We're getting crazy up in here

It's Saturday night...

It's cold. (yes my phone is shattered...I dropped it 28 days after I got it and I am too addicted to Angry Birds to go back to my Blackberry)

This kid is out with her friends...her big sister is at work. In other words we have the house to ourselves.

It's already looking like a party, right?

I just made myself my newest favorite thing to eat...I like to call it "fancy pizza". It's real good. I don't use sauce, I use this stuff instead-

That's what makes it fancy. Then I pile on diced tomatoes, mushrooms, sometimes when I am feeling real fancy I add artichoke hearts, red pepper flakes and lots of mozzarella

I said 'lots' right?

The thin crust that I use is also what makes it 'fancy'. I also have a super fancy dessert planned-

I am really a simple girl. I say 'fancy' I really mean boxed cake that you can buy at the Wal-Mart for a buck seventy. After dinner, but before dessert we are going to watch this-

Oops...I forgot to flip the picture. It's okay, you get the idea right? I guess at this point you realize the movie selection was mine...I can't imagine my husband's position from that last picture is going to change too much so I should be just fine.

Hope y'all are having a roof raising time like we are!

Chicken Love

Y'all here is the deal, I had no idea that when we moved to South Carolina it was going to be like the chicken capital of the world...we are inundated with awesome chicken places...we have Zaxby's, Chick fil A, Bojangles, and then of course your regular old KFC and Long John Silvers. Zaxby's is my fave. I just love their chicken it is just delish. The deal with all of this is since we moved here we have been on a budget and we are not eating out very often at all. In spite of the budget I kept finding myself craving chicken strips. So I set out to master them...and I kind of have! (not one to brag, they are pretty good though). I have made them several times and a few times my husband has said 'why don't you take pictures of this so you can write a blog post about them, they are so good' well tonight I did just that.

Ingredients
1 bag frozen boneless, skinless chicken breast tenderloins
quart of buttermilk
2 tsp. hot sauce
2 1/2 cups flour
all purpose seasoning of your choice
salt and pepper

Here is the first trick. You have to soak the chicken tenders in buttermilk and hot sauce for about 2 or 3 hours. You can put them in the bag still frozen and then leave them in the sink or put them back in the fridge if you are going to soak them for longer.

I just took this picture so you could see the seasonings I chose to use. I like the strips to have a little spice to them but not too much so if you want them a little spicier you can add more hot sauce to the buttermilk or more spicy seasonings to the flour.

This picture is so you can see the ratio of spices to flour I used. I think I used about a TBSP of the creole stuff and about a tsp of each of the others.

Next you are going to dredge each of the strips individually in the flour mixture and then lay them one at a time on a cookie sheet covered with wax paper. This is the other tip that is very important. You need to let the chicken sit with the coating on them for a little bit until the flour mixture starts to look like a paste. If you aren't sure what I mean, I took a picture...

Do you see how the tenders look like they are kind of 'wet', that doesn't happen until they have been sitting there for a few minutes. In other words don't get ahead of yourself and just take the strip from the flour to the fryer, which is exactly what I used to do and then all the breading fell off.
I don't deep fry mine, mainly cause I do not own a deep fryer, so I just shallow fry them in a big frying pan, like this-

See how you can still see the tops of the tenders coming out of the oil? I fill the pan with about a 1/2" of oil. Fry them for about 5 minutes on each side.

Here they are all finished...and yes, that is homemade ranch dipping sauce to go with them.
So y'all are going to get a little bonus here. I have been trying to get my family to like homemade macaroni and cheese for years. They are ridiculous. I mean who in the world doesn't love homemade mac and cheese, right? Well here in the south mac and cheese is not a main course, it's a side dish, and you really shouldn't serve fried chicken without mac and cheese...so I made some and I took a few pictures.

First, I have learned that one of the tricks to good mac and cheese is good cheese. I used these three cheeses as a combo, the Gruyere is a good melting cheese so I like to add it. I didn't use all the mozzarella, only about half of that block.
First I made the roux, which is 3 tbsp of butter and 3 tbsp of Wondra flour, mixed them together with a whisk and then added about a pint of whole milk, then added all of the cheeses and mixed them until they were smooth and creamy. Oh wait, I left out about a cup of the grated cheese to top the pasta with. Here is what it looked like before it went in the oven.

I baked it at 375 for about 30 minutes, which was exactly how long it took me to fry the chicken, I love when things work out like that. To balance out this meal a little tiny bit I added fresh, steamed broccoli. Here is a picture of my husband's serving.

I had to clarify that so that y'all didn't think I had eaten all that! It was all super yummy and the family loved it, even the mac and cheese.
Well that is about all I have to share today. Tomorrow you can go over to my other blog So They Will Always Remember and read a post that is super important to me and read why tomorrow is a very special day to me. For now, I need to go watch the X Factor...I am hooked on that show!

Happy.

Y'all, I am just a happy southern girl. Things are just going real good right now. It's Christmas time, my decorations have been up for over a week, I have bought a couple gifts, I have made some awesome friends here in South Carolina, AND my etsy business has been doing really well. Life is good.

Over the weekend we went to my friend Heather's house for some yummy taco soup an for a few games of Mexican Dominoes. That was so awesome. I love that living here has been so much easier for us, I love that we have made so many friends and feel at home here. Especially this time of year it is important and it means so much to me.

Now about my etsy store, I have been selling on etsy for about 8 months. Some months are better than others for sure and in the beginning I was completely reliant on facebook for marketing and spreading the word and all of my sales were to facebook friends who were so unbelievably supportive. Now I have broadened my horizons and am selling to all kinds of folks. :)
Here is the thing, I am not selling 10 things or 20 things a day on etsy, I wish I was, but I am not, I am however selling about one thing a day and sometimes 4 or 5 things a day, and that? is super cool. Etsy isn't going to make me rich, it's not even paying a bill. It will pay for a few Christmas presents and that makes me really happy. I also love when I send things out to all these different states and think 'wow, something I created is going to hang in the house of someone I never met, will never meet in another state', well that is just crazy!

Here are a few things that I have listed lately.

I made one similar to this to hang on my own front door and then I decided to make one to list too. I figured a little subtle hint to the jolly guy wouldn't hurt, right?

Then I listed a couple new clipboards, I have about half a dozen more coming tomorrow. They have been selling really well. Especially as teacher gifts.

So with all of this Christmas stuff coming up I have been thinking about all the friends and family we left back in California. Thinking about all the holidays we spent with them. Growing up Christmas Eve was a big holiday in my house. I am Italian and it's a cultural thing. We do Christmas Eve up real big and then Christmas day is just more about the immediate family. When my family kept dwindling and more and more people were passing away it made me sad to think that my kids weren't going to have that tradition and those memories like I did. I don't remember what year we started doing it, but we started inviting all of our friends over for Christmas Eve. A makeshift family. A new tradition was born. It was awesome. I would cook, I would make lots of food, meatballs, stuffed shells or lasagna, salad, tons of appetizers and desserts. It was the best day of the year for me. I would be stressed and some years were definitely better than others. But no matter how I felt every single year my kids LOVED that day. It began to be as important to them as my big family holiday was to me as a kid. I knew we had succeeded in creating a new tradition.

A picture of Christmas past...such  great memories.

So now here we are, in South Carolina. Which of course is way too far from California for all 25 people that used to come over to come out and celebrate with us. It's a little difficult. It will be a little easier of course because my in laws now live here so that is great. My friends will still miss the party though. They love a good party. We are going to have to figure out a new tradition. It might not be the same, and it is going to take a while to get used to whatever it will be but we will do it. We are a strong family and we are looking forward to seeing where this new holiday season will take us.

Caution...you could gain weight just by reading this post...

Are you pinning yet? I am sure you are. It seems like everyone I know is at least aware of Pinterest at this point. It really is a wonderful website. Every once in a while, like once a week I go on a pinning frenzy and just find all kinds of projects, recipe, entertaining ideas, cute things...I mean you name it, it's on there. Tonight for dinner I made a recipe that I pinned a while back. It was actually the second time I made it but this time I wanted to share it. It originally came from this blog. It is really good, really super fattening and doesn't have a whole lot of nutritional value.

I mean my goodness, look at those ingredients! If it wasn't for the two vegetables in the picture it would be an artery clogger for sure.

Which, if I am being honest doesn't really concern me all that much. I am not one to not try something if it seems to have a lot of calories, if it looks good and looks like something my family will eat-I will make it. Tonight I decided I would add a little more nutritional value to the dish though by adding broccoli and mushrooms to it. It makes a tremendous amount of food so I make two casserole dishes of it, one with just chicken and one with the veggies added to it.
The other thing that I always do when I have a recipe that just calls for 'cooked chicken' I make sure I pound the chicken and marinate it. For some reason plain, boiled or cooked chicken has always grossed me out. I like my chicken to have a lot of seasoning, I know there probably isn't anything less appetizing than raw chicken but I want you to see how much Italian dressing and seasoning I put on the chicken so here you go-

Other than those two things I followed the recipe. Like I said it makes a lot of food so you could even use this for entertaining. I love when I find recipes that our entertaining worthy!

There they are all ready to go in the oven....

Yum! Don't they look just cheesy and delicious?

Well there you have it. My dinner tonight.

Oh, I forgot to fill you in on my day...(cause I am sure you were wondering...lol). I met my friend Heather at Hobby Lobby and we walked around for quite a while, found a few things and then we headed over to my house. It was nice just hanging out with a friend during the week, during the day. I spend so much time by myself during the week that I just love when someone is available to hang out during a weekday. If you haven't ever visited Heather's blog you should go now. She is just as beautiful inside as she is out. She has a darling family and is real creative. Oh and she's a real southern girl. I just love that. She just has the most wonderful southern accent too!

Oh and I am looking for new blogs to read/follow. I need to expand my horizons. If you are here and you have a blog please leave a comment and I will come check you out and follow you. Also if you could leave the name of your favorite blog or two that would be great!

Bring on the holidays...we're ready.

I can't believe our 5 day weekend is over. It went so quickly. We had such a nice Thanksgiving in North Carolina with my husband's extended family. It is so awesome to see our kids together and to know that even though we are so far from 'home' we still have family close. This year the holidays are going to be much easier than last year. Our first holiday season last year being 3,000 miles away from family and friends was a little tough.

I couldn't believe how much I enjoyed 'Thanksgiving' food this year. I couldn't wait to come back home and try my hand at cooking it again. It had been a couple years so I was for sure a little rusty, plus, as I said before it's not my favorite meal to cook. Yesterday morning I gathered all my supplies and just had at it.
I decided early on that if I was going to attempt this meal that has been my nemesis for so long I was going to keep it real simple. In the past I have gotten too caught up in whatever the hippest, trendiest recipes are, trying to keep up with the Food Network's chef's...whatever, I am o.v.e.r. that. Now it is time to get down to the nitty gritty...green bean casserole (recipe from the back of the onions, not the 'new' version by some fancy TV chef), dressing (or stuffing, whatever you wanna call it) without any fancy nuts or fruits or anything, just the simple stuff, fried okra and the turkey. My in-laws were bringing the mashed potatoes and gravy along with the biscuits.




there I am preppin away




Well everything seemed to be going real good. I got the bird on, the house was smelling great (oh and btw for the turkey I consulted butterball.com and went totally old school) and I was real thrilled with how it was all coming along. My husband brought in the two tons of Christmas decorations that we have hoarded kept for the last 17 years or so and I got my decorating on. (pictures to follow, I need to finish this turkey story first). Five hours later, I had made the two casseroles, my in-laws arrived and it was time to pull ole' Tom out of the oven....oh wait, I forgot to give you this tip, which you may already know about, did you know that the EXACT same size turkey, the EXACT same brand is like half the price if you buy it frozen? I had no idea. Back in California I was always under the impression that we were the Rockefeller's and I bought the expensive 'distel' turkey and ordered it from the expensive grocery story where the real Rockefeller's shopped...well y'all we learned our lesson and this year I bought a $15.00, 16 pound turkey. The same size turkey, also Butterball brand but 'fresh' was $35.00. Shoot y'all I felt like I was extreme couponin' I was looking for the camera crew! Okay, back to the story, so we pull that bird out of the oven and it was real pretty. All brown and fabulous looking and I knew right away that I had finally nailed it. Then I saw it. Red. Red 'juice' coming from that dumb turkey. I was so mad. After five hours and following those directions from the website that darn bird still wasn't cooked. ugh. In stepped my father in law (do you hear the angels singing) and he went at that bird like he was a trained professional. He tore that thing up into pieces and cut out the back bone and 'butterflied' him and put it back in the oven for another hour and...VOILA! we had an amazing dinner. It was just delish!


After dinner was cleaned up my youngest wanted to start making gingerbread houses. This year I was smart and bought the pre-assembled version. What a difference! Getting that roof to stay on is half the battle. This time all we had to do was make it look pretty.



Here we are getting our building on

Here are the houses complete, mine is the one with the white roof, Gianna got all fancy with her roof....showoff.

We had so much fun making these bad boys. I might have to head to the Wal Mart and buy a couple more next week and we can do it again. This time we will do it when Allison is home so she can make one too.

I mentioned before that we had alot of Christmas decor. I think we have so much because our house in California had a much bigger downstairs than this house so when we bought that house I added to my Christmas collection by quite a bit. I love all of it. I have gotten rid of some stuff over the years but the stuff I have left I just love. Here are a few pictures of our two trees and all the other random stuff around the house.

I love these cookie jars

The main tree

A close up of some of the ornaments on the main tree

The kitchen tree.

He is one of my very favorite pieces. I just love him.

So in case you haven't noticed, I kind of have a theme. Snowmen. I have tried to venture away from the theme a little bit lately but I have been collecting them for quite a while so they have accumulated. My main tree has the snowman theme going but the kitchen tree is lime green and red. I am not the kind of mom who puts handmade ornaments on my tree. I know this isn't really all that nice, I know that I sound a little "Mommy Dearest" but do.not.mess.with.the.decor. for reals. I am totally aware of my neurotic tendencies and have no problem admitting it. I have kept the stuff my kids make, I just don't put them on the trees. Whatever. Don't judge.

Well I hope you have enjoyed the little peek into my home. I am looking forward to sharing the rest of our holiday season with you.

Giving Thanks

It is the night before Thanksgiving and I don't have one thing that I need to do. What a good feeling. I just love it when we are lucky enough to be invited to someone else's house for Thanksgiving. It is a meal that I do not really enjoy cooking all that much. I love to cook but for some reason the traditional Thanksgiving meal is not fun for me.
Tomorrow we will be driving to North Carolina (about two hours from us) to Chris's cousin's house. We had them at our house last month for a family birthday party and they had us for Easter. It is just great getting to spend time with part of Chris's family that we lived so far from for so many years. His cousin Sue has 5 kids and when her kids and our kids get together it is just as fun as can be.

For the last 24 days I have been posting one thing I am thankful for every day on facebook. I think I could do this for at least another month and not run out of things. I still haven't even gotten to my kids and husband yet! I think with everything we have been through in the last two years I realize now more than ever how many things I have to be thankful for.
Right now I am super thankful that the kids get a 5 day weekend. Woo hoo! Shoot, that means no driving! So happy about that.

I have been real busy lately making and listing new items on my etsy site. Here are a few of the clipboards I have made-

I just love the way these came out. I am loving the papers I have found online lately. I also listed a new sign and about 11 other signs. I have been busy! If you haven't been over to my etsy store, here it is.

Well I need to get busy go get back on Pinterest and facebook since I don't have any cooking, baking or cleaning to worry about. Happy Thanksgiving y'all!

"We were on a break"

The famous line from 'Friends' uttered time an time again from Ross Geller as he kept defending himself to Rachel Green have been ringing in my head tonight about this blog. I just had to break up with it for a while, and even now I am not sure if we are back together for good. I am here now and I am writing and that is all that matters, right?

I had to sit down and write tonight because today is my one year anniversary from when I left the only state I had ever lived in, California. I didn't leave by myself of course, my whole family left. My husband, my two girls and me. Took a leap of faith and packed everything we owned and moved all the way to Virginia. I remember at the time I kept looking at maps of the US and thinking 'oh.my.gosh. that is so far'. I didn't know how I would do being that far from all my friends and family. I will be honest, in the beginning it was just awful. There were times when it was good, days when we would wake up and think 'ok, we can make this work' but most days were just downright depressing. We left California because we had virtually lost everything we owned. We were the epitome of victims of the recession. We needed a new start and we figured we might as well try VA. Turns out Virginia might be for lovers, but it ain't for us. We are not Virginians. The good news is we left there and high tailed it down south to South Carolina. Well y'all who knew I was such a southerner at heart. This place is just wonderful. This is not to say that living here has solved our problems, that we are back on the financial fast track...we're not. But what this move has done for us has been so much better than that. It has brought us so close. We are so connected as a family. When you move somewhere new it takes a while to make friends, not just for the kids but for us adults too...so consequently we have spent all of our time together, as a family. It has been priceless. Everything we have been through has been humbling, and at times humiliating but it has made us a strong family. Stronger than we ever knew we could be.

Some days I wake up and miss California so bad I can taste it. For 41 years it was all I knew. I was and still am a very proud California girl. It's a beautiful state, it's full of promise, glitz, glamour and all the things you see on TV. It is a great place to grow up. It is a liberal state where you are taught to be politically correct so as not to offend anyone, you are taught tolerance of others that are different than you and people work very hard to maintain  their chosen lifestyle. All of those things can be wonderful. All of those things made me who I am. Both of my parents were born and raised in California. My roots run deep. I will never bad mouth the state where I am from, it's a part of me. I will say that living in the south has given me so many new perspectives. Here people are honest and tell you like it is, yet somehow they are still warm and friendly and manage not to be offensive (that's why they add things like 'bless your heart' or 'darlin' after everything they say, it just sounds nicer) They stand up for what they believe in, not worrying about who it may offend. They are steadfast in their beliefs and this is the bible belt. They believe in God and his will. They do for each other at every chance they get. They are proud to be southern, even if that means being poked fun at times. They aren't worried about what kind of car they drive or what kind of handbag they carry. Their door is always open and they will welcome you with open arms. This isn't 'home', California will always be home. But this? Well it's the best place for us right now. It is exactly what we needed and it is where I want to finish raising my kids. I want them to have a little bit of California and a little bit of South Carolina. I want them to have the best of both worlds and I do believe they are getting just that.

This post is a little heavier than I usually write on this blog, it's more of a 'so they will always remember' post but it was just how I was feeling tonight. I will get back to regularly scheduled programming next time. I will start blogging again and sharing my southern life, after all it IS what inspires me.



 Thanks for reading y'all.