"Oh Well" and Once a Month Cooking Review

OK, so I'm a failure.


But not a TOTAL failure....just somewhat of a failure:

See if you count the crossed out lines and the X's...the crossed out stuff wins by a narrow margin.  So we will just say I had "Some Success".

Oh well. I'm not giving up, just moving on from the daily recording of my failure tasks.

Sooooooo anyway.....

I promised to give some reviews of the recipes from once a month cooking.

My scale is as follows:

1 to 10 with 10 being "YUMMY!" and 1 being "I can't even bring myself to take a bite"

Or just consider it something similar to the "Pain Chart" (Read as 10, 8, 6, 4, 2, 1):

Breakfasts

Banana Nut Oat Bran Muffins

10 - Awesome! Planning to make some more.  Tasted great and were SO convenient to carry to work.

Egg Casserole Cups

1 - We are not finishing these.  Harrison ate one right out of the oven and he said it was alright, but once they went into the freezer the texture was terrible.

Lunches

Creamy Avocado & White Bean Wrap

8 - Harrison definitely liked these and his only complaint was that I only sent him one for lunch.  I'll say it like my grandfather used to - This was good, but I didn't like it.

Lentil & Wild Rice Soup

Haven't tried yet...

Chicken & Spinach Calzone

7 - Yummy, but sort of hard to reheat in the microwave...the middle would still be frozen while the outside crust was getting hard.

Cauliflower & Broccoli Salad

Ummm, haven't tried yet....brought to work, but just doesn't look very appetizing...maybe it's good...

Dinners

Veg-ed Out Sloppy Joes

Haven't tried yet.

Sautéed Zucchini with Plum Tomatoes

6 - Not bad, but I'm not sure the recipe was accurate either, there was a lot of pasta with very little veggies.  We added sauce to give it flavor.

Chicken Quesadillas

10 - These were gone in just a couple of days!

Chicken-Q Sandwich

6 - didn't make me have a sad face, but didn't make me smile either.

Steak Fajitas

10 - So good! Veggies and meat and easy to eat (ha! didn't mean to make that rhyme, it's just true).

So overall I would give the meals a 7 (based on a very scientific calculation of the average of the number and a 4 for each meal I haven't wanted to eat  tried yet).  

As for my review of the Once A Month Mom system, I do have a few complaints.  The recipes are set up for one person, and you take the spreadsheet and enter how many people you will be cooking for (in my case: Two) and it calculates the amounts.  However, it doesn't seem to change in the recipe instructions itself, so when a recipe says 4 tablespoons of certain ingredient and the instructions say "use 1 tablespoon" sometimes it really means half (half of 4 would be 2 not 1) so it's confusing.  Also, I'm not sure that all of the calculations for the grocery list transferred correctly, several times I would start with a recipe and realize I had already used ALL of a certain ingredient....confusing and frustrating.

All in all it has been a good experience.  However, if I do it again I think I will pick out the recipes that I think we will actually like (this time I was determined just to cook everything, even if it didn't sound good to me.  Turns out I should have passed on those...).

But I have thoroughly enjoyed not cooking after work and very few dishes! So if you're not as much of a picky eater as I am, you should give this a try!

Once a Month Cooking

I have been a little overwhelmed lately and cooking has not been a priority.  In fact, I can't even remember the last time I cooked a meal! Harrison has either cooked (since he gets home from work before me) or we have eaten out.   So I decided to give Once a Month Cooking a try.

You may remember that I tried Once a Week Cooking a while back, but that didn't work out so well.  Particularly because there was still a fair amount of preparation to do before eating the meals, and since they actually just stayed in the fridge for the week, a lot of the food went bad before we ate it.  So I decided to try the once a month freezing the meals and see how it goes.

I used a plan from Once a Month Mom, I chose the diet plan.  It's nice because it gives you a shopping list, individual recipes and step by step directions for the most efficient cooking day.

On Friday I went to Costco and did a fair amount of damage.

Saturday morning I got up and went straight to the kitchen to get started.  

Step 1 is chopping all of the...well things that needed to be chopped....there were 24....

After cooking/preparing a couple of the meals, we cleaned up and took a break to go to a Barbecue festival with our friends Josh and Lauren.  We had been given free VIP tickets from some other friends who weren't able to go.

So we enjoyed some good food and good company for the afternoon!


When we got home we resumed cooking.  I say "we" because at this point I was desperate for Harrison to help me...I was in over my head!

Even with his help we didn't quite finish all of it, so my one day of cooking has turned into parts of about 3 days.  Oh well.

So here's what worked for me and what didn't for a once a month cooking day.

What worked:

I completed all of the grocery shopping in one day.  I went to Costco for most of the items and then made a quick trip to Publix for a few things that Costco didn't have.  Once a Month Mom does put out the menu early so that you can shop for sales throughout the month, but I liked keeping it to one trip.


Chopping all of the chopping things at one time before starting to prepare.  This took a long time, but was totally worth it.  If I was preparing each recipe and having to stop to chop, it would take a lot longer. However, the website does recommend doing all the chopping the night before.  I did not do that and I DEFINITELY wish I had....probably could have finished the meals if I had done that.


The step-by-step plan for preparing the meals in a specific order was really helpful.  It planned out when to turn the oven to a certain temp and then raise it for the next recipe, as well as using the crockpot to cook some meals while you work on others.  Takes all the guess work out.

Also, I decided to start with a completely clean kitchen.  All of the dishes were clean and put away where they live (which made me realize how badly I need to re-organize the cabinets, but that's another post...).  This made it really easy to find dishes and utensils that I needed, and also gave me an empty sink to wash things in and an empty dishwasher for all the dirty dishes.


What didn't work:

I really don't think I organized everything well enough ahead of time.  I purchased all the items and chopped everything without really know what ingredients were for which recipe.  So once I actually started preparing I was running all over to get each ingredient.  The second half of cooking (which I did on Sunday) was much better since I read through each recipe, grouped ingredients and prepared bowls and cooking utensils.  (Of course, that's how my mom taught me to cook, I just wasn't thinking it through...)

Bad time maintenance - I just had no clue how long this would take.  Although I really think it will be great to pull dinner out of the freezer, it was a LOT of time.  I would just take that into consideration if I did it again.  Also, it would probably take less time if I didn't stop so frequently to take pictures....

And finally, what really didn't work for me was that Harrison took one of the lunches to work and put it in the fridge and someone threw it away!  She thought it had been there so long that it froze.  Argh! I hate for things to be wasted.


All in all it was a good experience.  I can't really speak to how good the meals are yet, but look for those reviews coming soon.

Just What I've Always Wanted

Well my morning "walk/jog" was short this morning, but I still did it!

Unfortunately, because it was extra short (of course, because I didn't get up in time, I hate this recurring theme...) after I got back to my house I was still trying to run inside the house to get as much cardio as possible.  Well Belle (our dog) tried to get in on it and ran right in front of me.  I tripped over her foot and rolled my ankle.  I'm alright, but it seems to have stretched all the muscles from my ankle to my hip.  So I'm sore and moving slowly.  Hopefully it will feel better quickly, since I don't need an excuse not to run!

The rest of this post is a LONG time overdue.  In fact, according the the information from my camera's card, it's almost two months overdue. I wrote it a while back, but hadn't taken the "after" pictures I needed.  So I didn't post it and I am finally getting back around to it.

But here it is anyway!

We have been talking about paint colors since the day we moved into our house.

But when it comes to paint, we're a lot of talk and not so much action.

About two months ago (ummm, now more like four months ago...) we did go so far as to pick out a paint color that we wanted to try in the kitchen.  But after we picked the color swatch, we waited about 20 minutes at the paint counter for someone to make us a sample and then gave up (I don't really have a lot of patience for places that can't seem find someone to help me when I want to give them money).

So, the thing is my favorite color is red.  I have always wanted a red kitchen.  It took some convincing, but Harrison finally came around to the idea.

So on Friday night (two months ago) Harrison randomly suggested that we paint the kitchen....that night!  So we headed to the store where, miraculously, someone helped us very quickly with our sample of red paint.

We took it home and painted a section of the wall:

I thought it looked pretty good (but really didn't want to stay up all night painting), so Harrison got up early Saturday morning and headed to the store to get enough paint for the rest of the walls, along with some necessary painting supplies.

So this is the kitchen before:

And the kitchen now, in all it's RED glory!

(By the way, taking pictures to show off your kitchen - not easy.)

Happy that it is done and that I finally posted this blog!  Now on to choosing colors for the rest of the house....

A Gift From God

Got up this morning, read my Bible and prayed.  In case you're keeping track, that's 3 days this week...so already a better attempt than last week..whohoo!

(sorry no check off list yesterday or today, I'm blogging on the wrong computer...)


I have been reading a bit and listening to some sermons on prayer.  Partly because at the church where I work they are about to begin a semester long emphasis on Prayer, and I have been editing all the information and guides for it :-)  But also because I have been wanting to be a better Pray-er and to pray more like Jesus.  I listened to a sermon (called "Pray like Jesus) from Mark Driscoll at Mars Hill (you haven't heard of Mark Driscoll or Mars Hill?  Google it, and listen to some of his sermons, he's good), and he talked about asking God for things just like He's our father (because He is), and that God has three responses: Yes, No and Later.  So he said, ask for things from God, just like kids ask their parents.

So this morning during my prayer time, I asked God for a desk.

We have been needing a desk for our kitchen to keep up with all of our "Home Paperwork".  I have been looking and looking for just the right thing, but haven't been able to find it.  But today I asked God if He would please get me a desk.

Well, He did.

I found this little desk on Craigslist and (even though most of the time when I contact somebody about something on Craigslist it is already sold, even if it was just listed 5 minutes ago...) and immediately contacted the girl selling it.  Well guess what, I was the first one to email her and then she had SEVEN emails after me...phew!

So here is my little gift from God today:

It's the perfect size!!

Now don't get me wrong, I know that God is not a genie to grant our wishes, but He IS a loving Father who gives good gifts to His children and provides all our needs for HIS GLORY.

Just Running in the Neighborhood

This morning I got up at 5:30 and went for a walk/jog in our neighborhood.

Made me feel kinda cool since our neighborhood is apparently a runner's paradise - there are people running at all hours of the day around here: early morning, blazing hot middle of the afternoon and late at night (the late at night people particularly like to run where it's really dark and wear all black clothing...).

I don't know how far I ran (that's one reason I like the treadmill, I can see exactly what I've done!), but I know that my total time was twenty minutes and when I got back to the house I crashed in the floor. Seriously.  I don't know what happened to my gymnast, in shape body, but it is no where to be found at the moment.

In fact, even as I type this I can feel every muscle that was pushed beyond its normal limit today.

Oh well, I did the Couch to 5K routine - week one again, so here's hoping I will finish week one this time!

Day 7 ??

So after my exciting "I did it!" on Tuesday, my body decided it hated and despised anything before 6am and absolutely refused to wake up.  So it was definitely 2 steps forward and 3 steps back.  But I'm determined to keep moving forward, and I am checking things off today!  I'm not sure if I should still call today, "Day 7" but we will just press on.

Well I feel like we had a wonderful weekend...I also feel like I didn't accomplish anything and that my Monday To-Do List is now really long.

But it was a good break and a good time of chillin' out. But here's what we did:

Friday night we babysat for some friends from church - little man went to sleep early and then we just watched tv, easiest babysitting ever!

Saturday we drove to Morgan Creek Winery (which we've been wanting to visit for a while!) and tasted some yummy muscadine wine and toured where they make the wine.  Lots of fun!  Then we met our friends Josh and Lauren for lunch.  After that we pretty much went home and laid around the rest of the day:-)

Sunday we enjoyed worship and fellowship with our church family.  And then once again...we had a lazy afternoon and evening.  

Although, we did have a a little bit of excitement.  We went to the La-Z-Boy store...which is always a little dangerous.  But usually we look, talk with a sales lady (it's ALWAYS the same lady, I feel so bad for her...) think about it for a while and then leave without buying.  And this time we said we were just going to LOOK, we even practiced telling the sales lady "We're just looking" so we wouldn't waste her time.

We walked in the door, the same lady greeted us and asked if she could help.  We avoided eye contact, blurted out our rehearsed line and headed the other direction (seriously, this was for her own protection!).  A little while later she wandered to where we were to see if we had found anything.  We told her we were not looking to buy today.  She stuck with us anyway...poor lady.

However, we ended up back at the same couch that we looked at a year ago.  At that time we looked at it, sat on it, thought about it and left.  So yesterday we sat on it again, and this time it was going for a super-duper sale price.  So we sat, and we thought.  And poor sales lady sat with us and talked with us.  Then we told her we had looked at this last year, and she said, "I thought you looked familiar, I remember working with you!" (...great....)

So after much thought, calculation and getting super comfortable on the couches....we bought them!

(well actually we ordered them and will see them sometime in September...)

They really are lovely:

Both sides recline....very nice:-)

So anybody want to buy our old couches??

Day 3 - I did it!

So I did it! I got up at 5:30 AM and went to the gym...WOAH!


(My goal is to get up at 5:00, but I'm building up to it...especially since schools start back at the end of this week and my morning commute time will double...)


It was definitely hard to roll out of bed, but after a few minutes of saying, "Maybe I should just work out in the evening..." I finally got up.


But I did realize that I CAN get up and go to the gym.  I also realized that I am *SO* out of shape! Already feeling my muscles complaining at me...


I didn't do a whole lot this morning, just got on the treadmill.  I'm giving "Couch to 5K" a shot.  If you haven't heard of that,  where have you been?!  you should check it out! It's broken down into small steps that make it a little easier to get starting in the running game.  And for me, I really need a plan laid out, so I like just following instructions:-)  The first week is a brisk 5 minute warm up, then intervals of 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking for a total of 20 minutes.  Not too bad.


The best part about the whole thing is that I went to the gym, came back home, got ready and left for work EARLY! Whoo!  That made for seriously, stress-free driving to work.


Want to join me from the Couch to 5k??  Leave me a comment letting me know what you're doing so we can encourage each other!


Click HERE to see the entire 9 week plan

Last night Harrison surprised me with a Date Night!  We went out for Sushi in honor of the two year anniversary of our first date...when we went out for sushi :-)