Chinese Chicken Salad

I decided it was time to take a break from laundry, cleaning, and packing. This week's recipe is for easy, light, and delicious Chinese Chicken Salad. I thought it would be good to post something lighter before everyone eats their weight in turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes this week. I love this salad. I just kind of throw everything in, so the amounts will vary depending on what you like, but the dressing is measured and very easy. Here you go!

Chinese Chicken Salad

lettuce (I usually use iceberg)
chopped celery
chopped green onions
slivered almonds
mandarin oranges (I just use a can)
cooked chicken, chopped
crunchy chow mein noodles

Dressing:

1/4 c. vegetable oil
2 T. sugar
1 T. soy sauce
2 T. rice vinegar
1/2 tsp. sesame oil*
1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes

Mix together. Toss with salad just before serving. Yum!

*If you don't have it, you can use a little bit of creamy peanut butter. Sounds weird, but it tastes pretty good. Of course, sesame oil is best.

Family

We had a really nice weekend. Friday night, Jeremy's brother Jon and his girlfriend Shannon came up for dinner and games. We played Monopoly and it was really fun! Jon smoked us all, but that's kind of the way it works in that game. Someone always dominates. Anyway, so we had a great time eating, playing, and visiting with them. Then on Saturday we went to get our first ever family pictures! It was exciting, frustrating, and rewarding. Exciting because it was our first time. Frustrating because we scheduled it for 3:40 (perfect time after the nap and feeding) and didn't get in until 5:00!!! Ugh! We got there right on time and they were on the 3:00 people and then the 3:20 people went in a little before 4:00. So I thought, okay, we won't have to wait too much longer. They're probably trying to catch up. Nope! There were so many people there it was ridiculous. They had people scheduled for 3:50 and 4:00, 4:20, and on. Why they schedule people only 10-20 minutes apart when it takes 30-60 minutes is BEYOND me.

But anyway...it all worked out*. They ended up giving us 3 free sheets of photos since we had to wait so long, so I guess that kind of made up for it. I just felt bad for all the rest of the people. Everyone was there with a bunch of (cranky) kids and it was just very poorly run. But we got really cute pictures! We should get them back in about a week or so. We didn't pay the $5 to have access to them online this time, so I can't share the little minis with you, but oh well. I do have a picture of Eli in his handsome outfit though.
So then after we got home from the pictures, my sis Heidi and her 2 roomies came up for dinner and then we put Eli to bed and they watched him so Jeremy and I could go on a date! Woohoo! We went to the temple and then we went to Mimi's for dessert. It was great! Thanks Heidi!

That was our weekend. We're really excited for Thanksgiving! We leave to go up to Boise (Nampa) on Tuesday evening and we are READY TO PARTY!!! It'll be a blast. And to end this post, here is a cute video of Eli laughing for your enjoyment :) (Please ignore my behind and my laughing; that's embarrassing).

*I should add that it's not like we're paying an arm and a leg for pictures, so I shouldn't complain. We went to JC Penney where we always get coupons and it ended up being $12 total: for the sitting fee, an 8x10, 6 5x7s, and 12 3.5x5s. Yeah. Pretty awesome deal. When we got Eli's pictures last time we got 2 8x10s, 2 5x7s, 4 3.5x5s and 16 wallets for $7.99. So my complaining about poor service is over...

Creamy White Chili and Cornbread

I know I missed last week, so I thought I better do a double-wammy today. This soup comes from the "My Kitchen Cafe" blog. She has a lot of tasty recipes and this one was definitely a winner! (She also happens to be my brother-in-law's cousin). It has a little bit of a kick to it and it has tons of flavor. I've made it twice now and it was delicious both times. I also found a yummy cornbread recipe from Martha Stewart to go with it. Both were really easy and super delicious. (My picture is lame, but it really is good). Yum!

Creamy White Chili

1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1 1/2" cubes
1 medium onion, chopped
1 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
2 (15oz.) cans Great Northern beans, rinsed and drained
1-2 (4 oz.) cans green chiles (I did one)
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cumin
1 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup whipping cream

In a large saucepan, saute chicken, onion and garlic powder in oil until chicken is no longer pink. Add beans, broth, chilies and seasonings. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes. Remove from the heat; stir in sour cream and cream. Makes about 6 servings. (Or 4 if you're really hungry).

Cornbread

1/2 c. butter
2/3 c. white sugar
2 eggs
1 c. buttermilk
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 c. cornmeal
1 c. flour
1/2 tsp. salt

Melt butter. Stir in sugar. Add eggs quickly and beat until well blended. Combine buttermilk with baking soda and stir into other mixture. Stir in cornmeal, flour, and salt until well blended and few lumps remain. Bake in greased 8x8 pan at 375 degrees for 30-40 min.

My Stud Husband and Other Random Thoughts

Yes, my husband is amazing. I love him for many reasons, but one of them is that smart engineering mind of his. :) Our Altima recently started having some problems. It started randomly dying, but it wasn't the alternator, which we replaced a few years ago. Anyway, it totally died as Jeremy was going to work a few weeks ago, so we had to get it towed to a mechanic (which luckily our insurance covered). They couldn't figure out what was wrong, so Jeremy got a friend to help him tow it behind his friend's truck to the dealer. They said it needed a new ignition switch (or cylinder or something like that, I obviously know nothing about cars) and said it was going to be like $600 dollars or something. Well, Jeremy said "pshh, I can fix that" even though he had never done it before.

So he got that same friend to tow it back to our house ($0) and I checked out the "Nissan Altima Repair Manual" from the library (also $0) and sure enough, Jeremy figured it out. We found the part online for FORTY dollars (can you believe dealerships?) and Jeremy got to work figuring it out. I love this man! He is his father's son. :) So last Saturday he finished it and it only took him a few hours altogether. He had to get a couple other little tools, but all in all I think it only cost us about $65 rather than $600 (of course, plus the $100 the dealership charged for telling us what was wrong; lame). I love saving money! I am all about figuring stuff out on my own and shopping around and around to save a dime, so I am glad my hubby is the same way. We took it to get the state safety & emissions inspection yesterday to renew our registration and the guy said everything looks great and nothing is wrong. Woohoo! Thanks Jeremy for being such a handyman!Some other random thoughts I've had the past couple days:

• I wasn't really feeling in the Christmas mood yet, even though I usually get really excited for it way too early. Anyway, so I wasn't really feeling it until we were at the mall of all places last night. Everything was so decked out (at least at JC Penney, which was the only place we went) and they had Christmas music playing and it was so festive! So now I'm ready.
• My ward choir was AMAZING today! I am so proud (or pleased, I should say) of them. We sang the beautiful "My Shepherd Will Supply My Need" arr. by Mack Wilberg and they did so well. Their sound was more blended than I've heard in awhile and they had beautiful dynamics and vowels and most importantly a beautiful spirit. I had 2 fabulous ladies play the flute with it too and it was so beautiful! I got a lot of compliments, so I hope we can live up to that with our Christmas music!
• I'm so excited for THANKSGIVING! We are going to my sister Amy's house up in Nampa, ID and I'm really excited. I know I was talking about Christmas and it isn't even Thanksgiving yet, but I love Thanksgiving. I was telling Jeremy yesterday that it's one of the best holidays ever because you get the amazing food, you get days off, you usually get together with other people (friends/family) but you don't have the stress of buying gifts. Gifts really stress me out because I am so not a gift person. I'd be fine if everyone agreed not to do gifts ever, but I know a lot of people are really into gifts, so I get stressed making sure I give thoughtful enough gifts because I don't naturally think much about them! Ahh! It's rough.

Anyway, that's what's been on my mind lately. I know I said I would be a better blogger and then I went over a week with nada, so I really will try to improve this week. We're doing great though! Thanks for reading...

Way Behind

I am way behind on blogging. I don't know what happened. But I have a lot to catch up on! I'm just going to blog about it all. You can take a few days to read it if you need to. We'll start with last week. My mom came into town on last Monday afternoon (yes, way back in October). Eli and I picked her up from the airport and then we had dinner and family night and watched Dancing with the Stars. :) Then on Tuesday, Eli had his 6-month check-up on his 6-month birthday! It was a cold an snowy day, but we made it and it was successful. He weighs (or weighed last Tuesday) 18 lbs. 6 oz. (67th perc.) and he is 27.4 in. long (82nd perc.). He was a little smaller in the percentiles this time for height and weight but his head size was bigger. Haha! His head is 18.1 in. around which puts him in the 96th percentile. All those brains. :)

So then we spent the rest of the day cooking and chatting. Heidi came up for dinner that night and we had a good time eating, doing her laundry, practicing for her concerto, watching So You Think You Can Dance, talking, and planning her schedule for next semester. Jeremy had bishopric stuff that night so it was fun to have some girl bonding. Then on Wednesday, my mom, Eli, and I went out to lunch with my grandparents at Sweet Tomatoes. Yummmm. Then they went down to Provo to watch Heidi's rehearsal and I went home and put Eli to bed. That night I drove down to Provo to meet my mom for the Kings Singers concert (which I already blogged about). Again, it was so good! We went out to ice cream with Heidi and 2 of her roommates after and then came back home.

Thursday we went over to my grandparents' house for lunch along with 3 of my aunts (dad's sister and 2 sister-in-laws). That was fun to have some more girl time along with Eli and Grandpa. :) Then that afternoon we dressed Eli in his cute pumpkin costume and went into Jeremy's work. Every year before/on Halloween they tell the employees to bring their kids in for trick-or-treating. Of course Eli didn't trick-or-treat, but it was still fun to go around and meet some more people I hadn't met and give my mom the full tour. That night my mom went down to Provo again to watch Heidi's basketball game. Friday was the last day she was here. I don't think we did much that day, but we enjoyed chatting again and then I took her to the airport that afternoon.Then Saturday was Halloween! We had a ward trunk-or-treat/lunch that day, which was very fun. That night we just stayed home and passed out candy to the cute kiddos. We got about 20 kids, which probably doesn't sound like a lot to some of you, but it's a pretty good number for our neighborhood. Since then we haven't been up to anything terribly exciting. Jeremy just started playing basketball on Wednesday nights with our stake and I've been having lots of fun with Eli. It's been beautiful weather this week so it's been fun to go on walks together and enjoy the sunshine. Eli is getting so big! He now can sit up by himself for quite awhile. I always sit him up on the bed while I get ready and he just entertains himself like such a big boy. His favorite toys are cell phones and paper; yep, just a piece of paper. And right now he's playing with the TV remote, so I guess that's up there with the cell phone. He has 2 teeth on the bottom now (boy was that fun), and he eats rice cereal, sweet potatoes, bananas, avocados, apples, and as of yesterday peas. Oh how lovely are those diapers now. Eck. He is also experimenting much more with his voice. He makes the most interesting sounds sometimes ranging from low grunts to high squeals and he definitely keeps us entertained.I took these a few days ago. The pillows are to help him, but even now he doesn't really need them. Oh, and yes his hair continues to stick straight up and is definitely the most talked about thing when we meet new people ("Look at that hair!" "Do you style it that way?" etc....)
So that's the update finally! I'll be better from now on. I hope you're all well! Congrats if you made it through all that...

Tasty Tuesday: Oatmeal Pancakes & Maple Syrup

My sister Amy makes these pancakes a lot, and up until a few weeks ago I had never made them. I don't know WHAT I was thinking! They are so delicious, and I have made them at least 5 times since then. :) What you do is make a dry mix (it makes 10 cups of mix) and then store it in a ziploc bag or something, and then every time you want to make pancakes, you just use some of the mix along with 3 other ingredients and it's so EASY! I love it. They have a great flavor with oats, cinnamon, whole wheat flour, etc. I also love how hearty they are. As a nursing mommy I often get hungry not too long after eating a meal, but these stay with me longer than any other breakfast food. And they're delicious!

To go along with these pancakes, of course you need maple syrup. Here's the dilemma in our family with store-bought maple syrup. You either get pancake syrup which is basically flavored corn syrup - which is not only very bad for you, but Jeremy is also allergic to corn syrup. OR, you pay an arm and a leg for pure maple syrup. SO...we make our own. Jeremy's family always did this growing up, and again I had never made it myself until I made this pancakes for the first time. And it is DELICIOUS! And easy. And it makes plenty so you can store it in the fridge and not have to make it every time. So without further ado, I bring you the recipes...

Oatmeal Pancakes

Mix

4 c. old fashioned oats
2 c. all-purpose flour
2 c. whole wheat flour
1 c. packed brown sugar
1 c. instant nonfat dry milk
3 T. baking powder
2 T. cinnamon
5 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cream of tartar

Mix all ingredients together well. Store in a sealed gallon-size plastic storage bag or airtight container. Yield: 10 cups of pancake mix.

Pancakes:

2 eggs
1/3 c. vegetable oil
2 c. pancake mix
1 c. water

To make pancakes, beat eggs in a large bowl. Gradually beat in oil. Alternately add pancake mix and water to mixture. Blend well. Cook. Yield: about 10-12 pancakes.

**These take some practice to cook, because they're much denser than normal pancakes. Just don't have the pan too hot and keep checking them.

Maple Syrup

2 c. sugar
1 c. water
1/2 tsp. Maple flavoring

Bring sugar and water to a boil and boil for 1 minute. Add 1/2 tsp. maple flavoring.

I told you it was easy! I just store my extra in a jar in the fridge and heat it up for the next use. Yum!!! If you want another delicious syrup recipe, go here.