Chicken Pot Pie

Chicken Pot Pie

1 package chicken thighs
1 package frozen veggie mix (corn, green beans, peas 12 ounces)
2 ounces cream cheese
1 can cream of chicken soup
1/2 cup of milk
1 package crescent rolls
1 thawed pie crust


Heat oven to 375.
Remove excess fat from chicken thighs cut into inch pieces.  Add to skillet over medium high heat with a drizzle of olive oil.  Season with garlic powder, poultry seasoning and R.R. chicken seasoning. Cook through.
Add soup, milk, cream cheese and frozen veggies. Heat until boiling, stirring constantly.
Let simmer for 5 minutes.
While simmering, unroll crescent dough.  Spray muffin tin, place one crescent triangle into each muffin.  Place one spoonful of pot pie mix into each triangle.  Fold each one over to make mini pot pies.
Bake 11 minutes.

As mini pies are baking, place one pie crust in a glass pie dish and fill with remaining pot pie filling.  Top with second pie crust.  Cut 2-4 vents and flute the edges.  When the mini pies are done, raise oven temp to 425 and bake pie for 20 minutes.

Bella Age 6

Bella - Age 6

1. What is your favorite color? PINK
2. What is your favorite toy? BLANKET BUDDIES
3. What is your favorite fruit? APPLES
4. What is your favorite tv show? SPONGEBOB
5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? PIZZA
6. What is your favorite outfit? RED DRESS
7. What is your favorite game? MINECRAFT
8. What is your favorite snack? GRAPES
9. What is your favorite animal? BUNNIES
10. What is your favorite song? SHAKE IT OFF
11. What is your favorite book? AVENGERS
12. Who is your best friend? RICKY AND ALEXA AND ADRIANA AND EMMA
13. What is your favorite cereal? HONEY NUT CHEERIOS
14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? RIDE MY SCOOTER
15. What is your favorite drink? CRAN APPLE JUICE
16. What is your favorite holiday? CHRISTMAS
17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? BUN BUN, CHA CHA
18. What is your favorite thing to eat for dinner? MEATLOAF
19. What is your favorite thing to do? HUG MOMMY
20. What do you want to be when you grow up? DENTIST

Drunken Kitchen Experiment

I experiment in the kitchen all the time.  If I had a show on the Food Network, it'd be called Kitchen Improv.  Because I'm funny, dammit!  :)  Anyways, this creation happened last night.  And shit was fantastic.

Eggs
Ham
Cheese
S&P
Muffin Tin
Cooking Spray

Heat oven to 400.  Spray the muffin tin.  Squish the ham in there.  Crack the egg in there.  Scramble it if you want.  S&P that bitch.  Throw some cheese on there.  Bake for like 15 minutes.  I think I meant to bake for less time so I could have squishy yolks, but again.  This was a drunken kitchen experiment.  Not a properly thought out and fully rational kitchen experiment.

But there ya go.  Pop them out with a spoon and enjoy a midnight snack that doesn't cost you a thousand calories and $20 for the pizza dude.  :)

PCS to Japan!

29 Days, people.  That's how long I have before I say Sayonara, America!  In 5 days, the movers arrive to pack us up and in 13 days, we're moving into a hotel.  I think my ulcer has an ulcer.  I'm surrounded by piles of shit that's quasi organized into sections of "HHG", "UB", "NTS", "SELL", "DONATE", and "I HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE WHAT TO DO WITH THIS OR EVEN WHY I BOUGHT IT".  So yeah, there's a lot of piles.  I'm not the neatest freak in the world, but this clutter is making me twitch.  Trying to make hard calls about what to go into storage b/c the housing in Japan is WAY smaller than America.  I mean duh.  They are a tiny people.  And I'm half Korean.  I'm pretty sure the Japanese raped and pillaged the shit outta my ancestors.  But I digress.  My house here is like 1900 sqft, give or take.  The biggest possible place we will get in Japan will be 1600 sqft, and we'll probably get stuck  in a 1400 sqft.  So I need to remove between 300-500 sqft of shit.  That's a lot of shit.  And I have no idea what to get rid of.  I want to move and I'm SO very excited, but dammit, it's all the stuff to do before the move that's driving me batty!

Bella - Age 5

Bella - Age 5

1. What is your favorite color? PINK
2. What is your favorite toy? BUN BUN
3. What is your favorite fruit? APPLES
4. What is your favorite tv show? HELLO KITTY
5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch? RICE
6. What is your favorite outfit? DADDY'S FROG SHIRT FROM KEESLER
7. What is your favorite game? BAD PIGGIES
8. What is your favorite snack? GUMMIES
9. What is your favorite animal? BUNNIES
10. What is your favorite song? THE MONKEY SONG
11. What is your favorite book? THE FROG BOOK
12. Who is your best friend? KAYLEIGH
13. What is your favorite cereal? FIBER ONE
14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? RIDE MY BIKE
15. What is your favorite drink? SPRITE
16. What is your favorite holiday? CHRISTMAS
17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? BUN BUN, CHA CHA, SNOWFLAKE
18. What is your favorite thing to eat for dinner? BRATWURST
19. What is your favorite thing to do? PLAY OUTSIDE
20. What do you want to be when you grow up? BE LIKE MOMMY

Things I learned while on my roadtrip

Here's what I learned on my road trip.

First and most importantly, REMEMBER WHERE THE GEAR SHIFT IS.  Yes, that totally deserved all caps.  Because I about broke the dame wiper lever off every time I went to put the damn car into Drive but instead, I just wound up turning the wipers on high and jumping in surprise and basically giving everyone around me a big laugh.

Also, bring more cd's.  For some reason, there's long stretches of North Carolina where the only crappy radio stations that will come in clearly are 70's disco music, Guns and Roses (seriously, the station played 3 GnR songs in a row to the point where Bella was crinkling her nose and saying, "What are we listening to??") or the God channel.  Oh, or there was a 4th choice.  Talk radio.  Altho, I'd rather listen to Kidz Bop for the 20th time rather than listen to talk radio.  If I wanted to hear people talk, I'd call someone on the phone.  If I'm in the car, I want music.

Always find a posse.  For me, it was a Charger and some kind of luxury SUV.  The three of us drove all through North Carolina for 2 hours hopping around each other, each taking turns being the rabbit and getting to roll thru the entire state at 80-85mph the whole way.  Oh hell yeah!

But the flip side of that, if your spidey sense is tingling, listen to it.  Don't try to pass a car that just mysteriously slowed down b/c odds are, he spotted the state cop...  Got stalked for a couple miles, lost a few years off my life, but then the cop just flashed his lights in my general direction and popped a U-y to go look for speeders on the other side of the highway.  I'm pretty sure I got a nonverbal warning from a cop.

If you're a lonely hitchhiker, don't hitchhike mere minutes away from a correctional facility.  No one will pick you up.  Ever.

Salmon Meatballs

Salmon Meatballs

Yes, I know, my picture taking skills are lacking.  This is why you will never see my on any cooking show.  My food only tastes good.  I have no ability whatsoever to "plate" my food so it looks fancy.  I'd rather it tasted good than looked good.  :)

I thought of this idea b/c, well, Bella doesn't like fish.  I figured she wouldn't b/c even when I was pregnant, I'd get nauseous just smelling tuna, so it's plain to see that she hasn't like fish since conception.  LOL  But I'm always trying to get her to eat fish b/c it is really healthy.  And dammit, I like fish.  And since the husband isn't a big fan, I need a partner in my fish loving ways.  After some random googling and trial & error, I've finally created the perfect Salmon Meatballs!  They are delicious, healthy and best of all?  Bella loves them.  :)

Here's what you'll need:
8 ounces of salmon
-I used 2 fillets from a bag of frozen salmon that were 4oz each.  I thawed them in a bowl of cool tap water, but if you are someone who plans ahead, just defrost them in the fridge.  Or buy fresh!
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
-I used the seasoned kind.  But that's just my taste
1/4 cup mayo
Healthy squirt of mustard
Parsley
Pepper
1 egg
Garlic powder
Dried onion flakes (b/c I hate onions, but oddly, the dried flakes don't bother me)
Oil for frying
Panko

Place your defrosted salmon fillets on a foil lined baking sheet.  Do not use oil, do not spray it with anything, don't use the fancy non-stick foil.  You want the fish to stick!

Bake at 350 for 20mins.

Remove pan from oven and let cool until it's okay to handle.  Gently peel your salmon off the foil and (here's the cool part!) the skin will stay on the foil and you'll have happy salmon that ready to flake up!  Make sure you scrape off that weird grey stuff and the oozing white stuff.  I don't know what it is, I don't want to know what it is.  But it grossed me out, so I took it off.

Place fillets in a bowl and mush it all up so it's nice and separated.  Add in all other ingredients except the oil and Panko.

Mush Mush Mush

Cover and let sit in fridge for 1/2 hour to let everything combine.

Grab a plate and pour some Panko into it.  Not a huge amount.  I'd guesstimate I used no more than 1/2 cup, probably less.

Pour a thin layer of oil into a deep skillet and heat over medium heat.  While your oil is heating up, shape the salmon mixture into little golf balls (it's gonna be sticky from the egg!) then lightly roll them in the Panko.

Set them aside until you have them all rolled up.  If you get bored with rolling balls out towards the end, just grab all the leftover and make a patty out of it.  At least that's what I did.

Using tongs, gently place them in the hot oil, turning to evenly brown all sides.  This will not take much time at all, so keep an eye on them!

Drain on a paper towel.

Serve to your picky non-fish-eating child with some ketchup and tell her it's chicken.

Sit back and revel in your awesome sneakiness as your child declares, "YUM!  These taste really good, Mommy!"