olive oil, salt, and pepper.  The other two I put in foil with olive oil, salt, pepper and rosemary!

Bake these in foil pouches for 30-40 minutes.

Take the garlic out of the oven and let it cool until you can touch the bulbs.  Then squeeze the cloves of garlic into the softened margarine (or butter) and use a fork to mash it all together!  I even added the oil from the foil into the butter to add a little extra zing!  Feel free to season the butter with a little extra salt and pepper.

I added extra rosemary to the rosemary/garlic butter (pictured on left).  Depending on the garlic you use, you might find the butter a little sweet!  The cloves are so mellow you can eat them straight out of the bulb!  Seriously!

Smother onto fresh artisan bread and go to town

What's best is there are SO many combinations you could create.  Off the top of my head; 

 lemon, chives/parsley and roasted garlic 

Sun dried tomato and roasted garlic 

capers, lemon and roasted garlic (ooh on fish!)

rosemary, parmesan, and roasted garlic

What combinations do you think would be yummy?

Pan Roasted Chicken

Phew! I'm finally feeling back to normal with very few coughing fits these days, so I decided to make a real meal.  I saw it on Pinterest and it looked amazing.  But then I read some reviews and got a little nervous.  A lot of complaints as to how oily and lemony it was so I changed the recipe.  Here's what I did.

What You'll Need
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, halved length wise
3-6 red potaotes
1 bunch of green beans, washed and trimmed
olive oil
lemon
salt and pepper
1 clove garlic, sliced

Pre-heat your oven to 425*F

Slice about 4 thin slices from 1 lemon and place at the bottom of a casserole dish.

I used about 3 medium sized red potatoes.  I halved them and then quartered the halves and placed them in the casserole.   Then I trimmed my green beans and placed them on top.  Slice up a clove of garlic and add it in with the veggies.

I created an olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper "sauce" and poured it over the veggies.  Stir to coat.  I used the juice of about half the lemon and maybe 1/4 EVOO?  I eyeballed it.

Next I decided to sear my chicken so they looked nice.  When you bake chicken, especially boneless, skinless chicken breasts like I was using, it sometimes doesn't look very appetizing, read it's a bland white hunk of meat.  So I basted my chicken with a pre-made seasoning.  You could use basic lemon pepper or salt, pepper and rosemary would work really well!  Crank the heat up under a skillet and sear the chicken on both sides.

Then place the chicken on top of the veggies and pop in the oven!

I baked mine for 45 minutes at 425*F.  I ended up popping it back in the oven for an addition 10 minutes to finish up the potatoes and make sure my chicken was really cooked.

Then serve it up.  I didn't season the veggies very much, so I added a bit of salt and pepper when I served it.

I was incredibly pleased with how it turned out.  Not overly lemony, the chicken was well cooked but not dry, it was quite delicious.  Even enough for another meal tomorrow!

Songs

Maybe it's because of what I do (for a a living) but I'm always on the look out for hot new songs....or hot old songs.  Ty and I went vehicle shopping this afternoon and then looked at some sofas, so I was all "adulted" out so I spent my evening listening to songs on YouTube.  

If you're looking at listening to something new might I suggest something from this random collection of songs.  Seriously-random.

Let It Roll-Flo Rida

Where is My Mind- Vitamin String Quartet

Toxic- Yael Naim

Blood- The Middle East

Sexy Lady-Flight of the Conchords (this song is just funny and FOTC rock my socks! Check out any other FOTC song like Fou de fa fa, Ladies of the World, Bret you Got it Goin' On)

Black & Gold- Sam Sparro

Skinny Love-Birdy

Home- Phillip Phillips

I Will Wait-Mumford and Sons (actually all Mumford and Sons is awesome sauce-especially if you like the banjo)

Daughter-Loudon Wainwright III

Waterslide-The Bonedaddys (from my favourite movie, I Love You Man)

Harlem Shake-Baauer

Avicii-Levels

Do you have a gooder that you want to share? Leave me a comment with your fave song of the moment.

Sick

My hard core partying ways caught up with me this past weekend. Ha ha ha!  Just kidding.  I had a a sleepover with 9 teenagers, getting to bed at a proper 2am, waking up at 9am, going to my competitive students showcase, running around getting my dancers ready and pumped, hurtling home to chow down and get in the car to drive 45 minutes to North Van to my husbands hockey game, staying up after hockey for dinner and then teaching like a maniac all week. So guess who got sick?  ME!  I should have known that I was getting run down, but I really didn't feel bad.  Until I woke up on Saturday morning feeling different.  I knew something was wrong.

I had the flu.  Achey, headache, chills and sweats.  It was bad.  Then I was coughing.  By day three my chest hurt so bad from coughing that I literally was holding in my coughs (damaging I think).  I drank about 5 pots of tea and heated my magic bag repeatedly.  I'll say that my electric blanket was a life saver.

But I should've known that it was a good ole fashioned steam that helped me feel like myself.  Never steamed yourself before?  Oh my gosh!  After you're done reading this you have to steam yourself.  Fill a big pot up with water and set it to boil.  Once it's boiling turn down the heat (like to 4), grab a towel or tea towel and put your head over that pot and breathe.  It's not easy.  The steam hurts your nostrils but it's SO important to really get the steam in.  Set your timer for at least 10 minutes and try to relax.   listened to relaxing zen-like music from this awesome ap I downloaded, Relax Melodies.  The app is awesome and if you have trouble sleeping they've got some awesome white noise sounds to help you. (PS this is a totally unsponsored post, I just really like this app). Because my chest was so painful I tried to swallow the steam-which definitely helped.

In fact I felt so much better I had enough energy to make butternut squash soup.  I followed the recipe from the Wilderness Wife.  It was scrumptious and not as difficult to make as I imagined.

Here's hoping I feel better tomorrow. But please forgive my absence if I'm not.  Time to go get my steam on!

Fajitas

I just keep making new recipes...and there are more to come!  But today I'm sharing a Fajita  recipe I found online over at Simply Recipes.  This recipe caught my eye because of the marinade.  Flank and skirt steak can easily be tough and close to inedible. BUT pop that baby in the fridge with a marinade and you're gonna be one happy camper.

What you need

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 tbls oil

juice of 1 lime

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 fresh jalapeño, seeded and chopped (I ended up using some pickled jalapeños)

1/4 cup chopped cilantro

In a large ziploc bag combine the above ingredients.  Pop in the meat and allow to sit at room temperature for 1 hour or in the fridge for longer.

Then I prepped all my peppers (that's almost a tongue twister).  I used 1 red and 1 orange pepper and a large onion.

Ok time to cook.  Plop that meat in a WELL HEATED skillet and sear for 5 minutes.

Flip it and continue to sear for another 5 minutes.  I found that that wasn't quite enough, so I did about another 3 minutes.  13-15 minutes total.

Then you gotta let your meat rest.  Put it on a plate and cover it with foil.  Your meat will continue cooking so no worries.

The dump your veggies into the pan.  I added some beef bouillion and taco seasoning to them.

Saute them until they are tender crisp.

Once the veggies are done cut up your meat.

My meat wasn't really this rare, it's just the photo :)

Then put it all together and chow down

Feel free to add sour cream, guacamole and/or salsa.  I added salsa, and it was super yummy!

Blog Jacking Guilt

I hope y'all enjoyed the blog jacking last week.  My little sister Jill blog jacked me to share that I have never made lasagna.  I know?!?! Never made it.  It seemed so finicky.  I also don't have my Dad's recipe so I used that as a good excuse.

Anywho, I buckled down and made lasagna!

I used the same ingredients that she did, except that I used Trader Joe's No Boil lasagna noodles (that was fun-keep reading to find out!)

Just like Jilly said, sauté your onions, garlic and brown the ground beef.

Then get your noodles ready.  I was using no boil noodles, which I've never done before.  So I decided to pour boiling water over them to soften them up a bit before I put them in the lasagna.  Ha ha ha, they stuck together SO bad!  Don't do that!

Then I put my cottage cheese and spinach and egg together.  Unlike Jill I used dry curd cottage cheese.  That's what my Dad always used, so that's what I used.  I also feel like if you use wet cottage cheese your lasagna is too sloppy!

Mix it up with the spinach.

Chop your parsley, and once your meat is done add in the parsley and sauce.

Let that simmer for about 5 minutes and then stack it up!  Unlike Jill I started with a layer of noodles.

Noodles, sauce, noodles, cheese, noodles, sauce, noodles, sauce, cheese.  You got that?

Now it's ready for the oven!

Bake for 40-45 minutes.  
Let it rest for about 10 minutes before serving.