Tasty Tuesday!

It's that time of the week again, and I have another of my favorite recipes for you. In winter, I tend to make more hearty dishes and ones that require the use of my oven or stove. Come summer, it's crock pot or the grill!

Again, I'm linking up with Blessed With Grace and Tempt My Tummy Tuesday. There's such a huge variety of recipes out there, and you really should go check it out if you want some variety in your cooking.

So without further ado, let me introduce you to me Chicken and Pea "Risotto." It isn't real risotto, but it has a similar taste and is super easy to make. Plus, it's one of the adult-type foods I make that the wee ones really enjoy.

Ingredients:

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
3 c chicken stock (stock, not bouillion or other overly salty stuff)
2 c basmati rice
2 c milk
2 oz freshly grated Parmasean or other hard cheese
2 c frozen peas
Salt and pepper to taste (little needed)



Makes 8 good size servings (~1 1/2 c)

Cook rice as directed or using a rice cooker. If you are using stock, use stock in place of 3 c of the needed water.

While the rice is cooking, poach your chicken.


Once the chicken is done, shred/cut up the chicken into bite size pieces and add to a large, deep pan (e.g., boulliabase). Place the rice atop the chicken and stir to mix together.



Turn the heat to medium low and add the milk. Stir briefly to incorporate (using a rice paddle is most effective) and continue stirring every 2 to 3 minutes until milk has cooked down.

Add the cheese in batches and stir to avoid having clumps of cheese in the mixture. Taste and determine if pepper and/or salt is needed. Salt and pepper to taste. Add peas and stir to combine. In 2-3 minutes, the peas will be heated through, and you're ready to serve.


This keeps well and is good cold or reheated for the next 2-3 days.



Enjoy!

You Want To Know What?

It's been a long time since I've gone to go look at Stat Counter to see where people are coming from (hello, Paraguay, Dehli, Sydney and other locales I wish I were in!). And of course I had to check out what searches were bringing people to your humble blog here.

There were some good ones.

sissy husband
Ummm. This brought you here? Now I'm really glad my husband doesn't read this. I wonder if the person wanted to know what a sissy husband looked like or was in search of a sissy husband to dominate.

i love the cabinets from Costco
I haven't gotten any, but it's good to know they someone likes them. Someday I'll remodel my kitchen so that the cabinets are the same color on all sides, and I'll most likely get them from Costco.

how many mittens and gloves lost each year
Dude. You don't want to know. First, I don't think I can count that high, and second, I think that number would really depress you.

are evites tacky for kids birthday
Apparently "Dear Google" is a new advice column they're debuting. Let me answer it for you though -- in my personal opinion? YES! Super Bowl party? Go for it. A kids' birthday party? Not so much. And I'd like to go on record as saying that the first wedding invitation I receive as an evite, I will be declining.

ridiculous over the top birthday parties for children wish lists
Well, you won't find examples of this here, but you will find my thoughts on them. And I'm guessing that this over the top thing and wish lists isn't restricted just to my neck of the woods. Trust me, your kids are just as happy running around in the back yard. They don't need the bar set this high for happiness this early in life.

what are the nicest apartments in edwardsville
I have no idea. I don't think I've ever been to Edwardsville, although I do know that it's a town in southern Illinois near St. Louis. And that if I were to ask my husband, I'm positive he'd be able to answer off the top of his head. Actually, I tried it. I got an "oh. oooo. The only place I can think of in Edwardsville is pretty skeevy, not ghetto or anything, but definitely there aren't any luxury apartments there. If you're wanting a nice high end rental, you're getting a duplex or a townhome." Seriously, the man amazes me.

its not cheating if he watches tee shirts
Granted, I had to read this a few times before I figured out that the person was looking for a t-shirt that had the it's not cheating saying on it. To me, the fact that someone would want to have a t-shirt like that and would think it's funny... it's just sad to me. But I know I'm kinda old fashioned. I definitely won't be able to help this person!

tips for staying warm at football games
Well. You certainly came to the right place for that one! I'm an expert. Just go check out this post.

stitches hand kitchen knife
As I've learned, if you're googling whether or not you need stitches, go get the stitches. You need them. Oh, and Friday morning when I changed my bandage and moved to just a Band-Aid covering my stitches? I realized that I have four stitches, not the three I thought. Apparently I can't count anymore!

oh my god is it swearing
Technically, yes. Again, Google won't answer you, People. That's what I'm here for, I guess. So technically, yes, when you take the Lord's name in vain, it is swearing. In today's society, no one thinks anything of it, but it is swearing. Oh, and do me a favor and capitalize His name, wouldja?

swearing oh my god
Your point? Oh. Yeah. See above.

swear honest to pete
Apparently, I'm now the expert on swearing. This is a case where I would say that no, it isn't swearing. However, it is a form of invective. And I certainly wouldn't want my wee ones walking around saying it at their age.

can i get free refills with starbucks gold card
You realize that if you had just gone to the Starbucks site and read about the Gold Card program. You know... like I did. To answer your question though, no. You can't get free refills. However, if you use the Starbucks Card Rewards, then you get free refills.

But apparently I'm also the expert on the Gold Card program now:
starbucks gold drink customization

why do i want a starbucks gold card
You do. Trust me. I did the math.

It's so nice to feel needed, isn't it? Do you have any burning questions you need me to answer?

Sorry, People!

For Christmas this year, my husband bought me a neat present. Of course, I think it's neat because I specifically requested it (along with a number of other items that he couldn't figure out -- like BPA-free mugs I have since bought myself).

With the running that I do, I'm really intrigued to know how hard I'm working and how effectively. I'd like to track my workouts, too, but I'd like a tool to make it easier. That and it's always fun to know how many calories you're burning, isn't it?


Now I feel like a real exerciser. A professional, as it were. I have my own heart rate monitor!



And no, I won't model it for you. Thanks for asking. And no, I have no idea why the picture turned sideways when I loaded it. It was fine on my computer.

Anyway, I finally started using the heart rate monitor a couple weeks ago. It's pretty cool and relatively intuitive. I only scanned the directions briefly to figure out how to work it. I love technology like this!

I put it on and started out. A friend of mine was at the gym with me that day doing the elliptical while I ran. As usual, I had my iPod with me, phones in my ears, listening to my podcast while I happily ran. When I finished, she was on the ab machines, so I moseyed over there to talk to her.

As I cooled down more and stopped the podcast, I realized my heartrate monitor was beeping. Eh, it wasn't too loud. I waited for my friend to finish. When she joined me, she realized I was the one who had been beeping and had distracted her from her counts while doing crunches. Oops.

Apparently my monitor beeps unhappily and quite loudly whenever my heartrate goes above or below my target rate. When I'm on the treadmill, it's not a big deal since just about everyone is listening to their iPods anyway and can't really hear the beeping.

Today, I put the heartrate monitor on to go to my belly dancing class. Except that it wasn't belly dancing because the teacher was still recovering from her surgery. Instead they brought the Soul Grooves teacher in. No problem, it's still basically dancing.

Ten minutes into the class, a slower song came on and my heartrate dropped. I started beeping. I now realized how loud that beeping was. And I'm pretty sure others in the class did, too.

I tried putting my hand over the wrist to mute the beeping to some degree, but that wasn't feasile for long. I tried pressing various buttons to try to get it to stop, but that didn't work either. On the plus side, I figured out how to show calories burned during my workout. That wasn't at all distracting.

Fortunately, a faster song came on, so my heart rate went back up. Phew!

And then it wasnt down again. Lots more beeping.

Luckily, the lights were turned way down or everyone would have seen my bright red face. I kept trying to keep it quiet to no avail. Somehow, it never crossed my mind that I could simply turn the monitor off completely. My brain doesn't always work the way it should.

It finally dawned on me that I vaguely remembered seeing a settings function when I stopped my workouts the past two times. In the middle of doing plies, I found a way to turn the beeping off.

Hallelujah!

By the end of class, I think people had forgotten about the obnoxious beeping, so no one made an issue of it. I never claimed to be a techhie. Remember, I liked the heart rate monitor because it was intuitive.

The good news is that I don't think my beeping will bother anyone going forward. And even better? I know how hard my workouts are. That soul grooves class? It burns more calories than I thought! 503 calories in the hour I spend there. Not quite the 598 I burned running the day before, but I won't complain.

Maybe I should go back and read that instruction manual, huh?

You're Eating What?...

Children eat funny things. I remember a story from when I was in college and nannying about a family whose children ate sushi and edamame at the age of two. Personally, I'm all for eating sushi and edamame, but at two I don't think I would have gone for it. And I've tried to do sushi with my wee ones, and they aren't quite ready for it.

Sometimes you have kids that are super picky... they'll eat a certain brand of chicken nuggets and nothing else. They'll eat pasta with butter and strawberries, but no more. And there are times when I've wondered if my wee ones were heading down that path.

I shouldn't worry. They eat fine, although there are certainly things I wish they ate more or less of. Then again, I could apply that to what I eat, too!

Recently, we won a contest that Veggie Mom was having for Pop'rs. We got eight flavors to try out, and he's had a lot of fun with them. He really loves the color burst, cocoa and raspberry on yogurt or applesauce. In his milk is another favorite treat.

Tonight, we had popcorn chicken and corn for dinner.

I'm not sure where he got the idea, but he decided he wanted Pop'rs on his corn.

I'm not going to discourage him from trying new things, so I put a few pieces of corn on the side of his plate and let him put a couple Color Burst Pop'rs on it (yep, Color Burst -- kind of a fruity flavored one, not Butter that would make more sense).

And... he liked it. So I put Pop'rs on all of the corn, and he proceeded to have a grand old time eating them.




Personally, when I take a good look at it, I have no interest in trying this combination. The color burst starts out pink, turns blue and then green. Mixed with the yellow of the corn, well... ick!


So of course he decided that he wanted the Color Burst Pop'rs on his popcorn chicken. Who am I to refuse?


He loved it. He ate his dinner so quickly, that I hardly had time to get the camera to save this moment of ummm childhood for posterity. At least my husband was smarter and put the Bufalo flavor on his chicken. And now, I'm thinking I know where Mister Man gets it from!

So what weird things do your kids eat? Or you!

How To Get Fired... Real Fast!

Keep in mind that this situation is highly hypothetical. I'm totally making it up. I think. At the very least, I don't work in this field, so it couldn't possibly have actually happened, right?

Step one: Be smart. Be really, really smart and go to a good college and major in IT stuff. Do well at it.

Step two: Get a job at a large company working in technical services. Help fix computers, do software development, and ensure the network works properly. I'm sure there's lots more to it, but I'm so not technical, which means I unfortunately can't provide any more specifics.

Step three: Ensure you're assigned to a project that involves deploying software to the entire company. This means you get to choose, test and then deploy the software. You make sure that it doesn't conflict with any other software out there and then push it out. To tens and tends of thousands of computers across the country.

Step four: Do your testing. But only do it half-heartedly. Or maybe forget to test. Or maybe forget to update something from the test region. Or maybe somehow corrupt the file before deploying it.

Step five: Deploy the software. To tens and tens of thousands of people.

Step six: Step into a giant ugly, ugly mess as you see that tens and tens of thousands of people start to have issues. Some are kicked off the network. Some are forced to reboot in an endless loop, over and over again. Some have error messages pop up non-stop.

Step seven: Realize that there is not an easy fix. Realize that you have managed to shut down offices throughout the country. Thankfully, somehow there are people who have miraculously been spared, but they are by far in the minority.

Step eight: On day two of this issue, see for the first time what it looks like to see thousands of laptops piled up in one place, with Post-Its placed on them identifying who each belongs to. Feel a huge lump in the pit of your stomach as you hope and pray that the laptops can be fixed soon. Like really soon. And that when they're repaired, that the Post-It note stays on the right computer each time.

Step nine: Realize that there is not an easy fix. Start taking angry calls from thousands and thousands of people who are unable to work for a second day. Tell them that you don't have an ETA of when their computers will be fixed. Hope that they can find an unused desktop that they can at least access some information to be able to work.

Step nine: On day three, start giving an ETA for the complete fix of laptops of three business days from now. Remind people that this isn't a promise but just an estimate. Start ignoring your phone. Decide to forward your phone to voicemail. Decide to just unplug your phone altogether.

Step ten: Keep apologizing to all your colleagues, within and outside the technology group. Realize how many people had to be sent home without being able to get any work done and start calculating the cost of this mistake.

Step eleven: Hide. Start looking through the classifieds for another job in Timbuktu where no one has heard of you.

I am so glad that I'm not in technology services right now. And I'm really glad that if this situation were to happen, that my computer would somehow be spared so that I would be able to continue working were this unfortunate situation to somehow manifest itself.

Flower Boy

I've been wanting to tell this story for awhile. It just cracks me up every time, which means of course that none of you will find it remotely funny. But it became a huge joke amongst my friends for quite awhile. And it really sums up how my life went for awhile -- and luckily, I could laugh at it.

In any case, it wasn't quite a blind date, but it was pretty close. I was at a party a friend of mine was throwing and some guy asked for my number and I gave it to him. I'm not quite sure why I did, because it's not like we spent time talking and clicking that night or anything, but he did call and ask me out shortly thereafter.

He agreed to pick me up at my apartment on a Friday, and the plan was to go to dinner and then a movie afterwards.

At the time, I was working in consulting, and I had a lot to do that day. By the time I left the office, I was running a bit late. I wasn't too worried though. Then I remembered that it was my week for the flowers.

Each week, our reception area got a huge massive bouquet of flowers that set out on the desk all week long. Friday afternoon, one of the consultants took it home to enjoy the remaining flowery loveliness. Too keep it from getting me all messy, I placed it into a large garbage bag and carried it carefully to my apartment.

When I arrived at my building, Flower Boy was standing at the entrance waiting for me. He was fifteen minutes early, I might add. And oh. He was carrying a bouquet. You know those bouquets you see in the grocery stores with just a couple old carnations in them? Yeah. That's what he was carrying. While I held probably a couple hundred dollars worth of a gorgeous bouquet in my arms.

Well, that wasn't awkward or anything.

I graciously invited him up so I could put his lovely bouquet into water (while ignoring the flowers I had -- I didn't even take them out of the bag!). I guess you've all figured out where the name Flower Boy comes from, huh? It doesn't stop there though.

We head back downstairs and start walking to the restaurant, which is literally about three blocks from my apartment. He raves about the restaurant the whole time, how much he loves it and how great the service is ad nasueum.

We're walking up Wells, and we keep walking. And keep walking. And just about hit North Avenue. He's certain that we must have passed it because we were having such a great conversation (really, we were?). We double back and look for it, but don't see it. Then he decides it must be across the street. Nope, not there either.

As we're walking south on Wells again, I spot the restaurant. On the original side of the street. We head over, and I do the uh-oh, I don't think it's open yet. Apparently, that's when his first slipup of saying he made a reservation but not really making a reservation became apparent.

I volunteered to go elsewhere, since there were about five thousand restaurants in that four blocks we had already walked twice. He's convinced we have to go to the original restaurant. I shrugged and followed him. When we got to the doors, it was quite apparent that the restaurant was closed and wasn't about to open anytime soon. The tablecloths were gone from the table, most chairs were gone, and it looked pretty musty.

He finally agreed to go somewhere else.

We found another Italian restaurant, and we sat at the bar to wait for a table. Our great conversation continued as he talked about how his uncle had eight children and how he thought that was so great and how he wanted to have eight kids, too, and wouldn't that just be really cool to have that many children and what a great life they'd all have. And I started edging towards the exit.

When he took a bathroom break, I seriously thought about making a break for it myself before I realized that he knew where I lived. A note to any single guys out there: talking about having eight children on a first date is not the way to a girl's heart.

When our table was ready, he ordered a beer, and they brought a pilsner glass for him to drink from. You know that trick that bartenders do where they flip the beer bottle into the glass and then pull the bottle up and the beer flows beautifully into the glass? He decided to show off how he could do that, too. Except that when he tried, he ummm broke the glass.

I played it off and made a joke of it to try to make himself feel better, but he just went into a self beat-down mode. It was a liiiiiiiiiittle bit uncomfortable. He eventually got over it.

As we had our main course served, he reached for his glass of water. And spilled it. All. Over. Me. I'm still not quite sure how he did it, but he soaked me and my plate. Fortunately, I have quick reflexes, so I was able to save my meal. You can imagine the self-loathing that came from this accident.

Oh, and he ordered some Italian dish that -- at the time -- I'd never heard of, talking about how much he loved it blah blah blah. He took one bite, and his face turned a little sideways. I could tell that he was doing his best not to gag. Apparently he'd never had squid before and didn't recognize the fancy Italian name. I considered spilling my drink into his plate so he could get something new, but I didn't think I was quite proficient enough to pull that off.

Our meal ended. Given all the mix-ups, it took much longer than either of us had expected, and we decided to to forego the movie and just walked back to my apartment.

When we got there, we did the usual first date dancing around I had a great time, thank you so much thing. As he was saying good-bye, I was expecting him to try to hug me but was hoping he wouldn't try to kiss me. I needn't have worried. He stuck his hand out for me to quite formally shake. "I had a great time. I'd love to do this again. Are you free next Friday?"

Dude, are you a glutton for punishment? No. NO! Fortunately, he took me rather startled I-don't-think-so quite well.

And thus, the legend of Flower Boy was born. This many years later, I'm sure I've forgotten some salient details, but most of them remain burned into my memory.

You'd think that this was the end of the story, but ... I did run into him one other time. It was at another party of a completely different friend. I wish I could remember what he said, but it wasn't quite as memorable. I know he was telling all his friends that he'd dated me but was totally ignoring me to my face.

At that point in time, I was dating a very different guy. Actually, he was a former college wrestler. I had told him the Flower Boy story previously and absolutely cracked up to show him Flower Boy in the flesh. Wrestler Boy didn't take so well to Flower Boy trying to make an issue of me. I do remember him walking up to Flower Boy and requesting the he grow a pair. If only I could remember the exact quote. It was perfect for the situation.

Oddly, I never saw him after that. I think the two meetings of me frightened him away from parties forever after that.

So what's your worst first/blind date story?

I'm Out Of Ammo

Little Miss is too smart for her own good. She doesn't mind being punished, and if something doesn't work, she knows I have to move on to something else. For various things over the past couple years, I've tried carrots and sticks, rewards and punishments, to varying degrees of success.

For the last year or so, I discovered that the best way to keep Little Miss in line (when needed, which granted isn't that often) is to take away her favorite toys. If she doesn't behave and listen when I ask her to do something, she gets a warning that she needs to do X or she will lose Y.

Napping is starting to become an issue, partly because my mom told Little Miss that she doesn't really have to sleep anymore. Ummm hello, can you not see the circles below her eyes when she doesn't nap? Do you not notice the difference in her behavior when she's overtired? *sigh*

Needless to say, getting her to actually sleep instead of playing during naptime is becoming an issue. I hear a thump and go check and there she is standing on her nightstand playing. Away goes a toy. A little while later I discover her kicking her headboard and good-bye Baby Giggles.

Today, we hit a new level.

Unfortunately, my husband was doing the parenting last night while I was at Costco, so when Little Miss had an accident (90% sure that was his fault anyway), he took away ALLLLLLL her stuffed animals. Great.

Before her nap, she went potty and pooped with no streaks, so she earned back an animal (see, I'm not totally mean -- she knows how to get them back, too). She, of course, chose Snowy her special bear.

We discussed what I expected for naptime for the girl who was up before 7am. There was to be no playing. No jumping. No messing with the curtains. No peeps (talking). Just lay down and go to sleep. With eyes closed.

She soon had to go potty. And yes, she really again had to go potty. She didn't earn anything back then. The rule is that if you have to get up in the middle of nap after I offer pre-nap potty, you don't earn anything.

A short while later, I heard a huge thump and then some big screaming. I raced upstairs to find her howling hysterically. "I was laying down, Mommy. I was laying down and I hurt myself!" Uh-huh. I calmed her down long enough to discover that she had bumped her head pretty hard above the ear to the point that her entire ear was bright red.

Yeah... she was laying down alright. She claims that the nightstand bumped her while she was sleeping. Except that the bump was on the wrong side of her head for that. The girl needs to get her story straight. I'm sure she'll learn soon enough.

I didn't take Snowy then but explained that I was not to hear another sound. Pretty soon, I heard a thump. I went up and Snowy went back into timeout. She screamed. I don't mean threw a tantrum kind of cried and screamed, I mean she screeched like a banshee. Really piercing. With a few "I want my teddy bear back" pitifully thrown in for good measure.

After a few minutes, I went back up to remind her that she has five minutes to cry before she needs to stop. Miraculously, the tears stopped about four minutes and fifty-eight seconds later. I'm pretty sure she's going to be a track star with that internal clock.

And then I heard another thump. I went up, and she was standing up on the bed. She quickly dropped down and pretended she was sleeping. Because, you know, if she moves fast enough, her Jedi mind trick might work on me. Snowy was the last stuffed animal, so I had to get creative. I took one of her blankets and warned that the next sound meant I was going to start taking the Thomas trains Mister Man gave her.

She screamed and cried again, and I heard her throwing things in her room. Not cool. And that is something that I won't put up with. When I went upstairs, she walked over to the Thomas trains, picked them up and handed them to me. "I don't want to play with these anymore, anyway."

Did I mention that this all happened within a 42 minute stretch (not that I was watching the clock or anything)?

I got her up shortly thereafter. Tonight, she was in bed by 5:40. And oddly, she went straight to sleep. Here's hoping this gets her back into her regular sleep cycle.

Unfortunately, now I need another tactic. Any suggestions?