Go VOTE!

Bring your kids.
Then go to Starbucks, tell them you voted, and get a free small coffee!
(While you are there, ask for free coffee grounds for your garden.)
Go!

The LORD make his face shine upon you
and be gracious to you.
-Numbers 6:25

Another reason to love pennies!

You can actually buy something useful at Staples for a penny! From July 8 to July 14 only, Staples has packs of pencils, pencil sharpeners, folders and pencil cases on sale for $.01 each.

While I have enough pencils to choke a horse, I will buy my limit (3 per customer) of these penny items to put in our Operation Christmas Child shoebox gifts.

Happy shopping!

Mothers' Day Haiku

Last week I received the following as a gift. I am humbled.

Beautiful, we wed
In struggle she gives birth thrice
Shepherdess of lambs

Not comparable
This mother of devotion
The one I married

Love burns bright before
Love shines bright in reflection
In four faces, mine and theirs

Evangelista
Instructor, Enforcer, yet
Lover, sweet as wine

Cataract of love
Wash over three blonde heads
Recedes to my arms

This Recipe is Greek to Me

Greek Chicken
From Fix It and Forget It Cookbook by Dawn J. Ranck and Phyllis Pellman Good

Makes 4-6 servings

4-6 potatoes, quartered
2-3 lbs. chicken pieces
2 large onions, quartered
1 whole bulb garlic, minced
3 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 Tbsp. Olive oil

1. Place potatoes in bottom of slow cooker. Add chicken, onion and garlic. Sprinkle with seasonings. Top with oil.
2. Cover. Cook on High 5-6 hours, or on Low 9-10 hours.

Taking Flylady’s advice, I try to think about dinner at breakfast time. She sends me a handy email every morning that says, “What’s for dinner?” I groan and think about the dregs in the fridge.

Yesterday morning I happily remembered that my brilliant husband pulled some chicken out of the freezer the night before. We are having chicken for dinner! But the questions nagged. “What KIND of chicken? And when are you going to cook it?”

Back to the fridge. There are two packages of pita bread abandoned in the bottom drawer. There is half a cucumber languishing in a Tupperware Fridge Smart container, one vent open. Pita + cucumber = some sort of Mediterranean chicken!

Even though I REALLY do not feel like cooking dinner at breakfast time, I know that it will make me a much happier person come 5 o’clock. I hug the crock pot as I carry it from the storage shelf to the counter. I love you!

My next best friend after the crock pot is its side kick: The Fix it and Forget it Cookbook. Let’s see. Something that will taste good in a pita. Chicken Casablanca? Too many ingredients. Chicken Kapaman? Too tomato-ey. Greek Chicken? I have most of the ingredients (there aren’t many). Not much chopping involved. Only step required. Bingo!

I know what the recipe says, but I did not have any potatoes. I put the onions on the bottom instead. I often forget that, when crock pot cooking, the veggies go in first. They cook better that way and so does the meat that goes on top.

I was using such a large package of boneless, skinless chicken that I did not worry too much about measuring the seasonings. By the time I got to the garlic, my youngest chef was helping. We put several small cloves in. (The Pampered Chef garlic press was very handy at this point.) She was in charge of the oregano and olive oil. The chicken came out very flavorful and mysteriously moist!

Ah--the cucumber. I cut it into small pieces and put them in a Tupperware container. I poured oil, vinegar, salt and pepper over them. I put the lid on and shook. Presto! By the time dinner rolled around we would have marinated cucumbers to put on our Greek chicken inside our pita bread. By the way, I know you want to use olive oil on these cukes, because you are thinking of all things Mediterranean--but don’t. Olive oil solidifies when cold. Instead of taking a savory cucumber salad out of the fridge, you might have a container full of sour cukes and globs of oil. Remember, cooking is science!

The house smelled so good of simmering Greek chicken that my meat-free husband was even drooling. He could not resist the temptation and had to try some along side his beans and rice. He was glad he did!

Incidentally, you should know that I never follow a recipe (or any instructions for that matter) exactly. Not only did I omit the potatoes, but I made a few other changes as well. When the cooking time was about done, I stuck my kitchen shears into the crock pot and cut up the boneless chicken breasts. Now we’d have chunks of chicken to put into pita pockets. Of course, I had to taste this creation before serving it. I decided it was crying out for lemon juice. I sprinkled some into the crock pot and put the lid back on.

We will extend this meal by smearing hummus on the pitas next time. Maybe I will buy another cucumber and some plain yogurt. Then I can make cucumber yogurt sauce, use up my last onion, and enjoy a third interpretation of GREEK CHICKEN.

And the winner of the Smart Contest is. . .

actually, it's a tie! Liz and Stephanie submitted very smart ideas for organizing plastic containers. Read about their systems below. These smart ladies will be getting prizes from me. Congratulations and thanks for the help!
(Stephanie, please get in touch with me so I can arrange to get your prize to you!)

Liz said. . .

1. Take ALL your plastic ware out of the cabinets – ALL !!
2. Match up lids with “bottoms”
3. Throw out any that don’t match (if you have large bottoms save those for storing ones that match)
4. Yes – just chuck them (or put them in a bag for the basement – but trust me you will never find the mates)
5. Make piles of the different styles with their mates
6. Take the lids for the same style/size and rubber band them together. Stack the bottoms together. Place the lids either under the bottoms or next to the bottoms and set in the cabinet. I know you're thinking , "They will be all over the place in no time.” Actually, if you put them back each time, you're golden.
   

If they can fit put your tops and bottoms in “extra” large plastic ware bottoms (see #4)

Every few months I do a plastic ware purge. I have a large Rubbermaid® storage bin in my basements with all the mismatched lids and bottoms. A few times I’ve found the match, but not very often.

Stephanie said...

I saw your blog from the story on the Lion Brand website. I have a response to your question! I did look at the previous response, and I would like to add the following before I describe my own organization system. Make sure all of your plastic containers have a matching lid. If not, recycle the mismatched pieces if possible. A large plastic container without a lid could still be useful to keep, if it will hold a lot of food, and you could cover it with plastic wrap or tin foil when you needed to store that quantity of food. If you don't think you would do this, toss (recycle!) the container.

I have two different systems for my plastic containers, depending if they are large or small-medium sized. The large containers I stack together. I leave a small stack of the matching lids on top. I don't have more than 4 plastic bowls that I store this way.

I have a lot more small, snack-sized, and medium sized plastic containers. These are the containers I have the most trouble keeping neatly organized! At my last home, I had a whole cabinet stuffed with all of these containers, with the container and lid attached. While it was easy to find a container because the pieces were all already matched, all of the pieces were hard to stack, containers would fall out of the cabinet when I opened it, and it seemed like that cabinet was used very inefficiently.

At my new home, I came up with a better system! I use a small cabinet, about half the size or smaller than the last cabinet, to keep all of the containers stacked, but without the lids. The containers stack so much easier without the lids, and use a lot less space. I keep similar containers stacked together, and keep the smaller containers within the larger containers below them, kind of like a pyramid. The lids are not in this cabinet.

I devoted a whole drawer to my plastic container lids! This works so well for me. The lids all lie flat and fit in the drawer perfectly. I tend to reuse certain types of the plastic containers more than others, so these lids always seem to be on the top! I can find everything I need quickly, and my system is so much more organized now, despite not storing the lids and the containers together. I hope this gets you thinking about how to organize your own plastic containers better! This system is working great for me.

Share your knitting story

The folks at Lion Brand Yarn are looking for stories. How has knitting or crocheting changed your life? Weave your way over to the Lion website and tell them!

Free Starbucks Coffee

Get to a Starbucks right now for a free cup of joe. This morning only Starbucks is offering a free 12 oz. cup of coffee.

Can you believe it? You don't need four bucks!

Too bad I gave up coffee for Lent. . .