I have to share these, because I love them:

I find that I often have a bit of chicken left after dinner and really the left over chicken breast never tastes as good the next day. It gets a little dry and forlorn you know? So I decided that I needed a chicken casserole recipe that I could make without planning for. That means only ingredients that I have in my house on a regular basis. I found this recipe online (I forget where) and I love it. Now I try to plan for chicken leftovers!

Easy Chicken Casserole (is what I call it)

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 cups soft bread cubes (2 to 3 slices) (something else to do with your bread heels)
  
• 1/2 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1 cup cooked vegetables (peas, green beans, mixed, etc.) (we like it with peas!)
  
• 2 tablespoons chopped onion
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1 1/2 cups cooked cubed chicken
• 1 large tomato, sliced (I have left the tomato out and used all sorts of canned tomatoes)
  

PREPARATION:

Combine bread cubes with melted butter and cheese; arrange half of mixture in a buttered 1 1/2-quart casserole. Spread vegetables over the bread mixture.

Sauté chopped onion in remaining 3 tablespoons butter until tender.

Blend in flour and seasonings; cook, stirring, until flour is blended into butter. Gradually add milk, stirring and cooking until thickened and bubbling. Stir in cooked cubed chicken. Pour chicken in sauce over the vegetables in casserole; arrange tomatoes slices over sauce then top with remaining bread mixture. Bake at 325° for 25 to 30 minutes, until hot and bubbly and lightly browned.

Next: I thought, when I got married, that hamburgers were just ground beef formed into patties. My husband informed me that that was NOT the case. As a surprise for him one day I decided to find a RECIPE for hamburgers and I loved this one* (You might want to check out the site it came from. This guy KNOWS his burgers!)

BASIC BURGER

1lb/500g ground beef
1 half onion grated or finely chopped
½ tsp pinches ground coriander
½ tsp pinches paprika powder
a little pepper, fresh ground is better
a little salt
1 hand fresh bread crumbs
1 egg lightly beaten
1 quarter beef stock block dissolved in a quarter cup water

*I have never been completely pleased with a restaurant burger since I started making these, I just thought I would warn you because that is a little sad.

Getting Ready for Baby Jesus

This one is for you Liz!

Chicken thighs, after baking for over 4 hours. Oops.

Please Excuse Me

I have not written a blog post in over a month, which coming so soon after I began this endeavour, bodes ill for the future of my blog. However, I have THOUGHT about blogging. In fact I have several posts all planned out. I just haven't been quite organized enough to gather all the things together that I would need to write said posts. Things like my camera, my computer and Internet access have been missing lately. What? Why? How? could anything so horrible happen to a dedicated blogger like me?

Well actually, it hasn't been horrible at all. All of the upheaval has been due to the fact that we found a new home. We packed up our sweet little cottage

(This picture didn't come out exactly as I had hoped. It was a lovely fall sunset...)

and joined the big people! I thought this would be relatively little trouble. We've only been married just over a year. I was used to moving all my stuff around the country on a regular basis for school. I knew that we had somewhat more stuff but surely not THAT much more stuff. While I am still sure that our move was very little trouble relative to many people out there, it was WAY more trouble than I imagined it to be.

However, with tons of help from friends and family, we are now here, and very nearly moved in. I have found my computer and my camera, and even obtained Internet access. So now, I would like to show you my new home! Just a couple pictures for now.

First is My kitchen, isn't it cute and cosy in a retro sort of way??

Notice the gas stove?? Isn't it amazing?? I love it! The burner flames are huge and easily adjustable and you can get them really really low without it going out. The broiler is all spiffy clean like I've never seen a broiler before and it slides out with such well oiled ease: it makes my heart glad.


This HUGE, sparkly, white, double-sided porcelain sink. This is truly one of the best parts of my new home.




The bright, sunny living room. It is a tad messy, but I like these pictures anyway.


And here is just a hint of what I've been working on...I'll tell you all about THAT later.

You Can Read My Latest Column

Spare Me!

Free Books and a little Intellectual Homework

All on your schedule!

I have been reviewing books for the Catholic Company's Book Reviewer program for a couple of months now. My second review comes out tomorrow on The Contrarian's Review. They are looking for more people who would be interested in the project, so head on over and check it out!

I'm not the only one...

Who has questions and advice about diapers. See Danielle Bean's Coffee Talk Tuesday

What's the Deal with Diapers??

I have a constant sense of guilt about using name brand diapers. It just doesn't seem to fit in with all of my attempts at a frugal lifestyle. But here's the thing. The store brands leak. Period. I want them to be as good. I want them to at least be usable. But in addition to being not as soft, not as flexible not as sturdy (like the little sticky tabs rip off when you try to use them!) they just don't hold up to your average baby mess.

Every time I go buy diapers I find myself in a moral quandary. The name brand diapers are actually fully twice as expensive. Now and then I give in to the temptation to save half my money and buy a package of store brand diapers. Maybe they weren't really that bad. Maybe now that he's a different shape they will work better. I try to convince myself. But it's not true. They are BAD. They don't work, and my baby ends up covered in his own waste, and I end up way more laundry to wash, some of which will never be clean again. And so I pay double for Huggies. (I was buying Pampers, but they support Unicef with God only knows what.)

The other option of course would be cloth diapers, but I have heard, that the cost of cloth diapers is actually comparable because of extra laundering costs. I try my best to believe that, even though it is very hard.

Any ideas? I'm sure many of you have pondered this topic as well.

Catch Up Number One: My Wedding Quilt

I have decided that to start with I need to catch you up on some of my better ideas from the last year or so. Not only does this mean that you get the benefit of my marvelous ideas, it also means I get some content on this so far empty sight.

So, for the first of these I would like to tell you about My Wedding Quilt. Which, although it is an idea I had about a year and a half ago, is still in progress!

I got married last summer and my parents hosted the reception at their house. This is a lovely, romantic, intimate and CRAZY thing to do. In my case it meant that my last semester of school was periodically interrupted by emails about colossally important details such as salt shakers (ooo!). I do believe that there are people out there who would have been interested and delighted to choose salt shakers for their lovely barn (did I mention it was in a barn?) wedding. I wasn't really one of them.

All that nonsense aside.

One decision that I was quite pleased with was My Wedding Quilt. I decided that I would make twenty quilt squares each of which would act as a center piece for one table. During the reception I would have people sign the square at their table and after the wedding (at my leisure!) I would sew the squares into My Wedding Quilt. Unfortunately I did not take pictures of the step by step process, but I will illustrate as much as possible as I go.

For my quilt I chose a traditional autograph quilt pattern (there are many to choose from). I used fabrics that would match the rest of the decor of my wedding, mostly blues, yellows and whites, but spiced up with some bright pinks. I bought some fabric for the project and filled in with various leftovers from my small stash.

This is what each block would look like:



See how they make pretty stars when they're pieced together:


After assembling the blocks (with tons of much appreciated help from friends!), I ironed the blocks to slightly smaller squares of wax paper (to make them stiff) and then folded the edge of the block around the back of the paper, secured with scotch tape. This gave the block a neat finished look.

Each of these blocks was placed in the center of a table, and each table was provided with a Pigma Micron Waterproof fabric pen, which I purchased in bulk from ebay.


At the reception we made an announcement explaining the idea of the quilt and inviting people to sign. Almost everyone did sign; some people several times (thank you Philip and Rosie!). Some people simply signed their names, which was what I was expecting, but many people wrote little notes too, things they liked about the wedding, well wishes, blessings, doodles, quotes, etc. I love reading through, laughing and remembering. I especially love where some of my younger guests signed their scrawling signatures!



After the wedding, once I had gotten at least somewhat moved in to my new house, I quickly sewed the blocks together, and added a border. Thank you Leila for suggesting the scrappy looking border that I LOVE.



The next step was to decide how to quilt the thing. This is where things slowed down. The trick was to find a way of quilting it that would go with the overall look of the quilt and not interfere with the autographs. My brilliant (???) decision (after MONTHS of hemming and hawing) was to quilt a circle around each autograph and then to cover the rest with overlapping circles.

I love the way this looks. It is awesome and so dense it gives the quilt "that great crunchy feeling". However, after countless countless hours and HOURS and HOURS I am still quilting. I believe I have about 4/5ths complete at this point.

To guide me through this complicated pattern, I found a little embroidery hoop (about 2.5 inches in diameter) (thank you Sarah) which I used as a pattern and to the circles on with a washable marker. I first tested the washability of the marker on a scrap of fabric, BUT I did not test to see if it would still wash out after sitting for months and months (here's hoping!!).

Once I finish quilting (rolls eyes) I will bind it, using a bias binding and then I will wash it to remove (with any luck) all of the bright blue circles (although some people have said they like them...) and then hang it on a wall?? I had thought it would go on a guest bed, but it is twin sized and our guest bed is full. Besides I am not sure if, after all of this work, I will ever want it USED.

Cheap to fail

I have hesitated to start a blog, despite my itch to do so, because I believe people who have successful blogs are people who are high energy and good at doing lots of things. I don't think of myself as high energy and I'm ok at doing things. However, I have decided to risk it. After all, where is the shame in a failed blog? Abandoned somewhere out in cyber space!

Wish me luck!