Adventures In Janna Land

Sing me to sleep, I’m tired and I want to go to bed.

Janna — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:00:08 +0000

Last night, I couldn’t sleep. I was in bed thinking about how I could build a table out of used pallets. I have seen it done. I am pretty sure I could get the pallets. Putting those two things together into something I would want to showcase in my home is another story. These are the things that keep me awake at night. That and wondering where my sterno cans are (yes, I know we weren’t supposed to pack those-Danger, Will Robinson). Also, where are the boys’ outside tennis shoes? And where are my pink slippers? These are things that have not surfaced since we moved. The slippers really disturb me.

On to more exciting things.

Last night, I finished off the second batch of chicken stock. I realized that on a previous post, I referred to it as broth. This was incorrect and I apologize for steering you in the wrong direction. Mea Culpa. Broth is not made with bones whereas stock is. That said, vegetable stock is made without bones so I guess it really doesn’t matter. But I made stock. The second batch was lighter in color but just as delightful. I didn’t get quite as much, but I didn’t add nearly as much water. I got 7 cups. I am about to put it in the freezer. Happy. I took a picture of the “rest” of the carcass but it’s so gross, I don’t want to post it. It’s gross. Did I already say that?

Today, I am going to make up one batch of this. We love pudding and right now I am reading the ingredients on a box of chocolate pudding I bought to make a certain cake that my sweet Mother In Love always made…chocolate chip cake. It’s delicious. Anyhow, I never knew there was FOOD COLORING in the chocolate pudding. I have three boys who are quite sensitive to food coloring and I can’t believe I let this slide. 13 ingredients in the chocolate pudding box. So, I am going to make the vanilla pudding mix she posted and see how we like it. I also found recipes here that are already large quantity-ready that I may try. If we like it, I am making it up in bulk. I sure hope we like it.

Completely unrelated, I have now finished my second Zumba class at the gym. And as a bonus, I have not passed out or wet my pants while jumping up and down to the rhythm of the beat. I am very glad there are not mirrors in the front of the class because I am sure it would not be encouraging to see myself trying to shake my hips at the same time I am trying to salsa and walk forward with my hands doing the flamenco moves. And yet, no one has asked me where I get my moves from…I have a great time, though. I might even work up the courage to try another kind of class.

That’s it. No big cooking over here today. We haven’t had bread in almost three weeks (or sugar) and I am planning a big bake-a-thon on Sunday. Cinnamon rolls, toast, maybe even my Gramma’s danishes.

Before I forget, here’s the recipe for the PoppySeed Chicken:

3 cups cooked rice

1 cooked chicken, deboned and chopped (or 5-6 breasts if you only like white meat)

1 can cream of mushroom soup (or you can make your own cream of – so much better)

1 cup sour cream

2 T Poppy Seeds

salt and pepper

optional 1 cup toasted almonds

Topping: 1 stick butter and 1 roll Ritz crackers, crushed (I have been known to double this:-))

Put the cooked rice in the bottom of your casserole dish. Isn’t casserole a fun word? It’s even more fun if you say it in your best Paula Deen voice. Like this video. Now I want to try that casserole. Cheese. Casserole. Creamy. Yum. Back to work, Janna.

Mix the chicken, soup, sour cream, poppy seeds, almonds (if you used them) and salt and pepper to taste. I put about 1-2 teaspoons of pepper and 1 tablespoon of salt. Spread that goodness all over your rice. Now, mix the melted butter and the crushed Ritz and sprinkle that deliciousness all over the top. At this point, you could pop that in the oven for 35 minutes at 350 until bubbly on the sides and crisp on top. However, if you want to make this a freeze ahead meal, add about 1 cup of chicken broth.stock to the rice before spreading the creamy chicken goodness over the top then put aluminum foil over it all and label. Bake it for 45 minutes-one hour or until bubbly on the sides and crisp on top. I have made this many times with fake chicken for my vegetarian peeps and they said it was yummy. I also make this every year that I make a big turkey and freeze it. It’s super easy to make several at one time. It’s on my short list of meals I take to people when they have a baby or are getting out of the hospital, etc. Even Mr Darcy, who is NOT the biggest fan of the casserole (understatement of the year) loves it. It’s great reheated.

Have a great weekend and look for a fun giveaway I’m having next week!

~Janna

ps. two points for you if you get the reference in my title….:-)

Thursday adventures

Janna — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:39:13 +0000

This morning, I woke up feeling warm for the first time since we moved here. So warm, in fact, that I was not huddled in a little ball like an animal trying to hibernate deep, deep in the polarfleece sheets and overstuffed comforter that adorns our bed. I had my arms out all willy-nilly and the comforter was down past my chin. After telling Mr Darcy about this momentous occasion, he promptly went downstairs to the thermostat and returned to our room. He then looked me tenderly in the eyes as he cupped my chin with his strong hands and said, ” You forgot to turn the thermostat down last night when you came in from picking up Hayden from his smallgroup.” Tender moment gone, I realized that I had done exactly that and mentally moved “learn how to program programmable thermostat a.s.a.p.”

In other news, I came downstairs this morning to find that my crockpot had been working hard all night making the most AMAZING chicken broth – evah. I forgot to take a picture, but here’s a picture of the aftermath:

This is round two. Less color, less chunky. Still good stuff here.

Yes, I noticed that I have broth on the outside of my crockpot. I didn’t feel like cleaning it just so I could make the same thing right away. The first batch was darker but this still smells so good and will taste delicious. I cooked my two Amish chickens (you don’t know how much fun I have had thinking about Amish Chickens) with water, celery, garlic, bay leaves, salt and pepper. After they were cooked, I de-boned them and put all the delicious meat in one dish while I put all the rest in another pile. When I was done with that step, I put all the “rest” back in the crockpot with the broth and added two capfuls of apple cider vinegar (Braggs, with the mother) and set it on medium. That was somewhere around 7 pm last night. This morning, I strained all the “rest” out again, ladled out the broth in my a pot to cool and dumped the “rest” back into the crockpot with more water.

All bagged up - I got 10+ cups of broth from the first batch. I put it in 2 cup amounts. It sounded like the right amount to me!

I am so excited! As I type, I have rice cooking so I can make up my poppyseed chicken casseroles. Family favorite. Delicious. Thanks be to Sandy J for this recipe that I will probably make until I die.

Yesterday, I also made some yogurt. We love yogurt at our house and go through a LOT of it – especially with my homemade granola. It’s really easy to make. People make it in the crockpot or even on a heating pad, but I am scared of warm dairy and I bought one of these on Craigslist – brand new:

yogurt, yoghurt...why does it make me feel so cool and European to write "yoghurt?"

This little guy makes 7 jars worth (6 ounces each) of yogurt for me in 8 hours. I put 7 jars’-worth (is that really a word?) of milk in my pot and heat it to 180 degrees, stirring every once in a while. I use a thermometer – I have not worked on my fantastic superhero temperature-reading skills enough to do anything else. After it reaches 180 degrees, I add 1/2 of a jars’ worth of plain, Greek yoghurt (had to use the European spelling there, don’t you think?) and whisk until smooth. Then I put the pan (with the trusty thermometer still in it) into a sink of cold water until it cools down to 110 degrees. Then I add 1 teaspoon of vanilla because we like vanilla yogurt. We are like that. I have made plain and tried to add stuff later but we don’t care for it. I need to make some plain, though. We like it with Indian food. Cools the mouth off. That’s nice. Where was I? Oh yes, after I add the vanilla in, I put the little jars in my yoghurt maker without their lids and put the lid on the machine and turn it on. 8 hours later, I put their lids on and place them carefully in the fridge. They really are ready to eat today, but I am not telling the boys because we still have some store-bought in the fridge that I want them to finish up first. That’s it, friends. Call me Fage. Or Oikos. Or Stonyfield Farms.

Ohm by the way, in case you were curious about the GIANT cans of veggies I bought, I got about 7.5 cups of corn (we forgot to measure before cooking some last night) and about 7 cups of green beans. I got 32 ounces of marinara sauce from the can of crushed tomatoes and I am still staring at the 6 lb, 9 oz can of tomato sauce that’s sitting in my coffee bar-throwing off my coffee bar vibe. It will probably be marinara, but I have also been thinking about chili. I’ll research today.

That’s it for Thursday’s adventures. I hope you enjoyed them. Any questions?

~Janna

Smellavision and other Wonkas

Janna — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 00:30:03 +0000

I really wish there was a real Smellavision. Today, I have simmering in my crockpot, the most amazing marinara sauce. When I went to Sam’s Club over the weekend, I purchased a GIANT can of crushed tomatoes, along with GIANT cans of tomato sauce, corn and green beans. I have already portioned out the green beans and frozen them, and plan to do the same with the corn. I have been wanting to try the marinara sauce recipe and I am glad I did. That GIANT can was $3.22 and fills my crockpot. After eating the sauce (with meatballs and grated fresh parmesan) here’s what I would do differently:

1. I’d cook the garlic in a bit of olive oil first

2. ~~I’d add giant chunks of vegetables~~. Oh wait, no one else at my house would eat that, so scratch that.

It’s delicious. I am so glad I tried this. I am waiting for it to cool so I can put it in my freezer bags. Yum.

Can you smell it at your house? Mmmmmmmm.

Besides the marinara sauce, I also made three lasagnas and put those in the freezer.

Now, you are probably saying to yourself, “hold on a second, Janna…. I thought you said your freezer wasn’t working.” Uh huh. Guess what was wrong?

In our house (and apparently this is common up here) every room has a light switch but only the kitchen and dining rooms have overhead lights. Weird, I know….but stick with me. So, the light switch works an electrical outlet in that room. (Guess who had to buy floors lamps as soon as they moved in?) Yesterday, in a moment that can only be described as God-inspired, I thought to myself, “I wonder if the light switch in the basement (where our freezer now lives) works the outlet that the freezer is plugged into?” I asked that question out loud to Mr Darcy who promptly went down to the basement and plugged a portable fan into every outlet whilst yelling, ” THAT’S IT!!” You see, every time we went downstairs into that part of the basement (one half is finished with carpet and paneling and such, the freezer side is past that) we turned on the light so we could see. I would walk over to the freezer and, sure enough, it would be on. Then, perplexed as to why is wasn’t working, I would leave the basement, turning the light switch off when I left – because that what has been drilled in my head to do since I was a wee babe. Each and every time we left the basement, not only were we saving electricity by turning the lights off, we were saving big bucks by turning off the freezer. Oh dear. It’s been working like a charm ever since we taped over the light switch.

That’s pretty much it in the “eureka” moments over at our house. Did you know that “eureka” means “I found it?” It’s one of those crazy things that I remember from grade school history. I love trivia.

Now I can use Craig and his list to find bookshelves…the 15 boxes of books sitting in the formal living room are really getting to me.

~Janna

My friend, Craig

Janna — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:07:07 +0000

Since we have lived here, I have really appreciated my friend, Craig. Perhaps you know him, too? I just love his list….We were able to give our moving boxes to a sweet single mom who really needed them via Craig. I also found BRAND NEW roman shades for our french doors (in exactly the right size, can you believe it?) on Craigslist for 9 dollars each. Here’s the best one, though: Thursday, I was showing Mr Darcy some pictures of area rugs that I had bookmarked. I love the wood floors, but our family room is like walking on the frozen tundra (and yes, I know what that feels like – I lived in Alaska.) Anyhow, I was telling him how much I luh-huved braided rugs. They make me happy. My Mom has had one for as long as I can remember (she doesn’t use it now, just stores it) and ever since we lived in Raleigh, NC, I just have a thing for colonial decor. I can’t explain it, but I love it. I think it must have something to do with my love of symmetry. In any case, I love braided rugs. Mr Darcy thinks they were only popular in the 70′s. Maybe they were, but I don’t care. I still love ‘em. So, we’re looking at area rugs and talking about what we like and what we want for this house and then we went to bed. Friday night, I checked in with Craig and his list before heading upstairs to read in bed. Would you believe I see a little something under the “free” section? It’s a braided rug. I email and they still have it as well as a solid maple twin head/foot board set. For 5 dollars. Uh huh.

We load up into the truck and drive about 15 minutes to get the free rug (which, it turns out is WOOL) and the bed stuff. We get home and roll it out and I get the vacuum on it. After vacuuming for a loonnnnggg time. we take a good look at it. Would you believe it has two green rows in it? Do you know who has green furniture? That’s right! Now, I’ll give you a peek:

Check out that rug....

So I am loving it. Maybe it has a bit of a retro feel, but I am totally working with it… I priced a similar sized one (10×12) at Cabela’s and it was $1000.00! I am feeling really great about this! And, my feet don’t feel like they are sitting on an igloo, which is a bonus.

On to cooking…Friday night, we plugged in our trusty upright freezer so it could be ready for a Sam’s Club run on Saturday. We haven’t used it since we left Bville. I went to Sam’s on Saturday as planned and came home ready to start re-packaging what I had purchased. For instance, I bought the world’s largest bag of pepperoni and Carter helped me re-package it into 1 cup bags, using my seal-a-meal. I think we now have something like 18 bags of pepperoni. I did four kinds of cheese, all-beef hot dogs and more before getting too tired to continue. Sunday afternoon, I went to the basement to get a package of cheese out, and nothing was frozen. All cold, but not frozen. Oh no! I moved the meatballs to the kitchen freezer/fridge and started breathing quickly in a panic. The freezer runs, but it just won’t freeze. We are currently checking in with Craig to see if he knows of any freezers before we have to go to Lowe’s or something. Ugh. Thankfully, I was too pooped to cut up the 10.5 pound pork loin into chops or divide out the ground beef. They are currently hanging out in our fridge. Neato.

Since I can’t do those meaty things, I made up a batch of whole wheat pancake mix – using a new recipe I received from The Urban Homemaker. You can find it here. I had purchased some Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Powder online just for this kind of thing, so I added 16-17 teaspoons of it to the mix as well. It sure smells great and we can’t wait to give it a whirl. It made approx 21.5 cups of mix. Here’s how I packaged it:

I can already taste the mixed berry jam I'll put on them!

That’s about it from Illinois. I wait to make lasagnas and poppy seed chicken until we get the freezer thing worked out. I almost forgot to tell you about the 100% natural, all organic whole chickens I got on sale….for 3 dollars each. I bought all 5 that Kroger had. They are Amish something or other. I was so excited. I am going to make the poppy seed chicken, enchiladas and just have cooked chicken for salad, quesadillas, etc. I’ll also be able to have my chicken broth in the freezer made from cooking those cluckers for 24 hours. (Well, really it’s the bones and all but you get the drift) I read a great article from Laura over at Heavenly Homemakers about how to stretch a chicken. You can read it here.

What’s cooking at your house?

~Janna

Snowy and Settled

Janna — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 01:42:37 +0000

Greetings from…?

I am here. Where? Oh, only about 1,347 miles North of the bottom of Texas, where we used to live. 845 miles North, Northeast of North Texas, where we spent the months of mid-August through mid-December. As I type this, I am watching the snow blow and blow on our deck. It’s 17 degrees outside and I’m sitting on the couch with a space heater 4 inches in front of me. We did not register for a space heater 19 years ago when we got married. It’s our first one. I love it. It is the most fought-over item in our home lately!

After leaving the Rio Grande Valley in the middle of August, we stayed in North Texas (DFW area) for 4 months. Well, Mr Darcy stayed for 3.5 and the boys and I left the week before Christmas. Our movers arrived with all of our worldly possessions in Northwestern Illinois exactly one week before Christmas. I’ll tell you, it was almost like Christmas when we opened our boxes of toys and “things” we hadn’t seen for 4 months! After a house sale fell through at the last minute, Mr Darcy found us a wonderful home that we are renting. We’d love to buy it. It’s just perfect for us. We’ll see what God says about it later on.

Our new church home is AWESOME. Mr Darcy loves his new job. Loves the people he works with. It’s a lot of love around here. For the first time in our married lives, we have a basement. We love it. The Legos live down there. My crafting stuff lives down there. Mr Darcy’s office lives down there as well as firstborn’s weight lifting equipment, holiday storage and…all my kitchen supplies that I don’t use every day. It’s awesome. I’ll have to post a picture soon.

I have only made bread once since we have been here. I know…how weird is that? It’s just that we haven’t been eating ANY bread for a week and a half. Crazytown. I am already planning a marathon baking day and cinnamon rolls for breakfast on January 30! I don’t know if you know this, but you can get some pretty sweet deals on baking supplies on Amazon.com. I ordered SAF yeast at a fantastic deal (I think it’s the best) and buttermilk powder 2 weeks ago. This week I ordered 2 pounds of cinnamon at a real steal. Today, I ordered foil baking pans (cake size) that I am hoping I read the package amount right on. If I did, I lucked out.

Since I mainly tell you all what I have been making , this won’t be very exciting. However, we did enjoy something fun today at lunch. We are calling it pizza soup. It’s merely tomato soup with small chunks of pepperoni and mozz cheese in it. It was yummy (so says the boys – I don’t eat pepperoni) and wowza was it cheap to make. Very nice on a cold, blustering day. We have enjoyed cheeseburger soup lately as well as baked potato soup in the past few weeks. We also tried something I have never made and probably won’t make again – coq au vin. It wasn’t bad, just not something we loved. At least when we visit France again someday, we’ll know what it is!

Now that I feel settled and only have books left to unpack (we still need to buy/make bookshelves as one broke completely during the move and we had built-ins at the last house and we have 15 boxes sitting in the living room, no lie) I am ready to blog again. I just felt like I had nothing to say for the past 4 months. I would sit in front of my laptop with this blog open in front of me and bang out a sentence or two, but it was yuck. But I have plenty to say now, so watch out. I am ready! I feel like “me” again and I missed me.

So far, our new neighbors have kept themselves pretty scarce. I don’t know if it’s because it’s winter or because they aren’t southern . At first, I was getting sad about it, but then I decided I was going to be neighborly and show ‘em how it’s done. Here’s my plan: Valentine’s Day is coming up and I plan to make cinnamon rolls in the pans I just ordered from Amazon, smothered in The Pioneer Woman’s Maple Icing http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/06/cinammon_rolls_/

(if you haven’t tried that, you are missing out!) and say “Happy Valentine’s Day from your new neighbors!” I can’t wait!

Who could YOU surprise this year with some baked (or just homemade) goods this year for Valentine’s Day? Tell me, tell me true….

~Janna

another recipe

Janna — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 01:46:30 +0000

So, I want to win this contest and I had to make up a recipe using their chicken. I had to take pictures before and after. I am just going to tell you..it was delicious. Even if I don’t win, we had a good meal! I wanted to share it with you because a) it’s yummy, b) it’s easy and c) it can easily be enlarged to feed more people. I like all of those reasons, how about you?

Here it is…Southwestern Chicken

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (I have also used boneless pork chops…yum)

several tablespoons of butter

salt and pepper

4 teaspoons of fajita or taco seasoning

1 cup prepared salsa

1 cup heavy cream (or half and half if you’d like)

Pound the chicken breasts to 1/2 inch thick. Season both sides of each with salt, pepper and fajita/taco seasoning. Melt the butter over medium heat in a large skillet. Cook chicken for 4 minutes on each first side and 2-4 minutes on second side or until browned and juices run clear. Remove them from the pan and place on a plate. Tent them with foil. Add salsa to pan and use a whisk to remove the fond (those yummy pieces of “stuff” on the bottom of the pan). Add the cream and whisk continuously. Bring to boil, then turn down to low. Add chicken back to pan but don’t let it stay there any longer than one minute. Place chicken on your plate and spoon some of that delicious sauce on top.

I think you’ll like it. It’s yummy. The green beans we had with it were also yummy when swimming in that spicy cream sauce.

Let me know if you try it!

~Janna

Impressing myself

Janna — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 02:12:02 +0000

The past few nights, I have had a great time cooking. It made me so happy. We had baked potato soup two nights ago. It was super yummy. It’s an adaptation of a recipe I found a long time ago on allrecipes. When I make a ham, I always save a big baggie of bite-sized cut chunks for this soup in the freezer. If you don’t have it, you can use bacon bits. (but it’s not as good…I’m just going to tell you that now) I didn’t have sour cream this time and it was every bit as good as other times, so I don’t know if I am going to include it from now on. Might as well save some calories, right?

9 baking potatoes
2/3 cup butter
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
6 cups whole milk
1/2 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
ham chunks or bacon bits
10 ounces shredded Cheddar cheese
1 (8 ounce) container sour cream

Directions

Prick potatoes with a fork and cook in the microwave, 3 or 4 at a time, and scoop out the flesh (while the others are cooking).
In a large saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Stir in flour and cook about a minute. Whisk in milk, a little at a time, stirring constantly until thickened. Stir in potatoes, salt, pepper, 1/3 cup ham chunks/bacon bits, and most of the cheese. Cook until thoroughly heated. Stir in sour cream and heat through. Serve topped with remaining cheese.

Now, tonight, I made swiss steak which I served over basmati rice. I also made buttermilk biscuits. My youngest picked the veg to go with it so we had corn. Here’s the swiss steak recipe:

Ingredients

1/4 cup all-purpose flour
salt and pepper to taste
1 1/2 pounds round steak, cut into small pieces
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
3 carrots, shredded
1 small can tomato sauce and 1 small can tomato juice. And I really mean small.
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons brown sugar, or to taste

Directions

In a shallow bowl, mix the flour, salt, and pepper. Lightly coat the round steak pieces in the flour mixture.
Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat, and saute the onion, and carrots about 5 minutes, until tender. Remove from heat, and set aside. Mix in the round steak pieces, and cook until lightly browned.
Place the vegetables and steak in a slow cooker. Mix in the tomatoes with juice, Worcestershire sauce, and brown sugar.
Cover, and cook 8 to 10 hours on Low, until the round steak is very tender.

This was so good. It’s the first time I have ever made this. There’s not a lot you can do with bottom round steak. It’s cheap and tough. This was so tender, it was unreal. The boys didn’t even seem to notice the grated carrots, so…bonus!

The biscuits are a recipe that came off of an old Tupperware pastry sheet. Oldie but fantastic goodie. We always double it because we a) love biscuits and b) like tall biscuits. I make them with white flour because every whole wheat flour recipe I have ever tried tasted gross so I just gave up.

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 Tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup crisco

3/4 cups buttermilk (actual recipe calls for reg milk, but we had buttermilk and they were the best I have ever made)

*Mix dry ingredients. Cut the crisco into the flour mixture, then add milk. Don’t stir it much – I use my hands and shape it about 1.5 inches thick.

Oven to 450. cut with a tall biscuit cutter and bake for about 10-15 minutes – depending on your oven. Our South Texas oven was pesky.

I loved working in the kitchen, even if it wasn’t my kitchen!

I am thinking about fall all the time and enjoying morning coffee time outside. The hummingbirds seem to have left our neck of the woods, but we have so many other beautiful birds to watch to keep us occupied. I spend too much time on Pinterest, pinning things I like and imagining what our next home will look like. Imagining that I can change out all my furniture and suddenly my dwelling would look like my favorite dog-eared page of the Pottery Barn catalog.

~Janna

Where have I gone?

Janna — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 17:37:02 +0000

This morning, I received a note from a wonderful friend. “Your last blog was in May, are you ever going to write again?” I really have been thinking about it. It’s time, I think, to let you know where I am in life and in actual location.

In August, we packed up everything we owned and moved up to North Texas. It was hard in so many ways. Most of the ways I can’t even share with you here. We miss our good friends from “down south” and I’ve heard from each of the boys that they miss the beach. It was a hard move. Really, really hard. We are living with my sweet parents right now until things get back on track for us. Pray for them! I haven’t been doing a lot of baking or cooking or anything but trying to survive.

After we moved, we had about two weeks before we had a trauma of sorts. Mr Darcy wound up in the hospital with ITP. I don’t feel like typing all those words so let me just tell you it’s a blood disorder where the platelets start attacking each other for no real reason. Most of us are walking around with somewhere between 200,000 and 400,000 of those sneaky little platelets on any given day. The day he ended up in the hospital, he had 5,000. Ugh. He had a special treatment that should have sent his numbers soaring, but instead they went even lower. 2,000. At that point, I lost it.

I had not cried since the day before we drove out of South Texas. Not one tear. I couldn’t. I couldn’t even access my emotions. I had nothing. I really, really wanted and needed to have a sniffle or two but just couldn’t. Well, on that second day, honey…Floodgates opened.

I think I cried for hours.

Onward to more recent times. I have stopped crying and Mr Darcy has lots and lots of platelets. He just had an appointment with the oncologist and he gets to start tapering off of the massive amounts of steroids he’s been on there. THAT’S an answer to prayer! If you have ever been on steroids or know someone who has – they probably weren’t on the ginormous amount he’s been on and they were still wackadoodle. Enough said

So, since I’ve been here, I have gained weight, horribly colored my hair (that’s a crazy story in itself) and started school for the boys without most of our stuff. Here’s what I’ve learned.

1. I really, really like my stuff

2. I really, really miss my stuff

3. I am really, really thankful for my laptop

4. Life is fragile

5. I love cooking and baking and homemaking and entertaining and I miss it terribly

6. I really, really miss my stuff

7. I discovered that I like watching birds in the backyard (this is random, but true)

Because I am trying to have hope for our future, I read a blog that I haven’t read in a while. Relectant Entertainer. Love her. Love that book. Anyhow, today she is having a giveaway for a KitchenAid mixer. You should try and win one. Maybe one of us will win it and go on to make all sorts of amazing foods and we can discuss it and it will be so lovely. If you want to check it out, go to:

http://reluctantentertainer.com/2011/09/kitchen-aid-stand-mixer-giveaway-via-usa-today-your-life/

Gorgeous!

I will say that I have been watching the Pioneer Woman on Food Network and have been trying many of the things she makes on there. Her cookbook is one of the three cookbooks I didn’t pack in storage. Comfort Food. If you win the KitchenAid mixer, maybe you could make those mashed potatoes. They will rock your world. No jokes. And those French Breakfast Puffs are out of this world. Maybe you can see now why I have gained weight, huh?

I think that’s all I have time for on this day. I have missed you.

~Janna

the fridge

Janna — Fri, 13 May 2011 12:45:04 +0000

We have been eating out of the fridge and freezer lately because I don’t want any leftovers. Why? We are going on vacation. This means we have been eating strange combos of things. Like a sandwich with rice. Not a rice sandwich – but rice as a starchy side. Meals with lots of small portions of leftover veggies. Most meals fairly unbalanced. Oh well. We have also been employing the grill a lot more. Less cleanup! It’s all for the greater cause, right?

I’ll tell you all about the trip after we return – and maybe, just maybe I’ll have some new and exciting recipes to share from our travels. I hope so!

Until then, make a double recipe of something and freeze it. Make a bundt cake and freeze it (including most frostings) and enjoy your family.

~janna

Do you know the muffin man?

Janna — Thu, 05 May 2011 19:57:43 +0000

When I was young, my Mom read my sister and I a fabulous book called The Muffin Muncher. It was awesome. I think that’s when my love affair with muffins began. I’m not too picky – just let them be homemade. Those ginormous ones from Costco are fun, though – especially the lemon poppy seed.

For several years, I have done a muffin bake-a thon right before school starts. I have even had muffin exchanges at my house where everyone arrives with 6 dozen muffins and goes home with 6 dozen ASSORTED muffins. That was fun, too.

All this time, though, I have been on the search for a master muffin recipe. One that would make a ton of muffins and would be a basic recipe that I could add too. I think I found it.

For the dry mix:

8 cups flour (I used whole wheat)
3 cups sugar
3 tsp. salt
3 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. nutmeg
4 Tbsp. baking powder

This is enough to make four batches.

Ingredients for the muffins:
1 c milk (I used powdered)
1 egg
1/2 c applesauce, unsweetened (I used coconut oil)
2 3/4 c of the dry muffin mix

Directions

In a huge bowl, mix together all the dry muffin mix ingredients. I use a whisk to mix it all together until well blended. Because I used powdered milk, I added the powder in with the rest of the dry ingredients, then just added water with the wet ingredients.

To make the muffins, combine 2 3/4 c of the muffin mix with the wet ingredients. Spray muffin tin. Full tins half to 2/3 full. Bake in a preheated 400 degree oven. 16 minutes for regular sized muffins. 12 minutes for mini muffins.

The muffin mix recipe makes enough for about 4 batches of muffins.

The muffin recipe makes 12 (muffins cups mostly full) to 14 (about 2/3 full) muffins.

When I baked them yesterday, I just threw all the dry ingredients in the Bosch, mixed them, then added the wet things. I had another large bowl on the counter and just scooped about 2.5 cups of the muffin mix in there. I added various ingredients to that bowl so I could try several things. Here’s what I tried yesterday while on the phone with my sister (trying to give you props for the ideas, Bo!)

Batch 1 -Strawberry Fields Forever. Added a large clamshell of fresh strawberries that I blended first (third son doesn’t like strawberries for some reason) I added approx 2 teaspoons of this great almond extract I got at Christmas (made by Lorann) (I got 2 doz smallish muffins – would have been 1 doz regular size)

Batch 2 - I‘m Plum Tuckered Out. I added about 1.5 cups of dried plums that I blended first so they wouldn’t be so huge. I also added approx 1 teaspoon vanilla and 1-2 teaspoons of lemon extract (again, the Lorann brand) (Made 1 dozen) And yes, I realize these are really prunes but please don’t tell my children, okay?)

Batch 3 – Yellow Brick Road. Added 2 Tablespoons of poppy seeds and about 2 teaspoons of lemon extract. Should have used more lemon. Made mini muffins for this one. This was my least favorite – probably because I just don’t like whole wheat lemon poppy seed – next time, I’ll use whole wheat pastry flour instead. (Made 2 dozen mini-muffins)

Batch 4- Tropical Dreams. My personal favorite and fav of the boys as well – I added 5 frozen bananas (that went through the blender first also) then 1 teaspoon each of vanilla, rum extract, coconut extract and almond extract. Oh. My. Goodness. These were amazing. (Made 1 doz)

The recipe I found (which I amended before I ever tried it) had suggestions for other add-ins. I say, “Be inventive! Use what you have !”

But let me know what you try.

Next time, I am going to make up the dry ingredients and store in a plastic bag in the freezer like I do with my bulk pancake and waffle mixes. Then, I’ll be able to just pull out the 2 3/4 cups of that and whip up a batch. I’ll probably still do the big batch cooking thing as well because it just makes breakfast easier at my house. I like easy. Especially in the mornings.

~Janna

Other add-ins

add 1/2 cup pumpkin, cut the applesauce (oil) to 1/4 cup, 1/4 cup chocolate chips

add 3/4 cup applesauce for more apple taste instead of 1/2 cup

1/3 cup craisins and 1/3 cup white chocolate chips

1 mashed banana, 1/3-1/2 cup nuts or chocolate chips

1/3 c grated carrot and 1/3 cup raisins

any kind of nuts–1/3 to 1/2 cup
chopped up fruit–1/3 to 1/2 cup (grated apple is good), blueberries-toss in a little flour first and they won’t float to the top, any pie fillings