P-Dub's Chicken Pot Pie

I made Pioneer Woman's Chicken Pot Pie the other night.

Oh My.

Heaven.

Easy.

Love.

Start out with onion, carrots, celery.

Saute in butter.

Salt a little.

Boil a whole cut up chicken.

Throw the cooked, shredded chicken in with the veggies and add some flour, salt and pepper.

Add, CREAM.

That's the heavenly part.

Stir and let it get bubbly.

Pour into a casserole dish and cover with a pie crust.

I made the Crisco recipe pie crust (super yum).

Bake and eat.

I will make this a couple of times a month, for sure!

Happy Birthday #3, One

My #3 had a birthday.

He's now five-years-old!

I can't believe the time has gone by so fast.

Older ladies would always say these things to me, and I'd nod and agree.

But I never really understood fully what they meant.

I'm starting to.

Five years?

Seems like just yesterday he was placed into my arms.

His birth was my easiest.

And quite memorable because it was a slow day in the birthing unit and also a teaching day.

There were approximately 25 people in the birthing room the size of a half bath.

Most of them looked to be about 15 because they were still in college.

I politely told the high school boy that he was to stay up by my head.

I remember one of the students put my cath in wrong.

I'd had my epidural so I didn't feel the wrongness.

But my OB (whom I love more than I probably should) chewed her out pretty good.

I'd never seen that side of him.

But he quickly changed his tone and resumed his cheery sweetness as I pushed an almost nine-pounder out into this world!

So...sorry, back to the birthday!

#3 chose Transformer cupcakes for his birthday (his real birthday) treat.

These were incredibly tricky.

Box cake mix.

Pre-made icing.

Transformer sugar thingys.

Happy Birthday!

Pasta Alla Betsy (Have I Blogged This Before?)

Pasta alla Betsy is one of P-dub's recipes.

I make it a lot.

Okay, to be honest I make it about once a month.

When I make my big Costco trip I always pick up a bag of huge raw shrimp.

So, here's what you need:

Good white wine.

Lots of shrimp and butter.

Onion and more butter.

I have to cook my onions down to the burny bits because My Man thinks he doesn't like onions.

But he really does.

I put them in everything.

But when they're burny, he doesn't notice.

Tomato sauce.

Cream.

Yes.

Cream.

Stir and simmer a bit.

Serve over penne with garlic breadsticks and whatever you want.

Normally I make a salad but the other day I picked up some heat and eat toasted ravioli.

And once again proved why you only eat ravioli when ordered in a restaurant.

Ick.

Thankfully it wasn't the main course!

Comfort Meatballs

P-Dub's Comfort Meatballs.

So easy!

You mix them up, brown them and then cook the rest of the way in the oven.

Smothered in a yummy sweet ketchup base sauce!

Served with potatoes and cinnamon apples!

Dessert!

While grocery shopping the other day with three kids in tow, I stumbled upon the baking aisle.

My children were sticky with bakery doughnuts (the bribe for good behavior) when they saw a special display of these.

Sure!  I said.

Looks easy enough and by that point the doughnuts were gone and the children were covered in icing and stickiness and I'd just realized I left the wipes in the car.

I would have bought KU sunglasses I was so done.

Wait...

I did buy KU sunglasses.

My #3 gave me a horrid sob story in the check-out line about how he didn't have sunglasses.

All of his brothers had sunglasses, but not him.

People were beginning to stare.

Who is this sweaty mom with three kids?

Three sticky, chocolate-covered kids?

One is sitting in the cart howling.

One is standing at her legs howling and one keeps running out the sliding doors to look at the gumball machines (he's wearing cowboy boots with sweatpants, geesh).

So, in a moment of despair I agreed to buy the dang KU glasses.

Only, I didn't know they were KU.

And neither did my #3.

Until later that day as he was proudly parading them around his brothers, one of them noticed.

The glasses flew off his face in a fit of rage and haven't been seen since.

But back to the dessert, sorry.

So, you add the stuff, pour into a baking dish and squeeze out the included fudgy stuff.

Bake.

Yummy!

Seve with vanilla ice cream.

Or Cool-whip.

It was very good for something I only added a little something to prepare.

Short Ribs Part 2, PW Style

The next time I made short ribs, I used PW's recipe.

Different ingredients and cooking style.

Onions, shallots and carrots.

Cook up some bacon.

Brown some short ribs in oil and leftover bacon grease.  Yes, they could be browner, but My Girl was acting up and I was trying to get through the hot oil part of this without her getting splattered.

Saute the veggies in the same pot you just browned the ribs in.

Add these.

Put the ribs back in and add some fresh rosemary and thyme.

Braise for 3-4 hours.

And ta-da!

Kinda out of focus.

Served with butter-roasted potatoes, rolls and green beans.

KILLER!

Really good!

Short Ribs Part 1

We got our whole cow beef thing in.

Some families get a side of beef.

We get the whole beef.

So what do you call that?

I don't know but it's a LOT of beef.

One of the things I noticed we had a lot of were short ribs.

Several packages.

I remembered PW had a couple of short rib recipes on her website as well as Tasty Kitchen.

So, the first recipe I tried was from Tasty Kitchen.

Mom's Sweet and Sour Short Ribs.

Basically soy sauce, vinegar, brown sugar and seasonings.

They cooked for about 3 hours.

Served over rice.

Really good and very easy!

Candy Corn Kiss Brownies

A little Halloween recipe I found on the Picky Palet blog.

It's pretty good - mostly sweets.

I thought this recipe would be a hit with my boys!

These are just those candy cane kisses.

The flavor was that of white chocolate.

The topping below is about 6 of the kisses melted and drizzled over the top of COOLED brownies.

Unfortunately, the boys ate them so fast, I never got to take a pic of what one of the brownies looked like cut up.  But if you cut them just right, you could see the little candy corn kiss in there.  They were really good!

Potato Soup

Ahhhh...potato soup!

This recipe was a new one and extremely easy!

Peel, dice and cook six potatoes until fork tender.

Add in two cans potato soup (I know, sounds gross but it WASN'T).

Milk, salt, pepper.

Mozzerella and Cheddar cheese.

Garnish with bacon and chives.

I might have poured in a little bacon grease too.

It was nice and thick.

Some people like their potato soup thin.

I do NOT.

Found the recipe on Tasty Kitchen website.

I'm Getting There!

We ARE eating here at the Kohler house!  This daylight savings time change has thrown me for a loop and while I feel like I'm preparing dinner at 3:00, I can't quite get my daughter to untangle herself from my legs for me to move switfly around the kitchen, much less take some pics of what I'm preparing.

I did take a few pics this week so far so I'm uploading them this morning.  I hope to post about them this week. 

And here's a question for you...is it called "preparing 3 meals a day" if you only fix cereal or put some waffles in the toaster?  Because 6/7 days a week that's what we have for breakfast.  Occasionally I throw in some oatmeal and fruit or a granola bar.  But I feel like I'm lying when I say I prepare 3 meals a day because breakfast doesn't leave me covered in grease or flour.

And did you know that I don't really fix breakfast for My Man?  He usually heats up the leftovers from the night before (on his own).  It's true.  I'm surprised he even lets me sleep in bed next to him.

Mummy Dogs

Mummy Dogs.

We've been making these for some time now. 

Always a hit with my boys!

All you need are hot dogs and canned Pillsbury breadsticks.

Bake according to package directions and decorate with ketchup if you have morbid children who like to pretend that it's blood.

Halloween Treats

Our kitchen has been busy lately.

Making goodies!

The week before Halloween was spent making yummy, kid-friendly treats for the kiddos and their teachers.

Today, I'll tell you how to make your own caramel corn.

It was incredibly easy.

The recipe is off of Annie's Eats.

Remember?  She's the one who claims to be a doctor (but has incredible amounts of time on her hands), mother to one child (HA!  That ain't nuttin') and loves to bake and entertain.

So this mixture here is basically brown sugar and butter.

(Please check her website for the exact recipe though)

The trick here is that you let is boil like this for five full minutes.

And you don't stir.

Which is hard to tell four little boys who love to stir things.

So after that, you pour it onto popped popcorn.

Now you could probably use microwave popcorn.

But I personally think microwave popcorn tastes horrid.

So, I popped some in our little popcorn popper (with the dome on top and that little thingy that spins around).

Okay, so pour the caramel mixture over the popcorn and stir it up to coat evenly.

Pour it out onto the baking sheets and bake it for about 40 minutes at a low heat, stirring a few times.

Let it cool completely.

Break if apart and eat.

And eat.

And eat.

It was amazingly good.

Why on earth do I buy the stuff?

Unless my caramel corn comes from Topsy's, Velvet Creme or Custard's Last Stand (or that heavenly place in Chicago I blogged about last February), I'll just make my own.

I managed to scavenge enough to make some goodie bags for teachers.

Just put a little in these cute treat bags with a few candy corn and viola!

We also made BOOscotti!

This was also incredibly easy!

Have you ever made cookies from a boxed cake mix?

You do basically the same thing but add more flour.

(I also added mini chocolate chips)

Shape the batter into one big loaf, about 14 inches long and 4 inches wide.

Bake it and then slice it, then bake it again.

Once completely cooled, dip into white chocolate and use mini chocolate chips for the eyes.

These really turned out cute!

Apple Pie

My daddy surprised me with another huge bag of apples from the apple orchard I blogged about long ago.

Apple Pie time!

This time, I only used cinnamon and sugar.

My mom had said to use butter too, but I forgot.

A little lemon juice too!

Please excuse my pie crust.

I'm no chef I tell ya!

Brush a little milk on top.

Top that with a little sugar.

It was soooo good!

I didn't even remember that I'd forgotten the butter until I was editing the pics.

My family doesn't like "busy" apple pie.

Just apples, sugar, cinnamon and a little lemon juice.

Apparently, we don't need butter either.  Though, it would have probably made it even better.

This pie was simply apple pie.

You could taste each flavor and the boys couldn't get enough.

So the next time I pass by an apple pie recipe that calls for 6 different kinds of apples and a ton of different spices, I'm going to skip on over it and go back to this one.

Chili, My Way

Chili is one of those things that can be really good or really yucky.

There are lots of ingredients to put in a pot of chili.

Lot's of steps too.

Or...

You can make chili my way.

And, no joke, my way is awesome!

And simple.

And easy.

All you need is this stuff and some hamburger!

In our house, you eat chili with peanut butter crackers.

Or tortillias.