Chicken Stroganoff Without The Noodles

This is another recipe that I found on Ravelry. We enjoyed it but I think next time I will use Cream of Chicken Soup instead of the Cream of Mushroom Soup. It came out with a nice sauce over it. Mike ate 3 chicken breasts so I guess he really enjoyed it.

You can find the original recipe here. http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/crockpot-love/283460/476-500#499

Chicken Stroganoff Without The Noodles

1 pound frozen boneless skinless chicken breasts (4 Chicken Breasts)
1 can cream of mushroom soup (I use Cream of Chicken)
16 oz. carton sour cream
1 envelope dry onion soup mix

Put frozen chicken in bottom of crockpot. Mix soup, sour cream, onion soup mix and pour over chicken,. Cook on low for 7 hours. Makes 6 servings.

Carnitas

I know that I have mentioned that I love www.ravelry.com and yes I am going to talk about that site again. They have many message boards that discuss more than just knitting. I joined a crockpot message board there and got many new ideas for eating low carb. Not all of the recipes are low carb. I have to pick and choose. I found this recipe there and both Mike and I love this. You can find the original recipe here.

http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/crockpot-love/283460/1301-1325#1308

I ate the pork wrapped in a low carb tortilla with salsa and cheddar cheese. Mike ate his with mashed potatoes and white beans. Either way this recipe is one that I am sure I will make often.

Carnitas

1 3 lb.(ish) pork shoulder roast (fresh – not smoked)
2 bay leaves
1 C.  chicken broth

Dry Rub:
1 t. salt
1 t. garlic powder
1 t. onion powder
1/4 t. cayenne
1 t. cumin (ground)
1/2 t. dried oregano
1/2 t. ground coriander
1/4 t. cinnamon

I usually double or triple the dry rub because I like my food to have a lot of flavor but the above is the base recipe and it gives a good indication of the ratios of each spice. I also usually grind in a whole bunch of fresh black pepper, but I never measure that.

Combine the spices and salt together in a small bowl. Remove all wrapping and netting from the pork shoulder roast and rub all of the dry rub into every nook and cranny of the meat. I suggest doing this on a portable cutting board so you can dump any of the dry rub that falls off into the CP along with the meat. Place dry rubbed meat in CP with bay leaves and chicken broth (don’t pour the broth over the meat, though! You want to put the broth in first.) Cover and cook on low 6-9 hours. The beauty of this recipe is that the longer the cooking time (within reason), the better the end product.

Little Stinker

Caleb was a skunk this year for Halloween. He was so cute. He loved getting all dressed up and loved getting the candy even more. After the second house his little legs were flying to get to the next one. His mommy said that he liked it even more when the people gave him the candy to put in his bucket himself. I can’t get enough of this kid.

Mommy dressed up as a punk rock star and daddy went as his typical everyday red neck self. haha

I am sure that Caleb is wondering when he can get dressed up and go again. I can’t wait to see him at Christmas this year.

Chicken With Gravy

This recipe came about entirely by accident. While searching a message board for crockpot recipes I found several that I wanted to try. I read the ingredients to my husband and he chose the chicken recipe. The problem is the next morning I thought that I could remember the recipe without looking it up and I put the ingredients for the roast recipe on top of the chicken.

I had cooked it about two hours when I realized the mistake but it smelled so wonderful at that point that I didn’t stop it. Mike and I were really pleasantly surprised at how good this was.  We will definitely be making this at least twice a month.

I had never placed my chicken into the crockpot frozen before but many of the posters on the message board were discussing how the chicken would come out as it had been baked and not mushy or over cooked if it were frozen when placed in the crockpot. This was so true. I will always place my chicken breasts in the crockpot from now on.

Chicken With Gravy

4 boneless chicken breasts, frozen

1 can of Cream of Chicken soup (I used Campbell’s)

1 soup can full of a very dry Sherry

1 envelope of Lipton Dry Onion Soup Mix

Place frozen chicken breasts in the bottom of the crockpot. Mix remaining ingredients and pour over chicken. Cook on low for 7 hours.

Who Knew?

Caleb must be reading my blog. I am on vacation this week and I kept Caleb two days this week. Yesterday he went to his bookshelf and brought me a book. He crawled up in my lap and had me read it to him twice.  I have been dreaming of the time when he wanted me to read to him and couldn’t believe the book that he chose.

Anyone who has read this book knows that I cried through the ending. Yes, I cried through the ending twice while my innocent little grandchild sat cuddled in my lap listening to his grandma read. It was the most precious afternoon.

I will miss him so much next week when I go back to work. I have treasured our time together this week. He is such a good boy and so smart. He watches everything and repeats anything that he sees you do.

I knew that he liked Elmo so I brought up Youtube and for 45 minutes he sat on my lap watching videos. This one is his favorite. He just sings along with it at the top of his lungs. Of course grandma had to sing along too. That is the way it goes with Caleb. EVERYBODY sings. lol

He also liked this one.

I am not supposed to get Caleb today but will tomorrow. I miss him so much I may have to go pick him up once the Structural Engineer from the Insurance Company leaves. Remember the flood back in August? Well it caused structural damage under the house and my house is currently being supported with enormous jacks. It never ends around here.

OK I just spoke to Caleb’s mommy and I am going to get him. I can’t do without him today. It just seems wrong. Cya.

 

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

I am torn between giving my opinion on this book or not. I know that is being made into a movie and I can’t imagine anyone wanting to see it. My daughter recommended that I read it. The first five chapters really draw you in and you can barely put the book down. Then something strange happens.

Half way through the book things shift and it actually seems as if someone else is writing the book other than who wrote the first half. The book begins vaguely jumping around and jumping forward very quickly. It loses its momentum and has some tragic things occur.

If you are someone who hates to have a book ruined if you plan to read it then stop now. I am going to give spoilers. The book is about a 14-year-old girl who is raped and murdered on her way home from school. The girl is the one actually telling the story as it unfolds after her death.

She tells of seeing her family and friends mourn her death and how she tries to communicate with them to ease their pain. All of this was very heartwarming and I really appreciated this first half of the book told from her eyes.

Then the book gets weird. She has a friend from high school that can see her and feel her and she takes over this friend’s body. She goes back to her old high school sweetheart while in this friend’s body and he automatically realizes that it is Susie and not the friend. They have sex.

Now the fact that they are using the friend’s body to me is rape. She gets violated at the beginning of the book and then later she violates her friend’s body. This is something that I could not overlook or accept. From this point on I hated the book.  What was your opinion?

Little House in the Big Woods

A friend of mine recommended that I read a children’s book by Laura Ingalls Wilder and I am so glad that I did. The book went into such great detail of what it was like to live during that era and how difficult farm life was. Through it all her family had love and a closeness that you just don’t see very often.

While I was reading this book I was dreaming of the day when I will have a little granddaughter that will sit next to me while I read this book to her. I have quite a collection of children’s books for my future grandchildren to enjoy. I have tried reading to Caleb and he isn’t having it. He has too much to do to sit still to listen to a book being read. He is just like his father.

I want that little granddaughter that I can give her first copy of Little Women to. I want to share my love of books and reading with her. I want to sit on the couch together and read and then discuss the plots the way I do now with my daughter. I want to share the classics like Heidi, Tom Sawyer and Ribsy.

I want to share the newer books when she becomes a teenager like Dee Henderson’s the O’Malley Series.  I want to cry with her on the sad parts and discuss how something beautiful can come from so much tragedy.  At this time I don’t see a granddaughter in my near future. I put in a request for one with my daughter-in-law and she said they will try again in January of 2011. I guess I can wait until then. Until then I will read the classics all by myself and renew my love for these children novels.

Stephen’s Neck and Face Warmer

I knitted my son Stephen a neck and face warmer using this pattern from Bernat.  You have to be a member of www.bernat.com to see it but it is free to join and they have tons of patterns.

http://www.bernat.com/pattern.php?PID=1979

The pattern was easy to follow but I wish that it had been made on circular needles instead of straight and then sewn together. When you use the variegated yarn you can see a seam when it is sewn together. I don’t see any reason why it could not have been sewn on circular and when I make one next year for my brother-in-law I will do it that way.

Stephen loved it and is currently out in the woods somewhere wearing it.

He looks a bit like a masked robber in that last picture. haha. I hope that he puts it to good use keeping warm in the woods. What I liked about it was it offered warmth without having anything dangling to get in the way when he is hunting.

I am currently on vacation and have spent two full days cleaning on my craft room. I have come to the conclusion that I really can not buy anything else craft related until I make a huge dent in what I currently have. Especially yarn. I have five tubs of yarn that I need to use. Geeze, that is a lot of yarn.

I am currently working on a shawl for myself and beaded scarf for myself. I have been making so many things for everyone else that I am finally taking some time for me.

I have put a lot of my craft items into a stack for my daughter-in-law to go through tomorrow. If she wants them they are hers. She loves to do crafts and especially scrapbooks for the little man, Caleb. You can’t go wrong when you are doing something with pictures of Caleb. He is such a cutie.

Tight Knit Knitting Group

I went on another field trip with my knitting group yesterday. We had a blast. Unfortunately, there are no pictures of our little adventure. We had so much fun that I never stopped to take any.

We began our day at IHOP. To keep up our hectic pace we had to begin with a hearty breakfast. Only four of us managed to go on this trip. Our faithful leader Bev, Mary, Linda and I. We really missed Cindy and Retta. Next time these ladies have to go too.

After breakfast we went to the new Hobby Lobby. Let me say that I love Hobby Lobby. I used to have to drive about two hours to get to a store of this magnitude. Now I am within twenty minutes of my home. Amazing. I bought enough yarn there for our next class project. We are doing an amazing afghanand each square is a different pattern. It was funny that three of us chose the exact same colors of yarn.

Next we went to Michael’s. I bought some beading items. I want to make beautiful stitch markers that look like jewelry. They had yarn on sale here so I bought enough to make a scarf, a sweater and a shawl.

Next we went to Knitnhook in Huntington. We were surprised to see that they were going out of business after a successful 12 year run. The owner decided that she wanted to retire. She has definitely earned it. She has kept half of WV in yarn and taught so many to knit that she should be able to enjoy her grandbabies and knit in a relaxing setting.

At Knitnhook I bought some luxurious lace yarn that I want to do my first lace shawl out of. It is beautiful yarn. I will be making this next spring probably.

After the yarn store we went to BW3’s for lunch. I had their buffalo chicken tender salad. I love this salad. It is low carb and very flavorful. At BW3’s you can choose the level of hotness for your buffalo chicken tender’s. I got the hot. It was perfect.

We took a detour to a bakery and Bev bought her husband a birthday cake from Francois Bakery in Huntington, WV. The server at the restaurant mentioned that it was her birthday and that her husband never gets her a cake so the ladies bought her 4 muffins with buttercream icing from the bakery and took it to her.

After this we went to AC Moore. I have always loved AC Moore but after visiting Hobby Lobby, AC Moore appears much smaller. Everyone was able to find something that they wanted here. I bought coffees for my daughter and son-in-law that they should enjoy over Thanksgiving.

I can’t wait for our next field trip in February. I definitely want to go again.  With all of the new ladies in the class I hope that we have more people on the next trip.

88 Minutes

Well we watched another movie and loved it. I love action films that keep you guessing. Usually I can figure out who the bad guy is but this one keeps you guessing until the bitter end. Al Pacino did not disappoint. For those who want to see the movie trailer you can click below.