Happy New Year!

Is 2010 really coming to a close already?!?! Oh. My. Geez. It seems like we've barely started the year. I found myself wondering, two days ago, if it was really 2011 that I would be signing on checks after tonight. Well, Jordan and I created this blog and we've barely used it at all in the last few months. Let's hope 2011 brings us diligence in keeping in touch with the techonological world (outside of Skype and Facebook. We're pretty good at staying connected there).
I don't know about the rest of you but I, personally, don't do New Year's Resolutions. There's this whole psychological thing about wanting to break rules and so many people create resolutions as if they are guidelines, or rules, for the new year. I don't enjoy setting myself up for failure. I've never met someone who actually keeps their resolutions. Sure, there are things I'd like to accomplish but I refuse to hold myself to some silly standard just because it's expected.
Enough of that, no one wants to read my prattling about my views on New Year's resolutions. Have a Happy New Year! Jordan and I both wish you the best in the upcoming year! If you are the type to make resolutions, good luck in your endeavors!

Turkey Day Catch-Up

I know, I know, we just posted one of these last night but we're playing a little catch-up here and it was too late to write too much last night. Besides, we can't exactly leave out the turkey from Thanksgiving and it would be weird to not have it posted at least by the end of 2010! At first, I'd wondered if the turkey should even go up on the blog. I mean, we are horribly late posting the recipe, but it can be easily changed over to be used in a chicken and some people eat turkey all year round, right? So without further adieu, the turkey (with a few other recipes).

Thanksgiving 2010 Turkey Awesomeness (feeds 15)

1 (20 lb) turkey

3 lemons, zested and quartered with the zest separated

2 onions, quartered

10 garlic cloves

3-5 sprigs fresh rosemary

3-5 sprigs fresh thyme

1 TBS dried rosemary

1 TBS dried thyme

2 tsp fresh cracked pepper

2 tsp ground sea salt

Combine all dry herbs with the salt, pepper and lemon zest in a small bowl. Remove the gizzard bag and neck from the inside of the turkey. Squeeze the lemons into the inside of the turkey and leave them in the cavity with the onions, garlic cloves and fresh herbs. Rub the turkey skin with the dried herb and lemon zest combination. Cook in oven according to turkey packaging directions. In the last hour and a half of roasting, use turkey juices to baste turkey for a golden brown skin.

Of course, you can't just have turkey on Thanksgiving but, due to the size of the group we were feeding, we opted for a slightly simpler approach and decided to soup up some boxed and canned foods. We did, however, make homemade potatoes and homemade cranberry sauce with a really awesome souped up stuffing. I really wish cranberries were sold for longer than a few months every year. I'm sure it's not one of those fruits that are easy to grow in a greenhouse, like oranges, but I'd much prefer cranberries to oranges, year round. For now, I'll have to settle for for cranberry juice throughout the year and wait until November to eat cranberry sauce.

Cranberry Sauce

1 (1 lb) pag of cranberries

1 1/2 cups water

1-2 cups sugar (depending on how sweet you like your berries)

1 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4-1/2 tsp cloves

Boil all ingredients together on the stove until the berries have split and the liquid has thickened. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Refrigerate at least 2 hours before serving.

Loaded Mashed Potatoes (feeds 15)

2 lbs baby red potatoes

2 lbs russet potatoes

5-8 garlic cloves

1 cup sour cream

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese, divided

1/2 cup chopped scallions

1/2 cup crumbled bacon

Salt and pepper, to taste

Wash, peel and cube potatoes. Boil, with garlic, until a fork easily pierces through potatoes chunks. Drain and place in a sturdy mixing bowl. Using an electric mixer, beat potatoes and garlic with sour cream, heavy cream, 3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese, salt, pepper, scallions and bacon, reserving just enough of the scallions and bacon to garnish. Once well blended, top with remaining cheese, bacon and scallions.

Souped Up Stuffing

2 (14 oz) stuffing

3 sprigs fresh sage, torn

1 onion, chopped

3 celery stalks, chopped

2 (14.5 oz) can turkey gravy

1 TBS olive oil

Sautee onion, celery and about a quarter of the sage in olive oil until onion becomes translucent. Place stuffing in a baking dish and stir in the sauteed onion mixture with remaining sage. Pour the canned gravy into a bowl and add one can of water, mix well. Pour over stuffing, mix well and bake according to stuffing packaging directions.

In other news, the New Year means a ton of post-holiday crash dieters. Not so much fun for Jordan and I, as all of our food will soon be disappearing off the shelves of the local grocery stores. With husbands gone, our diet consists primarily of Healthy Choice meals with the occasional home-cooked meal. Thank God for stores like Whole Foods! I'm already looking forward to the end of February and March when the "Biggest Loser" competitions will be over and when people fall off the New Year bandwagon so I can shop cheap at Wal-mart again, visiting Whole Foods only occasionally for the special home-cooked dinner. I must admit, though, it's been so long since I've been in a real grocery store, I do kind of look forward to visiting Whole Foods.

Chocolate Makes the World a Better Place

It's been a while since our last post but, due to the hour, I'll be making this a short post. Jordan and I have been ALL over the place the last few months with holiday preparation but that doesn't mean we haven't had time to cook. Actually, holidays gave us reason to cook more than usual. We managed a full Thanksgiving meal for 15 people and Christmas Eve dinner for 11. You might think we're crazy, and on Thanksgiving, we kind of were, but Christmas Eve was fairly easy due to the nature of the meal. Christmas Eve was almost entirely a one-man show, cooking simple Italian and splurging on the sauce. Some people are entirely opposed to the idea of Italian cooking, though it isn't nearly as terrifying as one may assume. To make it less intimidating, we'll start with an easy Faux-talian lasagna recipe.

Easy, Cheesy Faux-talian Lasagna (feeds 4-6)

2 lbs lasanga pasta*

2 lbs mild or hot ground Italian sausage

1 (16 oz) container ricotta cheese
2 eggs
1 cup Italian bread crumbs
3 jars pasta sauce (I personally like Bertolli brand Vidallia Onion, Arrabbiata or Olive Oil and Garlic)
1 (4 cup) bag shredded Italian cheese blend
Dried basil, as needed (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and boil the lasagna according to packaging directions. Do NOT drain or the noodles will stick together. Mix the egg, ricotta and bread crumbs in a small bowl and brown and drain the sausage. Coat the bottom of a deep dish lasanga pan with pasta sauce. After the lasagna has cooked to just before al dente remove from heat. Line the bottom of the pan with lasagna noodles, drop spoonfuls of ricotta mixture onto the pasta and spread evenly. Sprinkle over with sausage and pour sauce over before repeating the layering process. When the pan has about 1 inch of room left, sprinkle with half of the cheese, basil and remaining sausage. Cover with tinfoil and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Remove from oven, top with remaining cheese and return to oven WITHOUT the tinfoil for another 30 minutes. Allow to rest 10 minutes before slicing and serving.
*I suggest making more pasta than you'll actually need only because I refuse to use the pieces that are horribly broken and mangled. Also, there's a chance some of your noodles will stick together so I like to have extra so I don't have to peel it apart. If you don't mind using broken pieces, 1 lb is usually plenty, depending on the depth of your pan.

Now, mostly for pure excitement at FINALLY perfecting a recipe, I'm going to add a picture of my cupcakes. I can give you the recipe for the "frosting" but, unless I have a child that inherits my love for baking, the cupcake recipe with follow me to the grave. Okay, that's a bit drastic, but I DO need to keep it TOP SECRET in case I have my own bakery one day. Not in case, for when I have my own bakery one day. Anyway, the "frosting."

Raspberry Cream Frosting (basically whipped cream)

1 pint whipping cream

1 1/2 tsp raspberry extract

1 stick (1/2 butter), softened*

powdered sugar, to taste

Beat butter on medium speed until creamy. Add in raspberry extract and beat until well incorporated. Slowly add in whipping cream, beating on slow speed, until ripples begin to form in the cream. Add powdered sugar to taste and increase speed to medium. Beat until stiff peaks form.

*Omit for whipped cream 

Well, that's all folks. I'm going to FINALLY get some sleep!

Fresh Start

I like to think of what we are doing right now as a fresh start. We did start to eat healthier but that was before vacation. Before we were stuck indoors due to a tropical storm when we should have been out at the beach. Before we ate FAR too many potato chips, handfuls of Dirty White Trash (refer to previous blog), plates of cheesy goodness and bowls of delightful sweets. We’d both be liars if we said we didn’t gain any weight while vacationing. It’s okay, though; the weight is already starting to melt off of our bodies. Vanity is a sin but I am of sinful nature. I try to be humble and sometimes I don’t but either way, I know my vanity is wrong; I just can’t seem to shake it. I guess there are worse things to feel. At least vanity keeps me healthy.
Speaking of healthy, I just came up with a new recipe for a dairy-free protein shake. I mentioned in an earlier blog that I’m not only lactose intolerant but also allergic to whey protein. That makes commercial protein shakes a double-no for me. That’s where almonds come into play. Almonds are a nutty protein powerhouse. This shake is definitely superior in flavor to that powdery junk they sell at GNC (just because it isn’t the best thing for my body doesn’t mean I haven’t tasted it) and it has the consistency you chose since you add the ingredients (mine was like a very thick milkshake). It probably doesn’t have the amount of protein commercial shakes contain but it also wasn’t formulated in a lab.

Banana Nut Protein Shake
Recipe by Deborah Schiefer
1 1/2 bananas, frozen and cut into chunks
½ - 1 TBS almond butter
1 cup almond milk
½ TBS cocoa powder
½ tsp cinnamon
Blend it all together. Cocoa powder can be omitted. Nutmeg can be added. Only you can decide exactly how you want it to taste so have fun with it!
Due to the probable caloric content (I guestimate around 350-400 calories based on average caloric content of bananas, calories in almond butter and almond milk), I would suggest drinking it as a meal replacement instead of a supplement. That’s actually how it came into existence, anyway. I was craving a milkshake at lunch (instead of healthier options) but didn’t want to kill my digestive track with dairy. Watch the sodium content on your almond butter. The brand I bought has higher sodium content and the flavor of salt was almost overpowering. Okay, not quite, but I’m a salt-aholic and can taste the stuff in chocolate so I could definitely taste it in my shake.

Now just because we eat clean doesn’t mean we always cook and bake clean. Both of our husbands are deployed and missing out on any and all home-cooked goodness. If you’ve ever had a loved one deploy you have an idea of what a box of goodies means to our military men. Jordan and I decided that we needed to go on a baking spree and fill a few containers with goodies for our men to share with the soldiers they work with. Oh, and by a few containers, we mean five containers each. Not all of the cookies were terribly memorable, in fact, one even flopped since we didn’t have eggs and had to substitute banana. We don’t discuss that cookie. There were, however, three cookies that left a mark on our taste-buds. The first being a recipe for Oatmeal Scotchies from the back of a Nestle® brand butterscotch chips, the second being from the back of an Andes Mints® brand bag of mint chips and the last being a recipe for caramel apple cookies that was adapted from an online recipe. Of course, the boys will be happy to eat them regardless of how memorable the cookies are; they are the only home-baked goodies the boys get right now. However, we don’t think we should fill our space with cookies that are less than divine so only the best make the blog. The caramel apple cookies will need to be added at a later date since the recipe needs some perfecting but I thought I might give you a sneak peak as to what recipes are in store for future blogging.

Oatmeal Scotchies
Recipe by Nestle® Toll House
1 ¼ cups all purpose flour
1 stop baking soda
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
¾ cup granulated sugar
¾ cup packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups quick or old-fashioned oats
1 (11 oz) package Butterscotch chips
½ (11 oz) package mini chocolate chips (optional; added by Deborah Schiefer)
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in a small bowl. In a separate bowl, beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, eggs and vanilla extract in a larger bowl. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in oats and morsels. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto an ungreased baking sheet.
Bake 7-8 minutes for chewy cookies; 9-10 minutes for crisp cookies.

Andes® Crème de Menthe Chunk Cookies
Recipe by Andes® Candies
½ cup salted butter; softened
¾ cup dark brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 (10 oz) package Andes® Crème de Menthe Baking Chips
2 2/3 cups sifted all purpose flour
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Beat butter, baking soda, baking powder, vanilla and eggs until mixed. Stir in Andes® baking chips and then flour. Chill approximately one hour in the refrigerator. Roll dough into balls and flatten slightly. Raise oven rack one level above middle and bake on non-stick baking pans for approximately 8-10 minutes.

Pictures will be up as soon as Jo can get caught up with her photography.  With S (her hubby) deployed, she has less time to work on editing and making her photos pretty AND she's been busy snapping away with the camera to take pictures of the angel to send to S.  Don't get your panties in a knot quite yet, the pictures will be posted, you'll just have to come back and see them another day. 

We’re BAAAAACK!

All good things must come to an end. When it comes to vacations, sometimes it’s nice to pack up and go back home. I’ll be the first to admit I missed my bed and my dogs. I even missed Jordan’s snakes. I know she missed her home and her dog, too. Actually, I think Freija missed her more than anyone missed anything. She was the most pathetic little beastie on the ride home, stretching herself out to be close to anyone who would pet her and pay attention to her.
Not too much happened since the last blog. We spent most of our time indoors due to a tropical storm. There was PLENTY of room in the house and somehow we still all managed to get a little cabin fever. Jordan, Analeigh and I all share the same love for being outdoors, out of the house and on the move. We did make it to the beach once in between rainstorms and at the end of the week, the skies finally cleared long enough take a wild horse tour. Our tour guide brought us to the beach in a jeep where we did some off-roading while watching for the wild horses that populate the island after a Spanish ship banked on a sandbar off the coast over a century ago.
We were given a break from cooking for the last few days we vacationed. We still covered breakfasts but other family members took cooking duties for the last few nights. I tried pinto beans southern-style for the first time ever. Nothing goes better with pintos than chopped dill pickles and salt. I know it sounds a little crazy but you’ve really got to try it if you never have. The one breakfast we cooked that was (a) worth talking about (b) not entirely from a box was a breakfast scramble served over biscuits. The biscuits were from a “box.” A roll really. Pillsbury roll to be exact. We actually made this twice, adding a few more ingredients the second time around, improving the scramble. It’s an easy breakfast for a large crowd, though the eggs can put it on the slightly more expensive end, depending on where you live and how many you’re feeding.

Breakfast Scramble
Recipe by Jordan Carey and Deborah Schiefer
2 lbs bacon, diced (you can use sausage if you dislike bacon)
1 bell pepper, finely chopped
½ onion, finely chopped
18 eggs (plan 2-3 eggs/person)
Half tsp each garlic powder, salt and pepper (you can add more of any if you’d like)
3 rolls refrigerated Pillsbury biscuits (24 biscuits total)
Hot Sauce (i.e. Texas Pete, Frank’s RedHot) for serving
Bake the biscuits according to package.
Cook the bacon in a skillet, adding the bell pepper and onion once bacon has begun to crisp. Remove from skillet and drain, reserving some of the bacon grease to cook the eggs. You can use butter or cooking spray, if you prefer, but the bacon grease adds flavor to the eggs. Scramble the eggs in the skillet with salt, pepper and garlic powder. Once the eggs have begun to set, add the bacon and veggie mixture scrambling and cooking until desired doneness. Serve the eggs sandwich-style over biscuits with hot sauce. The hot sauce can be added to the eggs during cooking, if desired.

The first order of business, post vacation, was restocking our own pantries and refrigerators. Man it was nice to shop for myself and myself only again! I can’t even begin to tell you how exciting it is to restart clean eating. After a week of eating endless amounts of crap, my body is screaming at me for fruits and vegetables. I guess this is where it all really begins. We kick start our hardcore clean diet tomorrow. The count-down to healthy bodies starts now. Wish us luck!

Such is The Life

            I’m taking a break from our usual-style of blog writing for a slightly different blog.  As our profile states, we are both military wives.  Jordan is wife to an amazing soldier and I am wife to a spectacular Airman.  While the careers of our men are entirely different, the life-styles are very similar, the only difference being that I am just entering the life of a military wife while Jordan is a seasoned pro.  Not to say that she’s old, actually I am older than her, she just has years of military wife experience on me.  I love this life and I wouldn’t ever choose anything different.  I love my husband and wouldn’t leave him for the world.  I know for a fact Jordan feels the same way I do.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not asking for your sympathy, just for your understanding.  The two do not have to go hand-in-hand.  You don’t have to feel sorry for the military wife just to understand the life she lives.  Watching my husband leave for his first deployment was NOTHING like watching Jordan’s husband leave for his 5^th, 6^th or whatever number deployment it is.  Both are hard but I know my husband is not going to miss his first child’s first full sentence.  I know he won’t miss Christmas with her or Halloween or Thanksgiving.  I know this because we don’t have kids on earth.  I watched Sean gravitate toward Ana with this emotion in the atmosphere that was too strong and too heavy to deny. 

            Don’t kid yourself by prattling on about how the man or woman knew what (s)he was getting him or herself into.  Most teenagers don’t join the military with joyful plans to find their spouse, have children and then leave them home while they travel to hostile countries to fight a war.  Notice the use of the word “joyful.”  It plays a key role in that sentence.  Most people join because it’s the only life they know, they needed college funding, they couldn’t find a job, their job didn’t produce enough to support their family, they lost a sibling in war and a whole slew of other reasons that could fill a novel.  Military spouses are produced when a woman or man falls in love with a military member.  You can’t help who your heart adores and you aren’t going to leave their side because of his/her career.  You might have an understanding of what you are becoming involved in but you cannot truly understand it until you have lived it.  That goes for both the military member and the spouse.  I can say that, I’ve been on both sides, now.

            So next time you see a wife (or a husband) leaving her spouse for a deployment or when you hear a wife sob while watching the news, don’t roll your eyes and don’t blow her off.  She’s sacrificed so much for your freedom.  You don’t have to agree with the mission and you don’t have to support the war but you can still support the troops.  Remember the soldier who left is someone’s Dad, Mom, sibling, aunt or uncle.  Remember the spouse is missing half of their heart.   Remember a child is missing their parent.  Remember a parent is missing out on watching their child(ren) grow.

The Crab Says (Click, Click, Click)

I hate to break your hearts but Jordan and I have taken a hiatus from cooking for the day and will be back at it again, probably in time to add the recipe for Enchilada Bake (totally NOT clean, but hey, we're on vacation!) to this blog. It’s not that we don’t like to cook or we don’t want to cook, it’s just that the fresh seafood was calling so we took the opportunity to eat some crab… and shrimp. It was delicious. Pictures of the spread will be posted as soon as possible. There was crab, shrimp, lobster, mussels, hush puppies, ribs, mashed potatoes, corn, slaw, pasta salad and key lime pie. We quite gorged ourselves. I’m pretty sure I ate (minimum) 1 lb of shrimp on my own and Jordan ate (minimum) 2 lbs of crab. I would say I could never look at another shrimp or crab again and be content but I could definitely kill another pound of shrimp right now, if the opportunity presented itself. I’m sure Jordan feels the same way about crab.
The thunderstorms came rolling in, giving us some of God’s beautiful creation to watch in all of its powerful glory. There is nothing more beautiful than watching a storm come creep across the ocean, seeing the rain as it comes nearer and nearer until it’s pouring down, drenching you in delightful chill. There is nothing more relaxing than the scent and sound of rain mingling with the smell of the salty ocean air.
In the time between storms, we were able to sneak away to a few different shops to buy flavored, seasoned nuts and stamps so I could mail my bills which I hadn’t gotten to mail at home since they came so darn late. Among the nutty purchases was a bag of what the store calls “Dirty White Trash.” While the ingredient lists makes an attempt at vagueness, anyone with taste-buds could tell the main ingredient (aka: convection coating) was white chocolate. Here’s the low-down on the divine deliciousness called Dirty White Trash:
Chex Cereal
Pretzel Rods
Pecans
White chocolate
Confectioner’s sugar
Milk chocolate
It appears as though the cereal, pretzels and pecans are covered in melted white chocolate, dusted with confectioner’s sugar and drizzled with milk chocolate, made much like Puppy Chow. Jordan and I are already planning our own take on this delightfully sinful treat so we have something naughty to enjoy during our Fat Tuesday weekly ritual. Speaking of, I’m not sure we’ve told you about that yet. Every Tuesday night, The Biggest Loser comes on. Jordan and I have a weekly ritual of rooting for our favorite contestants (this year, I’m rooting for everyone since the person I root for always ends up losing. They can’t all lose) while eating the most fabulously calorie-laden naughtiness. Granted, we work our butts off exercising that day and the next to make up for some of it but you need to feel like you’re cheating every now and then in order to maintain sanity. To us, it seems most appropriate to cheat on Fat Tuesday. Besides, why must Fat Tuesday only come around once a year? I think it’s FAR better to celebrate the holiday once a week.
In other news, Analeigh has come a LONG way in learning her animal sounds, numbers and letters. She likes to count to 5 with Mommy or Auntie Deb Deb and loves to listen to the ABC’s. The newest additions to her repertoire of animal noises are the crab and the goat. The goat has taken a little while to remember; for the longest time, the goat said “goat.” Now the goat says “Maaaaa!” and the crab says “Click, click, click!” all while making crabby-grabby motions with her hands. The child is superior to most other children her age… she’s pretty darn cute, too.
The first meal made post-cooking-hiatus was Jordan’s Enchilada Bake. I will be honest, at this point, and let you know that I had absolutely no hand in cooking this meal. It was quite exciting, though, as I’ve been craving Tex-Mex and this is about the most delicious Fexican (Faux-Mexican) meal you’re going to get in your own home. Okay, well I’m sure there are equally delicious Fexican meals BUT this is quite tasty (and it smells awesome, too)! There are very few ingredients which MUST be present in the dish. Those that are optional will be noted with an asterisk (*) in the recipe. Anything added to Fexican meals that you might want or anything you want to remove from Jordan’s recipe that is marked (*) will be perfectly acceptable. I’m sure you will still be quite pleased with your end result. We know that some people are kitchen-impaired so the recipe will be with suggestions from Jordan for your palatal pleasures.

Enchilada Bake
Recipe by Jordan Carey
1/3-1/2 of a 73 oz package of corn tortillas, cut in half; DO NOT USE FLOUR TORTILLAS, THEY WILL FALL APART
3 lbs ground beef
3 packets of taco seasoning
½ onion, diced
1 can cream of mushroom soup, do NOT add water
2 (10 oz) cans enchilada sauce
2.25 oz can sliced black olives
4 cups of shredded cheddar cheese
1 or 2 (15.5 oz) cans refried beans*
2 (15.5 oz) cans black beans, drained*
Sliced pickled jalapenos*
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brown ground beef in a skillet. Jordan swears the best way to brown the meat is to brown it while still frozen. She says it gives a smaller crumble on the beef. Drain the ground beef and add it back into the skillet. Add the taco seasoning and diced onion to the skillet and sauté until the onion is just slightly softened and according to the directions on the taco seasoning packets. Mix the enchilada sauce and the cream of mushroom soup into a bowl. Spread a thin layer of the enchilada sauce mix onto the bottom of a 13x9 inch baking dish. Add all other ingredients, with the exception of the refried beans, to the enchilada sauce mixture. Place a layer of corn tortillas on top of the thin layer of enchilada sauce in the baking dish, followed by a layer of refried beans, a then a layer of the enchilada sauce mixture, finishing with a layer of cheese. Continue layering ingredients, in that order, until you’ve run out of room or run out of ingredients. Bake in the oven for 50 minutes, top with cheese and bake an additional 10 minutes, until cheese has melted. Place a sombrero on your head, do a little Jarabe Tapatio (that’s the Mexican Hat Dance for you non-cultural folks) and serve up your Enchilada Bake with a little Fexican flare.