Chopped.. .

I really love cooking.... I also love watching cooking shows, me and the foodNetwork are tight. One of my fav shows is Chopped. I think every person who makes home cooked meals allot has experience cooking chopped style. In the show three chefs get a mystery basket full of ingredients and have to cook three courses with the ingredients provided. Which is pretty much the same as digging through your cupboards, trying to create a meal without having to go to the grocery store....

My Chopped meal was..... hmmmmm Gross isn't exactly the right word... Ollie ate two helpings. I pondered calling B on his way home from work with a warning, and a save yourself message. But than I looked at the huge Pot of the Glop I had made, and couldn't stand to throw it all out, so I figured B would just have to suffer like the rest of us...

Just in case you want the "recipe"... here it is.

1/2 pound bacon chopped

1 Onion chopped

2 red potatoes finely chopped

1/2 cup white wine

1/2 package chopped spinach

4 oz cream cheese

2 packages organic annies mac and cheese

1 cup shredded misc cheese

Start by slicing a random half pound of bacon leftover from breakfast over the weekend... start rendering the fat and crisping.

drain fat, and add a chopped onion. Than decide that your husband will eat anything with potato in it, so add two very finely chopped red potatoes. Open a bottle of Wine, and pour yourself a glass.

Decide to be fancy and deglaze your pan with the wine you are drinking... take another drink for yourself.

hunt through the cupboard to find something to go with this. Decide the pasta dish Giada made on her cooking show looked good, so go the pasta and cheesey route. Only pasta you have is Annies organic Mac and Cheese, take another drink of wine, and think... Ya that will work.

Get water boiling for the pasta... decide this "meal" needs a veggie, throw in a bunch of chopped spinach.... and like Giada's recipe a half cube of cream cheese...

drain the pasta and prepare the packaged cheese sauce...

add the pasta and the cheese sauce to the bacon, potato, onion, spinach hash stuff.... take another drink of wine... and than throw in some grated cheese, because melted cheese fixes anything... right...

sit back and take a look at your creation... hmmmmm maybe I should have paid more attention to my cooking than my glass of wine.

ughhhhhh...

quiet...

quiet is not something I get allot of around the house....

.. ...Thank you lego's for a half hour of peace... ..

Sunday morning...

tailgating at the The Flavour Spot... the local waffle cart... Seriously who knew waffle sandwiches were so good.

another rain walk...

rainy dayz...

We have been hitting up the indoor play park at the local community center. It is awesome to be able to take a 5 minute walk and let the boys run all their pent up wiggles out. Plus, I ran into my old boss from Coffee Bean who is also now a stay at home mom... It is great having a play date for the boys and me!

We are heading into the winter lull waiting in anticipation for Spring... the rain seems to be never ending. Which I don't mind so much, but it does kind of ware on you. I just keep reminding myself that the rain is what makes it so beautiful and green here, that helps... a little.

I picked up some cheap umbrellas at Ikea last week... The boys were super stoked, I had checked at freddys, but didn't want to shell out 15 bucks a piece...

I guess I should have known Max would need a heartier umbrella, this is how his cheap umbrella looked by the time we made it to the community center... seriously only a 5 minute walk.

So guess who had to give up her umbrella for the walk home. The boys stayed nice and dry, I was soaked.

house is coming along...

We are still here and alive... Our house is getting settled in. We have been painting, and building shelves, arranging and re-arranging cupboards and closets...

Things I Love about our little home..

• It is comfy, super, super comfy. It is the first house we have really felt at home in. We loved the little milwaukie house, but our landlord... who was super awesome... was around allot, we never really felt like it was our home.


• I got to paint a wall in the living room, beautiful and horrible asparagus green... I love it.


• Like the Milwaukie house, every window I look out I see green.


• My bedroom is big... It is painted a deep warm grey color... and has dark brown roman shades.... It is like a comfy cave, I sleep awesome in there.


• I got a portable dishwasher! Awesome, I may be in love with that appliance.


• We have hardwood floors throughout the house... I love them.


• I can walk everywhere I need to go, and am only 5 minutes from NW Portland, and I get to drive over the St. John bridge allot. I love it!


• The backyard is perfect! and as soon as I finish the garage, my work space is going to be awesome!

We are still working on the house, I will post pictures as soon as we get everything settled. Right now I am working on finding the perfect robins egg color to paint the small space between the cabinets and backsplash!

December.. ..

December 2009 was crazy busy and stressful. I am glad it is done... I hope you all had a joyous wonderful holiday season, I am already looking forward to spring.. ... I hope this winter goes by fast....

We are all moved in to our new house, we are re-adjusting to living in a small house. I seem to move furniture everyday trying to make the best use out of the space. We love the neighborhood, we have an awesome 12 year old neighbor boy named August...ummm coolest name ever. He loves the boys, and has taken the red cross babysitting class... total score for us! That means we may get more date nights without having to beg people related to us.

The backyard is great, and will be perfect for the summer, But I don't have a dishwasher and this is killing me, like seriously killing me. ...