Hearty Dinner on a Chilly Chilly Day!

Good Continuing Cold Front Monday...

Man I tell ya, it was an absolute lie that it doesn't get cold in the south because we were colder than Anchorage, Alaska this morning.. no I'm not lying! I had to go to the grocery store today and I legit wore a parka, scarf and my Uggs. I made a point to throw in that new scarves are welcome as I WILL use them here too! HA!

We have completely finished our shopping for Thanksgiving dinner and everyone shall be arriving on Wednesday! I think Brianne and I will run out and probably get a few last minute things because there is always something, but for the most part I am very confident! Tomorrow I plan to bake homemade Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies which a recipe may or may not appear on the blog afterwards! I am going to get a lot of things done for snacks for Wednesday and Thursday tomorrow... you know all the good stuff, crackers and cheese, veggies and dip! I want to have minimal stuff to do on Wednesday so we can all just enjoy each others company before Thursday day of cooking commences!

Today Jason headed out early to do some Christmas shopping, I was surely surprised when he came home with an armful of things! Jason is such a perfectionist that he usually makes about 5 trips to the mall before he actually buys anything, so I am quite interested to find out what he bought. I cant peek though because he already wrapped everything.. rats! He knows me well.

When Jason got home I headed out to the grocery store while Jason wrapped and waited for the cabinet guy to come. We were anxious for that to get taken care of so we could check something off our list, we should have assumed it would not be that easy. The guy showed up, the guy who has done all the work to the cabinets since we have been in the house. He replaced the cabinet door and as I sat on the couch looking at it I seriously thought it was a different color then the rest! I looked and looked and finally when he went outside Jason jumped up and we were like.. not only is this one scratched but it is definitely a different color. When the guy came back in Jason told him the issue, he claimed not to see it and so Jason said screw it put the other door you just took off back on, we are not dealing with this shit anymore. The miserable old jerk was cranky about it but did what we asked and then left. So no fix was accomplished.

After the grinch left and I decided to make one of our favorite dinners, and although I admittedly hate blogging about food and recipes because I just don't feel like I am very good at it, I thought I would give it a go, yet again! So here is it ladies and gents... Chicken and Rice casserole.

Disclaimer: If I have already done this, forgive me as my memory is terrible I did however take a quick peek and did not seem to find a similar post.. if it exists.. my apologies!

This morning while Jason was out Christmas shopping and I was home sans vehicle to get anywhere I thought it would be a good idea to get a head start on dinner and chop the veggies as it takes a lot of time because Jason insists they be chopped as finely as possible. The Ulu makes that a lot easier!

Again if you do not have an Ulu knife, you don't know what you are missing! I got mine directly from the Ulu Factory when we lived in Alaska but you can order them online as well! I highly recommend it! 

The veggies you use in this dish is completely up to you, it is all to taste.. if it was up to me the more the better! Because this is something that Jason really enjoys I use veggies that I can cook down and he will actually eat. I chopped a good bunch of onions, celery, carrots and mushrooms. 

This afternoon when I decided to start cooking my veggies were already ready which is always a plus. I heated some extra virgin olive oil in a skillet and added my veggies. 

I added some kosher salt and cracked black pepper and let it cook away! 

In another pot I boiled water for the rice. For this dish you can use any rice you want, I have had to use others because this particular rice you cant get in the States for some reason but I was lucky enough to have it on hand this time as my Mom brought it when she came to visit. As the water is boiling before adding the rice I add one Knorr Homestyle Chicken Stock gel cube. 

Cook the rice as directed on the packaging as the rice you use may require different instruction then this particular product. 

While everything was cooking away I had boneless skinless chicken breast baking in the over. If you wanted to you could cook your chicken in the skillet as well but I prefer to cook it in the oven with spices and then chop it up and add to the sauteed veggies! 

I add another Homestyle Stock Cube to the chicken and veggies with a half a cup of water. I cook it on high for about 10 minutes so all the flavor marry together. 

When all is complete you can choose a casserole dish of your liking, I used a regular rectangular Pyrex of a decent depth as you will need a decent amount of room. 

You will start with your chicken veggie mix, you can layer if you want but I generally put the entire contents in the bottom of the dish before layering the completed rice on top. 

Finished rice above. 

Chicken and veggies in the bottom of your dish..

I then put the rice on top of the dish and you are done! Warning: if your veggies and rice are not cool be careful as the pyrex dish can get extremely hot! You can finish the dish anyway you want, you can add cheese on top, you can add whatever you want really. This dish can absolutely be made vegetarian, you can add more veggies and minus the chicken. You can also substitute Knorr Homestyle Vegetable Stock for the chicken stock. 

It really is a super simple recipe, this will literally feed us for days! I have in the past added fresh green beans and asparagus! I love a recipe that you can make your own, change up whenever you the urge strikes and I hope you enjoy it too! 

Like I said you can also take an unhealthy turn and add a little cheese on top, which I did to please my hubby and then I baked it just long enough to heat up! The longer it sits the better so tomorrow it will taste just as good if not better!!

Give it a try, make it your own!! Enjoy!!

Raleigh Does it up... Christmas Style!

Happy Football Sunday Dolls!

In case you were wondering winter has arrived in Raleigh and it came out of flippin' no where! I woke up this morning to weather feeling like it was in the teens and the wind whistling dixie! I can't say I am in love! I had planned to just stay in all day but I think I might just have to take a run over to Target!

I can't say there is much going on with us, sadly Miss Ameila wasn't feeling well over the weekend so the Seavey's never made it up for a visit. Poor lady A had her first cold, red ears and stuffy nose so Brianne thought it would be better to stay home and let her rest so she would be up and running for Thanksgiving this week. Which ended up being completely fine because Friday afternoon I wasn't feeling my best and spent my afternoon like this..

No sure what was going on with me but I had an off stomach and just felt really exhausted, so I hunkered down on the couch in my comfy clothes and a blanket and watched shows while Jason tested out the Big Easy on a small chicken. That turned out amazing by the way!!

Anyways they were calling for rain and miserable weather yesterday in Raleigh yesterday and I wasn't sure we were going to make it to the parade because I definitely wasn't going to stand outside and get soaking wet. Surprisingly but not so surprisingly we woke up to a really decent morning and got ready and headed downtown. 

Naturally traffic was horrific...

Plus I am convinced North Carolina has the worst drivers in the history of life which just made things that much worse because everyone was weaving in and out of traffic every time cars would move a damn inch.. I absolutely hate that! We finally managed to find parking though, free parking at that and we hustled because we could hear the parade had started. 

Believe it or not they were expecting 65,000 people at this parade and let me tell you like any parade the streets were lined and packed! Not only were there people everything but every candy vendor and what not were out trying to make every cent they could! Overall people were courteous and there wasn't much for pushing and shoving.. which is always nice!

I'm not going to lie, I wasn't overly thrilled with this parade. Yes I am a parade snob coming from Toronto where they have one of the best parade ever!! Plus I have been to the Macy's Thanksgiving parade live in New York so it takes a lot to impress me. Mostly I swear this whole parade was marching bands, dance studios and pageant queens! Americans are all about their marching band and pageant queens, good lord! Growing up in Canada we didn't have either, and I am not at all sad about that.  

They had a few of these floats which was nice, to me that is what a Christmas parade is all about. 

They had a lot of little horses and dogs dressed up at all, it was actually kind of funny to see but they were obviously not enjoying it which was sad. 

The streets were all dressed up for Christmas though. 

See, more queens! I've never seen so many. How do they get involved in this? Where do you apply? (not that I would) They seem so young to be subjected to the criticism they must get. Did Toddlers & Tiara's start in Raleigh?

This was actually nuts! These horses were beautiful, so was the carriage for that matter, but the gentlemen driving thought he was Cole Trickle or something, he would stop randomly and then take off flying.. like here in this picture! Poor horses!

This was the only balloon float thing which made Jason happy because this is what he enjoys about a parade. On the back of his tail it said "MADE IN CANADA" which I thought was great, but didn't see it in time to take a picture! 

We stood straight across from the very large Wells Fargo building. 

Then came the big guy... (after 2 hours...)

This for me was the best part of the parade, for many I am sure! They had an amazing Santa, he looked so jolly and real! His float was pretty good and costume was great! After seeing Santa I feel like as soon as Thanksgiving is over I will definitely be in the Christmas spirit!! 

After the parade we walked back to the truck and could feel it was already starting to cool down. They said that by that evening it would be significantly colder and you could tell. We decided we would check out the Twisted Fork  for lunch and that was amazing! We had never been there before but saw it awhile ago and Jason checked out the menu online and seemed intrigued! The meal was good, Jason had a burger and fries and I checked out their pulled pork sandwich! I was impressed, but nothing topped the beer glasses...

My thoughts exactly!

So as mentioned we woke up to that extremely cold weather and none the less I am going to embrace my northern upbringing and head out.. bundled up! I started my morning with a nice warm coffee and some list making for Thanksgiving this week and now I feel like I need to get out and do some looking around. Plus I think today might be the best it is going to get out there as Thanksgiving is approaching quickly! 

As you can see I started my day off right! 

I am now headed to Target and maybe World Market.. just because! I want to go out and get some running around done before football starts! 

I hope you all had a great weekend, stay warm and enjoy football Sunday! 

Just Call Me Martha!

I have been absolutely dying to bake in my kitchen and truth be told I have absolutely no good excuse as to why I haven't so far! I suppose the real reason is that I just haven't wanted to eat whatever yummy treats I was thinking of baking! I really enjoy baking, I always have and when we are on a job and Jason can take all the goods to work I make it my mission to bake for all the guys as much as I can and let me tell you they are extremely appreciative! So I figured this weekend the Seavey's are coming up and I have my fingers crossed that the weather will hold off and we will make it to the Santa Claus Parade downtown Raleigh, if that is the case we need to be out the door bright and early and with a bunch of kids its probably a little harder then dealing with my morning self! I decided that I would take advantage of the company and do some baking this afternoon for an easy out the door breakfast Saturday morning.

Now when I show you he pictures I don't want you to get too excited as I did not bake these from scratch! While Jason was away I spent some time touring around World Market (naturally) and their scone mix was on sale! I love scones and have made them from scratch before but thought I would give it a try! So I purchased the Lemon Poppy Seed ones and baked them up this afternoon!

The scones turned out amazing and they were super easy, as any mix generally is! I add water, mixed and baked! Easy peasy! I highly recommend the scone mixes from World Market, they are always running different sales and you can get them really cheap, fabulous for a quick breakfast or a nice afternoon snack with tea!

While in baking mode I figured I would bake up the Pumpkin muffin mix I picked up while Jason was away as well. Generally I will bake from scratch but honestly I don't care for anything pumpkin and I figured it would be a quick thing to whip up for Jason as part of what he loves most about fall is Pumpkin everything! When it comes to baked goods Jason isn't fussy and I will make pumpkin chocolate chip cookies from scratch next week but I figured this would good to have on hand in a pinch and I had never tried anything from Trader Joe's! 

I have no complaints, besides the fact that I generally don't like anything pumpkin but the mix was super easy and although I don't like the taste of pumpkin stuff the house smell amazing!

I consider this to be a pretty successful afternoon! We went and got a bunch of running around done, picked up my brothers birthday gift and got that all packed up to send! 

We have had absolutely no luck at all with the house people, I rhymed off another email this morning to everyone I had an email for and got nothing back. Jason left an extremely terse message with the superintendents boss this morning who is just as big of a dick as the superintendent, they are both useless as tits on a nun! So of course he said he would figure it out and call back and did not. 

About 45 minutes ago someone showed up at the door and said he was here to fix the broken stones on the exterior of the house, he said he was going to take some of it of and have his guy here tomorrow to repair things and he went out there started taking it off and realized there is major issues with the integrity of the front porch and there is no way he can replace the stone until those issues are fixed, so now we have a bunch of missing stone on the outside of the house and Jason is absolutely LIVID! He is on the phone screaming and cursing which is EXTREMELY unlike him but frustration has come to a breaking point now. 

So apparently he will be out here tomorrow which is probably bullshit but we will see what happens! 

I am off to get some stuff ready for dinner.. did I tell you last night that I baked the best ham of my life??? I really hate bone in ham, its just not my thing! More than that I really am just not much of a meat eater, but last night I made the best ham ever! I ate an enormous amount last night, had a sandwich for lunch and am looking forward to having it for dinner.. which says a lot because I also don't eat left overs! No, I am not fussy at all! 

I hope you all had a fabulous Thursday and are gearing up for Thursday night football and if you care Grey's and Scandal!

From Summer to Cold Crisp Days....Over Night!

Man I tell you this southern weather is something to wrap your head around! One day its 80 degrees and the next its 30 degrees! Literally the weather jumps or drops in a matter of hours, I just cant keep up!

I had planned to blog yesterday after my wonderful Facetime date with the lovely Tanya over at Prairie Girl in the Big, Scary World, sometimes you have to just love technology! I mean she is all the way over in Miraflores, Peru and none the less we could sit and have a conversation face to face! Love it! However sometimes the time will get away from you and after we hung up I decided to take advantage of the beautiful day and head out to rake the back yard! Jason is generally responsible for yard work, which honestly isn't a lot because we don't have a huge yard and we don't have any plants (nor will we EVER). I don't mind yard work, I mean all we are going to do is rake and because last time Jason raked the yard he ended up with blisters all over his hands I figured I would go out there and show him how it was done! In style!

The day was GORGEOUS and Jason was out doing errands so I whipped out my Hunter Boots aka in these parts my bug protectors and got out the rake! I will tell you it was WAY too warm for my wellies, the day was absolutely perfect! I raked about 5 bags and when Jason came home he helped me finish up. I have no blisters on my hand and am surprisingly not sore at all but my shoulder is all screwed up again. I swear I am ready to just lose this arm, I don't have patience for it. I was good until a couple of weeks ago when I was getting ready in the morning and wearing my robe and caught the sleeve on the door handle and gave myself a good jerk! I am waking up in the night in severe pain again and just dealing with a constant ache all the friggin' time! 

Anyways after we finished raking Jason decided it was time to assemble the Big Easy! We sat in the garage enjoying the day while Jason assembled our Thanksgiving bird cooker!

I am pretty interested to see how this is going to go to be honest! Jason spent a good portion of last night watching YouTube videos so he knows what he is doing. His dad encouraged him to season it first before using it and we are thinking next week we might try it out just in case shit goes down... I mean we cant have it ruining the Thanksgiving bird or anything!

We headed to Gander Mountain this morning, Jason has been itching to get some ammo for his gun as he feels it is completely useless without bullets. I have to agree but at the same time there is a little part of me that always feels a little anxious about having a loaded gun in the house. I grew up around guns but always locked away is a cabinet, trigger locks, etc and never a hand gun. I became a lot more comfortable with it once we started going to the shooting range regularly in Alaska.. but I don't know. I still wont let Jason keep it loaded under the bed. 

Since I was last here we haven't been up to much, the nights have been a little cooler so we have put the cribbage board to good use in front of the fire place!

I got this amazing cribbage board for Jason for Christmas last year! Friends of ours have a bunch of them and I have always admired them! Last year I decided that we too had to have one and I contacted Don in Minnesota to see what he had available! I absolutely love this board, not only is is completely useful but one of a kind and a piece of art work really! The price was EXTREMELY reasonable and Don is truly the nicest guy ever! If you are looking for an amazing and unique Christmas gift contact me for details!

Really since the last time I was around we haven't been up to much! Jason did some rearranging of electronics.. now that we have the new TV something magically appeared in our bedroom that I cant say I am too happy about..

I mean I think its a little excessive, don't you? I am honestly all about a big TV, I would have just as soon went much larger downstairs but when I am in bed I don't need to feel like I am at the movies. Mostly I don't care for the TV to be honest while I am trying to sleep to begin with and Jason claims he needs it to fall asleep, so this kind of just makes it worse! I will adjust, I am in the market for a new eye mask anyways because I cant find mine. With the TV and lack of curtains in our room one is MUCH needed! 

Sadly the weather is cooling off and is looking to only get worse over the weekend and bring on some rain as well, I am super disappointed in this! I obviously don't care for cold weather and more than that they are calling for cold and rain Saturday and the Seavey's are coming up and we were planning to head to the Christmas parade downtown! I guess depending on the weather we will still go, but if its pouring rain and miserable I am out.. I don't do soaked and cold! I suppose I shouldn't complain though because we may be having colder weather but have nothing compared to most of the States and Canada! As we were out today driving around I couldn't help but be thrilled that it is almost the end of November and we are still in full fall foliage! 

Fall is absolutely my most favorite time of year and this year I have seen more than my fair share of it and I am so beyond grateful! Fall in New England and Fall in the South.. pure bliss! 

Well I was feeling pretty cranky this morning and stopping in here really made me feel a lot better! We are really struggling with out builder and these Kirby vacuum assholes and its all just getting to me. I suppose I am still a little ticked about the Patriots getting robbed Monday night too.. I still don't exactly know what the hell happened there! Speaking of the Patriots... last night I decided to head upstairs and finish my book while taking a nice hot bath! When I came down afterwards I found this sitting on my counter...

Yes I did know it was coming but let me tell you it was not my idea! My parents bought this for Jason for his birthday. My Mom ordered one awhile ago but it actually turned out to be really small so we had to send it back and this one came last night. Jason was absolutely thrilled, we are currently arguing over whether we will be roasting things or slow cooking haha! I won though because my roaster is currently in the over with a giant ham in it and the house smells INCREDIBLE! I am taking step by step instruction from Brianne as I don't particularly care for ham but she made one awhile back that was the best ham I have ever had, here's to hoping mine turns out half as good. 

Well I should head out, I am off to call the builder again and flip out! I swear the professionalism of these assholes is appalling, I have never seen anything like it! 

I hope you are all having a fabulous week! I wish it was Thursday so Scandal was on tonight!! 

Stay warm my fellow Southerners!