Cheese and Potatoes, a match made in heaven

I LOVE CHEESE!!!!!! I might love cheese more than bacon. I think cheese covered bacon might

be my dream food. Potatoes are OK but I don't love them like I love cheese and bacon. I do love it when cheese and potatoes hang out together though. They are a tasty couple. Last fall I was looking for a way to make Au Gratin (cheesy taters as we call them) myself, like homemade, not from a box. I found a million recipes but I didn't want to go to the store and they all called for stuff I didn't have. Then I found this. It only has 5 ingredients, 5 ingredients I almost always have on hand. WOOHOO!!! They are delicious and super easy to make. I like to pair them with grilled pork loin. So so so so so so yummy.

Here's the stuff you need.

Peel and wash potatoes. If you have a helper, one person can deal with the taters and the other can deal with the sauce. If you don't have a helper I'd peel and wash, make the sauce, THEN slice the taters.

The recipe says to slice the potatoes thin. I've found that they need to bee about 1/4 inch thick. I got The Dad a fancy schmancy slicer for Christmas last year, it has a dial with thickness measurements. This is how I know it is 1/4 inch. This time we decided to try to julienne the potatoes. It worked wonderfully, but if you don't have a slicer it will be a huge PITA. I actually hate washing the slicer so I usually just cut them with a knife, only one easy thing to wash. Once the potatoes are cut throw them in a buttered 9x13 baking dish. Make sure it is REALLY buttered well.

The sauce is very simple. Melt the butter and add the flour. Let it cook for a minute or so, add the milk. Stir it up so the flour/butter dissolves and let it cook for a few minutes. While the is cooking CUT THE CHEESE!!!! The recipe says 3 cups. I measured it once. Then I had to wash a measuring cup. BLECK. I just use 3/4 of a 2lb loaf of Velveeta (or whatever the store brand is). I usually cut it in fairly large chunks. The Dad likes to cut it in little bitty squares. I am assuming he thinks it will melt faster that way. It probably does but it also takes 100 hours to cut. At any rate add the cheese to the milk and cook it until all the cheese melts. EASY PEASY

Here is a picture of the flour and butter. This is called a roux. I feel like a real chef when I make this, I think because it has a fancy name.

This is after the milk has been added

The CHEESE

The sauce, delightful cheesy goodness

After the sauce is done season the potatoes with salt and pepper. Make sure the stir them up so the salt and pepper get distributed evenly. Pour the cheesy deliciousness on the potatoes and throw them in the oven. 350 for 45 - 60 minutes. The first few times we made this the cheese sauce boiled over so we usually put something UNDER the potatoes while they are cooking. It makes clean up WAY easier.

Don't they look tasty?

Cheesy Taters (or Au Gratin Potatoes) borrowed from Chef Sara @ Chef Sara's Kitchen

serves 4-6

10 potatoes, peeled & sliced thin

2 tablespoon butter

2 tablespoon flour

2 cup milk

3 cup Velveeta, cubed

Place potatoes in greased cake pan Season with salt & pepper Make cheese sauce:

Melt butter, stir in flour until smooth Add milk Bring to gentle boil then add cheese Stir until cheese has melted Cover potatoes with cheese mixture Oven 375F Bake covered 45 min Uncover for an additional 15 min.

MMMMMMM Meat

Burger was on sale last week. When burger is on sale we buy a TON, well not actually a ton but LOTS. We didn't reserve our cow last winter so we have been having to get beef at the store like most people. I have to say IT SUCKS!!!! That stuff is not cheap, unless it is on sale. I think I bought about 10 pounds. I bought all the store had out. I'm a meat hogger like that. Usually I just cook it all and freeze it for stuff like spaghetti and tacos, but The Dad thought we should make Salisbury Steak with it. I do not love making Salisbury Steak. It is easy, it is tasty, but it also requires mixing the meat mixture with my hands and forming it into patties. This

TOTALLY grosses me out. The dad thinks we could use the Kitchen Aid to mix the meat, but then I will have to wash it AND the patties still have to be formed. I got the recipe from my mom, who got it from a Campbell's Soup Cookbook a LONG time ago. I haven't really looked around too much but I think this recipe only exists in the cookbook that is buried somewhere in my mom's house and in an email between my mom and I that I have saved in Gmail so I won't lose the recipe....that is until now. I am sharing the sacred Salisbury Steak recipe.

Before I start I must that say that The Dad and the kids are PICKY EATERS. The recipe has onions and Golden Mushroom soup in it. I have to use the Ninja to re-chop up the onions (I use frozen chopped onions) and I also have to Ninja the soup so the big pieces of mushroom get liquefied. I hate washing the Ninja. I actually hate washing everything. Momma is LAZY!!!! Back to the meat...

Like I said this is a super easy recipe. You mix the burger, onions, bread crumbs, egg, and some of the soup together. I tried to do it with a spoon this time but it doesn't work. MUST USE HANDS! It is cold and gross but it has to be done.

After it is mixed you form it into nice little patties. I make them oval shaped. I'm not sure why, I think because my mom does it that way.

This time we froze the patties because we weren't using them that night. It worked out pretty well. I have also just dumped the meat mixture into a baking dish and made a Salisbury Steak meatloaf. I wanted to do that this time but The Dad and Number One said it is better when it is a patty. I guess because the sauce gets into the meat better. Whatever! They are crazy. Meatloaf is soooooo much easier.

When we finally decided to cook them I threw them into a baking dish, baked them at 350 for about half an hour and then drained off the grease, poured the sauce on them and baked for another half hour. This is NOT what the recipe says to do but I think this way is better. I have 5 kids, one of them is TWO, I can't be babysitting stuff on the stove for an hour.

I like to serve them with mashed potatoes and green beans. Doesn't this look delicious? Yes. I am using a kid plate. I think they are cool.

Salisbury Steak recipe from My mom, who stole it from a really old Campbell's Soup Cookbook

Makes 6 servings.

1 can condensed golden mushroom soup (I usually double the recipe and use 4 cans of soup so we have lots of sauce)

1 1/2 lbs. ground beef

1/2 cup fine dry bread crumbs

1/4 cup finely chopped onion

1 egg, slightly beaten

1/3 cup water

Mix thoroughly 1/4 cup soup, beef, bread crumbs, onion, and egg: shape into 6 patties, In skillet, brown patties(use shortening if necessary); pour off fat. Blend in remaining soup and water. Cover; cook over low heat 20 minutes or until done. Stir occasionally. (This way works great if you have time to babysit the stuff. I don't so I put the patties in a baking dish, bake them at 350 for thirty minutes, drain off the grease, then cover with the soup/water mixture and bake for another thirty minutes.)

I actually made something I pinned on Pinterest.

I even took pictures while I made it. And I am going to make this blog post about it and pin it in a folder I'm calling "Stuff I pinned and ACTUALLY DID!" The Dad says I won't do half the stuff I have pinned, so now I must do all of it. A few days ago I pinned a recipe for homemade Chocolate Syrup. The pin sent me here . We had bought a bottle of chocolate syrup last weekend but someone left it in the living room (yes the living room and oddly enough it wasn't poured all over everything in the living room) so I had to throw it away. I think I had to throw it away. In Julieland it was out of the fridge for too long and somehow became toxic. Anyway... we were out of chocolate syrup and apparently my kids are no longer able to drink milk without chocolate in it (even though they do all the time) so I decided I would try out the recipe. We even had an empty jar thanks to some tasty Classico Vodka Sauce (gotta look for a recipe to make my own).

Here is the empty jar. Isn't it pretty. I should have tried to remove the label. OOPS!

It was REALLY easy to make. The Princess was going to help but then Taz wanted to help and they were fighting so I kicked them both out of the kitchen. I just had to look through old blogs to find out that I called Taz, Taz. That name is sooooo not appropriate anymore. This is what I wrote almost 2 years ago

"The Baby is no longer the baby, he's been replaced by the new baby. I guess he needs a new name. I think I will go with Taz. He is by far the busiest kid I have ever had. What if they get worse each time. I can't even imagine what New Baby will be like if this is the case. I am SCARED."

Wow, how prophetic! Taz is such a sweet, mostly calm boy now. I think I will have to call him The Sweetie. The Baby is INSANE. He is like 1000 times worse than an actual Tasmanian Devil. The Dad is reading this as I type and just told me to use real names. That is no fun, but might be lots easier. Anyway... back to the syrup.

I made a double batch of syrup because the empty jar was ginormous and I didn't want to start out with it only being half full. It turns out a double batch was just a tiny bit too much for the jar. The dad just said we need a squeeze bottle for it. I need to blog when he isn't reading over my shoulder.

I started by mixing together the sugar and cocoa powder. The recipe said to whisk it to get rid of any lumps. My cocoa powder was really lumpy. Maybe because I bought the Kroger brand. I didn't get all my lumps out. I figured they would dissolve when I added water anyway.

Then I added the water and whisked it for what seemed like a thousand hours. The dad was watching me and said "it seems like it will never incorporate, but it will" and he was right. Apparently he has made this stuff before.

After it is mixed you have to boil it and then let it simmer for 5 minutes. You are supposed to stir frequently during this step. I have a bad attention span. I was also trying to make pasta with vodka sauce so the dad stepped in and stirred and stirred and stirred. He might have saved the syrup.

After it boiled and thickened it had to cool for 5 minutes and then we added the vanilla and poured it into the jar.

There was a little bit left in the pan so I dumped in some milk and made chocolate milk for the kids to dump all over the living room floor.

I think my jar of sauce looks beautiful. The Dad says I need to check it to see if it turned into hot fudge in the fridge because it could have boiled too long. If it did I might cry. Or we might just be making chocolate milk with hot fudge instead of chocolate syrup.

Here is the recipe (from Annie's Eats)

INGREDIENTS

1¼ cups sugar

1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 cup water

¼ tsp. salt

2 tsp. vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS

In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar and cocoa powder and whisk briefly to break up any clumps. Stir in the water and salt and bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring frequently. Once the mixture reaches a boil, reduce the heat to medium-low and let simmer until slightly thickened, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and let stand for 5 minutes. Stir in the vanilla. Store in the refrigerator.

I suck at blogging

I really do suck at this. I keep telling myself I will do it more often and then I DON'T. I think I feel better when I do it though so why don't I? I guess I am too busy pinning stuff on pinterest. MY house is destroyed BUT I have 1000000 new recipes to try and my boards are all nicely organized. Maybe that is why I like it so much, ONE place that my kids can't destroy, where I can have order AND I can sit in the chair and do all the "work". Actually I can blog from the chair too so why don't I do it. I have a whole list of things I "want" to do but I am super stressed out and laying in my bed, or sitting in the chair watching TV while "pinning" is all I can manage to do. What is wrong with me? This is such a pointless post. Sorry if anyone is reading it. I need to change my layout but I don't remember how and it seems like it would be a lot of work. Man I am lazy. Maybe I will do that later. I think the 2 little kids and I need a nap.

SNOWBALLS

First of all I suck at blogging. I might be even worse at giving directions, but I am going to try. I am also not a professional photographer and I took all of the following pictures with my phone (because I have a giant camera that most likely has dead battery that I need to remember to pack to take to Texas tonight...SOMEONE REMIND ME!!!!) If you think the pictures are awesome and need an awesome picture taking phone, I have an HTC Thunderbolt. Anyway... on to the point.

Last year I saw a little bucket of fleece snowballs somewhere. They were so cute and soooo expensive. I decided that I could totally make them myself, how hard could it be. I got a yard of white fleece and it made 34 or so snow balls. I have no idea how long it took me to make them. in my head it was like an hour. Since it only took an hour I figured I would get FOUR YARDS this year and make 136 or so. So far it has taken me a million hours and I have only finished 5 of them. On to my crappy instructions.

First get some fleece. 1 yard makes about 34, if you use a CD for a circle pattern. Fold the fleece in half, with the good side on the inside. This can be really hard to tell on white and it really doesn't matter all that much. I am honestly not sure if mine was folded the right way.

Next I cut strips of fleece, a little wider than the CD and then cut the strips into squares just a little bigger than the CD. I did this because I thought it would be easier to cut out the circles and I wanted to sit in my recliner and do it. I have like a million Jimmy Fallons to watch so I have to work in front of the TV.

Next I put the CD on a square and cut around it to make a nice circle. Make sure you have TWO pieces of material when you do this. After you cut all your circles you should have a nice pile like this

Now sew all around the out side of the circle but leave an opening so you can stuff it. If you make it really wide you will have a lot to sew shut. If you make it too small it is a bitch to turn right side out and stuff. I think maybe an inch is good.Next turn it right-side out.

Now stuff it like crazy. The more you stuff, the more ball like it will become when you are finished. I used a giant bag of fiber fill. Actually for four yards I used almost 2 whole bags of it.

Next sew the hole shut. I tried to do it on the sewing machine but I couldn't do it. Maybe if you are better at using the machine it will work for you. I pretty much suck at sewing. I fold the raw edges over and make sure that when I am stitching I go through both parts to that it looks like a finished edge. I also start the thread INSIDE so the inside knot is inside. When it is completely sewed shut I go back under a stitch and make a knot and cut the thread off. So far we haven't had any snowballs explode.

It looks really crappy but if you roll the seam around in your hand you can almost make it look like a ball and it is almost like rolling a real snowball.

The bucket of snowballs from last year. I am working on some type of fun container to hold them.

We had a snowball fight this weekend at my aunt's house. I tried to get some action shots but my phone is slow and my kids (and niece and nephews) are super fast like True Blood vampires.

Dude, where's my blog

I guess I'm gonna update this every 15 months or something. Why can't I keep up with this? I think I am afraid I am boring, but why does that matter if I am the only one that reads this. But in reality my kids provide me with enough material to write for days. I guess I am just too busy doing nothing to type a little blog post up every now and then. Should I vow to start writing every day again? Maybe if I think I won't I will anyway and will surprise myself.

Today, or yesterday or whatever, was Mother's Day. I had a pretty good day. Saturday, The Dad got me a new phone. I have been waiting impatiently since January to get this phone so I was pretty excited. We went to a going away party Saturday night and I drank more than I have in a long long LONG time and I was feeling it this morning. I think around 5pm I finally started feeling normal. At any rate, Princess Spazzy and The Whiner both had presents for me that they made at school. Princess Spazzy's was "breakfast in bed" a fruit and cereal bar and a tea bag and a cute little card. The Whiner's was a cute little book thing, on one page he had to list all of my favorites. I was a little worried when I saw "phrase or expression your mom uses the most" he did NOT write what it should have been and that's good because I probably would have gotten a phone call from the school :-D Number One went fishing and picked up a snake, I think his gift was giving my heart a workout. Oh I forgot, they did kinda clean the house on Saturday, as I asked for a clean house on Mother's Day. It did look pretty good this afternoon (yes I finally got out of bed around noon) but it is now trashed (since I took the day off from everything) My parents and sisters and nephews and niece all came over and we had a little cookout. So fun. I love it when there are a million kids here and my niece and nephews are hilarious. I wish we could all hang out every weekend. Heck I'd settle for once a month, alas we all have lives and busy schedules. I keep trying to think of some hilarious thing that happened today but I'm drawing a blank. I really wish I could get a brain hard drive. Then I wouldn't even have to type this blog, I could just upload it. Someone needs to GET ON INVENTING THAT!!!! I guess the highlight of the day might have been The Baby saying over and over all day "Happy.. to you, Happy to you" The big kids said "Happy Mother's Day" about a million times today, I guess that was what he got out of it. He has the most adorable little voice and he says the cutest things. It almost makes you forget he is kind of a really big booger. I think I am gonna be in trouble with this one.

Long time no see

Geez, I swore when I made this blog I would update it all the time. I mean my kids are INSANE, I should have enough material for at least a daily post. I see I haven't posted in nearly two years. How did that happen. So... lots of stuff has happened. The Dad is still the dad, Number One is still a dork, The Whiner is even more of a whiner, Princess Spazzy is still and spaz, however The Baby is no longer the baby, he's been replaced by the new baby. I guess he needs a new name. I think I will go with Taz. He is by far the busiest kid I have ever had. What if they get worse each time. I can't even imagine what New Baby will be like if this is the case. I am SCARED.

I am sure tons of hysterical stuff happened today but I am so tired I can't think. I was just watching Alvin and the Chipmunks with Princess and she said "I want to be on TV" I asked what she meant and she said "Um I don't know, when I grow up I want to be a princess... like when I am big like Number One, like I want to be 18 when I grow up" She is so weird.

Taz had surgery yesterday. Some of his manly stuff wasn't in exactly the right place so it got moved to where God intended it to be. The Dr. told us it wouldn't slow him down after the first day. She was pretty much right. He has trouble climbing onto the couch and was really limping/walking like he just got off a horse tonight after walking around a lot today. I think that unlike an adult he knows his limits. When it starts to hurt to walk he just sits down. Last night he would cry and say " I can't walk, I can't walk" The Dad said he was crying because he was pissed more than crying from pain. At any rate he is on the mend and I am sooooo glad that is over with.

New Baby is summoning me aka screaming because the Princess wanted to hold him and then decided she was over it and laid him on the floor. The floor is slick so he can't crawl, he just spins in circles. It is mildly entertaining... until you look him in the eye and he starts wailing. NEVER LOOK IT IN THE EYE. That's my new motto