PadawanOfHappiness

 In my previous post on healthier swaps I covered: ✅ Instant Oatmeal (I am keeping this)  I am still toying with my ratios but I am fairly comfortable with this. 🚫 Annie's Mac & Cheese (I am going back to the blue box, but will limit how often I use it) 🔎 Hersey's Simple 5 Chocolate syrup for Hershey's chocolate syrup  -  I am not ready to go with this syrup I am going to try to make my own. There are a lot of recipes out there and they have similar ingredients/proportions so I am just going to pick one and go for it.  Many of the comments talk about how much thinner the homemade version is, the three popular solutions based on the comments are (1) add less water (2) boil longer and it must be a hard boil (3) add 1 tbs of corn starch. 🚫 Crazy Richard's Peanut butter  I was not a fan so 🔎 I am going to try another brand before I go back to Simply Jif Next up to try is Teddie's 🔎 Bisquick -  My kids still like Bisquick better, but I am still ...

Instant Oatmeal Since I was last here I have managed to try making my own instant oatmeal.  One good thing is that Mr. Padawan and the little Padawans* are very happy eating the same thing over and over again.  This makes my life a bit easier since I don't have to make a variety of instant oatmeal flavors. I settled on maple and brown sugar.  I did play with a few different versions that I found on the internet and found that I prefer the old fashioned rolled oats because that is what I use to make my granola and I didn't want to have a variety of oats in the pantry.  This means that I do toss my oats into a mini food processor and some of it I do chopp relatively fine, some are cut down a bit and some are left as is.  I then dump it all in a big bowl add in brown sugar and cinnamon, mix and then dump it into a glass jar.  For Mr. Padawan I do a general 1/3 cup, for the little Padawans, who seems to eat BIG breakfasts they do a 1/2 cup. One note, I need to ...

At the end of the week my monthly menu (I really should call it my 4 week menu, but I digress) is up and I need to make a new one for February.  At the end of the menu Lent will begin and I need to make sure that I include meatless recipes for Ash Wednesday and the subsequent Fridays. The problem...I hate fish and seafood.  I think it looks great in pictures but the smell, taste, and texture really don't work for me.  I wish they did and I periodically try fish hoping that I will like it, alas it has not yet happened.   I also don't want to end up with cheese pizza and pasta alternating every other Friday.  I like to create things so I made this it includes things I have made and 4 new recipes that I want to try.   Link to the PDF file  

  Camping in the living room Pot Pie-palozza, I put it on IG of course . Some of the recipes can be found here . Campingin the backyard Working our way slowly throught he Marvel Movies as a family Playing: Monopoly Deal, Pass the Pigs, and Uno Baking! Baking cookies for my college age nephew and nieces I plan on trying these Finally tackling some items on that "honey do list" Really using our deck over the summer Trying out some new recipes Million Dollar Ravioli Casserole Slow Cooker Green Chili Casserole E...

I decided to not use the premade monthly menu from a few days ago but cannibalized it to create my next menu.  I was challenged by my kids to a a week of pot pies.  Ok it didn't quite come out like that, I had asked the kids if there was anything that they wanted on the menu, and one said Tuscan Pot Pie and another said Chicken Pot Pie.  That got me wondering could I do a week of pot pies? Well the answer is yes I can come up with 5 days worth of pot pies. Sausage and Veggie Breakfast Pot Pie Pork Pot Pie <-- that was the original recipe but I ended up using this one . Beef Pot Pie Tuscan Pot Pie Chicken Pot Pie   For the pork pot pie I may use puff pastry rather than making a pie crust. For the beef pot pie I will likely use store bought crust (or maybe use a tube of biscuits) because I hate making crust and my filling will pretty much be my sheppards pie filling. For the chicken pot pie, I use store bought pie crust, rotisserie chicken, a jar of gravy, and about...

I am re purposing a post that I wrote in my professional life, I had created a menu and a shopping list. This week is the last week I have a menu planned and since I make them 4 weeks at time this means at some point I need to make another plan.  And then I remembered that I already have a menu planned and I haven't even used it yet.    Woohoo!  I love being able to recycle work that I already did, it is always better to work smarter not harder.  If anyone is actually reading this here ya go....it may not be perfect but it is something.  This is the menu I created .  This is the shopping list I created . I hope this helps someone and that you find some new recipes that you enjoy.

 I used to be afraid of making mistakes when I cooked, I was not confident in my skills and wanted concrete rules to follow.  If there was ambiguity I would shudder, seeing the words 'a dash' of this or that would send me into a panic. After a lot of cooking because it is a necessity and it is cheaper and healthier than eating out all the time I am more comfortable and will take a oh what the heck attitude and just do a dash of this, or substitute that at free random.  Other times I misread the recipe and don't notice until it is too late. One of those misreadings happened last night, I made a pork loin in my InstantPot, I was following the recipe (or so I thought) from Simply Happy Foodie for a Balsamic Pork Loin .  The recipe calls for apple cider and balsamic vinegar, that is not what I used.  I used apple cider vinegar and balsamic vinegar, double the vinegar for FUN! :)  The funny thing is that I didn't even realize that I misread it until after we had...

I have a few recipes that use leftover chicken, generally rotisserie chicken. and my recipes are either two wordy or lack measurements.  I now do what I hated done to me when I began cooking.  Cooking is highly adaptable unlike baking which requires more precision. These are my steps and comments on making chicken and dumplings. Ingredients leftover chicken chicken broth (3-4 cups, make from bullion or buy in a can/carton) cream of chicken soup random bits of frozen veggies Bisquick milk cornstarch (optional) water (optional) My process In a deep 18 in skillet add cream of chicken soup and chicken broth and set to low heat. The question at this point is how soupy do you like your chicken and dumplings.  I used a total of 4 cups of broth (1 from a can and 3 made with bullion and water).  This was pretty soup and I like mine thicker so I added a bit of a cornstarch slurry (more on this later).  I could have done with 2, maybe 3 cups max. Cut up leftover chicken, I...

Yeah I like it warm, some would say hot but I really don't like it when the temp gets over 87, lower at higher humidity levels.  Two members of my family do not deal well with the humidity at all, and two of us aren't fans but we do not wilt in the same way. When the heat is getting to me, I try to remember the positives of the heat.  Ok maybe that is just the singular positive. My laundry dries very quickly!   While I was in NJ helping with a clean out I came away with two Instapot cook books/magazines (I cannot find links for them online) and Slow Cooker Revolution magazine from America's Test Kitchen, specifically FOOLPROOF EASY-PREP RECIPES.   So I guess a second positive is that I had motivation to go through the recipes and create a menu because the though of the heat made me want to just punt on cooking.  Short term fine, but in the long term not really a good idea.  Needless to say I made up a menu and am about to make some new recipes, and one old ...