G is for granola!

I accidentally bought this last weekend at the grocery store:

I say "accidentally" because I was under the impression that there were 4 in a package, but there were only two.  When I realized I had paid $1 each for these, I nearly fainted. 

But, I have to say: I loved every last bite!  The granola stuff that I sprinkled on top of the strawberry swirly yogurt was delicious!  This week I needed to make a quick trip to WalMart for some school supplies, and while there, I looked through the cereal isle thinking I could buy a little granola and some cheaper yogurt and I could just make my own yogurt parfaits. 

Well, store-bought granola is EXPENSIVE!  Upwards of $4 for a not-very-big bag's worth!  I'm not going to pay that for something I could surely make!

And so I (or "we") did! 

What a breeze!  3 cups of old fashioned rolled oats, 3 Tbsp. brown sugar, 1 tsp. cinnamon, 1/4 tsp. salt--all mixed together in a big bowl.  Then, in a smaller bowl:  1/3 cup honey, 1/4 cup Canola oil, 1 tsp. vanilla and mix until combined.  Poor the wet over the dry, mix with your hands, spread on a (greased) cookie sheet and bake at 300 for 15 minutes.  Stir, then bake another 10 minutes. 

DELICIOUS is all we have to say about that!  I'm storing it in this glass jar in the fridge to keep it as fresh as possible.  It tastes exactly like the stuff that came with the store-bought yogurt parfait (but much cheaper)!  Also, I'm hoping that if I eat it for breakfast, the protein in the yogurt will keep me feeling full a little longer than when I eat just plain oatmeal for breakfast. 

Not your average monster cookie...

Happy Halloween!!!!

I found these cutie cookies at www.lilluna.com , (I found the cutie blondie lurking in my shadow) and decided we had to try them out! 











Super easy and quick to whip up! 
1/2 cup butter (softened)
1 8oz. brick of cream cheese
1/2 tsp. vanilla
and 1 egg... mix until well blended.  Then add 1 pkg. white cake mix.  Beware-- the batter is thick!

Separate into smaller batches and tint with food coloring.  Chill for 30 minutes.





Roll into balls, roll in powdered sugar, place on greased cookie sheet and flatten slightly.  Bake for 10 minutes, then decorate with candy eyes! 







Aren't they adorable!?!?  The cream cheese and white cake mix creates an interesting taste, but it's good, moist, and something new! 

What do you like to whip up to celebrate the spookiest day of the year?

Did you wonder what happened to us?

Yeah, so life has been kind of crazy since school started. 

1st grade, 2nd grade, 5th grade, 7th grade:  all fantastic.  The kids are doing awesome.  Our only hiccups so far have been school pictures.  They boys' turned out good; the girls'... not so much.  Weird hair, weird smiles... We're going to try for a retake.

Other than that, Freshman Algebra 1, Junior Algebra 2--also fantastic.  Lots of paper grading and all the other wonderful stuff that goes along with it, but I think my students are having a pretty good year so far.  I feel like I'm working really hard, but every day puts us one day closer to summer vacation!

When I finally rolled in from work tonight (about 45 minutes after "official" quittin' time), I rounded up the kids and we loaded up the bikes and headed to the Pecatonica Prairie Path for an early fall afternoon ride. 

It was a GORGEOUS weather for a bike ride!  We got just the right amount of exercise, worked up just the right appetite for a delicious supper of leftovers, and now the kids are in bed and I'm waiting for Dave to come in from the bean field!  I need to get some papers graded... But I didn't want you to worry anymore-- thought I'd check in quick!  Hope all is well with you! Have a great rest of the week!! 

My chicken obsession...

I love chickens.  My kitchen has a vague chicken theme... vague because my "collection" consists of about 4 chicken figurines, a plate with a chicken on it that I got a garage sale for $0.50, and an old dishtowel that has chickens on it.  (I'll take this opportunity to mention that the dishtowel is SO ratty that you can't tell there once were chickens on it.)

Check out this handsome devil!  He's gorgeous.  Some Winnebago County 4-Her did a great job raising him. 

This guy is good looking, too.  I prefer the brown ones like in the first picture, but his black and white feathers match my checker-board kitchen floor. 

These two make a nice couple, I guess this was a "his and hers" display?

And you may remember a post from around this time last year about the rainbow chicken.  This was the 2013 version.  Neon is hot this season, so I guess these chickens are "in"!

 

Too bad for me, though.  Dave says "no chickens".  We eat a lot of eggs--about a dozen a week-- but I don't think I'd be able to deal with all the eggs.  If I die never having butchered a chicken, that'll be o.k., too.   I'm still getting over chicken slaughtering visions from my youth. 

Oh well.  They're pretty to look at, right?!?!? 

While I was riding down the road today...

This morning I was feeling adventurous and decided to take a new route on my bike.  Instead of turning around at the corner of Conger and Comly, I decided to head north and make a big rectangle, (normally I just turn around and double-back). 




I don't know what has kept me from taking this route all along because it provided me with almost 2 miles (not continuous) of completely solitary cornfield travelling! 

I was biking along and saw what I thought was some strange plumage in the ditch...

As I got closer, I realized that this wasn't plumage at all, but the tail of a skunk!  Only for a millisecond did I consider that I might get sprayed.  I felt completely calm!  Calm enough for me to get my phone out and take his picture.

He couldn't find what he was looking for on that side of the ditch, so he sauntered across the road, gave me a pleasant, "Top of the mornin' to ya!" and continued to search for whatever it was he looking for.

"Huh," I said to myself, "That's not what I was expecting to see this morning!  If I wouldn't have taken this new route, look at what I would have missed out on!" 

And because I was in the middle of the road in the middle of a cornfield in the middle of the country, I really did say it out loud.

More proof that you just never know what will happen next!

Also, I hit 100 miles on my odometer!  Yay!

Crock Pot Lasagna

We love lasagna.  My friend Jenny prepares hers in loaf pans and then freezes them to feed her family of 4 (they have 2 young sons that aren't eating her out of house and home, YET!), my friend Laura makes lasagna using cheese ravioli, and my sister-in-law Lana's is just, well, out of this world.  Lasagna is so diverse; even after all these years, I still try different lasagna recipes.  I even went through a phase where I used ricotta cheese!  I got over that, I guess, but I have never jumped on the bandwagon for cooking the pasta before hand.

I came across a recipe for Lasagna at www.goodenessgracious.com, a cool blog I found through The Real Farmwives of America and Friends community on Facebook. 

I tweaked the original recipe to feed my family of 6 and work in my Crock Pot.

Ingredients:
1 pound browned ground beef
1 1/2 cans spaghetti sauce
8 ounces of bow tie pasta (uncooked)
16 ounces of cottage cheese
4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions:
1.  Spray the inside of the crockpot with cooking spray (this REALLY helped with clean up, I don't know why I don't always spray it?!?!)
2.  Brown the ground beef and drain, then stir in the spaghetti sauce

3.  Layer 1/2 the beef mixture, half the bow tie pasta, 1/2 the cottage cheese, and about 2 cups of cheese in the Crock Pot
4.  Repeat step 3. 

5.  Cook on low for about 4-5 hours (This translates into me coming home at lunch to turn on the Crock Pot, or as our pastor's wife does:  get a timer like you'd use on a lamp.) 

The first time I made this, I let it cook from 9am until 6pm and it was too overdone.  It was still good, but the edges were kind of unsalvageable. 

What have you been cooking up in your Crock Pot lately????

Scenes from the fair!

 Well, we have another year of 4-H and showing beef cattle under our belts.  It was a long week that flew by, the days were endless but happened in the blink of an eye, and we are EXHAUSTED!  (I know, none of that made any sense.  Trust me, though, that's how it happened.  If you've ever been a 4-Her with livestock, I'll bet you get it.)   
I'm too tired to put together anything well-organized, so here are just some random cattle-showing pictures for the aunts and uncles, cousins, and friends who are always so supportive of the kids  (also the majority are former 4-Hers)!

Danny and his junior heifer baldy.

Bernie:  mommy to the baldy, she and I are besties.  She and Drew... not so much.  She was kind of sick and tired of the whole deal by Friday night and gave him some 'tude. 

 June bug, one of the twins.  She won Grand Champion market heifer.  (O.k., I'll admit, there wasn't much competition, only two in the class.)

The morning of the open show, waiting to go in the show ring.  Chuckie the bull calf won grand champion Hereford bull calf.  It was REALLY exciting, the judge said lots of great things about the calf, we're kind of excited about next year when he'll be a big ole steer!

And, finally, one of my favorite "Mom" moments:  watching the boys work together showing the breeding stock.  This is our future!  I think we have two very good cattlemen in the making!

 

But, the best part of the week was spending time with friends who put up with our crankiness, helped us out, let us help them out if we could, and supported what I think is one of the best institutions in America--4-H!!!!