Friday, November 22, 2013

Realization, Food and Gobble Up

I'm not sure what prompted the thought this morning while I was getting ready, or why it was such a shock - I birthed these people after all - but I suddenly realized I have a soon-to-be 17 y.o. in the house!  17!  It's a couple more months until her birthday, but . . . 17!  That led me to the fact that the 15 y.o. starts driving school this weekend.  Which marched me down the path to the 13 y.o. - I have three teenagers in this house where toddlers wandered around, in what feels like, just yesterday.  Pop the 5 y.o. into the mix, where I usually do a lot of math on where his siblings will be when he's x-years old and which sibling will still be in the house when this or that happens for him.  It's not a good way to start a morning.  Especially a morning dawning cold and snowy - which is usually a mood-lifter for me because these days are cozy, clean, bake or craft kinda days.


I cooked and baked a lot this week and had a couple recipes come from Pinterest.  This was one of my first pins and it was touted as a Chick-Fil-A Nugget knock-off.  We love Chick-Fil-A; it's a regular stop for us after Saturday Mass.  I'm not sure it's an exact knock-off, maybe a little more pepper, but they were really good; insides were moist, outsides were crispy.  I think peanut oil is a must.  I doubled the recipe and it still wasn't enough for my family of six.  This is a fairly quick recipe to cook up, however, the chicken needs to soak for a couple hours in the milk mixture before you start frying.  

This Kielbasa and Apple casserole was really good as well and makes quite a bit; I fed eight and had left overs.  I might brown the sausage slices next time just because I like that crispy-edged flavor.  I also mixed up Homemade Pancake Mix.  They came out light and fluffy.  I added some vanilla to mine because that's how we roll.  It makes up a nice sized batch and will probably get us through two or three Sunday breakfasts.  

Any of these would be good options for nights where you and your scrapbook supplies have plans.  Even the chicken nuggets because they're really good warm, but they're equally good cooled-down. 

We don't have a lot of plans this weekend - the 15 y.o.'s driving school is both days, all day - like 8:00 am to 4:00 pm.  But I have my list of things I'd like to get to before my charity pick-up comes on Monday.  And with Thanksgiving next week, and me hosting the in-laws, I'll start searching my recipes for a couple new-to-the-table items.


Part of my plans have me continuing to tackled "the pit," so there's some hope that I can play with crafts a little, but you've got today's Gobble Up to get you started for the coming weekend.  I found this layout from October Afternoon, which had me thinking about paper. . .paper that's hard for you to use.  Maybe it's large graphics, like the big polka dots here that become a background layer.  Or maybe it's lined or ledger-style paper, which is almost like a neutral paper here.  There's quite a few punched shapes that are layered with other embellishments or make up flags, which is a good way to add more weight to small embellishments, but is also good for busier paper designs.  Today find some of those papers that you have difficulty using and then use them!

Share your link in the comments and earn an entry into the November drawing. 

Happy Friday,

1 comment:

Deanna said...

Here's mine using the September Smaller Kit.

"Made With Love"
http://momentstocherish-deanna.blogspot.com/2013/11/made-with-love.html