pizza! pizza!

We make pizza a lot 'round these here parts.

It's easy, fun, versatile, and quick.

Today, we had pizza TWICE.

Breakfast:

cheese, eggs, ham, ketchup

Dinner:

his side-chicken thia

her side-caramelized onions, goat cheese
(we fed the kids mac&cheese, they wouldn't touch this one)

Apricot jam!!

My mailbox was a treasure chest yesterday!

Inside was a box that contained this:

and this:
Thanks Kodi!!!!!

(you are my favorite)

Now, let's see if this one works:

Dear everybody,

I love you so.

Please send money.

Love,

Kristen

Healthy-er-ish Carrot Cake

Here's an easy, healthier way to make a cake mix carrot cake.

(I got a variation of this recipe from my friend, Teresa.)1- box carrot cake mix

1- 14 oz can pumpkin

3/4 cup water

Mix ingredients and bake according to package directions.
It makes a dense and moist cake.

color

Color combinations are amazing to me.

Here is light/bright blue primer on red.Mystery paint color on light/bright blue primer (this one made me nervous).Mystery paint color on white.

That's right. We painted our bedroom mystery color.

2 gallons of miss-tints @ 5 bucks each -- it was too good to pass up

In the bucket it looked grey, on white it looked light blue, on light/bright primer it looked green.
Whatever color it is, we like it.

Light seafoam blue green?
It is quite relaxing (and Dallin still thinks that it is dangerous, which means that he is still out of our bed).

ASAP

Dear Momma B,

Send more apricot jam.

STAT

Love, Kristen

XOXO

Last year we did this. This year, we going big, and romantic. We are painting our bedroom...still. Quite romantic, huh? Happy Valentine's day!

I could kiss the mailman.

He's been quite popular at our house this week.

On Tuesday, the Mr. Mailman brought a Valentines package from G&G Duncan with a bag of Snickers--which were gone in no time at all (I had no self-control--that was the first time I cheated).

Then, today, I got a most wonderful surprise: A box FULL of chocolate (m-m-m's as Dallin likes to call them) from Aleisha all the way in Italy. I LOVE you, girl. You know how to make me smile!

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

We will try to ration it, but I make no promises. We all know I don't keep them anyway!

bloggled

Back up your blog at BLOGGLED.

If you are like me and talk about making your blog into a book and haven't done it yet, you don't have to worry about things getting lost.

Genius!

Shake up your pancakes!

We like to eat dessert for breakfast. Lemon meringue pie, s'mores, and upside-down pineapple cake...pancakes. So far, everything has worked out to taste pretty yummy.

Here is the basic pancake recipe that I use.

Ingredients:
· 2 cups all-purpose flour
· 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
· 1/2 teaspoon salt
· 1 egg, slightly beaten
· 1 1/2 cups milk
· 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
· Flax seed (optional)
Preparation:
Mix together flour, baking powder, and salt. (This is where I like to add the flax seed bran. It adds Omega 3’s without the fishy taste.) In a separate bowl (who uses a separate bowl? More dishes to wash, yuck!), combine egg, milk and oil; add to flour mixture, stirring only until smooth. Cook on a hot, greased griddle, using about 1/4 cup of batter for each pancake. Recipe for pancakes serves 4.

Lemon Syrup
For “Lemon Meringue Pie” pancakes, garnish pancakes with whipped cream in a can.

2/3 cup water
¼ cup lemon juice
1 ½ cup sugar

Boil for 5 minutes.


Brown sugar syrup
For “Pineapple Upside-down” Pancakes, garnish pancakes with pineapples and maraschino cherries.

½ cup water
1 cup brown sugar

Boil for 5 minutes.

****For thicker syrup, whisk in 1 tablespoon corn starch when the syrup starts boiling.****

S'more Pancakes: Chocolate chips and marshmallows. When putting the marshmallows in the pancakes, they melted, leaving fun little holes to pour the syrup into. And, of course, top it off with graham cracker crumbs and spray whipped cream.

Steelers Ribs (Cowboy ribs)

My STEELErs won.

Funny, right? I am trying to work on my humor.

At the beginning of the Superbowl game today, Paul asked me who I was rooting for.

Isnt' it obvious?

(for 20 years, 8 months, 2 weeks, and 1 day I was known as Kristen Steele)

Truth be told, we hadn't watched a single football game in our home this season until today.

Now, onto the food portion. I wanted lots of it:

ribs

shrimp

wings

jalepeno poppers

spinach artichoke dip

veggies and dip

the works!

We were eating alone. Ellie was sick and Dallin is picky.

I didn't want to spend all day cooking a feast for 2.

In comes the "small portions" freezer section at the grocer.

Everything except the ribs.

(I accidently threw the recipe that I used away. A quick google search led me to this recipe. I have changed it up a bit, trying to remember what I did. This is SUPER easy.)

Spicy Western-Style Danish Baby Back Ribs

2 whole slabs danish baby back ribs

1 cup water

1/3 cup butter

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1/4 cup dry mustard

1/4 cup chili powder

1/2-1 cup brown sugar

1 tablespoon paprika

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon onion powder

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Heat oven to 400 degrees F.

Place ribs on shallow baking pans; cover with foil and bake for 1 1/2 hours.

Meanwhile combine water, butter, lemon juice, dry mustard, chili powder, brown sugar, paprika, salt, onion powder, garlic powder and cayenne in medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Set aside.

Remove ribs from the oven and slather the bottom of the ribs with sauce, broil 5-7 inches away from heating element for about 5 minutes (I had mine on low, got impatient, turned it on high, smelled it burning, turned it back to low). Turn over and cover top of ribs with sauce and repeat broiling. Serve ribs with additional sauce of desired.

This recipe would cover 3 or 4 small slabs.

**I thought that the sauce tasted funny in the pan, but the finished product turned out quite tasty.