Miscellaneous 2-28-12

This weekend I made Gigi and Bobo t-shirts.  It was super easy and fun.  I found this tutorial and found the images for their shirts online.  I did sort of have to free hand that dinosaur (using several examples) to get the exact look I wanted. 

We had enchilada casserole and pinto beans for dinner.  They are both so good.  Recipes here and here.  Even better, I had made the casserole in November, froze it and thawed it and it was still good.

I guess these cutie pies were in the mood to snuggle this morning . . . 

Of our whole king-size bed they are snuggled in the space of about half a person.

Hope you're having a good week!

Birthday Month

February is also known as "birthday month" at our house because my birthday and A-Dub's are both in Feb., 8 days apart.  So it is busy, busy and can also be a bit expensive, which is ill-timed since credit card bills reflecting Christmas purchases are rolling in.  That being said, when an opportunity came up to make cookies for a corporate Valentine party I jumped at the chance to have fun and make a little cash.  

One day I will do an exhaustive sugar cookie post.  Exhaustive is the right word because it is exhausting.

I forgot to take pictures of my purple cookies until I'd filled the box with half of my red ones.  You kind of get the gist.

I made 200 cookies!  Plus a few extra for the munchkins . . . no way could I make all those cookies and not share a few with them.  And for those who know what happens when I make cookies . . . you would be impressed to know I did not stay up past midnight one single night doing these.  I actually planned ahead!  

Here I am getting a little help from Miss Gigi--we sorted sprinkles by color (in our pj's) the Saturday before and she did such a good job and only ate the broken ones that weren't pretty enough to put on cookies.

A-Dub and Bobo played outside so he would stop disturbing our piles.

So then it was my birthday and look at the awesome and hilarious cake A-Dub got for me.  If you don't get it, go to this website.  cakewrecks.com.  And spend the next 5 hours laughing your ass off.  And remember they only feature professional cakes.  Nothing homemade.

A-Dub said it was really hard to convince the ladies at Tom Thumb to do the cake how he wanted but that they did do it right.

For dinner that night we took the kids to the Magic Time Machine and Snow White was our waitress.  She was very sweet to Gigi.

We let her pick out her own outfit.

This is a school bus.  You can reserve it to eat in . . . maybe next time?!?  We definitely will have to go back--Gigi has been talking about it a lot.

One of Bobo's new words that he says really well is "ballOOn!"  It's super cute.  He has been talking a lot but most words/phrases he only says the first few syllables of.  "I love you" is "aaaa llaaaaahhhh," "milk" is "mih," etc.  But he says balloon very clearly.

So you might think that due to my birthday's proximity to Valentine's Day I might be resentful towards it but quite the opposite, I have always loved Valentine's Day!  My favorite color is red and I like hearts so I always enjoyed getting heart-themed wrapping paper on my birthday presents. 

So I may have gone a tiny bit overboard . . . . . 

Double-fisting blow pops, courtesy of his sweet sister for opening them for him.

That is silly putty, which she later ground into her pants, necessitating them being thrown away.

I could not seem to make good heart shaped pancakes though and I was really frustrated so I made one enormous pancake and cut hearts out of it with a cookie cutter.  Not that it mattered because neither of them ate one single bite of their breakfast.  A-Dub and I agreed, next year we'll do candy after they get home from school.  And then they won't eat any dinner ;)

A-Dub and I both went up to school for the class parties but there was SO MUCH CHAOS in Gigi's room we didn't take any pictures.

First Kool-aid mustache!

Happy V-Day!!!

Yes I did make a heart-shaped pizza.  Two in fact.  I found this recipe recently, and it was really easy and good!  I made one pizza in each oven and my pizza stone will only fit in my bigger oven so we really got a taste-test comparison.  Pizza stone of course won hands down.  I am so curious about what goes on during turkey pepperoni production that makes it curl up. 

To celebrate our birthdays A-Dub and I had an "A-Dub and Taylor day" on the Saturday between our birthdays.  First we went shopping at Northpark, along with the rest of the entire city of Dallas.  We saw two people we knew just at the food court.  A-Dub is actually pretty fun to shop with.  We both like to get good deals, so we have a debriefing where we show each other what we bought and what good of a deal we got.  Then we went to the Bliss Spa at the W Hotel and had a massage and facial.  If you want a good massage, Karin at the Bliss Spa.  She was tiny and I was a little worried she wouldn't get the massive knots out of my back and shoulders.  I loathe getting a massage that is the equivalent of a back rub.  But I told her I really needed her to work me over and oh my goodness I could barely breathe I was in so much pain!  But it was a good hurt, and just what I needed.  Also they have heated massage tables which I love.  

Then we had dinner at Fearing's at the Ritz Carlton and spent the night there.  Fearing's is amazing of course and we left so miserably full we fell asleep before 11pm.  Lame.  We were all pooped out though (to borrow a phrase from Gigi).  Best part of the weekend--laying in bed that morning and watching TV while drinking coffee.  Then we had brunch at Fearing's which was equally amazing and we were equally stuffed.  We even had a (semi) celebrity sighting--Jaap van Zweden, the conductor of the Dallas Symphony was eating at a table right by us.  He looks exactly like his picture on their website.  We had so much fun on our weekend away but we missed our babies so much!

So then it was A-Dub's birthday and I wanted to make sure that after all the celebrating we'd been doing it wasn't just like whatever.  Plus it was a Monday--boo.  :(  I forgot to take pictures of his birthday breakfast but it was good.  Breakfast tacos with onion, green bell pepper and sausage.  Yummy.

He picked up the angels from school so I rushed home from work and whipped up this.

Red velvet.  His favorite.  I will post the recipe one day soon but I'm giving up sweets for Lent so it won't be for another 6 weeks at least ;)

Wish I'd taken a video of this boy having a meltdown because he did not have any cake in front of him yet. 

Gigi looks exactly like my sister in some pictures and this is one of them.

We let the kids eat first so we could have perfectly grilled steaks.  I am extremely particular about how my steak is cooked (medium rare--no one ever does it right (except in a restaurant and my mom :))).  These were perfect.  Yea, me!  A-Dub's favorites--rosemary roasted potatoes and sauteed spinach.  

We ate in front of a fire even though it was 60 degrees outside.

Before we had kids I don't think we ever ate a single meal at home sitting at the table.

A very happy birthday to my partner in crime, the love of my life, best dad ever, the extremely camera-shy ADub!

It has been such a fun February that I am completely exhausted!

Chicken Pot Pie

 

Chicken Pot Pie 

5 or 6 chicken breast halves, cooked and cubed

2 cans chicken broth

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 tbsp butter (or cooking spray)

1 yellow onion, chopped

1/4 cup fat free half-and-half *

1 (12 oz or thereabouts) package frozen peas and carrots, thawed

1/2 cup minced fresh parsley leaves (optional)

about ½ cup cornstarch

2 boxes refrigerated pie crust (4 crusts total)

6 aluminum foil disposable pot pie pans

Salt and pepper to taste

The chicken pot pie is really all about the crust, right?  So I like to make individual pot pies so we all get the most crust possible.  I use these little ones from the grocery store . . . maybe someone will get me some real ones for my birthday (hint, hint).

Preheat your oven to 375.

I suppose you could make your own pie crust if you are a super over-achiever but these work just fine for me!

Unfortunately, these pie crusts are not quite big enough, and I guess they would be too thick if used as-is, so you will need to roll them out a bit.

From your first pie crust, you need to be able to cut out three pot pie tops. 



To do this I get out my little pans and press the top so it leaves light marks and I make sure I can cut out three full tops.

Use a paring knife to make a circle around the top.  Set aside and separate your tops with pieces of wax paper.

Repeat with your second pie crust.

Save your scraps!  You'll need them for your bottoms.

Roll your second two pie crusts out to about the same thickness, but this time you will be cutting out the bottoms, so you'll need to leave about 1/2 an inch of overlap.  You will only be able to get two bottom crusts out of one circle of dough, so you'll have to cobble together two bottoms with all your scraps. 



Gently place one of your bottom circles over your pie plate.

Work your pie crust down into the bottom of the pie plate.  Don't smash it in there, just make sure the crust touches the bottom.

For the two bottom crusts that you'll have to cobble together with your scraps, you will have some sections that will wrap around the top easily.  You don't need to reroll the crust, just lay your various pieces next to each other in a way that minimizes overlap.  Cut away any excess with your knife and gently pinch the seams together.  No one is going to see this bottom part anyway so it doesn't have to look great.

See, not bad!  They'll never know the difference.

In a medium to large saucepan over medium heat, melt tablespoon of butter.  You could also use a tablespoon of olive oil or cooking spray.

Add onions and saute until translucent.  Then add cream of chicken soup and chicken broth and stir until combined.

Remember the flower pin?  It's still in one piece, even after an accidental trip through the washing machine and dryer!

Put about half a cup of cornstarch in a small bowl and add half a cup to a cup of your broth mixture.  Whisk until there are no more lumps.  Pour back into your pot and stir to combine.  Then add your salt, pepper and fat free half and half (of course you could use real, but FF works just as well!)



Add your chicken, carrots, peas and parsley (optional).  Normally I use the bag of frozen peas and carrots.  This time I had frozen carrots left over from my dill roasted carrots.  I thawed them in a Ziploc steam bag and chopped them.  They turned out fine but next time I will go back to the frozen bag due to its ease.

Place all of your pot pie bottoms on a cookie sheet.



Fill them almost all the way to the top.  Just make sure everyone gets the same amount :)

Place your top on top, and pinch to seal.

Cut slits to vent IMMEDIATELY after you put the top on.  If you attempt to put all the tops on first and then go back and cut slits, your dough will have gotten all melty from the heat of your filling and your slits will be all gooey (trust me . . . . )

As such.



Bake at 375 for about 30 minutes or until tops are a nice golden brown.  The inside is already cooked, so you don't have to worry about it getting done.

The inside will be hot! 

Yummy!