Category Archives: food

I think it’s my favorite day of the week.

1 Reply

Ahhh…Tuesdays…glorious Tuesdays.

Wait…what?? Tuesdays?

Oh yes, my friends, you read that right. I love Tuesdays. Like, a lot.

Tuesdays are normally a great day all the way around.

I wake up semi-rested on Tuesdays.

For whatever reason, I typically look halfway stylish and cute on Tuesdays.

I’m all sorts of productive at work on Tuesdays.

Rylee has a great day at school on Tuesdays.

Andy always tries to get home a little earlier on Tuesdays.

But, my favorite part about Tuesdays? Well, that comes after work.

Tacos.

My whole little family loves tacos. So, that means Rylee eats a great dinner on Tuesdays.

A great dinner is follow by some sort of sweet treat on Tuesdays.

Kitchen clean-up is easy on Tuesdays.

There’s extra time for another round of Candy Land or just to snuggle by the fire on Tuesdays.

And NCIS.

Andy & I were never into “shows” before we had Rylee. But, anymore, by the end of the day all we want to do is veg on the couch before bed. That’s when we discovered NCIS and we’ve been hooked ever since. NCIS is on Tuesdays.

There’s always some of this…

And sometimes even this on Tuesdays…

So…yea…Tuesdays are pretty great…

Don’t get me wrong, I love me some weekends, but Tuesdays hold a special spot for our little family.

What about you? What’s your favorite day of the week?

{Recipe} Chicken Curry in a Hurry

1 Reply

I’d never made chicken curry before…I’m actually not sure if I’d even ever had it before, but I was feeling like we were in a food rut and I wanted to try something new. I was flipping through some old Real Simple magazines and found this recipe. It’s super good and wanted to share.

I’ve made it twice now and of course, I’ve altered the recipe, just a bit, to better fit our style so I wanted to share our version as well. All the ingredients and their amounts are the same.

The first time I used leftover roasted chicken and prepared it just like the recipe called for. The other night when I made it, I didn’t have any leftover chicken, so I actually cubed and cooked it right along with the onion from the very beginning and then sprinkled the curry powder right over all of it. Then continued to prepare as directed.

For the onions, I actually chopped them instead of slicing and leaving in rings. I like them to be more bite-size and hidden, you know? I haven’t used the tomatoes either time I’ve made it. Right before I was ready to dish it up, I stirred the chopped cilantro right into the chicken…I like the cilantro more evenly mixed throughout the dish. And lastly, I served it with jasmine rice instead of just plain white rice. One thing I did find was that I liked to add a little bit more salt and pepper as well.

Bonus: Andy even likes it!

Double Bonus: It makes a great weeknight dinner since it’s really fast!

Enjoy!

And, just for fun I’m linking up with Mallorie and her “What’s for Dinner” series!

Stuff & Things

11 Replies

As I sit here watching Rylee color her Auntie Telli a picture, I’m sipping a nice, hot cut of coffee. I thought I’d take a few minutes to go over some…stuff…and things. {hence the title}

First things first, Rylee just asked me to draw her a gymnast on her paper, so I have a feeling it might take a while to actually get this post written and posted. Really? A gymnast? Oye.

******

I’ve planned out this coming week’s meals, made up my grocery list and updated the new “What’s for Dinner?” page. Go see.

******

Y’all know our last name is Rice, right? Ok so, Friday night we had Andy’s mom out to our house for dinner {his dad is out hunting for a few weeks}. I’ve got halibut on the grill and some rice in the microwave {yea, I make rice in the microwave…don’t knock it till you try it} and we’re all hanging out in the kitchen. I swear, it doesn’t matter how BIG of a bowl I use to cook the rice, it always boils over and makes a huge mess in the microwave. So, I glance over and see that happening and I say “Ugh, stupid rice!” and Rylee looks up immediately and says “Hey…I’m not stupid!” I laugh and say “Oh no honey, I wasn’t talking about you” She replies with “Well, which of us is stupid then?” Then we all pretty much died laughing. Then I had to explain to Rylee what I meant because she had no idea why we were laughing.

******

Yesterday was the opening day of hunting season. I woke up before the birds so I could be at my dad’s house in time to leave his house before 6 AM. While we did see one buck, no shots were taken. If the weather keeps up, next weekend should be a good one! After a long day of taking my rifle for a walk hunting I came home to find that Andy had not only washed, folded & put away laundry, the dishes were done and our bed sheets were changed. THEN he made dinner! Kind of a role reversal, but what the heck did I do to get so lucky!? {Sorry ladies, he’s mine and I’m not giving him up any time soon.}

****************

Ok, now it’s just after 3 PM {got a little side tracked}. We’ve done our grocery shopping, ate lunch, Rylee is napping and I have a bit pot of homemade spaghetti sauce {with tomatoes from my garden} on the stove. I don’t think there will be enough to can, so I’ll probably just freeze what we don’t use for dinner. After Ry wakes up, we’re baking a batch of banana muffins and a few loaves of zucchini bread. If there’s time, we’ll head out to the apple tree and pick some apples for applesauce.

******

And…last but not least, a new blog that I am loving reading Liberating Working Moms {you may remember my guest post over there} has started a fun “Working with Style” post so I figured I’d play along this week. This series on LWM was inspired by Mandy’s Steppin’ Out posts. I love looking at all the fun outfits people link up over there for their
steppin’ out, but I don’t typically play along because we literally just don’t go out and if feels kinda weird linking up an outfit for work, but for this week, I figured I’d link to both.

Now, for those of you that don’t know, I work in a barn…literally. So, even though it’s technically a “professional office job” most of the time I just wear jeans and shirt to work, because…why not? But, I do actually try to look halfway decent once in a while.  Anyway, here’s my outfit from earlier this week.



Ok, I think that’s all I’ve got for now!

How was your weekend?

New Thing!

Leave a reply

I don’t consider myself an expert by any means, and I’m sure there’s plenty of others that do this better than me, but as a full time working mom, I’m pretty proud of the fact that I put a {mostly} healthy home-cooked meal on the table nearly every night.

I went into all of that a little bit in this post but I thought I’d take it a step further…

I decided to start a new thing here on the blog called “What’s For Dinner?“. Since I plan out our week’s meals and do all the grocery shopping in advance, I thought  I’d share our weekly meal plan with you guys! Complete with links to recipes, when applicable. Hopefully you’ll find ideas for recipes and/or your own weekly meal planning.It’s a serious life-saver, sanity-saver & time-saver in my house.

Anyway, go check it out. And while you’re at it, I’m missing dinner for Saturday, so do you have any suggestions??

{Recipe} Garden Spaghetti Sauce

2 Replies

I posted this photo a few days ago and I received a few requests to share the recipe.

I found the original recipe online 3 or 4 years ago…the summer of my very first garden harvest. You see, Andy’s best friend (who loves tomatoes) simply didn’t think the 3 tomato plants I planted would be enough for sharing, so he showed up at our house with 6 {SIX!} more tomato plants. 9 total. Come around September, that’s a whole lotta tomatoes, friends. He had taken all that he wanted and I was still left with more tomatoes than I knew what to do with. I quickly did a mad search online for “spaghetti sauce from scratch” {or something like that, I’m sure}. I found one. And over the years I’ve tweaked it.

The great thing about this recipe? It’s easy to mix-and-match the ingredients to make it just right for you. Don’t like that much garlic? Leave some out! Want to add in a little extra garden flare? Toss in some chopped mushrooms and zucchini! Think some banana peppers would spice it up nicely? Feel free to add them in!

Another, equally awesome thing? You can either hot-water bath can the sauce, or freeze it! Easy.

So, here you go.

Ingredients:

  • 1 large onion, chopped
  • 2 Cups green bell peppers, chopped
  • 6-8 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 16 cups tomatoes, cored and peeled ***see step one***
  • 3 12 oz. cans of tomato paste {or 6 6oz cans if you’re like me and it’s cheaper to buy them that way.}
  • 3 Tbl brown sugar
  • 1 Tbl dried oregano
  • 4 tsp Canning salt
  • 2 Tbl fresh basil, chopped
  • 1 tsp black pepper
  • 1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
  • 2 Tbl Italian seasoning
  • 1/2 tsp cumin
Directions:

Step 1: Get your tomatoes ready. I have found the easiest way to peel them is this: wash and core them. Bring a shallow pot of water to boil. Using a slotted spoon, place a few tomatoes at a time in the boiling water. After 30-60 seconds, remove the tomatoes and set onto a dish or cutting board w/ a trough. Allow a few minutes to cool, then peel the skin off. Repeat with all the tomatoes. {your tomatoes will break down over the cooking process, but if you think they may be too big, you can cut them in halves or quarters after you’ve peeled them}
Step 2: Add all ingredients to a large stock pot.
Step 3: Bring to a boil, stirring often. Then reducing to simmer. Let simmer for about 2 hours, stirring occasionally.
Step 4 A: If freezing, let cool then ladle into freezer bags, or food save.
Step 4 B: If canning, get your canning pot ready (about 1/2 way through the simmering process, more or less depending on how long it normally takes your pot to come to a boil). Get your 6 quart jars, lids and rings ready. Ladle sauce into jars, leaving 1/2″ head room. Wipe rim and place lids/rings on. Process in hot-water bath for 35 minutes. Remove from water and let set until cool.
Viola! Garden fresh spaghetti sauce all year round!