Guilty Pleasures

Everyone has a guilty pleasure food.  A recipe that you would never make when company is over and would likely never admit to eating.  Now don't look at the screen like I'm crazy, you know exactly what I'm talking about.  This meal could contain a mystery meat, gravy, or maybe even a stinky cheese.  Whatever the secret ingredient, one thing is for sure, it is in now way healthy and doesn't contain an ounce of nutritional value.  Despite all this, you continue to indulge in this mouth watering concoction while hidden away from the world.  Well I'm about to lift the veil on my family's guilt pleasure meal.

 Hamburger and Rice
1 lb ground beef (ground turkey also works well if you insist on upping the health factor)
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 cup rice, cooked as per package instructions

Brown beef in a pan until cooked through.  Pour soup over beef, stir, and cook until warmed through.  Serve over rice.

Well now it's out there, this is what we are eating when the freezer and the fridge are bare, any maybe a few times when it isn't.  This recipe has been around for years in my family.  It has always been a favorite of my Mom and Selby (sorry to out you guys on the internet) and has slowly started to grow on me.  I understand that it looks like the definition of gruel, but it's just so darn tasty.

Now that I've shared my family's guilty pleasure food, why don't you out your family in the comments!  It's very liberating!

Ducky Diaper Cake

A friend (sister really) is expecting her second baby so I decided to pass along the newborn diapers I had left from when Roman was tiny (which lasted all of about 2 weeks).  At first I was just going to pack up the diapers into a bag and give them to her, but what fun would that be?  Then an idea popped into my head; diaper cake!!

When I was pregnant with Roman a co-worker made me an amazing diaper cake.  It was a farm theme and had sunflowers, hay bales, cows and John Deer tractors all over it.  It was probably one of the best gifts I received and it made great décor in Roman's room until I started robbing diapers from it.  This was my inspiration for Trellyn's diaper cake.  I'd never made one before but I had a general idea of how to put it together, so this is how it went!

I started by rolling all the diapers up and securing them each with elastics.  For a clean look roll the diaper from the waistband in so that the rough edges are tucked away inside the diaper.  This will give you a clean looking cake at the end.  Obviously I figured this out a little late!

 

Once all the diapers were rolled up I arranged them into groups of 3-4 and secured them with an elastic.  Then I arranged the groups into the tier of the cake and secured the entire thing with two large elastics.  This formed the top tier.

For the bottom tier I repeated the process that I used for the first tier with one exception.  After I arranged all the 3-4 diaper groups into the tier I removed one group from the centre of the tier to make room for a bottle of baby powder.  Not only is this a neat way to sneak a gift into the cake, but it also gives the cake some support and prevents it from moving around too much.  I secured two diapers to either side of the baby powder bottle to fill on the space in the centre of the tier, then secured the entire tier with two large elastics.  If the tiers aren't perfectly round you can slip diapers inside the large elastic to fill in the spaces.  Stack the tiers on top of each other and voila, your cake is complete!  Now for my favorite party, decorating!!!

 

I started with the top tier.  I found this super cute duck wash cloth that turned out to be a perfect topper.  I realize it's not the most practical thing for a newborn but if nothing less Leila, the soon to be big sister, will swipe it and enjoy it!  I found these great ribbons at.......Wal Mart, gotcha!  I know you assumed it was the dollar store! I laid the duck up against the tier and wrapped the larger ribbon around the centre, covering the elastics.  To attach the ribbon to the diapers I used a bit of double sided tape in a few spots so it wouldn't move.  Then I hot glued one end of the ribbon onto the other.  Then I wrapped the smaller ribbon around the centre of the blue ribbon and attached it with a line of hot glue to hold it in place.  I repeated this ribbon process on the other two tiers, as well as the body wash and lotion bottles.

The decorations behind the duck I found at the dollar store, you know I can't stay away from that place.  I slipped the wires in between the diapers in the top tier and threaded them down through the second tier.  Then I bent them in different directions to give them a sense of whimsy.

I used elastics to attach the rattles, rubber ducks, and bottles to the cake.  *TIP - to hide the elastics run them under the ribbon and then wrap them around a diaper or two.  This will hide the elastic better than if you go over the ribbon.  To hide the elastics around the small ducks necks (what baby wants to come into this world and see a rubber duck in a noose?) I tied ribbons around their necks and curled the ribbon, I guess that makes it better?.  Once everything was attached to the cake I started to place the flowers (also from the dollar store) on the ribbon to a) fill in bare spots and b) to hide where the ribbon ends met.

 

Now the diaper cake is officially complete!  Isn't this a much more interesting way to pass along unused diapers?  I think every Mom should have a diaper cake.  Not only is it made up of things that you will undoubtedly need, but its so darn cute!!!

Grilled Vegetables

Nothing says summer like BBQ!  Now that the weather is warming up we have been grilling a lot more of our meals.  I love this for two reasons; 1. John does the grilling in our house so I actually get to catch a few minutes of the news and 2. It dirties a lot less dishes!  I don't want to negate one of the pluses by making a side dish in the house so I've been trying to make them on the BBQ as well.  Normally we just skip the pasta or rice when we BBQ so I only have to come up with a vegetable dish.  Who says you always have to have a grain with your meal?

This recipe is remarkably easy and can be prepared in advance and stored in the fridge overnight.  This is super handy now that Roman is walking all over the place and getting into everything.  When he goes down for his nap I quickly assemble the ingredients and get them ready to cook.

Grilled Beets with Mushrooms and Onion (Serves 2)
4 beets, thinly sliced
1/2 onion, sliced
3 cups mushrooms, sliced
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup coconut oil

Layer beets onto a sheet of tin foil.  Make sure the foil is long enough to fold over top of the beets to form a packet.  Top the beets with half of the butter and half of the coconut oil.  You could also add dill, salt, pepper, or any other spices to the beets at this point.  I personally like the natural flavor of the beets so I leave them plain.  Fold the tin foil over the beets and seal the edges.  *TIP - be sure to fold the edges of the tin foil up so that all the juices stay inside the packet.

For the second dish, layer the sliced mushrooms on top of the sliced onions in a tin pan.  You could also use the tin foil packet method for this. *TIP - for grilling vegetables I often reuse the tin pans that I had previously frozen meals in.  As long as there are no holes in them why not use them again!?  Top the mushrooms with the remaining butter and coconut oil.  Again you can add any spices you like at this point.  Cover the pan with tin foil.

Place both packets on the grill and cook for 20-25 minutes at 500°.  Obviously every grill is different, so you may want to keep an eye on them to make sure they don't burn.  The vegetables become tender, beautifully caramelized (sometimes slightly charred but that's the best part!) and absolutely delicious!

I know what your thinking, why on earth did I put butter and coconut oil in the pouches?  The vegetables, especially the onions, soak up the most amazing coconut flavor which makes this feel even more like summer!

Lawn Rehab

Now that Roman is walking he needs space to run and play.  Our front yard has deep green, luscious, grass that he can play in, but with a south exposure, it gets very hot very fast.  Attempting to play with Roman in the back yard one afternoon I became so frustrated with the state of the lawn that I decided it was going to be fixed NOW. Between the previous owner not looking after the lawn and the dogs (specifically Bronx) running laps through the yard, the poor grass (if you can even call it that) is in pretty rough shape. There are large sections that have be worn down to the dirt, others have patches of relatively healthy grass, and other areas have reverted to prairie grass.

I immediately loaded Roman up in my car and headed to Canadian Tire to get supplies.  I picked up two rakes and a bag of Scotts Turf Builder Sunny Mix grass seed.  I might have also picked up a few flowers while in the garden centre, but we just won't tell John about them...

Once Roman was in bed for the night war was unleashed on the lawn.  We started by raking the grass to remove all the dead grass and loosening the dirt so they grass seed would sit in the dirt rather than on top of the soil/dead grass.  Using a hand spreader we spread the entire bag over our lawn.  We put the seed on fairly thick so that there wouldn't be any bare spots and so we'd have the best chance at germination.

After two days of watering we decided to follow the seed with a layer of Scotts Turf Builder Lawn Fertilizer to give the grass an extra boost.  We had a partial bag left from fertilizing the front lawn so we just used what was left of the bag.  We are continuing to water the grass every other day or so (if it isn't raining) to keep the seed moist and to dissolve the fertilizer.  Now we play the waiting game and hope that grass grows!  To be continued....

Grilled Asian Sesame Beef Skewers

With warm spring weather comes BBQ season!  John has been itching to get our BBQ up and running so I decided to make this in my latest freezer meal blitz.  This recipe was originally posted on The Black Peppercorn and has quickly become a family favorite.  The best part is that no cooking is required on freezer meal cooking day.  Just dump everything into a freezer bag and stick it in the freezer.

I love making this as a freezer meal because it allows you to use a cheaper cut of meat like an inside round steak rather than a beef tenderloin, which the original recipes calls for. Not only does this save you money but it but it saves you time buy having it frozen in the marinade. All that's left to do is thaw and grill.

Grilled Asian Sesame Beef Skewers
4 - 6 oz. inside round steaks
1/2 cup sesame oil
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup sugar
4 garlic cloves
4T fresh ginger, minced
1t chili flakes
2T sesame seeds

Cut beef into 1 inch cubes and place in a freezer bag.  Mix all remaining ingredients together and pour over beef.  Marinate for at least one hour.  Thread the beef cubes onto skewers and grill until cooked to your liking.

Now if you're like us you usually realize your out of propane for the BBQ just as you sit the meat on the grill.  Don't panic!!!  It's not the end of the world!  Lay the skewers of beef onto a cookie sheet and pop them into the oven on broil for 45 minutes for well done beef, being sure to flip them half way through.  *Turns out we weren't out of propane but our BBQ actually died.  John was so excited that he got to buy a new one!*

I like to serve these skewers with quinoa and chopped veggies.  In this case I decided to cook my quinoa in beef stock (a leftover carton from another meal) and add chopped cucumber, tomato and green onion.

Moon Sand

Every day Roman is becoming less of a baby and more of a toddler *tear*.  Along with the fun of watching him walk and chase the dogs, comes the challenge of coming up with new and exciting things for him to do.  Luckily the weather has been gorgeous so we've been able to get outside more.  This opens up a whole new world of activities that I would never dream of letting Roman do in the house.  Now I'm not afraid of a little mess, but the line has to be drawn somewhere.

Recently a Mom on one of the Mommy Facebook groups I'm a part of posted a photo of her son playing with moon sand that she had made.  He looked like he was having a great time, so I thought maybe Roman would like to play with moon sand.  That minute I went into the kitchen to mix up some moon sand.

Moon Sand
2 cups flour
1/4 cup oil

Mix and enjoy!

Maybe it was because it was close to supper time, or maybe it just smelled appetizing.  Either way I should have known that Roman would stuff as much of the moon sand into his mouth as he could.  No need to panic!  Because its only flour and oil I wasn't too concerned about him eating it.  That is until the 5th or 6th handful went into his mouth....

The novelty of the sand wore off pretty quickly with Roman and he was soon off to play with Bronx's toys and eat dirt and rocks.  He might be a little young right now for the moon sand but I'm sure he'll love it soon enough.  If not at least I have another option for snacks!

Chicken Something

I know what your thinking.  Why on earth would I want to eat something called Chicken Something?  The name leaves a bit to be desired, but when John asked what I was making for supper I wasn't really sure what to call it, hence the name Chicken Something. 

I had originally purchased the rotisserie chicken with the intent of making a meal that I've made in the past, only to discover that I didn't have one of the main ingredients (I hate when that happens!).  I had already taken some Fried Couscous out of the freezer so I decided to keep with the Asian theme.  After surveying the contents of my fridge this is what I came up with!

Chicken Something  (Serves 4)
1 rotisserie chicken - breasts, wings and legs removed
1 tomato, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
5 spears asparagus, chopped
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup hoisin sauce
2T sesame oil
1t chili flakes
1T chili powder
2T sesame seeds
4 cups cooked couscous (I used Fried Couscous from Once A Month Meals and I highly recommend it!!!)

Layer chicken on top of couscous in a 9x13 pan.  Top with tomato, bell pepper and asparagus.  Drizzle soy sauce, hoisin sauce and sesame oil over top.  Sprinkle with chili flakes, chili powder and sesame seeds.  Bake at 350° for 40-45 minutes until chicken is warmed through.

I could smell this deliciousness brewing in the oven, but wasn't completely convinced that this was going to turn out.  But I was pleasantly surprised!  The hoisin and soy meld with the BBQ flavor of the rotisserie chicken to make a delicious sauce on the chicken and couscous.

Fried Couscous

I've always had a hard time coming up with side dishes for meals, especially healthy and tasty ones.  When I spotted this recipe on Once a Month Meals I knew I had to try it.  Not only is this dish super easy to make, its super easy to make.  Plus it's a freezer meal so you can make it up, pop it in the freezer, and if your in a pinch for a side dish all you need to do is reheat!

This is such a great alternative to plain old rice or pasta side dishes. I think this tastes as good as any fried rice I've had, and the broccoli slaw gives it a nice crunch that adds the perfect amount of texture.
This is a great side dish to have on hand to pair with any meal your making!

Fried Couscous (Serves 4)
4 large eggs
2 cups cooked & cooled couscous
1T + 1t sesame oil
12 oz broccoli slaw
2T minced fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic, minced
4T soy sauce
1T brown sugar

Scramble eggs in 1t of sesame oil over medium heat.  Remove from the pan and set aside.  Add 1T of sesame oil to pan and heat to medium high heat.  Add broccoli slaw, ginger and garlic and cook for 4 minutes until softened.  Stir in couscous and cook for 2 minutes.  Combine brown sugar and soy sauce.  Mix until sugar is dissolved.  Add sauce to couscous and stir to combine. Stir in eggs.

To freeze: Allow to cool completely, transfer to a freezer bag and lay flat to freeze.
To serve:  Thaw and reheat in microwave.