I'm going out of town without my family

I'm going out of town on Monday to visit my sister in Baltimore for a few days, and then to Atlanta to show artwork to several progressive companies. I'm leaving my 5 children home with my perfectly capable husband who will rent a Redbox for the children every night. They'll get to their workout sessions on time and will likely practice their instruments each day. On Saturday, before coming to get me at the airport, they'll tidy up the house. They'll have had a really fun week. I'll have had a good week, too.

So, in preparation for being gone for 6 days, I've stocked the freezer with good homemade food (chicken enchiladas, lasagna, and sloppy joes) along with hot dogs, corn dogs, and frozen pizza.

I've got assorted cold cereal and roughly 6 dozen frozen muffins. My Aunt Sybil is queen of muffins, I have memories of the kitchen in her old house where the kids would eat breakfast at the sparkly topped table and she'd pull a chair up to the cutting board to eat. She's got elaborate recipes and time savers. I made 4 batches of her time savers.

I baked the muffins in cupcake liners. After they cooled, I put them in 1 gallon bread bags, labeled them, and stacked them in the freezer. Aunt Sybil puts hers in tupperware containers and shoe boxes. For this selection of recipes and amount of muffins, without any hustle or deadline, it took about an hour and 20 minutes to complete.

Cinnamon Crumb Muffins

1 box Krusteaz cinnamon crumb muffin mix.

Follow the directions on the box. Yield: 12 muffins.

I made a second batch for breakfast and stretched it to 15 muffins; I liked this a little better because the crumb tops didn't break off like in the first (freezer) batch.


Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins

1 box chocolate cake mix
1 16 oz. can pumpkin
2 eggs
1 cup milk chocolate chips

Mix all ingredients together. Scoop into muffin tins. Bake 350* 20-22 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Yield: 24 muffins.

This recipe works with any cake mix and any additions like nuts, raisins, white chocolate chips, etc.


Pumpkin Carrot Muffins

1 box carrot cake mix
1 16 oz. can pumpkin
2 eggs

Mix all ingredients together. Scoop into muffin tins. Bake 350* 20-22 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Yield: 24 muffins.

This recipe was an experiment. I tried a new cake mix and I didn't add anything extra. My nearly 19 month old and I shared one and it tasted like carrot cake.


Blueberry Muffins

1 box Krusteaz blueberry muffin mix. Follow the directions on the box. Yield: 15 muffins.

chicken enchiladas: dinner & more dinner

Last week before we got our new air conditioner, my darling friend, Karen, made and brought dinner to us. After all, she said, it's virtually impossible to cook when it's so hot. What a gem. When I asked for her recipe, she was really vague about how she did it, saying "enchiladas are so easy!" So I purchased some ingredients and discovered that she was right, the enchiladas were easy and my kids liked 'em.

Chicken Enchiladas

20 6" corn tortillas
1 packet enchilada mix (I purchased the store brand)
1 6 oz can tomato paste
1 cup water
2 chicken breasts, grilled and shredded
1 cup cheese, grated

The enchilada mix instructions tell you to mix 1 packet of enchilada mix with 1 cup of water and 1 6 oz can of tomato paste, bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes. Stir occasionally. Remove from heat and add 1 cup of cheese. Spread a thin layer of sauce on the bottom of a greased 9x13 pan. Reserve about 1/3 cup of sauce and cheese mixture. Add shredded chicken to the other 2/3 sauce and cheese mixture.

Warm corn tortillas in the microwave (otherwise they split). Spread 1-2 tablespoons mixture onto warm tortillas, roll and place in pan, seam down. You can overlap the tortillas and squeeze them together to make them all fit. Spread reserved mixture over the top of the enchiladas, sprinkle with cheese. Bake at 350* for 20 minutes.

Serve with shredded lettuce, olives, sour cream, and ranch dressing.

Fabulous friend, Karen, brought Spanish rice, but I didn't have time to experiment so I served the enchiladas with a green salad and tortilla chips.

I doubled the recipe. We had one batch for dinner and I put the other batch, covered in heavy duty aluminum foil, in the freezer for another night.

raspberry pretzel salad

Jeremy's grandma (sweet Effie) was an amazing cook, the food at her house was always delicious. Her rolls were so yummy because she dipped them in melted butter before baking them. Those were meals to remember. One of her recipes is more of a dessert, but we serve it as a salad:

Raspberry Pretzel Salad

8 oz. pretzels, crushed
3 Tbsp. sugar
3/4 c. butter, melted

Layer pretzels on bottom of 9x13 pan, sprinkle sugar over pretzels. Drizzle butter on top. Bake at 400 degrees for 8 minutes.

8 oz. cream cheese
8 oz. cool whip
1 c. sugar

Soften cream cheese. Mix well with cool whip and sugar and spread over cooled pretzel crust.

6 oz. raspberry jello
2 c. hot water
20 oz. frozen raspberries

Dissolve jello with hot water. Add raspberries. Let jello set slightly in fridge (about an hour) and then spread on top of middle layer. Refrigerate about 2 hours.

Yesterday I used strawberry jello and fresh (rather than frozen) strawberries and it set nicely. Besides being a tasty treat, it's very pretty and looks patriotic.

ranch burgers and apple salad

The technicians were here all day, and we now have a house that is filling with cool air; it's so refreshing!

Tonight for dinner we enjoyed Ranch Burgers and Apple Salad. Apple Salad is a favorite of mine from college (thanks, Jess), and although it isn't overly healthy, it is very easy, usually thrown together just before mealtime when I'm wanting to add a bit more to dinner, and it tastes cool and summery.

Ranch Burgers

1 1/4 lb lean ground beef
3/4 cup ranch dressing
3/4 cup dry bread crumbs
1/4 c minced onion
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper

In large bowl, mix all ingredients together. Shape into 6 patties. Grill. Serve on buns with lettuce, onions, and red onion slices. Yum!

Apple Salad

6-8 apples, cut into bite size pieces (I usually use different kinds of apples because that's what I buy and have on hand, it's pretty to have multi-colored apples in the bowl on the table)
8 oz. whipped topping, thawed
1 large candy bar (snickers and symphony are our favorites, chocolate chips are also tasty, we don't care for m&ms in this salad)

Mix all together. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

when it's hot, fire up the grill

So my 21 year old central air finally died. It's been a hot week inside and out. So, we've kept the blinds closed and spent most of our time in the basement where it's significantly cooler.

In an attempt to make meals that don't require heating the house, we enjoyed some tasty dinners the last couple of nights.

(1) Barbeque Chicken, Baked Potatoes, and French Bread:

First thing in the morning, I put 6 chicken breasts in a tupperware and covered them with Catalina dressing. I squeezed a few tablespoons of lime juice on top and marinated all day.

I then scrubbed and poked red potatoes, wrapped them in aluminum foil, and put them in the crock pot on low. When it was time for dinner, Jeremy grilled the chicken along with a loaf of garlic bread while I made a green salad and my 8 year old made some grape juice. It was a fabulous, filling dinner!

(2) Ranch Cheeseburgers

1 packet (1 oz) Ranch Salad Dressing Mix (I used the Walmart store brand)
1 lb lean ground beef
1 cup Cheddar cheese, grated

Combine dressing mix with beef and cheese. Shape into patties, refrigerate 30 minutes (or so). Serve on toasted buns.

I doubled the recipe, naturally. The burgers were TASTY with crisp lettuce and a tomato, ketchup and ranch dressing. We also had one of our favorites, Yellow Jello (made first thing in the morning, although it only takes about 4 hours to set up), and chips.

Oh Boy!

Summer is completely upon us. The girls took a trip with Jeremy to Los Angeles to see Great Grandma (and to log some quality beach time) and the following week we spent some time with my family in the mountains at the family cabin. And now we're back to real life. Yesterday morning before Jeremy left for a quick trip he turned on the central air. Nothing. I told him, with a smile, that we'd be fine.

So, knowing that it might be a warm day, we had waffles for breakfast. This is the 3rd week in a row that Anna, my 10 year old, has made waffles. The recipe is easy to follow and with some direction, the waffle iron is a snap, too. This is my mom's recipe:

Oh Boy! Waffles

2 1/4 c. flour
4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. sugar

2 1/4 c. milk
2 eggs
1/4 c. oil

In one bowl mix together dry ingredients. In a different bowl whisk together wet ingredients. Pour wet into dry. Mix well. Pour onto hot waffle iron.

These waffles are a staple at our house and I generally serve them with butter and syrup. When they're on sale, I serve them with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. Another fun option is butter and jam (try it with peach jam or raspberry jam). My jabbering 18 month old prefers creamy peanut butter on his "fuls".

When I'm feeling health conscious, I use 2 cups of white flour and 1/2 cup wheat flour. My kids don't comment on it (maybe they don't notice?) and I'm adding fiber to our bodies. Bonus.

To the dry ingredients my mom adds about 1 tsp cinnamon, along with a touch of allspice, nutmeg, and ginger ("you know, the pumpkin pie spices"). She also adds to the wet ingredients a drop of vanilla, and a drop of lemon extract.

Tasty, nutritious, and delicious... and easy enough for a 10 year old.

the mail

I catch myself watching for the mailman (postal carrier, I think is the correct term), glancing down the road, and even lifting the lid on my mailbox (that is conveniently located on the brick wall just outside my front door, look, my house was built in 1950).

Then, when the mail does come, I find myself feeling silently disappointed that it only contains credit card applications, how-to-make-your-kids-smarter classes, and advertisements for a new furnace.

Today I got mostly junk. To combat the paper influx at our house--we have 4 elementary school kids--I simply stand next to the garbage can when I open the mail. The items either go in the garbage (or to the "shred" pile to hand to my kindergartener on her way in the door from school) or to a specific file. There are only a handful of categories: (1) garbage, (2) coupon file, (3) weekly ad file, and (4) bills (I suppose this should be the first category). I do have a category called "to do" which is a catch all for anything that needs to be read, calendared, or responded to.

This simple drill cuts down on unnecessary piles and eliminates extra papers that have to be sorted. How often do you have to buy a new furnace anyway?