Author: Kellie

Kellie is a 43 year old widow/wanna be child but really just stays home with her own two children. She loves to read and get a suntan. Preferably at the same time. She's now delving into the big bad world of blogging! Be kind, Strangers!

Reunited and it feels so good

· Leave a comment ·

Hey there friends. It’s been a hot minute, hasn’t it? Truth is, I’ve missed this silly little blog. Life has been a tad on the serious side lately, and being a not very serious person (seriously, one time I had a blind date that told me I had no depth, he got that all out of a 2 hour meeting – perceptive that one!), I decided to step back from the good ole creative (or lack thereof) juices flowing through my brain!

Just an update – my dad is out of the hospital (woo hoo) but he’s not out of the woods (boo!) and that’s all I’m going to say about that. Some things are best left on the inside, ya know. Kind of like babies – you get all uncomfortable in that 9th month and think “man, get this damn kid out of me” then the damn kid comes out of you, you are responsible for everything about it/him/her, and you think “man, get this kid back inside of me”. Just me? Ok, then, moving on…

I got all my hair chopped off the other day. It was about halfway down my back and I took it to just touching my shoulders. Quite a difference. I left the salon feeling beautiful and free. My hairdresser does such a great job. She even gave me some tricks to style it myself. So, 3 days of styling it myself later, I have a message in to her to set up a time to fix whatever the hell I’ve created. Let me tell you, it ain’t pretty. I look like a fluffed out, giant mushroom head. The humidity on the southeast coast and my hair are not what you would call on friendly terms. They are straight up enemies and they are both making me look like shit! It’s a sadness. Just one more thing on the pile of shit that’s on my plate right now. But that’s beside the point.

As you may have guessed, the cooking has been limited lately. A lot of takeout, a lot of crap, a lot of fat going straight to my ass and thighs. Ugh! Oh well, let’s not worry about today that which we can worry about tomorrow. (procrastinator’s code!) I did already manage to make dinner this morning for tonight. It’s a type of goulash I think, but being that I’m not exactly sure what goulash really is, I can’t swear to it. Is this not the most ridiculous food blog ever?! Oh well, no one said you had to read it, did they?! Kidding! Kidding! I know you’re all here for my sparkling personality! Anywho, the goulash you ask – it’s super easy, fairly cheap, kid friendly and another one of those meals that you can make ahead of time, then just throw in the oven around meal time coz that’s how those toddlers like it. I will warn you, this is another of those meals that I’ve been making for so long, that I don’t measure anything. So you do you, capiche?

Ingredients:

1 lb lean ground beef

4 oz cooked elbow macaroni (or your noodle of choice)

2 cans condensed tomato soup

1 green pepper, chopped

Worcestershire sauce (to taste)

Garlic powder (to taste)

Onion powder (to taste) – or you could simply saute a chopped onion if that’s your preference

1/2 cup grated parmesan

Italian bread crumbs

4-5 pads of butter

Directions:

Brown hamburger and green pepper together (and onion if that’s how you choose to roll). Drain fat and pour into large, oven-safe bowl. Add cooked elbow macaroni, tomato soup, Worcestershire, garlic, onion powder and parmesan cheese and stir until well blended. Now, if you cook this ahead of time, this is where I would put foil on top and stick it in the fridge. Then, once it’s time to cook, sprinkle the top with Italian style bread crumbs, and place 4-5 pads of butter on top. Bake on 350 for 40-45 minutes.

I’ll be serving mine tonight with a steamed broccoli, cauliflower and carrot blend and biscuits (you know, the kind from the freezer). It’s good stuff, y’all. It’s easy stuff, y’all. And the kids like it, y’all. Again, how goulash-ey it is, I’m not sure. Call it beefaroni if I’m way off. But try it out. Even Mikey likes it. Ok, that could be true or not, I don’t know a Mikey! And we don’t eat Life cereal!

I’m not always serious but when I am it’s because my dad is in ICU

· 2 Comments ·

Life is nothing but an emotional roller coaster. My dad is in the ICU with acute kidney failure. Those are scary words. The scariest part is nobody has figured out why yet. They’re thinking some kind of infection in the body, but are still guessing and eliminating at this point. He will have an MRI with contrast today that will hopefully point someone in the right direction. 

My dad is a great man. He is the greatest grandfather my boys could ever possibly have. And they are both so attached to him that I can’t even think about how they would manage without him, let alone my mom, my brother and me. I have put up walls all around myself so that I can’t think about the worst case scenario. Because if I do, this mama/daughter/wife/sister/friend will turn into an emotional wreck and that’s not good for anybody. The few times I have let myself imagine life without him, I have truly lost my shit. 

I’m a lucky girl in that death hasn’t  touched me a whole lot in my 33 years. I lost my grandmother a few years ago to cancer and the pain was almost unmanageable at times and that time my children weren’t affected. Jack was less than 2 and had only met her a handful of times. For my boys, I am staying positive, I am keeping my shit together, I am smiling and laughing and cracking jokes and playing trucks and whistling the Star Wars theme music. But inside of me there is a deep fear that I’m trying like hell to avoid because if I don’t, I fear the pain will be more than I can handle. 

So, I’m sorry friends. No recipes today. No quirky jokes or dirty innuendo. Just a scared girl trying to get by. Hug your loved ones tight and never let them forget how much they mean to you. xoxo

Slack-a-her (in my best Ace Ventura voice)

· Leave a comment ·

Hey friends! Remember me? Whew – life has been a bit hectic lately. We just finished up basketball with the 6 year old on Saturday and baseball started yesterday. And I’m talking real baseball. No more tee. No more 45 minute “practice”. Real deal hour and a half long practice, hitting a pitched (well, off a pitching machine) ball and playing actual positions. And boy  does that ball come quick. I was shocked. Jack struggled of course. It’s hard to go from a tee where the ball is right there just waiting to be hit, to an actual live ball. He had no idea when to swing, he was always about 5 seconds too late. Poor buddy! He’ll get the hang of it though. I come from a long line of baseball players so I have faith that Jack will figure this out.

I did manage to crank out some meals the last few days. I think we left off on Saturday when Mr. Wonderful was grilling steak. We bought some big a$$ porterhouses that cost an arm and a leg and hubby grilled them to medium rare perfection. We all stuffed ourselves on beef, roasted asparagus and oven roasted potatoes. It was a magical night of eating. But, of course, the magic couldn’t last. Since we splurged so much Saturday night, hubby insisted we have leftovers Sunday night. Only issue (a little bit more than minor in my opinion) was that there was only meatloaf leftover. And only enough for 1 person. And guess who the 1 person was that got the meatloaf (hint: it wasn’t me (or Shaggy) – oh dear, I’m showing my age). If you guessed the man that insisted we have leftovers for dinner, ding, ding, ding, you win. There’s no prize other than knowing that you were right, but congratulations anyway! So, the poor kids got frozen chicken nuggets (calm down, I didn’t make them eat them frozen – I nuked ’em like any self-respectable mom would do – I can’t wait to get my “Mom” blue ribbon that I know will be coming for all this amazing momming I’m constantly doing) and peas and carrots. So that left me with nothing to eat. I did steal a couple bites of the meatloaf (still delicious) and then heated myself some cheese ravioli. It was a crap night of food.

But I redeemed myself Monday. I made a one pot chicken alfredo with roasted broccoli (yes we just had that, but I’m pretty certain no one ever od’d on broccoli) and Italian bread. It was tasty! Jack liked to so much he had seconds (and then had it again last night because last night’s dinner was too spicy for him he claimed and I didn’t  feel like arguing and sometimes you just have to do what’s easy (not too often though), especially when your husband is at class all night and you’ve just come from real baseball practice where you chased a 17 month old around nearly the entire time because of course the field is right on the highway (helllooooo run on sentence) and even though you dropped him with your inlaws so you could watch practice in peace he was brought back after 20 minutes). Whew! I’m getting ahead of myself. Back to Monday night – one pot chicken alfredo. Easy! Delicious! Not altogether healthy! Easier clean up because, hello, one pot! (I loathe doing dishes but never relinquish control of the kitchen because I’m crazy that way). Anywho…here’s the recipe

Ingredients:

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts (cut into chunks)

salt & pepper (not to be confused with Salt & Peppa)

1 1/2 tsp minced garlic (I used closer to 2 tsp)

1 1/2 cups chicken stock

1 cup heavy cream (I used more and will tell you why in a bit)

1 fresh basil sprig (I used 2)

1/2 lb uncooked pasta

Olive oil (a couple tbsps)

2 cups grated parmesan

Directions:

Season chicken with salt and pepper. I also seasoned mine with basil. Brown chicken in olive oil on medium high heat (don’t do it too long, the chicken continues to cook the whole time so you don’t want to dry it out). Add garlic and saute until fragrant. Add chicken stock, cream and uncooked pasta. Stir to combine. Add basil sprig(s); bring to a boil then cover and reduce  to a simmer. Simmer 15-20 min or until pasta is tender. Remove sprig; mix in parmesan cheese. Now, 2 cups of parmesan cheese is a lot. I suggest either cutting back on the cheese or make sure you add more heavy cream after you mix in the cheese. My pasta go super dried out after I added the cheese but after I added more cream (or milk would work too) it moistened right back up and tasted yummy to my tummy!

Yesterday we had baseball practice so I made a stacked enchilada dinner in the crockpot. Hubby and I loved it. Colt loved it. And as I said earlier Jack thought it “doesn’t taste bad but is too spicy”. I’ll share that recipe with you tomorrow coz I gotta go get my yoga on before Thing 1 gets home and Thing 2 wakes up. Until then…xoxo

PS – This afternoon we have a play date at the beach and hubby has class so I won’t be cooking tonight. Yay me!!!!

  
Look! A picture! Not a good one but beggars can’t be choosers, eh?!

Meatloaf! Beatloaf! I hate meatloaf!

· 1 Comment ·

Ok, that’s not true at all. I freaking love meatloaf. You know what I do hate though? That it’s called meatloaf. Who’s with me? For something so delicious, it sure does have an awful name. Meatloaf. Meatloaf. Meatloaf. I think I’ll start a campaign to change the name of meatloaf. What could we call it? Meat log? Gross! Beef log? Even worse? How about beef Remington? Let’s really posh it up here. Let’s give meatloaf the name it deserves! Because it is tasty. But nobody comes running to the table when you say “the meatloaf is ready”.  Wouldn’t it sound much better if we said “the beef Remington is ready”? I like it. Any suggestions are welcome!

You probably guessed it. I cooked on a Friday. Again. But I didn’t cook Thursday. We went out to eat with some friends. 4 adults and 4 children. 6 and under. Whew! That’ll fill up your wine glass/pint glass/highball glass in a hurry (mine was a wine glass, as it normally is – Pinot Noir if you must know – also, it was the first wine I’ve had since I ruined Valentines Day and I kept it down and it tasted delicious. Score!!). It was fun though. A little old lady (who had been hitting the high ball glass all day  me thinks) got seated next to us, looked at us, immediately flagged down a waitress and demanded to be moved somewhere “without all this; without all these -ugh- kids”. I wonder if that lady knows she too was a kid one day (long, long, long ago) and that kids are actually what make everything great in this world – their innocence, their humor, their delight, just everything about kids is pretty freaking awe-some! And at one point, we were all kids. And our kids weren’t even being disruptive. They occasionally get a little louder than they possibly should have, but the restaurant was already loud so who gives a shit! It’s not like we were dining at a fancy five star joint. Whatever. I hope she enjoyed her meal in the absolutely no where quiet part of the restaurant. And I really hope she wasn’t driving. And I really really hope she doesn’t have any grandchildren herself coz yikes! Ok, that was mean, but really, sometimes, the truth hurts.

Back to the point – I cooked last night. If you guessed beef Remington (I’m loving the name change already) then you are absolutely correct and pretty clever, too I might add. Now normally, I cheat when it comes to beef Remington. I usually use the McCormick’s packet and call it good but last night I actually made my own beef Remington (just FYI, I just typed meatloaf and had to go back and fix it – whew! Change is hard but so worth it!!!). And y’all, let me tell you, it was damn good. I’m so excited about it. The packet is so chuck-a-buck full of sodium that I’m quite happy to have an actual recipe that I love!! I did forget to take a picture, yet again, but I’m sure none of you are shocked. Now, I found the recipe online – and I’ll give it to you exactly like I found it – but I actually tweaked it some for my family’s taste and I’ll share my tweaks with you too. It was good stuff. Everybody cleared their plate much to the dog’s dismay!

Ingredients:

2 lbs lean ground beef (I used 1 1/2 pounds)

1 cup soft bread crumbs

1 beaten egg

1/2 cup ketchup

1 tsp minced garlic

2 tsp salt (I only used 1 tsp – 2 seemed like way too much)

dash of pepper (I used about 1 tsp – we like pepper)

1 medium finely chopped onion (I used a small shallot coz it’s all mama had!)

1 tbsp. horseradish (I did about 2 tsp, again, coz it’s all mama had)

The recipe didn’t call for this but I also added a couple shakes of Worcestershire because, quite frankly, ground beef and Worcestershire go together even better than peas and carrots. Take that Jenny and Forrest!!!

Directions:

Thoroughly mix all ingredients and shape in loaf (or a Remington!!) pan. It suggested covering with ketchup but I don’t love ketchup all that much so I’ve always used 1 can of tomato soup on my meatloaf (and it’s damn good, if you like tomato soup!). Bake 1 hour at 350. I baked mine for about an hour and 20 minutes and it came out as close to perfect as beef Remington can get.

I served this with mashed potatoes (duh! – 5 peeled and cooked yellow potatoes, mixed (on low) with whole milk, butter, pepper and seasoned salt), roasted broccoli and biscuits. Heaven. And yesterday was such a nasty day here, it was the perfect rainy, cold weather meal. If you try nothing else that I post up here y’all, you NEED to try this one!!! Easy, delicious and worth every calorie!!

Tonight Mr. Wonderful is grilling porterhouse steaks. We’ll be serving those up with roasted asparagus and grilled potatoes. Yum! Yum! Tis the weekend of beef! There could be worse things in the world!!! xoxo

Batter up!

· 2 Comments ·

It’s a weird week. Mr. Wonderful is in real estate school (he spends hours a day studying as well so my mom is convinced he’s going to “graduate” as valedictorian!!!). Jack had basketball practice last night and then we ate dinner with my parents (score!). He has a basketball game tonight at 6:30 (what?! that’s way too late!!!!) so the cooking won’t be good. Tonight I am putting one of those pre-seasoned Smithfield pork loins in the oven and calling it dinner. It’s not gourmet but it’s better than going hungry. Sometimes you just gotta do what’s easy. Although, y’all are getting to know me well enough through this fantastic (ahem!) blog so you should know I always do what’s easiest!

Next week Jack starts real baseball (as opposed to fake baseball!). His last basketball game is Saturday and his first baseball practice is Tuesday. At 3:30. 20 minutes up the road. And he gets off the bus at 3 pm. And the baby is still asleep at 3 pm most days. So that ought to be interesting. I’ll keep you posted on how that cluster-you-know-what turns out. I’m looking forward to baseball season though. It’s definitely my favorite! And not to brag or anything, but Jack is pretty damn good at baseball. It’s just one of those things that he took to right away and it’s so fun to watch! This will be the first year off the tee so it’s gonna be a fun one folks! And my childhood best friend’s (whose mom’s pizza recipe I’m going to share with you) son is on the same team as my son so that’s pretty exciting too! It’s going to be a fun season.

“Best friends” are a funny thing. I actually find it kind of offensive. Other than my mom and my husband, I can’t say that any of my friends are my best friends or my worst friends. I love them all. They’re all unique and beautiful and fun. They’re all the best. I understand the varying degrees of closeness, and I get that time is a factor in having a “best” friend but, I don’t know, I’m just not on board with “best” friends in adulthood. I’m probably the odd girl out but that’s usually the case with me anyway. I’d love anybody’s feedback that wants to jump in and tell me their thoughts. This was a random tangent and quite irrelevant to anything I’ve been talking about but it’s my blog and I can do what I want. Nanny nanny boo boo!

Anywho, on to the pizza. I used to love it when my friend would have me spend the night on homemade pizza night. It was just the best. It brings back some great memories. So when I had to become all adult like, I asked her to provide me with the recipe and she very kindly did. So here goes:

Ingredients

1 lb ground beef (I use the extra lean)

1 can tomato sauce

1 skinny can tomato paste

1 tsp minced garlic

1 tbsp. oregano

8 oz shredded cheddar

pizza crust (I use Boboli thin crust)

pizza toppings of your choosing (we just did pepperoni the other night – we have a hard time agreeing on pizza toppings)

shredded mozzarella

olive oil

garlic powder to taste

Directions:

Brown hamburger and drain fat. Add tomato sauce, paste, garlic and oregano and let simmer 10-15 minutes. Mix in shredded cheddar and blend until melted.

Drizzle olive oil on pizza crust and sprinkle with garlic powder. (I like to use one of those kitchen paintbrush thingies (definitely the technical name there) and spread it all evenly. Then spread sauce on the pizza crust/dough, top how you please, sprinkle with shredded mozzarella (or whatever your preference is – I had to use 4 slices of mozzarella and some shredded cheddar the other night coz mama sucks at making lists when grocery shopping) and then bake according to the pizza crust package directions (mine was 8-10 minutes on 450)

The sauce makes enough for about 2 pizzas and since it’s just the 4 of us, one pizza is plenty. Can you guess where this is going?! Yep!!!! I freeze the remainder so that I have a quick, easy meal down the road! It’s just my favorite thing in all the world to have a freezer full of premade meals!!!

I don’t know what I’m cooking the rest of the week. There was talk of going out to eat Thursday night but we shall see. And then you know what happens (or doesn’t happen as the case may be) on Fridays. So, until I get my ass in the kitchen again…xoxo

PS Of course I forgot to take a picture. It looked like damn good pizza. Use your imagination!

Kellie is my name, slacking is my game

· 1 Comment ·

I don’t know where the time goes! As predicted, by me, I forgot to post on Friday. I can’t think of anything that I did on Friday that prevented me from posting so my only excuse is that I’m a slacker! Perhaps I can find a support group to help me get over my slacking ways. Isn’t the first step admitting you have a problem?!

The weekend was a good one. I managed to cook not one bit! I’m probably the worst food/recipe blogger in the history of blogging!! Everybody’s gotta be something right?! I did already warn you that I don’t like to cook on Fridays. Hubby got takeout from our favorite restaurant (Kill Devil Grill if you must know) and it was dang good. We went with all apps – cheesesteak egg rolls, chicken wings and the best spinach artichoke dip known to mankind! We topped that off with a hunkin’ slice of key lime pie and then binge watched The Walking Dead. Yes, it was a fantastic evening thank you very much! 

Saturday night I had “book club” which should possibly change its name to “booze club” but that’s neither here nor there! We do actually pick out a book every month and sometimes the book even gets read!! And that’s just success at its finest! I played cards against humanity for the first time and I could have played until every card had been laid down. As a gutter minded girl (at all highly inappropriate times) it was right up my alley! Can we say k-l-a-s-s-y????

Sunday night I made hubby grill brats and I served a very gourmet veggie tray, chips and dip! See how well I did at avoiding cooking?! Take notes, y’all! I’m a professional!!!

I did make those most delicious chicken enchiladas last Thursday though and damn were they f***ing delicious. I mean slap yo mama good (what the hell does that one mean? I would never slap my mama – woman would kick my ass!!). Here are the specs on Quag’s chicken enchiladas (this is another one of my favs because I can make it during nap time AND it’s makes so much, I can freeze another meals worth! Woo hoo!! The sauce I always make fresh, though and I don’t freeze it. That’s just me. You do what makes you happy!)

Ingredients:

Cooked and shredded chicken (I do 2 large breasts (hey yo!) in chicken broth and water and then use the food processor to chop it up – it’s a great time saver)

1/8 cup sautéed onions (I don’t measure that shit – you be the judge)

1 block cream cheese, softened 

1 tsp minced garlic

Cheddar cheese (as much or as little as you like – I do about 4 oz)

Mexican blend shredded cheese

Corn tortillas – heated (wrap ’em in a wet papertowel and microwave about 30 seconds – the recipe calls for frying them but mama ain’t doin all that!)

Sauce:

1 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup sour cream

Salt and pepper to taste

1 tbsp corn starch (mixed with 1/4 cup cold water)

Directions:

Cook chicken and dice, slice, shred, cut that bird up! Mix chicken, onions, garlic, and cream cheese. Then add cheddar cheese and mix together. Spoon mixture into corn tortillas and place in greased baking dish seam down. 

Sauce:

Bring cream and sour cream to a boil. Reduce heat. Slowly stir in corn starch/water mixture to thicken sauce. Add salt and pepper. 

Top enchiladas with the cream sauce, sprinkle with Mexican blend cheese and bake 15-20 minutes on 400. 

Y’all, they don’t sound like much but they are so good! Mr. Wonderful likes to top his with salsa verde (that’s green salsa for those not as fluent in Spanish as me! Ha!) and sliced jalapeños. I like mine just the way they are and the boys love ’em too!! I served it with refried beans and Mexican rice. Yummy to my tummy!!!!

  
Tonight I’m making semi-homemade pizza (semi coz y’all know mama ain’t makin her own dough when Boboli does a way better job than I ever could)! It’s a recipe like got from my childhood best friend’s mom and it just brings back so many great memories! I’ll share more on it tomorrow or whenever I remember!! xoxo

Fever! Fever all through the night!

· Leave a comment ·

Not really. Well, it could have been all through the night but it’s all gone today! Woo hoo! I’m talking about  Colt of course. I did take him to the doctor yesterday (go me!) and the doctor actually broke out his text book and was all like “I think it’s this!”. The “this” is called roseola and it affects 90% of children between the ages of 6 months and 2 years of age. It’s apparently caused by the herpes virus – types 6 and 7 – (ew) and presents as a high fever for 3-5 days and then a rash (that does not itch) that breaks out on the “trunk” of the child once the fever is gone. We are moving into rash territory today folks! The little red bumps are popping up all on that boys trunk. But he’s quite happy today and we even managed to play outside for a bit this morning. Until he fell in the dirt, looked at his hands, realized they were dirty, threw a bloody fit and we went back inside. Such a charming child!!

Last night, as you may recall, I made crock pot pork tenderloin. I find cooking meat in the crockpot to be tricky. In my experience, if you don’t get the timing exactly right, the meat turns to dust in your mouth. It’s like out of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation when they cut open the turkey and it all shrivels up and then they either to pretend to eat it or have to wash it down with copious amounts of water. The pork wasn’t quite that bad but I didn’t find it that good either. My husband liked it. Jack liked the meat, not so much the potatoes and Colt hated it. Although, he hated pretty much everything yesterday so I’m not sure we can trust his opinion. I thought it was edible but nothing I’m dying to eat again. I’ll share the deets with you and you can be the judge. Maybe you know exactly how long to cook pork in the crock pot and yours will turn out amazingly well. If so, hook a sista up with some tips, would ya?!

Ingredients:

2 lb pork tenderloin

1/4 cup soy sauce

2 tbsp. yellow mustard

2 tbsp. olive oil

3 tbsp. maple syrup (seriously! not joking at all)

1 chopped shallot

1 tsp onion powder

1 1/2 tsp garlic powder

Directions:

Put tenderloin in the crockpot (yes, you must put it in there, it will not cook otherwise!!!!). Mix the rest of the ingredients and pour over tenderloin. Cook on low for 6 hours. Flip the tenderloin at 2 and 4 hours for even cooking.

I also cut up some baby red potatoes and threw them in for the last 2 hours. They were actually quite good so I think if I can cook the tenderloin for the appropriate amount of time, this meal will be a tasty one that’s entered into the rotation. We shall see.

I obviously forgot to take pictures yet again (I’m soooo good at this!) but it was none too pretty anyway so you’re welcome!

Tonight I’m making one of my favorite meals of all time. The recipe is actually from a restaurant in the area that shut down several years ago and I was lucky enough to have my dad that knew a cook there and shared it with us! So on tonight’s menu – Quag’s chicken enchiladas, refried beans and Spanish rice. I’ll share all the yumminess with you tomorrow. Probably. If I remember. Until then, stay hungry my friends (ala the most interesting man alive but with hunger, not thirst)! xoxo

Keeping up with the Jones’s

· Leave a comment ·

Holy shit! Screw you blog! I just wrote a whole damn blog and somehow managed to delete it and save the deleted version. That is more frustrating than you can possibly imagine. I’ll be banging my head against the table for the remainder of the day if you need me. There will be no cooking involved. I will also be screaming expletives in between bouts of crying. Temper tantrum launch in 3…2…1. Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

Ok, dramatic outburst over. Seriously, though, f@&*!!!!!!!!!!

Back to the subject at hand, I sincerely hope you are not keeping up with the Jones’s as we have been plagued with sickness. First I had the stomach bug, then Jack had the stomach bug, Colt had a diarrhea bug and now Colt has had a random fever for 4 days. 4 days people. No other symptoms – just a fever that can be controlled with Motrin but always comes back. I finally called the doctor this morning (I should be a shoe-in for mother of the year) and they are going to check him out this afternoon.

Having said all that, the cooking has been scarce around here. I did manage to crank out dinner last night that was pretty tasty – Lasagna rollups be what it was called, mateys (in my best pirate voice – why? I don’t know). Italian cooking is some of my favorite for a few reasons – it’s generally, easy, tasty, can be prepared during nap time and usually makes enough to freeze at least 2 other meals (in our family anyway). And, again folks, winning! Fo rizzle! (We’ve gone from pirates to Snoop Dogg (or is it Snoop Lion still???) – my brain is an interesting place to hang out!)

Without further ado (ie distraction, random dribbling for the mind of Mrs. Jones), here be the recipe (back to pirate talk – cue Jake and the Neverland Pirates theme song):

Ingredients:

Cooked lasagna noodles (did you guess that?!) – I usually do 5-6 coz that’s what works for  my family of 4 – you do your own thang, chicken wang (what?!)

1 lb ground Italian sausage (you could substitute beef if you’d rather)

1 tsp minced garlic

1 15 oz container ricotta cheese

2 packages of cream cheese (did I mention this is not diet friendly but it is taste bud friendly!)

1 package of that fancy shredded parmesan

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 tbsp. dried parsley flakes

1 tsp Italian seasoning

salt & pepper to taste

shredded mozzarella

1 jar/can spaghetti sauce (I like Hunt’s 4 cheese if you care)

Directions:

Cook noodles and sausage. Combine sausage, garlic, ricotta, cream cheese, parmesan, egg, parsley, Italian seasoning and salt and pepper. Stir in 1 cup of mozzarella. Spread onto lasagna noodles and roll up (you can use a toothpick to hold together but I find the cheese holds it well enough). Put spaghetti sauce in bottom of greased baking dish. Arrange rollups in pan and top with additional sauce. Cover with foil and bake 40 minutes at 350. Uncover, sprinkle with remaining mozzarella and bake until cheese is melted.

I generally pair this with a Caesar salad and garlic bread. Last night I had no lettuce (which, if you don’t know, is pretty instrumental in a salad) so we had cut up carrots and cucumbers with ranch. Improvisation folks! Often necessary when cooking with Kellie!! But we did have bread, so ha! Score for me! (My 6 year old ate 4 pieces of bread last night! And he’s skinny as a damn rail – did not inherit that from me!!!!)

Tonight’s dinner is coming from the crock pot. I love crock pot cooking! I don’t always love what comes out of it but the cooking portion is right up my alley!! It’s a pork tenderloin with some interesting ingredients (yellow mustard and maple syrup being mind boggling to me)! I’ll give you all the specs on it tomorrow. Hopefully it doesn’t suck!! xoxo

 

PS – In case you didn’t figure it out, that filling makes a shit ton! I generally freeze the remainder in 2 separate freezer bags for easy meal time in the future. The mix also works well in jumbo shells!