Blessings

Things that make me feel blessed this week:

• new travel coffee mug
• label maker
• post it notes that make me smile
• meals out with old friends

Always:

• family
• friends
• home
• food on the table

Green Thumb, who would have thought.

I've never had a green thumb, I always joked it was brown as all plants I ever tried to keep alive, let alone help them to thrive...didn't make it. Moving provided me with a large over grown backyard, which has a few plants that were obviously placed on purpose, not necessarily natural to the area. Didn't realize what they were till we got some much needed rain, and discovered we had a crepe myrtle in the backyard. Which was exciting as it had been discussed to put a new one out there. The other plants are still unknown, for now. :-)

Anyways, once the rain helped I began hose watering every few days as we are in a Stage 2 drought here in San Antonio. So the Crepe myrtle has began to flourish, it's pretty awesome as it has some great pink blooms. So here are a few photo's of it's progression.

The front yard needs some work, I just need to figure out what to do with it, as it has plants that are pretty drought resistant, but I have just never learned how to care for these things. The back yard has 2 rose bushes also that are all out of control with no blooms. Not sure if I can "save them" or if it would be best to pull them out and start over with something new. It's all a learning process but I'm enjoying gardening much more than I could have anticipated. To making things pretty and grow. :-)

Beer can chicken and other endeavors

So now that the kitchen is all unpacked, I've gotten back into cooking once again. Menu planning and all. So I'm going to make a "catch all" post for all the things I didn't get to blogging about. I probably tweeted about them, but that's not even a guarantee.

Waffles

So I'll start with my first attempt at making waffles. I'd had the waffle iron for a few years, but kept it in storage as it was too big for my old kitchen. Just used a box mix as it was my first attempt I didn't want to get to creative and wanted to learn how the iron worked.

Homemade Spaghetti Sauce

Next up was my mom's spaghetti sauce recipe. I'd made this before but it had been a few years, as it just seemed like too much work. I typically opted for pre-made jarred sauce. But it was SOOO worth having the homemade sauce, and I didn't even let it simmer as long as I should have, but I waited too long to make dinner and just simmered a little longer than the minimum 30 minutes (while everything else was finishing up). Paired it with some whole wheat noodles, and garlic crescent rolls.

Next cooking adventure was Beer Can Chicken, this is something I'd heard about but had never tried. I had forgotten about it until I got a "Cooking with Beer" cookbook. Scanning through for ideas came across two recipes for beer can chicken, I mostly followed one with some help from this website also. As once looking into indirect cooking on the grill realized that would be more involved that I wanted to get. So I made it in the oven. Got the man to help with the chicken, but it turned out awesome. Super juicy and moist, and not beer flavored at all. :)

So that's a few of my cooking adventures recently in my new kitchen.

Routine

So today we spent about 2 hours focused on one room, this worked well as it looks done. There will be change but it looks done, no more random boxes around at least in the family room. It had become a catch all in many ways, as it's centrally located.

I did laundry, cleaned up the kitchen, made dinner (Bourbon chicken) cleaned as I cooked, set the dishwasher to run overnight, made coffee for the morning. Waiting for clothes to dry to put out my work pants and rest of my clothes for tomorrow...yep. I'm working some combination of Flylady, Messies, HabitHacker, etc. I've read them all and I love different aspects from them all. I get to hung up on stuff so combining and doing my "own thing" from them works best, I think. And as FlyLady was inspired by the Messies, they aren't too far apart overall. 

They all focus on keeping one spot clean, FlyLady says to shine your sink while the other approaches give you the choice. But you must keep that one small area clean, if nothing else, as an inspiration point. They all recommend doing one entire load of laundry a day, (washing, drying, put away). Another commonality is making a to do list, just writing down what you want/need to accomplish each day.  A daily quick clean 10-15 minutes depending which approach you read at the end of the day you spend a small amount of time picking up all those random things that got put down in random places. There are many, many more commonalities between the organization apporaches. I'm still figuring out what works for me, and as I now have a new house to learn in some things are different that my previous cramped apartment. Things now have a "place" they aren't just sitting somewhere as there is no other place to keep them. There are rooms with purpose, office and separate guest room for example. That now don't overlap and can each have specific things contained within each. Learning curve along with building new habits. Good times.

Side note, I never really drank coffee, but last week I was having a crazy craving for coffee, so I pulled out my old pot (I'd tried to drink it before and got a hand me down pot from my parents) and for the first time really enjoyed homemade coffee. But the pot being old and stored wasn't working great, luckily for me my parents had a "newer" spare pot. So I upgraded and have now been enjoying coffee in the morning. It's been pretty awesome so far. It helps wake me up, more than more energy drinks actually. I stay alert which helps with my job, so good times. ^.^ 

Unpacking and settling

Old apartment kitchen, that's all the counter space there was

It's been a slow process unpacking and whatnot. I feel the kitchen is just about done. Which is awesome. I must say I am totally LOVING the fact that I have counter space, an island and did I mention counter space. The storage is awesome too, I actually have empty drawers and cabinets. HAHA it's amazing. I have finally started cooking in there and it's awesome, and amazing. Things don't fall all over the place when I open a cabinet and they are organized. I have more than 3 drawers, etc. Space is just amazing. The rest of the house is still in disarray but as everyone tells me it takes time. I'm working more hours at work currently which is awesome, but gives me less time to unpack/organize. I need to tackle the master bathroom and my closet...they are a little scary. Reordered the parts to fix the master shower, as the initial set purchased was for "new" plumbing. And we have "old" plumbing. So that's fun to figure out, along with many other random quirks that come with a house as opposed to an apartment. But I feel it's perfect in so many ways, I'm so happy here. I don't miss anything about the old place, and I'm a pack rack sentimental type person so that says something in and of itself.

Part of the new kitchen. ^.^

Thanks to hand me downs, the entire place is furnished, thanks to living on my own for so long I have the rest of the necessary items. I have a wish list for the container store that's a mile long, slowly I will get the things I "need/want" and be able to really get the house in order. For now it's an adventure.

Moving

Moving is more work than I remembered. Getting closer to the organizing and unpacking portion everyday. Have to have everything out by the 30th, busy, busy, busy.

Life changes

Been busy, and not focused on blogging, obviously. But menu planning this evening reminded me that I hadn't updated in...forever. So I thought I was due. :-)

Meal plan this week, tentative as other things are going on but the current plan:

Taco Chicken Fiesta lasagna (have leftover chicken and refried beans from fajitas)
Cheese Tortellini Alfredo (make ahead recipe that's awesome and we got a ton of tortelinni at Sam's Club)
Chicken Burgers
Turkey Tacos
Something with ground beef, haven't decided., yet. :-)

This week will be interesting as we are preparing to move, have resided in the same apartment for over 5 years. So packing, and moving are slightly daunting but it's a new adventure with more space and bigger kitchen. :-) Among many other perks.

Stuffed shells

Tonight I made something new, broccolli and cheese stuffed shells. They were good, but the man noticed they lacked meat. But still tasty.

Baked Ziti, Jambalaya....good food.

Last weeks meals were:

Frozen Skillet (pre packaged meal)
Pan Burrito's
Crock Pot Jambalaya
Leftovers
Baked Ziti
more leftovers, lol

So since this is more reviewing last weeks meals I'll just talk about the one's I made.

Pan Burrito's - I've made a few times before the recipe is on the blog elsewhere, I'm feeling lazy and don't want to find the link. This time I added diced onion and jalapenos while browning the beef, and adding some pepper to give the meat a little flavor. I always use spicy refried beans and this time used medium enchilada sauce.

Crock Pot Jambalaya - this turned out good. I added a little garlic also to the mixture of ingredients. I made some rice and stirred that in for the last 30 minutes or so. I also added a little bit of cornstarch (mixed with water) to help thicken up the liquid which I should have done earlier but I wasn't home. But it turned out really tasty, it was spicy. But we like things spicy.

Baked Ziti - my first attempt at something like this, not that it was complicated but it was different. Mostly using ricotta cheese was new, as the only lasagna I've made is a Mexican variety. It was easy once all the ingredients were prepped and the prep wasn't bad either, boiling noodles, browning meat, etc. Nothing too difficult. It was tasty, but makes a TON, 8 large servings. So either cut the recipe or make it when you have company. :-)