Stroganoff Casserole

Ingredients:

• 12 ounces wide egg noodles
• 1 pound lean ground beef (turkey works too)
• 1 whole onion, chopped
• 1 whole bell pepper, chopped
• 2 whole celery ribs, chopped
• 1/2 cup dry red wine
• 6 ounce can of tomato paste
• 4 ounce can of sliced mushrooms, drained
• 1/2 teaspoon dried Oregano
• 8 ounces sour cream (I used light)
• 12 ounces small curd cottage cheese (I used low fat)
• 1 teaspoon Garlic salt
• 2 cups shredded Mozzarella
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

I'm not going to lie. I wrote down all the ingredients I thought I needed for this and forgot to get the dry red wine. In a panic as the egg noodles were nearly done cooking, I googled what I could replace for the dry red wine. Thank you Yahoo answers for telling me I could use either cranberry juice or apple juice to substitute. Lucky for me I still had some cranberry apple juice (oh yes I did use it for this!) left over in the fridge. Since it was my first time making this dish, I couldn't tell the difference (ha!).

Overall this dinner was pretty good! It's a great way to get kids to eat a ton of veggies (especially if you serve it with a salad) at once! The only thing I think is that one of the veggies was pretty strong in the dish. We couldn't figure out if it was the mushrooms or bellpepper but next time I'll go easy on both and hope for better reviews. Everyone still cleaned their plate so it obviously didn't put anyone off too much. I'm so surprised at how many recipes I'm seeing using cottage cheese as a replacement for ricotta. I have said before how I despise the stuff, but it's a great way to lighten the calorie load in a dish and inside a meal like this I can't even taste it.

I can't take credit for this recipe since I got it here. If you try it let me know how you liked it!

Classroom Setup

Another school year has started! I'd like to say 'new pencils, new markers, new crayons, new boxes' but unfortunately we're still waiting on the kids' school supplies to show up. Something to do with the company the kids ordered their supplies from has kept them up in some far away state. They were supposed to be here this Thursday but it came and went with no supplies. I thought it would be harder to start school without them, but lucky for us we all had lots of extra supplies left over from last year. It will be nice to give the kids their own box to keep their supplies in though, because as of now their just keeping their boxes of markers, crayons and glue sticks loose in their cubbies. Eek for the somewhat tame neat freak in me!

Anyway, here are some before shots of the room setup. I haven't been to great at capturing before and afters. Einstein was present for the one night long haul where we got all the walls covered. Thank the Lord for Tony because he spent many hours helping me hang up paper, border, and evenly spaced out the word wall letters. I'm a lucky, lucky girl!

This year's fire code didn't allow us to overly decorate our rooms. We had to take down all fabric we used last year to cover up bulletin boards, tear down old work gallery's that were hung with paper, and just de-clutter so in case a fire happens....I guess it'll burn slower?

Anyway, here are a few views of the room. They seem so dull, but I keep telling myself it's because the kids haven't started learning stations so pocket charts are empty, sound cards aren't turned over (those white cards hanging from the teal blue wall) because they haven't learned those sounds yet, and so on. On to the pictures...

I really like this new layout. Last year my class was flipped the exact opposite way it is now. A somewhat decent teacher showed me this way to set up my room. KIDDING MARY RUTH! :)

All kidding aside it appears my class is going to be a great one! We had a great first four days and we quickly caught on to many of our classroom procedures. Here's to another great week tomorrow!

In other news, our friends and neighbors had their little girl last night! Katy sent us a text on the way to the hospital yesterday morning and when we went to visit last night at 8 still no Chloe. We came back after church this morning and we got to meet the beautiful little one and see the proud parents. She is beautiful and was nice to let me hold her and not start screaming as soon as she was put in my arms. We're excited for them and we know they're going to be amazing parents!

Other than that we're just hanging out. I'm trying out a new recipe tonight so if it's decent it will make its way on here soon. Happy Sunday everyone!

School's in and Dinner's Quick!

Hey All!

Long time no write...boo. With getting prepared for a new set of munchkins and helping my mom search for a new home here things have been CRAZY! I did however find a really good marinade for kebobs (however you spell that!). This is such a quick marinade to make and it's perfect to mix together and let the meat marinate over night or during your work day. I got the recipe from here and I've made them a few times already in the past month. Let me know if you try it!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup soy sauce

1 cup water

3 heaping tablespoons of brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon of ginger

2 tablespoons lemon juice

Directions:

Mix all together with a whisk, and pour over beef or chicken. Let marinate overnight or at least two or three hours. Grill steaks or chicken or to use for stir fry, just thicken it a bit with cornstarch and cold water mixture. Enjoy!

While we were out grilling I thought I'd update on the new neighbors. Construction is flying!

You can see how much it's changed since the last set of pics. You can see our house a little in the back of the second and third pics.

Other than that, the first day of school is OVER and I'm still here...barely. It will be an early night tonight for sure!

Living Room: The Project

Tony and I promised each other that when we moved into our house we would not go crazy buying up stuff for the house just to fill it up. We wanted to take our time, find pieces we love, and make our house feel traditional, comfy, and unique. I wanted to make sure we didn't just go to a box store, pick out an entire room set down to the lamps and pictures and bring it home. Something about the idea that 100s of other families across the world may have the EXACT same living room I just find odd. Anyway, we also wanted to make sure we didn't blow the budget and make ourselves prisoners of our new home.

So here we are eight months later still working on our living room. To be fair to ourselves, we've come a LONG way.

When we moved in all we had were our two couches from my previous apartment that were bought at a big box store. We picked out a chocolate/gray paint color for the room and spent our Christmas break painting. We also spent a few weekends driving down to the Pottery Barn outlet in San Marcos and found AMAZING deals for items that were on sale full price on their website. We got the TV stand, coffee table and side tables from there. We still had paper blinds because we had plantation shutters on order. At that point, we were here:

The coffee table wasn't in this picture. The big problem with this setup was the lack of a rug. With our little runner of a dog he quickly began to destroy our beautiful wood floors. So a month later we finally decided on a rug. We also rearranged the furniture to get a more "conversational" feel to the room.

Now, we're left with finding art work for the walls and window treatments. I know it's going to take a while to find art work because 1) I'm not paying a fortune for a print and 2) we're both picky people. Here's the window we're working on right now.

We want simple, long drapes that will just be for decoration. They'll hang on the sides of the shutters. Last weekend, Tony and I found a beautiful fabric and curtain rod that were at killer prices. My mom has started on the sewing process. Here she is in our formal dining room, a room that is also a work in progress for us. Baby steps...

They're ready to be hung but we haven't had the time to mount the curtain rod. A finished picture of the whole room to come soon!

Cajun Chicken Pasta A La Laura Walton

This is one of my favorite recipes of all times. OF ALL TIMES! My good friend Laura had us over for dinner last fall and served this wonderful meal! It is amazing! She and her husband are FANTASTIC cooks. I wish we could eat every meal at their house! I can't take credit for this recipe, but I wanted to post it because I know it's so great other people will want to try it! You can substitute shrimp for chicken if you wanted.

I love pasta dishes and this one is one that I can't wait to have on our monthly rotation. I would eat this every week if I could! I know it's good because Tony sits silently scarfing his plate until he gets up and scoops another plate full and sits back down again and eats. His first comment every time we have this when he takes his first bite is "I LOVE this recipe." It's even better the second day for leftovers.

Ok, enough praising. Let's get to the good stuff.

Ingredients:

• 1 box penne pasta (I use Dreamfields because it's suppose to break down better in your system and not be so hard on your blood sugar)
• 2 chicken breasts (sliced into thin strips)
• 1 link of Andouille sausage thinly sliced (I had to ask Laura how you even pronounce this, but it's a cajun sausage)
• 2 tsp. Cajun seasoning (see picture below for idea)
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 green bell pepper, thinly sliced
• 1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
• 1 green onion, minced
• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream (so, so worth it!)
• 1 tsp. dried basil
• 1/4 tsp. garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp. lemon pepper
• ground black pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup shredded Italian cheese blend
• 2 tbsp. grated parm. cheese (sometimes I leave this out or I just use bagged shredded parmesan)

HEB sells the Adam's Reserve line of spices usually near the area they test recipes. I have a love/dislike relationship with this line because they're SO great, but SO pricey. I paid $6.99 for this jar but I've made this recipe probably 6 times with it and still have this much left, so it does last a long time. I will continue to buy the cajun seasoning from this line, but all others I'm not so tied to.

Directions:

Cook pasta to al dente. Place chicken and cajun seasoning in a bowl, toss to coat. In a large skillet, over medium heat, add in olive oil. Then add in green and red bell peppers and onion and cook until soft (lacking the right word here!). Remove peppers and saute chicken and sausage in olive oil for 5-7 minutes (or cook on grill). Once chicken is cooked, add back in peppers as well as cooked pasta and reduce heat and stir in heavy cream. Season sauce with all the spices, heat through. Add Italian cheese blend and simmer. When finished, you can add 1-2 tsp. more of the cajun seasoning.

ENJOY!

We're Going to Have New Neighbors!

Yay for new neighbors! This past week has been a busy one for the construction workers who are framing the new house behind us. The house is going to be pretty sweet when it's all finished: three car garage, huge back porch, decked out insides, etc. Tony's loving every minute of the construction. He comes home from work anxious to see what they've done and what's going to happen next. It always bugs me that with his love of real estate and construction that he went into designing roads, bridges, highways, and drainage systems. I always tell him he should have taken a job in the land development side because he is a construction NUT!

Anyway, here are some of the pictures of what the view from our back door looks like:

Those poor constuction workers work ALL DAY in the 100+ heat. I don't know how they do it but we're so glad that they do! They're awesome at what they do!

Grandma's in Town!

Hold on to your seats! Grandma's in town! She's fierce, she's tough, and she's 78. She's at the age where she doesn't take anything from anyone, EVER. This can be a good and also a bad thing.

She's here this week because my mom started her new job. I was getting a little bored and told my mom to bring grandma up with her so she could keep me company. We've shopped, cooked, napped, laughed, and bought tacos from the Taco Man that drives around selling lunch to the construction workers. It's been fun and I think Einstein has even enjoyed having a playmate here since my grandma brought her little dog Precious with her.

Here's my grandma reinacting something her friend was doing the other day. Hmm, now I know where I get using my whole body during storytelling.

Here's Einstein and Precious about to duke it out during one of their many battles. Ahh, sweet summer!

I Love My Dog

I do. I really, really do. My dog is smart, he's funny, and he has attitude. Some might say he's alot like me. Ha! I would have to agree. Einstein is the coolest dog I know. He is curious as hell, needs lots of exercise, LOVES food, and gets sassy if I give him attitude.

I don't understand people who don't love dogs. If I find out a person doesn't like dogs I almost feel bad for them. Seriously, that is the most unconditional love a person can find. Think about it: they always want to be around you, will protect you FIERCELY (at least mine does), come cuddle with you when you have a rough day, lick your dirty feet, get really excited when you come home, hang out with you when you're sick, make you laugh, want to make you happy and just plain love you. All this without ever saying a word to you (that you can really understand). I have grown up with dogs my whole life. I had lots here and there when I was little and one GREAT one for 15 years growing up. Tony is one of the biggest animal lovers I know and while he wasn't always an inside dog lover, I can now attest to his love and understanding of having an inside dog.

I can't wait for our kids to grow up around dogs. They're going to have their work cut out with Einstein because he doesn't take crap from anyone (except Tony). He's the gaurd dog of the house and no one gets through without hearing it from him or his approval. We laugh when we think about all the trouble he's going to get into (and get our kids into) once we have a family. We can just see it now: kids screaming upstairs, running...Einstein barking...then silence. When we quietly walk upstairs what will we find: a disaster with our wonderful kids and dog in the middle while they're feeding him some mystery snack they've sneaked into their rooms.

It's going to be a chaotic blast.

I love my sugar bear.

Tony's New Work Digs

This past week Tony spent most nights working late. Between meetings, deadlines, and moving offices he was home really late and up early. On Friday, we baby sat Claire, a beautiful 8 month old little girl, so that her mom and dad could have a date night. It was the easiest night we could have ever imagined baby sitting since she went to sleep right when we got there and didn't wake up once! She slept through our baby sitting experience and we laughed that it was more like we were house sitting! Tony had even taken a nap before coming to rest up for the event.

We ended up watching 'He's Just Not That Into You' and had a relaxing Friday night. I brought my camera along, but since she was such a doll I wasn't able to get a picture of her myself. This picture is borrowed from her momma's blog!

On the way to Morris and Mary's house we stopped at Tony's new office. His company finally moved to a bigger office and I really like it! He gave me the grand tour and of course I brought the camera with me!

View of outside of building

Entrance to first floor of building. We think the white door is a reference to the building's history...

Tony waiting for the elevator.

Tony then proceeds to let me know he won't be taking the elevator, but that he's taking it because I'm there and we're running late. When I asked him why he won't be taking it he said: "It's a healthy habit." Love my little health nut!

View when you get to Tony's floor.

Ladies restroom...fancy.
The building has been remodeled recently and I hope they're still waiting on the mirrors because you can't have a women's restroom without mirrors.
The door to KCI.
The conference room with a pretty view.

The kitchen, where hungry engineers stop while working through the night!
View from one of the windows in the office. You can almost see me in the reflection.
Tony's cube. Where he makes his money honey!
Aww, he loves me!

Aww, I'm so proud!

How can we tell this is the cube of the only female engineer in the office? She decorated with flowers! A woman's touch!

And that my friends is where the tour pretty much ended. The fancy receptionist area was under construction and there were tons of packing pallets in the center of the office so I couldn't get a good shot. I like the new office alot! Tony seems to be happy with the change of scenery. The old office gave views of the congested I-35 while these have tree filled views of downtown Georgetown. An improvement if you ask me!