At Ruby's, we were given a lot of coconut milk. Neither David nor I like coconuts much so we weren't sure how this was going to go. We heard it's good for things like homemade conditioners but I can't use 10+ containers of it for our hair. I pinterested recipe ideas and I came across this presumably authentic Indian Dal. I had to look it up but dal refers to the lentils themselves or the dinner you can make with lentils, onions, turmeric, and other spices. This version includes coconut milk and tomatoes. There are lots of varieties. The recipe is best served with bread or rice. We used wheat French bread but I would think any crusty bread would work great. We even ate it communal style, where we dipped into it from the big batch.
Because we don't like coconut, we left out the toasted coconut on top. We also had 330 ml containers of coconut milk instead of the 400 but I didn't change anything and this seemed to work out fine. Because we don't have much of a spice tolerance, I completely left out the cayenne pepper. I also used cumin instead of the mustard seeds because it is what we had on hand. David is one of those people for whom cilantro tastes metallic (this is a real thing) so I also omitted that. I didn't use fresh ginger or garlic (just the spice bottle varieties). I will also say we didn't drain the tomatoes. If you dig deep through the comments, she says there is no need to and I agree. Mine was a little soupier than hers looked but it works out fine with the bread (or rice) to soak it up.
This was really delicious. I do think it makes much more than 6 servings though. Next time, I may also cut the lentils in half because there are a LOT of them. I also wonder if you couldn't cook the lentils in with the sauce but I'd be nervous to try it. Because my lentil package said to cover the lentils for cooking, I did (but the recipe calls for uncovered).
I would definitely make this again but I'd probably keep all my substitutions and I'd cut it in half. We've been eating this for 3 days now and there's probably 3 days worth of it left!
Friday, April 24, 2015
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Review of The Tomb
I recently had the privilege of reading the book, The Tomb by Stephanie Landsem. It is the third in its series and I believe it also to be the last. The whole series brings Bible stories to every day life. It makes them more realistic and easier to relate to. I understand what the people were going through better after reading these because they make more sense. In no way is Stephanie trying to rewrite the Bible or change things. She is just trying to make us realize what it was really like.
This book was about a young woman named Martha, who struggled with providing for her family while keeping a secret from all of them. It follows her through finding out her brother Lazarus is sick and dying. For those who know the Bible story, you know his life will eventually be spared when their cousin, Jesus, brings him back from the dead. However, life is a little more complicated than that (not that bringing someone back from the dead isn't complicated!). There are many plot twists in this book and it will keep you hooked until the end. I am always surprised to find myself wondering what will happen next when for the most part, I should know because I am familiar with the Bible stories.
The author does an excellent job tying up loose ends and doesn't leave you hanging. Her writing is easy to understand and has great style, making this a quick read. If I didn't have a baby to take care of, I easily could've read this in one sitting (as I did with the previous two in the series).
Even though this is based on biblical stories, I do believe that non-believers could find some worth to reading it. The story is excellent, even if you don't believe it actually happened. I highly recommend this book and I hope Stephanie writes more (probably in a different series).
This book was about a young woman named Martha, who struggled with providing for her family while keeping a secret from all of them. It follows her through finding out her brother Lazarus is sick and dying. For those who know the Bible story, you know his life will eventually be spared when their cousin, Jesus, brings him back from the dead. However, life is a little more complicated than that (not that bringing someone back from the dead isn't complicated!). There are many plot twists in this book and it will keep you hooked until the end. I am always surprised to find myself wondering what will happen next when for the most part, I should know because I am familiar with the Bible stories.
The author does an excellent job tying up loose ends and doesn't leave you hanging. Her writing is easy to understand and has great style, making this a quick read. If I didn't have a baby to take care of, I easily could've read this in one sitting (as I did with the previous two in the series).
Even though this is based on biblical stories, I do believe that non-believers could find some worth to reading it. The story is excellent, even if you don't believe it actually happened. I highly recommend this book and I hope Stephanie writes more (probably in a different series).
Monday, April 20, 2015
French Onion Soup Casserole
After receiving lots of French bread and onions from Ruby's pantry last week, I knew I needed a recipe to help use them up. When I say a lot of onions, I mean like 30. Plus the 30 we got last month. Even though the recipe I found only uses 3 or 4, that is still quite a bit.
The recipe is for French onion soup casserole. I was a little leery of this at first because I couldn't get over how many onions are in it. I will admit it's been 3 days and our kitchen still smells like onions (some people recommend cutting them outside for this reason). However, I do like onion soup so I thought I'd give it a try anyway.
For more protein, I served it with a side of shrimp sprinkled with some garlic and tossed in butter but with all the cheese in the casserole, you'd probably be fine serving it as a main dish as well.
The only change we made was to use mozzarella cheese instead of Swiss because that's what we have on hand. I will also mention that the bread we used was the kind that is mostly baked but needs about 5 more minutes in the oven to finish. We left it as was and didn't do the full baking ahead of time. We also must've cut our slices of bread too thick (about an inch or more) because we couldn't push them down into the casserole halfway through baking. This wasn't a problem and I liked the thickness of the bread. We probably could've just flipped the bread over before adding the cheese and it would've been the same effect. However, our way, we got to keep the crunchy topping from the first 15 minutes of baking.
So I gotta say, I really did not have the highest of hopes for this recipe. I was sure the onions would be too much and it might be bland. David agreed with me. We were both scared to try it but once we did, we couldn't stop eating it! This casserole was so unbelievably good that we will definitely be making it again! It was actually quite surprising to us but I have already recommended this recipe to the other people I know that go to Ruby's pantry (to help use up those onions!). This was definitely a 5/5 in my book.
P.S. This is my 300th post!
The recipe is for French onion soup casserole. I was a little leery of this at first because I couldn't get over how many onions are in it. I will admit it's been 3 days and our kitchen still smells like onions (some people recommend cutting them outside for this reason). However, I do like onion soup so I thought I'd give it a try anyway.
For more protein, I served it with a side of shrimp sprinkled with some garlic and tossed in butter but with all the cheese in the casserole, you'd probably be fine serving it as a main dish as well.
The only change we made was to use mozzarella cheese instead of Swiss because that's what we have on hand. I will also mention that the bread we used was the kind that is mostly baked but needs about 5 more minutes in the oven to finish. We left it as was and didn't do the full baking ahead of time. We also must've cut our slices of bread too thick (about an inch or more) because we couldn't push them down into the casserole halfway through baking. This wasn't a problem and I liked the thickness of the bread. We probably could've just flipped the bread over before adding the cheese and it would've been the same effect. However, our way, we got to keep the crunchy topping from the first 15 minutes of baking.
So I gotta say, I really did not have the highest of hopes for this recipe. I was sure the onions would be too much and it might be bland. David agreed with me. We were both scared to try it but once we did, we couldn't stop eating it! This casserole was so unbelievably good that we will definitely be making it again! It was actually quite surprising to us but I have already recommended this recipe to the other people I know that go to Ruby's pantry (to help use up those onions!). This was definitely a 5/5 in my book.
P.S. This is my 300th post!
Friday, April 17, 2015
Meatloaf in a Muffin Tin
David and I really wanted meatloaf but with the temps starting to rise now that it's spring, I didn't want to have the oven on for a whole hour to bake it. I found a a recipe that uses muffin tins instead and only takes 25 minutes! We followed the recipe, as written, except we only used 1 pound of ground beef instead of 1 1/2 pounds. We did keep the rest of the ingredients the same. Oh but we didn't put the ketchup on top before baking.
This recipe turned out great and I loved that it had the veggies cooked right in. That makes it a perfect meal to give our baby, especially in the convenient size of a muffin. She loved it! We did too. I felt like you didn't need to add ketchup to the top because there was enough sweetness from the carrots and from the ketchup already in it but David did add it. I usually add ketchup to the top of my traditional meatloaf recipe though.
As much as we liked these, we still like our original recipes (from our moms!) better. I was thinking we could just take our recipes and make them in muffin tins, baking for 25 minutes. The only downside to this, is Baby doesn't get her veggies built right in but that's okay. I would make these again some time but I also feel they are a bit more prep work than our recipes. I love the concept though and what a time saver it is!
This recipe turned out great and I loved that it had the veggies cooked right in. That makes it a perfect meal to give our baby, especially in the convenient size of a muffin. She loved it! We did too. I felt like you didn't need to add ketchup to the top because there was enough sweetness from the carrots and from the ketchup already in it but David did add it. I usually add ketchup to the top of my traditional meatloaf recipe though.
As much as we liked these, we still like our original recipes (from our moms!) better. I was thinking we could just take our recipes and make them in muffin tins, baking for 25 minutes. The only downside to this, is Baby doesn't get her veggies built right in but that's okay. I would make these again some time but I also feel they are a bit more prep work than our recipes. I love the concept though and what a time saver it is!
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
New Cleaning Spreadsheet
I am the kind of person that needs a daily to-do list. I uses the free app called Taskos (and highly recommend it! You can even cross things off and see them crossed off. I love that feeling). Most of the time, half my to-do list is personal stuff (grocery shopping, gym, mail bills, etc) and the other half is cleaning. The problem with this is things only get added to the cleaning part of the list when they are out of control and need to be done. With a kid (and a pregnancy), it's kind of hard to make sure I clean everything as often as I should.
For this reason, I have come up with a spreadsheet in Google Drive (so I can use it on all devices) that lists all my regular cleaning things, quite specifically, and the date I last cleaned it. It's all broken down by room in the house. So for instance it says "clean downstairs bathroom sink" in one column and then the next column says "04/14/15". This way, I don't end up cleaning something six times in two weeks while another item gets neglected and last got cleaned three months ago (believe me, this somehow happens).
I can also use it for keeping track of things that you don't typically do weekly, such as oil changes on the cars, washing your mattress pad, cleaning out the junk drawer, etc.
I have only recently started using it so I'm not sure in how it's working out. I do still have to remember to update it, which can be a little bit of a hassle but having it electronic should make it easier. I'm very excited about this and I hope it stays effective.
For this reason, I have come up with a spreadsheet in Google Drive (so I can use it on all devices) that lists all my regular cleaning things, quite specifically, and the date I last cleaned it. It's all broken down by room in the house. So for instance it says "clean downstairs bathroom sink" in one column and then the next column says "04/14/15". This way, I don't end up cleaning something six times in two weeks while another item gets neglected and last got cleaned three months ago (believe me, this somehow happens).
I can also use it for keeping track of things that you don't typically do weekly, such as oil changes on the cars, washing your mattress pad, cleaning out the junk drawer, etc.
I have only recently started using it so I'm not sure in how it's working out. I do still have to remember to update it, which can be a little bit of a hassle but having it electronic should make it easier. I'm very excited about this and I hope it stays effective.
Monday, April 13, 2015
Pear Applesauce Muffins
Over the weekend, I discovered that I had 2 pears I needed to use up. I love to eat them when they are really really soft (my husband thinks this is disgusting because they are basically rotten by the time they are soft enough for me) but even these ones were a bit past that. I would feel bad wasting them and decided they would be okay to bake with (you can bake with black bananas so I think you can bake with squishy pears).
I found this recipe for muffins and doubled it so I could use both pears. I left the pear skin on and it wasn't a problem. I also used cinnamon instead of Chinese five spice powder because I had no idea what that was so I definitely didn't have it in my pantry. The only other minor change was not using brown sugar on top. We tried to sprinkle it on a couple but the sugar was too clumpy and wasn't working out so only like, 3 got any.
These tasted really good! My husband doesn't normally like chunks in things (like apples in apple bread) so he was unsure until he had one. Even he liked them! I do have a couple complaints, however. First, they stuck to the liners. Well, only one batch stuck to the liners and we can't figure out why they weren't the same. It was the same batter and the same liners but whatever. Some people say this could be because of the liner you are using. Others say it happens with low fat recipes. I'm not sure these qualify as low fat because they do still have half a stick of butter in them but maybe. Next time, I'll just grease my muffin tin instead.
Second, they dry out really fast. By the second day of sitting on the counter, they were pretty hard (but still edible). Now, they are in the cookie jar and doing slightly better but we still find if you warm them up for about 10 seconds in the microwave, they're much better. In other words, don't make a double batch if you aren't prepared to eat 24 muffins in a day or two!
But other than that, these are really good, quick, and easy! I will definitely make them again. Maybe I'll freeze some of them next time before they get too hard.
I found this recipe for muffins and doubled it so I could use both pears. I left the pear skin on and it wasn't a problem. I also used cinnamon instead of Chinese five spice powder because I had no idea what that was so I definitely didn't have it in my pantry. The only other minor change was not using brown sugar on top. We tried to sprinkle it on a couple but the sugar was too clumpy and wasn't working out so only like, 3 got any.
These tasted really good! My husband doesn't normally like chunks in things (like apples in apple bread) so he was unsure until he had one. Even he liked them! I do have a couple complaints, however. First, they stuck to the liners. Well, only one batch stuck to the liners and we can't figure out why they weren't the same. It was the same batter and the same liners but whatever. Some people say this could be because of the liner you are using. Others say it happens with low fat recipes. I'm not sure these qualify as low fat because they do still have half a stick of butter in them but maybe. Next time, I'll just grease my muffin tin instead.
Second, they dry out really fast. By the second day of sitting on the counter, they were pretty hard (but still edible). Now, they are in the cookie jar and doing slightly better but we still find if you warm them up for about 10 seconds in the microwave, they're much better. In other words, don't make a double batch if you aren't prepared to eat 24 muffins in a day or two!
But other than that, these are really good, quick, and easy! I will definitely make them again. Maybe I'll freeze some of them next time before they get too hard.
Saturday, April 11, 2015
Long Car Ride with a Baby
Wow it's been a long time since I have posted! Sorry about that. As per usual, I will try to stay on top of it (look, here I am blogging on a Saturday. That's quite rare for me).
For Easter, we went to my parents' house. It's about a 6 hour drive, depending on how much you stop. However, this time, my husband was too sick to come with us so this was my first trip all by myself with our 14 month old. Now, I have taken her to the store, her other grandparents' house, the gym, etc. I think prior to this, the longest trip I did with her was about 45 minutes and that wasn't exactly pretty. She hates being in the car. She doesn't sleep in it (unless she's desperate), she can't see out the window very well because of the safety features of her car seat (those side head rest things in case of an accident), and she just gets tired of being in it. When my husband comes along, he drives and I get to sit in back and tend to her. It sort of helps but mostly it gives me piece of mind knowing I exhausted my options. Otherwise, I have to just wonder what she wants when I can't see her, if that makes sense.
We had set up a mirror on the head rest so I could see her in my rear view mirror. This was a LIFE SAVER. If you don't have one and are going anywhere by yourself, I highly highly highly recommend one. We got ours from a family friend so I don't know price or anything but they can't be much. If you google "infant car mirror", I'm sure you'll find what I'm talking about. With this, I could see her when I would give her a snack (to see if she dropped it, choked on it, needed more, etc). I could see when she would actually fall asleep (she did take one 40 minute nap on the way there and another on the way back) vs. just got quiet for a bit. I could see her shake her head yes and no for when I would ask her questions (she's such a good communicator if you ask the right questions). Basically, this was the best thing ever.
Then, I made sure to stop a lot. Normally, especially being pregnant, I have to stop about every two hours to stretch my legs. With baby, we stopped at every rest stop and then a couple gas stations (mostly to retrieve things she had thrown and wanted back). I made sure to stop long enough that she got to play a bit and roam around. She was very happy getting out of the car, not so happy getting back in. In fact, she would close the door if I got close enough for her to reach it when I would try to put her back in. It was bad but I do think the playing helped.
The last thing I can recommend (although I would hardly say I had a successful trip given that she screamed through much of it) is plenty of snacks and toys. I do spoil her and get snacks she doesn't normally get to eat, as well as healthier things to keep her full longer. I also recommend buying new toys, such as from the dollar store, to hold their attention for a few extra minutes before the screaming starts again.
Also, I will say that the way there went a lot better than the way home. I think on the way home she knew what she was in for because she started crying the second we pulled out of the driveway. Every time we go there (with or without my husband), she hates any car ride for MONTHS afterward. Even a quick trip to the store (literally 5 minutes) can seem like eternity to her. I feel so bad she doesn't understand but I suppose she will some day!
For Easter, we went to my parents' house. It's about a 6 hour drive, depending on how much you stop. However, this time, my husband was too sick to come with us so this was my first trip all by myself with our 14 month old. Now, I have taken her to the store, her other grandparents' house, the gym, etc. I think prior to this, the longest trip I did with her was about 45 minutes and that wasn't exactly pretty. She hates being in the car. She doesn't sleep in it (unless she's desperate), she can't see out the window very well because of the safety features of her car seat (those side head rest things in case of an accident), and she just gets tired of being in it. When my husband comes along, he drives and I get to sit in back and tend to her. It sort of helps but mostly it gives me piece of mind knowing I exhausted my options. Otherwise, I have to just wonder what she wants when I can't see her, if that makes sense.
We had set up a mirror on the head rest so I could see her in my rear view mirror. This was a LIFE SAVER. If you don't have one and are going anywhere by yourself, I highly highly highly recommend one. We got ours from a family friend so I don't know price or anything but they can't be much. If you google "infant car mirror", I'm sure you'll find what I'm talking about. With this, I could see her when I would give her a snack (to see if she dropped it, choked on it, needed more, etc). I could see when she would actually fall asleep (she did take one 40 minute nap on the way there and another on the way back) vs. just got quiet for a bit. I could see her shake her head yes and no for when I would ask her questions (she's such a good communicator if you ask the right questions). Basically, this was the best thing ever.
Then, I made sure to stop a lot. Normally, especially being pregnant, I have to stop about every two hours to stretch my legs. With baby, we stopped at every rest stop and then a couple gas stations (mostly to retrieve things she had thrown and wanted back). I made sure to stop long enough that she got to play a bit and roam around. She was very happy getting out of the car, not so happy getting back in. In fact, she would close the door if I got close enough for her to reach it when I would try to put her back in. It was bad but I do think the playing helped.
The last thing I can recommend (although I would hardly say I had a successful trip given that she screamed through much of it) is plenty of snacks and toys. I do spoil her and get snacks she doesn't normally get to eat, as well as healthier things to keep her full longer. I also recommend buying new toys, such as from the dollar store, to hold their attention for a few extra minutes before the screaming starts again.
Also, I will say that the way there went a lot better than the way home. I think on the way home she knew what she was in for because she started crying the second we pulled out of the driveway. Every time we go there (with or without my husband), she hates any car ride for MONTHS afterward. Even a quick trip to the store (literally 5 minutes) can seem like eternity to her. I feel so bad she doesn't understand but I suppose she will some day!
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