Chicken and Veggies over Pasta (and my schnazzy new knife!)

Did you ever find yourself scrambling through your cupboards to pull together a meal when they're almost bare? That's where I found myself when I was planning meals for this week on Sunday night. I knew that our grocery budget was pretty much DONE until payday so I could not fall back on just running to the store like I have been doing. I needed to figure out what we had on hand and then just buy the bare minimum to get us through. I wasn't about to fall back on feeding my family ramen noodles; the straits are not yet that dire! I did want the meals to be good and at least semi healthy.

This is where being a good cook comes into play. Sure, most people can follow a recipe from a book, but not all can take a bunch of random things and figure out what will go together in the best way. Not all of my cobbled together creations are winners, this is true, but this one came out pretty good, and it's pretty healthy too!

I present to you, Chicken and Veggies over Orecchiette. (I swear, NOTHING looks good photographed under fluorescent lights!)

Not fifteen minutes before I was to start dinner, the mailman dropped off this beauty at my front door:

I won it on Kevin and Amanda's blog. Isn't it just lovely? I love my Henckles knives, but I've had them for about 8 years now and have never had them sharpened. I mean, I hone them before every use like I'm supposed to do, but after a while a blade needs a true sharpening! They've gotten so dull, but we don't have it in our budget to have it done right now.

Thankfully, the Lord (and the Internet) provides! When I saw the post for this giveaway, I didn't hesitate one second to throw my name into the ring. Of course, after I did so I realized that I was the very first poster to leave a comment. Aw man! Comment number one NEVER wins! I was so bummed I almost deleted it. Almost. Then I told myself, you know, if it is to be, it will be, and the odds of winning are pretty slight anyway since this is a very popular blog. So I left it... and I won!!! How awesome is that?

So the moral of the story is to never lose hope if you pull a bonehead move and comment first on a giveaway.

I pulled my ingredients all out before I got started and did a little prep work. After months of cutting with dull knives, this one was a DREAM. Thank you, thank you, thank you Amanda for this knife! I love it!

Now, onto the pasta!

First, heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil in a heavy pot or deep skillet. Add chicken slices (I had about five tenderloins, so that was probably just under a pound?) and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Cook the chicken until it just starts to slightly brown, then remove to a plate and set aside.

Heat another tablespoon or two of olive oil in the same pan. Slice up an onion and toss that into the pot. I had half a bag of shredded carrots leftover from a salad I took to a barbecue last weekend so I dumped that in there too. Cook them over medium low heat until they're softened, about five minutes.

Next, dump in two 14 oz cans of tomatoes. I used some of the ones I canned myself - one of heirlooms and one of plain romas. Also add in 1/2 teaspoon each of black pepper, salt, dried basil, garlic powder and a quarter teaspoon each dried thyme and red pepper flakes. Break up the tomatoes as well as you can with the spatula and allow to simmer for ten minutes.

Coarsely chop a bag of baby spinach and toss that into the pot, along with a half cup of chicken broth. I didn't feel like defrosting a bag of stock so I added a half cup of water along with a half teaspoon of chicken bouillon powder. I cheat.

All that spinach will cook down really quickly!

Add the chicken back into the pot. Cover the mixture and let it simmer for another 10-15 minutes while you cook your pasta.

Dish it up and enjoy! There are a ton of veggies in each serving along with some lean protein, so I'm guessing that if you served this over just a one cup serving of pasta it would be a pretty healthy meal. I think if you served it over rice or gluten free pasta it might even be gluten free, depending on your chicken stock I guess. Either way it was very good and very filling and all I had to buy was the bag of spinach!

It's easy too - while this was cooking I was also baking Oatmeal Cherry Chocolate Chip cookies and getting ready for bible study, which included flat ironing my hair. Now you know the true secret to how I do so much. It's not because I'm up late every night - I still sleep eight hours like everyone else. Heck, that's probably more than others sleep. The truth is because I am a professional multitasker! HA!

Welcome to day three of Getting Organized!

Today I tackled the second half of my organization system - the recipe binder.

Since we are trying to cut back on eating out as well as doing our best to avoid processed foods both for our budget and health, (never mind the fact that I just love food!) cooking and grocery shopping are a really important part of our lives. I counted last night and I have almost SIXTY cookbooks. That's not counting the little magazine looking monthlies you can pick up at the checkout stand at the grocery store either. I also have a TON of recipes saved on my computer and a whole bunch of different recipe apps on my phone. We won't even start to talk about all of the cooking blogs and websites I know or Pinterest!

That's a lot of recipes! How to keep track of them all?

Enter the Recipe Organization Binder.

I decorated the covers to go with my color scheme. Then I thought about what categories I wanted to have, based on the foods that we cook. For instance, if I had a "main dish" category, stuff would get lost. Instead I opted for separate Poultry, Pork, and Beef categories. Also, since we eat a lot of shrimp, I made a separate category for those recipes, then one for Fish and Other Seafood. Instead of one huge section for dessert, I have one for cookies, one for cakes, and one for all other desserts.

After I had my list of categories and had figured out the order I wanted them to appear in the binder, I made my tabs using the same procedure I used for the Household binder tabs.

Behind each tab is a page protector. In these I'll put recipes that I've clipped from magazines or other places that I want to try. I got this idea from IHeart Organizing. I used to to save these up and when I found a big chunk of time with nothing to do (HA!) I'd type these up and save them in the appropriate folder on my computer. The problem was that I'd forget which things I had tried and which I hadn't, or if I liked them or not. A lot of the stuff I spent all that time typing got filed away, only to be forgotten. This way, the stuff I want to try is right there, first thing when I'm trying to decide what's for dinner.

Behind the page protector is a cookbook reference sheet. Say I have some chicken I want to cook. I don't want to be limited to just the recipes I have in my binder; I want to make sure I don't miss anything that I've made from a cookbook too! From now on when I try a recipe that I like from one of my cookbooks, I'll write it on the reference sheet in the appropriate section of the binder.

That's my other rule for this. Only recipes that we've tried and loved can make it into the binder. This is going to be a book with just winners! I want to go through my cookbooks and add the recipes I love to my reference sheets. I also want to print out the ones I've tried from my computer files and add those too. The recipe printouts (along with any from the page protectors that I've tried and liked and typed up) will go behind this sheet.

I was going to put a freezer inventory sheet in there, but decided it would go better in the Household binder. I placed it behind the Meal Planning tab so I can see exactly what I have on hand. I'm thinking I'll do one for the pantry too. I based it on one I found on Pinterest that came from Organized Home.

I also made this finance checklist to go behind the budget tab. I got the idea for this from IHeart Organizing.
I decided it would be nice to have some basic supplies with the household binder, so I added a zipper pocket with a pen, a pair of scissors and some stamps. I'm going to toss some post its in there too I think.

Finally, I made a little label for the holder on the spine. I think this makes it done!

Welcome to day two of Getting Organized!

I posted yesterday how Erin of Blue Eyed Bride inspired me to get organized using a Home Organization Notebook. Yesterday I showed you how I assembled the bones of my binder with a budget of $0. I was lucky enough to have two empty binders just laying around my house. Alternately, you could try to find stuff on clearance now that most kids have gone back to school, or you could hit up your local Goodwill. I know mine almost always has a lot of binders. The blue one I'm using is actually an 8 1/2" x 11" We R Memory Keepers scrapbook! According to Nina is using the same one in Orange Soda. She got hers on Amazon if you want to go that route. They come in a ton of colors.

Today I'm going to talk about the printout pages I made for the binder.

Under the General tab I made an Emergency information sheet. I just did it in Microsoft Word and used colors to coordinate with the cardstock I picked for my dividers. I'm trying to have a theme of sorts in here so it doesn't look all hodge podge. I'm more likely to stick to it if I like looking at it!

Behind this page are my address book pages. I need to sit down with a pen, summon all of my neat handwriting mojo, and fill this in. I made my own modified version of the one According to Nina used from Organized Home.

These are my daily pages. I took inspiration for these from this one I found on Pinterest. I redesigned them in Microsoft Word, using my color scheme. There are two days on each page, with space at the beginning of each week as an overview of sorts. The overview has a space for a Month at a Glance calendar, a space for important event reminders, a space for a list of tasks to be completed that week that aren't assigned a specific day, and a space for weekly goals. A girl has to have goals!

The dailies have a spot to log water and fruit/veg servings for the day, what's for dinner, a list of daily chores, a space for a "to do" list, a space for important items, and a little area for jotting down notes. Since I don't really schedule a lot of things I don't really need a calendar that has hourly slots. Even one that's broken down into "morning," "day," and "night" would be wasted since we don't get up until 1:00 pm most days. Where's the "wee hours of the morning" section for people like me?

I inserted these large "Month at a Glance" pages in between the daily pages where a new month would begin. In this way, I can keep the weeks kind of sorted. They were also created in Microsoft Word.

Oh, and best part? When I made up the Daily pages in Word, I formatted the document in such a way that I could print however many copies I wanted of the first two pages, then flip them over, stick them back in the printer, and print the second two pages so they'd end up double sided. So say I wanted to print ten weeks of these pages. I'd print ten copies of just page one and two, take the stack that comes out of the printer, flip it over, stick it back into the printer and print ten copies of page three and four! Hooray for thinking ahead!

I also made up a "year at a glance" calendar just so I could have a place to check for what day falls on what day of the week, etc. This goes through January 2013. This would be another MSWord document. I swear, that has to be one of the most under-utilized programs out there!

This is a modified version of the one that both Erin and Nina use. Their's came from The Project Girl. She has a ton of great printables under her Free Downloads tab if you don't want to make your own.
For the checkbook register, I just Googled to see what one looked like and then recreated it in MSWord. I am ashamed to say that no one in this house has kept a register for YEARS and so no one has any idea at any one time how much money we actually have. It's always just an estimate and it drives me batty. Now there will be no excuse. If it comes down to me having to hide our debit cards in order to make sure things are recorded here, I will do it.

The Bible Verses pages were copied from the ones in Erin's notebook. Hers came from Life... Your Way.
I think I adapted the project planner from The Project Girl too. I made mine so I had two projects on a page instead of just one.

Under the Sawyer tab I put a page for Babysitter information. This one was adapted from the one on Life... Your Way.

The party planner was adapted from one I saw on Pinterest that can be found at Tip Junkie. I love making my own because then I can leave out stuff I don't want and add stuff I do!

The gift worksheet is also adapted from The Project Girl.

I'm thinking about adding a Christmas tab so I can plan for that to my binder. If you would like the files for any of these, just send me an email at sara(dot)fehling(at)gmail(dot)com and let me know which ones you want. I spent a lot of time on them so it would be nice if they got lots of use, you know? I know some sites charge for these but many others offer them for free, so I'm not going to charge. However, if I do send you some and you want to drop a buck or two into my paypal account, hey - I'm not going to complain! Don't feel obligated though. I like to share. :)

Tomorrow I'll be posting about starting my recipe binder!

Getting Ready for Fall

In most of the country, people find themselves anticipating spring. They've spent all winter cooped up and long to get outside and see a sky with a shining sun, as they are tired of seeing gray day after day. This welcome change makes them want to clean up their homes, to air them out after they've been closed up so long, to start anew.

Well, here in the stupid desert, it's exactly the opposite. Spring marks the beginning of the end of the good weather for us, and heralds the beginning of summer. With temperatures that stay over 100 degrees for well over four months, with many of those weeks hovering between 110 and 120 degrees, there's nothing to love about it if you ask me. Everything dies in your garden because it's too hot. You don't want to go anywhere or do anything because it's too hot. The air in your home gets stale because you can't open windows or doors because it's too hot. You don't have any extra money because your electric bill is sky high from the AC unit working overtime because it's so hot.

It's miserable. I laughed when I read this tweet by local journalist Jaimee Rose on Twitter because it's so true. Every August inevitably finds me longing for Halloween, because that's when the weather finally cools off around here. True; some years we will get one cool week at the end of September or at the beginning of October, but it always gets hot again until Halloween rolls around. Therefore, Halloween is the date I look forward to every year.

I just feel like I've spent too long sitting on my butt, not wanting to do anything, not wanting to go anywhere, just not being really. I sleep in way too late, take naps most days, cook as little as possible. My craft room is a mess. Heck, my whole house is kind of unkempt at this point. Things aren't working here so it's time to regroup and come up with a new plan of action.

Enter the following:

I've been seeing tutorials for these binders and "life organization systems" on lots of blogs, but the first place I really noticed the idea was on Blue Eyed Bride's blog. It seems to really be working for her, so I figured, what the heck. Unfortunately, I don't really have the funds to go out and buy a bunch of stuff to put this together, or to be able to buy one of those snazzy Erin Condren systems, so I am going to have to get creative here. I may have a budget of $0, but I also have a craft room full of supplies and tools, and a printer with paper and ink.

The first thing I needed was two binders. I decided to use this blue one that was a gift from my friend Cicely as my Household binder and then this plain white one that was laying around for the Recipe binder.

I started out by working on the Household binder. I wrote down a list of everything for which I'd like a tab. After I had my list, I wrote them down in the order I'd like them to appear in my binder.

**General - Under this tab I will have an emergency information sheet, as well as an address book section. I have a master address list on my laptop, but I want something for the people with whom I'll want to interact with on a regular basis. You know, the Christmas Card List people.

**This Month - In this section I'll have a "month at a glance" page, followed by daily pages outlining my daily tasks and with space for any other important notes for the day, such as appointments, reminders, etc.

**Master Calendar - In this section I'll have a "year at a glance" page along with a perpetual calendar containing my list of important dates to remember like birthdays and anniversaries.

**Meal Planning - In this section I'll have my meal plans for the week along with any grocery lists.

**Budget - Here I'll keep a checkbook register so that it is easy to just glance and know more or less where we are financially. There will also be a log of what bills have/need to be paid, and of course, a budget IN WRITING.

**Bible Verses - This is something Erin had in her binder that I thought was a great idea. One of my goals for the next year is to finally buckle down and read the whole Bible, cover to cover. I'd like to have a place to record verses that really speak to me. Also, I haven't memorized anything in years, so I think this would be a good way to get back into that. It's good for your mind.

**Projects/Goals - In this section I want to have a list of what things I want to make, or have started making and need to finish. I have so many unfinished projects that it's really hard to keep track of them all! Hopefully this will help to keep me on task, especially with the holidays coming up.

**Sawyer - I don't know what will be in this section yet, but I felt like he needed a tab. Maybe home pre-school projects for the week? We'll see.

**Party Plans - I have wild fantasies of having lovely parties one day, so this is where I'll put those ideas together.

**Gift Ideas - I've mentioned before that it's birthday party season here for us, and as soon as that starts to wind down it will be time to start thinking about Christmas. This section will include a worksheet to keep track of what I've bought, what I'd like to buy, and what I need to buy, as well as if I've mailed/delivered the item.

Since I ended up with ten topics, I pulled out ten sheets of cardstock and punched holes in them with the 3-hole punch.

I made up little quatrefoil patterns in Photoshop in the colors I used for my divider pages. I typed out my different topics on each one, printed them on cardstock, and then punched them out with a McGill tab punch.

If you wanted to do something like this yourself, you could also just print the pattern for the tabs onto the backside of some pretty scrapbooking paper, cut them out with scissors, and add your labels with pen or a label maker. I can email you a jpg of the tab pattern. Just send me an email.

Fold your tabs in half with a bone folder. I ran mine through a Xyron sticker maker machine, but because it had a repositionable cartridge they ended up not sticking very well to my divider pages. I will skip this step on the next binder. Instead, I just stapled them in place with a flat stapler and they were fine.

Doesn't that look all nice and professional? Certainly nicer than those primary colored plastic ones from the office supply store, if you ask me! I put some clear page protectors in the back, just in case. I don't know what I'll use them for, but if I need them, they're there.

Tomorrow I'll show you the pages.

Farewell, Fat Ass! Friday - Aug 26

Here's my weigh in for this morning:

That brings me down two and a half pounds this week and three from when I started. I'm pleased since I had some *ahem* hormonal issues if you know what I mean and may have eaten a whole package of Oreo cookies over the course of the week. I just was careful to fit them in with my daily calorie allowance as outlined on Lose It.

I now have two weeks of boot camp under my belt. I feel like I'm still struggling a lot there because of my knee and because I go in with just a couple of hours of sleep under my belt, but the trainer told me that I am looking stronger. Yesterday I was so tired that I really didn't want to go. I had slept maybe three hours, tops and just wanted to stay in bed. My body was really sore from the workout on Tuesday too and I was thinking about how nice it would be to just sleep through it.

But no; I forced my exhausted body out of bed and hauled it down to class and yawned/limped through the whole thing. You're allowed to work at your own pace but I try really hard to keep up with the other girls because the only person I'd be cheating is myself if I didn't. I don't know if it was the lack of sleep, or the tiredness my body was feeling from that mixed with the workout from Tuesday, or if the little packet of trail mix I had before class wasn't enough to fuel me for that much activity, but I was struggling.

I found myself feeling like I was not getting enough air to breathe. I know this is not unusual when you start to exercise after being sedentary for a long time, but this felt a bit different. Usually when I get like that, it's like a harsh burning in my lungs and they feel like they are going to explode. This time it felt like someone was sitting on my chest and that was limiting my lung capacity.

Then, in the second half of the class I had everything go spotty and light twice. I just stopped what I was doing until the feeling passed. The instructor had warned me on the first day that might happen, and to just take as long as I needed if it did. Therefore, I wasn't worried about it. As someone who has gone to the gym and taken classes before, I know that getting lightheaded when you exercise after being sedentary for a long time is not uncommon. The instructor didn't seem overly concerned, and since I knew about the possibility of this happening, neither was I.

But I posted about it on Facebook.

I got a message later in the day from someone I don't even know basically telling me that based on what I described I am on track for a heart attack, to stop exercising IMMEDIATELY and to get an EKG or I'm going to die. Look, I know I'm overweight. I know I love unhealthy foods. Yes, I'm mostly sedentary, but I'm working on it. Yes, my maternal grandfather died of a heart attack so there is some history of heart disease in my family. Yes, I eat butter. I also know that the problem with my diet is not so much what I eat but I how much I eat. Exercise is going to make me struggle at this point. That's just how it is.

I had a physical in March, and one the previous March with bloodwork. I'm completely healthy with the exception of slightly elevated Triglycerides. My overall cholesterol is 180, and my blood pressure is excellent. I'm just fat and lazy. I told her this, and based on her experience with some training in nursing and having been married to a doctor, she still insisted that I get an EKG. Do you know what I see when I see those letters? EKG may as well be $$$. I can't afford that! My husband said he'd go into debt to make sure I was healthy, but we already did that last November when I was in the hospital. We still owe money for that. We're BROKE. Our insurance sucks. It would be cheaper for me to just die of a heart attack.

She then went on to tell me that maybe God had put her in my life for a reason, to see that status and to warn me. Okay, let me get this straight - now you're using my faith to further freak me out, like you hadn't done it bad enough already? It's interesting too, because one of the things we were talking about in my Bible study this week was being careful of people who become too familiar too fast, because they could be another way the devil tries to undermine what you're supposed to be doing. So was she sent by God to be a warning or by Satan to fill me with worry and doubt? It could go either way.

So now I go from, oh, I had a hard day at boot camp because my body was exhausted and I didn't give it enough fuel/rest to OMG I AM GOING TO DIE, because that's how my lovely OCD riddled mind works. Every time I think about it (which is often, see the O of OCD) I start to cry. I'm totally freaked out now and don't know what to do about it. Going to the doctor is NOT an option, unless someone wants to send me a couple thousand dollars to cover the expense. We even went online last night to see if we qualified for our state's medicaid program, which of course, we don't.

So to recap where I am right now:

Yay! I lost three pounds but what does it matter because I have a dog that I can't get rid of that is going to bite my baby and oh yeah, I AM GOING TO DIE. Have a great weekend, Sara!

*sigh*

Why do people have to be such sensationalists? It's like when I posted a photo of one of the spiders that roam around here, wanting to know what it was and some guy that I barely remember from high school posted that ALL SPIDERS ARE POISONOUS and that I needed to have my entire house fumigated. Um, okay dude, let me get on that. Sheesh.

I need to clean out my Facebook friend list, that's what I need to do.

J'adore... Vintage Pyrex

You may have heard me mention that in the past few months, I've started to collect vintage Pyrex. I resisted it for a long time. The pretty colors and fun designs tried their best to lure me in, but I kept telling myself that I did not need a new collection of anything. Of course, then I found Pinterest (follow me here!) and the rest was history. Now I kick myself when I think of all the lovely pieces I left behind in various thrift shops because I wasn't a collector. *sigh*

The set of four Cinderella bowls in the Gooseberry pattern (top middle of photo, stacked) were my very first purchase. They broke the dam, if you will. I found these before I found Pinterest. I'm a sucker for old things, and pink things. These were in perfect condition and it was only $18 for the whole set at Goodwill. The small round casseroles that you see to the left of the bowls were there too, but I left them behind. I still kick myself for that move.

Even after buying these, I didn't really consider collecting. These were just a pretty one off that I happened to buy because I liked them. They were going to be the only ones I had.

Well, of course, when I Googled them to find out the name of the pattern, I found a bunch of other pink Pyrex out there.

How adorable is this set of striped bowls? I love that the wide stripes are flanked by narrower ones. I think that makes them more visually interesting than if they had used a uniform stripe.

And there are all these pretties. Even though it's the absolute BEST shade of aqua ever, I've never really been a huge fan of the Amish Butterprint. But in the pink I really like it! I wouldn't mind having any of these in my cupboards!

These are the ones I'm really looking for right now. Daisies are my absolute favorite flower, so a combination of pink Pyrex with a daisy design is pretty much meant for me!

So at this point I'm thinking I'll collect vintage Pyrex, but only the pink pieces. Then it will not get out of control! I'm just so smart.

Enter Pinterest, and this photo:

Oh. My. Word. I loved how happy and bright all the colors looked together on that plain white shelf. The way the collector organized the colors just made them look so appealing to me! So, now I'm thinking maybe it wouldn't be so bad to collect it just in general, because it's so pretty and colorful!

I have the blue and the green covered casserole dishes on the bottom right corner of that photo too. :)

I started looking for other photos of vintage Pyrex on Pinterest. There are a lot of them out there! This is another lovely collection that is especially heavy on the pinks and blues.

How could anything that makes a person look this happy be wrong?

I really like her collection of the racks hanging on the wall. These took your Pyrex up a notch by giving them carrying handles or turning them into chafing dishes or chip and dip sets.

This old ad shows a lot of the pieces with their racks. I really love the one with the coffee pot. That brings me to the subject of the ads. I'm pinning those on my Pyrex board as well.

This one shows how versatile the pieces are, going from freezer to oven to table. It also shows one of the casseroles in it's carrying rack.

Here's an ad for the Cinderella bowl sets that gives you ideas of how you could use them. Nowadays companies want you to buy a separate product for each one of those tasks, but back then people looked for ways to get more bang for their buck.

Check out the prices on those ads too, if you can see them. If only those folks had known what these would be worth in the future!

Of course, there are the ones that didn't survive quite as nicely as most of them. According to the blog where I found this photo, this bowl was the victim of too many trips through the dishwasher, and I believe it! Dishwasher detergent doesn't clean like regular soap; rather, it's an enzyme that sort of eats the dirt off your dishes. If there is no dirt to eat, well then, it will just start to eat away at your dishes instead. This is what causes etching on glasses, and why you shouldn't pre-rinse your dishes before you put them in the dishwasher. (Just scrape off the chunks.)

I suppose it goes without saying that you should NEVER put anything with a shiny finish that you want to protect, oh, say like vintage Pyrex, in the dishwasher.

This is just a cute casserole that I saw online today for the first time. I love how retro the kitchen designs on it are. Another I'd be really happy to find! I lurrrrve it.

And then there are these. If you think it's hard to find vintage Pyrex that's in good condition, well then, it's almost impossible to find it in good condition in the box in which it originally came! This collector (on Flickr) has a ton of these pieces, many with the original 99cent price stickers and decorative tags. So flipping cool.