Down South....

Hey there, I'm down in Memphis from now until Thursday morning visiting the parents!! It was a long drive, but now that I know that there is snow up in Indy, I'm kinda glad I'm down here! So, don't know how much blogging I will get to do, but I will be back!

Chicken and Brocolli Alfredo- Taste Test Tuesday

For tonight's meal, we had Chicken and Brocolli Alfredo. I got this recipe off of the Campbell's soup website. They have a lot of great dinner ideas along with a lot of other recipes! This recipe was really easy to prepare...anyone can do it!

Here are the cast of characters:

Ingredients: Chicken breasts (I used 2 chicken breasts), Frozen broccoli, cream of mushroom soup (I only had cream of chicken), parmesan cheese, fetticine, milk and pepper.

You can make this more healthy if you use whole wheat pasta and reduced fat cream of chicken soup!

Here's the recipe:

Chicken & Broccoli Alfredo
From: Campbell's Kitchen
Prep: 10 minutes

Cook: 20 minutes

Serves: 4

Linguini is mixed with pieces of tender chicken and broccoli flowerets and coated with a rich, satiny Alfredo sauce featuring Campbell's® Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup to make a quick and fabulous dish.

Ingredients:
1/2 of a 1-pound package linguine

1 cup fresh or frozen broccoli flowerets

2 tbsp. butter

1 lb. skinless, boneless chicken breast, cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces

1 can (10 3/4 ounces) Campbell's® Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup (Regular, 98% Fat Free, 25% Less Sodium or Healthy Request®)

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/4 tsp. ground black pepper

Directions:
Prepare the linguine according to the package directions in a 3-quart saucepan. Add the broccoli during the last 4 minutes of cooking. Drain the linguine mixture well in a colander.
Heat the butter in a 10-inch skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chicken and cook until it's well browned, stirring often.

Stir the soup, milk, cheese, black pepper and linguine mixture in the skillet. Cook until the mixture is hot and bubbling, stirring occasionally. Serve with additional Parmesan cheese.
Tip: You can substitute spaghetti or fettuccine for the linguine in this recipe.

I know you love action shots, so here you go!

Why am I wearing two separate shirts you may ask?? Well, I first spilled on the green shirt and needed to throw it in the laundry before it stained. Then the second shirt I had on got applesauce all over it because I grabbed the applesauce and the top flew off and hit me in the face and splattered applesauce all over me! Wes was nice enough to get me another shirt. He also took all of these pictures, by the way!

Mmmmm.....good, as Campbells would say. We did like this dish, but the chicken in it could have used a little more of something! Maybe some italian dressing or something! But it was good! And so very easy. I think it took less than 20 minutes from start to finish.

Did Preston like it?? Yup!

My 1st Annual Christmas Cookie Swap!!

I am so excited to embark on a new adventure for this Christmas season....a cookie swap!! I got the idea from an ad for Domino Sugar. (I know, I'm a sucker) The idea is for about 8 women to get together on a weekend night or weeknight and bring 8 dozen cookies to share with the other 7 women that will be there. When you go home...you will have 8 dozen different types of cookies to impress your friends and relatives with!! How fun is that??

Here's what my cookie swap info: The first 8 people to respond to me that they want to come will be at the cookie swap! I will email an invitation out to you once we come up with a date. I was thinking of a weeknight instead of a weekend night since those tend to get busy. This is a girls-only event...a great chance to get out of the house and have fun and fellowship with other girls. Sorry...no kids allowed unless you're breastfeeding. :)

We can exchange our cookies and then I was thinking it would be fun to watch a holiday chic flick to get us in the mood for Christmas. And of course, you can feel free to eat some of your new cookies!!

Another exciting idea that Domino had was to bring a small donation that we can donate to the Great American Bake Sale which feeds hungry children. Because times are tight for almost everyone, I thought it would be neat to just bring all of the spare change that you can find around your house and donate it. If we as a group reach $35, Domino Sugar will send a free gift of an apron and a Sandra Lee cookbook to show their appreciation. I was thinking we could do a drawing to raffle off this free gift to one of the lucky girls!

If you want more details on the cookie swap, visit www.dominosugar.com/cookieswap and you can get all of the details.

So, if you're interested in coming to the Cookie Swap....email me at stacylcook@gmail.com. If no one responds, I will make 8 dozen cookies and eat them myself!! :)

What I wake up to in the morning.....

When you're complaining about how bad your hair looks like in the morning, here's some pictures to give you comfort. Someone's hair has it worse than yours!! When I look at these pictures, I realize how blessed we are to have a chipper morning riser who has time before he wakes up to put his finger in the electrical outlet!!

These are his two sleepytime pals....Gar and Bear. If one of them is missing, he will say literally a thousand times Where Bear or Where Gar until we find them........

Overheard: While I was writing this post, I heard Wes downstairs say to Preston "Preston you can't just drop stuff on Daddy's head!" Haha. It must be hard to not be born with any manners!!And then Preston said "Wowwy," which is sorry in little people language. How cute.

Show your Support and Vote!!

I just put up a new poll concerning what we should name Baby #2. Wes and I haven't quite decided so I thought it would be fun to get some input from you guys. A few rules though so that Wes doesn't get the idea that trusting our friends and family was a huge mistake.

Rule #1: Don't bash the names....or we will never speak to you again. ;)
Rule #2: Feel free to add another name that you like in the comment section... just make it serious!
Rule #3: The results of this poll may or may not influence the decision of what Wes and I will name the baby! No holding us to it!!

I think that's it! Thanks for your input!

Creamy Chicken and Noodles- Taste Test Tuesday

This is Stacy's mom and she asked me to do a guest spot on her Taste Test Tuesday. She has already set you up to see some amazing recipe that I have created. Unfortunately, I worked today and just got home. In case you don't know, I work at a meal preparation business where I make 40 to 60 entrees a day. The last thing I wanted to do today was make more food. Sorry. But I thought it would be fun for you to take a peek into my world. Today one of the meals that I prepared was Creamy Chicken and Noodles. We'll start out with the following ingredients:

20 cups cooked boneless pulled all-white chicken
20 cups cream of chicken soup
10 cups sour cream
2 1/2 cups milk
1 teaspoon black pepper
12 cups shredded cheddar cheese
20 cups uncooked egg noodles

Mix all the ingredients up in a large tub

Lay out ten 5x13 pans and fill each one with 4 cups of mixture. Sprinkle tops with 1/4 cup of shredded cheddar cheese.

Voila! You have made 10 entrees. Now put on the lids and you can add them to the freezer.

To make the meal for yourself, here is the recipe:

2 cups cooked chicken breast, diced

10.5 oz can cream of chicken soup

1 cup sour cream

1/4 cup milk

1/4 tsp black pepper

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

2 cups uncooked egg noodles

Mix all ingredients together and place in a 2 quart baking dish. Sprinkle 1/4 cup of shredded cheddar cheese on the top. Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Uncover and continue baking for another 10 minutes.

This recipe is one of our most popular kid friendly entrees. The great thing about my job is I get to sample the food. Yum Yum

It's Not Big Money....But it's Easy!!

Don't worry....Taste Test Tuesday is coming!! But it's going to be more exciting than usual. This week we are going to have a guest poster, my mom (who taught me everything I know) do a Taste Test Tuesday recipe. Not sure what she's going to do, but I'm sure it will be yummy!!


Anyway, until then, I wanted to tell you about something cool. There is a website that I found through Wes about a year ago called Ebates (http://www.ebates.com/). At this site, you get paid to do your normal online shopping!! Don't believe me? Well, it's true!!

With Christmas coming up and more and more people doing shopping online, more money is being spent online. At Ebates, all you have to do is visit their site FIRST, before you visit the website that you are going to buy something at. Each of their websites listed on their has an amount of cashback that they offer to you! You click on their link and wala! You are at the website you wanted to go to. But the difference is you are getting a little money back! Here's an example.

I want to order some pictures from Snapfish.com. So, first I go to Ebates and go down their list and they have Snapfish listed as a merchant you can receive cashback from....10%!! (FYI- most stores have lower cashback than this.) So, I click on their link for Snapfish and it takes me directly to the Snapfish website. Then I make my purchase through Snapfish. A week or so later, I get an email saying that cashback has been credited to my Ebates account. If I were to spend $20 on Snapfish, Ebates would credit my account for $2.

Every three months or so (I can't remember the exact amount of time), Ebates sends out checks to you for your cashback money. Now, I don't do a lot of online shopping throughout the year, but I just got a check back for $5.51 for shopping through Ebates. Not too shabby. But I do do a lot of shopping online for Christmas, so I will defnitely be shopping through Ebates first if I can. They don't have every merchant on there, but they do have a lot of the big names.

So, if you are interested, email me at stacylcook@gmail.com or post a comment and I can email you a refer-a-friend email. Just for signing up, you get $10 and so do I! Then once you make your first purchase, you are eligible for your first check back. I know there are a lot of scams out there, so I'm hoping this doesn't sound like one of those, because it's not! If you go to their website, you can see that they are a upstanding website.

Mission Accomplished- Sort Of......

Isn't it amazing how one kid can have so many naughty looking pictures?? Hmmmm.......

Hey there. Sorry it's been so long since I've put a real post up here! We have been busy this week working with Preston on sleeping in his own bed. With Wessy Jr. coming soon, we thought now was a good time to transition him out of the crib. It's been funny....to say the least.

Day One- Perfect Angel....he didn't get out of his bed or even move around for that matter. He did have a cold so that probably had something to do with it. Slept in there for nap and nighttime.

Day Two- Perfect again! I was feeling good. What a nice little boy we have. Slept in there for nap and nighttime. During the night though, he fell out of the bed...oops. He cried for awhile and was not a happy camper.

Day Three- He was feeling back to his fiesty self, so I was prepared for the worst. Good thing too. I told him if he gets out of his bed for anything...he will be punished. No if's and's or but's about it. Well, about 5 minutes into the nap, I hear the door close. Then I go into the bedroom and he has started peeling off his surfing border that is above his bed!! Not just a little bit. About a foot of the border....gone. So I go in there and he gets punished. He finally settles down and goes to sleep. I cry about the border....just kidding.

Here's the damage....

Day Four- Terrible. He gets out of his bed 3 times during naptime and doesn't seem to care. He ends up in his crib and falls asleep within 5 minutes. Is it really a bad thing if a 13 year old still sleeps in his crib??

Day Five- Funny stuff. Wes is home since it's Saturday and he's in charge. For P's naptime, he closes the door. I warned Wes that he was asking for trouble.........well, trouble came. Wes hears Preston yelling around in there and he looks in the room and P's not in there. He's not in his bed and he's not in the room. Then he sees the wood blinds in his room move and figures out that Preston is standing in the window, yelling at cars that go past! He loves yelling "Cycle, Cycle for motorcycles." Anyways, he gets in trouble, but goes to sleep pretty quick. Wes and I had a good laugh about what our neighbors must be saying about us.

Day Six- Good to go....no escapes from bed and he seems to be enjoying himself. We've survived this long, so I think he's in the big boy bed now to stay!

The good thing about all this is that he doesn't get out of the bed in the morning until we come and get him. We were worried that he would be roaming the house, but not so far. So, there is a silver lining!!

Oreo Surprise: Taste Test Tuesday

I have lost the camera, so today's tutorial is going to be much more boring than usual because it will just be words and none of our smiling faces!!

Here's a picture of our recipe that I found off the internet.....except, it's not quite our recipe. This recipe is from the Bethany Christian Church cookbook and doesn't have bananas. Just imagine the above picture without bananas and with crushed Oreos on top!

I alluded yesterday to the fact that this recipe is sinful.....boy is it!! Funny that it's in the church cookbook. But here's how I look at dessert....as long as you aren't going overboard on desserts, you deserve something that tastes heavenly once in a while! And just because Subway wants you to think that you're automatically going to get a badonk-a-donk butt by eating anything but a sub, I'm not buying it!! Now on to our yummy, fattening recipe:

Ingredients:
1 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese
3 1/2 cups milk
2 pkg. French Vanilla Pudding
1 small package Oreos
1 stick of margarine
1 8 oz. tub Cool Whip

Recipe:
Reserve 12 Oreos for topping. Crush remaining Oreos in a bag with a rolling pin. Melt the margarine and add this to the bag and combine. Press into the bottom of a 9 x 13 pan. Blend cream cheese, adding milk as needed and then dry pudding mix until smooth and thickened. Pour over Oreo crust. Spread Cool Whip on top. Crush remaining Oreos and sprinkle over Cool Whip.

Notes on recipe: I was able to cut this recipe in half and it still turned out beautifully. I just put it into an 8 x 8 pan. My mom's group is going to get this for dessert tommorow for lunch, so hopefully they will let you know how it turns out!

Enjoy!!

Taste Test Tuesday.....until tommorow!

I have to postpone Taste Test Tuesday until tomorrow because as I was getting ready to make a wonderful, sinful dessert, I noticed I lacked one of the key ingredients! Cream Cheese! So, check back tomorrow and hopefully you will find this recipe irresistible!

See....it's not just a rumor.

For all of those folks who tease me about not being pregnant enough, well here you go. Proof that there is a boy inside of me who has set up his recliner right on my bladder and periodically kicks me to death!! I can't even button up my sweaters!!

Congratulations to Alan and Cassie on their wedding this past weekend. They are currently in Cancun. Right there is a reason to hate them..........

If Only..................

Last night, I had a moment where I felt like all my hard work had paid off and Preston had won his battle over not wanting green veggies!! I felt like I could conquer the world, like I could write the next book on how to get your kids to do whatever you want (yeah right!) and become a world famous expert.

We were at Erin and Chris' house and we were eating dinner and we put some green beans on Preston's plate and he started eating them with no problem. Wes and I were stunned to say the least! So, then we all start talking and I look back at Preston and all but one of his beans were gone!! My heart was bursting with pride!! Wes and I said can you believe it?!! Then Wes starts laughing hysterically because in Prestons lemonade were about 10 floating green beans and a wad of mashed potatos. EWWWWW is all I can say!! But we all had a good laugh that Preston had hoodwinked us!

Maybe next week, I will write that expert book...............something tells me that's not gonna happen!

Ps. I was showing pictures of people in magazines to Preston and was pointing out someone's mustache and he said STACHE!! All I could think of was I hope some day Preston doesn't have a "porn stache!"

Yeah......no........that better not happen.

I love Target!!

You guys need to see these great deals that Wes and I just scored at our Super Target in Fishers.

Deal #1- Meat, Meat, Meat!!

Here are the totals of the 4 packages of chuck steak that I bought: $.25, $.58, $.65, and $.95!!! You read that right, each package was under a dollar. Target had coupons on each of them for $3 dollars off instantly which brought them down to these wonderful totals. Now I just need to find out what to do with chuck steak......hehe.

The 3 lb chuck roast at the bottom of the picture was on sale for $6.94 and I had a $2 dollar off coupon which made it under $5 bucks! I can definitely make at least two meals, probably 3 off of this piece of meat.

Deal #2: Kellogs Cereal

In the flier this week, Target had a deal where if you bought 5 boxes of Kelloggs cereal, you could get a $5 dollar gift card. At my favorite website www.moneysavingmom.com, she gave a link where you could print out 5 Kelloggs coupons for a $1 off each box. The prices of the boxes on sale ranged from $2.00-$3. So, here's what I ended up paying:

$13.36 for 5 boxes- $5 dollars off from coupons= $8.36- $5 gift card= 3.36 for 5 boxes of cereal!! That's $.67 per box! Yahoo!

Deal #3 Spagetti-rama!!

Target has a web coupon you can find at www.afullcup.com for $1 off a bag of baby cut carrots that were on sale for $.99 this week. Free!

The Sunday newspaper had a coupon for $1 off Ronzoni noodles that were $1.50 at Target so I got two boxes with two coupons for $1!

Target also has a web coupon for Prego, buy 2, get $1 off. They also are on sale for $1.67 each. I also had a manufacturer's coupon for $.40 off which you can combine with Target coupons.

So here's what I paid:

4 cans of Prego: $6.68- 2 Target $1 off coupons- $.40 man. coupon= $4.28 for 4! About a dollar for each is what I ended up paying.

So, there you have it!! It does take some time and planning, but to me, there is no better feeling than saving my family money that Wes works so hard to make! If you're feeling ambitious and want to take a trip to Target and have questions, let me know!!

A Neat Site

For all of my peeps who are trying to save some cash, I found a fun site that might be worthwhile to peruse. It's www.walletpop.com. It was advertised on my internet radio so I decided to check it out and it's pretty cool. It has lots of different topics and a bunch of different blogs about different subjects all in the same place. From savings to bargains and fantastic freebies to calculators, there's a little bit of everything.

So, if you're bored, give it a visit!

General Tso's Chicken: Taste Test Tuesday

Okay, some would call me a chicken because I don't like to try a lot of new foods. Guilty as charged. Well, Wes loves this chinese dish he gets at the buffet called General Tso's chicken. So, one day we were in the store and he was elated to see a mix to make General Tso's chicken.

Needless to say, I was not, but I decided that I needed to make it for him. I need good wife points, right?? :) So, we actually did this Taste Test Tuesday together because he wanted to learn how to make it too!

Here's the cast of characters: 1 lb of chicken, chicken packet (you can make it homeade but I had a hard time finding a recipe), rice, carrots, peas and soy sauce.

1. First you need to thaw your chicken breasts and cut them into chunk sized pieces.

2. Next you need to bread them. I just put some flour in a baggie and Wes shook it all around while he did the hokey pokey.

3. Throw the breaded chicken into a pan that has about 2-4 tablespoons of heated oil.

4. Cook until chicken is done and cooked evenly.

5. When the chicken is done, add the packet. It's exactly like adding a taco seasoning packet, where you have to add the water.

6. Then you cook it on low until the contents of the package are dissolved and the chicken has a nice carmelish coating.

Meanwhile, I attempted to make my first batch of Fried Rice. Here's the recipe from allrecipes.com:

INGREDIENTS
2 cups enriched white rice
4 cups water
2/3 cup chopped baby carrots
1/2 cup frozen green peas
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 eggs
soy sauce to taste
sesame oil, to taste (optional)


DIRECTIONS
In a saucepan, combine rice and water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes.
In a small saucepan, boil carrots in water about 3 to 5 minutes. Drop peas into boiling water, and drain.
Heat wok over high heat. Pour in oil, then stir in carrots and peas; cook about 30 seconds. Crack in eggs, stirring quickly to scramble eggs with vegetables. Stir in cooked rice. Shake in soy sauce, and toss rice to coat. Drizzle with sesame oil, and toss again.

Here's the actual link so that you can print it out if you like:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Fried-Rice-Restaurant-Style/Detail.aspx?prop31=9

Here's the finished Fried Rice. Not too shabby looking for a first timer!!

And here is our beautiful meal all put together:

Now, I wish I could tell you that I was blown away by the taste and vowed to try new things all the time. Errrrr....wrong! I didn't like the meal at all.....oopsie. Chinese food just really isn't my thing. But, the good news is that Wes LOVED it and was a very happy guy!!