In Conclusion....

Today is the last day of assigned writing for this blog.  I think that in the last few weeks, things have been eye opening to me.  I learned a lot about they way my family eats and the things that we need to overcome to be normal, if that is at all possible. 
My kids, well, Aiden is anyways, a picky eater.  And of course, Carly is at the age where she follows everything that her big sister does, so she didn't like half of the foods either.  Mark is probably the worst.  He never learned about taking one for the sake of making his wife happy and just sucking it up and eating a dinner that isn't the greatest.  I thought I was bad, but at least I truck through his nasty dinners and just eat a snack before bed.  I almost think that it is the world we live in today.  When I was growing up, we had to shut up and suck down or food, or we went hungry.  I remember that I hated meatloaf, yet it never deterred my mother from making it once a month.  So once a month I went through about a gallon of milk and ended up with a red nose from pinching it closed just so I didn't have to sit at the table til bedtime and then lay wide awake hungry all night.  I tried this one night with my own kids, and my freaking husband of course let Aiden have a bowl of cereal.  UGH!  So it is probably only something that works if both parents can come to an understanding and ENFORCE THE RULES!  But then again, it must have to be a rule in the first place.  At least to give him some back-up, his mother would make a separate meal if she knew he didn't like what was for dinner, so he grew up that way. 
All in all, the eating habits of my family suck.  We are stuck in a routine of spaghetti and breakfast for dinner.  I tried to get them to increase their taste bud variety, but they are too stubborn to see anything but what they know.  I will not quite though.  I liked trying new recipes and maybe if I got them into picking something out, they would like it too. 

Lemon Cake Cookies

Holy crap have I discovered the holy grail of cookies!!
I am a lemon freak, for some reason, it is my new obsession.  Anyways, a friend of mine had decided to start an annual cookie swap this year.  For those of you that don't know, myself included about a month ago, you get a group of people together, they all bake cookies, everyone baking a different kind of course.  Then they meet and exchange about a dozen cookies.  Depending upon the people that are coming, you will have a fairly large amount of cookies to bake.  I chose sugar cookies, for simple lack of enthusiasm and not being able to wrap my head around making six dozen cookies, yes, that's 72 freaking cookies, to GIVE AWAY!  I know that you get some in return, but still, that is a lot of cookie baking. 
So two batches of sugar cookies later, I had all I needed to give away, plus a little leftover for home.  Just had to include some frosting, you can't have sugar cookies without the frosting, and I wasn't frosting 6 dozen cookies.  So I added it in a little containers and put with each dozen. 
Getting to the exchange was a nightmare, because with two kids and husband that hunts, everything is in the late fall early winter.  But we made it, and there were some scrumptious cookies there.  Forgotten cookies, Tangerine Butter cookies, Snowball cookies, Peppermint Bark, Peanut Butter Blossoms, and Puppy Chow.  Of course we had to vote for our favorite one too, so of course, the lemon cake cookies won.  But these were the best cookie ever, they were moist, soft, sweet and chewy.  And the best part, you need four ingredients to make them!  FOUR!  Cake mix (any flavor with pudding in the mix), 1 1/2 cups cool whip, 1 egg, and powdered sugar.  Mix the first three ingredients, dip batter by teaspoonfuls in the fourth, and bake on a cookie sheet @ 350 deg for 10-12 min. 
And the best part, everyone in the house loved them!  Can't wait to try some other flavors!

Little Weniers

I have to admit, this is something that I have never done before, pigs in a blanket.  Not for fear of failure, or family disinterest, but for the fact, that it never appealed to me.  Meeting my sister at the grocery store one day though, I had an idea that I would try.  I bought the little smokies and then thought, crap, I have to walk all the way back to the diary section to get the crescent rolls!  Nope, the geniuses at the grocery store have such creative marketing techniques, that the put some crescents right next to the little smokies!  Awesome!  So I grab a package of each and head for the checkouts.  I thought that this would be the perfect idea for lunch on a weekend because I loath the idea of cooking on a Sunday afternoon. 
Carly turns 2 in 11 days!  We had her party yesterday, Sunday, and since our house is so small, I decided that we would have just cake and ice cream for family.  Worked out perfect, except that the party was after lunch.  What to make?  I saw the little smokies and the rest was history.  Well, I had to call my sister to find out if I had to cook the sausage before I put them in the oven, which you don't, and how long to cook them, longer than 10 minutes, mine were a little undercooked.  Well, no one liked them!  Except me of course, I have to admit, if I don't think I will like it, I won't make it.  Thankfully, we were having a party in a little while, so they did get eaten, just not by my family.  I'm not sure if it was just the idea that we would be having cake in a little while for the little ones, and the fact my husband just ate a sub, but I will be making these again.  Just for the shear simplicity of it.

Murphy's Law

Everything that can go wrong, will.  Sometimes I think it should be renamed Murray's Law, because honestly, if it wasn't for bad luck, we wouldn't have any.  Take dinner the other night.  My newest recipe, Chicken Alfredo Casserole.  I love chicken alfredo.  I love pasta and sauces and gravy, so this was an instant hit for me.  I should have known that it wouldn't be for my family, just not for the reasons I suspected.
It started off fine, well almost.  I forgot to take the chicken out of the freezer so needless to say, I had to throw it in a pot and stick it in the microwave, my husbands least favorite way to eat something.   If I am making something that way, he usually doesn't know about it.  So the chicken is in the microwave and I am working on the rest of the recipe which is coming along nicely, until I realize we don't have any chicken broth, something I need almost 2 cups of.  Strike two.  So I take some concentrated broth and add that, I am too far along to back out now.  The pasta is done, the microwave dinged, and the sauce is ready.  Time to cut up the chicken and toss it all together.
The chicken smells funny to me.  I am also pregnant, so everything smells funny to me.  I ask Mark to smell it, and he says it smells funny too.  Damn.  There goes the chicken I just spent 20 minutes cooking.  So, I just throw everything else in the oven and turn on the timer.  Mark asks if I want to run up to subway, really?  I just spent 45 minutes cooking this dinner that didn't turn out.  No, I don't want to go up to subway, we can just eat the noodles.  Apparently you have to have meat in every meal or its not a meal. 
Aiden had spaghetti o's, Carly had cereal, and mark had cereal.  I had noodles and alfredo, and it was good.

Breakfast for Dinner

One of my favorite meals for dinner is breakfast.  I think it has to do with having something sweet for a meal.  Both sides of my family has a sweet tooth so I didn't stand a chance.  The fact is that there are so many good foods that make breakfast an endless possibility.  You could have sausage, bacon, ham, or steak, and that is just the meats! We have incorporated this into our weekly meal planner as well.  But as always, I am looking for something new.  So what better than something that would combine almost all of the best breakfast foods?  Nothing. 
Start with a can of Grands biscuits.  Fry up some bulk sausage and frozen hash browns.  Mix some flour and milk with the sausage to make a gravy.   Through a couple eggs in with the hash browns and finish cooking.  Pull out a muffin pan and take a biscuit and smash it into the muffin hole.  Put in some hash brown mix then add the sausage gravy.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 min.  So there, all the great things about breakfast in one easy muffin.
Sounds good in theory.  The girls didn't like them, but then, I have yet to find something new that they do like.  The husband at them, and they were tolerable.  But they weren't good.  They were too dry and needed more sausage.  I think I may retry the recipe, only put in half of a biscuit and make extra gravy to put over the top when they are done because everything is better with gravy. 

Macaroni and Cheese

So who doesn't love macaroni and cheese?  I know that this has been one of my absolute favorite meals since I can remember.  Not the kind that comes from the box either.  The oouy-goouy kind with melted cheese on the top.  The kind that leaves stings of cheese on your chin.  OK, if you haven't noticed, cheese and pasta are two of my favorite foods.  And when you put the two together, ahhh, heaven.  Annie's Eats is one of my favorite websites for trying new foods.  You can always find something new and exciting on her page.  I found the classic mac and cheese recipe and thought I would give it a try, because while I love real mac and cheese, I have never made it.  I know, I can't really believe it either, but the truth must be told. 
So starting this recipe was a lot about preparation.  Shredding the cheese, getting ALL of the ingredients out, who knew there were 287 things that went into one dish.  OK, a little high, but still.   I did everything the way it said, garlic in the butter smelled amazing by the way.  Got it all together in the pan to put in the oven and sprinkled a little more cheese on the top.  35 minutes later, it was done.
Now to the taste testers.  Mark had been hunting that night, and was a little surprised when he came home to just mac and cheese for dinner, the man does like his meat.  The girls love mac and cheese so I thought that this would be a crowd pleaser.  Who would have thought I could be so wrong.  Mark took one bite and turned up his nose, as did Aiden.  Carly didn't even take a bite, she saw everyone else getting up to find something else that she did to.
I ate the damn thing.  Something happened with the sauce, need to figure out what, but it went grainy.  It wasn't bad, but it really needed some work.  Maybe another recipe when I get the courage to start it again.  I am hoping the next one works, just to cure my cravings.

Salad

I hate salads.  Ever since I can remember, I have been trying to find a dressing that would spruce up a salad enough for me to like them.  I remember taking a little of every salad dressing at restaurants thinking that one of them had to work.  How could I not like any dressing?  The worst, by far, was ranch.  I couldn't even stand the smell of it on someone after they ate it.  This past summer, a friend of mine brought a salad to our monthly dinner.  It was from Ya-Ya's, their grilled chicken Cesar salad.  Pretty amazing, unfortunately the dressing is not to be reproduced and I haven't had any luck in repeating this salad at home.

A few months later, my friend, who is also a Pampered Chef consultant, invited me over for yet another salad.  If you aren't a fan of Pampered Chef, you should become on, my life is forever changed in the kitchen because of this company.  The best thing to date, their chili lime rub.  This salad used this spice to create something amazing!  It is put on the chicken before it is cooked and mixed with, get this, ranch dressing!  So you have your lettuce and any other veggies you put in your salad, then you break up some lime tortilla chips and add your dressing, lots of dressing!  I was floored when she told me it was mixed with ranch, since I can't stand it.  By far the best salad ever, the kids are not fans, the hubby loved it also.