French Dip Sandwiches

I found this recipe and tweaked it a bit.

1.5 - 2 lb. beef chuck roast (or other type of roast) trimmed

2.5 - 3 cups of water

3/4 cup soy sauce (low sodium is fine)

2-3 tbs. Worcestershire sauce

3 tsp. Italian seasoning blend

1 tsp. garlic powder

1 bay leaf

fresh ground black pepper - I just did about 10 grinds worth

1. Place roast in crock pot. Add all other ingredients.

2. Cover. Cook on high for about 5 hours. (I actually cooked it on high for 4 and then turned it to low for the last hour).

3. Remove meat from broth and shred. Keep warm.

4. Strain broth and skim off fat. Pour broth into small cups for dipping.

5. Serve beef on hoagie or french rolls.

As seen on Ali E's blog and Cathy Z's blog this week. A cool concept to document Today.

TODAY
June 23rd, 2009

Outside my window... Mostly cloudy and hot. Already in the 90's. 

I am thinking...about what I need to get done today vs. what I want to do.

I am thankful for... Right now I am thankful that the girls are playing nicely and quietly together.

From the kitchen... Just ate a bowl of Grape Nuts. Tonight will either be salmon patties or tacos.

I am wearing...khaki capri pants and a t-shirt. no shoes.

I am creating... haven't created much lately. I do feel the siren call of my scrapbook supplies. Maybe I'll create a page today! 

I am going... to start the laundry, fold the laundry and entertain kids. At some point I should get on the treadmill.....

I am reading... Firefly Lane. Only on chapter 3 though. Need to sit down and put some time into this one. It looks very good. 

I am hoping...that Irelyn loses her fear of the water very soon. She wasn't as apprehensive about swim lessons today, but still not ready to jump in or put her head under the water. Baby steps.

I am hearing...Lizzie breathing softly.

Around the house...clutter, pet hair, kid's toys on the floor. 

One of my favorite things...staying cool inside when it is almost 100 degrees outside.

A few plans for the rest of the week... more housework, swim lessons for Irelyn every day, some play dates for the kids, a sleep-over on Friday, and finding a place for our beach vacation later this summer.

Even though I failed to complete the LOAD challenge in May, I still got a lot done and I wanted to share some of the layouts I did. Congrats to all who finished the challenge!

Prompt was to create a page with an imperfect element - on purpose.

Prompt: create a page about the future.

Prompt: make a page with flowers on it.

Prompt: Do whatever you want today.

Prompt: use a sketch

I was able to complete 19 pages in May. Of course, I haven't done a thing since. Soon...............

I'm still going strong with my picture of the day project. I'm very behind on my journaling and about a month behind on printing out photos, but at least I'm still taking that picture a day!

June 1: Award program for Kindergarten. Georgia received an award for excellent behavior and then a special award for being the best speller in the class!

June 2: Spent the morning at the Pediatrician's office. Irelyn had been running a fever and complaining that her ear hurt. Sure enough, she had an ear infection!

June 4: Georgia's last day of Kindergarten!!

June5: Irelyn decided she didn't want to sleep with "pink blanket" or her "baby" pillow any more (well at least for this night). She piled them up in a chair and they were still like this in the morning. It was a short-lived decision and pink blanket was back in her bed the next night.

June 6: Georgia's friend Elizabeth had her 7th birthday party at a bowling alley. Fun!

June 7: Lunch at the Acropolis. Yum, yum! The girls tried the tiro salata dip and loved it as much as R and I do.

June 8: Day 1 of VBS! Both girls had a lot of fun "sailing with the savior" this week. 9-12 everyday was a nice break for me, too.

June 9: Just me with my hair wrapped up after a shower.

June 10: The damage to the bottom of our garage door. Lizzie escaped her crate one day while we were gone. I came home to find the door shredded and the curtain by the front door torn up. R had to zip tie the crate together so she couldn't bang out of it again.

June 11: We were supposed to leave today for our trip to Georgia, but I woke up with Vertigo and was unable to make the trip. I spent most of the day lying in bed.

June 12: Feeling a bit better. We had to go out to eat dinner since we hadn't planned on being home for the weekend and there was no food in the house. Girls making a wish by throwing coins into the water by the California Pizza Kitchen.

June 13: Spent the afternoon at Sarasota Jungle Gardens. Here are Georgia, Irelyn and R feeding the flamingos.

June 14: Addictive game. Great to play when you are bored.

June 15: R sporting his new flip-flops!

June 16: Pumping gas. Not fun, but has to be done.

June 17: Stocked up on soap at the Bath & Body Works sale.

June 18: Irelyn taking a bubble bath by herself. She rarely gets to bathe alone, much less take a bubble bath. Georgia and R were at MOSI for a Father's Day event this evening so I decided to give Irelyn a treat.

June 19: The girls hugging their cousin Holt visiting from Georgia.

June 20: Georgia taking lessons at the local skating rink on Saturday morning.

I made half the recipe and it yielded 30 cookies (using a tablespoon sized scoop).

Here is the full recipe:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

2 cups packed brown sugar

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp. salt

3 cups quick-cooking oats (I used organic old-fashioned oats)

1 8oz. pkg. Heath Bits toffee bits

optional - 1 cup sweetened coconut flakes (I did not use this because R hates coconut)

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease cookie sheet

2. Beat butter, eggs, brown sugar and vanilla in large bowl until well blended. Add flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; beat until blended. Stir in oats, toffee bits and coconut with spoon.

3. Drop cookie dough by rounded teaspoons about 2 inches apart onto prepared cookie sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Cool 1 minute; remove to wire rack. Cool completely.

Makes about 4 dozen.

These turned out very well. Crispy on the edges, chewy in the center. Nice combination of flavors. Yummy!

Since our trip to Georgia was canceled due to an episode of Vertigo, and I was finally feeling better on Saturday to get out of the house, we decided to get a taste of "old Florida" and head down to the Sarasota Jungle Gardens. What a fun, educational place! They have reptile shows, birds of prey & critters show, and a parrot show. We enjoyed all three shows, but the parrot show was really fun because of the roller skating parrot and the unicycle riding cockatoo! The highlight of the day for R and the girls was feeding the flamingos - they will eat right out of your hands!

They have a "jungle trail" that winds around the park where you see all sorts of birds, monkeys, lemurs, etc... Definitely worth the trip and we spent about 4 hours there.

I haven't blogged in almost a month. Crazy life got in the way. I had the sinus infection from hell for the entire month of April. Then my hormone therapy decided to stop working and I was getting daily headaches some (5) of which turned into migraines, hot flashes and mood swings. So I had to go back into the doctor and get a new prescription (which, so far, has been working really well).

Some good news amongst the bad - I was hired as a Child Development Specialist at a local Preschool. I'm really looking forward to this new chapter of my life - back to daily, paid work after an almost 7 year hiatus. Wow. The hours are perfect and I'll have the same days off as my girls, so it should all work out really well. The main part of my job will be administering developmental assessments on all of the children at the school. I will also be providing parent workshops on a wide range of child development topics. Fun stuff!

Another fun thing has been the office re-decorating project. It is probably my favorite room in the house now. I love the color scheme and how we have rearranged the furniture to where I have a true scrapbook work area. Just needs some finishing touches and it will be complete!

Now it's May. I've been participating in the May LOAD challenge and have been able to keep up so far. I've had a few days where I just didn't think I could do it, but I made it through. I love seeing that stack of completed layouts at the end of the challenge month. And I have been keeping up with Project 365 photos but not the journaling. At least I can reference my blog for most of it. So, here are the POD's from May:

May 1st: Day of cleaning. 'nuff said.

May 2: I finally went scrapbook supply shopping! First time this year. I received a gift card last year on my birthday and I finally used it. Here are all my new goodies to play with.

May 3: R had a shooting competition today. Here is a photo of one of the courses he had to complete.

May 4: An in progress photo of my new scrapping space.

May 5: My Little Pony shopping day - set up by Georgia.

May 6: I found some great papers that matched the color scheme of the office perfectly. Framed them in white frames (they are now hanging on the wall).

May 7: The new Tampa Ikea store opened yesterday. Went today to buy the Expedit shelves for my new scrap space. Fun!!

May 8: Mother's Day breakfast with Irelyn at preschool. So sweet seeing all of the handmade cards and gifts for the mom's.

May 9: One of the transformer boxes in our neighborhood exploded this evening leaving us without power for about 2.5 hours. R and I decided to play a game of Scrabble while we waited for the power to turn back on. Probably one of the best games we've had. Score- R 253, K 252.

May 10: Happy Mother's Day! We went to a blueberry festival in Plant City with my parents and picked blueberries. Yum.

May 11: Art show at Georgia's school. All of the kids have a piece of art on display. She was so proud to show us her artwork.

May 12: Making a list of our summer activities.

May 13: Stack of books I'm reading right now. I love the library!

May 14: Irelyn has had a weird stomach ache/fever off and on this week. She stayed home from school yesterday and had to go grocery shopping with me. Found this sticker on the bananas - "place sticker on forehead" "smile". Of course, she wanted it on her head after I read it to her.

That's it! Whew!

April 14th: It's Tuesday night and that means American Idol! My favorites this season include Adam, Kris, and Danny.

April 15th: Easter party/egg hunt at Irelyn's preschool. So cute! They had hotdogs for lunch at their party and Irelyn couldn't have been more thrilled. A "hot dog party like the Pigeon!" she exclaimed. We've been reading the Pigeon series by Mo Willems and in one of the books, the Pigeon dreams of a hotdog party. So fun.

April 16th: Laying on the couch with Bueller the cat.

April 17th: Irelyn enjoying some Oreos and milk while Georgia was at her friend's house for a sleep-over. Yum.

Make Empanadas!

I had about 2 cups of shredded chicken from our dinner last night. R said to make some chicken salad - but it was a little too much chicken to do that since I'm the only one who eats chicken salad. Then I remembered a recipe from Paula Deen that we used back in November for Empanadas. Perfect! I don't know where Paula gets her measurements because this recipe makes way more than 12-15 empanadas.

Here is the recipe as I used it:

2 cups of cooked chicken, chopped

1 tbs. green chilis (can)

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. black pepper

2-1/2 tsp. cumin

4-5 oz. of colby jack cheese, shredded

4 oz. light cream cheese, softened

Package of refrigerated pie crusts (2 in a pack)

Start to finish the whole process takes about an hour to prepare and then about 15 minutes to bake. First, combine all ingredients except pie crust. Mix well. Roll out pie crust on a lightly floured surface to about 15 inches. Using a 3 inch round cookie/biscuit cutter, cut out as many circles as you can from the dough, repeat until all the dough has been used. My batch made about 40-42 empanadas (enough for 2 meals).

Wet edges of dough with water, fill with a teaspoon of filling (you may need to adjust the amount a little. Don't put too much or it will ooze out the sides) fold over and crimp the edges with a fork. Repeat about 40 times! Bake at 400 for 15 minutes. I flip the empanadas after about 10 minutes so they don't get too dark on the bottom.

If you don't want to bake all 40 empanadas at once, you can freeze them and then bake them when you are ready to eat. I freeze them flat on a plate or cookie sheet and then transfer to a zipper bag.

Delicious!

For dinner tonight, I am trying a recipe I found at the Crockpot blog for 20-40 clove chicken in the crockpot. I had 3 heads of garlic and used them all, but only came out with about 35 cloves. Good enough! This recipe couldn't be easier:

3-4 lbs chicken pieces or whole chicken (I am using a whole chicken since they are so cheap!)

1 large onion - sliced

1 tbs. olive oil

2 tsp. each salt and paprika

1 tsp. pepper

20-40 cloves of garlic, peeled but left whole

This is what I did. I sliced the onion and put it in the bottom of the crockpot. In a bowl, I put in all of the peeled garlic cloves. Rinse chicken with water and pat dry. Place chicken in the bowl with the garlic. Add the oil, salt, paprika and pepper. Rub all over chicken and garlic. Pour into the crockpot on top of the onions. Put the lid on and cook on low for about 7 hours. Do not add any liquid.

That's it! We're going to be eating it in about 15 minutes. Hope it's good - the house smells wonderful.

Here is the chicken and the onions and garlic in the crockpot