Garlic Chicken

I was browsing through a Cook's Illustrated magazine and found a slightly too complicated recipe for garlic chicken.  This is my take on it (and it was a good take!).

1/2 package bacon, sliced into 1" pieces
2 large garlic heads, peel off papery shell and remove top 1/3 of head
4 garlic cloves, minced (I used the pieces that I cut off above.)
3 lbs bone-in chicken pieces
Salt and Pepper
1/2 purple onion, minced
3/4 to 1 (about 1 cup) red bell pepper, seeded and minced
1 Tablespoon flour
1 cup chicken broth
1 cup white grape juice
3 green onions, chopped
2 bay leaves
1 cup pitted kalamata olives, chopped

Chopped and prepare everything before you start - it makes it so much easier! 

In a Dutch oven (or other oven appropriate skillet), cook bacon over medium heat until crisp but not over done. Remove bacon with a slotted spoon and put on paper towel to drain.  Place garlic heads cut side down in pan to brown for about 3 minutes.  Remove with slotted spoon and place on paper towel next to bacon.  Wash chicken, pat dry, salt and pepper it.  Place chicken in bacon grease to brown.  You may need to do this in batches so just set pieces aside as you are done browning them on all sides.  Drain all but 1 tablespoon of bacon grease. Add minced garlic and purple onions to pan for 1 minute until fragrant.  Add bell pepper to pan for one minute.  Add chicken broth, grape juice and flour to pan and stir thoroughly.  Simmer on medium for about 2 minutes.  Remove from heat.  Add bay leaves, chicken and browned garlic heads to pan, sprinkle with bacon and green onion.  Put lid on Dutch oven. Place in 375' oven for 1 1/2 hours.  Remove lid and let it simmer for another 15 minutes. 

Serve over rice or noodles.  Sprinkle with kalamata olives. (Jim doesn't like kalamata olives so he left them off and still loved it!)  Serve with crusty french bread to soak up all the great flavors!

Gift Bags

Lauren and I went to our old nanny's baby shower today. 

We decided to tart things up a bit and make these very cute gift bags.

 

I found them on the blog Mel Stampz:  http://melstampz.blogspot.com/2008/11/50-gift-bag-templates.html

Lauren Makes baby dress

Okay, turn your head to the right.  No harder to the right.  There you go.  I tried to turn the picture: even saved it three times and it looked right but it's not.

Our old nanny Jen is having a baby in June.  Lauren wanted to make something fabulous for her so she found a Simplicity pattern (1794), picked out some great fabrics and made this in about an hour.  It is so easy and cute she is going to do another one in a bright hibiscus print.  Love it!

Honey Granola

I was working on my GD lesson yesterday and wanted to do something to share.  I found a honey granola recipe and changed it (of course).

Honey Nut Granola

2 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (use quick cooking if you don't have old-fashioned)
1/2 cup toasted sliced almonds *
1/2 cup toasted walnuts*
1 cup toasted coconut*
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
4 Tbls butter - browned
1/2 cup + 2  Tbls honey
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips*
1/2 cup butterscotch chips (or white chocolate chips)*

Preheat oven to 325'.  Cover a baking sheet with foil. 

Melt butter in small sauce pan over medium heat.  Whisk constantly until brown bits appear on the bottom (about 5 minutes) and remove from heat.  Whisk in honey and vanilla, set aside.

In a large bowl mix oats, almonds, walnuts, and coconut.  Add salt and cinnamon a bit at a time stirring to coat mix evenly.  Pour browned butter mixture over oat mixture stirring until evenly coated.

Pour mixture onto baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Stir and bake for another 10 minutes.  Stir one more time and bake for yet another 10 minutes.  It should be golden brown now.  If not, back in the oven for 3 minute stints, stirring between, until it is golden brown (come on already!).

Remove from oven and let this cool on the counter for 10 - 15 minutes.  If you like clumps in your granola do it now.  Working quickly squeeze some granola together with your hands.  Add chocolate and butterscotch chips stirring gently.  Let it cool about an hour.  Will keep for about 5 days in an air tight container.

*Interchangable with just about any nuts, dried fruit or such!

Cloth Lunch Bags

We've been on a 'fiscal prudency' kick around my house this year.  Tightening of belts (both literally and figuratively) has occurred. In the spirit of saving money AND getting ready to spend 10 days in Florida, I made lunch bags for all of us...using fabric (and velcro) I already had on hand.

These are not fancy at all. In fact they are the antithesis of fancy.  I call them: "Quick and Dirty Lunch Bags".  Kidding.  I don't call them anything that fancy. They are simply cloth lunch bags designed to keep everybody's lunches separate, while residing in the same backpack. No handles, no pockets, nothing extraneous. Yes, some do have simple appliques, but those are so they don't get mixed up.

Ready. Set. Go.

Materials Needed:
2 pieces of fabric measuring approximately 81/2 inches by 26 inches (there is nothing magic about the size I picked - you can easily make these larger or smaller. The fabric can either be the same of contrasting.
3 - 31/2 inches of sew on Velcro.
Optional fabric for appliques.

The first step would be to apply the appliques, but since I didn't take any pictures, let's just move on to the next step, which is to sew up the side seams.  I used a serger, but you totally don't need to.

Other Sheep I Have

I pinned these really cute cookies months ago.

source

I thought they might come in handy while teaching the New Testament this year.  Well, this is the week I decided to make them (we're in John 10).

I had to dig around in my cookie cutters a bit, but I found my old Tupperware flower cookie cutter.  I used the lid from a little jar of sprinkles to cut out the centers of the flowers and the circles of  chocolate cookie dough that went in the middles.  

The two colors of dough were achieved by saving out some of the original dough and adding a couple of teaspoons of cocoa powder and a smidgen of black gel coloring.  

I rolled the chocolate dough out between two pieces of plastic wrap, so as not to get any extra white flour on them.

Mine are slightly different from the inspiration cookies.  Most notably in the feet area. I think the originals are probably a little sturdier, but I like the look of mine better.

Notice how even my little dough dots are for the eyes and nose? I used two different sizes of drinking straws to punch out the circles, then gently flattened them with my finger. The larger eye dots were made using regular drinking straws and the smaller eye dots and the nose were made using an IKEA drinking straw.

A Little Joy

After a busy Thanksgiving, I decided to enlist the help of my faithful servants, erm, children. The tree and all the trimmings got delegated to them. I was quite pleased and relieved to share the load with them. In fact, I was motivated enough to work on my front porch.

Thanks to Pinterest I had more than enough inspiration. The Joy sign was first, the tomato cage/ garland was next, the wreath was a natural fit, and the sled was an awesome Goodwill find. I loved driving up to my house and seeing the cheerful welcome.