The mudroom and meatloaf

In our house we have what I like to call the mudroom.  It is actually a little hallway right inside the garage door.  It has backpack hooks and about a jillion coat hooks and baskets for shoes. A nice tidy little place for the children to store their things...yeah right.  Truth of the matter is that the children "store" their things wherever they cease to need them; causing me to have an unending instructional period on the advantages to the shoe baskets right inside the door.  I'm not sure why they cannot see the logic in the having shoes, coats and backpacks right there handy to grab on the way out the door, but the concept completely escapes them.  What they do like to store there for easy access is a bit different.  Only in the "mudroom" at our house would you find this.

Yes, that is what you think it is...an athletic cup.  Why someone would think that is an appropriate place to store that particular item is beyond me.  No one wanted to fess up to this but I know who had baseball practice yesterday, so it's pretty obvious.  When confronted the reply was my own words thrown right back at me, "It's the perfect place to keep something you are going to need when walking out the door."  Um, ok well tell me this, how many times are you going to need an athletic cup when walking out the door?  And, he's done.  Score one for the mom. ;)

Tonight we are having meatloaf.  There are only two things that really gross me out, a used athletic cup and raw meat. So I have searched long and hard for a recipe that doesn't require me to knead the meat into a loaf.  Here is the recipe:

Non Meat Touching Meatlaoaf (That's what I have named this recipe)

1lb of browned ground turkey.  Use can use beef but I use turkey because if I ate as much meat as these boys there wouldn't be enough treadmills in the world to fix my "problem areas."
1 cup milk
1 cup bread crumbs.  They actually sell these crumbed up at the store, but you can always dry some bread out, put it in a ziplock and pound the crap out of it to make your own.  That can serve two purposes. ;)
2 tbls brown sugar
2 tbls mustard
1/3 cup ketchup

After the meat is browned and any grease drained, mix together all ingredients in a bowl.  You can use a spoon, therefore you don't even have to touch the cooked meat!  I love that.  Once mixed pour into an 8x8 lightly greased pan and bake 30 to 40 minutes at 350.  I like to sprinkle a little extra brown sugar on the top before baking.
You can put anything with this to make a quick and easy meal, veggies, salad, some roles, or just cut up some apples and call it good.  I'm all about the quick and easy!

Review:
Hubby:  Excellent!
Big:  Great dinner mom!
Middle:  Best dinner every mom!
Little: (while pointing at the meatloaf) "What in the world is THAT?  GROSS!  It looks like that food the dogs eat that's in the fridge!"  Then after forcing one bite down, "Hey, that stuff's pretty good."  After the third and fourth bites, "This is realllly good mom."  After the plate is clean, "Can I have some more of that dog food stuff?"  Awesome.

When picking the wine to go with this meal I started with the reds, afterall a good meatloaf seems like a nice partner for a hearty red. Then I realized, this is actually turkey meatloaf and that would indicate a white.  So I looked at the side dishes...cornbread so maybe a light red; broccoli definitely feels like a white.  After about 10 minutes of this and the dog food getting cold ;) I decided to chuck it all and have a vodka soda.  It goes nicely with everything because it has very little taste and even less calories! HOLLA!

Happy Monday!

Balls, balls, balls and chicken

Weekends around here are filled to the brim with balls.  This weekend included multiple basketballs, tennis balls and we even threw in a little baseball.  When I have that many balls to deal with, I don't cook.  I can't even think about food during that sort of ball storm, so we eat out a lot on the weekends.  The upside to this?  Well, there are actually several bonuses not the least of which is the fact that restaurants serve wine. ;)

But tonight is Sunday night.  A school night.  A night to catch up on homework, get everyone scrubbed up and get to bed early.  I am a huge fan of early bedtimes as bed is my favorite time of day. ;)  I have found the best way to get everyone in bed on time is to eat at home and start the whole process early, like say maybe about noon.  ;)  So Sunday's I don my chef hat and hit the kitchen.  Tonight we had the added bonus of some 60 degree weather which makes grilling the best possible option.  The hubby is quite the grill master and has three little grill masters in training so that part of the meal is off my plate. ;)  I like to prepare the chicken with a marinade ahead of time....it's called Kraft bbq sauce. ;)  I have found the best way to marinade chicken is by dumping all the chickens in a zip lock bag and then emptying the entire bottle of bbq sauce on top of it.  You can use the gallon size bag unless you are feeding bottomless and his brother pit and his other brother pit and then you might want to grab the 2 gallon size. ;)  The nice thing about this method is that you dump the chickens right on the grill and toss the nasty salmonella bag right in the trash!  I mean is there anything grosser than raw chicken slime?  Uhhh, I'm actually not going to answer that.  Blech Blach blea...sorry, that whole topic made my gagger go. Gross.  Once the chicken is cooked fully on the grill, it is fantastic and tastes a little bit like summer. :)  I also threw together a nice pasta salad to accompany the hubby's bbq masterpiece.  The salad is super easy and you probably have the ingredients in your pantry/fridge.  I use the multi colored cork screw pasta because I like the way it looks, but all pasta tastes the same, you could use spaghetti noodles if that's what you have.  Then I throw in some cheese cubes, cut up cucumber and tomato!  No dressing necessary or you can throw whatever you have in your fridge on there and mix it up!  So yummy and so easy.  Those are my two most favorite things in any recipe. ;)

Review:
There is absolutely not a morsel of food left.  Enough said. :)

I would definitely suggest a chardonnay with this meal.  I chose the Fat Bastard Chardonnay because that is what was in the wine fridge, and it was delicious.  I am now listening to the middle practice for a violin test tomorrow, so I probably need another glass or some earplugs...or maybe both. ;)

Time For A Change

Not to state the obvious, but I'm not to great at sitting down to write the funny happenings around this wine hour.  Finding time in between driving, grocery shopping, laundry, homework and just spending good fun time with the boys is becoming harder and harder.  I'm also finding that when dealing with a teenager, pre-teen and a 9 year old who thinks he is a teenager, life isn't always funny.  Sometimes it's heart breaking, sometimes frustrating and sometimes just plain boring.  Ok, it's never really boring around here, but boring in the sense that there are no funny stories coming out of the moment.  So I've decided to make a change on the blog.  I'm going to starting writing about things that are easy and fun and are always happening.  And, there are two things that happen at this house every single day....they eat and I drink. ;)  


In an effort to keep the monotony out of planning, shopping, cooking and eating at least 5 dinners a week at home I am trying out some new recipes!  This is exciting!  And a little scary, and sometimes it's just plain gross. ;)  I'll be sharing what works and what doesn't and what goes in the trash when the pizza delivery guy is called.  Of course, each meal will include a wine selection, all of the finest eateries do.  There may even be a few funny stories involved, that aren't about my cooking. ;)


Tonights dinner was suggested to me by a dear friend who is also trying to find interesting ways to keep a family with 3 boys full every day.  Chicken Nachos!  Nothing says easy and yummy like the word nacho, right?  Well, the chicken part is easy, dump 5 chicken breasts in the crock pot and pour 2 cans of mild enchilada sauce over them, turn on crock pot.  It smells divine while it's cooking which is shear torture for the stay at home mom..just a warning.  I also whipped up some queso, pronounced in this house quay-so.  Velvetta and rotel in the other crock pot.  I don't normally use both crock pots at once so this is feeling like a real adventure.  Of course, that adventure isn't really going to begin until it's time to clean up said crock pots. ;)  Now here is the tricky part of the meal...open two cans of black beans and warm them on the stove. Yikes!  I know...you just jumped a foot in your seat. ;)  Also, not too difficult til the clean up round of the evening begins.  I also made fresh salsa to go with the nachos tonight (this is actually the most difficult part and it's still not going all Julia Child or anything.)  Grind up fresh tomatoes, cilantro and jalapeno in your food processor, stir together and add some garlic salt, pepper, minced onion and lawry's seasoned salt. I think some fresh quac would be yummy too, but no time for that today so I sliced a couple of avocado's to go on top. A Mexican fiesta is served!


Now for the review...
The hubby loved it!  I loved it!  The big kid ate two plates full (although he would eat two plates of dog food if I put it out there...the kid can seriously put away some food right now. He's also grown 1/2 inch a week for the past 3 months).  The middle kid liked it but was a not go on the beans or avocado.  The little one had a wig fit when he saw "red things" in the quay-so.  All in all I'd say this meal is a huge family success and will be made again (as soon as I can get the burnt cheese out of the crock pot ;)


Wine for tonight's Mexican fiesta chicken nachos is a good margarita.  Come on, everyone knows wine doesn't go with Mexican food and anyway Jose Cuervo is a good friend of mine. ;)  I would suggest the pre-made light Jose Cuervo, the Skinny Girl Margarita's are good too so whichever suits you best!  But definitely pour yourself a margarita of some kind so when one of your kids starts chanting "beans beans the magical fruit, the more you eat the more you toot.  The more you toot the better you feel so eat more beans at every meal!" you won't feel the need to slap them upside the head. ;)


Happy Thursday!

Howdy and a few other buggers.

Howdy!  I just realized I haven't sat down to write anything in about 2 months.  These three and their carpool schedules have not only taken up all my time this school year, but also all of my brain power.  Remembering when to get people here and there and with what gear and stuff is enough to send anyone into early onset Alzheimers.  It's a miracle I haven't forgotten anyone yet, but that fact is a true testament to why I don't sit down to write out the funny side of life.  Add to all that madness that I have started crafting and my sit down and think time has gone to nil.  Yes, I did say crafting, but don't worry I still have on my skinny jeans and stiletto boots to offset any sort of sister wife image. ;)  So, today I decided to step away from the glue gun and paint and let my brain be free!

The subject of my free brain is the carpool line.  Many of you fight this beast every single day and understand why I might need to blow off a little steam about it.  I have decided that carpool lines are indeed the bane of my existence, which actually makes them sound way more glamorous and exciting than they actually are.  They actually suck. Real hard. ;)  I have three carpool lines in my life currently and I have a different hate relationship with each of them.  The one thing I can see that might make all of our carpooling lives a little easier is Carpool Ed.  It should be a mandatory class that all people driving thru a carpool line need to complete (and pass) before they receive a sticker to proudly place on their windshield.  And, no car should be able to pass thru the line without that sticker in full view.  The class would be simple really, just some basics to keep the line moving at a reasonable pace, and keep us behaving in a respectable manner.   Then some of us wouldn't be forced to yell things like A**HOLE or A**WIPE in front of our children at 7:20 in the morning.  So next time you hear one of my children rip off some sort of naughty word you know who to blame.  The carpool line. ;)  I will not take responsibility for these actions because during carpool I am usually having some sort of out of body experience due to the stupidity or utter lack of common courtesy offered up by the other carpoolers.  Unfortunately, until the children can drive themselves to school we are stuck like super glue to this carpool debacle every single day.  I figured that up and it will be a total of 19 years of carpooling.  And I now wish I had not figured that up. ;)

 Here are a few things the class might include...

*Use your blinker...it's driver's ed 101 and really not that difficult
*Go WITH the flow of traffic when exiting the parking lot...this seems like common sense to me
*Don't put your car in park and exit the car to get your child out....that's what parking spaces are for.
*For the love of God, don't stop in the middle of a busy street and let your kid out...think of the children
*Don't and I repeat don't wait til your child is exciting the car to discuss lunch money or anything else for that matter.  Are you not ready for them to get the heck out of your car?
*Have your child ready to hop out.  It's really not necessary to keep the five point harness engaged once you are in the school parking lot, not moving.
*If your school offers multiple stopping points in front of the building to speed things up, use them.  It's ok for even the littlest of carpoolers to hop out at the #6 spot and walk to the front door of the building.  Most schools have a nice long covered sidewalk full of teachers keeping a watchful eye on the children.
*It is not necessary to watch your child enter the school building before you pull away from the drop off point....especially your high schoolers. ;)  Don't worry, if they decide to take a detour to miss that test in first hour, the school will let you know.

Now I know that this might seem a bit harsh and I am truly sorry if I have offended anyone's carpool sensicals.  Just remember, there are a host of parking spaces you may use to park and walk your child right to their desk if you choose.  Then you won't have some crazy person yelling DUMBA** at you.  By the way, things can get awkward real fast if you happen to have your doggie in the car and the windows are down so that cute little fuzz ball can stick her head out. ;)  Just sayin.

The wine for today is The Guilty, it's a nice shiraz; it might or might not relate to the previous sentence. ;)

Happy Thursday!

That's just false...as in not true.

It's halloween.  That magical night that comes just once a year when you can be anyone or anything you want to be!  All three of the boys picked their costumes and were ready to go.   Because I am one of the meanest mom's on the planet I won't let them be anything scary, so funny it is. 

The big one decided to be John McEnroe...

 The middle one Joe Dirt...

 And the little dressed up as a Jester...

Because I run on the maturity level of any one of my three children at any given time, of course I dressed up too. ;)  Who doesn't want to dress up as someone else and ask for candy?  Well, ok I didn't actually go around trick or treating, but it sure was tempting.  Instead, I just trick or treated out of my three amigos candy bags. ;)  This year I was waffling between a 70's girl or a cheerleader when my mom found some long white gloves tucked away in a drawer.  Bingo!  Audrey Hepburn it is!  I have the perfect black dress in my closet (because a girl just needs to have a few of those black dresses on hand) and set off to the local hobby store to get all the supplies needed to make the cutest blinged out long cigarette in all the land.  All that was left was applying the appropriate amount of Hepburn makeup.  I had purchased some deliciously long false eyelashes to complete my look and headed to the bathroom to "get all done up."  The middle was in there with me, already suited up in his joe dirt costume and looking every bit the true redneck.  

The false eyelash box I have purchased is clearly labeled with the words "EASY APPLICATION".  False advertising at it's best.  My first clue that this might be a little more involved than the 10 minutes I have allowed to apply the beasts should have been the 3 page instruction sheet which was printed in type so small it would take the Hubble telescope to see it.  This, however, did not deter me, after all the box says "EASY APPLICATION".   So I forged ahead.  I pulled the first lash off the plastic, ummm, why are these things not labeled right and left?  Let's see here, this fits on this eye going this way or the other eye going that way.  I'm feeling a bit like a toddler trying to hold a pencil right now, all chubby handed fumble fingers. ;)  But I continue to forge ahead.  Next comes out the little bottle of glue, why this didn't seem like a bad idea I have no explanation, except that I was hell bent on glamming it up.  After 6 attempts to attach the lash I have decided goes on the right eye, I have it stuck from the middle to the outside corner with the inside corner flapping in the breeze.  The middle kid takes one look at me and says in his best redneck accent, "Whoa...that don't look right."  Really?  Thanks joe, why don't you go find some dirt and play in it, this is real women's work.  I finally get the inside corner to attach (sort of) and decided to head on over to the left one.  Good Lord, my biceps and triceps are burning from holding my arms up and my jaw aches from holding my mouth open for so long.  Why must the mouth be open as wide as possible when messing with the eye? ;) After another dozen or so minutes of "attaching" the left lash, the unthinkable happens.  A dab of the glue gets in the corner of my eye!  Oh. My. Gosh.  Ouch.  My eye is burning and watering and then sticks shut at the inside corner.  Shut.  Like will not open.  EEEEK!  Of course, this throws me into a complete panic and I start throwing warm water on my eye, dragging my contact out as quickly as possible, and then holding my face under the faucet so the warm water can run straight thru my eye.  This whole scene is accompanied by a long string of curse words that I am not too proud of, and hysterical laughter by one Mr. Joe Dirt.  When my eye finally opens it appears that satan himself has taken it over as it is glowing bright red.  I have also washed both eyelashes off my face and they are snaking their way down the drain, hopefully heading back to the place where they have come from....no not Target, hell.   At this point I have 5 minutes left to turn my nose running, water logged, demon eyed self into the lovely Miss Hepburn.  Awesome.  After a bottle of visine (which by the way sting in a way any bee could be proud of), a towel, my hairdryer and a good old fashioned chip clip I was ready to start the makeup again.  Forget the stupid lashes, a good thick strip of eyeliner will have to do.  

Not exactly Hepburn, but it's the best this girl could do after the eyelash debacle.  Next year I'm dressing up as anything that includes a mask. ;)

The wine of the day is Seven Deadly Zins, it's a wonderful heavy zinfandel perfect for anyone wishing to think of something besides eyes glued shut.  Too bad that blinged out long cigarette wasn't actually a straw. ;)

Happy Saturday!

You should see the other guy

A couple of days ago the middle and little were playing outside.  They pulled out every single size and kind of ball we have and a couple of baseball bats.  This turned in to something of a science experiment...which ball goes the furthest when hit with a baseball bat.  This hypothesis worked just fine with the bouncy ball, the baseball, the tennis ball and even the football; then they decided to try a basketball.  As many of you may have already guessed or might expect, it didn't go very well.  The middle took a full swing at the basketball which absorbed all of the power and "rebounded" the bat right back into his face.

This is how that turned out.  Yikes!  Only by the grace of God does the kid still have an eyeball.  Needless to say, he got a hooky day from school.  Although, I hate to use the word "hooky" as it implies something fun, and there is nothing fun about this.  As he was preparing to take his banged up self back to school he was trying to decide what his "story" should be.  He thought it would be way to embarrassing to tell the other kids he hit himself in the face with a bat.   I suggested he tell people he was in a huge fight with some massive 8th grader concluding with "you should see the other guy."
"That statement is a little used up mom, I've got think of something more creative."  So the five of us sat down and constructed a few tall tales.  And we came up with some doozies...flipped his dirt bike, snuck the razor out and rolled, suck the razor out and rolled while trying to cross the highway, jumped off the roof and landed on a rock (I don't know about that one, must have been offered up by the little ;), and my personal favorite offered up by the teenager, "Just tell everyone I punched you in the face, that's awesome."  Umm, not really that awesome.  It's always a good idea to have a family meeting to make up lies...A+ parenting at it's best. ;)  He finally decided to tell the truth because maybe it would keep some other kid from trying to see how far a basketball will go when hit with a bat.  Smart kid. :)
Interestingly, the verse from the devotional book he and I are reading together last night was "You are kind, Lord, so good and merciful.  You protect ordinary people, and when I was helpless, you saved me and treated me so kindly that I don't need to worry anymore." Psalm 116:5-7.  His one eye got huge and I watched his face light up, "What?  Wow!  Did you hear that verse mom?  He protected my eye!  And maybe he's going to use me to protect someone else from doing the same dumb thing!  This is awesome!"  Wow is right buddy, how did you get so smart and so perfectly centered on what is true and right?  Impressive!
So today he is at school getting the sympathy attention from all the ladies.  I'm expecting a call from him (or child protective services) at any moment, because when the attention wears off he is going to be needing some more Motrin and an ice pack. ;)

The wine of the day is Left Foot Charley pinot blanc; in honor of my left eye middle kid. ;)  That kid is definitely going to make me want a glass or get a gray hair or have a heart attack....hopefully the first one will stave off the latter two. ;)

Happy Thursday!

Family Vacation

Traveling is one of my most favorite things to do.  I'm happy to go anywhere really; the beach, mountains, road trips, but exploring big cities is my favorite!  In an effort to pass this passion of mine along to my three monkeys we often load the whole fam damily up and head off on a wild adventure.  Oh, these excursions are always grand with lots of things to see and do; new eats, fun treats, new places to be explored.  Soon we will head off on our next adventure, to the beautiful southern California town of San Diego.  We've been once before and have hit the touristy spots, so this time we will be looking for the quirky, off the beaten path kind of places to enjoy!  Needless to say, I am beside myself, like a kid on the night before Christmas! Inevitably on these family vacations there are a few moments that I would rather just forget.  At least once there will be a full on brawl between at least two of the three in a public place, someone will "get their gagger going" over some new food we are trying and one of them will say something really inappropriate right at exactly the wrong time.

A few years ago we took the three amigos to NYC, which is by far my most favorite big city on the planet.  It was fabulous!   We went to one of the last games in the old Yankee stadium, sat on the front row of the Lion King on Broadway and saw the Statue of Liberty.  We also saw a drunk guy peeing in the subway, but that's just a part of the big city experience...right? ;)  We also did the very touristy tour of the Empire State Building.  The whole trip really was fantastic, but as with all great family vacations, there were "those moments".  Here is one of them....

No mother, I don't care how perfect she is or how perfect her family is, has ever gone on a family vacation and not made this face at least once.  Someone just happened to catch mine on film. ;) Of course, I bought this in poster size so that I can laugh at myself and this family vaca moment often. :))

There is no wine today because I am busy packing for 4 people and that takes all my faculties in perfecto condition!  I am certain that I will need to try several new wines during our adventure and will report back on all the fun things I find!

Happy Wednesday!