Chicken Pot Pie

So I have been asked to post my recipe for chicken pot pie. Not by millions of people...just Jennifer :) So I thought I'd humor her. If ya don't feel like looking at pictures of food, there's a couple super cute pictures of Eli at the end :)

Start off by peeling and dicing 2 cups of potatoes (one large) and 1 & 3/4 cups sliced carrots.

Put them in a large saucepan, cover them with water. Bring it to a boil, then reduce heat, cover and let it simmer for about 10-15 minutes-until they are crisp-tender. Drain and set aside.

Chop 2/3 cup onion (LOVE my chopper, mom!) and cube 1 cup (yes...and ENTIRE CUP) of butter. (I NEVER claimed that this was low fat)

In a large (VERY large...ya gotta fit a lot of stuff in it) skillet, saute onion in butter until tender.

Stir in 1 cup flour, 1 & 3/4 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon dried thyme and 3/4 teaspoon pepper until blended.

It should look like this...

Gradually stir in 3 cups of chicken broth and 1 1/2 cups of milk. Bring this to a boil. Cook, and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened.

Add 1 cup of frozen corn, 1 cup of frozen peas (sorry mom...)...

4 cups cubed cooked chicken

and the potatoes and carrots. Remove from heat.

Line two 9-inch pie plates with bottom pie pastry (OR, buy the pre-made on in the freezer section at Publix...or the grocery store of your choice...I've made the crust before...once...never again...) Fill the pastry shells with chicken mixture. Roll out remaining pastry (or again, buy the pre-made ones...) cut fun little decorations in the top and place over filling...trim, seal, and make the edges look pretty.

At this point you will have TWO pies that are yummy....

...and just BEGGING to be eaten...

I recommend baking them at 425 for 35-40 minutes first, though...

Once the crust is lightly browned, take it out of the oven and let it stand for 15 minutes...if you can. Edgar had eaten one of the 'M's' off shortly after it was taken out...

The nice thing about this recipe is that it has one to freeze...so some day when you don't feel like making dinner, you can just pull it out of the freezer...you just need to shield the frozen pie crust edges with foil and bake at 425 for 30 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 and bake 70-80 minutes longer or until crust is golden brown. Takes a while when it's frozen, but it's worth it to not have to do ALL this work all over again :)

OR, you can bribe your sister-in-law with it hoping she'll keep watching your son while you teach :) HA! I joked with Edgar that I was going to pay her in chicken pot pies :)

It's not a terribly hard recipe, but it seems to take some time...and makes a zillion dishes. Can't wait to move into a house with a dishwasher.

Oh...and one other thing you might want to make sure of...make sure your 9 (almost 10) month old is going to take a super long nap. Eli slept for 2 1/2 hours (YAY!) so I was able to make this and sneak a little nap :)

When he woke up he had crazy bed head...so enjoy the pictures of his crazy, sweaty hair...

Did somebody say Chicken Pot Pie?!

YAY! I can't wait to try it!

And try it he did :) He loved it. Big surprise...

Fun with Friends

Today Eli and I headed to the mall to meet up with some friends from church. We had fun playing in the play area for a bit, and then went shopping. Eli got a new shirt and some shoes. All the shoes I have, and not ONE pair fit him! I have a ton of size 2, and a ton of size 4, but no 3's...now I have a size 3 though :) He really doesn't need them, but I thought one pair of 'church shoes' was called for :)

Anyway...here's some pictures from our excursion.

Olivia is the mover of the group-the only one that has mastered crawling. It made it a little difficult to get a 'group shot', but it was fun trying :)

Olivia liked the mirror :)

Creed is sitting up SO well! He can even get into a sitting position on his own, Jenn said! Very impressive!

Pals!

Sharin' stories that only they understand...

Okay...sorry Christine...I know I should have jumped up and grabbed her as she tried to eat the giant ice cream cone, but she was so quick! I didn't even realize what she was doing until the picture was shot :) She's a girl after my own heart, though...eatin' ice cream every chance she can get!

Won't be long until she's doing that on her own!

We got home around 2 and Eli went down for a (too short...) nap. I clean the house a bit and then played with Eli after he got up.

One thing about going to the mall today was that I didn't get to run this morning. HOWEVER, when Edgar got home, I DID go. In fact, I went 2.5 miles and ran. every. step. YAHOO! It took me 31 minutes 10 seconds. That's about a 12 minute mile...which isn't great, but I'll take it :) I was pretty happy with myself. I figure that if I can go 2.5 miles, I can probably go 3, (I will say, I went without the stroller, so it was a bit easier) and once you can go 3 you can go 5...and once you can go 5 you can go 10...and once you can go 10 you can do a half marathon...and once you can do a half, you can do a whole...now there are many many months in this progression...but I feel like I'm finally on the right track. Oh...and I ran up the giant hill. Hooray for me! :) We'll see what I can do Friday with the stroller :)

Anyway, I should go. Still working on those August pictures for Kodak...I should finish them up tonight!

Playing with paper

Not a whole lot to post today. I just took a couple videos I thought I'd share :) Today has been a fairly normal Tuesday-I had class this morning, so Eli got to spend the morning with Aunt Jenny. We came home and had some lunch (Eggs, cheese & whole wheat bread-YUM!), played, and then Eli took a nap. When he got up we went to get the mail, and it was full of grocery store ads...so Eli decided he wanted to play...
He played with the paper for a good 20 minutes!

Here's a video of him enjoying it:



As he was playing I remembered Jennifer telling me that's how they got Ben to crawl-they put newspapers across the room, and he wanted them, and went for them. Here's my attempt...mean mommy...


In other news, Eli is eating like a pig! I love it :) Now I'm not the biggest eater of the family-HA! The other day he ate 3/4 of a piece of chicken (a whole chicken breast!) a serving of butternut squash that was the same size serving I ate, some applesauce (cuz he was still hungry) and some Cheerios (again, still hungry). Tonight he ate 1/2 a pork chop, rice, some peach, cantaloupe, and a couple of bites of zucchini...and this was just one hour after he had some applesauce and Cheerios for a snack! Crazy kid! I'm just waiting for him to wake up and not fit into any of his clothes any more...I feel like I'm overfeeding him sometimes, but as soon as I stop feeding him, he cries and cries, or is very cranky until he gets more food. Apparently he has my ability to pack the food in. Wait 'till he tastes ice cream...
That's about all. I have a full evening of going through my August pictures to put on Kodak-though I don't think I am going to get it all done...I took A LOT of pictures!

Good days and bad...

Well..today was a bad day...for running. It's only 9:30 am...hopefully the rest of the day will be better :) I DID run...well...sort of. I started out walking to warm up, and couldn't make myself start running. FINALLY 10 minutes in I started...and just ran until I couldn't run any more. Now, that is not always a terrible strategy, but just over 11 minutes later I was at the foot of 'the giant hill' and I walked...and I never could get myself going again. I probably could have run farther, but that hill is so intimidating...and so hard to push a stroller up! I would run 2 and 3 minute stretches here and there, but it was not what I had planned on doing. The entire route took me 50 minutes and 10 seconds...BLAH! I hate it when I add to my time!

The 'best' part of the run was getting home and finding Eli asleep...with a Cheerio stuck to his lip. Cracked my right up.

He is currently finishing some Cheerios in his high chair, letting me know he's done...so I'm gonna give him a bath, take a shower and head over to Krista's. Hopefully I'll have some fun 'stuff' to post after that :)

Yay for me!

I did it! I accomplished my goal for today. Edgar and I (and Eli) went for a run. That's right, I can officially call it a run, because I am running more than I'm walking :) I did my route and ran 5 minutes and walked 3. The last 5 minute run actually was almost 6 because I was almost home and I made myself keep running (felt like I was going to throw up...) I did this all in 45 min. 52 seconds. Now, I realize that I am not going to win any medals at that pace (unless I am one of two people in my age division...long, embarrassing story...) but I'm pretty happy with it-especially considering 2 weeks ago that same route took me 59 minutes 58 seconds (under an hour, remember?!)

SO, what are my goals for this coming week? This week might be tricky because we're leaving next Saturday, and we have a lot to do...so here's my plan:

Monday: Run 6 walk 3 (getting ambitious here...)

Tuesday: Off

Wednesday: I'm going to try and run...but I am suppose to meet some friends at 10, so we'll see...If I can run, I'll Run 6 walk 3 again. Maybe I'll do that when Edgar gets home...in the 6:00 heat :(

Thursday: Off

Friday: Run 6 Walk 2 (That makes me tired just thinking about it...)

Saturday is a travel day, so we'll see...I might try and go that evening when we get to Michigan. We should be to my parent's house by 5, and it is SO much cooler up there, so I might try and do a quick run. Maybe I'll try and run 2 miles straight...

SO, that's my plan. Thanks, Renae, for the check-up call this morning :) Remember when we were training for the Dallas Marathon together, and we'd call each other each Saturday to see how our long runs went? It always mildly annoyed me that you finished your runs an hour before I did, but oh well :) Back in the day when running 3.42 miles was nothing...

No big plans for today. Just cleaning the house, doing the laundry, and going to my book club tonight. It's pretty nice to have a Saturday 'off'.

If you're not gonna run at least make some cookies!

Today was the first day I gave in to the temptation of a hot cup of coffee and the morning news. I was suppose to run, but I didn't. I am going to run in the morning with Edgar (and Eli of course) and I figured one day off wouldn't kill me...now as long as I don't do that all the time, right?!

One thing that I did do today was decorate some sugar cookies for Ben & Carly's swim banquet (is it a banquet Jenny?) I'm not sure what the 'official title' is, but she needed a dessert, and I was more than happy to help :) I haven't had a chance to make sugar cookies in a while, so it was fun to get my stuff out again. Plus these were super easy, because they were one color (well...two if you count white). I finished them pretty quickly, and had fun doing them.

'Aquatic Club of Temple Terrace' in case you were wondering :)

And some fish.
The batch only made 17 cookies-mostly because the circles were pretty big. I would have made a double batch, but I was completely out of flour. In fact, I was surprised I had enough for one batch! Edgar was pretty sad that he didn't have any samples. I keep promising him I'll make some more cookies, but I haven't gotten around to it yet...(remember these?!)
Jennifer came over and watched Eli while I finished up. He was eating lunch when she got there (pork chops, cheese and apples. YUM!) then played for a bit. He was getting really fussy, so I picked him up and said 'Do you want a nap?' and he immediately put his thumb in his mouth and his head on my shoulder. Hint taken. He went down for an early nap-though not a long nap. Oh well.
The only other exciting part of the day happened while I was driving back from the grocery store. It was 4:10 and I got a call from our realtor's call center asking if our house could be shown at 4:30. As in, in 20 minutes. huh....I had a car full of groceries and a house not ready to be shown. I got home and literally ran around my house for the next 20 minutes. (Eli happily watched his video). I was fairly impressed with what I accomplished in 20 minutes...I:
Unloaded the 'refrigerator' groceries
Put away the clean dishes in the dry rack (thankfully I had done the dishes before I went to the store)
Wiped the counters down
Put away all my cake decorating stuff from decorating the cookies
Packed up the cookies to take to Jennifer
Wiped the spots on the floor with a rag (Never get white tile...it shows EVERYTHING!)
Wiped down the bathroom counter (Including stashing all the stuff on the counter)
Cleaned the tub (remember last night's spaghetti? yup...still there)
Put out the 'nice' towels and bath mat
Put away the iron/ironing board
Straightened up my room
Straightened up Eli's room
Straightened up the office (There's an awful lot of stuff in the drawer right now...)
Put all of Eli's toys away
Took all the stuff that was on the end table and stashed it in the car (it was starting to get late...)
Turned off the computers
Put the laptop in the car
Got my kid in the car
Headed to Ryan and Jennifer's for an hour.
PHEW! I was literally sweating big 'ol drops of sweat! (So it's not that bad that I didn't run this morning, right?) I was reminded of the many times as a child I waited until the last second to get the house cleaned up before mom got home, and I was running like a mad person trying to get it done. The house looked presentable...however, I don't think they actually even came. I was a little frustrated. Edgar got home at 5:30 and there was no card or evidence that they were there. Now WHY would someone call and make an appointment and NOT SHOW UP?! Oh well, I guess...at least the tub is clean.
SO, that's been my day. I'm sitting here watching the Tigers beat up on the Rays. It's fun to actually be able to watch the Tigers for a change! (And HONESTLY, I'm a Rays fan...as long as they are not playing the Tigers) Eli actually sat and watched the game with me for about 15 minutes without even moving. I'm sure he's a fan.
Okay...I'm going to go now. Have a great Friday! (Well...what's left of it anyway...)

Nothin' like some Italian for my little Puerto Rican

Well...I was in the mood for a mess...so we made spaghetti for dinner :) It's the first time I've made it for Eli, and it was pretty fun to watch him enjoy it.

Ryan and Jennifer got us this really cool cutting board/knife thing (she told me the name...but I don't remember it) and I'm pretty sure it's not for cutting up your baby's food, but it worked SO well! That knife is super sharp, and was way easier than using a regular knife :) Plus I felt cool using it, and that's what is really important.

Here's Eli's tray. So I realized when I put it on his tray that I had put WAY too much food on it, but oh well.

'Ummm...mom....do I really get to play with this?!'

'Not too bad!'

'What? Something on my face?'

'I'm savin' it for later!'

And where, do you suppose, we went right after dinner?

The tub! Finally clean...though I'm pretty sure there was plenty of spaghetti in the tub with him when all was said and done.

'Ahhhh! That's better!'

'Whadda mean I have to go to bed now?'

Hope you ate something good for dinner :)