Pinterest Success: One-Pot Red Beans and Rice

Yes, another success!  Granted, most of my beginning Pinterest posts will be successes as my past failed pins I immediately deleted and didn't "document", so it might be a while before an actual failure pops up.  Last night's recipe pin was a brand new one though, so it could have gone either way.  I think it went splendidly.

Before dinner I had my routine of play with Leif, feed him dinner, play some more then bed time.

He likes to floss his teeth with the string from his telephone pull-toy.  Hey, more power to him for pretend flossing!

So he's mastered getting into a couple of my Mary Kay bins and he found a loose headband.  I put it on him and I couldn't stop cracking up-he'd take it off his head, then continuously try to put it back on.  He's a funny little boy.

Alright, onto the pin!

One-Pot Red Beans and Rice, link to the recipe here.

I started by grabbing all the ingredients:

Not pictured: canola oil and other spices

Cooking up the sausages-hubs is not a fan of spice, so I used Smoked Andouille chicken sausage for me and Garlic Herb sausage for him.

Sausage & Veggies

Almost finished!

Voila!

I really enjoyed this recipe-I just wish I could prep/cut faster.  I think that takes me longer than the actual cooking part.  Here are the few modifications I made:

1. I used a few garlic cloves instead of one, I love garlic!
2. I used two celery ribs instead of one 
3. The recipe calls for instant rice and to simmer with 2 1/2 cups of chicken broth; I used old, cooked rice and about a cup of chicken broth and it worked just fine.  It also cut down the cooking time!

I asked hubs what he thought of the food-he said it was good, but I can read him like a book.  He didn't like how spicy it was-just because he had a hard time picking out the different sausages and the cajun spices I used had a kick to it.  We are so different as far as food!  He has a serious sweet tooth, I eat almost everything with hot sauce or cayenne pepper.  :)  I will still make this again, it didn't call for a lot of ingredients and the title is true-all you need is one pot, so less clean up!

On another note-a while back I asked my pa if he wanted to go in with me to order wine from the Marjim Manor Winery we visited in New York back in August...I found a white wine that I could probably drink every single day.  It's SO delicious.  Well, what a nice surprise when a box was delivered to me at work with FOUR bottles of wine!  Three were my favorite, one was a red.  And my friend/coworker and I exchanged gifts a couple days ago-I got him a bunch of mini whiskey bottles, he got me: wine.  He said, "Great minds think alike."  Aaaand all of a sudden I'm a wino.

The Starlight is SO good-it's not very acidic and has hints of apple.  I had a glass with dinner-thus the almost open bottle in the middle.  :)

Pinterest Success: Thai Chicken Pizza

Yay, another success!  This pin/recipe has been circulating in our household for around a year or so...and you'd think I would have it down pat, but there a few things I need to remember on how to tweak it.

 First, I had a lot of fun with Leif when we came home, as we did a little sensory-play.

I've had this bag of black beans forever, so I figured why not play with them?  He kept sifting the beans with his hands, and then started putting them on the floor.  The OCD in me wanted to rear its nasty head and I was itching to pick every single bean up every time they hit the floor!  But, I held back and just went with the flow.  It was fun!

 Then we played for a while and realized he's going to be just fine on Christmas/his birthday:

He ripped into his present already!

So after he went down for the night, it was time to finish some last minute wrapping and to make dinner before hubs came home from school.  Menu: "Thai Chicken Pizza".  This pin came from eatingwell.com and here's what the pin looks like:

Here is the link

And here is how it went down:

I started with a pre-made garlic & herb dough from Trader Joe's

All the ingredients it calls for; not many, right?  It calls for actual ginger, but since I forgot to pick that up ground ginger worked just fine.  I also substituted a red onion for scallions.

The peanut butter sauce, yum

Chicken, red pepper and onions get mixed up with a tablespoon of the pb sauce

Hubs has a serious lactose intolerance...no cheese on his side!

Finished product-sorry the lighting is weird, I turned off our fluorescents and just had the stove light on

Even though it turned out great, here are my recommendations on how to tweak this recipe:

1. I made this recipe before with cilantro as a garnish and it really made the pizza.  I was sad I forgot to pick up the cilantro!
2. I wish there was more pb sauce as it calls for only a tablespoon to mix with the toppings and the rest gets spread on the dough; I would add a splash more of everything to make more sauce.
3. Hubs thought a good addition would be tomatoes, will try that next time!
4. Trust your instincts on your pre-made dough; I only popped it in the oven for about five minutes by itself, then spread the sauce/scattered the ingredients and cooked for about nine to ten more minutes.  

That's it!  And as someone mentions on the website, there's not much that makes it "Thai", just kind of Asian with the soy sauce, garlic and ginger.  But since hubs can't have cheese, I think his side of the "pizza" tastes just fine without it.  And yes, we gobbled the entire pizza in one go.  Whoops.

Pinterest Success: Breakfast Sandwiches To Go

I'm cheating and starting my "Pinterest Successes & Failures" with something I whipped up last June.

Today's successful pin came from the website Undressed Skeleton, a blog created by a gal who decided to lose weight by doing the right thing-eating healthy and exercising.  She posts a lot of recipes and ideas on how to stay healthy!

She updated her website and here's a little screenshot she posted

So the pin looks like this:

And here is the link so you can do it yourself if you wish!

It took me all day to create these breakfast sandwiches to go.  I did take photos as I worked, but an iPhone just doesn't do food prep any justice (at least, I'm not very good at taking photos!).  Here is what I learned from the process:

1. It's really quick and easy to bake the scrambled eggs with veggies in muffin tins!  
2. I tried baking the bacon, but it took a long time and didn't look as good as hers, so I ended up pan frying the rest.
3. After using my George Foreman grill on these, it occurred that I could cook so many other sandwich-type foods on it.  
4. Also, using aluminum foil on the grill makes clean up time way easier/faster!
5. Presenting your food in a pretty manner is way too time consuming.  Especially when we're just going to eat it and throw the wrapping away.  If I ever do this again, I'll skip the pretty labels.

And here was my end result:

So I'd say this was a complete success!  BUT...in the end, hubs and I grew tired of breakfast sandwiches.  Which means I'll probably not do this again, but it was fun and I learned a few things!

11 Months, 20 Days: Quick Update

I'm still working on some fun posts/ideas for my blog, but since it's been so long I thought I would give you a quick update on what's been going on.  December is just flying by!  Did you know there's only NINE days left until Christmas?  Then only ELEVEN days until my baby turns one.  I can't even call him a baby anymore because he's totally acting like a toddler!  He acts way older than his age, and I can't help but think this will be a trend for the rest of his life.  Did I mention his emotional state is exactly like hubs and mine?  Leif is either super-duper happy or extremely upset.  What a fun little boy.  Here's our past few weeks in photos...

Saturday, December 6

Hubs and Leif in selfie mode.

This is too cute.

Miles ends up all over the couch.  Here he is straddling the top.

We were going to go have a Meet and Greet with this dog sitter we found on Rover.com, but he ended up getting stuck somewhere and couldn't make it at the time we set.  We couldn't do it later because we had planned on getting photos of Leif with Santa!  After a good long nap, we dressed Leif up and hit the closest mall with Santa.  I was relieved to see the line wasn't too long, so we ended up getting some Thai mall food (BAD idea...it was gross and we couldn't eat all of it), then off to see Santa.  They have the kids take a quick photo in front of a winter backdrop, but since Leif would squirm and not sit still we took a little family photo...

Not too bad.  So then Santa time.  It went the way I thought it would.  He looked up at this big bearded guy and started freaking out.  They took a photo of him looking up and not crying which I was looking forward to.  The line to buy the photos was of course longer than the line to take the photo.  Once we got to the front...they informed us THEY LOST THE SANTA PHOTOS.  They had the family photo, but not of Leif!  So back up we went to take another crack at Santa.  And it went exactly how we thought it would again.  The result:

We were actually kind of happy with this since it's a good memory to capture-we will look back and laugh at this.  We already are laughing at it.  :)  But isn't he still a cute kid while crying?  BTW-this Santa was terrible.  I watched him with another kid who was having an epic meltdown, and he totally broke character and gave the kid a "WTF??" look.  Bad Santa!

The week went by fast after that...I threw our first Christmas Party at work and that was a success!  Wish I took some photos.  It was a great spread and students arrived right at noon.  Then the weekend came and...

Saturday, December 13

We felt bad for Miles as he doesn't get out very much.  So after we picked up Leif's Christmas present from UPS (Nana shipped it but forgot to include our house/space number), we stopped by the large dog park in Van Nuys.  This was by far the weirdest visit as we had a dog owner confront us about bringing Leif to the park.  He mentioned something about standing right in front of Leif and his stroller in case something happened, but we were right next to him and said he was going to be fine (a couple dogs gave Leif lots of kisses which we didn't see a problem with)...but then he started mumbling about it being a dog park and he was sarcastic about how our baby was more important than the dogs at the dog park.  Um, YES, our baby is more important than the dogs.  Sorry people who think their dogs who are their babies...but our view is that humans, especially babies, take precedent over your dog.  We know it's a dog park, and we were in the side where the "timid" dogs play (there are three different fenced off areas).  The rule is-don't bring your dog if you think it's going to attack other dogs/people, right?  That's just common sense!

So the guy then left with his little Boston Terrier.  Matt's impression was that the guy was afraid his dog was going to start something with Leif or start something with other dogs in front of Leif...I just thought the guy was off his rocker thinking we wouldn't stop a dog from harming our kid.  It just left a bad taste in our mouth-what do you think?  Were we in the wrong for bringing our baby to the dog park?  There were other little kids running around and playing/petting the dogs; were their parents in the wrong?

Before we left we had an interesting encounter with a super friendly dog who loved kids...

This German Shepherd apparently loved kids so much that she would only drop her frisbee for Leif, but not for us.  Then she kept sneaking between hubs' legs.  It was hilarious.

No matter how hard Matt would close his legs or move, she made her way between them and patiently waited.

We left in a not-so-good mood and grabbed lunch.  Driving in the Valley can really stress you out and by the time we got home, we didn't want to leave the house.  (I still left later in the evening to do some Christmas shopping, but by then I was a lot more relaxed).

Have I mentioned how we lucked out with an awesome neighbor?  The neighbors to our right keep to themselves, but the neighbors to the left are an old Dutch couple and are so sweet!  So sweet in fact that they brought over some cute hats they picked up for Leif.  I was able to snap an okay photo of him in one-he's so squirmy now!

Sunday, December 14

It was a nice, relaxing day filled with a little last minute Christmas shopping, wrapping presents, and a nice walk with the carrier.  I really enjoy walking with him in this!

Walk around the neighborhood!  This Saturday we're planning our first real hike with the carrier!

Monday, December 15

While I was getting ready for work, hubs snapped this photo:

Santa sweater!

So I'm going to keep you updated on life, but like I mentioned before, I'm working on some different posts and ideas.  Stay tuned!  Hopefully I post before we leave for Washington which is one week from today!!!

Oh before I end this post, some serious news...my cousin Ryan and his wife Brittney flew down to Florida to visit her family when she had to go to the hospital and had an emergency C-Section.  She's doing well, but their baby Oliver (32 weeks old) had to be taken to the NICU in St. Petersberg where he's very sick and in critical condition due to "hydrops fetalis", and according to my cousin, "Hydrops isn’t a disease or injury itself, but rather a term used to describe a collection of symptoms associated with a wide range of possible causes (which are all very difficult to determine). Currently, doctors suspect his body was infected by a virus in utero, and that this would be the primary driver of his hydrops".  My cousin Krystal (sister of Ryan) set up a donation page for Oliver as these hospital bills are expensive and piling up.  Please take a look at it here and if you can offer any assistance it would mean the world to them.

11 Months, 8 Days: Holiday season is in full swing!

I hate starting off with apologies, but I'm sorry for being away for so long!  Whenever it's a major holiday or friends or family visit, my blog entries slow down.  I'm back with lots of fun photos, mainly of our cute little kiddo who is just constantly changing.  Here we go!

Sunday, November 23

Football day!  Our friend Daryl came over to watch lots of football (since we have DirecTV, we have every football game plus the Red Zone).  Our pup absolutely adores Uncle Daryl.

I get so antsy just sitting around at home that I have to always be doing something.  I ended up making spiced carrots for Leif and crockpot beef marinara for stuffed spaghetti squash for dinner; then I cleaned up a lot, did some art projects for Leif's room, and played with Leif (which of course took precedence).

He got a kick out of my headband.  :)

 Later when Leif went down for a nap and after all the football festivities, we broke out Settlers of Catan Star Trek style.  I finally won a game!

Tuesday, November 25

Leif was in a mood when he got home.  Hubs had his first class of the winter semester that night, so I had to manage my little melt-down baby alone.

Look at this sad face!  No, I do not enjoy seeing my son miserable.  But I was trying to take photos for the hubs since he sends his folks a "Leif A Day" photo.  

Sometimes he has his off days, but who doesn't?

Wednesday, November 26

Since our campus calls the day before Thanksgiving a "Reading Day" and no classes are held, my boss gave me the day off.  Woohoo!  It was nice spending the morning with Leif, and when it was time, the hubs tried to get him down for a nap.  Leif was fighting it, and when it got quiet in his room I had to check up on them...

Such a sweet moment.

Later I went and got my hair trimmed as the hubs dropped Leif off at daycare so that we could run a few errands before my folks arrived!  We got some lunch, bought a few things for the house then went grocery shopping for Thanksgiving.  We didn't get home until around 6pm and my folks were waiting for us!  My mom went to work right away on making lumpia, yum yum.

Left over lumpia I get to freeze/cook later on!

Finished products

My pa was put on the cooking station

My mom relaxing/eating filipino food after making lumpia.  Miles is diligently waiting for my mom to drop anything.

Thursday, November 27 - Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving morning arrived early as I had to wake up at my normal work day time to get to Simi Valley for the Thanksgiving 5K race.  Before meeting up with my friends, I dropped off Leif with Grandpa & Lola at their hotel so they could spend some quality time with him.

Chewing on a coffee cup...

My friend/co-worker Michael and his partner Alan picked me up at the hotel and we parked on the other side of the park in case it was crazy where the race started.  The lot was full, but it wasn't as crazy as we expected it to be.  I was glad it started at 8am-if it started any later, I would have been sweating like crazy; nothing beats 80 degree weather on Thanksgiving, am I right?!

Before the race, chipper as can be

And after, tired and sweaty

The course was fairly flat and there weren't too many people running, but it was a hard one for me.  Probably because I haven't been training as much as I should have!  My goals were to 1. Beat my PR and 2. Not stop running.  Well, I think I came in around my PR which isn't bad, AND I ran the whole thing.  So all in all, a good run!  I was definitely feeling it though later, my quads were killing me that evening.

And then I had a serious realization when I was picking Leif up and showing off my new fancy turkey medal...in our previous apartment, I had all my medals and race bibs on a board behind our walk-in closet door.  I'm pretty sure we didn't look there and I did not pack them which left me devastated.  We do still have a few boxes in our bedroom closet I haven't touched since I thought they were wedding boxes, but I honestly do not remember packing them.  This means I left behind my favorite medal-my Stitch medal from the Disney 10K!  :(

We drove back to the house and I arrived around 10am; folks got lost and didn't get there until 11am. Leif was in a bad mood all day-I think because he fell asleep at my folks' hotel room, and slept in the car which isn't the best rest.  He slept for only 40 minutes.  He just was unhappy most of the day...

Frowny face

Sad little guy! But...

He tried some turkey and mashed potatoes and his spirits picked up.

Getting ready to eat, eat, eat!

Later on, Leif's mood turned around and he played with Grandpa a lot.  Grandpa is really good with babies/kids!  I captured them playing in a few videos, it was really cute to hear him giggle so loudly.

Friday, November 28

This sums up Friday morning

 We never learn and we ventured out on Black Friday to THE MALL to meet up with my folks.  I don't know why we did it, but we figured it was a good meeting place. The parking lots were crazy of course, but we put our patient hats on and ended up finding a spot sooner than later since we camped out in one lane.  We hit up Target, walked around and saw the food court was insane, and decided to grab some lunch else where before heading home.  Well, the Thai restaurant we wanted to hit up was closed, so we ended up getting bad Panda Express and taking it home.  Then our folks agreed to watch Leif while the hubs and I went out to a movie-we saw the Hunger Games and both agreed that was a waste of time...the special effects were great, but they should have just combined this one with the last one.  There were too many shots of Katniss looking moody.  It was silly.  My folks had a great time with Leif and then they left right when we got home since their flight was early the next day.  It was nice to see them for a quick visit, and in just a few weeks we'll see them again!

Saturday, November 29


We decided to attempt to take photos of Leif for our Christmas cards this year.  He is constantly fidgeting, and even though the hubs took lots of blurry photos, we got a few good ones.  I won't spoil our Christmas card and put the one up we are using, but here are some really nice ones!

While I was working on Leif's room, hubs was on Leif duty for a little bit and he decided to take photos of him again.  Here's a cute one.  :)

His teeth are changing the way his face looks now!

 And this is what I was working on and didn't finish until yesterday:

Happy Tree!  They stick really well to the wall and peel off just fine.  I'm finally decorating Leif's room!  I'll post the final product soon.

Sunday, November 30

It had rained all night and morning, but I wanted to get out of the house in the morning before football started.  We stopped by the Dollar Tree for a few holiday decorations, and then since we were bored and wanted to stay out, we ended up at the mall right when it opened.  It was so nice-no one was there due to the crazy rain!  After eating an early lunch at the Cheesecake Factory, we did a little bit of shopping...and little being just one item was bought:

The cutest fuzzy hat from Baby Gap!

 I couldn't get enough of the hat...

The Asian in me loves Leif in cute animal clothing/hats.  Or maybe it's just a mom thing.

Monday, December 1

Leif woke up at 3am WIDE AWAKE...It took him almost an hour to go back to sleep and it was rough, but of course when I woke up to get ready for work, he was super passed out.

Hubs took this photo while I was getting ready

This is a long entry, so summing up Monday: it was the same old, same old.

Tuesday, December 2

Nana made this fun sweater for Leif:

An Amazon box had come in the mail, and Leif decided it was a good climbing box.

Wednesday, December 3

Leif learned how to blow some serious raspberries, and of course when I try to take photos of him, he gets shy and stops.  But he was still being quite cute...

So my awesome pal Barbie has a blog herself that she revamped and is inspiring me to rethink my own blog.  As much as I love posting photos of Leif every week, I'd like to organize this a little differently.  So be prepared for some delays and reconstruction, but I'll definitely be back, I'm not going anywhere (except up to Washington for the holidays!)...