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Strawberry Limeade Smoothie and Feb Cookbook Wrap-up

Well February has just about come and gone, and with it my plans to review eight recipes from The Biggest Loser Family Cookbook. I didn’t quite make all of them this go-around, but I gave it a good shot! Hopefully we’ll do a bit better next go around. The good news is that I did enjoy most of the recipes we made and I would like to try the few that we missed and maybe some more. Continue reading “Strawberry Limeade Smoothie and Feb Cookbook Wrap-up”

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Buffalo Chicken and Blue Cheese Meatloaf

So the first time I made this recipe, I didn’t get to eat it. About 5 minutes into its sojourn in the oven, our power went out. And stayed out for 3 hours. I could have just pulled it out and stuck it back in the fridge maybe, except that I was so distracted by the power outage that I didn’t think of it until after we’d abandoned ship and gone to dinner and come home again. Doh! Luckily it wasn’t too hard to make so I made it again.

This was probably the recipe I was most excited to try from the Biggest Loser Family Cookbook: Buffalo Chicken and Blue Cheese Meatloaf. Matt is a huge fan of buffalo chicken wings and while I don’t like the wings, I do like the sauce and we’ve made many yummy variations using chicken and buffalo sauce, usually with blue cheese including salad and pizza. We hadn’t tried meatloaf though and I’m SO glad we did. It did not disappoint.

Continue reading “Buffalo Chicken and Blue Cheese Meatloaf”

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Bottle Cap Photo Magnets

As a fun little project for this week (shoved into the later hours of Monday night!) I made some bottle cap magnets. They were super simple and had great results. Earlier in the day, I’d picked a few photos and cropped them into 1″ circles and put them all on a 4×6″ image and then had them printed at Target ($0.19/ea).

So with the photo settled, I prepped the caps. I tried to take out the liners, but they were difficult/impossible to take out entirely and I’m not absolutely sure this step was necessary. I ended up shredding my finger with the pointy tool I was using for this. Tons of fun.

Then they got a quick coat of white craft paint.

While they were drying, I took the opportunity to put some sticky-backed magnets on the back of the caps. If I did this again it might be worth it to invest in a 1″ circle punch for neater results, but this works well enough.

And I cut out the little photo circles.

After that all there was left to do was glue them into the bottle caps. I used a bit of 3M Maximum Strength adhesive, but many things, like Gorilla Glue or E3000 would work just as well.

I am very happy with how they turned out! They will look very cute on the fridge or wherever they end up.

Nannersp
Make sure to check out the other Pinteractive Posts on Nannette’s website.
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Visitors from Nashville

We spent the weekend with some of our Nashville Family. They came to town to enjoy some CO winter fun and to show off the latest addition to the family, our darling niece, Autumn.

We got going after work on Thursday and made the short trek to Vail. On the way we stopped at Silverthorne to check out the Ice Castles there. Unfortunately, it was frigid out which made it really hard to enjoy the castles. We did a cursory look-through and headed back to the car. Continue reading “Visitors from Nashville”

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Apparently Sybil Controls Our Weather

A few weeks ago we had a crazy blizzard that duped 4 feet of snow in parts of the state. We’ve had some nice weather since then, so it had mostly melted. And yesterday, it got up in the mid to high 50s and we got WIND. Not a little wind. Like Your Little Dog Too kind of wind. I had a friend who had her mail box blown over. Not a single home mailbox, one of the giant 15-house ones that are metal and they put in the same time as the curb. Another friend had a giant trash can blow right in front of her. I saw two fences blow down on my way home from work. Our neighborhood was strewn with garbage cans. Speaking of which, why does this always happen on trash day, or really trash and recycling day??? Hmmm??

Then for the first time since we’ve lived in our neighborhood, we lost power. Our neighborhood is newer and has most of the power lines buried (a very good choice for the weather we get), so something killed our substation. It was a huge dark area. Matt and Tabby were at her skating lessons (where they didn’t lose power) so it was just myself and Ben. We used my phone to hunt around and find flashlights and we lit some candles. Unfortunately, the meatloaf was in the oven and hardly cooked, so when Matt and Tabby got back, we wound up going out and getting some great Mexican food. By the time we got home we had power again.

I went to bed with a forecast for a single inch of snow. By the time I got up we had 3 inches. The plows were behind, the interstate closed, and they say we’re getting a few more before it’s done.  But the mountains have powder and our family’s flight is on time. To top it all off, we’ll be in the 50s and sunny this weekend. Gotta love the 303.

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Cookbook Check In

As I indicated, we’ve tried a couple more recipes from The Biggest Loser cookbook over the past weeks.

Last week, when Matt was gone, I tried the Mini Broccoli Cheddar Fritattas (above). This is another recipe that goes in the “barely a recipe” category. You steam some broccoli, chop it, toss it in greased muffin tins and cover it with some beat-up, seasoned egg. Bake, add some cheese, and bake some more. The result was about as exciting too. I guess this is kind of fun for presentation? Or maybe for a take-along breakfast? But personally, I prefer a nice pan of scrambled eggs ANY DAY. They have a much nicer texture than these.

Another recipe we tried was the Strawberry Limeade Smoothie. It was not a great success, but this is in no way a reflection of the recipe. It is, in fact, a reflection of our 10-year-old persnickety blender. Our blender doesn’t really want to blend more than a couple of cups worth of stuff. It’s also not fond of frozen strawberries (too big, hard). Also, it really only likes to blend when there’s quite a good amount of liquid. All of this came together to totally thwart me making a freaking smoothie. I spent over 10 minutes just getting it made, having to mix it up with a spoon here and there to get it anywhere near smoothie consistency. I was a bit peeved.

However, when I did finally serve it, it was quite tasty. Everyone in the family loved it and I would make it again. I would like to post a photo and a proper recipe later, since I made some alterations, but the recipe linked above will get you the general idea of it (as it’s in the cookbook). Do not skimp on the lime zest or lime juice. They are key!

Sitting in our fridge right now is the Buffalo Chicken Meatloaf, ready to be popped in the oven this evening. I am really looking forward to trying it. I went easy on the Buffalo Sauce since the kids aren’t very keen on spice. I figured we could add a bit like ketchup if we wanted. It looks and smells awesome! Hopefully it will live up to the concept.

Hard to believe February is almost over! Just a couple of recipes left to try. Then it’s time to pay the mortgage … and check out the cookbook for next month, Moosewood’s Simple Suppers.

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The HAPS

As usual, it’s our own version of semi-organized chaos over here. Just a sampling of what we’ve been up to:

  • We’re busily planning our summer camping trips. Sites book up FAST. We’ve already got two trips planned, one to Sand Dunes in May and one to Rocky Mountain National Park in June. Add to that our trip to FL in May, two other camping trips we want to take, weekend trips to Vail, and a possible 10th anniversary trip and I’m pretty sure we’re going to spend half of the summer away from home. So what else is new?
  • Matt took Tabby to the store with him on Saturday to pick up some groceries. She spied a coconut and wanted to try it, so he bought it for her. He used a corkscrew to drill a hole in it and then she sampled the milk through a straw. She wasn’t a huge fan. Next they will do something with the flesh. For now it’s sitting on the counter.
  • I ran a 10 mile race on Saturday. It was very hilly which is unusual for me since I run mostly on the treadmill or a few tried and true outdoor spots, and I hit it HARD. My body hurt pretty much the rest of the weekend and I had to take naps and go to bed early. Good wake up call for my half marathon in April.
  • Most of our Nashville family (Matt’s stepmom, brother, sister, brother-in-law, and niece) are arriving on Thursday. I’m super excited to meet my niece, now 3 months old!! And it will be good to see everyone else too. We have some fun plans including, of course, skiing. Continue reading “The HAPS”
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Fridge Pen Can

Since we got the new fridge, I’ve been trying to keep it nice and neat and use it for organizing our household. I got a slick Martha Stewart stick-on white-board style weekly calendar to put our schedule and menu on. Looks nice, but the dry-erase markers I’ve got were always going missing, along with my other kitchen pens. Inspired by this pin, I made a nice little decorative can that lives on the fridge and holds our pens.

Mine is made from an old Crystal-light container one from the sticks that you use to make a whole pitcher of the stuff (we make it when camping). Anyhow, it’s oval-shaped and has a couple inches of flat on the back, which I think would be important for getting as much magnetized surface area as possible. Here’s how I went about it: Continue reading “Fridge Pen Can”

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Flight of My Wedding Ring

Remember the time when my wedding ring flew off and went up underneath our kitchen cabinets behind the baseboard? Yea, that was fun. Well it went on another adventure last week. Only this time it had help.

See last week, I was taking a shower and the kids were hanging around playing. Just as I was getting out of the shower, Ben came in the bathroom. I was drying off when I noticed him near the door to the throne room. I heard a funny metallic clink and saw Ben was playing with the strike plate on the door casing.

“What are you doing, buddy?” I asked.

He turned around, pleased with himself. “It fit. So I put it in da hole!” That’s when I saw he was holding the engagement ring half of my wedding ring set. And I realized what was in the hole. After an admonishment to my son, and rescuing my engagement ring, I went to investigate. The ring had actually been lodged just below the opening in the strike plate. I tried to retrieve it using my seam ripper (handy, pointy) and just pushed it down further into the casing. Yay me.

Matt was kind enough to take on the process of retreiving it for me. He got to remove the trim strip inside the door, as well as some tack-strip after he pulled back the carpet. We found that my ring had fallen down a foot and a half or so and lodged itself on a shim.

It is back safely on my ring finger and will stay there … except for showers and I have found a more secure location to place them. The trim strip is still missing and will likely be for the foreseeable future. Possibly this will push up our get-rid-of-the-nasty-carpet-in-our-bathroom project. Possibly.

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Grilled Chicken Parm

Matt is a Chicken Parmesan connoisseur. It is his litmus test for any Italian restaurant. So I was a bit nervous to make this no-breading chicken parmesan from Biggest Loser. Though we all agreed there is a special place in our hearts for the yummy breaded variety of chicken parm, this was an excellent option and certainly one we can have a bit more frequently since it is easy and healthy!

I opted to serve mine over a bed of roasted spaghetti squash, the kids had the usual spaghetti, and Matt did a mixture of the two. On the side, we served steamed green beans topped with marinara – it’s a combo I hadn’t had before, but it was very tasty and of course easy. One of these days, I would like to work on perfecting a marinara sauce recipe, possibly to can in the summer when tomatoes are in season. But not today – today it was Classico bought in bulk from Costco. At least I don’t have any Italian ancestors rolling over in their graves. Just the German ones who can’t believe I hate sauerkraut and don’t drink beer. Continue reading “Grilled Chicken Parm”