Financial Fun

During the month of February I did a trial run of two different budgeting apps. One was "Mint" and the other "You Need a Budget". Mint is a free app that is associated with Turbo Tax and uses the same login information. YNAB is a fee based app that costs about $85 a year. I utilized their free trial option. I can see how You Need a Budget might be a little more user friendly in some aspects, however there was not enough of a difference in what it offered us that it justified the cost. So, we are going to continue using Mint. I actually preferred Mint because it synced with out accounts faster and updated faster. It was easier to stay on top of everything as a result. I also really liked the ability to do a much of it on my smart phone, though some aspects could only be modified or done on my laptop application. If you are looking for something to help you budget, give it a month and see what you think.

Satisfying All Around...Another Food Edition.

I'm not going to lie. It's never fun to try a new recipe and have it bomb. Or have someone, ehem... unwilling to even try it. Today I tried a new Pinterest recipe for pork chops and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out and I even had to do some modifications for lack of ingredients.

Baked Pork Chops I modified it by adding a few dashes of Tabasco to the egg mix. I also didn't have any seasoning salt so I rubbed some cajun seasoning in... and it wasn't spicy in the end. Just flavorful. I also tried carmelizing some onions with the pork chops and then adding them to the gravy mix. I doubled the sauce mixture and when I didn't have another can of cream of mushroom, I used this recipe on Pinterest to make a substitute (with garlic, but not the mushrooms). Instead of baking the pork chops as long as it said, I modified that by baking for 45 minutes, adding the sauce and making for another 30-40 minutes.

Last week I tried a recipe for Garlic Herb French Bread and it was so good that I nearly ate the entire loaf myself...  On Tuesday, I made it a second time in a week to go with spaghetti. Not only was it super flavorful... but I tried a method of getting my bread to rise using an oven and also tried braiding my loaf.

To satisfy my sweet tooth I tried this Caramel Crispix recipe using up some rice chex and wheat chex. I had the equivalent of one box so I halved the recipe and it worked just fine. I'm not sure how a person could screw this up. Yum.

The only recipes I tried that weren't quite "wins" were the ones for bok choy. This is something I've never cooked before and I wasn't quite sure what to do. I opted for splitting the bok choy and trying two different sauces to see which flavor and method I prefered. What I learned was that both flavors were great and neither prep method was quite what I wanted it to be. I think I needed baby bok choy and I had the full size stuff. I should have chopped it up I think. Instead I tried an oven method and a frying method and neither yielded a result that resembled the picture... either I didn't cook it long enough or at the right temp or perhaps I'm just not sure what the texture should be when cooked.

The spicy roasted bok choy was indeed quite spicy, but I love spicy so I thought it was pretty awesome.

Baby Bok Choy with Sweet and Tangy Sauce might suit the masses more. It was tangy and  not at all spicy, but quite nice.

Next up... I plan to make Crème Brûlée. I have tried this recipe when a friend made it and served it at our wine club. I'm determined to try it myself. Yum. It was so very dangerously delicious. I'll update one I've actually conquered this one!

Why I Marched in 2017 and will continue to do so...

Please read this excellent article that captures how I feel... especially in response to those who don't seem to "get it"... regardless of their gender. It begins: 

"Say thank you. Say thank you to the women who gave you a voice. Say thank you to the women who were arrested and imprisoned and beaten and gassed for you to have a voice. Say thank you to the women who refused to back down, to the women who fought tirelessly to give you a voice. Say thank you to the women who put their lives on hold, who –lucky for you — did not have “better things to do” than to march and protest and rally for your voice. So you don’t feel like a “second class citizen.” So you get to feel “equal.”"


--"You are Not Equal. I'm Sorry." by Dina Leygerman

Oh yeah. And a little bit of it is about this dumbass.

Knitting for a Cause -- Women's March 2018

In January, I finally picked up my knitting needles for the first time in a year. I decided to try my hand at knitting a "pussy hat" or as little V calls it, a "kitty hat." I managed to make one kid sized and one mama sized one just in time for the Women's March. I was pretty pleased with the result.

These knit up quickly and I just used the pattern from the PussyHat Project.

I knit mine with pink cotton/elastic yarn I happened to have on hand. Yay.

What's Cooking? A (Pinterest) Recipe Roundup for this Week

I struggle to remember what I used to cook before Pinterest. A lot of homemade macaroni and cheese, perhaps.

Tonight's meal featured a "Tested and Approved" meal option: Stromboli.  I love this one for the ease and deliciousness. It's got a few steps but still pretty easy.

Sunday felt like a day that needed a sort of Super Bowl type food so I opted for my very favorite sliders.  Oh man. Little delicious burgers from heaven. Yum. If you search for Sliders Four Ways on YouTube you can also see a print version of each of the recipes in the description.

Saturday, we ate Swedish Meatballs and mashed potatoes (very rich and creamy... my secret lots of cream, butter, sour cream and some tabasco... all whipped in my KitchenAid Mixer). My mom pointed out that this recipe was nothing like the one she uses, so here's the link. We like this version. Super tasty.

Friday, we had Spicy Sausage Rigatoni with Tomato Cream Sauce. I really like this one, but it is pretty spicy for those who don't like that sort of thing.

Earlier in the week I made Chicken Lazone and served it over angel hair pasta. This one is also a little spicy since I tend to cut up my chicken into bite size pieces and dip in spices before cooking rather than coating a full breast or tender.

Not sure if you've noticed but all our meals seem to have one common ingredient--cream. The only one that didn't was the stromboli from tonight. Sheesh.

In addition to this week's main course menu I tried a new recipe: Scottish Shortbread and am happy to report it was a success.

I also made homemade granola bars today but the jury is still out on those. They don't seem to be holding together very well. I skipped the brown sugar in this recipe and just used butter, honey, and peanut butter for the liquid bits. Didn't add any vanilla. I mixed in oats, peanuts, sunflower seeds, craisins, and sliced almonds. I've really liked crushed pretzels in this recipe but I didn't have any. I also decided to skip the chocolate for this batch so it hardly seems like I even followed the recipe, but I think the idea is that can be altered.  I wonder if I added a bit of Karo Syrup if it would stick together better.

Almost every week we make Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins for the little monster who can't imagine a breakfast without one. This week was no different.

And lastly, I made one more batch of our favorite ranch dressing. This one is a Whole 30 recipe that uses coconut milk and is fabulous. So quick and easy to make if you have the ingredients on hand. And tastes good enough to drink! I typically don't bother adding cilantro or any other spice since the first time I made it without and it tasted so good, I've never tried it another way.

Something to Say

I'm struggling to decide if I have anything to say...

And by that I mean, I always have plenty to say... but is this the forum it once was for me? What is the purpose of bringing it to the blog? I have to laugh that the last post on this blog was one about being productive and it's like I was so productive I stopped blogging once and for all. Now 4.5 years later I am considering resurrecting this somewhat more permanent than Facebook form of documentation of all things that occupy my heart and mind.