Crockpot Sausage & Peppers

Here is another freezer meal from my adventures with freezer cooking!  This Sausage and Peppers recipe originally came from Little House Living and turned out pretty great!  I modified it slightly from the original, but I can't wait to try it again.  I believe that it is gluten free, so it makes me feel healthy! :)  As before, I placed all the ingredients in a gallon sized ziplock bag, froze it and then thawed it in the fridge the night before I wanted to cook it.  

Washington State: "Must Sees"

This upcoming Summer and Fall, we are so happy to be welcoming several friends and family coming to visit!  A majority of the folks making the trip out west, have never travelled to Washington before.  Their visit  has prompted me to start thinking of sites that are the "must sees" locally in Washington so that when our visitors come, they can get a full taste of Washington.  I will admit, I haven't done these all myself yet, but with all of our visitors, I am hoping to cross a few more off of my list!

Crockpot Teriyaki Chicken

I have made it my personal mission to taste test as many of these freezer meals/crock pot meals as earthly possible! A few weeks ago, when my husband was away for the weekend, I took the time to get started on this goal by preparing and freezing several meals so that all I had to do was thaw the night before and throw in the crockpot in the morning. I love coming home from work and NOT having to create a meal, but instead have it ready for me to dig in! I am planning to post the recipe AFTER we have tried them in efforts to give my honest opinion and to help me categorizes the ones that I want to try again and the ones that aren't "keepers" in my book. I prepared 15 freezer meals during that weekend, so prepare yourselves for an onslaught of food posts! :)

Here is one of the recipes that I tried. The original recipe is from melissafallistestkitchen.blogspot.com but I did slightly modify it so that I didn't have to run to the grocery store!

Teriyaki Chicken

1/2 bag of baby carrots

1 Onion into Large Chunks

1 can of pineapple chunks (undrained)

4 Garlic Cloves

2 lbs. chicken

1 cup teriyaki sauce

Place everything in a gallon freezer bag, mix it up, seal, label and put in the freezer. 
I let this thaw in the refrigerator during the night before I used this one. Before leaving for work, I added an extra 1/4 cup of teriyaki sauce to the crockpot with the mixture. (I labeled this instruction on the bag so that I remembered.) Cook on low 8 hours, shred chicken and place back into mixture and serve over hot rice.

Spring Cheer

Well, a few weeks ago I finally got around to taking down the Winter wreath from our door.  I know, I know, it was well past the time to do so! :)  When I did remove the wreath, I felt like our door looked so empty and sad.  I guess it is kind of strange to call a door sad, but it was very clear that something was missing and  I just had to do something about that!  I scrolled through a few ideas on Pinterest until I had a general idea of what I wanted and headed to the local craft shop to gather the materials.  Here is the end result; what do you think?

Visit to Can-EH-da!

I just had a fantastic weekend!  Earlier this week, my husband told me he had a surprise.  Now, when he says this, it could be anything.  My mind went wild thinking that he would say, "Surprise!  Here is a candy bar!" or "Surprise! Let's go to dinner!" - what could this surprise be?!  I was just excited that he planned something, but what he planned was beyond my expectations!  Thursday evening, I was told to pack a bag with my bathing suit/warm weather clothes, hiking gear, warm clothes for cold and rain and dress clothes.  With clues as vague as that, my mind was left to wander, but I did as he said.  Friday after work, we hopped in the car and headed north.  That ruled out my thoughts of Portland, but still left several destinations that I had pondered.  When we crossed over the Canadian boarder, I was sure that we were going to Vancouver for the weekend.  My husband kept driving past the Vancouver city limits and my mind was racing.  Eventually we came to the Winter Resort in Whistler, Canada.  Now here is something that you may not know: I love the Olympics!  My time is occupied by watching every event that I can every 2 years when the Summer and Winter games are on. Whistler was the home of several events at the 2010 Vancouver games.

I am striking my best Olympic pose.

DIY Weekly Calendar

Well, like I had mentioned before, there is a little nook in our kitchen that I really wanted to make more cozy.  The other week, I did my first project for it.  What office area is complete without a calendar?  I wanted to make a weekly calendar to help us keep our busy schedule straight.  It all started after browsing through various Pinterest posts, coupled by a trip to the local thrift store - consider me inspired! While rummaging through the goodies at the store, I found my treasure - a 7 picture wooden picture frame! Hooray!

Making of the Card Book

So here I am again!  The last few days I've spent at home sick - which is never any fun.  However, it is giving me some time to catch up on the blog.  So here I sit in my couch, with tissues, Oreos andTV remote close to hand, while writing this entry.
The last few weeks I have been busy finishing up several half-completed project.   I even found time to take a quilting class, which will be written about later.  One of the projects that I completed is a book of all of our bridal shower cards and wedding cards.  After all of our wedding festivities, we had so many cards full of well-wishes.  With such kind words written in each card, I knew they were something that I wanted to treasure forever.  I decided to make a book out of all the cards so that we would not miss a card by having them scattered everywhere.

Just a few of the many cards...