Naptime Craft Time

Anthony and I had a fun time making these paper stars while Katie Rose had her nap.  Yes, the two-year-old really did help make these!  I did all the cutting and folding, and he did all the gluing.  It was a good thing to do just the two of us, since he was able to get quite messy.  Note to all mothers:  Elmer's glue really does dry clear, even gobs and gobs of it!  Anthony is very proud of his "piddy" stars.

Each one is made of just two pieces of scrapbook paper and glue, which we had on hand.  So they were even free!

The instructions were in this month's Family Fun magazine, so I can't give step-by-step directions.  Somebody must have given us a gift subscription, but I don't know who!

The stripey ABC one is my favorite I think.  

More Project Progress and Enchiladas

I'm writing this post... in our new office closet!  Hurray!  We're moving along in our home improvement goals.  Here's the before and after:

More gigantic holes to fix.

New outlet installed next to the desk, and all patched up and painted pretty!  Ryan found the desk next to a dumpster on our block and repaired the bottom shelf.  It's perfect! As we move into sorting out the bedroom proper we will figure out some clever way to put the big blank walls in here to good use.

Though we are making steady progress, as my patient husband constantly reminds his impatient wife who always wants to have everything done two weeks ago, there is no way we're getting all this stuff done by Easter.  (That is, Anthony's "big boy" room.) It's okay though.  I always kind of figured on that, knowing that everything always takes longer than anticipated, especially since we're learning as we go, and we're very talented procrastinators by nature.  The new baby will be in our room for a couple of months at least anyway, so it was never imperative.  I would like to get all the painting and things requiring the use of power tools done before baby, and I think that's still very attainable.  But probably not all the sewing and prettying up type of things.  Those can be added whenever, really.  Anthony's not going to care if his bulletin board matches his curtains.  Or if he even has curtains.  I shall stop being stupid and not stress.

I don't have energy to spend worrying about what we haven't done right now anyway.  I'm too sleep deprived.  Crazy pregnancy dreams and stupid leg cramps and occasionally Anthony keep waking me up.

Oh!  Lest I get sidetracked into a complaining fest, I forgot to show you our "home theater":

Yep, it's just the computer.  With my feet in front of them.  We can wheel the desk to the end of the bed and watch movies now.  Much more convenient for when I inevitably fall asleep!

Finally, I made these enchiladas for the first time on Tuesday, and they were so good that Ryan requested leftovers on Wednesday night instead of waiting a bit.  They were super easy too. 

Chicken Enchiladas (from Taste of Home)

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 2-1/2 cups chicken broth
• 1 teaspoon dried coriander
• 1 can (4 ounces) chopped green chilies, divided
• 2 cups cubed cooked chicken
• 1 cup (4 ounces) shredded Monterey Jack cheese
• 8 flour tortillas (8 inches), warmed
• 1 cup (4 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese

Directions

• Melt butter in a large saucepan. Stir in flour until smooth. Gradually add broth. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened. Stir in coriander and half of the chilies. In a large bowl, combine the chicken, Monterey Jack cheese and remaining chilies.
• Spoon 1/3 cup chicken mixture onto each tortilla; roll up. Place seam side down in an ungreased 13-in. x 9-in. baking dish. Pour sauce over enchiladas. Sprinkle with cheddar cheese.
• Bake, uncovered, at 375° for 15-18 minutes or until heated through and cheese is melted. Yield: 4 servings.

I think this would be a great recipe to turn to for a quick meal-delivery, which I've been needing fairly often lately.  It's a casserole for easy transportation, but NOT LASAGNA.  It's also not spicy at all; we topped it with hot salsa to taste and it was delicious.  It's also a good way to use up leftover roast chicken and stock.  Ryan's not a big soup lover, so I often find myself with a freezer full of stock that I can't use as fast as I make it. All in all, a keeper!

Happy Friday, everyone!

Swagbucks, anyone?

Do any of you do Swagbucks?  I set up my account just today.  The idea is you earn points for doing things online: searching the web, watching videos, signing up for offers.  Then you can redeem your points for real stuff.  Now I will not be signing up for any offers, but I do search the web often enough, and it's been easy enough to leave their videos running on mute while I'm catching up on e-mails.  I've earned 82 points in the last hour or so.  I have no idea if that's good, but it's been pretty effortless and I haven't given out any personal information that's not already pretty accessible.

I would like to use the points I earn to buy Amazon gift cards to build up our library of children's books.  A $5 gift card currently costs 450 points, so it will be a slow process, but faster than it has been!  I'm rather picky about children's books.  I've had some successes at library sales and such, but I have a rapidly growing list of specific titles that are largely out of print.  With Amazon, I will be able to use the wishlist feature to find exactly what I want.

You also get points for referring people to Swagbucks, so if you are interested here is the link:

http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/thekeanoc

I have done enough research on Swagbucks to feel secure and confident that it's a legitimate company.  However, do use sense with special offers.  Some of the ways of earning points are NOT worth it, such as looking at a website and rate various aspects of it for ten points.  Translated into Amazon money, that means you got paid the equivalent of nine cents for that ten minutes or however long that task took you to do.  For myself, I will not be putting in any extraordinary effort into earning points.  But free is free.

Here are some more comprehensive Swagbucks tips that have helped me out:

http://moneysavingmom.com/2011/03/15-ways-to-earn-more-swagbucks-part-1.html
http://moneysavingmom.com/2011/03/15-ways-to-earn-more-swagbucks-part-2.html
http://moneysavingmom.com/2011/03/15-ways-to-earn-more-swagbucks-part-3.html

If any of you already do this I would be interested in hearing how you've had the most success with Swagbucks!

A Little Project

We're still working steadily on our home improvement projects in preparation for the new baby!  We've torn apart the closet that's going to become our "office":

Yikes at some of those holes!  The wood that held the shelves in place was put in with FOUR INCH nails!  Through plaster and masonry.  Ryan's parents are coming this weekend so with any luck his dad will help out a lot with this job.

We're also working on emptying out the current office and finding new homes for all the random stuff that landed there.  This is what I finished today:

I didn't take a before picture, but the wall was a darker green that I regretted as soon as I had painted it before.  Now it matches.  Our wedding photos were there.  They have not yet been rehung, but they'll probably just go on the other side of the hall. The bookcase was in that bedroom, crammed full of miscellaneous books and knick-knacks from Ryan's childhood.  (NB:  I feel that "random" is overused.  Bring back miscellany!)  Now many of them are being given away, some, such as our high school yearbooks, have been unceremoniously dumped in the basement, and the rest of them are still on the shelf, but much much fewer of them and attractively arranged.

The curtain conceals our towels, sheets, and surplus toiletry items, since we have nowhere to store them in the bathroom.  I'm really pleased with how that curtain turned out.  It's made from a sheet that I picked up at Goodwill awhile back just because I liked it.  It was meant to be, because the green of the print matches the paint color exactly.

Total project cost for fabric, lace trim, and tension rod: $15.  And I have enough of the sheet left to make a matching cafe curtain for the stair window!  (The valance was a Goodwill find as well.)

Here's something useful to know:  If you go to Joann.com, then click "Store Locator" at the bottom of the page, then "More Store Information," for any location, a button to print off a coupon for 40% any regular price item will pop up.  There seems to be no limit to how many times you can print it, but you can only use one coupon per transaction.

A happy Valentine's Day to everyone tomorrow!

Green and Orange Soup

It's naptime!  It's naptime!  We haven't had naptime for several days around here.  So I'm celebrating by posting a recipe!  Yeah, I'm weird I know. 

This is a great frugal and healthy meal, especially for all you pregnant ladies out there.  I'm trying to follow the Brewer diet during my pregnancy.  It's the diet recommended in Bradley classes.  It's simple.  Lots of protein, lots of veggies, lots of eggs, lots of dairy.  Really just lots of everything good for you.  But like most Americans I have trouble in the veggie department, especially getting enough leafy green ones and orange ones.  And enough whole grains and protein for Dr. Brewer's satisfaction.  I'm starting to wonder if Dr. Brewer is really my Ukranian grandmother.  I can never eat enough to please her, either.

So to get more veggies, start by roasting a chicken for Sunday supper.  Let's get a good look at that chicken butt:

Yep, that thing's trussed with a paper clip.  And I took a picture and published it I'm so proud of my ingenuity.  Again, I'm weird.  Or else desparate for frugality street cred.  Housewives can be like that sometimes.

Now make a big pot of stock from the carcass.  I like to put it in the crock pot overnight with some onion ends, leafy tops of celery stalks, carrot ends, and half a lemon.  The crock pot method is not Le Cordon Bleu approved, but I'm not making clarified stock for aspics just regular home cooking.  I read on some blog somewhere (sorry I can't credit) to keep two bags in the freezer for stock making ingredients, one for vegetable matter and one for meat bones.  I've been doing that, and it has made a difference in my cooking.  Homemade stock is much better.  And since it's essentially made from garbage, it counts as being free!  So I'm not as stingy with stock in cooking as I used to be.  I've also realized that whole chickens are much more economical than buying just parts, as is buying a bone-in roast of whatever other meat than buying boneless.  One chicken carcass will yield me about a gallon of stock.  I freeze it flat in gallon-size freezer bags, a quart in each bag.  If there's extra it goes in smaller bags with a cup in each. It thaws much faster this way and you can fit a lot more in your freezer.

So now, if you're still with me, the actual recipe:

Green and Orange Soup

In a soup pot, combine:

• 6 cups chicken stock
• 1 cup barley

Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer.  Simmer covered for 15 minutes.  Meanwhile, prepare your vegetables:

• peel and dice one small butternut squash
• slice 8 carrots
• chop one onion
• derib and chop one head kale

Add the vegetables to the pot and simmer for another 30 minutes, or until vegetables and barley are tender.  Stir in:

• 2 cups chopped cooked chicken

Heat through, season to taste with salt and pepper before serving.  It makes a lot of soup, but it freezes great. 



Yard Sale Finds

These photos are from a few weeks ago. I uploaded them and began a post, which I never finished in favor of the one for Katie's wedding and Sr. Victoria Marie's profession. So here they are now. $5 wooden highchair! I'm going to refinish it for Anthony to use. His current highchair is a nightmare to keep clean. Food gets in the little cracks and crevices of the padding, and UNDER and INSIDE the pad, which of course takes about ten minutes to take apart and another ten to put back together. Using it without the pad is not possible. It's probably technically an antique, as it came with a guide to carseat safety with this photo in it:


But that does not mean that I will be afraid of spray painting it.


I also got a huge bag of random fabric for a dollar. Here are some of my favorite prints:

And my very very favorite, is a crib skirt of this adorable bunny toile! It was crammed in the very bottom of the bag! I can make either four placemats or six napkins for Easter, as sadly part of it is badly stained. But look how cute!!!!!

Easy No-Measuring Watermelon Sorbet

Happy Fourth of July! I hope you all enjoyed your holiday. Ryan is going away, again, in two days, so I've been trying to make a special effort in the kitchen this week. I don't know if any of you other wives do that, but when he goes away I like to leave him with a good taste in his mouth, so to speak! It must be confessed, however, that some of the cooking got totally forgotten when Bubs got sick this weekend. Baby fevers are never fun, but he's had a seizure from fever before so we really have to be aggressive in keeping the fever down. He still is sick today, but seemed happier and more active than yesterday. Antibiotic seems to be working, but doctor visit tomorrow for sure. As an aside, we have the best doctor ever for answering pages promptly on Sunday afternoons and helping us avoid trips to the ER.

But before all that excitement, I did manage to make this dinner on Friday for the feast of the Sacred Heart:
Grilled steak and various sauteed summer veggies with basil. Yum. And for dessert, the very fancy-tasting watermelon sorbet I'm going to teach you to make! No recipe, just needed to use up this huge watermelon that I was inspired to buy at market this week. Why I bought an entire watermelon for a household of three I will never know, but it had to be used and necessity is indeed the mother of invention! I served it in our crystal wineglasses from our wedding, with vanilla pizzelles (I'm sure I've spelled that incorrectly.) leftover from the massive amount of cookies we brought home from Katie's wedding, and garnished with mint, but I did not take a picture of it in all it's fancy glory, alas.

So on to the tutorial! First chop up half of a watermelon, or however much you want to use. Half a watermelon will yield about 3 quarts of sorbet! I still have the other half in the fridge. I haven't got a big enough mixing bowl for this much watermelon, but a stockpot works.



Then add a big handful of mint, and about 1/2 cup of honey, and the juice from 1 lemon.


We have a ridiculous amount of mint. See? Ridiculous.



Blend it all together.



Then pour it into a 13x9 pan. It just makes it!

Cover and freeze overnight. I really ought to do something about the organization of this freezer.


Before serving, run some hot water over the back of the pan to release the sorbet in one big block.

Chop it with a knife into manageable pieces, and run it through the food processor until it's smooth. The longer you run it, the creamier the texture.

It's really good; you should try it! It would probably work with just about any fruit, but you might need to add some water to get the right consistency. I'd love to hear about it if you do try this!