Thank You Dollar Store.

Mr. Button had a birthday recently and people came over to the house to celebrate. I am a firm believer in party decorations so I headed out to the dollar store to pick up some matchy matchy things I could throw all over the house. I wanted twilight decorations but they are apparently too expensive for the dollar store to carry. This is a shame because even though he would deny it to his friends, I think an appearance by Edward Cullen's face under a slice of ice cream cake would have really made Mr. Button's day. I settled on some generic sports theme instead because football was upon us and Mr. Button is more likely to admit to his super manly testosterone filled love of sports than the one he has for sparkly vampires. *le sigh*

So these are the decorations I spent $6 on:

Festive little flags

Festive little hanging things

Festive plates, cups & napkins.

Festive birthday wishes.

Wait. look at that again. Apparently at the dollar store you get what you paid for. HAPPA BIRTHDAY!!


Also no birthday at my house would be complete without an obnoxiously gigantic balloon.

Do you have any dorky birthday musts? Is it weird that the birthday sign was up for hours before someone noticed the misspelling?

Epic Noms

I'm pretty sure this recipe is Katie's claim to fame. Everyone makes it and everyone loves it! I've made it a few times now so I've tweaked it a bit which is why I'm going to post my version of the recipe.

Mustard Baked Chicken

Ingredients:
12 chicken tenders, skin and visible fat removed
1 box tri colored rotini
9 tbsp Promise Light spread (or other lowfat margarine/butter), melted
9 tbsp Dijon mustard
4 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
11/4 tbsp Brown Sugar
1 tsp paprika
Poppyseeds
Olive oil
Olive oil cooking spray
Fresh ground sea salt
Fresh ground black pepper
1 green pepper
1 tomato
1 squash
 
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Spray bottom of 9x13 glass baking dish with olive oil cooking spray and set aside.

2. Chop up green pepper, tomato & squash, place in large frying pan or wok

3. In a small mixing bowl, mix margarine, mustard, lemon juice, Splenda, and paprika until mixture is smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste and mix.

4. Place chicken breasts in baking dish and brush marinade generously on top of each breast with a brush. Set aside marinade. Bake for 15 minutes at 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

5. While chicken is baking add a olive oil and lemon juice to vegetable and turn heat to high cook the vegetables until they reach the desired texture.

4. After 15 minutes, remove dish from oven and flip chicken breasts. Brush other side generously with marinade and sprinkle each breast with poppyseeds. Set aside remaining marinade. Return to oven and bake for 15 more minutes.

5. Bring a pot of water seasoned with olive oil and sea salt to a boil. Add pasta and cook until al dente. Remove from heat and drain.

Add pasta to the wok with vegetables.

Pour remaining marinade into to pasta/veggie mixture.

When chicken is finished baking remove it from the oven and cut up. Add wok and toss.

Cook on medium for a few minutes.
Enjoy!

YUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUM!

Mmmmm Smoothies aka how I almost died.

I hope your holiday weekend was filled with less peril than mine was. Not to say my weekend wasn't lovely. Tons of great stuff happened, the weather was beautiful, Notre Dame won their first game, Jimmie Johnson had a top 5 finish, Mr. Button had a birthday and I won a poker game.

The problem was Sunday morning when I went to make myself a smoothie. The best part about smoothies isn't that I can make them in any yummy flavor my little button heart desires, but that I get to use my magic bullet while I do so. If you're unfamiliar with the product you fail an infomercials and I'm not sure I want you reading my blog or being my friend. Harsh? Maybe, but watch the infomercial and tell me that you're honestly not ashamed to have been missing out for all these years. I really do love it, it's magic and works almost as well as they say it does. I have no complaints and use it whenever I can. It's awesome for smoothies because I can blend them right in the cup I drink them from! Ok, I'm done trying to sell it to you, just go buy it yourself.

Anyway, It was like ever other day, I got out the bullet, measured out cup of water, two scoops of button's mystery smoothie powder & headed to the freezer for my frozen fruit. I selected the stop & shop brand mixed fruit that contained pineapple, strawberry, peaches & mangos because it's my new favorite. The bag was almost empty so I dumped it into the cup, added the powder, water screwed on the top and started to blend it.

A few seconds later the cup seemed to explode! Suddenly everything, even me seemed to be covered in smoothie and when I stopped freaking out I noticed something very strange on the counter next to the magic bullet a chunk of metal, that my friend later said had to be a piece from a tension rod.

It's a pretty heavy chunk of metal and for that I am glad because if it was lighter it would have traveled farther and if the path of the smoothie was any indication hit me directly in the stomach. Which according to my friend would have really made it a magic bullet. (hardy har har)

Here you can see the fruit I will never feel safe buying again, the damaged cup and the offending piece of metal. Pretty freaky, eh?

Unfortunately my, so I've been told, rather pricey purse was a casuality of smoothie spraying all over my kitchen and since it was a gift from Mr. Button's mom I'm pretty bummed about it.


So I must know, does anyone else have any experiences like this? What would you do if it happened to you?

Let's spice it up!

Slow-Cooker Salsa Chicken

I decided to go a little bit healthier for a change, I got this recipe on spark and altered it a little. 

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 cup salsa (I prefer newmans b/c it has the least amount of sodium)
1/2 package reduced sodium taco seasoning
1 can reduced fat cream of chicken soup
1/2 cup reduced fat sour cream (fat free doesn't have enough flavor)
1 can pinto beans

Cut up chicken and add to slow cooker.
Pour salsa & sprinkle taco seasoning over chicken.

Pour beans and soup over chicken.

Cook on low for 6 to 8 hours.

Remove from heat and add sour cream.

Mix it together.

Serve over rice and enjoy! I absolutely loved this and the fact that it's not god awful for you is a huge bonus.

Friday's Five: Squirrel Edition

As a light-hearted finale to our first squirrel week I'd like to bring you the top five famous squirrels!

Hokey Smoke! It's Frostbite Falls favorite flying fella! Rocket J. Squirrel, known to the rest of us as Rocky. You may remember that he palled around with a bumbling moose known as Bullwinkle. Rocky was clearly the brains of the operation though that isn't saying much since he still fell for Boris & Natasha's really lame disguises.

Step back Austin Powers, your idea to parody James Bond wasn't so original. Greetings Agent 000. Here's someone you may remember from way back in the 60's. So popular that he actually appeared on 3 television shows, the final one airing in 1994 as well as a multitude of cameos. He palled around with Morocco Mole and his legendary trench coat and hat were storage to some of the greatest spy gadgets of our time.

Now who doesn't love a crabby old squirrel who liked toting explosives and smacking people with her handbag? The only bad thing about Slappy Squirrel who had a stint on the Animaniacs was her disgustingly chipper nephew Skippy. Unfortunately, being in a children's cartoon and all she was never able to successfully blow him smitherines.

I present to you Twiggy the water skiing squirrel, I don't care who you are this is impressive, I can't even water ski. Twiggy is actually several gay squirrels trained in succession which I find comforting because the thought of one squirrel water skiing since 1979 would completely blow my mind. You'll be happy to know that the retired Twiggy's live out their days as family pets and do not make it into anyones kitchen.

And now something for the younger crowd or maybe not because apparently this show is more than 10 years old. This is Sandy Cheeks, she's a transplanted Texan who currently lives in Bikini Bottom, home of the infamous SpongeBob SquarePants. Apparently she's a scientific genius which may explain the space suit that allowed a squirrel to survive at the bottom of the ocean.

I hope you enjoyed squirrel week! I hope to do it again next year!

Still tastes like chicken!

Frying Pan to Crockpot Squirrel

4 Squirrels (3/4 lb chicken for the faint of heart)

Flour

Cooking oil

Salt and pepper

½ medium onion, chopped

4 oz mushrooms, sliced

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 cup sour cream

1 cup water

Boil squirrels for 1 hour

Cut them into serving size pieces

Salt and pepper each piece then roll into flour

Heat cooking oil in a large frying pan and brown the squirrels

Put squirrel pieces into a crock pot

Add soup, water, onions and mushrooms

Turn the Crockpot to high for a half hour

Turn to low heat add sour cream and cook for six hours

Gravy can be thinned with water or thickened w/flour as needed.
Serve over ice and enjoy!

I really enjoyed this one and plan on making it again with chicken soon. Come back tomorrow for the conclusion of squirrel week!

The Hunt Begins

Today is opening day of squirrel season. Yay!

Everyone seems really surprised to find out that there's even a season for them at all so I thought I'd take the opportunity to enlighten my readers.

Connecticut has three squirrel season a year for 2010 they are Jan 1 - Feb 27, Sep 1 - Sep 30, Oct 16 - Dec 31. You need to obtain a license to hunt small game and once you have the hours are from 1/2 hr before sunrise - 1/2 hour after sunset. Hunting on Sundays are not allowed. 

It is prohibited to hunt with, shoot, or carry a loaded firearm within 500 feet of any building occupied by people or domestic animals, or used for storage of flammable material, or within 250 feet of such buildings when waterfowl hunting in tidal areas from land shooting positions or from floating blinds anchored adjacent to land or from rock positions, unless written permission for lesser distances is obtained from the owner and carried. Landowners, their spouse, and lineal descendants are exempt from this restriction, providing any building involved is their own. The 500 foot zone does not apply to bowhunting.

If you can hit a squirrel with an arrow I'm going to bake you a cake.

And for those of you who are worried about safety these are the rules that need to be followed.

During the period September 1 through the last day of February, hunters (including persons hunting with deer damage permits) are required to wear at least 400 square inches of fluorescent orange clothing above the waist and visible from all sides. An orange hat, in addition to a coat or vest, is strongly recommended.


You can take up to 40 squirrels a season, but you're limited to only 8 a day. According to Duddits hunting squirrels isn't as easy as you would think, some years he hasn't gotten any at all and estimates that he's only gotten 30 since he started hunting them. He claims that the number being that low is somewhat intentional because they're a pain in the ass to cook.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the first time Duddit's got a squirrel so I decided to retell his story to the best of my ability.

Let's set the scene, Duddits was 8 years old, in the woods behind his grandfather's house with his father toting a .22 Chipmunk rifle that looks like this:

Duddits: "I can remember the 1st kill like it was yesterday. It was the afternoon and I started shaking uncontrollably when the squirrel was approaching and I knew I would get a shot at it. I remember everything about shooting it. I was sitting next to a downed tree, he came up another tree that had fallen against a tree. I shot him  and he fell over on the tree. After a minute he got up and started running. My dad used his shot gun and shot it off the tree. My shaking got worse as I ran up to it and then I started laughing and suddenly couldn't shut up. My Dad told me to wait a minute to make sure it was dead and then I picked it up. I carried it by its tail back to the porch wher I still coudln't sit still or shut up. My grandfather, Beep, was excited that I'd gotten my first kill and my grandmother, Meem, pretended to be happy for me."

Since the squirrels are killed for food tomorrow we'll have another recipe to share.