{Seven Quick Takes/Five Favorites} Marshmallows, Chuck, and Impossible Pie

Linking up with Conversion Diary and Moxie Wife! 

(and can I just say, I've had so much fun linking up with other blogs this past month. Omigoshsomanynewblogsonmyblogroll.)

1

So, last weekend (was it only last weekend? Feels like longer...) we had a Marriage Retreat here at Camp. Poor Zeke wasn't feeling so great, so we didn't go to as many of the sessions as I would have liked. 

(I was pretty disappointed... and then crabby at Zeke... and then understanding.... and then got a sore throat myself and wanted him to make me tea. These are known as the Four Stages of Being Cranky With Your Husband Because He's Sick and Is Preventing You From Doing Something You Wanted To Do.)

Aaaanyway. 

I did help out with the activity on Saturday evening, and my goodness. Hilarious. 

Okay, so the couples played "Minute-to-Win-It: Couple's Edition." There were, of course, the golfball stacking challenges and the moving M&M's challenges... 

Funny, and sweet to see couples all focused and working together. 

But then. Oh, but then. 

The couple who planned this activity modified one of the games... and oh my goodness. 

Okay, so here's the premise. The couple had to try to eat as many marshmallows as they could- alternating who ate the marshmallow each time. The challenge was, they had to start with the marshmallow between their foreheads, getting it into their mouth without using their hands. 

So, so, so funny. The couples either looked like they were very, um, amorous (cough, cough), or like they were trying to bite each other's faces off! The pictures are priceless. And proooobably shouldn't go on Camp's Facebook page. 

Try it. It's so funny. Minute-to-Win-It? Best party game ever.

2

Sweet heaven- Impossible Pie. 

I found a recipe for this on a blog that I now can't remember the name of and can't find. (I totally freaked out in a comment on said blog, so if it's yours, let me know and I'll link to ya.)

So, I live at Camp, right? We've determined this? 

Well, we get lots of leftovers- and I try to use leftovers as much as I can so I don't have to actually, you know, buy food.

I love this recipe. Love love love love. 

3

We've been watching lots of Netflix (we don't have TV, because we live at Camp, as we've previously established)- and we have really been loving "Chuck." 

Minimum wage computer geek suddenly thrown into the CIA? Priceless. 

4

Simcha's probably one of my favorite people to read- I've been wasting way too much time on the internet by looking through her archives. And Haley's, too!!

A couple oldies, but goodies...

So Long, and Thanks for All the Intersex Fish 

My Unplanned Pregnancy, Or Why We Stopped Using Birth Control for Good

5

I've been in an "I'm-lost-and-don't-know-what-I'm-doing-next" stage lately. You know, like, my husband has no clean underwear in his dresser, but there's like 78 pairs in the dryer! My planning binder is collecting dust, I've had no idea what's for dinner this week... ugh. Gotta get out of this rut! 

So I cleaned the toilets today (because that's what Confident Mom told me to do today- planning binder back in service) and man. I love cleaning toilets. Is that strange? I dunno, it's just so... satisfying. 

6

A not-so-favorite?

Here's what it's doing outside today.

Snowing, then sorta-kinda melting. 

It's going to get cold again tonight, which means ice. Lots and lots of ice. <Sigh>

7

And we'll finish up these quick takes with a Tucker Turtle comparison...

Two years ago, at our wedding

Yesterday

Oh my goodness my cutie is HUGE!

Happy Friday, friends. Hope it's a good one!

{Theme Thursday} Dishes (and Impossible Casserole)

Linking up with Clan Donaldson for Theme Thursday!

Registering for wedding gifts is... 

Well, it can be really exciting, full of anticipation, and ... well, if you're anything like me, overwhelming and challenging. 

So, I knew we were gonna need something to eat off of as a married couple, and Zeke's extensive line of leftover dishes wasn't going to work (even though 'they fit Ramen noodles so well!"), and so the dish hunt began. 

And I found these.

And I liked the whiteness, the classic-ness, and the not-round-not-square-ness.

The price? Well, that was another story. But hey, people were gonna buy these FOR me. Why not splurge a little?

Cut to me, after dropping a bowl on the floor and it shattering, bursting into tears and yelling at my husband who happened to bump into me because now we don't have enough bowls and we can't afford to replace this one! Ah!

All you brilliant folks probably already knew this would happen and are far wiser than splurging on pricey fancy dishes that would all have been broken within two years of marriage, anyway.


So.

The reason for that rant was to show you this.

And tell you that man, I love me some Impossible Casserole. Well, the original recipe was called Impossible Pie, but it's more casserole-y to me.


The Recipe: Impossible Casserole

1 cup of meat (precooked and cut up)
1 cup of veggies, chopped
1 cup of cheese
2 cups of milk
1 cup of Jiffy Baking Mix
4 eggs
Applicable Spices

Grease an 8x8 or 9x9 baking dish, layer in the meat, veggies, and cheese. In a separate bowl, mix the milk, eggs, and baking mix together (I use a fork), then add spices. Pour mixture into bowl. Bake in preheated oven at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes or so, or until knife comes clean.

This recipe is awesome (AWESOME) for leftovers. Which is pretty much all we eat. You can mix and match stuff to make the 1 cup...

Some of our favorite combinations?

Leftover hamburger patty, cut up, with 1/2 cup chopped onion and 1/2 cup green pepper and shredded cheese (I added about 1/4 cup ketchup)

Leftover bacon and diced ham, onion and green pepper, and shredded cheese (and about 1/4 cup maple syrup!)

Too. Good. Too. Easy. Impossible to screw up, and you'll almost always have all the ingredients.

You're welcome. =)

Dinner Tonight!

My sister and her boyfriend came to visit for a few days!

And, because it's Wednesday, there's no scheduled meal at camp, and my sister and her boyfriend do, in fact, need to eat.

So here's what we're having!

Inspiration: Left-over pork tenderloin, lots of spaghetti noodles, a craving for something savory.

Pork Stir Fry!  Little Wife

About a pound of left over cooked pork, broken into chunks (or cook it as you stir fry, that's good too)

A little green onion

1 tsp vegetable oil

1/2 red bell pepper

1/2 yellow bell pepper

1 green bell pepper

1 cup sugar snap peas (in pod)

1 cup carrots, cut into small pieces

Spaghetti noodles (enough for 4 servings)

Sauce: 

1 cup soy sauce

3/4 cup vinegar

3 Tbs. ground ginger

1/4 cup green onions, thinly sliced

4 Tbs. brown sugar

I prepped everything first, because we were planning on going boating before supper and I didn't want everyone hungry and waiting and grumpy. I would suggest making the sauce before you start the rest, because it's just a hassle to mix it up while you're cooking.

Start some water boiling for your spaghetti noodles and cook the spaghetti according to the directions on the box.

In a large skillet, heat the oil and green onion, and then add the veggies. Stir fry for about three minutes, then add the cooked pork. When the veggies are about done, add half of the sauce mixture into the skillet. 

After you drain the spaghetti noodles, return them to the pot and add the remaining half of the sauce mixture to the spaghetti and stir, heat on low for a few minutes.

Serve!

On the Side: Okay, I admit it, the side dish is one part of meal planning that I kind of suck at. Especially when the meal is kind of a "one pot" deal- meat and veggies and carbs all together. But I overcame my side-dish challenge, and actually made a side for this meal...

Asian-Inspired Cucumber Salad A Little Wife

1 cucumber, cut into thin slices

1/4 cup vinegar

1/4 cup mirin (??? Totally didn't use that)

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp ground ginger

1/4 cup sliced onion (the original recipe calls for a red onion,

 I used some green onion)

1 tsp hoisin sauce (I added this one for kicks)

Mix together everything but the cucumber in a small bowl.  Then pour over the cucumber slices and mix. Put in the refrigerator for at least 15 minutes. 

Consensus: I thickened up the sauce a little by adding some flour to the veggie/pork skillet after I added the sauce. 

The sauce gave the noodles and pork a nice "zing." The cucumbers were good, too! 

Dinner Tonight! (Or, All Because We Received a Cabbage.)

I haven't made a meal for Hunky Husband since we've gotten married.

I know, I know. The camp where we live and Zeke works provides three meals a day throughout the week, so I haven't done much cooking. Much eating, yes. But not much cooking.

Anyways, tonight there was no meal (being that it's Friday and most families leave on Friday nights...) and I had this cabbage.

Now, camp is a wonderful community. The people here are kind, caring, and generous. So generous that one of the camp volunteers gave us a cabbage. Actually, he gave everyone a cabbage. An overabundance in his garden resulted in his generosity- that, and he's just a great guy. As generous as the gift was, after he placed the cabbage in my hands, I thought, "What am I ever going to do with this cabbage?"

Answer: Citrus-Picante Stir-Fried Pork and Cabbage!

Stick with me on this one. I saw the recipe on AllRecipes.com and thought it looked good, and not too tough. I did do a lot of tweaking, though, so I could use what we had on hand and so I didn't have to drive to the grocery store. I'll give you both the original recipe and also my version.



Pineapple-Picante Stir-Fried Pork and Cabbage Original Recipe- Source: allrecipes.com

 1 cup Pace® Picante Sauce

1 tablespoon rice vinegar
2 tablespoons minced peeled fresh ginger root
1 (8 ounce) can pineapple chunks in juice, drained, reserving juice
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 (1 pound) pork tenderloin, cut into thin strips
1 (2 pound) head green cabbage, cut in quarters and very thinly sliced
1/4 cup water

1.  Stir the picante sauce, vinegar, ginger root, pineapple juice and cornstarch in a medium bowl.
2. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat. Add the pork and stir-fry until well browned. Remove the pork from the skillet.
3. Heat the remaining oil in the skillet. Add the cabbage and stir-fry until tender-crisp. Add the water and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove the cabbage from the skillet and keep warm.
4. Add the picante sauce mixture to the skillet. Cook and stir over medium heat until the mixture boils and thickens. Stir in the pineapple chunks. Return the pork to the skillet and cook until the mixture is hot and bubbling. Serve the pork mixture over the cabbage. 

Okay. So, here are some of my changes. I didn't have any rice vinegar, so I went with plain old white vinegar instead. No fresh ginger root, either, so I used ground ginger (and only used 1.5 tsp). I didn't remember to grab cornstarch, so I used a little flour instead, and I substituted olive oil for the vegetable oil. We had left over pork tenderloin (already cooked), so I grabbed some of that and cut it into chunks.

Then this is where things got crazy. I totally expected to find a can of pineapple somewhere in the camp kitchen, or at least a fresh pineapple, but nope. No pineapple to be found. So I used fresh oranges, some sugar, and a little apple juice instead. 

As I was making the sauce, I found that the recipe really didn't yield very much, and I know Zeke. He likes his sauces (he's that guy who gets forty extra ketchup packets at McDonalds). I ended up doubling the amount of sauce.

And, with all this going on, I didn't take any pictures. Blog sin. Forgive me. 


Citrus-Picante Stir-Fried Pork and Cabbage Little Wife Style

 2 cups Pace® Picante Sauce (Mild)

  2 tablespoons white vinegar

1 tablespoon powdered ginger
4 oranges, juiced

1/4 cup apple juice

2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 (1 pound) cooked pork tenderloin, cut into thin strips (It would work with beef or chicken, too)
1 (2 pound) head green cabbage, cut in quarters and very thinly sliced
1/4 cup water

1.  Stir the picante sauce, vinegar, ginger, orange juice, apple juice, flour and sugar in a medium saucepan. Heat on low.
2. Heat 1 tsp oil in the skillet. Add the cabbage and stir-fry until tender-crisp. Add the water and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to low and stir as needed.
3. Add the pre-cooked pork to the picante mixture. Cook and stir over medium heat until the mixture boils and thickens. Serve the pork mixture over the cabbage. 

 Notes: The cabbage kind of acts as a crunchy noodle base to the dish, and the spicy picante sauce combats the cabbage-y taste really well. The orange gave the sauce an extra freshness. I think that this recipe would work great with any kind of meat- so that makes this meal a great one for using left over meats (grilled chicken, steak), as long as they're pretty plain, flavor-wise. I was worried that we'd have tons of left over cabbage, but it actually cooks down quite a bit; we didn't have any left over. 

Zeke's Consensus: Monthly meal! (Or whenever the cabbage crop comes in again)