Monday's Meal

Summer is upon us and it's hard to get enthusiastic about heating up the kitchen and sweating over a hot stove. But, what about the crock pot? The crock pot is your friend. Here' something delicious for you and your stomach. Enjoy and stay cool!

Crocked up Coq au vin

1/2 pound of sliced bacon, diced
1 4-6 lb chicken, cut up
1/2 cup dry white whine
1/2 lb of white mushrooms
1 cup of frozen small white onions, thawed
6 tsp of minced garlic
1 tbsp of dried rosemary leaves (use much less if using fresh)
1 tsp of kosher salt (or regular is fine)
1/4 cup water
2 tbsp of cornstarch

Cook the diced bacon in a medium skillet until crisp. Pour off all but a light coating of the fat and transfer the cooked bacon to the crock pot. Now brown your chicken in skillet and then transfer it to the crock pot. To the skillet add the wine and be sure to scrap up any browned bits, pour this mixture to the crock pot. Now add the mushrooms, onion, garlic, rosemary, and salt. Cover and cook on a low heat for approx. 6 hours. Remove the chicken and the vegetables and place on serving platter. Transfer the sauce to a small saucepan. Combine the water and cornstarch dissolving completely, stir this into the sauce. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly until sauce thickens. Pour sauce over the chicken. Serve with mashed potatoes or egg noodles. Deliciosio!

Sock love!

I finished this awesome pair of red socks for myself. I say awesome because they are really warm and comfortable. Although I'm not an excellent knitter and they look exactly like they were knitted by a not so excellent knitter I'm still pleased as punch and ready to start on my next pair. They fit and that's the important thing since I'm super lax about doing a gauge swatch (I know, I know, I'll be sorry some day, but not today). This was my test pair. I made them out of worsted weight Plymouth Encore yarn so no fear of shrinkage or fading here. The yarn did pill and split a bit, but who cares since it's for socks I'll wear bumming around the house. My next pair will be made with exquisite Lorna's Lace sock yarn that I purchased ages ago at my LYS. I'm going to try toe up, two at a time on 2 circs. How's that for fun times, it should probably take me until Halloween to finish them, lol.

I heart this!

Bath and Body Works is currently having their semi-annual sale and I have fallen in love with one of their products. Like most people I want my house to smell pleasant and I'm always cleaning, emptying trash and burning candles. I wandered in to the local B&BW while out and came across wallflowers. Never having tried them I thought I'd be adventurous and give them a try. Let's just say they are divine and even if they weren't on sale for the awesome price of $5, I'd probably still buy them and for a cheapo like me that's saying something. So run, don't walk and grab some up while they're still on sale!

By Request...

We all know that economic times are tough and we probably all have tightened our proverbial belts a bit. I however have always been a bit frugal. It's one of my frugal habits that my friend Dawn asked me to write about. I thought it was a worthwhile discussion so here it goes, red label meat and why I love it. First off for those of you that don't know, stores discount meats when they are getting close to their expiration date. There's nothing wrong with the meat they just need to sale quickly. Their need to sale and my need to save go together like peanut butter and jelly. To score these savings you need to know several things. You need to know when your store gets deliveries and when they generally do the markdowns.You also need to get there early. My favorite place to hit is Food Lion. I know they had that whole bleach thing in the past, but because of that I think they ruthlessly mark down meat now since they don't want Dateline showing up at their door again. My store generally does a big mark down on Tuesday mornings (I don't know if I should tell that since someone might be trying to get there before me, lol). Luckily for me I have a deep freezer in my garage and hence I have become the queen of the red label meat. Now you may have never considered this as a way to cut your grocery bills, but I'm telling you it's a great thing to consider. For example I found a pork lion on clearance that I will cut in half, hence getting two meals f($4/meal) from it and it was 40% off. This is the very reason I always chuckle at those morning show segments where they bring in some expert who will show the audience how to feed a family of four for $20. I generally come in under $10 for a family of 6. I'm talking meat, starch, vegetables and dessert. I also regularly shop at Aldi's and I'm not afraid of generics. I tend to cook from scratch rather than preboxed items. If you aren't afraid to crack open a cookbook the possibilities are unlimited. So next time you're at the store and they're marking down the meat, don't walk away, take a good look because you might just find tonight's dinner.

Work on it Wednesday

Well, I definitely need to work on getting myself to the gym, but since that's only an hour out of my life, I really should come up with something else to do with the rest of my day. I think I'll finish putting together my recipe collection. I've worked on it before and I have it about 70% done, but since I have so many recipes it's taking me a while to finish it all. I also want to split it up into two volumes, a dessert one and a main course/sides one. If I have time I think I might go through the kids shoes and get rid of the ones that no longer fit. Seems simple enough right?. Nothing super exciting, but hey that's life in fast lane. Next week though, I'm going to tackle that junk drawer. It's a mess so I need a week to mentally prepare, lol.

Thrift Store Redux

A few months ago I purchased a couple of mid century wooden chairs with great bones, but in desperate need of some tlc. Always having an eye toward that diamond in the rough I knew these chairs would look awesome somewhere in my home even if I wasn't sure where. I found some retro looking upholstery fabric in the clearance section of JoAnn's fabric for $3/yd and picked up what was left on the bolt (about 5 yds). So after deciding to blow off the gym in favor of a little home improvement I embarked on my project du jour. I have recovered chairs before. There's really nothing hard about it. It just takes a bit of time. I did sew part of the back cover so that I could get a snug fit, but otherwise I just used my staple gun. I have to say a word about staple guns. I have used the non electric ones and I'm sure they are fine, but if you're doing anything made of hardwoods like the chair frames I was stapling into you need something with a bit of power behind it. I have an Arrow staple gun and it rocks! I did beef up the bottom cushion with new foam since it was pretty flattened and not very comfortable. Anyway, I will probably get to the other chair sometime later in the week. I have enough fabric leftover to make a few pillows too. So here are the before and after pictures. Let me know what you think.



ain't she a beauty?



Stripped down and ready for a new look


Flower Power! Much better!

Monday's Meal

Strawberry season is upon us and there really isn't anything better that just says, woohoo, summer is here! Well, I love to whip up homemade goodies so I thought hey, how about cake.

Strawberry Pound Cake
2 sticks of butter
3 cups sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup of strawberries with the juice
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup shortening
5 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups flour

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.. Grease and flour a tube pan and set aside. In a medium bowl add flour and baking soda together, sifting well. Set aside. In a large bowl cream shortening, sugar and butter together until well blended. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add strawberries and juice. Now gradually add the flour to the creamed mixture alternating with the milk. Add vanilla, mixing batter well. Pour into the prepared tube pan. Bake approximately 90 mins. or until done.

If want to frost this, you can make a simple one using 1 box of confectioner's sugar, 1 stick of butter and some strawberries all blended together. Be sure to only add enough strawberries so that the frosting is thick enough to spread.