Where did this energy come from?

Today?

• We decided we are moving in a month and filled out an application for a new apartment.
• We went to the pumpkin patch.
• I made a buffalo chicken casserole, which was amazing. No lie.
• Fed the kids, played with the kids, bathed them, brushed their teeth, read stories, and put to bed with nary a tear.
• Made a cold oatmeal parfait for breakfast in the morning.
• Made rootbeer pulled pork in the crock pot.
• Made breakfast cookies.
• Did laundry.

The only explanation I have is that I won’t do any more chores or feats of amazing-ness for the rest of the week. Oh, yeah. I have to work tomorrow and teach. Maybe I should go to bed…

Breakfast cookies:

• 2 cups quick oats
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 cup peanutbutter
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 banana, mashed
• 1/4 cup apple sauce
• large handful of dried apricots, diced
• large handful of mini semi sweet chocolate chips

Mix and bake at 325 until slightly brown.

Cold Oatmeal Parfait:

• 1/4 cup oats
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1/4 cup greek yogurt
• 1.5 tsp chia seeds
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp honey
• 1/4 cup peach pie filling I made this summer with my dear friend Katie

Shake until combined in a mason jar. Leave in the fridge until morning.

Rootbeer Pulled Pork

• Pork Butt, a large one
• 2 onions, halved
• 4 or 5 chipotles in adobo
• 20 ounces of rootbeer
• 1 cup-ish chicken stock

Low and slow in the crock pot all night.

Peach Pie Muffins

The two year old woke up fussy. Two breakfasts later, he isn’t fussy anymore, but he did hit his sister. He just got out of time out, apologized and kissed her without being prompted, and now we’re all watching the best show ever. Sesame Street. Hopefully, they both will be in good moods for their visit with grandma today. I will try to sweeten them up with these peach muffins.

Ingredients

• 1 jar of peach pie filling (homemade and is heavily spiced with raisins)–about a cup and a half or two cups, drained.
• zest of 1 lemon
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 4 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1 large egg
• 2 cups flour
• 3/4 cup sour cream
• 3/4 cup milk
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt

Mix the wet. Mix the dry. Mix together. Put into greased muffin tins or lined muffin tins.

Bake at 350 for 35 minutes. Makes 1 dozen large muffins.

P.S. I need a shower. Also: I don’t like the Flying Fairy School on Sesame Street. Although it did teach the five year old that oyster crackers are hexagons. I think I need more coffee.

Happy Spring! Sausage Gravy and Snow Days…

I woke up Wednesday morning to a text from a work friend who told me it was snowing. Uh…thanks? Why the text at 5am? 30 minutes before my alarm is set to go off? Then another text: 2 hour delay. Oh. I quickly sat up in bed and threw open the blinds. More snow in Eugene than I’ve seen since moving here. I set my alarm for seven and was woken up around six by another text that said school was canceled. So, here today, Thursday, school is canceled again. With spring break technically starting next week, it looks like I get a week and a half off instead of the standard week. And before falling asleep last night, I told the boyfriend that if I didn’t have school today, I’d get up this morning and make sausage gravy and biscuits for breakfast. It looks like I gotta make good on my promise.

Ingredients:

• Milk
• sausage
• butter
• flour
• onion
• garlic
• chicken stock
• whomp biscuits

Start by browning your sausage in a large skillet. I bought some bulk country sausage yesterday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the sausage fries for awhile, add a quarter of an onion, finely diced, and a few cloves of garlic, minced.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After it all fries together for a bit, add a couple tablespoons of flour to the pan. Alternate milk and chicken stock (stirring continuously) into the roux until gravy starts to form.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fry some eggs. Plate it all up. (Oh, yeah. Make some biscuits.)

Sunday Morning Breakfast: French Toast

Ingredients:

• 3 slices of bread
• 3 eggs
• salt, cinnamon
• butter
• syrup

Method:

Whisk eggs with salt and cinnamon.  Heat pan with a giant pat of sweet cream butter melting in the middle.  Dip slices of bread into the eggs.  Fry bread until toasty. Top with butter and syrup.  Shake your booty to this song: Doorbell, the White Stripes.    

Sunday Menu

I am really struggling with motivation to cook this weekend.  We really didn’t do much grocery shopping yesterday, either.  I was too intent on getting my middle aged man cat, Hector, from Green Hill Humane Society.

What I did manage to buy from the grocery store:

tempeh, mushrooms, fake sausage, sweet potatoes, bread, and butter

What I already have in the fridge:

bell peppers, carrots, jalapeños, onions, and garlic

So, without motivation, inspiration, or compatible ingredients, I’m getting a little worried that I won’t be able to cook meals for the week.  We may just have to wing it, which means eating out. Every. Single. Night.  Which we can’t afford.  Hmm…

Well, here is one recipe I will definitely make this week, as I have mashed sweet potatoes in the fridge left over from sweet potato yeast bread that the husband made last week:

Sweet Potato Pancakes

Tempeh: something I keep buying that I don’t exactly love, but hope to love one day.

With the tempeh, I may make:

Tempeh Bourgogne

or

Tempeh Fajitas?

Or I may just eat pizza, burritos, and Chinese food all week.

And cuddle with my new cat:

Surprise Breakfast

I got to sleep in this morning.  I look forward to the end of the week because Friday is the special, special day of sleeping in, moseying to work, and teaching a class that starts at 12:30.

The only time I’m not fond of Friday mornings is when I end Thursday night with an argument with the spouse.  Which happened.  We made up before we fell asleep, but I hate fighting, and I hate the unsettling feeling that comes after letting yourself lose your temper.

Sleeping in this morning did help.  The husband got up at five and asked me at six if I was ready to get up.  I said, “grrmmmggmghh.”  He woke me up at six thirty and asked me if I was ready to get up.  I ignored him.

At seven, he told me to get up.

I obliged.  After I crawled out from underneath my comforter, he called from the kitchen:

“Hurry up! Breakfast is almost ready.”

The husband makes breakfast for us every other day, so this morning’s declaration wasn’t a surprise.  Also, I really don’t like eating breakfast upon first waking up.  I like to drink my coffee, take a shower, and then eat breakfast.

But I obliged.

He said: “Don’t go into the kitchen and look.  I want it to be a surprise.”

Hmm, I thought.  Oatmeal and fried eggs are the only two breakfast foods in his repertoire, so neither of those would have surprised me. He must be up to something.

Trying to push back my irritation of being made to eat breakfast so soon after waking, I waited for him to finish.

In a couple short minutes, he put two plates in front of us.

Two plates that looked like they held two piles of gravy.  “What is this?”

“Biscuits and gravy!” he chirped.

His chirping was cute, and my irritation disappeared.

“Biscuits and gravy, huh?  Where are the biscuits?”

“Underneath the gravy, silly.”

I looked underneath the gravy, saw something, and tasted it. Tasted like a biscuit.

Didn’t look like a biscuit.

He saw me examining the food, “Something went wrong with the recipe.”

“Hmm.  You know there is Bisquick in the cupboard, don’t you?”

“Oh.”

“Well, tell me about your recipe.”

“It turned out soupy,” he explained.

“Your biscuit dough was soupy? That’s not supposed to happen.”

My dear husband couldn’t, for the life of him, think of what had gone wrong.  He said the recipe called for 1 1/3 cups of milk.  That’s a lot!

Aha!  He halved the entire recipe, but waking me up threw him off his game, and he added the full measure of milk.

Poor guy had to bake his biscuit “batter” in a sheet pan.

I love him.

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