2nd Layout of 2011: Gingerbread House

New Recipe Challenge #4: Lemon Chicken Soup

Recipe #4: Lemon Chicken Soup (from Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade Complete Cookbook)

Difficulty: Low The hardest part is making sure to whisk the soup contiunually for about 5 minutes after you introduce the egg yolk/broth mixture to avoid curdling

Rating: Fair I have made Avgolemono (Egg Lemon) soup before, just not with this recipe that uses chicken broth and canned chicken and rice soup for the base. I prefer to use orzo noodles instead of the rice and I did add extra lemon juice to the stock and squeezed more fresh juice on my bowl.

Nik had some of the soup and liked it, so I think I will make a different recipe (with orzo) soon.

1st Layout of 2011: Winter Wonderland

I went to Archivers last night and got to create my first layouts of the new year. I will be posting them in the coming days. Here is the first with photos taken at the Winter Wonderland at Nik's school.

OWH sketch 53: Butterfly birthday card

This one is going in the mail tomorrow for my sister-in-laws birthday on Tuesday.

OWH sketch 34-If friends were flowers...

OWH sketch 52: Fly High, as the sky!

Playing with my new {Stamps}of Life stamps set, Butterfly2build.

New Recipe Challenge: Recipe #3

Recipe #3:Southwestern Turkey Chili and Corn Bread (from Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade Complete Cookbook)

Difficulty: Low

Rating: Need a Redo on the Chili Since I couldn't find spicy black beans at my grocery store and grabbed regular stewed tomatoes instead of the mexican style, I was forced to spice up the dish myself. I added all purpose spice mix, garlic salt and onion powder, which worked OK, but was not as the recipe was intended. I thought the cornbread was excellent, but Gary thought it was too crumbly and watery.

First OWH card of the year!

After a short break to work on cards for church, I am starting to create cards for Operation Write Home again. Here is the first, based on this week's sketch:





{Stamps} of Life stamps

New Recipe Challenge: Recipe #2

Recipe #2: Beef and Mushroom Hot Pot (from Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade Complete Cookbook)

Difficulty: Low Made in the crock pot--just had to combine all the ingredients in pot.

Rating: 2 Probably won't make again because I have other recipes using stew meat that we like better.

New Recipe Challenge: Recipe #1

Recipe #1: Chex Muddy Buddies (off the back of the cereal box)

Difficulty: low (Thanks to my new microwave safe bowls, melting the chocolate/peanut butter was easy)

Rating (1-5): 5 This was so good, I am going to be tempted to make it again and again.

2011 Resolutions

So I have decided to focus on these 4 resolutions this year:

1. Exercise three times a week/Lose 20 pounds In 2010, I kept track of my weigh and at one point had lost 7 pounds. The last time I weighed myself in 2010, I was just about the same weight I was at the beginning of 2010. I will need to be a little more motivated to do better this year especially in the second half.

2. Create 260 scrapbooking layouts My goal in 2010 was 280 and I was 80 layouts short. I had an increase of 60 layout from 2009 to 2010, so that is how I came up with the goal number for this year.

3. Make at least one new recipe each month Trying to add some variety to the dinner table, I will be focusing mostly on supper entrees. I have already dog-eared a bunch of recipes from the Semi-Homemade cookbook I received for Christmas.

4. Host a Operation Write Home card making eventOne of the highlights of 2010, was being introduced to this great organization that makes cards for deployed troops to send home to family and friends. Besides continuing to make cards for OWH, I want to organize an event to create even more cards to send.

Project 52-Week 52: Ringing in the New Year

I am so surprised that I actually completed this project. It was a fun experience, but I don't think I will be doing it again for 2011.