2012 | Page 3 of 44 | Midwestern At Heart

Last week/end, you may or may not have known/realized, but I wasn’t in town. Nope, I skipped town and headed for Texas! But more on that later! First off, I have to tell you about the bestestest, mostest wonderfulest, greatest, grandest, fabulousest steak. Yup, I made all those words up :).

But truthfully this steak was FABULOUS!

Thursday we got into town a bit earlier than we needed to so we had some time to kill. What do you do when you have time to kill in Ft. Worth, well obviously you go to the Stockyards! They have bunches of cute stores to wander through and some fabulous food.

Hubby and I actually went down with my parents and when mom asked what we wanted to eat, hubby said he wanted Steak :). Isn’t he cute! I just love him, but that’s kind of off topic!

This time we chose to eat at Riscky’s Steakhouse. Now if you’ll remember when we took Tbug down to pick up Squirty with us, we ate here, so we knew the food was good but so had to go again!

When you enter you’re greeted by this beautiful bar area. There are also booths right across from the bar you just can’t see them in my photo. I think this is actually the prettier part of the restaurant though if you look at the next photo over, the other portion of the restaurant looks like store fronts like so. Still very cool. Being as though it is Christmas time they had their Christmas tree up and my picture doesn’t even do justice to this gorgeous tree.

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Oh Where is the Remote? Oh Where is the Remote?

The other night when I got home from work I immediately went in, changed my clothes and started folding laundry. I’ve admitted many times that folding laundry is my worst habit. I’m good at washing it, just hate hate hate putting it away. Oy!

So when I walked into the bedroom the tv remote was laying on top of the bed. I was too lazy to walk around to the night stand (other side of the bed) and place it there so our bed has 4 posts and there were some clothes laying on top of the post closest to me so I balanced the remote on top of the clothes on the bed post.

Smart right?!?!

So hubby came in and started helping me fold clothes to put away. I didn’t think anything of it.

So jump forward a couple hours… And you may have seen this post on Instagram. Later that night I youtube videoed how to curl your hair with a flattening iron. And then went to town on my own hair.

Luckily the tv had been left on in the bedroom because when I went in there I couldn’t find the remote. I knew where I had left it. Then I noticed that hubby had moved some of the clothes that were on the bed post so I went into the living room and started asking him where he moved the tv remote to. He looked at me like I was crazy and said he didn’t touch the remote.

Of course you did. It was on the bedpost where you moved clothes.

He and I searched the entire bedroom together looking for that darn tv remote to no avail. I was getting frustrated. He was getting frustrated. We gave up for a bit and then we started again. We checked the kitchen, the living room, the laundry room, we went through the entire house. Any room either of us had walked into that night was checked.

I can’t tell you what made me do it but I finally walked back into the bedroom and opened up my make-up drawer on the dresser of all places and look what I found…

I still have no clue who put the tv remote there…

Don’t forget there’s still time to link up with week two of the Review Extravaganza!!

Baking Soda

A couple of weeks ago I got a text message from Doti. She had a real sweet tooth and didn’t have vegetable shortening. She wondered if you could swap out vegetable oil for the shortening.

I thought about it for a minute and didn’t see why you couldn’t, but really wasn’t sure. I was like, well if nothing else, you’ll know for next time :). Later my mom said she’d have swapped out butter for the shortening… We’ll both know for next time now :).

So many texts back and forth and I started bragging about the fact that I had Peanut Butter Cup Peanut Butter Cookie dough at home in my fridge (recipe below). All it needed to be was baked off. I know, I’m mean sometimes. I made up for it though!!

So later I asked her if she had her cookies made and she said that she got to the point she needed Baking Soda and didn’t have any. Wade wouldn’t let her go to town just for that so she didn’t know what to do.

I jumped online and googled a substitution for baking soda because I remembered reading something about Baking Soda and Baking Powder in Food Network magazine. So anyway if you don’t have baking soda, triple your baking powder amounts and reduce your salt is what it said online.

With her two substitutions, she said that they had a bit of a different texture but still good 🙂 (more…)

2012 Review Extravaganza April – June

Welcome back to week two of the Review Extravaganza. If you participated last week, you’re well on your way to knowing how this goes, if you’re new, by all means you can check out the intro here or my last weeks post here for a bit of a better description!

Make sure you grab the button and link up your April – June reviews!! And don’t forget to visit my wonderful co-hosts (just click on their names) Emmy-EmmyMom; Lourie-CA Girl; MiMi-Living in France; Mrs. Match-Date Girl Diaries; Janette-Johanson Journey.

There are wonderful prizes to be had!! And if you missed last week, you can still totally join in (can recap 6 months or just jump right in) and you will still be able to earn tons of points.

April

*Audrey went missing in March while Tbug was here on Spring Break but we started off April just right! The night we were celebrating my friend T’s graduation from vision therapy, Audrey came home!!! I really didn’t believe Earl when she told me Audrey was home.

*I then found out that Pioneer Woman was going to be doing a book signing in Tulsa so hubby and I took off work, jumped in the car and drove down for the signing. I remembered how to speak – it’s the little things in life we take for granted sometimes….

*Tbug was with us for Easter this year so she and I decorated Easter Eggs and made Egg ornaments for both grandma’s. We also made Confetti eggs for Sunday Night Dinner.

*With all the eggs left over from Easter, hubby and Tbug made breakfast.

*Tbug got to go to Ft. Worth with us to pick Squirty up and on the way stopped at her favorite Restaurant, JL’s BBQ.

Yes, that is BBQ sauce under her glasses…

*My parents went with us on the Showboat Branson Belle.

*And Flat Aggie came to visit us here in MO all the way from Sunny California.

May

*We threw my Father-in-law a surprise retirement party and then got to attend his retirement party at work a few days later.

*And we learned that I can indeed get stressed out and when I do, I do funny things…

*Then I decided that I’d just like to be a kid again. I think I changed my mind the minute the kiddo’s pushed me in the freezing cold swimming pool, clothes and all.

*EmmyMom wrote a guest post for me the week of finals week that has topped out as an all time favorite post in the stats.

*And they say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas – well let me tell you, my addiction to Caramel Macchiato‘s didn’t stay there but followed me home! The Mocha Frappe followed me as well…. Someone lied about what stays there! 🙂

*I found an amazing compilation of recipes from my Grandma that I didn’t now I had. I cried the whole way through and smiled because I remembered these dishes she made. She always said she hated to cook but she was a very good cook!

*And I bought my husband a wooden ice cream maker with electric motor and hand crank for $2.85 brand spankin new!

Gosh I love him!

June

*My husband was issued a challenge by my mother when we first started dating to ride and show cutting horses. In June, my hubby won his first belt buckle at NCHA Day.

*My dad and my husband decided they were going to buy me a team of goats to pull a cart {to which they still give me crap about 6 months later}

*I wrote my first restaurant review about a place in Duenweg, MO called JohnBoat Cafe’ and I’m not a professional food critic but I can sure tell you this is fun! Then I got to taste Alligator after that. It wasn’t bad, tasted like chicken. So cliche’ but so true :).

*I found out Tbug actually listens to me nag about her hair all the time.

*And the girlfriends (my puppies) celebrated their 2nd and 1st birthdays. Yes my dogs were born on the same day…

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Boys & Their Toys

Back before my husband went to Afghanistan he drove a 1999 3/4 ton extended cab white Ford. Apparently he LOVED that truck. The only thing he hated was the fact that it was just 2 wheel drive so it sucked on ice. Then somehow jump forward a while (don’t know the time) and his sister-in-law & brother-in-law drove it. But sadly after 350,000 miles or so though, she died.

Oh that’s not totally true, she’d run REALLY hard, that is once you got her running (why I’m referring to the truck as a her I’ll never know but go with it!) and you couldn’t drive over 45mph (which if you google that for my lovely fans that don’t drive in miles per hour that’s 72.4205kph 🙂 now I would round down to 72kph or up to 73kph?) And even then you couldn’t be guaranteed she wouldn’t die somewhere along the way.

So the truck had been sitting in our fence row pretty much ever since we moved to our house. Hubby has spent a little time trying to get it back up and running but didn’t have all the equipment needed to really get it running properly. So finally ~~I begged pleaded convinced~~ he decided to put it up on Craig’s List to see if we could get rid of it. He’s been wanting a 4-wheeler so he put it up for a swap.

67 text messages later (not all from the same person obviously) we wound up with this:

The Beast

As I’ve so affectionately dubbed it
a 1989 Chevy Half ton with a 5″ Lift kit and huge tires. Oh and did I mention it’s 4-wheel drive? and only has like 250,000 miles or so…

Truthfully I thought hubby was joking when he asked what I thought of this… I was like someone actually sent you that picture? Why? He informed me it was “cool”.

Little did I know The Beast would soon be in my future.

Our pond doesn’t really hold water… except of course for a short period after it rains. And what should you do after it rains? Go muddin’ of course. Because, duh that will so seal up the pond… just ask hubby :).

I really thought we had a black truck though… maybe I was mistaken! :). This was after the third trip into the pond. Don’t worry, it went again… Just had to make sure we really knew what color it was supposed to be.

My mother-in-law says you have to grow old but you never have to grow up.

And ok it was kind of fun swirling and swinging around the mud, especially because I walked away clean! That was the best part!

What can I say… Boys will be Boys!

The Shack: Cajun Night

Last night was Cajun Night. Sadly it was a low turnout, people had things to do. I sure hope that they weren’t staying away because of Cajun night, because, mmm mmm good did they miss out!

Here’s what was on last night’s menu:

Crawdad or Crawfish Etouffee

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Pin Gone Good – Food Style

I swear, I could live on Italian, I may weigh 500 lbs if I did, but I sure could do it! Either that or I’d have to get my butt big time into the C25K program and never quit running! Which I’m not going to lie, I really should do anyway 🙂

Well last week hubby and I had talked about going out for Italian but we decided not to in the end. Then, low & behold Earl came up with Italian themed Sunday Night Dinner! Woohooo! {Early, you’re awesome!! Just in case you didn’t know that already}

She based her theme off of this pin:

Source: mmmcafe.blogspot.com via Aerielle on Pinterest

Have you ever had these? If not, I say you must drop everything you’re doing and run to the store for the ingredients!! Here’s what hers looked like.

Oh hello yum! We took Pepperoni Bread we bought at the Amish Store right around the corner from my house and then Tbug saw PW’s show Saturday where she made Mint Brownies, so we just had to make those too! Although I tuckered out and didn’t get them covered in chocolate. So we had icingless brownies! They were still tasty!

And here are the cutie girlies sitting eating their dinner. After one of them caught me taking this photo they were all about how they looked and what they were doing at the exact moment I took this photo. The convo was hilarious!

Then later in the evening Tbug swore she was stuck, I’m not so sure what happened but I walked into the room and she was like this. Then asked me if I wanted her back stuck for a photo… lol. Don’t worry she did her “I’m a Dork Dance” prior to this. It’s all good.

So see, even on the coolest of nights Sunday Night Dinner is extremely entertaining if nothing else!

and Here’s the recipe for the Chicken Alfredo Roll-ups just in case you’d like it! I”m telling you, they’re yummy! Although the recipe says 3 roll ups for 1 person, we’re all satisfied with 1 per person!

Chicken Alfredo Roll-ups

9 lasagna noodles
2 ½ cups alfredo sauce (optional homemade recipe below)
2 cups cooked, shredded chicken
oregano
garlic salt
3 cups shredded Mozzarella, or cheese of your choice

Spray an 8×8 pan with non-stick spray and pour ½ cup alfredo sauce, or just enough to cover the bottom of the pan. Boil 8-10 cups water in a large pan, cook lasagne noodles until al dente. (I usually cook 1 or 2 extra just because lasagna noodles always seem to break on me when I am stirring them.)
Now this is the important part! Drain and rinse the noodles with cold water to prevent them from sticking to each other. Then, lay out each noodle individually and blot dry with a paper towel.

Spread about 2 Tbs. alfredo sauce over each noodle. (if there is too much sauce you will have a big mess on your hands!) Sprinkle oregano and garlic salt on top of sauce. Take 1/9 of the shredded chicken and spread it out evenly over each noodle. Add approx. 3 Tbs. cheese. To roll up, start at one end and roll the noodle over the toppings. You will need to lift the noodle a little to prevent squishing out the inside ingredients while rolling.

Place the roll-ups in the pan, one by one, seam-side down so they don’t come undone. Once they are all in the pan, pour the remaining alfredo sauce over the top. Top with remaining cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes, or until the cheese is completely melted on top.

Serves 3, 3 roll-ups each
Recipe highly adapted from Artsyfartsymama.blogspot.com

The Best Garlic Alfredo Sauce

½ cup butter
2 ounces cream cheese
2 cups heavy cream (or substitute half and half)
2 teaspoon garlic powder
½ tsp. fresh minced garlic
salt and freshly ground black pepper
½ tsp dried oregano
⅔ cup parmesan cheese

In a medium to large saucepan melt the butter over medium heat. Add fresh minced garlic and cook for 1 minute, or until fragrant. Add the cream cheese and whisk to smooth and melted. Whisk in the heavy cream.
Season with the garlic powder, salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer and whisk frequently until sauce thickens, around 15 minutes. Stir in the cheese and when melted, remove from heat and serve.

Makes 2 ½ cups
Recipe from Momma!

p.s. There’s still time for your January-March Review Extravaganza link up through tonight!! Today is the last night you can get credit for linking up all 4 weeks!!!

I love the Goat Ornament…

Every year since I’ve been married to my husband we’ve tried to include Tbug in decorating our Christmas tree. We miss the one Christmas when hubby and I were dating. I know what all ornaments we own. I know what all ornaments go onto our tree.

Granted, we have a few that we add every year – trips, family, etc, but I still know what they are because while we’re collecting them and it isn’t Christmas, I line them on the hooks in my kitchen just so they don’t get lost, broken or forgotten. Therefore, I know all the ornaments on our tree.

This year’s additions:

One for Tbug’s Cheerleading that we found in Branson.