Freezer Cooking Menu: May 2010

Beth at Penny Pantry gave me the great idea to check out OAMC cookbooks from the library during the #oamc twitter party yesterday. I found 4, but only 2 are usable because apparently the idea of cooking for convenience is a *new* idea... Let's just say that when I'm busting out 30 meals in one shot, I'm not exactly going to have time to perfectly mold a "Layered Salmon and Cucumber Mousse" or a "Savory Chicken Cheesecake." [Do either of those even sound edible? blech.]

The two I'm trying out this month are: Girlfriends on the Go by Suzie Roberts and Betty Crocker's Do-Ahead Cookbook. I rarely follow a recipe 100% through, so if I change a recipe enough to honestly claim it as my own, I'll post it on here. Otherwise, check your local library for a copy of the book!

C requested that I prepare meals that he can grill. [You bet I can do that! Lol. I love "not having to cook!"] We're at the point where we really need to eat up the meals in our freezer, so I'm starting out with 14 meals done. I'll be making 16 dinners and some sides.

Here's what's on tap:

Dinners

• Buffalo Chicken Pizza [C's Request. And 1 of the 2 things I make better than Chef Jessica. I'm gonna hold on to that for as long as I can! Recipe to come!]


• Mushroom Cheese Burgers


• Italian Chicken Rolls


• Chicken Asparagus Pot Pies


• Barbecue Chicken Sandwiches


• Lemon Chicken


• Poppyseed Chicken


• Souvlaki Marinated Chicken Skewers

Sides

• Old-fashioned Baked Beans


• Twice Baked Potatoes


• Dill-Lemon Rice <--Dry Mix! Super excited to try this one. :)


• Whole Wheat Brown-n-Serve Rolls

Lunches

• Brown Bag Burritos [If I can con C into making his amazing refried beans. That recipe is coming too!]

Need some recipes? Check out my Recipes page!

10 Easy Ways to Go Gourmet

By Guest Blogger: Jessica Nan
If you are interested in being featured on CallMeKristin.com, please contact me with Guest Blogger in the subject line. I do reserve the right to decline inappropriate or unrelated content.

Credit

If you have seen Ratatouille you’ll remember the common phrase of “Everyone can Cook!”  I too am a firm believer in this phrase, but maybe with a little twist. “Everyone can cook, but not everyone can cook well.” Secret is, Everyone CAN cook well, it just takes a little refining and some patience. Lucky for you, I’ve picked my 10 favorite tips and tricks to dress up almost anything in the kitchen!

1. Be fearless: "The only real stumbling block is fear of failure. In cooking you've got to have a what-the-[heck] attitude."  Julia Child You can do this, people do it all the time.


2. Mise en Place: This is French for ‘everything in place.’ You watch those cooking shows where everything is just measured out and they throw it all together in 30mins. This will simplify your recipes, and make them quicker. Running back to the pantry for that extra cup of flour is just annoying.


3. Discover your talents: What is that one dish you want to perfect? What do you love? I love to make cinnamon rolls, I’ve made them so many times I probably have 10 different variations. Take a basic recipe and change it up. I love to put a little orange juice in my frosting, it complements the cinnamon just like Christmas Morning.


4. Cute tools: It’s always more fun to make something cute if you feel cute. I love my cupcake apron, lime green zester, and cherry red bowl scrape. I have an apron for just about every month.


5. Never underestimate a pastry bag: taking an extra five minutes to pipe your mashed potatoes into rosettes with make you look like a five star Chef. I pipe everything!


6. Always let your dough rest and rise: The key to a light fluffy dough is to not over work it and let the yeast have time to develop. The more you rush it, the tougher your bread will be.


7. Colors: I was told the first day of class you, “Eat with your eyes first.” If it doesn’t look appealing, you aren’t going to want to put it in your body. With butter creams and frostings, avoid over-the-top colors. Purples, Blues, and Greens are very unnatural. Opt for the pastels, spring colors.


8. Good working music: Singing into my Whisk to Michael Jackson’s ABC 123 is just about standard in making a good product.


9. Read the instructions on what the dish is supposed to look like finished: Golden, Brown, and Delicious works well. (GBD) Use cooking times as a ball park figure.


10. Make mistakes: the best thing you can do is make a mistake. That’s the only way you will learn what works and what doesn’t. Who knows maybe adding parsley instead of thyme will make the dish better?

Jessica Nan is currently attending Johnson and Wales University pursuing degrees in Baking and Pastry, Culinary Arts, and Culinary Nutrition. She plays for the University’s basketball team, and hopes to graduate with honors.

BYU Graduation

This weekend rocked. In a major way. For starters, my mom came into town on Wednesday night. We went to a late night dinner at Outback to celebrate C finishing his finals [woot!] and then stayed up talking until 1 am like teenagers. [My mom is more of a best friend at this point in my life. Love LOVE that.]

I worked a half day on Thursday, C & mom came to pick me up. They met the boss, who congratulated me on finishing college and handed me the key to the company car! A sweet black 2009 infiniti coupe. It was mine for the weekend. Note to self: be an AWESOME employee. Marketecture rocks.

After we drove home in the BEST car ever, we picked up my cap & gown and got ready for commencement. Long, big meeting where they tell you to pay the school back after you pay off your student loans. I was ready to walk out the door when C hands me a little package. Do you remember this? Well, it has a permanent home on my left wrist. It even brought along its two matching buddies to adorn my ears. Husband.of.the.year.

We finished up commencement & spent the rest of the night trying every single dress on in the new Mikarose outlet at Provo Towne Center. We bought two dresses and mom vowed to take my sister, Jessica, back the next night. Too much cute stuff at VERY reasonable prices!

Went to bed & got up bright and early for convocations. [had to be there by 7:15am. OUCH.] Remember my morning person post? We haven't made much progress. I'm still desperately in love with my pillow. C on the other hand popped out of bed and had his A-game on to save seats.

The whole family came. I got to see my dad for the first time in months and even wonder-mom Emilee came down with her two little girls! [She's also the one who snapped these great pictures: thanks Em! I didn't have time to edit these, but they look pretty good as is!]

Me and Mom & Dad McGuire

Parents + C & K

C & K

The whole McGuire family minus the Moores in Denver. Wish you were here!

The Call Clan minus Amberlee, Adam & the boys. [Adam & the boys came later. We sure missed you Amberlee!]

Remember my awesome sister who goes to culinary school and turns out treats like this? Yep. She was here the WHOLE weekend. Ask me how that was. YUM.

The whole shabang.

Then, I took off my gown and Em saw the Mikarose dress I was wearing and insisted I take a few more pictures.

Yep, that's the chewlry bracelet on my wrist!

Then my mom noticed how a blue in my belt matched my dad's shirt.

...and I noticed how C matches me. So we took another picture.

The rest of the weekend involved building a garden, mini golfing, arcade dominating, and visiting Em & Adam. I'm way excited to tell you all about our little garden! So stay tuned!

Giveaway Winners!

So, the time really got away from me this weekend. It was graduation, my family was in town, lots of fun to be had but not a whole lot of time for this here blog. Winners that were supposed to be picked on Friday weren't posted in time.

To make up for it, I've decided to give everyone that entered the giveaway a free set of lowercase monograms!

Check your e-mail!

New Releases: 4.21.10 [A GIVEAWAY!]

I've recently finished a super cute set of jumbo monogram templates for my trend-letters series. The lower case ones are about 6-8" big and can be layered with your favorite papers.



Note: The papers in this preview are from a brand spankin' new kit called "Hello Rain." Inspired by a most unfortunate dance number from when I was a 4-year-old. Miss Alice Ann, my instructor, really upset me when she stuffed my sash that had fallen to the ground mid-chasee [<--looked that one up. It's pronounced Shah-Say], right up my leotard through the leg hole. We danced to the song "Hello Rain." It's a favorite family video. [Stop laughing Lindsay. Really.]

Anyway, these letter templates are available here.

But if you'd like to add these to your stash for FREE, leave a comment with your letter of the day and why! I'll pick 3 winners on Friday.


Example: My letter of the day today is P. for "Phew" because C finished his last final today and this semester has been beasty!

It's also for "Proud" because I married a genius.

and "Port, Air" because my mom is coming in 2 hours and I can hardly wait! [<--yes, I realize that's a stretch. Bear with me. Deal: First person to figure out a better "P" word for my mom coming into town gets these free too.]

O, and if you decide to spread the love via twitter or FB, leave a comment telling me so and you can have an extra entry.

You've Got Me All Wrong

...and the sad thing is, it's my fault.

I was reading on this blog the other day and read something really interesting.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to find a blog you love…and then try to create its clone. One of the greatest things about blogs is that they afford us the opportunity to get to know the individual behind the blog. Blogging is part of social media because it’s just that: social. Let your personality come through. If you’re goofy, be goofy. If you’re feisty, be feisty. If you’re contemplative, be contemplative. Your readers will be drawn to what you have to say, but they will also be drawn to who you are. BE YOU.

I've been spending so much time trying to figure out how I can fit in with this crowd of people 10 years older than me. They have kids. They have homes. They like doing different things than me. They're in a completely different stage of life. They go to different churches, eat different food, have a different family situation. Heck, they're probably blonde.

They.

They.

They.

They.

THEY!

I've been wasting so much energy worrying about what they are doing and how I can fit into that mold. I've poured over hundreds of different scrapbooking kits and tried to figure out what "my" style is, but my style is suffocating underneath everyone else's. This isn't to say that I can't be inspired by other people, because one click on that inspiration tab will clear that up right away. I love getting new ideas and learning from people who are clearly my superior.

I'm more getting at the idea that I've been so stressed out about becoming like them that I'm hardly giving myself any credit for my abilities. So here's the "me" I think you've been missing out on.

1. I am 21 years old. Not "20-something." I'm 21. I'm young. Some people will probably read that as "naive." Maybe they're right, but maybe that's not such a bad thing.


2. I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and I am happy to answer any questions that arises. I do ask that you pose your questions in a respectful manner, though. I believe in standing up for what you believe in and that morals should never be sacrificed.


3. I work as an account manager at Marketecture, Inc. in Orem, Utah. I love my job and have great co-workers, but I sincerely hope I can work/blog from home after we move to Iowa next year.


4. A bigger part of me hopes I have an excuse to stay at home when we move to Iowa next year because I believe the "most important work we will ever do is within the walls of our own homes."


5. I've wanted to be a homemaker since I was a little girl.


6. I pop my knuckles.


7. I'm inspired by music and can remember the lyrics to almost any song that I hear twice.


8. My family used to call me high-maintenance...then I got married.


9. I like vintage colors and Martha Stewart.


10. I've kissed the lead guitarist of my favorite band EVER.


11. I have a SEVERE phobia of spiders. My brother Rick has a hand-puppet spider named Phillip that has made me burst into tears on more than one occasion.


12. I play the guitar and sing and have written my own stuff on occasion.


13. I have a mustard yellow purse.


14. I refuse to get an iPhone. I have no desire to be that connected all the time.


15. My current goals are to eat more fresh produce, watch less television, and put C first 100% of the time.


16. I don't like medicine. I've been contemplating at-home natural childbirth and being married to a future chiropractor rocks because a healthy lifestyle just comes naturally.


17. I used to have over 50 different flavors of lipgloss. I'm down to 4 because C doesn't like kissing me when I have it on. Perhaps a shiny chapstick would work better. Do you know of any?


18. I sing. ALL THE TIME. When I was growing up, my dad would listen to me for about 2 hours before he'd tell me to "give it a rest."


19. I think my parents are flawless, my siblings are super talented, funny, wonderful, etc. & I completely scored on the in-law front. From C's parents, to siblings, to the entire extended family: they're awesome.


20. I believe in true love and I believe that "spark" never has to go away.


21. I believe "that's just the way I am" is a total cop-out, but "that's just the way I am right now" is legit. It takes time to break habits.

That's a lot of "me." I'm flawed. I'm imperfect, but it's the real deal. My designs are a reflection of me. I've been trying so hard to fit into this saturated market of digital scrapbooking designers, but I don't really want to fit in. I want to stand out! I want to bring something to the table that no one else has! And that's the belief that you can scrap about something besides your kids, husband, etc. You should be able to scrap your own prom, not have your mom do it for you. You can be young and classy. You can and should create your own style. I love jumbo monograms, so I made some. [They'll be in the shop soon.] I love yellow, so I made this kit [inspired by my mustard yellow purse, and my sister Jessica.] There's nothing wrong with scrapping an entire album on a white background. Non-handwriting fonts are OK to use for journaling! It is OK to shop in the little boys section.

So what about you? Got anything you need to get off your chest?

Whole Wheat Blender Banana Pancakes

C earns the husband of the year award every Sunday morning when we get to pay tribute to the one and only Jack Johnson. Not only does C take the time to sleep in with me, but he gets out of bed first and makes pancakes for us.

Yesterday, he tried a new recipe. It makes me so HAPPY that he's on the eating healthier band wagon with me. He opened up a can of wheat from our year supply [more on that later] and whipped up these banana pancakes in no time. The man even made homemade syrup. Can I get a hoo-rah? That's who I married ladies. Be jealous. :)

We got the original recipe from Lorna Nevitt, C's aunt. They are SO good!

Whole Wheat Blender Pancakes

• 1 cup milk or 1 cup water and 1/3 cup dry milk


• 1 cup wheat or 1/2 cup wheat and 3/4 cup rolled oats or 1/2 cup wheat and 3/4 cup six-grain cereal [<--this is next on our to-try list. YUM.]


• 2 eggs


• 1/4 cup oil


• 1/4 cup honey


• Banana, Peaches, or Apples


• 1 tablespoon baking powder

1. Blend milk and wheat together for 5 minutes.


2. While it's blending, preheat the griddle.


3. Add eggs, oil & honey and blend well.


4. Add sliced banana, peaches, or apples. [I'm thinking bananas and walnuts would be delicious too!]


5. When all is blended, add baking powder and pulse 4 times.


6. Griddle 'em up!


7. Serve with strawberry jam, or butter and syrup.

If you try these, let me know! I'd love to hear how you like 'em!