Food Kids and ruts

So as we all know especially when kids are younger we get into ruts with our meals, whether it is because we have a picky eater or just time crunches but you tend to have a dozen or so meals that you cycle through. My kids are getting bigger and they will try a lot more these days but I also have my mom to figure in to the meals and she is a little pickier, she just didn't grow up with much variation of tastes or spices. So recently I have been trying out new things, some classic Midwest dishes and some ethnic dishes too. My friend Heather has a new blog to let us know what she is baking. wow I love that blog. I don't have time to post that much so I will just start dropping some of my successes here to share with you all. The most recent raving success was pot pie. I know it is pretty old school but hey if it was bad it wouldn't be around so long. This one I made up from a few different recipes and ad libbed a little too. I will put it down here as much as I remember since I am at Jury duty right now and can't check my sources at home.

Cheryl's Cheesy Mini Pot Pies

A couple large chicken breasts cooked and diced
1 can broccoli cheese soup undiluted
1 can cream of chicken soup
broccoli steamed to par cooked
double crust pie crust from red checked cook book
shredded Colby jack cheese

On stove heat soups and meat until smooth
make Pie crust dough and line mini pie tins or large muffin tins with rolled out dough
Scoop equal amounts of chicken and sauce mixture in tins and top with broccoli and some cheese. top with remaining pie dough and crimp sides. Vent tops

bake for 30 in 425* oven when tops are golden let stand 5-10 minutes and enjoy

Yumm

This even re heated pretty good in the microwave for mom lunch the next day.

The Woozie Blues

Words of Wisdom from my uncles Blog...

Treat stressful situations like a dog,
if you can't chew on it or play with it,
pee on it and walk away.

I wish it was that easy, right now I am good if I can stumble in a semi straight line. I mentioned my migraine Monday night, well it is Wednesday Morning and still feeling crappy to the extreme. I have a project I am working on for and with Zack's Cub Scout Den and it is stressing me out. But this cruddy feeling is worse than I have ever had from a migraine. If I had the PTO I would have called in sick today. Yesterday was not to bad but the later in the day the worse I felt, I didn't really eat much of anything and from the way my stomach feels after this mornings breakfast it was probably better that way. Today I have beta testing here at work and I just hope I don't kill anyone in the process. This is my least favorite thing at work on the best of days but we are far from that today. But on top of the feeling cruddy physically this thing is really getting me down mentally too. Usually I am not the most peppy person but today couples and the idea of couples fry me. I guess I really need someone to care about me and take care of me right now but hey I don't even have friends much less someone special. I actually wish someone would say to me " Hey you look like S--t are you ok, what can I do to help?" but there is no one and that is giving me the Blues. Oh well tis my life off to work now hopefully I won't puke or start crying.

GIRL SCOUT COOKIE LEFTOVERS

Since Taryn sells Girl Scout cookies every year we usually order a few extra boxes to sell to anyone who forgot to order or was still deluding themselves that they were going to stick to their New Years Diet. But this year we had no takers for the extra Cookies so we found a few ways to use them up. Here is what we found.

Chunky Tagalong Pie
Recipe by Robbin Hill, Jack Fry's, Louisville, KY

Crust
1 box Tagalong cookies
½ box Trefoil cookies
½ stick unsalted butter (cut into tablespoons)

Peanut butter filling
12 oz cream cheese, softened (1½ cups)
1½ cup chunky peanut butter
¾ cup sugar
3 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1½ cup well-chilled heavy cream
1 box Tagalong cookies (chopped)

Chocolate topping
8 ounces semisweet chocolate chopped (1 cup)
1 cup heavy cream

Crust:
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Using a food processor, grind cookies and butter into fine crumbs. Press crumbs over the bottom of a 10-inch springform pan. Bake the crust for 10 minutes.

Peanut butter filling:
In a large bowl, using a hand held mixer, beat the cream cheese with the peanut butter, Sugar, and vanilla extract until blended. In another large bowl, using the same beaters, whip the chilled cream until firm. Fold 1/3 of the whipped cream into the peanut butter mixture to loosen it; then fold the cookies and remaining whipped cream. Spoon the filling into the crust, smoothing the surface. Refrigerate until set (about three hours).

chocolate topping:
In a medium glass bowl, combine the chocolate with the heavy cream and microwave at high power in 20-second intervals until the chocolate is melted and the cream is hot. Stir the chocolate topping until blended; then let cool to barely warm, stirring occasionally.

Spreading the chocolate topping:
Spread the chocolate topping over the peanut butter filling and refrigerate until firm. Carefully run a knife around the pie crust to loosen it; then remove springform bottom. Keep pie refrigerated. Garnish with marshmallow sauce, fudge sauce, and caramel sauce. Serve with any or all of those sauces. Garnish with chopped peanuts.

http://www.kyanags.org/about/cookierecipes.aspx

AND

Thin Mint Chocolate Cheesecake
Recipe by Kathi Lincoln, Lite 106.9

Thin Mint cookie crust:
1 sleeve plus 4 Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies
4 TBS. butter or margarine-melted
Crumble mints in 9 in. pie plate. Add melted butter and blend well.
Press firmly onto bottom. Bake at 375 for 8 min. Cool completely.

Cheesecake:
2 PKG. of cream cheese-softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 TSP. vanilla
2 eggs
4 squares Bakers semi-sweet Baking chocolate, melted slightly cooled

Preheat oven to 325. Beat cream, sugar, and vanilla in large bowl until well blended. Add eggs and mix just until blended. Stir in melted chocolate. Pour into crust. Bake 40 min. or until center is almost set. Cool. Refrigerate several hours.

Wow they were good, There are also recipes online for all the other Cookie varities too.

Have Fun find your Cookies Mission.

HANG OVER

I get Migraines occasionally, most of the time at work (can we say stress induced), but last night sitting on the couch reading Taryn's knidle and half assed watching TV one hit with a vengence. One minute I was sitting there fine the next I couldn't see through the sparkles, auras, and lightening lines that attacked my vision, and my head wanted to explode. I felt my way to the bathroom to soak my head in the tub, the water pressure usually helps a little equalizing the exploding factor a few degrees, but that didn't work so I gave up downed some drugs and went to bed at 8. Not much else to do when your head hurts and you can't see. This morning I awoke with a hangover, again not to too unusual after a really bad migraine but still annoying when you didn't even get the party the night before. And here I am 2 asprin and 4 hours later still a little out of it my head gentelly thumping trying to work. But what I really want to do is read my book, hey I was at a really good part and had to stop. Hopefully today will be better and I can read at lunch if not a little afterwork on the bus.

Lazy Day

Well not so much, today i really need to work on paper mache vases for a Boy Scout Project, Go to the grocery store and run errands. Oh and lets not forget this is supposed to be Zack's weekend so we will have to work in something cool for him. We spend the entire week looking forward to a relaxing weekend but when it comes around we always spend much more of it working than relaxing.

Posting again

Not much to say since this is the second post of the day but I got my new net book and I just had to post with it. The key board is tiny but i am getting used to it. the skin I ordered for it should be here in a day or so also and I really can't wait , I have been playing on this for the last 3.5 hours. So much fun. I haven't gotten myself anything big for so long it is really nice to be the kid with the new toy for once instead of the giver.

NEW TOY NEW TOY

Today I get my new toy so hopefully since I will not have to borrow Taryn's laptop anymore I will actually write a bit more often. I am at work right now and I know my new Netbook was delivered earlier to my house and I am dying to get out of here so I can go home and play with it. Please please please make this clock go faster. 30 more minutes then I can blow this popsicle stand. yea!!! I will probably post again later so bye bye for now.

LOVE FROM A DISTANCE

I love my kids but Friday Zack was really really sick, It took til Sunday afternoon for him to really feel much better, Monday I got my new Dishwasher, and Tuesday wasn't bad until about 7 when Taryn turned green. I want to be the mom that cuddles with her sick kids but honestly I just don't have the Paid time off. So I will love them from a safe contaminate free distance.