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Sharing recipes

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

By Beth

Of course, I’ll share my recipes with you.

I don’t know where you stand with recipe sharing but I’m all about it. A few years ago, a neighbor had us over for dinner, they explained to us that this was a “SECRET RECIPE” and no way would they ever, ever, ever share the recipe with anyone. (even though we never asked for it.)

The funny thing is, I don’t remember it being THAT great, but what I do remember was that these people wouldn’t share their recipe with anyone.

It’s not like they had a restaurant and sharing the recipe would affect their livlihood, no, they just didn’t want to share.

Since then, I have made it a point to always share my recipes. And yes, I get a little twitchy when someone doesn’t.

By the way, these recipes are from people WHO SHARED THEM.

The first recipe is the Chicken Enchilada Soup. I actually found this recipe from Tasty Kitchen, The Pioneer Woman’s latest website. I chose it for it’s simplicity. Although it was delicious and so unbelievably easy, it was really quite bland. I did add some cumin and black pepper to the recipe, but it needed more. It needed some kick. (my friend recommended jalapeno sauce, I think that sounds like a perfect addition.)

The second recipe is for the French Bread Rolls. (another recipe compliments of Tasty Kitchen) The flavoring on these was so, so good, however, for us, they turned out hard as a rock. I’m thinking I needed to let this rise a bit more, I’ll definitely try it again because this recipe was super easy and even though the crust was REALLY HARD, the inside was super yummy.

And now we have like 8 rolls that can act as baseballs. SCORE.

The brownie recipe is as follows:
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Intense, I know.

Mostaccioli (which we had for dinner last night…it’s pretty dang good.)

1/2 lb ground beef
1 lb italian sausage
1 box mostaccioli
30 oz of your favorite spaghetti sauce
1 can cheddar cheese soup
3 cups mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup green pepper
1/2 cup chopped mushrooms (optional)
add salt, pepper, italian seasoning to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cook pasta according to instructions on the box, in the meantime, brown ground beef, sausage and chopped peppers together. Simmer sauce in a pot with mushrooms. Combine in a pot or a large bowl: cooked pasta, meat mixture, cheddar cheese soup, spaghetti sauce and 2 cups of mozzarella cheese; stir well. Place in 9×13 baker, top with remaining one cup of mozzarella cheese, cover with foil and place in oven for 15 minutes. Remove foil and bake an additional 5-10 minutes or until cheese is bubbly.

VIOLA.

Categories: Gibberish, recipes, stupid crap

Around here

Monday, May 18th, 2009

By Beth

Thanks, everyone, for your fabulous questions! I’m thinking I won’t be able to answer them all because maybe that would be pretty boring for you, right?

I hate to bore you.

I’m still not in the blogging/writing groove but I plan to pop in here a little bit everyday just to let you know that I’m here and to also answer some questions.

This week I am working on my garden outside and the weather is going to be picture perfect. Stepping away from the computer seems like just the right thing to do.

Remember last year, when my Mom and I spent an entire day planting our new flower beds? That day being her birthday and James and Jake’s due date, man, what a powerful day. Because now, most of the stuff we planted is thriving and loves being here. I can tell. I have lots more to plant and lots to weed, but what a fun, therapeutic process. I’ll share pictures later.

One of my favorite things to do this weekend was going to my Mom’s house yesterday and being able to take some of her perennials and adding them to my garden. She’s a very good sharer. We did that at my last house, it was very special.

She gave me some cut spirea from her garden. The glass is from Anthropologie, I had been itching to fill this glass with some simple flowers, it did not disappoint.

spirea

This past weekend,Erin, Stephanie, Arianne, Crooked Eyebrow, Sarah and I all went out to celebrate Erin’s birthday. We went to our favorite burger place and then I topped it off with a double scoop waffle cone, which means it was pretty much the best night of food EVER.

redamaks

The birthday girl and her burger.

e-dog with her burger

Even my Miller Lite was super fabulous. And being around my girls made it even better.

girls

They’re a crazy bunch.

Here’s some Asher love for you. (and Sarah, too…)

Sarah and Asher 05-2009

Oh, Arianne. Why you so pretty?

Arianne 0397

I could show like a million more pictures, but I’ll stop now. If you’d like more, you can go here.

Okay, since this post is already strangely long (strangely because I sat down and stared at my screen for ten minutes and now I can’t shutup) I’m just going to answer one question:

And it’s from Kira, she says:

I know in the past you have said you were a picky eater….have you always been that way? Is you husband picky as well? Do you feel that your kids aren’t exposed to different foods because you don’t like them?

Yes, Kira. I have always, always been that way. I think I just tend to lean towards more of the “American cuisine” then anything else. (although Mexican and Italian are pretty close to being better than American.) I am also very picky when it comes to textures in food. Brian? Is not picky at all. I could make spaghetti and mix with it mud and I would be like “honey, we were all out of sauce but I found this mud and it was free” and he would be like “free? I bet it will be better than sauce.” Seriously, I get so jealous of him and his ability to eat ANYTHING that when we go to buffets or anything like that, I go and get his food for him because that is fun for me, then I go and get my food which would be like pizza and a chocolate cupcake.

I think we do a great job of exposing new foods to our kids. Everyone knows our kids as the fruit and veggie kids. They’ll eat any fruit and any vegetable and they’ll usually eat their vegetables first. With every meal, since they were babies, we have given them fruit and with every lunch and dinner, we have given them a vegetable. If we don’t, they get upset.

I love that.

I have some flowers to plant…

Categories: Friendly, Gibberish

Welcome – Ultimate Blog Party!

Friday, March 20th, 2009

By Beth

Thanks for stopping by today, if you are new here, I’m going to tell you some things about me, if you are a regular reader of mine, then maybe you’ll learn something new about me!

First of all, this is my blog. It’s very shiny and busy and I like to keep it nice and updated all of the time. When I don’t post, sometimes I feel bad which is something I should talk to my therapist about.

I started this blog back in January of 2006, I had no idea what a blog was, but my friends and I decided to all start one on the same day and we did and it was fun.

I’m 32, I have a handsome husband, Brian, who is 32, he’s a workaholic and he’s very friendly. He empties the dishwasher for me each morning and makes my coffee for me. He also bathes the kids. Once the kids go to bed, he always says to me “do you need anything, baby?“ And I usually say “no thanks” and then he sits down and stares at his laptop and works for hours and hours. And hours. He works with computers for a law firm in downtown Chicago.

I have a six year old daughter that I call Ariel. I call her Ariel on the blog only, not in real life. In fact, if I tried to call her Ariel now she would look at me and say “mother, that is so three years ago, call me Hannah Montana.” And then I’d throw up a little bit in my mouth because Hannah Montana is on my nerves but I still watch her show because it’s funny. Ariel is smart and we read chapter books together now and she loves lip gloss and fashion and the thought of her growing up and becoming a teenager makes me weep.

The thought of her becoming a mother makes me weep, too, but in a different way.

I have a five year old son that I call Racecar. I do not call him Racecar in real life, if I did he would look at me like I was crazy and say something like “Mom, you’re the nicest mom in the wholest wholest wholest wholest wholest world but please call me Short Round.“ He’s a very sweet kid. He’s addicted to playing Wii and his eyes make my heart stop, they are so beautiful.

My kids were born 360 days apart. We did not plan it that way. The first year was the hardest year of my life – but we came through it with flying colors and the fact that they were born so close together is the greatest gift ever. I would do it again. (next time, I would consider more alcohol in the first year, however.)

Let’s talk about me, shall we? I’m always trying to lose ten or fifteen pounds but it just won’t come off magically. Which leads me to the next fact that you can usually find me with a handful of teddy grahams (the chocolate chip variety) in my hands throughout the day. Also, I love graham crackers, so much so that I can not keep them in my house. I also love Taco Bell, recently, we had Taco Bell three times in one week.

I haven’t had it since.

I love photography. I just started a photography business last fall. I could take pictures all day long, everyday and never grow tired of it. I have a lot of hard drive space on my laptop because I take so many pictures. I upload pictures to Flickr quite often. Every Thursday I host a carnival called You Capture. If you enjoy taking pictures, you should join us, it’s fun.

I also started a blog design business with my friend, Christy, last year, it’s fun and very busy.

I also get paid to write over here. Which is just weird to me, but that’s okay, I’ll take it.

I’m addicted to Etsy and I’m pretty sure I’m turning into a tech geek. I love twitter and my iPhone and sometimes I think about going to Best Buy or the Apple store rather than shopping for shoes or handbags.

As you can see, I’m terribly random.

This blog is very real. I’m quite honest and sometimes I talk about my periods, sometimes I confess to you how dirty my jeans are, yesterday I admitted to buying my bra at Walgreens and sometimes I talk about grief.

In February of 2008, we lost our identical twin boys, James and Jake at 19 weeks. Our lives changed forever. and it continues to change.

We are now unsure of what the future holds, we were once certain of a larger family but since having another miscarriage this past February at nine weeks, we just aren’t sure what’s in store for us. Rather than bury ourselves in our grief and the fear of the unknown, we try to pay closer attention to all of the amazing gifts that surround us, from our children, to our home to the blue of the sky. We also know that we have the most perfect angels watching over us, which brings us comfort.

Whew. I think you’ve heard enough.

Thanks to Five Minutes for Mom for hosting this awesome event! Head over there to discover thousands of new blogs out there! HAVE FUN!

To subscribe to my blog – click here.
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My prize list:

29. $50 gift certificate to Target, provided by Shoot Me Now.
21. $50 gift certificate to Target, provided by Agoosa.
22. $50 gift certificate provided to Beginner Baby Blog.
50. $50 gift certificate to Paperlicious.
USC 56, USC 45, #58, #91, #118, INTL-61, USC 10, USC 12, USC 15, USC 20, USC 26, USC 40, USC 47.

Categories: Bloggityville, Gibberish

I’ve got nothing.

Monday, March 9th, 2009

By Beth

I have nothing to write about. No funny stories. No sad stories. No celebrity stories. I have nothing to write about.

(I know I said that twice in one sentence, which just proves that I have nothing to write about.)

This past weekend was extremely relaxing. My girls came over Friday night and we watched Zach & Miri make a Porno (loved it). We ate mozzarella bites and pizza rolls and had ourselves a good old time. On Saturday I stayed in my pajamas ALL DAY LONG. It was pure bliss. It helped that I had cleaned my house the day before, it also helped that it rained all day long on Saturday.

Yesterday was much more productive, Brian and I updated my photography blog (GO LOOK, GO LOOK!), we visited Brian’s parents and then I cleaned and did laundry.

Today, I’m exhausted and my brain is apparently on vacation and where most people would just not blog at all, I can hear my sister saying how annoying it is to go to a blog that hasn’t been updated, so all I have for you are pictures.

That’s okay, right?

Here’s my little Racecar. He loves to play Indiana Jones on the Wii and he loves to sniff people like he’s a dog. It’s very strange, but also pretty cute.

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Last week we were able to play outside, it was very strange since we’ve been living in the arctic for the past 10 months (or so.) And then the craziest thing happened…I heard a bird chirp. It was beautiful.

N DSC_3763

Here’s Ariel. She loves to play with me which is nice and everything except that she doesn’t care what I’m doing exactly when she wants me to play with her. I could be in the middle of a call and she’ll talk to me like she works at Walgreens and I’m the customer and she’ll get impatient if I don’t tell her that I’m there to pick up my prescription. It makes no difference that there is a phone on my ear.

It can get pretty annoying.

A DSC_3803

She’s left handed, just like her Mom.

A 3243 copy

Last week I went to the fire station with Racecar’s class. It was fun.

Hose 3590

Randy was there.

Randy DSC_3620

That’s all I’ve got.

And yes, I realize that is very, very sad.

Categories: Gibberish, photography, stupid crap

The Tough Topics

Monday, February 2nd, 2009

By Beth

Last week, I paid a visit over to Miss Britt’s blog and she was writing about something that really got me thinking, which is NOT easy to do. What she wrote about had me pondering life as I know it, thinking that maybe, just maybe, I don’t know everything. (do not tell Mr. Folding Laundry about this line of thinking, it’s between YOU and ME.)

Anyway, as the week continued, I started to wonder how you would all fit into this line of thinking, if you were like me, or if you were like her.

I need to know, how do you load the dishwasher? The top rack, specifically. Do you place the cups on the prongs or between the prongs. I place them between, Brian places them on top and Miss Britt places them on top, as well. (which is TOTALLY WRONG.) (I think.)

I realize not all of you have dishwashers and I wish I could buy you all one because dishwashers are beautiful, but even if you don’t have a dishwasher, I still need you. I continued to think about all of the things I do MY WAY and I need to know if you do it my way or the wrong way your way.

Her post reminded me of the days when I used to hang my toilet paper incorrectly. I believed with all of my heart and soul that toilet paper should only hang from the bottom, not the top. My sister, Sarah, believed the exact opposite. It was a full-on war, whenever she would come to visit, she would change the paper rolls to hang over and I would change them back and she would change them back and then I would change them back and well, you get the idea. And when I would go to visit her, I would change the rolls to hang under and then she would change it back and then I would change it back and now that I’m typing this I’m realizing that we had too much time on our hands before we had children.

Then one day, I realized she was right. I now hang it over and our toilet paper wars are over.

Answer me these questions, I’m begging you:

1. How do you place the cups in your dishwasher? Directly on the prongs or in between the prongs?

2. How do you hang your toilet paper? Hanging over or hanging under?

3. What are you feelings on Kanye West? Love him or leave him? (I may or may not be listening to him on my iPhone right now, but that’s neither here nor there.)

4. Do you refrigerate your peanut butter or is it in your pantry?

5. Do you refrigerate your maple syrup or is it in your pantry?

6. Do you put your bread in the refrigerator?

7. If you found salad dressing in your refrigerator that expired 30 days prior, would you use it or dump it?

8. Do you say tissue or kleenex?

9. Finally, what are your feelings on cottage cheese? Scrumptious snack or disgusting shit?

I’ll share my answers with you later.

Categories: Gibberish