Random Thoughts...Food, Firearms, and Fun

It's been raining since early yesterday morning, and it's going to continue raining until at least this evening. Our yard looks like a mud pit, and the dogs are refusing to venture outside! We were supposed to meet a friend in Breezewood to walk the Abandoned Turnpike today, but opted not to do that in this weather. After a Dream Dinners Bacon Breakfast Frittata and coffee, Mac helped me fold the clean laundry, and I started the first load of dirty laundry. That's now in the dryer, and the next load of laundry is in the washing machine. I hate laundry, and as such, it always piles up because I keep delaying doing it. We're having beef barley soup for dinner, along with beer bread. I'm also going to whip up a batch of brownies, although I think those will be taken in to work tomorrow, as a gift to my coworkers. Today is a good day to hunker down and bake. The beef barley soup is from the freezer. I prepared a few batches a few months ago, and this is the last bag...

We currently have about 14 inches of snow since last night, and we are expecting another 3-5 according to the latest weather report. Mac knew by 4 PM yesterday that he'd be home today. My employer first sent an email at 6:15 reporting that we'd have a 2 hour delay, and then at 7:45 sent an email telling everyone to stay home. I've been up since about 7:30, and Mac and I enjoyed a breakfast of cinnamon rolls and coffee, after the dogs enjoyed a frolic outside. Well, Cobaka enjoyed a frolic outside, while Geno ran out, took care of business, and immediately high-tailed it back to the porch. Not a surprise, as Geno loves snuggling in blankets while Cobaka loves colder spots in the house! Around noon, I started working on the Hatch Valley Green Chili with Chicken that's our dinner tonight. I chopped up the chicken and tossed it in the crock pot with the chili starter. We're just having grilled cheese sandwiches and soup for lunch. It's perfect winter weather com...

It's been ages since I've posted, and I apologize, but things have been rather interesting, in a good way! In October, shortly before I left for my first real vacation in 3 years, I decided it was time to look for a new job. I posted my resume on October 14, and had an interview before I left for vacation on October 17. I returned from vacation on October 25, and on October 28, agreed to an interview with another company. I interviewed on November 1, and received a job offer on November 4. I accepted, and started my new position on November 18! I'm loving it!!! I am working longer hours, but I'm loving it, so I don't mind. However, it's why I've not posted an update in ages. I'm still attending Dream Dinners and enjoying it. My January session was yesterday, and I'm anxious to try some of the new meals. My February and March orders are scheduled, and in March, my Eastern Star chapter is hosting a Dream Taste event. I'm so excited to share it wi...

Since we were out for much of the day, I figured yesterday was a good day for the Dream Dinners Slow Cooked BBQ Pork Loin. I followed the directions, cutting it into pieces and searing it, then placing it into the crock pot. I cooked it on low while we were out, and when we arrived home, the house smelled lovely. I served it with rice and broccoli, although when we packaged up the leftovers, we packaged up the broccoli separately, and used the corn from lunch as the vegetable for our lunches. We'll use the broccoli as our vegetable for lunch tomorrow. The pork was extremely tender, and was falling apart as I removed it from the crock pot. Mac was not impressed, as he said it tasted too much like pot roast. To me, the sauce had far too much of a tomato flavor and not enough of a BBQ flavor. Had the sauce been a straight BBQ sauce, I'd probably have been raving about how it was a great pulled pork meal. We won't order this again. In other news, I did increase my Dream D...

We had a fairly crazy weekend. On Saturday, I monitored a rescue transport, which went well. Mac and I went grocery shopping, and tried out a restaurant a bit south of us. It specializes in pit beef, ham, turkey, and pulled pork. It was good, but it was rather expensive. There's another "smokehouse" that's on the way from the vet, and it's about the same distance. We decided that we prefer that one. When we did our grocery shopping, the cashier didn't scan 2 coupons, so I had to visit the customer service desk to receive those. Today, I monitored the second day of the transport, and drove the next to last leg of it. There were no problems, except on our leg, when one of the three dogs decided she wanted to chew anything--her leash, her harness, another dog's collar or leash, or another dog's leg! We took Cobaka and Geno to our local dog park this morning. They enjoyed running around, and Cobaka especially enjoyed frolicking with another dog who arr...

Yes, I know what I'm ordering in August... Is anyone surprised? We've tried a lot of them before, although there are a few new ones! Pub Style Chicken with Mashed Potatoes 2 6-servings (11 points) Kentucky Pork Chops (6 points) Cola and Lime Tender Pork Roast (8 points) Simmered Chinese Chicken with Jasmine Rice 2 6-servings (8 points) Rio Grande Chicken Fajitas (6 points) Buffalo Ranch Chicken 2 6-servings (4 points) Asian Barbecue Braised Ribs (10 points) Turkey Florentine Burger on a Pretzel Bun (18 points--ouch!) Arroz Con Pollo (11 points)

My July Dream Dinners order, along with Weight Watchers Points Plus values: Outlaw Chicken Sliders (15 points) Canadian Bacon Stuffed French Bread (12 points) Sweet Cider BBQ Chicken (5 points) Crispy Coconut Chicken with Jasmine Rice (10 points) Cheesy Bacon Quesadillas with Mexican Rice (15 points) Crispy Salsa Ranch Chicken (7 points) Charhouse Chicken Sandwich on a Pretzel Bun (10 points) Central Park Garlic Chicken with Roasted Heirloom Potatoes (8 points) Note that the Points Plus value for the Central Park Garlic Chicken has changed because I'm now including the Roasted Heirloom Potatoes in there. It previously did not come with the potatoes.

I just sent in my May order for Dream Dinners. This is the first month that Tiff won't be joining me with my order, but I'm still ordering 72 servings. My freezer will be packed, but that's not a problem, I hope... My order, and Weight Watchers points: Buffalo Chicken Cavatappi Pasta—12 points Chicken Enchiladas—8 points Chicken Paella—12 points Chicken with Honey, Garlic & Orange—5 points (We've had this before) Chipotle Chicken over Saucy Egg Noodles—11 points Creamy Tortellini with Bacon—12 points (We've had this before) French Tarragon Chicken with Redskin Potato Wedges—7 points Glazed Turkey Medallions with Garlic Asparagus Spears—9 points Parmesan Herb Crusted Chicken—5 points Southwest Pork Carnita Wraps with Chipotle Maple Corn—14 points Williamsburg Pork Chops with Mashed Potatoes—10 points We're ordering two 6-servings of the Southwest Pork Carnita Wraps, as I anticipate Mac enjoying that quite a bit.

On Saturday, my Eastern Star chapter hosted a Spring Has Sprung luncheon and fundraiser. We had several different soups, including my veggie chili and my beef chili, along with sandwiches, and many desserts. I had one empty seat at my table, but no worries. We had several vendors set up upstairs, and then at 2 PM had a live auction. The vendors ranged from Pampered Chef to Perfectly Posh to Scentsy to Tastefully Simple. Rather than charge the vendors a fee, we asked that each one donate an item for the auction. The auction was a ton of fun, with many items going for silly prices, both higher and lower than one would expect. Mac bought a new CD player for the basement for $7, while I purchased a few things for $1 or $2. Other items went for far more than I'd have spent, but then again, I was trying to be frugal. Amber ended up with a few things simply because she wasn't going to let them be unsold. Tiff booked a Perfectly Posh party for May, so I'm excited about that. ...

We'd been told that we might get upwards of 8-10 inches of snow yesterday, so I thought it would be a great day to have soup. Likewise, I knew I could toss the Beef Barley Stew in the crock pot at 4:30 AM, and it would still be warm when we got home. I loved how easy it was to prepare. I simply emptied out the freezer bags into the crock pot, and then added 4 cups of water. I set the crock pot for 8 hours, low heat, after which it would simply revert to a "warm" setting, keeping it warm but not cooking it. Mac dropped me off at work, because we were concerned that if we did receive that much snow, they'd close the base, and I wouldn't be able to make it up there in time to pick him up from the base. A coworker dropped me off at a local restaurant after work, so I could sit at their bar and at least play Buzztime Trivia. I figured that it would at least help me pass the time until Mac could venture down here, since he worked overtime. While I was at the bar, ...

This entry is written by +Amber Gontz , guest blogger. She made the Beef Barley Stew from Fix, Freeze, Feast , and since I used elk meat, is calling it Elkalope Stew. I put the block of meat in first, then the frozen veggies on top of that, and poured the water in over the veggies so the block would break up a bit. I sprinkled the barley across the top and it looked cool floating on the water like that. I made the soup in my monster crock pot, used the low setting, programmed for 10 hours, after which it goes automatically to “keep warm” and it was on that setting maybe an hour max. The meat was tender. The vegetables were not mush to my great surprise. The flavors seemed to be all cooked through everything, which was tasty. I added a small amount of ground sea salt to mine because I like a lot of salt. It was good as is, just not salty. It was a good consistency for stew, thicker than soup but not solid. I think it would have paired perfectly with homemade cast iron cornbread. It h...

I'm still exhausted, and yes, that's even after going to sleep at 9 PM last night! I'll deal though, and will muddle through with today. I may take tomorrow off though, but I'm still trying to decide that. I did stumble onto another "free" money site, Great Bridge Group . Once you join, you link your cards (debit and credit), and they reward you a percentage of what you spend, everywhere. They pay once/quarter, up to $60/quarter, via PayPal or Amazon.com gift cards. I'm up to over $27 this quarter, and they list your payout date in your account as well, so there are no surprises. The link above is a referral link--if you join using that, I receive $5, and so do you. That bonus posts once you've linked a card and have been active for 90 days. I have my Amaranth initiation tonight, and I honestly don't know how I'm not going to fall asleep on the way home from there! Depending on what time I get home from work today, I may squeeze in a shor...

After girls night, Tiff and I skimmed through the freezer meal cookbooks, and selected 6 recipes. They are: Caribbean Pork Tenderloin Mariachi Chicken Rolls Beef Barley Soup Dave’s Swamp Blues BBQ Chicken Chicken in Herbed Mustard Sauce Beef Stir-Fry (no peanut butter) The bottom two are from Dream Dinners , while the others are from Fix, Freeze, Feast . Tiff is going to tackle the Chicken in Herbed Mustard Sauce and the Beef Stir-Fry, while I’m going to tackle the Beef Barley Soup and BBQ Chicken for my meals, and then Amber is going to tackle the Caribbean Pork Tenderloin and Mariachi Chicken Rolls. We're planning to have them ready by February 9th, so we can exchange at Dream Dinners, well, outside of Dream Dinners, and I'm going to get to work on at least the BBQ Chicken this weekend. Mac's flight from Albany leaves at 6 AM tomorrow morning, so he'll miss breakfast at the hotel. I called and asked them if they could possibly leave a grab and go bag in h...

We already have our March order placed. I'm ordering: Orange Asian Chicken (8 WW points) Southwest Pulled Pork with Confetti Cornbread (10 WW points)* Chicken & Pasta w/Lemon & Artichoke Sauce (13 WW points)* Golden Pork Chops with Mushroom Sauce (8 WW points) Pub Style Chicken with Mashed Potatoes (11 WW points)* Pesto Cheese Ravioli with Chicken & Walnuts (11 WW points for 5/ravioli)* We've previously had: Southwest Pulled Pork with Confetti Cornbread Chicken & Pasta w/Lemon & Artichoke Sauce Pub Style Chicken with Mashed Potatoes Pesto Cheese Ravioli with Chicken & Walnuts The Southwest Pulled Pork with Confetti Cornbread is the most recent test recipe I tried. Mac tried the Pesto Cheese Ravioli with Chicken and Walnuts before, when I had a girls' night or some such. I'm ordering 42 servings, and Tiff is ordering 30 servings. I'm ordering 2 servings of the Southwest Pulled Pork, because we really enjoyed it. Depending ...

Two of the three freezer cookbooks are here: Don't Panic-Dinner's in the Freezer and Fix, Freeze, Feast. In looking at Don't Panic-Dinner's in the Freezer, it calls for you to cook meats and such and basically, devote a day to cooking the meals to go in the freezer. It's also written more for people who are going to each prepare a few meals and trade with each other. I guess, if I could find a few people who also wanted to participate, that might be a nice option to supplement Dream Dinners. Fix, Freeze, Feast is written more in the style of Dream Dinners, except that you typically prepare 3 meals worth of food for each recipe. This too would work well if others wanted to trade with each other. I've not spent enough time looking at the recipes to decide which ones I want to try, but I'll work on that tomorrow.

I realized, as I tried to plan meals for next week, that we have an empty freezer for the first time in ages. Not completely empty, but empty of meals. We have lots of antelope, elk, and mule deer, but we only have two freezer meals left. My January Dream Dinners session isn't until next weekend. I'm kicking around several different ideas, from increasing my Dream Dinners order every month, to preparing some freezer meals at home, and then having those to use as well. Since my last attempt at preparing freezer meals at home didn't go well (Mac wasn't a fan of the ones I prepared), this time, I'm using cookbooks, not just recipes I found in other blogs and such! I've just ordered three cookbooks, all geared towards preparing meals, freezing them, and then thawing and cooking later. They are: Dream Dinners: Turn Dinnertime into Family Time with 100 Assemble-and-Freeze Meals Don't Panic - Dinner's in the Freezer: Great-Tasting Meals You Can Make Ah...

When I asked Mac about trying Chicken Mirabella, he wasn't thrilled, so I ordered a 3-serving of it, and a 3-serving of the Penne with Chicken and Peanut Sauce. I cooked a stir-fry freezer meal for him last night. It was one of those, "Just Add Meat," meals, and I used two mule deer steaks for the meat. While that was cooking, I prepared the Chicken Mirabella for me. To prepare this, you place the chicken in a greased 9X9 pan (for a 3-serving), add the sauce, and then bake covered for 45-50 minutes. I gave the first bite to Mac to try. Apparently, boneless chicken didn't mean boneless! In the first bite, he found what I'm assuming was a rib bone. He didn't break it or choke on it, but it was a bit disturbing that boneless wasn't boneless! The chicken had a unique flavor. It was a bit sweet and tart at the same time. It was almost like over sweetening lemonade. I'd probably do another 3-serving of this sometime, as Mac didn't like it, but I thou...

I'm slacking on blogging this week. I'm blaming my sinuses, since I've had a sinus infection and have been pretty much down for the count since Monday evening. Through it all though, Mac has expected that I cook dinner. Well, perhaps expected is too strong of a word. Requested, maybe? I'd already planned on trying my latest Dream Dinners Test Recipe, which was Red Chili Pork with Confetti Corn Bread on Monday, and Monday night, it was really all the more I could do. It was incredibly simple! Preheat the oven, bake covered from frozen for 1 hour, 15 minutes, remove the lid, bake for another 10-15 minutes, and serve. I took care of getting removing the lid, and then when it was ready, Mac took care of dishing it out, and served it to me in bed. Yes, I was that miserable that I didn't even get out of bed to eat dinner. It had a nice spice to it, and a very nice flavor. The cornbread was a nice touch, and was cooked through, but not dry. I really, really enjoyed thi...

Mac and I were at the Steelers game on Sunday, so I knew that yesterday, I wouldn't feel much like cooking. So, I pulled out the Dream Dinners Chicken and White Bean Chili with Corn Fritters, as I could toss the chili in the crock pot to cook. Once I added it to the crock pot, I knew I needed to add water, as my crock pot has a tendency to burn things if there isn't enough water in it. When I got home from work, I removed the lid and turned it to high from warm, which is where it had defaulted, after cooking for 8 hours on low. I allowed it to cook on high for an hour or so, hoping that some of the excess water would cook off. I then started cooking the corn fritters. Mac ended up cooking most of those, as he's better at cooking them and flipping them than I am. We added cheese to our chili, and ended up tearing the corn fritters into pieces and adding them to the chili as well. The chili had a nice taste, but the bleu cheese and onion in the corn fritters was a bit odd...

WW point values for my January Dream Dinners order are: Kung Pao Chicken with Jasmine Rice (12 points including 1/2 cup of rice) Outlaw Chicken Sliders (15 points for 2 sliders) Meatloaf Milano with Mashed Potatoes (13 points for meatloaf and 1/2 cup mashed potatoes) Cranberry Buttermilk Chicken (4 points) Pacific Rim Glazed Steak with Wonton Crisps (7 points for 1 steak and 2 crisps) Coconut Mahi Mahi with Jasmine Rice (11 points including 1/2 cup of rice) Parmesan Crusted Chicken (5 points) The Kung Pao Chicken is a 3-serving, for Mac. I've already decided on my portion of the February menu. I'm just waiting on Tiff's portion, and then that will be finalized as well. My meals, with WW point values are: Crispy French Onion Chicken (6 points) Buffalo Ranch Chicken (4 points) Arroz Con Pollo (11 points) Cattleman's Pie (10 points) Terracotta Chicken with Pita and Hummus (10 points) Cola and Lime Tender Pork Roast (8 points) I was slightly surprised...