Because We All Know If I Try to Write This On An Actual FRIDAY It Will Take Three More Weeks To Post.

That said, let's have a little bit of Tuesday Quick Takes, shall we?

ITEM ONE:

Lent starts tomorrow. Hmm. Let's talk about that tomorrow.

ITEM TWO:

I have been promising this recipe to people left and right, but never actually giving it to them. So, FINALLY, here it is: Italian Sausage Soup. (Oh Yes. It Is Delicious.)

2 cans chicken broth (low sodium)
2 cans stewed or diced tomatoes
1 yellow onion
2-3 zucchinis 
1 lb Italian sausage (spicier the better) sauteed (buy the uncooked kind, remove the skin & Saute in a little olive oil)
Few cloves of garlic
Some basil or Italian seasoning
1ish cup pasta or barley

1. Brown your meat, drain fat
2. Saute all the veggies & spices
3. Throw all in pot & let simmer at least 1 hr
4. Add pasta last 20mins or so

I just made another pot tonight and I LOVE THIS SOUP. it's definitely better with some kick, though. I've found that using a mild sausage makes it just kind of meh.

ITEM THREE:

Have you ever heard of Our Lady, Undoer of Knots? Me either. Well, not until recently, that is. You should check her out.  I have been appealing to her in prayer over the last couple of weeks for some "stuff" that has been weighing me down, and you know what? She is a powerful pray-er, that Mother of God. Go read about her. Ask her to pray for you.  No one is closer to the Son than his Mother.

ITEM FOUR:

Speaking of things "weighing me down," (or not, in this case) Biggest Blogging Loser is racing toward its final weeks. I think we only have three to go. Thus, the Month Two Update: (Month One Update here.)

Jan 3, 2011                     Feb 3, 2011 (-17.2lbs)                               Mar 3, 2011 (-28.2lbs)

ITEM FIVE:

I have been a little, shall we say, irked lately with some of these social networking sites. No. Excuse me. It's not the websites that I have a problem with. It's the people who use them.  Facebook. Twitter. Comment boards. Let's just say this: just because you have a forum wherein you can say ANYTHING publicly does not mean that you SHOULD. Some conversations are meant to be private! Remember that "All I Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten" poster? It's one of those kinds of things. You would think that being kind and courteous and sensitive to the feelings of others is common sense, and yet the fact remains, common sense just isn't so common anymore.

"If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you..." (Mt 18:15)

ITEM SIX:

The other day, when I went to pick up Chris from preschool, I stood outside the door to wait until I could hear that the teacher was at a break in the lesson. They were talking about the weather. It was a cold, rainy day. So, they were talking about the rain and about what happens in places where it's even colder than it was here, and Miss Bonnie asked if anyone had ever been to the snow. And then. Then! Do you know what I heard then? MY SON raised his hand and told a whole story about how he went to Tahoe to the snow. MY CHILD. VOLUNTEERED TO SPEAK. This is the child who has to be forced to say hello and goodbye to the kids in his class each day. I was so proud of him. So. Proud.

ITEM SEVEN:

So. I'm ten days away from finishing the 30 Day Shred entirely. This is deserving of its very own post, which it will get in due time, but in the meantime....what should I do next?  The original plan was to start up with Couch To 5k, but I would LOVE some recommendations for something that I can better work into my schedule. (These days, said schedule means "after all of the boys are asleep, in the comfort of my own family room.") Thanks!

Because Who Doesn't Want An Excuse to Eat Donuts For Dinner

A few months back, I was flipping through a copy of Rachael Ray Magazine that my mom had left with me, when I found this recipe for Espresso Dusted Beignets. Never in my life had I eaten such a thing, and the picture made them look SO GOOD. Light! Flakey! Sweet! I set it aside thinking that I'd rip the page out and try my hand at this New Orleans fare at some point.  And then I forgot about it, as I have a way of doing.

Not long after that, Tim says to me, "I was flipping through that Rachael Ray Magazine and I saw something that you should make!" And so, we decided to give it a try for Christmas morning. Because, you know, I didn't have enough going on that day and I might as well get up super early to make the dough, let it rise, heat up the oil and on and on and on.  Unfortunately, for all the work, they were kind of...meh. Actually, let's be honest. They were really Meh. Light and flakey they were not. Nor were they sweet. The instant coffee did NOTHING for the flavor, other than make them extremely bitter, and being the type to follow a recipe EXACTLY the first time I make something, there was just not enough powdered sugar to lend any sweetness at all. They were big and bitter.

I was a little put off.

Now here we are, two months later, and it's still with me. I can't try something in the kitchen, have it fail (or even have it be "not good enough") and just leave it.  A quick search of the Food Network website revealed something that should have occurred to me from the start: If you want a good recipe for southern cooking, perhaps you should start with a southerner. Genius!  Enter this recipe from Paula Deen.

OH. YOU. GUYS.

They are so yummy. So easy. So not bitter.  I used a little heart shaped cookie cutter (we made them on Valentine's Day) instead of cutting them into squares, and they were just so cute. We plopped them in paper bags! We shook them up! And they came out like little powdered puffy hearts of cuteness and deliciousness. Make them for a brunch. Make them for dessert. Or, heck, make them for dinner like we did!  The only recommendation I would offer is to halve the recipe if you're not cooking for a big crowd. This makes A LOT of beignets. I gave half of the leftovers to my in-laws and I still have a huge ball of dough in the fridge, so you know what that means! Beignet Dinner Number Two coming soon!  This time I think we'll do some in powdered sugar and some in cinnamon sugar. Dip them in some jam or berry syrup and you have the most delicious, home-made jelly donut.

YUM.

Whatever You Had Planned For Dinner Tonight....Make This Instead

As in many families, the kitchen is the hub of our home. EVERYTHING happens in there. So, just over a year ago when we moved into a lovely new house with a FABULOUS kitchen, I was in Heaven. We'll call it a state-of-the-art gift from the previous owners, shall we? And that's exactly what it is. A gift. Sure, it's lovely for our little family, but it goes further than that because there are ALWAYS more people here than our immediate five.  Whether it's Tim's family (all local), our priests or friends from church, neighbors, or my parents, the kitchen is always full. And this doesn't include holidays or birthdays when we're even more crowded!

Yes, we would be that family on House Hunters who comment on how "this kitchen would be GREAT for entertaining!" But at least for us it would be a valid consideration. That makes it less obnoxious, right?  And we won't even discuss how much more fun it is to play "I have my own food network show" while cooking in a nice big kitchen than it was in the kitchen NOOK that was carved into a corner of our old apartment.

Don't even try to tell me that you don't pretend you have your own Food Network show.

ANYWAY.  Having this new kitchen made cooking so much more fun and opened up a world of opportunities for me to try new things. One day last winter during my monthly Costco Meat Counter Prowl, I decided to buy a package of short ribs for minestrone soup. (Yum. Minestrone soup.) Now, I don't know if you've ever bought short ribs there, but surely you know how it works at Costco. Go big or go home. And so I had to come up with something to do with the rest of those ribs.

Thank you, Chef Google.

This recipe is possibly the easiest, most delicious, and DEFINITELY best smelling thing you could ever possibly do with short ribs. Honestly. Here it is, with my modifications:

Ingredients

• 1 (28 ounce) can tomato sauce (I used one 14oz can and one 14 oz can diced or stewed tomatoes)
• 3 tablespoons lemon juice
• 4 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tablespoons dried parsley (instead of parsley & thyme, I use 2 1/2 T Herbes de Provence. DO IT THIS WAY.)
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 medium onion, cut into rings
• 3 pounds beef short ribs 

Directions

1. In a large pan over medium-high heat, stir in tomato sauce, lemon juice, and Worcestershire sauce. Stir in parsley, thyme, bay leaves, brown sugar, salt, and red pepper flakes. Add onions and short ribs, and stir together until the mixture comes to a boil.
2. Cover, reduce heat to medium low (LOW), and simmer; stirring occasionally and skimming fat from surface, until meat is tender, about 2 1/2 hours. Remove bay leaves before serving.

**DON'T turn up the heat and DON'T brown the meat first. I made that mistake last time. Just trust me. Throw it in raw, cover it with sauce, put the lid on and LEAVE IT ALONE FOR TWO HOURS.**

YOU GUYS. You will love this. The meat falls apart as you remove it from the pot.  Put the extra sauce on the table and pour it over your meat & mashed potatoes. Oh Sweet Heaven.  And! If you have extra sauce (it makes a lot) marinate and bake some chicken in it a few nights later. It's just as delicious.

You know how sometimes you cook dinner, eat, clean up and every thing's done and then you go into the kitchen a while later and the Dinner Smell just smacks you in the face? And you think, "ugh. Dinner." You know that feeling?  With this dinner, when you walk back into the kitchen, you think, "yum. Lavender." Now that's a nice way to end the day.

On Laundry and Ground Turkey.

I made a rather outlandish claim in my last post, didn't I? There I was all "I've been caught up on laundry for three weeks and aren't I fabulous?"  Well, you know what? I AM fabulous because even though we've had some busy times over here at Casa de Burps and Farts, I'm still caught up. OH YES I AM.  So take a seat and I'll spin you a little tale on the glories of the Three Basket System.

Now. Let's all acknowledge right off the bat that no system, regardless of how many brightly hued baskets from Target are included, will work unless you MAKE it work.  It's not like you can just go out and buy the baskets and the laundry will do itself.  But let me say this - someone asked me recently, "why can't you just use one basket? Who really needs THREE laundry baskets?" Clearly this person does not understand the Great Laundry Conundrum of how laundry can be cleaned, folded and then just take up residence in the laundry basket until every last item has been worn. And how, also, because that one single basket is occupied, no other laundry will get done. Thus? Three baskets:

Basket Number One ~ This is your Dirty Clothes Basket, intended to transport the dirties from your bedroom floor your well used clothes hamper  to your washing machine.  If you are like me, when you get to your laundry room, arms overloaded with clothes you face two immediate problems: where to put the dirties while you empty the wet clothes from the washer into the dryer (which I realize is quite obvious - you put them on the floor...Basket Number One means that you only have to pick clothes up off of the floor one time. Genius!) and where to put the clean clothes from the dryer so that you can make room for the aforementioned wet clothes. Thus? Basket Number Two!

Basket Number Two ~ Your Empty Basket that kinda just chills in the laundry room until the dryer is ready to be emptied.  Basket Two is really the "extra" basket in this entire system and, I suppose that it's the one you can live without. But I cannot.  Use it to carry your clean clothes to wherever in the house you fold (I use my dining room table). Once you've removed it from the laundry room, Basket One shifts into its place and becomes your new Empty Basket.

Basket Three is the Folded and Ready For Drawers Basket, used for transporting clothes from your folding place back to their respective homes.  Once you have folded all of the clothes from Basket Two and placed them in Basket Three, then Basket Two is now vacant and ready to become your new Basket One. Follow?  (No? I'm confused too, I'll admit.)

Onward!

Now that we have addressed the constant rotation of baskets, it's down to the rules.

1.) Barring any weird schedules or special needs, I only do laundry Monday through Friday.  ONLY.  As a matter of fact, this is how I try to do all of my chores. I figure that my household chores are my "job" and, just as Tim goes to work during the week and has the weekends free, I should be able to keep to the same schedule.  Let me simply say that I LOVE THIS schedule. I love it mostly because every Friday afternoon I line up all three baskets, sort what remains of the folded laundry into them by location to be delivered (Annie & Tim, Boys, Towels) and put everything away. Then I take those lovely baskets, nestle them into each other, set them in the laundry room floor, close the door and I'M DONE.  Call me crazy, but I cannot tell you how freeing it feels to close that door on this chore every Friday afternoon.  

2.) Some weeks I have a load going on every one of those days. Sometimes more than one. Sometimes none. It just depends on what's going on in the rest of our lives.

3.) Socks.  I hate folding socks. HATE HATE HATE. Thus? I keep a little basket (blast. I suppose this is basket #4. Which would make this a FOUR basket system.  Now that does sound a little excessive.) that just holds socks. I call it the Sock Box.  This box serves two purposes.  It is used, primarily, to catch all of the socks that I cast aside while I'm in the laundry folding groove. Fold fold fold toss. Fold toss. Fold fold toss toss. Trust me. This saves  A LOT of time.  With every load of clean clothes I just toss toss toss those little sockies into the basket and don't give them another thought until Friday.  Then, on that very last day, when everything is just about finished and I'm almost ready to deliver the lasted folded shirt, I pull out the Sock Box, sort by family member, fold, toss into their respective basket and I'm done. Trust me. One should only have to deal with socks once a week.  The other purpose of the sock box, of course, is that it holds all of the strays, so either you have the matches or you don't but one way or another you know where they are. (I even go so far as to organizing the strays by family member and laying them in the bottom of the basket. Then I cover them with a little piece of fabric so that I'm not re-sorting mismatched socks every week. When I come across new strays each week then all I have to do is lift that little piece of fabric and I can instantly see whether or not there is a buddy waiting.) I know. It's a sickness.

I'll admit that we've had some weeks here and there that the baskets have not made it all the way back to the laundry room on Friday afternoons. We've even had weeks where they've all just hung out in the dining room straight until Monday morning, but this system has enabled me to at least be on top of it enough that falling behind means just that - I'm just a little behind. Prior to this, "Falling Behind" meant someone better run out to Target to buy some new underwear for everyone because God only knows when the laundry will get done again.

 The green basket on the left has since been replaced due to the fact that it did not match the others that it had a big crack that kept pinching my fingers.

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In totally unrelated news, I made these for dinner tonight and they were FABULOUS. Really. Make them. You won't be disappointed.

Jumping on the Food Blog Bandwagon.

In the last couple of weeks, I have been the grateful recipient of dinner (and dessert!) help from the wise and wonderful world of Food Bloggers.  I don't know why I haven't partaken of this wisdom before, but now that I have? I'm not going back! Today, for the second time in this month, dinner was ready at 8am courtesy of my crockpot. And? FABULOUS.  My in-laws were instant fans of this cookie that you should all run to your kitchens to assemble Right This Instant! And this grown-up version of rice crispy treats has officially become the end of weight-loss as I know it.
SO! When my dear Whitney (who I ate lunch right next to at The Blathering but only really have gotten to know after she went home to her own state) (WEEP) has asked for recipes because she is stuck. Stuck in a rut.  Well, friend, ask and ye shall receive.  Here is one of my favorites, courtesy of the Raley's  "Something Extra" magazine that my mom snags for me every chance she gets.

GUAJILLO CHICKEN

(Pictures would require scanning and, you know, work. My apologies.)

3 dried guajillo peppers, stems & seeds removed

I've yet to actually FIND these, so I just use chipotle peppers)

2 cups canned crushed tomatoes

3/4 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup low sodium chicken broth

2 cloves garlic

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts

2 T lime juice 

mmm...zest them too...why not?

1 tsp Garlic salt

I never add salt to my recipes and it still tastes delicious

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1. Puree peppers, tomatoes, onion, broth & garlic in blender until not too smooth.

2. Transfer to md saucepan, bring to boil then simmer for 20 mins.

3.  While simmering, rinse & dry chicken, sprinkle with lime juice and garlic salt

4. Grill chicken until mostly cooked through, brush liberally with sauce

**I brush a small amount on the chicken before cooking. If you do this, make sure to pour some sauce into a separate bowl so that you're not dipping your raw-chickened brush back into the sauce you'll use later.**

5. Remove from grill, place on platter & cover in remaining sauce

**This sauce is HOT. Be nice to your friends and let them add their own extra sauce.**

6. Garnish with a little cilantro & lime wedges, serve with spanish rice.

MMMMMM.  TRUST ME. MMMMMM.

Take my word for it when I tell you that you should make a double batch of this.  The next night, cook up some pasta and you've got a ready made arrabiata sauce that won't disappoint.