PJs first haircut!

So I will admit, I put it off way too long, but I just adore the little curls at the back of his head.  After PJs teacher sent him home for the 3rd time with pig tails I figure enough was enough.  Ryan is getting really good at cutting the boys' hair (and his own).  I have to admit, I do like it best when its really short, even if it does make them look so grown.

Apparently he would fall in line everyday with the girls in his class to get his hair done by Miss Janis!

Before

He may not be happy about it, but he sure is cute!

Wait, Wait, Don't put that in there!

Almost every time we have folks over we find ourselves saying "wait, wait, don't put that in there!" as they are about to put trash in our recycling bin.  It's not their fault, our recycling bin is indeed a trashcan.  For a long time I had been putting off using my handy dandy Silhouette to put a recycling logo on it.  Week 6's Organized Home Challenge finally got me motivated.

I {heart} Harris Teeter and General Mills

Yesterday was the last day of Harris Teeter Super Double coupons.  I had already made a couple of trips and they were okay, but tonight was a real score. I had all my coupons organized so I was in and out in under 45 minutes.  And it resulted in the following:

I paid  $21.05 for $142.65 worth of groceries!!!  That's a savings of 85%.  That's good even for me!

In case you can't make out the picture:

• 2 bags of cough drops ($.20)
• 8 boxes of granola bars ($7.60)
• 8 boxes of cereal ($8)
• 4 bags of cookie mix ($4)
• 8 Hormel dinners ($6.96)
• 2 boxes of crackers ($3)
• 2 bags of oyster crackers ($3)
• 2 coffee creamers ($1.50)
• 2 Wholly Guacamole ($1.58)
• 2 1/2 gallons of milk (free)
• 2 boxes fish sticks ($2.99)
• 1 box tilapia ($.84)
• 1 bag of rice pilaf ($.19)

Other discounts:
$10 off $50 purchase
$5 off for purchasing 15 GM products (not really sure why I got this though)
$4 off from from GM as well (again, not really sure why I got this)

Thanks to Harris Teeter and General Mills for putting out such great deals.  Extra special thanks to Amy Dunn and Faye Prosser who do all the work for me in putting the deals together!

P.S. The title of this article could have also been "My BFF has turned me into a BTFE maniac!" I need cereal and granola bars like I need a hole in the head (although we do go through both really fast) but since they have boxtops and Banana's school is collecting them I cannot resist.

Souper Sunday: Red Bean Chicken Curry Soup

We've had a lot of good luck lately finding some interesting soup mixes at Big Lots of all places. Usually they are really simple to make, basically add a meat, tomatoes or water. A few weeks ago we picked up a couple of bags of bean mixes made by Bob's Red Mill Natural Foods. I don't think i realized that it was just beans. If i had I likely wouldn't have bought them. One was totally forgettable, a black bean mix I think. I might have messed up the recipe, but since I have a couple of other really good black bean soup recipes there was no need to buy another bag to see whether it was the cook or the recipe.

The other bag we bought was much more interesting - Whole Grains & Beans Soup Mix. We used the recipe off the back of the package for Red Bean Chicken Curry Soup and it was delicious! Even after cooking for most of the day, the beans and grains retained a really nice texture. Jumbo and I love Asian favors. Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Indian - we love them all! It wasn't spicy at all, just very flavorful. G and PJ like it as well!

RED BEAN CHICKEN CURRY SOUP

Contributed by: Bob's Red Mill Natural Foods

3 Tb Olive Oil
3 Chicken Breasts, cut into bite size pieces
1 medium Onion, chopped
4 cloves Garlic, minced
2 Tb Garam Masala
1 tsp Curry Powder
8 cups Chicken Stock
2 Bay Leaves
1/2 pkg Whole Grains & Beans Soup Mix (1 3/4 cup)
Directions

Heat oil in a large stock pot over medium-high heat; add half the chicken pieces and brown on all sides for about 6 minutes. Continue with the remaining chicken pieces. Add onions and sauté until translucent, about 5-7 minutes. Add garlic and sauté for one more minute. Add garam masala and curry powder; sauce for 30 seconds to a minute until they are aromatic but not burning. Carefully pour in stock and scrape the bottom of the pan to release any brown bits. Add bay leaves. Add soup mix and stir. Bring to a boil. Once boiling reduce to a simmer, cover with a lid and cook for 1 1/2 hours. Sir occasionally to prevent sticking. Add more stock or water if beans absorb too much liquid.

Vegetarian option: Omit the chicken breasts and chicken stock and use vegetable broth instead. Add an assortment of vegetables to your taste such as 2 cups sweet potatoes, 1 cup roasted corn, 1 cup winter squash or 1 cup cauliflower. Watch throughout cooking process and add water as needed.

Makes 10 servings.

Good Boy!!

Technology Tuesday: Spotify

I will NEVER have to buy another album (yes, I'm that old) again.  Not another CD and likely not even another MP3.  Jimbo doesn't feel the same so our collection will continue to grow, but I have all the music I'll ever need through Spotify. The best way I can to describe it is that iTunes,  Pandora and Yahoo Music had a baby and its PRETTY.  


I've always been more of a radio listener than a tape/CD/mp3 listener and I think the main reason is that I enjoy the variety.  If I did listen to cds I would tend towards soundtracks or greatest hits to better ensure that I got a good mix of good songs.  Then a few years ago, thanks to some of my younger friends at ASB, I discovered Pandora and it was/is great.  I love the variety and not having to make a decision/remember what album my favorite songs are on.  Or for that matter the name of them.  I've never understood how Jimbo can just walk up to our HTPC and rifle through the nearly 1500 albums we have on the server and just instantly decide what to listen to. It honestly amazes me! Pandora was perfect, just tell it what you like and it plays other stuff like it.  Genius!  The only downside is that if someone asks you "have you heard that great new Adele" song?  You can't just go punch up the name of the song on Pandora and have it play THAT song.  You might get another Adele song but not THE song you're looking for.  This is where my conversion to Spotify began.


What makes it so cool?  Here's the [not so] short list of the things I love:

• What I want, when I want -  Spotify describes themselves as a new way to listen to music. Millions of tracks, any time you like. Just search for it in Spotify, then play it. Just help yourself to whatever you want, whenever you want it. There are so many things that I love about it, but their motto "all the music, all the time" sums up the main reason pretty well.  You can literally listen to [almost anything], anytime you want, on multiple devices. The average, radio-listening music lover will be able to hear anything they want.  Folks like Jimbo who have eclectic tastes may have a bit more trouble, but even he has been able to discover some new music that he likes.  
• Artist Radio - very much like Pandora you can pick an artist and Spotify will play tracks by other artists with similar styles.
• Your work is transferable - One of the things I never liked about iTunes is that you did all the work to get your play lists organized, but when you opened iTunes on another computer they weren't there.  Maybe I was doing something wrong and maybe this is different now with iCloud.  Regardless, you can definitely take your work with you with Spotify.
• Shared Playlists - You can both statically share a playlist that you've created with friends (or the world for that matter) but even cooler is your ability to create "collaborative" playlists so that multiple people can contribute.  We have a list at work where we can add "motivational" songs.
• Organize your personal stash - You can use Spotify to import your local music files, create playlists from them, sync them to you mobile device...basically everything you can do from iTunes to keep them organized.
• Mobilize your music - Not only can you use Spotify's mobile apps to stream content on your Apple and Android devices, you can listen to your local music.  To take it one step further, you can even make playlists available "offline" so that when you're not connected to wifi you can still listen to your tunes.  Love this!

And a couple of new things I haven't played with too much:

• Shazam integration - Shazam is on of my favorite apps.  I never know who is singing a song, much less the name of the song.  So now not only can I use Shazam to find out the name and artist of a song, I can add it to Spotify instantly.  Love it!
• Apps - We'll see where this goes, there are only a handful now and most are jsut different ways to discover new music or grab some public playlists, which is always good.  I do liek the "top 10" and "Billboard" apps, I bet Jimbo would like the SongKick Concerts app since he likes going to live music.  Let me know if you find some cool ones.

Have you guys tried spotify?  You can try premium for free for 30 days, but even the free version is awesome.  What do you think of it?  I'd love for you to share your favorite playlist with me and in honor of Valentine's Day, here is one that that made me smile. 

Busted!

I just tried to pull one over on G and got busted. I grabbed 2 Joe Joe's, popped one in my mouth in kitchen, and headed back to the family room with the other hidden in my hand. G was standing at coffee table eating pears (he's sick so I'm slacking on the rules) so he couldn't see me so I popped other one in my mouth.  Just after I close my mouth he turns around, looks at me and says "mommy what are you eating?". I could only shrug because I have a mouth full of cookies so he asks again. I shrug again, still trying to hide the fact that I'm eating his favorite treat right in front of him without letting him have one. He then says "mommy, open your mouth! Let me see!  Let me see!!" and crawls up onto he couch and tries to pry my mouth open to see. At this point I'm laughing so hard I just about spit out the cookie. He looks at me so confused and says "What mommy? What?" and all I could do is hug him.  Then I guess he figured out what I was eating because he says "Mommy, I gotta go potty. I want a cookie tooooo."  You know I could have never, ever, not in a million years imagined how much I love these boys.

Happy Birthday Mom!!

 Today my sweet, sweet momma turns 72.  Can you believe it?  I don't think anyone would ever guess.  She spent the day at her favorite places (McDonald's, shopping, Cloos' Coney Island) with some of her favorite people (her "babies" and her McDonald's buddies), eating her favorite foods (see below).  Dad got her a new iPhone so we had fun having a lesson on how to answer the phone and get text messages.  More lessons in the near future.  All in all it was a good day!

Happy Birthday Mom!

My order: 2 coney's no onions and cheese fries please!

Mom's new iPhone!

Add caption

At least we have one reader in this family!!

We received our first issue of National Geographic Little Kids today. It's a really neat magazine with all kinds information presented at preschool level. I'm pretty sure that PJ just likes the pictures but he often gravitates towards books rather than toys and I couldn't be happier.

The Power of Candy

Warning: This story is not for the queamish, bodily functions will be discussed.

Many of you know what a roller coaster potty training has been for us. For those of you who don't, basically G took us by surprise back in December by deciding all on his own that he wanted to start potty training. R and I were truly not prepared. I was honestly thinking he'd be three when he got started, but if he says he's ready, who are we to argue, right? He did really well through that initial weekend (much thanks to the Guenther Gang for assisting while they were here visiting) and we told the teachers on Monday. They tested him out for a week and then let us know that they thought he was ready for full on potty training. After only two weeks of training at school they told us to send him to school in underwear and then we were scared. But off to Walmart we went

He was doing really, really well for weeks. He had even gotten to the point that he would just go into the bathroom on his own without even telling us and take care of business. But through it all he's only ever pooped once in the potty. We've had more accidents than we care to discuss and were getting very, very frustrated. He would go into the potty and pee, leave the potty and 5 minutes later we'd have a mess. I was starting to rip my hair out. Last night, despite R disagreeing with this tactic, I looked at G and said "If you poop in the potty for mommy I will give you a piece of candy". After dinner, we took him into the potty, sat him down and told him we needed to sit here for a while. About 30 seconds later he asked me for some "privacy" and seconds after I left the bathroom he yelled to me to bring him a book (seriously, this kid cracks me up). No luck that time but a short time later Ryan took him back in and he did it!!! NEVER in my life did I think I would get so excited over a bowel movement. I wish we could have gotten his reaction on camera because he was shaking with excitement.

Well, tonight, just like last night we took him straight after dinner and sat him down on the pot and told him to try (rather than waiting for him to have the urge on his own). Soon as he sat down he looked up at me with a HUGE smile and said "if I go poop mommy I get candy" and I said "yes sir". So tonight he went not once, not twice, but three times!!! Some might think he's having some intestinal issues, but I think he's just one smart cookie because he ended up getting two "conversation hearts" and a Candy Cane Joe Joe. I seriously think he's playing us, but you know what? I don't care!!!


Note to self:  buy conversation hearts after Valentine's Day on clearance!!!

Ever have one of those days?

You might think this is just a
 cup of coffee. which on many days 
would be a good pick me up, but....

I was having "one of those days" last week and needed a pick me up.  While looking up some recipes for a pregnant co-worker (and apparently the only one who reads this blog) whose unborn child apparently has an intense dislike for chicken, I came across the recipe below that she had sent me some time back.  I'm pretty sure the recipe came from this site because it has the same pictures as were in the email she sent me, but the recipe is all over the internet so I won't fee too bad if I don't credit the right source.  At least I tried!

5 MINUTE CHOCOLATE MUG CAKE
4 tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)
A small splash of vanilla extract
1 large coffee mug (MicroSafe)
Add dry ingredients to mug, and mix well.  Add the egg and mix thoroughly.

Pour in the milk and oil and mix well..

Add the chocolate chips (if using) and vanilla extract, and mix again. 
Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts.

The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don't be alarmed!

Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired.
EAT ! (this can serve 2 if you want to feel slightly more virtuous).

Upon finding it, I immediately excused myself and ran to the kitchen.  The result was just heavenly.  It was a little dense and you could definitely taste the bitter-sweetness of the cocoa and semi-sweet chips that I used, but I liked both of those things.

I've been way off the wagon lately, but fully intend to get back on track soon.  I might have to try this version !

It's a mug full of warm, chocolate goodness....

Made even better by a heaping topping of Reddi-Wip!

What do you do to get you back on track when you're having  a not-so-stellar day?

$1.33

I know what you're saying..."who needs that much Frank's hot sauce but trust me, we'll use it!

Technology Tuesday: Organizing your recipes with Gmail

Week 4 of  Home Storage Solutions 101's 52 week Organized home Challenge is Cookbooks and recipes.  This is a perfect segue into me showing you just how big a geek I am.  

My recipe Gmail hard at work at
dinner last night.  Yeah Kindle Fire!

Have you ever been at the store and come across a super bargain on something and then not be able to remember everything else in the recipe that you were thinking about making with it?  Do you have a smartphone or tablet that can access your email account whileyou're at the grocery store? If so, you are well on your way to chucking all those loose, sauce covered, sticky recipe cards that we all know and love, but can barely read for all the stains.


But, isn't it a ton of work to convert all of my recipes?  Well, yes but your up front work will pay off in the long run.  The time you spend typing them up will save you time rifling through them in the future as well as having to rewrite them the next time you spill something on them.  Also, where do you get your recipes from?  If you, like me, get a lot from your favorite magazines, you either have piles of pages ripped out of magazines or you have to spend time writing them up.  You see where I'm going?  Plus, when is the last time you carried your recipe box with you to the grocery store.  I wasn't kidding about the bargains, but also, if you just see something in teh grocery store that sparks a craving you can just look up the recipe on your phone lickety-split!


To give credit where credit is due, this is not my original idea.  It was born from this article http://lifehacker.com/197975/store-your-recipes-in-gmail but I did make it my own in several ways.

Unlike the article, I don't use my main email, i created a completely separate email account.  I did this for 2 main reasons 1) I was HOPING that some of my friends and family would contribute their favorite recipes to the "book" and then log in to use the account as well so i wouldn't want them nosing around in my regular email.  Props go out to Betsy who may be the only one (B, I had to change the password recently so let me know if you want the new one) and 2) This allowed me to create a ton of different labels without getting them mixed up with my regular email.


Where do you get your recipes from? 

• Friends: Just ask them to email you the recipe either to your main address or directly to your recipe address.  I tend to ahve them send it to my regular email both because they already have that email AND because I like to clean up the email before forwarding onto my recipe email.  Generally I have the recipe title in the subject line, the repeat the recipe title in the main body followed by the ingredients and instructions.  
• Magazines: As much as I love technology, I still love flipping through magazines.  When I come across a recipe in magazine I rip it out and put it in my recipe file to type up later (I used last week's recipe challenge to get caught up on my backlog).  9 times out of ten all I have to do is go to the website of the magazine and search for the recipe and then you can copy and paste the recipe into an email (I usually send the recipes from my main account to HazelsRecipes because I'm usually logged into my main email)
• Parties:  Don't you hate it when you're out at an event and fall in love with a dish and either don't know the person well enough to feel like you can ask them to send you the email.  OR you do know them but know they will never remember to send it to you!  I've found that a great trick is to just ask them what's in it and then come home to a site like  allrecipes or food.com that allow you to do ingredient searches.

Labels

Once you get a few recipes into your new recipe email account, the next step is to label them.  For those of you who don't use Gmail, think of a label as a "folder" or "tag" that helps you organize your emails. In the Lifehacker article, it appears that they are suggesting just one label called "recipes" within your regular email account.  The downside of this is that it would create a single, very long list of emails.  I needed a bit more categorization.  I suggest creating labels that mirror the categories in your recipe box.  You can even create "sublabels" for those recipe categories that you have a lot of and/or want to be able to browse very specific categories.  This way, the next time you need a recipe from a specific category, say a yummy appetizer for a SuperBowl party or a decadent dessert for Valentine's Day, you can just click on the label and browse all your recipes.  


In addition to my main category labels I created a few extras to let folks know which were my favorites.  Again, my original intent was to use this as a shared recipe database and seeing as how there are recipes in there I will probably never get around to making, I thought it a good idea to give some recommendations to folks who logged in.  One of the things that I like about Gmail is that you can put as many labels on an email as you like.  The sky is the limit on how granular you can be in your organization!


Other tips and tricks:
1) Gmail's new inboxes make it easy to manage your tagging.  I don't always go in an label all the recipes right away, so by using the "unread first" you can label all of your unread messages and then "mark them as read" to get them off the top of the list.





2) Want to protect your main email account from spam, but still want to get in on all the neat recipe email lists out there?  (I love newsletters from Taste of Home and SparkPeople!) Use your recipe email to subscribe to these sites!  You can then use Gmail's Priority Inbox (see tip 1) to separate these from your recipes by marking them as not important.
3) When copying a recipe from a website use the "print" function on the page to bring up a "cleaner" version of the recipe before copying.  If you try to copy and paste from the main page you will end up copying a lot of extra ads and other html that will gunk up your email when you paste it.




So what do you think?  Are you ready to take the Gmail recipe plunge?  If you want to peruse my recipes, I'm happy to let you for the low, low price your favorite recipes!  I accept email, Word Docs, text files, Pinterest and Evernote!  If you don't know that the last two are, stay tuned for future editions of Technology Tuesday.
  

Are you ready for some footballs?

We're off to a Super Bowl party in a bit.  Originally I was going to do a punch bowl cake but then I looked in the pantry, saw the Rice Krispies and remembered that the son of the host of the party has recently gone Gluten Free (aka I found an easier way out).  Then I remembered  that I had extra chocolate frosting and we were in business.  I'm not the best "piper" and I was in a hurry but I still think they came out pretty cute.  Even if they didn't they were all gone long before the game was over and that's what counts!

The Great Pantry Project

I am really excited about my participation in Home Storage Solutions 101's 52 Week Organized Home Challenge.  My BFF Meg turned me onto it and its just the right motivation I need to get this house in shape.  Some weeks are easier than others, but week 3's challenge was a one I really needed.  Week 3 was when we are on vacay so I was a little late getting it done, but the challenge was to organize your pantry, spices and food storage areas.  I'm lucky enough to have 2 pantries.  One in the kitchen and one in the back hall.  both are very deep and although that allows for TONS of storage, without the right organization it makes for a lot of shifting of stuff to get to what you want.  I can't tell you how many times I've knocked a can onto my toes while digging for a can at the back...ouch!  So, here are the pic to show the transformation(s).

Before (R had already started unloading a bit)

Holy cow that's a lot of stuff!  But,....

that wasn't all of it!!!

Whew!  Empty and ready for a good dusting. (Thanks R!)

Can anyone guess what this is?
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Yep, a billion "Q" bars (and there are more in the other pantry)!

It took two trips to the container store, stops at three different Walmarts, a trip to the restaurant supply store, only to find the same containers for half price at Sam's Club and then a return trip to the restaurant supply store, but all in all I think its worth it.  Take a look at the results!

Do you hear the angels in heaven singing??? I do!!!

The top shelf is cereal, then below that is a tub for Rice & Potatoes
and another for Pasta.  Behind them are "box mixes" like stove top, potatoes
and some cheater meal starters. 

I think this shelf is my favorite.  Can heaven!  LtoR: tomatoes, veggies
beans/fruit, "eating" soups and cooking soups.  The only disappointment
is that the the racks are made for soda cans so our big Progresso Soup cans
don't really work well in them.  BUT, I do love that there is enough room on top
for miscellaneous little cans like tomato paste, mushroom and tuna.

The shelf below the cans are snacks in categorized baskets: crackers,
cookies, fruit, fruit snacks (yes, they need their very own basket,
we love them!), popcorn and "Q" bars (granola bars to common
folks...no idea where G got Q bar from)

My baking center!  Oatmeal, brown sugar, splenda, powdered sugar, chocolate
chips, etc. are in Tupperware on the bottom shelf.  On the floor I have my fabulous
new containers for flour and sugar as well as a plastic cartthat I've had forever.
After power washing off 5011 layers of dirt and grim and taking the wheels off, it
becomes a great place to store cake/bread mixes and other misc. lesser used
baking products. The only thing you can't see is a can rack from the container
store that is behind the raising that isholding evaporated milk, sweetened
condensed milk, etc.  I woudl NOT recommend this one, in fact i would have taken
it back if I hadn't scuffed it up so bad with the pliers trying to make it work for
the cans above.  But it works fine for those smaller type of cans.

And the stockpile pantry: Before....

...and AFTER.