Some Egg-cellent Ideas!

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, end of the school year is pretty crazy.

Eggs - I love 'em. It's pretty much as simple as that.

Here are my 3 favorite things I have learned to do with them in the past year.

Egg cups - if you have a lot of company you have to feed, talk about an easy way to fix eggs for them!

1) Heat oven to 375 degrees
2) Line each cup of a muffin tin with a piece of thinly sliced ham - I just use Budig ham - it's cheap. We tried this with turkey as well, but turkey doesn't have enough flavor. I like the saltiness of the ham.
3) Crack an egg in each cup. Yup, it's as simple as that.
4) Sprinkle with salt, pepper, cheese (I like cheddar, but parmesan is nice too). Green onions add a nice touch if you like them.
5) Bake for appr. 12 minutes. It all kinda depends on how runny you like your eggs. I just do a jiggle test to check for doneness.

Freezer breakfast sandwiches - I love me some McDonalds egg sandwiches, but I have neither the desire to get up early enough to go get one nor the finances.This a great solution.

1) Heat oven to 375 degrees
2) Crack an egg in each cup of a muffin tin. If you would like, use Egg Beaters (3 Tbls.) or just the egg whites. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
3) Bake for 12-15 minutes. You want the yolks to be fully cooked.
4) Once cooled, slice each cooked egg horizonally (as to flaten them out).
5) On whichever bread you choose (I use whole wheat sandwhich thins), layer thinly sliced cheese (I like the ultra thin cheddar), thinly sliced deli ham (again, the cheap Budig stuff), and the egg.
6) Eat it or freeze it. If freezing, I wrap the sandwiches in wax paper first, then put them in freezer bags.
7) When thawing, Remove from freezer bag, but leave in wax paper. You can take it out of wax paper if you like and put on a plate, but since I did this at work, I didn't have a plate.
8) Cook in the microwave for about 2 minutes. I usually added a little dijon mustard, and there you go!

Egg salad sandwiches - This is possibly my favorite application!

First, I have discovered that I LOVE hard-boiling eggs in the oven. I guess that would make them hard-ovened, not hard-boiled right?
Here's the process:
1) Heat oven to 325 degrees
2) Place eggs in your good ole' trusty muffin pan
3) Bake for 25 minutes
4) Make sure you save the carton, so you have a place to store your cooked eggs.
5) Refridgerate until ready to use. They will last about a week in the fridge.
That's it! I haven't cracked an egg yet, like I used to do all the time when I boiled them.

Now to make the egg salad.
1) Shell two of the cooked eggs from above.
2) In a bowl, mix together - it pretty much looks like the stuffing for deviled eggs.
               *1.5 Tbls. fat-free (or low-fat) mayo
               *1.5 Tbls. dijon mustard (I LOVE French's Dijon with Chardonnay)
               *Chopped pickles (optional)
               *Turkey bacon bits (optional, but I love bacon, who doesn't?)
3) Add the two shelled eggs. Yeah, you can chop them up, but I just mash them around in the bowl with the mayo mixture. I like bigger chunks of the egg in my egg salad.
4) Spread on your choice of bread - I like whole wheat sandwich thins.


Yup, I love eggs.

Hubba Hubba

I would like to state, for the record - Curly Sue - one of my all-time favorites. I'm not ashamed to say it, either!



Watched it for the first in years tonight! Made Matt watch it too, as he had never experienced the delightfulness that is this movie. I laughed my butt off the whole way through, sometimes, I'll admit, at the bad acting. I distinctly remembering having most of this movie memorized as a child, so many cute one-liners!
I forsee this being a conversation from the movie happening between Harper and me one day:
Grey: How was your day?
Curly Sue: Total pisser
Grey: I'm too tired to lecture you about using that kind of language.

If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor, pop some popcorn and enjoy!

Next subject - the weather. What the crap?!

Moving on (previous subject irritates me too much, must move on to happier subjects) - Saw a former student today, and it was really special. I always thought he was a pretty good kid; a little squirrely, but not a lot of middle school boys aren't.  But, wow, seeing what a nice gentleman he has turned into, really puts a bad day with my current kids in perspective. Some of the buttheads will grow up and....well, continue to be buttheads....but some of them will show up one day, unexpected and just make you smile. :) I don't know if any of his "grown-upness" was influenced by me years and years ago, but it's so cool to think that I was able to have a small part in this wonderful young man's life. And he's currently attending Arkansas University, so that right there almost had me in tears.... :)

Teething Trauma, Beef Tips, and Miss Dreamsville

This one is gonna be a little all over the place, hang on.

First, a question. Is there anything worse than watching your child suffer through cutting teeth? Okay, so I'm sure there is, but this stinks.

Next, another weight watchers recipe. LOVE this one! Made it for the 2nd time the other night, and it will continue to be made. Plus, my child LOVES it!! We added carrots to it right when I put the meat in, and then added a can of green beans at the end. The carrots were DELICIOUS!! They soaked up all that flavor and were amazing!! Matt and Harper didn't like the carrots, which I really didn't mind - more for me!

Beef Tips with Mushroom Sauce



Now, a book reccommendation. Miss Dreamsville and the Collier County Women's Literary Society by Amy Hill Hearth. Very easy read that reminded me a little of The Help, although this seemed a little "fluffier", if that makes any sense. It ends a little abruptly for my liking, but I think it's just because I wanted to keep reading about their quirky lives. I don't get many opportunities to read for large chunks of time, so this was an easy book to just read a chapter or two and then be able to put it down.


Last, I leave you with an interesting question/thought/realization from a discussion with some friends today. Are you truly happy? What does it really mean to be happy?

Sorry, for the randomness, my head is swimming with all kinds of stuff and found it hard to settle on one topic. :)

Might as well face it, I'm addicted to Pinterest!

One of the reasons I wanted to start a blog, was due to my love/obsession (whatever you want to call it) with Pinterest. I want to share with whoever is reading (hopefully, there's someone out there) the recipes/idea I try, whether it worked or didn't, if there were adjustments I made, tips I learned, etc.....

With that being said.....here's my first recommendation!

Chicken Parmesan Casserole

http://www.emilybites.com/2012/12/chicken-parmesan-casserole.html?m=1
It's a Weight Watcher's recipe! Great flavor! The only down side is that the croutons are pretty soggy when you re-heat it for leftovers, but it's still pretty darn good!

My trick lately has been to buy up a bunch of chicken when it goes on sale. Boil it up, shred it with my handy Kitchenaid (gosh, I love that thing!), portion it out (1 cup) in ziploc bags and put them in the freezer. Then when it comes to assembling casseroles like this (I pull the chicken out of the night before), it takes next to no time to assemble.  In fact, it took more time for my stove to preheat than it did to actually put the casserole together!

Try it and enjoy!

Alphabet Days!

Yay! Here is my first mommy blog suggestion!! Weird how oddly excited I am about this. Keep in mind, this is merely a suggestion.

Here are your instructions:
1) Find this book. I have even attached the amazon link. Alphabet Art
2) Buy this book
3) Have lots of fun with this book!



My mom gave this to us for Christmas, and it is SO cool! There are 4 pages of activities for each letter of the alphabet. I think we may start having Alphabet Days this summer. Every once and a while, pick a letter and that is the Letter of the Day. We can go to the store and find food that starts with that letter, and that's what we will eat for the day, or maybe just a meal. Wear colors that start with that letter, and do all the fun stuff that this book has in it for that letter! I think it will be super cool!

Getting Started! Follow me for more fun!

Okay, peeps, this is how this is gonna go down. I'm going to try my hand at this blog thing. It was a really useful tool when my daughter, Harper, was born premature and had to spend 75 days in the NICU. We used the blog to keep everyone up to speed on her progress, but since she has been home (cough...2 ...cough... years... cough.... now), I have not kept up with it.

This is not going to be a crazy awesome blog with recipes, tons of how-to brilliant ideas, parenting genius, or weight loss tips (although, I may include those from time to time), but rather, a "journal", of sorts for the craziness that makes up our family. We use social media to keep family and friends updated on the immediate comings and goings of our fam., but I'm hoping this will be a way to expand a little more for those of you who care to know more, which, quite frankly, may be just my mother. :)

Like many projects I have, this one my not really take off, but who knows, it may actually be a little fun!

For those of you who care to keep up with us, enjoy! For those of you who don't, well, then don't; in fact you probably haven't even read this far....why, am I still addressing you......