Our Family Project

We eat a lot of pasta in our house. I mean, A LOT! Ever since we used to share dinners with a friend's family, who almost always served pasta, we have enjoyed the best pasta dishes ever! And, this one is just as good as any of the others. The chicken I grilled before I sliced it ... but, I think next time I'll slice it and then marinate and grill it. It was still pretty good as it was. I usually don't add chicken to my alfredo pasta .... but, it just seemed right. And, this is linguini ... one of my favs. I also LOVE penne, farfalle (the little bowties), and rotini. Choose your favorite ... my alfredo sauce is a little think, so you don't have to worry about choosing a pasta that will hold the sauce well. Marinara is different; penne is really good for that one because of the ridges. So, start out by marinating your chicken (I used Lawry's Carribean Jerk marinade ... it was really, really good). Stick it in a bag in the fridge for 30 minutes before you serve the dis...

Despite the fact that we are heading out on a camping trip tonight, I am taking the time to post this before I forget everything. Today, my neighbor's children came over while she went to get her hair done. Her youngest, C, will be turning one next month, and she was pretty fussy after she was left here with me and my children. Una was really good about holding her and walking around with her to help her adjust for the first little while. Then, Tres woke up from his nap and decided he needed to play with C. He was so cute with her. It reminded me of my older brother when there was a little girl at our house. He was the only one who could console her and make her smile. Just like my brother, Tres was so tender with C. He kept trying to tickle her and make her laugh. And, I was quite surprised to hear him telling her all about his baby sister. At first I was a little worried about Tres and Cinco, but now I am totally at ease. He was so good with C, always moving his arm to hold her w...

This girl is so much like me! Adam helped me make a dark choclate pie for his refreshments for this last Monday's family night. I guess I didn't realize how rich this pie was going to be. While Jon tried to choke down half of his slice of pie, Andrew and Adam ate the cream off the top and nibbled at the rest of the pie, and Eliza wouldn't go near this pie (she ate some cinnamon sugar donut holes instead). But Kate! MY KATE! She and I ate our pie slices and wanted more! The next day we each ate another slice after lunch. It was so yummy! And, I'm so grateful it's one thing that I can share with only Kate. She's so sweet, I hope she never grows out of it.

This morning we went to the clinic for our ultrasound. This baby moved more during the ultrasound than any of our other babies. I couldn't believe how much the baby was moving. We took the whole family, and Una was the only who was watching the screen and asking questions. She was the only of the children who could see the baby and understand where the baby's body parts are. She kept asking to see the baby's nose; I have no idea why she was obsessed with the nose. At any rate, it was good to see the baby and know that everything is going well. Nothing to be worried about. The baby was eating amniotic fluid the whole time, so the baby's stomach was full. We also saw the four-chamber heart, and everything looks good there too. I asked about coarctation of the aorta (because my brother had that), and the doctor said that we'd have to wait until after the baby is born and then they'd be able to do a heart echo to be sure. Which, won't happen until December, I gu...

Okay, so I decided that I wanted to make my blog private, so I've moved my blog over here to Blogger. I'm still figuring things out. Currently, I don't have a way to import any of my blog entries from my old blog over to my new blog. So, I'll just start going forward. I will probably try to post all the recipes from the old blog over here eventually, but everything else I'll leave there. It will take me a while to get all the recipes on here, so just give me time; and, I probably won't post each recipe exactly as it was posted before ... it will be posted without all my commentary (and possibly only one picture will be with each recipe). Other than that, welcome to my new blog home!

CHEESY CHICKEN & STUFFING CASSEROLE 4-5 chicken breasts, cooked and cut into 1-inch cubes 1 pkg. stuffing mix, chicken flavored 1 2/3 cups hot water 2 cans cream of chicken soup 1/3 cup sour cream 1/3 cup plain yogurt (if you don't have this, just use sour cream; but, trust me, the yogurt makes it so creamy!) 3 Tbsp. milk 5 slices provolone cheese Place chicken in bottom of 9x13 baking dish. Pour stuffing mix into medium-sized bowl and add water. Mix together until water is absorbed. Set aside. In separate medium-sized bowl combine soup, sour cream, yogurt, and milk. Place cheese slices atop chicken; pour soup mixture over chicken; and top with stuffing (fluffing with a fork before dropping it). Bake at 350° for 30-45 minutes, or until bubbly and stuffing is crispy. If stuffing gets too browned before the rest is bubbly, cover with foil for the remainder of baking time.

This week's Table Time Tuesday is dedicated to the treats that I make as an annual tradition for the Fourth of July. Each year we are invited to our friend's family lake house for Independence Day ... if we bring the éclairs. The first year we were told to bring whatever we wanted. At the time I was experimenting and thought it would be fun to take homemade éclairs. From that day on, I was told we could only come if we brought them. So, for the last four years my preparations for the Fourth have begun on the Third. Don't get intimidated .... These are super easy! Just really time consuming, if you make as many as I do. I make a quadruple batch every year, which gives me around 120 éclairs. But, I grew up eating these. My mom used to make these all the time ... only, they were cream puffs. That's the super-duper easy way to make them. I'll explain the difference as we continue through the recipe. And, now, here's the recipe: HOMEMADE ECLAIRS 1 cup water ½ cup but...

APPLESAUCE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES 1 cup shortening 1 cup sugar 2 eggs 2 cups applesauce 2 tsp. vanilla 2 tsp. baking powder 2 tsp. cinnamon ½ tsp. cloves ½ tsp. nutmeg 1 tsp. salt 1 tsp. baking soda 4 cups flour 1 pkg. chocolate chips Mix together shortening and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs and applesauce. Add the rest of the ingredients except flour and chocolate chips. Make sure the batter is mixed well. Add the flour a little at a time. The mixture will get harder to mix as you add flour. Fold in the chocolate chips. Bake on a greased cookie sheet at 350° for 10-12 minutes. BTW, my cookie jar looked like that on Sunday ... and now it's empty. That's how good these are!