spinach salad with poppy seed dressing

there is this local restaurant here in the valley O' cache that has a few salads to die for. one of them is a broccoli salad with golden raisins (would be better with the addition of bacon IMHO) and the other is a spinach salad.

both have an amazing poppy seed salad dressing on them. i think it's the same dressing. anyway. i spent an hour at my mother's house trying to recreate the dressing...and by jove, i think i figured it out. at least i came close.

you should make this salad tonight, because it's july and it's hot. and you don't need to cook anything.

poppy seed dressing

*2/3 cup sugar (experiment with the amount. 1/2 cup might be plenty.)
*1/3 cup warm water
*1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
*1 cup vegetable oil
*1/2 tsp. salt
*1-2 tsp. poppy seeds

whisk together water, sugar and vinegar until sugar is dissolved. add the salt and poppy seeds. slowly whisk in vegetable oil and mix well. makes about 2 1/2 cups.

spinach salad

i don't really have measurements for this salad, because i just toss it all into a bowl. it's a salad for heck's sake. so.. these are guesstimates, like all my cooking. sorry if this makes you crazy.

*2 lbs spinach (2 16 oz bags. i like to buy the prewashed organic baby spinach.)
*1/2-3/4 cup feta cheese
*1 cup sliced strawberries
*1/2 cup roasted almonds (roasted sweetened almonds are amazing!)
*poppy seed dressing to taste (about 1 cup)

don't mix this together until right before serving. i like to toss the salad together first, and then put the strawberries on top. otherwise, the feta cheese turns pink.

apron giveaway

a friend of a friend is giving away aprons - you have 1.5 hours left to enter (contest closes at 8 p.m. MST)...

here's the link: http://suissescenarios.blogspot.com/2009/11/giveaway.html

good luck!

pork loin recipe later this week...potato pancake recipe below...

my new best friend

ladies and gentlemen, meet my new pal:



i bought the larger of the two knives - it's got a 7 inch blade. i am straight pimpin' with this knife. if you love to cook, you NEED a really great knife... i thought i had really good knives until i tried this one.

instant love.

i did buy the pearl handled knife, as i thought it looked elegant and classy. plus all my other knives have a boring old black handle.

you should have seen me cut pineapple with this baby - i sliced through three of them in no time at all. and if you've ever cut up a pineapple, you know it's not easy.

jam on

in the past three weeks, i've made 20 pints of freezer jam. ten pints of strawberry and ten pints of raspberry. that raspberry jam is precious and i shall guard it with my life. the strawberry is just ok and i will make my kids use that first. :)

i made scones with frozen roll dough on sunday so i'd have a vehicle to get the jam into my mouth. i think it's ungainly to stand in front of the fridge and eat it with a spoon.

do you make jam? has anyone ever made peach freezer jam?

menu plan week 2

i'm not sure what to call these menu plan posts. do any of you have any good ideas? menu plan seems so freaking boring!

this is what i'm gonna make this week:

monday: corn dogs, tater tots and canned beets

tuesday: tonight is my bunco night at my house. i'm going to make roasted tomato soup and breadsticks. i got the breadsticks recipe from my friend jess and i'll post it later this week for you. it's super easy, and you might already even have it in your recipe file. i'll probably also make a spinach salad.

wednesday: breakfast: eggs, pancakes or waffles and bacon

thursday: grilled peanut butter and jelly, sliced apples

friday: oven roasted potatoes and beef tips

saturday: homemade chicken noodle soup

sunday: roasted pork lion with braised cabbage (and yes, i know it's loin, not lion. CLICK THE LINK!!)

now, with that said, i need to get my shopping list in order. wish me luck on another week of menu planning!

menu plan review

so last week, i did pretty darn good with the menu plan. thursday was going to be leftovers or oatmeal, but the kids had pizza coupons from school they wanted to use, so we did that instead. thursday also was a really, uber crappy day at work (i'll post details later, when it's all official - but i still have a job and that's all that matters.), so eating out was kind of nice, honestly.

friday was supposed to be frozen pizza, but we ended up have five million things happen on friday night, with both jake and jenna having sleepovers and me having to drive back to logan after work. so we didn't have dinner on friday night. i had some leftover biscuits and a diet mountain dew.

saturday, we decided to take the kids to a movie and to dinner, so i'll make homemade chicken noodle soup THIS coming weekend instead.

overall, i'd say the menu plan was a total success. i didn't have to stress about what to make. and paul will stop at the grocery store on the way home from work almost any morning i ask him to, so if i need an ingredient, he can stop and pick it up. he's also really good at ONLY picking up what i ask for, so it doesn't cost a bunch of extra money.

i'll post this week's plan tomorrow.

menu plan

one thing i'm going to try out this year is menu planning. i've tried this before, and i'm not very good at it, so bear with me.

i'm actually going to try to PLAN out dinner every night for a week. when i can and i have time, i'll link you the recipe i'm going to use.

here's this week's plan:

monday: swift spaghetti i already cooked the hamburger and mixed it with the sauce, so all i have to do is boil the noodles.

tuesday: philly cheesesteak sandwiches

wednesday: spinach salad ( i will post a recipe for this )

thursday: leftovers. or oatmeal. i'm not joking.

friday: frozen pizza

saturday: homemade chicken noodle soup

sunday: texican hash (i got this link from connie...and it looks sooo yummy. she does the whole menu plan thing because she's super organized.)

kool-aid play dough

so here we are, staring down the barrel of a 5-day weekend. five days of no school for my kids. five days of hearing, "iiiiiii'm booooooooorrrred." five days of a messy house because they eat every 20 minutes. because jenna changes clothes three times a day when she is at home.

five days of mom being absolutely nuts. LOL. you know i'm joking (mostly), right?

so tonight, because i'm a cool mom and even though i'd like to hog tie my kids and put them in the freezer for a couple of hours, i chose the high road. the road that, ironically enough, DCFS would also support.

i made play dough. with kool-aid. and i was blessed with hours of quiet play. thank you, god, for giving us kool-aid. however, i haven't forgiven you yet for kool-aid man (oh YEAH!).

so...go make this for your kids. it smells great, and it won't kill them if they eat it. but don't let them eat it, ok?

kool-aid playdough

*1 pkg unsweetened kool-aid, any color, any flavor (we made ice blue raspberry lemonade)
*1/2 c. salt
*3 T oil
*1 C. flour
*1 C. boiling water (microwave it, dude)

mix together the first four ingredients. add the boiling water and stir well. knead the mixture until it becomes a soft dough. i had to add a bit more flour...

oh and a slight disclaimer? this COULD color skin. ours didn't, but we didn't do red, either. my kids are busy using my cookie cutters, the pizza cutter and an assortment of other kitchen utensils for their play dough. jeez. lucky me.

i love your blog, too

so my awesome sister gave me this award. my best friend (and blogging criminal pal) brigitte also gave me this award a few weeks back, but i was too lazy to actually do anything with it.


well, today i'm nominating some peeps of my own. i hate doing this kind of thing, because there are SO MANY BLOGS i love. obviously.

i'm sharing the love with my p-farm homies. i have to. i spent ten years of my life there and i met some of the best (and OH EM GEE some of the ABSOLUTE WORST...) people there. i'm still friends with the ones who matter most. and so here i go, with five blogs i love:

1. irresistible irwins: my good pal stacey. i'm so grateful for her friendship. her kids are absolutely beautiful (her two oldest are very close to the same age as my kids) and she makes me laugh. i luff her.

2. fri-yet: kmp is eccentrically funny and she has the FATTEST cat i have EVER seen in my life. pictures do NOTHING for him...you have to see him to believe it.

3. jefe von hefenstein: jeff forgets to blog. often. but he's hilarious. and i bought a happenings book from him so he would keep blogging.

4. lady annika: she is a camper and a fellow dog lover. i think she has more dogs than i do! she also loves to cook and posts awesome recipes from time to time.

5. brenda: psyche! brenda doesn't have a blog, but maybe this will inspire her to WRITE ONE. HELLO, BRENDAAAAAAAAAAA! i had lunch with brenda recently and i love her. she'll kill me for saying this, but she's like an older, wiser, gorgeous big sister. she's been inspirational to me on a million levels.

so there you go. i'm giving you FIVE (well, four) peeps the I LOVE YOUR BLOG award! mwah!!

cookbook winner

hi y'all! i almost forgot i was GIVING STUFF AWAY!!!!

here's your winner, courtesy of random.org:

SHANNAN!!!!



send a big shout out to her - she's an awesome PTA mom of all boys... that deserves an award all by itself!

for those of you who said you wanted a cookbook, i'll send you an email. if you didn't say you wanted one and you would like to buy one, let me know. i'm getting ready to put my order in. they are $10 (you might have to hook me up with a small shipping charge...but let me see how much that really is before i worry about it. maybe it will just be my gift to you for reading my blog and pretending to really, really like me!!)

congrats , shannan!!

bread: FAIL

it's a dark day my friends. today is the third day IN A ROW that i have tried to make bread. the first day, the dough i made wasn't even bakeable. is that even a word?? it is now! yesterday, the dough didn't really rise much - but i baked it anyway. my mistake yesterday was that i should have made just one loaf and not divided the dough into two pans. i really think it would have been fine.

today, i'm trying again. i also tried a different recipe. i'm determined to get this to work, but i'm getting pretty mad in the process, too.

when i was growing up, a woman in my hometown kept an eye on me and my sister in the summertime when school was out. her name was susan and she had 12 kids - and she made the most amazing bread i've ever had in my life. to this day - i wish i could make bread like that. i'm sure today won't be that day, but i'm trying anyway.

in the meantime - do YOU have a recipe for bread? and i don't have a bread machine - i need to be able to mix it in my kitchenaid. email me (triplej2676 AT yahoo DOT com) or post a link. i'm also really interested in bread recipes that use whole wheat flour.

p.s. enter my cookbook contest if you haven't already!

cookbook giveaway OR shameless self promotion: you decide!

ladies and gentlemen, pay your attention to the center ring! i'm giving away a cookbook!

here's why you want it: it's got more than 400 recipes. i was an editor of this cookbook. thirty six hours of my LIFE were spent typing, editing and proofreading this cookbook. and i'm sure i missed something, somewhere.

i can't take all the credit. it's a fundraiser for my kids' school PTA. several members on the board put tons of work into this cookbook. kids submitted the recipes and each class had a contest to see who could bring the most recipes. my kids fought over which recipes would have THEIR name on them. so they made deals with each other. (you can have THIS one if i can have THAT one...)

here's the deal: i'd really like you to PURCHASE one (or more) of these. however, i realize that's just lame and you probably won't do that. but if you want to, leave a comment and i'll totally get you an order form. tee hee. they are $10 and all proceeds benefit our PTA. none of us are getting paid. like i said, there are more than 400 recipes, and it's professionally printed and bound. it also has the typical cookbook pages that outline measurements and ingredient substitutions, etc. they will make a fabulous gift to the person in your life who loves to cook.

HERE'S THE PART YOU ARE WAITING FOR!! i am giving away ONE of these lovely cookbooks to YOU, my readers. all you have to do is leave a comment and tell me one or two of the best things your mom made for you as a kid. it can be ANYTHING you want. it can also be a favorite food memory or whatever. invite your friends. if i get enough entries, i might give away TWO books.

so now. you. reader. enter. and may the best woman (or man) win. i'll pick the winner using a random number generator and post the results soon.

deadline: friday, november 14 at MIDNIGHT, UTAH STANDARD TIME. (which means about 12:15 a.m. or so, give or take a few minutes...)

my new fave ingredient

i use lots of chicken broth at my house - and it gets expensive. plus, i don't always have it on hand, so i end up trying to substitute a bouillon cube, which is usually too salty and fake tasting.

my friends (LOL - total mccain reference), i have found a product i love and i want to share it with you. if you've already heard of it, you are in BIG TROUBLE because you didn't tell me about it!!

it's called better than bouillon. here's what is totally awesome about it, in no particular order: it's organic; it's relatively inexpensive; it's lower in salt than the bouillon cubes and it's very easy to use. i'll probably never go back to chicken broth, because of how easy this is to use.


i found this at walmart for about $3.89, i believe, but i found it online in several locations, including amazon.com. here's why it's cheaper: it's equal to almost 21 cans of regular chicken broth. now i always buy that on sale, but normal swanson broth is almost $1 a can regular price. i have purchased the cartons of chicken broth, too, as they are much cheaper than the cans, but this is STILL cheaper than those.

it needs to be stored in the fridge after opening, but i am always going to have this on hand. it's one of my must-have pantry items. for you vegetarians, they have a vegetable broth, as well as several other flavors.

keep in mind, this is still a bouillon, so you may need to lower the amount of salt you would normally use. homemade chicken broth is always going to be better than this, but who has time for that? NOT ME. you can also adjust the amount you use to get the flavor "just right," but this stuff is seriously convenient and amazing.

no measurements

one of the most important things i do as a mom is feed my family. i think my family is lucky because i LOVE to cook. my house might be messy and the laundry is never folded, but dammit, something smells good in the kitchen.

i love to read cookbooks. i subscribe to taste of home magazine. i DVR shows on the food network. the day we got HD tv, i said to my husband, "HONEY! we have FOOD NETWORK IN HD!!!" i don't think he fully understood HOW EXCITING that was to me!!

cookbooks make fabulous wedding gifts. a few of my favorites include the better homes and gardens cookbook, the taste of home cookbook, and the fannie farmer cookbook. i often use all three of these books for guidance in the kitchen.

there are a couple of things i want to accomplish with this blog:
1. i want to share my love of cooking and my favorite recipes with you.
2. i want to preserve the recipes i make for my family so that my kids might enjoy them when they are older.
3. i want you to share your recipes with me. i'm always looking for something new to try.

i'm not afraid to try a new recipe - and while i'm disappointed when a recipe fails, (oh and they DO sometimes. miserably...) i'm excited for the challenge to tweak the recipe and see if i can fix it. one thing you should know about cooking is that for the most part, no one will die if you mess something up. **disclaimer** this does not apply to undercooking meat, feeding someone a food they are allergic to, or adding arsenic (or any other poison, for that matter) to your food.** what i'm trying to say is that even if a recipe seems hard, you should try it if you really want to make it. i'm often surprised at the number of people who say they don't know how to cook. how is that possible? if you can read, you can cook. kind of. :)

so. that's why i'm here. comment or not. i'll be posting a recipe success - and a failure - in the next few days.

p.s. while you are here, take my poll.

p.p.s i'm still working out some kinks. i know there are some issues. i'm working on them...