Food Journal Entry 1

I’ve been trying to search for new recipes, but within certain personal hopes or requirements. One, it would be best if they were cheaper. Two they need to at least sound/seem appeasing. Three, it needed to be easy to make, I don’t mean easy as in a beginners level, it just needs to be practical and not out of my kitchens capabilities. Lately I’ve been trying to put together the perfect grocery list. The kind of grocery list that is both very effective, cheap and produces great meals. I realized quickly that the best way to accomplish this by main ingredients and so on. Last week for example, I cooked a pork loin one night in the slow cooker (awesome), there was at least half of it left. The next night I mixed it up to make BBQ pulled pork sandwiches, and the following night was a baked meal with it. Point is: $12 three nights of meals plus lunch. Damn straight. I’ve found that I love cooking and finding recipes. I look forward to my “cook one new meal a week” days. This just started a little while ago but I love it and have been successful.

This week I will share my new Pizza Burger recipe. It’s simple as hell and tastes great, serve it with a salad and it’s a meal everyone can love!

Pizza Burgers (wish the picture was better)

Ingredients:
-Frozen pre-shaped burgers
-Jar of Spaghetti Sauce
-Box of Texas Toast
-Shredded Mozzarella Mix (of choice)
-Onion

Directions
Cook the burgers as directed on the package, if you use a grill cook the toast on the grill as well (it makes it even better). Heat up the spaghetti sauce while you cook. Slice up the onion. When it’s all done, stack the burger on the toast, spoon some sauce over it, place on the onion slices, sprinkle with cheese and set the top slice of toast!

You can also do things like: mushroom, peppers or whatever you think of or desire. It’s pizza/spaghetti/burger delight! You likely won’t need all of the sauce, burgers, toast and so forth. This is one of those great things to do when you want a list of different meals with similar ingredients. Pizza burgers, spaghetti (just buy noodles, you already have sauce), normal burgers (get a package of buns) and so forth. Personally I would separate normal burgers from pizza burgers by a few days so you don’t hear “Oh, again?”

First Family Post

Kyle is now two months old, things have been flying by faster then even I thought it would. Time flew with amazing speed when it was Isaac, it’s even worse this time. My hands are full, it’s pretty safe to say maybe they tend to be overflowing, keeping up with the daily aspects of the apartment on top of taking care of the boys is, well, difficult. Difficult and most times frustrating, Isaac has been a little punk about things, he’ll dump out his toy box through out the day, he’ll make a mess of anything he can get a hand on. Folding laundry is a nightmare, I fold some clothes, he tosses them or jumps in a pile of them. Yesterday alone, I was at the bed folding laundry, with a sigh of relief I thought I was done…I was wrong! Only once did he grab a pile of folded laundry and mess them up, but that was not all (channeling Seuss, oh no that was not all). He managed to escape with clothes, I found them after my sweet but premature relief. No big deal right? Well when you spend most of your day cleaning up after a toddler, it’s tiring. A room is never truly finished since he’s always close behind. Or maybe I’m the one that’s behind, I have to admit it is increasingly hard to keep track of who is ahead in the game.

The boys have been great though, they adore each other, Kyle is always full of smiles and a little babbling, and if you wonder where Isaac is chances are he’s where the water is or with Kyle. As I was cleaning out the couches the other day, I heard behind me Kyle happily cooing, the reason: Isaac climbed up into the playpen to sit with Kyle. Not too unusual, this happens from time to time, he’ll go and lay or sit there either on his own or to be with Kyle. This time he was sitting there changing Kyle’s diaper, and Kyle was loving every moment of it, of course he needed help with this, he couldn’t manage to hold the baby’s feet up and slide the diaper under at the same time, but he did an amazing job of everything else. As time goes on I notice how much Isaac wants to help out and do things with and for Kyle, he’ll give him his paci (but the toddler that he is, he does take it as well), he’s fascinated when it’s bath time, which led to his birth bear’s first “bath” (I haz pictures!), he’ll pick out clothes for the baby (but again, toddler that he is, he loves taking his socks away) and much more.

The Result of The Bear's First Bath

That poor teddy bear though, I was getting Kyle swaddled into a blanket after we dressed, we had just given him a bath and Isaac had sat there quietly watching the whole process (one of those moments I wished I knew what he was thinking at the time), Kyle loves baths as much as Isaac so we prolonged the process for further enjoyment! While I was massaging, dressing and swaddling the baby…Isaac was sitting on the bathroom counter soaking, washing and rinsing his favorite bear. He probably walks into the dining to join us, a soaking wet bear wrapped with a blanket, snug in his arms.

It was so cute, he was so happy with his job well done, his bear smelled awesome though it needed a cycle in the dryer as soon as Isaac moved onto other toddler shenanigans, but it also brought forth a whole new level of fear. Is it possible that my little boy is a little too smart and wants to be too helpful? This 34 month old wants to change diapers (so long as they aren’t dirty), carry and hold the baby, dress and undress him, give him toys and now he has an interest in the bathing process! Safe to say, more locks are on the way and Kyle is rarely out of sight, there is no way I want to take a chance with a toddler that can be overly helpful. He doesn’t mean harm, but it doesn’t mean that harm can’t come from it.

Kisses and Fun Times!

Kyle is quite interactive and has started “smile talking”, he really likes when we three sing “If you’re happy and you know it…”, he loves having his hands clapped together, and his arms/legs and feet moved around. Moments like those even get Isaac to calm down, if only for moments, and he tries to play along as well.

I wish I could just get him talk. But that’s a discussion for another day, or maybe never.

So this is my first true family entry, there will also be writing ones and I’ve been thinking about having a recipe section. Share recipes with you, only the ones I’ve personally tried and recommend, if I don’t like it there’s no way I’d try to give you the impression that it’s good! Maybe there will even be pictures, even now I have great recipes to share. So excited and I don’t even know who “you” are.

So here it goes, my first blog post. Let me first start with saying that the word “blog” is atrocious, or I think so, and this is about what I think so it’s from here on out nixed. Here forth “blog” will be journal or diary, or some other variation that doesn’t suit a twelve year old. Moving on, I’m 24 years old, this September I’ll be married for five years to Jacob, and I have two adorable boys. Isaac, my first son, is 33 months old and it’s been noted that he has the hair of a cherub. He does, he’s a very handsome and a trouble-making toddler. Kyle, my little sunshine is 6 weeks old, he is adorable and sweet-tempered.

So I’m a mama, it’s my fulltime, 24/7 job, but on the side I also write! So there will be journal entries about writing as well, I will also be participating in Teaser Tuesday, this is what the writing community does on their blogs, forums and other sites, I’ll put up a post with a piece of my writing. This teaser will be of one of my main stories/novels or sometimes a poem I have written. I hope I don’t bore you too much with my incessant ramblings and odd thoughts and whatever nonsense I put up here. I look forward to this new venture and want to take you with me into the land of unknown mama-ness, writer-ness and craziness!