Chicken Stuffer

That's ME!

I have found my calling ... first of all, SUPER YUM, second of all EASY and third of all ... it's budget friendly! In order to stuff a chicken for two people, you only need one chicken breast. You cut it open, like a book and then slice all the way through. Take your two pieces of breast- put them in wax paper and pound them flat. Then stuff and roll ... so TWO people eat on ONE chicken breast.

Tonight I stuffed with spinach and provalone ... rolled up and dipped in bread crumbs - and this time I baked it. I also put a pat of butter on the top of the breaded chicken. OH LORD- it was so good. Conrad hates green veggies - and he ate every bit of it tonight.

I think you should try it. You'd be surprised how far one chicken breast goes - we are both full - and I guess we ate half the calories.

SCORE for the Abercrombie Hopkins!

Kah

Flashback

This was taken on the night I "met" Conrad again- at the high school Christmas party - December 30, 2005.

I thought he was so cute ...

Funny when I went there that night and when I took this picture, I never knew I was staring right at my future husband. (giggle)

Kah

Our Newest Family Member

HA!

What did you think? I was having a baby? Oh ho ho ho - if I ever posted that, it would be from my hospital bed- having fainted dead away. Did you think we had a new fur -baby? I wish. Conrad won't let us have another one. He SAYS Blanca wouldn't want a brother or sister, but really he just doesn't want to deal with puppy stuff.

No. THIS is our newest family member. She lives outside.

We went to Florida for the 4th of July - and my dad has a big grill and they use it a LOT. Like three of the four days we were there ... I guess because Florida is already hot and heating up the kitchen seems silly. We had NICE FAT steaks and baked potatoes one night while we were there and I saw Conrad's face just light up. Also while we were there they made us bacon wrapped chicken thingies and Oh My Dog! We must have eaten 100.

We have a charcoal grill - but it takes forever to heat up, I'm always buying charcoal and Conrad smells like the inside of a smoker when he gets back in. It took an hour to get hamburgers off the darn thing! So I saw a light in his eye in Florida and I knew if there was a good deal to be had, we'd be getting one.

Last weekend when I was with Lori, Conrad went to Lowe's and came back with his new girlfriend. He wanted the Charbroil but the only one they had was assembled and it wouldn't fit in the Tahoe. So the Lowe's guy gave him a deal on this Master Broiler- 15% less than the Chargrill and in a box. He lovingly assembled her last Sunday afternoon.

We've already had some super yummy burgers and tomorow we're making bacon wrapped chicken thingies!

Recipe:

Cut up chicken breasts into small bite sized pieces

Wrap each piece in a small piece of bacon and secure with a toothpick

In a bowl - one cup of brown sugar and one tablespoon of chili powder

Toss your chicken and bacon pieces in the bowl of sugar

Grill til charred and dripping bacon grease

Cry- because they are SO GOOD

Kah

Great

oooooooookay ...

I was thinking there would be MULTIPLE comments on the rainbow cake, but I guess not. Is blogging dead?

Well - I had a FAB weekend. First we saw ZZ Top and Aerosmith. Great seats and FREE tix - and then of course I was just super proud we left the house on a Friday night.

Saturday I ran by the library and got a book I had been waiting on forever and then hung out with Lori and Brenna all day. LITERALLY. We started our super fun day at about noon with some swimming and a light lunch. Then we went back to Brenna's and hung out, showered and watched Lori plant her grapes and talk about her Farmtown Farm ... if you're not on Facebook, you wouldn't understand. Then we took a group of 8 ladies to the Melting Pot and buried ourselves in big pots of cheese and chocolate. I think I'm still recovering!

Sunday we lazed around and met Amy and Tad at Good Co BBQ- which is somewhat famous here in Texas ... especially in Houston. Tad came down to help Amy with her last dose of radiation and also to be with her when they met with the doc Monday with the results from the April radiation treatment.

DRUMROLL ....

Tumor shrinkage and Tumor death ! YAY YAY YAY YAY!
Only 10% of patients have this AWESOME news after one treatment. So the doc has high hopes for the treatment she got Friday. I am so relieved and happy and excited! It couldn't have happened to a nicer person. I know her positive attitude had a LOT to do with this result.

So the weekend was FAB- the activities FAB - good food and great company!

So come on Friday!

Kah

Rainbow Cake

Ok, the long awaited post .... rainbow cake!

You will need:

2 round cake pans, white cake mix or your favorite 1234 cake recipe, food coloring and how ever many colors you want- you need that many bowls. Begin by greasing your pans and making the cake mix ... then take your batter and pour as equal amounts as you can - into each bowl. Add food coloring to each bowl. You can make as many colors as you want and remember you can combine colors too- meaning you can use red and blue food coloring to make purple batter, etc ... I didn't do that this time because I was experimenting and wanted to make sure I didn't end up with a BLACK cake.

Ok - so each bowl you make a differen color. I had four - red, blue, yellow and green. Use your food coloring to make the color as vibrant as you want AND the stores now have pastel colors too. HELLO EASTER!

Then take your batter and pour it into the pan, careful to only overlap colors a little bit ... the picture below is a close up of raw batter in a pan.

Here are the two pans side by side. About to bake! Now there's no special temp or anything, just bake the cakes like the instructions tell you.

When baking is done, your cake should look like this ... and you should have two of them. After they cool, you want to frost in a layer between the cakes and try to make sure the colors don't line up. Don't put your red from cake 1 on top of your red from cake 2. When you cut into it, you want to see ALL the colors.

I did a TERRIBLE frosting job. The kitchen was hot and Florida was humid. The minute I started frosting the cake it sort of crumbled, because of the humidity - so try to do it in a cold kitchen. Anyway - frost like normal and when you cut into it, boy won't your guests be surprised. Everyone LOVED this cake!

Ready, Set, GO - bake away! Let me know how it turns out. Isn't it FABULOUS?

Kah

Big Night in Houston

Last night Conrad and I went to the ZZ Top/Aerosmith concert. The tickets were given to us and they were GREAT! We were not far from the stage at all - I could actually SEE Steven Tyler without the jumbotron. It was really fun!

and suprisingly ... I really enjoyed ZZ Top. I really never paid much attention to them before- but they're from Texas and all and people seemed to be really pumped up about that. We had a nice time. I'm so proud of us. We NEVER do anything on Friday nights and we never ever go outside in the summer. Last night we did both!

I'm sorry I haven't posted the rainbow cake pics yet. It's been a busy week- both at work and then Amy was in town, so I was eating with her, shopping and we went to see The Proposal. SUPER CUTE movie. I'll be buying that one.

Anyway, I WILL get around to posted those pics! Promise

Kah

Yummy

I made a GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD dinner tonight!

Stuffed chicken - with prochuto (Can't spell it), provalone cheese and roasted red bell pepper, with lemon dijon pan sauce ... with a side of baked parmasean mashed potatoes and garlic bread. SHUT UP - it was GREAT! I got the chicken idea off of Thirty Minute Meals- Rachel Ray made it with aspraragus, but Conrad won't eat that. So I subbed in the roasted red bell pepper.

I also have been doing really great about saving money and trying to bring my lunch. I just made my lunch tonight too - I made my mom's yummy beanie weanies. Those should last me about three days - I usually DO go out maybe once or twice. Especially on $1 tamale day!

OH! We saw The Hangover this week. Run, don't walk to the theatre- if you have a sense of humor anyway. I watched The Women today- off Netflix and tonight we're going to watch New In Town before we go to bed.

Good weekend!

Kah

Vacation Recovery

I am SO sorry I haven't been here and haven't posted rainbow cake pics. I have TWO good excuses.

# 1 - on Monday Conrad's car was broken into at lunch. They took his laptop, his bag with all his work stuff and his checkbook AND they dented the door and broke the lock. SO we spent a large portion of Monday closing out one checking account and opening another. He has had my computer all week- so I haven't asked for it back at night so I can blog. It just seemed to take too much energy to walk across the house and get it off the table... and let me just say, PEOPLE SUCK. I mean the laptop was four years old - and password protected ... and checkbook is useless since I canceled it - so I mean, they got nothing, caused Conrad a ton of trouble AND left us with a broken car and a few weeks of work- Conrad putting his worklife back together. Ugh. I hope they try to pawn the computer and get arrested. The serial # has been registered as stolen. Jerks.

# 2 - I think I needed a vacation after our vacation. I mean WOW, it's really weird. You get used to being NOT at work - and so suddenly, every day at work is exhausting. We traveled home on Sunday and it seemed to take all day. Getting up, packing, driving to the airport, waiting, flying, getting baggage, finding car, getting Blanca ... exhausting.

So everytime I went to blog I just .... couldn't. I think I was in bed every day this week at 9:30 or something ridiculous. I mean, what am I, 80? (Sorry MOM!)

So this weekend, they'll be a lot of laying around, reading, watching movies ... and I'll download the rainbow cake pics and blog. Got two days ahead of me to do so!

Kah

Florida

Well ... we're back from Florida!

I never announce these things out in blogger land- but we left Wednesday and came back yesterday- we have a set of parental units out there AND my dad's birthday is tomorrow ... so we went out to celebrate the 4th and an early birthday.

I took pics - and I'll post those tomorrow. I made a rainbow cake, which I learned about in blogger land. I was SO nervous it wouldn't turn out - but it did and it was SO cute !!!! I was really proud. It was as cute as it was yummy. I think my dad felt pretty special. I also made my mom's pulled pork which takes about 6 hours - I started it at 6AM that morning - so it was a full day!

We swam a lot and we went to the dogtrack- I am NOT good betting on dogs. I won, um ... a dime. YEAH I won, I bet on a dog to show, paid $2 and won a dime. It was fun to do and something to say I've done, but NO WAY - I am not good at that!

Ok, so rainbow pics tomorrow!

Kah

Okkkkkkkkay

I didn't mean for my last three posts to be about Michael Jackson, but does no one else think his dad is completely out of control? First he goes to the BET awards and tells CNN all about his new record label. WHO CARES ... then he holds a press conference to further let the world know about his stupid record label. Here is a BIG news flash for him- there will never be another Michael Jackson - so give it up? What is he going to do, beat another kid until they become the most famous person in the world????

........... and now, he is putting him on what can only be called "display" at Neverland later this week. I don't know MJ, never met him - but something tells me he would be horrified. He didn't like people looking at him in life. He completely altered his face over the years, he had such issues with it- do his parents REALLY think he wants to lay there and let a million people walk by. Someone, somewhere is going to be able to sneak in a camera phone - so rest assured by Saturday morning, dead pics will be all over the internet. Does anyone else think this is a horrible idea?

Regardless of how you feel about him, most people deserve some dignity and that includes not putting him out for display. I've had many family members, in passing conversation, tell me their wishes and whether I agree or not, I'd do my best to honor them.

Here is my tribute to Michael and since he's no longer confined to an earthly vessel he has way more chance of seeing this ...

I think someone needs to take a baseball bat to Mr Joe Jackson's knees. Just saying ... "BEAT IT!"

I hope that makes him smile.

Kah