recipe

Food & Wine

A Pork Be Inspired Giveaway

by Jill
written by Jill

The food situation in this house is a bad one, friends. We’ve basically been living off of fast food. I mean, yes, I know… I JUST HAD A BABY. Good excuse, I think. But no. This must stop. We have to get back into the habit of, like, cooking and stuff. For our health, but mostly for our budget.

Cooking is like working out to me. When I stop doing it for a while, my physique suffers (because Wendy’s Pretzel Burgers), and I’m also scared to jump back in.

Anyway, I need to get over it. I’m hoping to get my act together enough in the next week to start meal planning again (or just sticking to the meal plan programs I subscribe to). I’ll also be taking the coupons the Pork Be Inspired campaign sent me to the grocery store next time to stock up on some meat.

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Crafty!Food & Wine

Apple Pancake, Egg & Goat Cheese Sandwiches

by Jill
written by Jill

Last night, I was at a loss for dinner ideas. Kendall desperately wanted pancakes. I bought an apple pancake mix from the The Apple Barn in Sevierville, TN last weekend, and he’s been  begging me to make him some ever since I stepped off the plane.

Really, they were a “gift” for Scott. He makes the pancakes around here… on weekend mornings with the kids while I sleep in.

What? One time he gave me a panini grill for Christmas, okay? We’re not even remotely close to even yet. 

But Scott was working late and the kids were famished. Even though I had zero other ideas, I wasn’t too excited, personally, about pancakes for dinner. I fried some eggs to add to our plates for a little protein… then thought, hmmmm, maybe I’ll just turn mine into a sandwich. 

But I can’t have a sandwich without some sort of cheese on it, and I thought I really should add some sort of produce to this meal, even if just some sliced apples on the side….

Or on the sandwich! With goat cheese!

You want this, folks. You want it in your mouth now.

I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, some sort of culinary genius, but I was raised by a mother who has the ability to make SOMETHING out of nothing when it comes to food.

She was creative out of necessity in the kitchen when I was growing up, a single mom who worked several jobs at once. Every now and then ( not too often), a little bit of her creativity with meals comes through in me. Thanks, mom.

To recap, ingredients (makes one sandwich):

2 pancakes (I made apple pancakes from a mix. You could opt to use apple sauce in regular pancake mix.)
1 fried egg
1-2 tablespoons of crumbled goat cheese (If you’re not a fan of the cheese of goats, I think a sharp cheddar would be nice, too.)
2-3 slices of apple (I used a honey crisp.)

Smoosh and nom.

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Food & Wine

Kale Chips- GET IN MY MOUTH

by Jill
written by Jill

My mom introduced me to this leafy green treat. No really, it’s delicious.

Seriously!

It’s not at all like you’re eating big leaves. It really is like eating the lightest, crispiest chips.

Make you some.

Be sure you start with really dry leaves, so wash them and then pat them dry with a towel, even put them away for a little while after washing so they dry completely.

Then cut the leaves away from the stem and into 3 inch-ish pieces. Spread them out on a baking sheet and LIGHTLY coat them with extra virgin olive oil and just a TEENSY TINY BIT of salt.

Don’t overdo the salt. Trust me.

Some recipes say to cook for 15 minutes some for 30. I found 25 minutes at 350 was the perfect time for our oven. Be careful not to let them burn once they get crispy.

That’s it, that’s all! The kids love them, we inhale them. You should try them.

This is taken mostly from how my mom told  me to make them, but also from this recipe on AllRecipes.com

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Food & WineThe Story

Thanksgiving Wrap Up & How To Wrap Up Green Beans in AWESOME

by Jill
written by Jill

Something happens to me when life gets busy and I get exhausted- I neglect my blog. I’ve been trying to blog about about being thankful and Thanksgiving and all that jazz for days now. I guess it’s a good sign that I was too busy actually thanking and eating (and SHOPPING!) to update you all.

It was a spectacular holiday for us. We had a low-key, small family affair here at home, made even more awesome by the attempted surprise visit from my sister. She and Scott weren’t able to pull the surprise off in the end, and I’m freaking grateful for that.

Because you know how when you get really pregnant and really tired and really lazy you just don’t give a shit what condition your house is in? You know how your bathroom could smell like a truck stop and your couch could be covered in dog drool and toddler snot and you just don’t care? You know how none of that matters to you because it’s just you and your husband and your kid who are going to see and live in it so what’s the big deal? Yeah. So the house was just. like. that. when my husband told me at 6:30 on Tuesday night that my sister would be in town in a few hours.

He watched my face for, what I would guess, was the look of joy and excitement he was expecting. Instead, I broke out into full pregnant lunacy mode and chided him for not telling me earlier so I could clean the house. “What? It’s clean. I cleaned it!” he claimed.

Let me just be clear that my husband “cleaned” by putting random assortments of items in various piles, stacked in places that don’t even make sense.  So the guy threw some toys in some toy bins and stacked the junk mail, some magazines, and receipts, topped with a baseball hat on the bar. That does not a clean house make.

So then I had to morph into Psychotic Wife Of Doom again and clean for 2 hours, all while yelling at him to CLEAN FASTER! And at one point he was super seriously close to agreeing with me that we should stop after 2 kids. The pregnancy psychosis, it is strong with me. (When I think about what I am most thankful for in life, my incredibly understanding and forgiving husband is always at the top of my list.)

Anyway, we got the house clean, my sister arrived, my marriage survived another day, and a fantastic Thanksgiving was had by all.

My lovely, beautiful little sister who helped me cook and craft and, in return (as seen here), got to sport some of my maternity jeans for Thanksgiving dinner.

We made a fantastic spread, including a brined turkey made with Martha’s cheesecloth soaked in butter and wine method, sweet potato casserole, stuffing, mashed potatoes, pumpkin cheesecake, cranberry sauce, gravy and these…

Ever heard of green bean bundles? We hadn’t either until my dad met his ex-girlfriend. This was *her* recipe. And while she didn’t last (and has now been replaced with a totally awesome new wife), the bundles have remained, renewing my belief that everything happens for a reason, even dad’s ex-girlfriends.

I tweeted about them and so many people replied asking what they were that I thought I’d take a minute to show you how to make perfectly healthy veggies completely unhealthy and AWESOME with bacon and brown sugar.

So you need a bag of frozen WHOLE green beans, a package of bacon and some brown sugar. That’s it.

I cut the bacon in half. Then lay it on the cookie sheet and place 5 or so green beans in the middle. Like so…

Wrap the bacon around the beans, place seam side down, then top with brown sugar. Go ahead, be generous.

Then bake at 350 for 45ish minutes, depending on how done you like your bacon. We like our bacon pretty well done around here. Mmmm… wish I could dig into these with the rest of my leftovers, but they are the first to go every year.

The dinner was delicious, Kendall was adorable, Scott took 3rd in his age group at the local Turkey Trot while pushing a 38 lb toddler in a stroller, and I took full advantage of my sister by making her help me cook and craft this beauty…

It’s a DIY felt holiday wreath, made for less than $15! Love, love, love the way it looks on our front door. Tutorial coming this week, so stay tuned.

OH! And I almost forgot to mention we survived Black Friday shopping at 4 am with a 2 year old. Despite my husband getting pushed out of the way, and out of place in the line he waited in from 1 am by a mob of asshats at Target, missing out on the TV that should have been his, it was actually pretty fun. We snagged many a great deal and Kendall was arguably more pleasant to shop with at 4 in the morning than any other time I’ve taken him. It must have been all the holiday excitement… and the snacks… and the bribes.

And you?? How was it? Family drama? Turkeys on fire? Black Friday brawls? Spill it. Make me feel more normal.

Kendall is 2.5 and I’m 36.5 weeks pregnant. I wish I could say that gave me an advantage on Black Friday, but I don’t think people even noticed.

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Food & WinePregnancyThe Story

Because I Can, or More Fun With BBQ

by Jill
written by Jill

4 p.m. snack today

I had a chopped beef BBQ loaded and stuffed baked potato at Whole Foods yesterday and it completed me. This was my attempt to recreate the magic. Actually, it wasn’t half bad.

Ingredients:

1 baked potato (nuked in the microwave, not actually baked… who has time for that shit?)
2 tablespoons buttah (said like Paula Deen)
Big handful and a half of shredded cheese
1 Jimmy Dean cheese and turkey dog sliced
A whole bunch of Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce drizzled all over (keep the bottle on the table, you’ll need to add more to the boring bits of the potato left after you eat all the good stuff)

I consider this a pregnancy culinary masterpiece. Look out Pioneer Woman. I’m coming for ya! Next up, my pregnancy porn cookbook.

I’m 15 weeks pregnant. The Iphone app told me this morning the baby is the size of an avocado. That immediately made me crave guacamole.

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