Buffalo Chicken Fingers

So I don't think there's any secret that I like my food really spicy...all the time. I think half my tweets (limited though they are at this point) are about how much I like spicy food.

Last night, there was a Man vs. Food marathon on the Travel Channel. I watched until my eyes bled. Adam Richman is a HUMAN GARBAGE DISPOSAL. Seriously?! Seven pounds of Italian food in ninety minutes?!


Anyway, in one episode, he was re-doing his very first spicy challenge thing, because the first time he tried it, he couldn't get past the first bite. Holy. Crap.

Before I was pregnant, I could pretty much Hoover any spicy foodstuff I wanted. I'm not kidding, I ate a salsa called "Baptism of Fire" when I was ten years old. I don't know what was in it, but my dad said his coworkers couldn't even handle a pinky-tip-dip of the stuff. I loved it.

Then when Logan screwed up the level of every single hormone in my body, the fluctuation managed to make my taste buds betray me in the worst possible way: I hated spicy food. I couldn't handle a jalapeno. Heck, I couldn't even handle On the Border's "forgive us for taking forty-five minutes to make your food" time-waster salsa. It was pure palate devastation.

FINALLY, though, now that my son is seventeen months old, I not only like spicy food again, I crave it. I desire it the way Snooki desires one of those nasty, orange, steroid-filled guidos.

Guys, I put cayenne pepper and hot sauce in that chicken and dumpling soup from last night. WHO DOES THAT?!

So, the combination of my insatiable need for spicy things and watching Adam Richman devour pounds of straight chili extract and ghost peppers drove me to do this tonight, at 9:30 pm. Enjoy. Recreate. Give me your input and variations.

Homemade Buffalo Chicken Fingers


Ingredients:
Vegetable oil
3 chicken breasts, thawed
1 1/2 c. flour
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp crushed red pepper
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp lemon juice + milk (2% or whole) or cream to equal 1 cup.*
1/2 - 3/4 c. flour
1 tsp hot sauce
1 bottle Frank's RedHot Original Buffalo sauce

*or 1 c. buttermilk

Directions:
1. Fill a 2- or 3-quart pot halfway with vegetable oil, cover, and set to medium heat.
     IMPORTANT: Once the oil comes to a boil, be sure to keep something in the pot to keep the temperature from getting too high. It will start a fire, and I speak from experience. I recommend chopping up a potato and dropping the pieces in, because by the end you'll have buffalo chicken AND fries. And that's never a bad thing.

2. In a large bowl, mix together 1 1/2 c. flour and all the dry spices. Whisk them all together.

3. In another bowl, mix together the milk and lemon juice and let it sit for about 5 minutes. This acts like buttermilk. I don't know about any of you, but I'm way more likely to find milk and lemon juice in my fridge than buttermilk.

4. After the milk and lemon juice have sat for five minutes or so, add the hot sauce and flour until the consistency is about the same as that of paint (my husband gave me that...he's the imagery master). We stirred in an extra few shakes of cayenne and chili powder. Like I've mentioned about five thousand times...we like spicy.

5. Trim the fat off the chicken breasts and slice them into chicken-finger-sized strips. I didn't measure because I figure most of you have had a chicken strip before and know the size you prefer.

6. Coat the strips in the buttermilk/flour batter, then dredge each in the flour and spice mixture. 

7. Place the strips in the oil (the fries should be done by now), but try to only cook one breast at a time. The strips will cook quicker and more evenly.

8. Pull them out when they look like this on the outside:

and are appropriately cooked through on the inside.

9. Take the chicken out and place on a dish lined with a layer or two of paper towels, to let the oil drain off, then transfer to a large bowl for coating with buffalo sauce.

10. Dump a whole mess of buffalo sauce all over the chicken strips and "toss" until they're well coated.

Serve with bleu cheese dressing and an icy cold beer.

Ahhhhh...that's the good stuff.

Do you have a cool variation on buffalo wings? I'd love to hear it!

Thanks for reading!

Andy's Easy Chicken 'n Dumpling Soup

I've said it on my Facebook more than once. Mostly because it's totally true.

I am married to the awesomest cook ever. I don't know where he got it from, honestly. Neither of his parents have ever cooked for me. He HAS worked in the food industry for over a decade, though, so I have a funny feeling that's where the majority of it comes from.

Anyway, I figured out a super awesome way to get completely original recipes, super easy and free, for my little blog here: follow Andy while he cooks!

So here's the first of his many recipes.

Easy Chicken 'n Dumpling Soup

Prep time: 20 minutes

Cook time varies (approx an hour)

Ingredients:

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

2 chicken bullion cubs

1/2 chopped yellow onion

2 - 3 tbsp olive oil

2 - 4 celery stalks

10 baby carrots (or 2 - 3 regular carrots)

2 ears corn

1 tsp minced garlic

thyme

parsley (dried)

sage

cayenne pepper (optional)

salt

pepper

2 1/4 c. Bisquick

2/3 c. milk

2 tbsp fresh parsley, finely chopped

Directions:

1. Fill a large pot halfway with water and add bullion cubes and chicken breasts (trim fat off chicken breasts first). Bring to a boil over medium heat, adding the spices to taste. Andy and I love spicy food, and Adam Richman was doing the "Suicide Six Wing Challenge" on Man vs. Food and it looked amazing, so we decided to add a few shakes of cayenne pepper. We also added 4 shakes of thyme, 4 shakes of dried parsley, and a pinch of sage.

2. At the same time, saute chopped onion in olive oil, with the garlic and pepper to taste, for about 3 minutes (to keep onions crisp)

3. Once the water is boiling, turn heat down to medium. Add sauteed onions.

4. Chop the vegetables and add to the pot. This is where you can get creative. Carrots, onions, and celery are sort of the standard, but you can as many and whatever kind of veggies you want. The more veggies, the heartier and more stew-like your soup will be. 

Carrots, chopped by my wonderful hubs.

Fresh corn cut off the cob

Broccoli florets. We cut off the stem things because, seriously...who wants them?

Headed for the compost pile!

(broccoli stems, leftover celery, coffee grounds)

5. After about 40 minutes, the chicken should be cooked. Pull the breasts out of the pot and check the  insides; make sure the insides are white and the juice runs clear. Pull breasts into smaller pieces with a fork.

Pulling the meat apart instead of just chopping it gives the soup a homemade texture.

6. While the chicken sits for about ten minutes, mix the dumplings together; they're just Bisquick and milk. Andy LOVES parsley (I totally don't, but it's his recipe), so he chopped up a bunch of parsley (which ended up being 2 tbsp once it was all chopped) and mixed it all into the dumplings. 

7. Add the chicken back into the pot and stir. 

8. Add the dumpling dough into the pot by spoonfuls (or, in Andy's case, by hand).

Don't worry, his hands were nice and clean. I think.

9. Return water to a boil, but turn the burner back down to medium after 5 minutes. 

10. Simmer (uncovered) around 20 minutes. This lets the soup thicken up; the water will boil off and the dumplings will make the broth richer.

Ta-da!

Mucho deliciousness. :)

I'm Not This Weird in Real Life, Maybe

I thought of something the other day.

I'm really, super, without a doubt, completely and totally awkward. And, you know, there are so many people who are totally aware of their awkwardness, but they OWN it (but not like Oprah...I can't even look at the word "own" in all caps now without getting annoyed that she bought out my favorite channel EVER), which makes it less awkward and just way endearing instead. Then they're just comfortable to be around, because you can always count on them to blurt out whatever they're thinking, or to spill the coffee, or trip on the escalator, or ask that lady when she's due, but it turns out she's not pregnant, she just has that very unfortunate body shape.

I am what I think is the worst kind of awkward. I end up sounding like a jerk A LOT and I end up looking very smug VERY OFTEN and I look like an idiot THE MAJORITY OF THE TIME because, well, somehow I missed that part of growing up where you learn how to interact with humans in a way that doesn't make you look ridiculous and douchey. 

For example, about a week ago, I was called to the Springs to fill in for three days at my old job, because technically I'm still employed at that company. My client's aunt and two cousins had just moved into her apartment, and they were there for my whole first 10 1/2 hour shift. They moved from a Spanish-speaking country, and although the aunt knew English just fine, her two kids only knew a few phrases.

First, my client's younger sister had picked about four movies for us to watch...and they were all Disney princess movies. Finally, I forced her to let one of her cousins (a boy) pick a movie. He was laughing when she got mad that he picked Cars and said, "She only wants to watch movies with princesses in them," except he said it in Spanish, and I'VE TAKEN OVER 4 YEARS OF SPANISH AND I KNEW EXACTLY WHAT HE SAID, but instead of responding with, "Well, she chose The Incredibles, and that one doesn't have a princess in it," (which I ABSOLUTELY know enough Spanish to say!!) I nodded and laughed like a huge idiot who, I'm sure, he assumed was just pretending to know what he was saying. 

People, this was not an isolated incident. This went on for THREE 10-1/2-HOUR DAYS. I completely understood the gist of absolutely everything they said, and I could have responded every single time, and I would have been understood with the four-plus years of Spanish I've had and a few "charades"-type gestures. But what did I do? I sat and nodded and laughed at the appropriate times, and otherwise stayed absolutely silent, except for the time when the older cousin was trying to tell me "I don't want my brother to be picking her up too much because he has a cold (or a cough, I couldn't tell which he was pantomiming)" and I was an idiot and all I could freaking say was, "toz?" (Spanish for "cough"). 

Brilliant, Kristen, just brilliant.

There are also the incidents (which are far too numerous to count) where I pass someone on the street or alone in a hallway or something, and the person smiles at me and says, "Hi!" and I do this weird little corner-of-the-mouth twitch and grunt out something that kind of sounds like "hi," but is mostly not even close to being a word at all. I then avert my eyes very quickly and either chew on my cheek or pretend to be getting a text.

I picture it in my head, and I look like some junkie who hates interacting with humans. All twitchy and shifty. 

AND THEN there are the super fun times where I talk to someone who isn't way super close to me, like commenting on their picture or status or something on Facebook, and then I get this anxiety like, OMG I'm sure they totally don't want to talk to me and they're insulted that someone like me would dare to talk to them on the largest social networking site out right now (you have a way to go, Google+...you have a way to go) even though they agreed to be my friend, I mean how dare I initiate conversation, I've only known her for five years...

Wah, wah, wah, anxiety, insecurity, self-consciousness...

Basically, I feel like, with the exception of maybe a dozen people (out of the 260 ish friends on my Facebook)...

If I talk to you, you probably don't want to talk to me, and I'm probably bothering you, and I'm really sorry, but deep down it'd just be cool to have you as a friend, but I'm sure you don't want to be my friend, I mean look at you, you have like 3,941,983 friends on here, so why would you want to take time to be friends with me, but that profile picture you just put up is super cute and how do you get your hair to do that, because I really wish mine could look like that, I'm totally not saying I want to be like you cuz that'd be weird, I just really like your hair, and I'M NOT STALKING YOU, I PROMISE I'M A COMPLETELY NORMAL PERSON, I JUST HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO INTERACT WITH HUMAN BEINGS WITHOUT BEING REALLY ANNOYING APPARENTLY.

...be my friend?

Pepperoni with Jalapenos, KTHXBYE

So hey there. Once again, I have been remiss in my self-imposed blogging "duties" and haven't written since Thursday (well, technically Friday...after midnight sometime).

Wanna know how I remember? I know that I posted that recipe with the hot dog/beef/biscuit bake one night, I ate the leftovers the night after, and we left to go camping the morning after that. I basically keep track of my days based on what I ate when or when I last did laundry.

Why does the whole hallway smell like armpit and corn chips? Oh, that's right...it's been like three and a half  weeks since I washed any clothes.


Anyway, about a week ago, I decided I was going to do this one blog one night, tell this other story the next night, and then make this other recipe the third night. It was awesome. I had it all planned out and I was so proud of myself for my forethought, but then everything went in the toilet when the manager of our old apartment lied about a big refund we had coming and we got invited on a last minute camping trip with Andy's brother and his wife and their (FOUR) kids (along with our squirmy little one), and all of a sudden, oh hey, Kristen, I'm your blog...remember me? Don't you love me anymore?

That's right, boys and girls. My blog talks to me. Get over it.

I dare you to find someone whose mind is more scattered than mine right now. Seriously.

So the story I was going to write tonight is a story I've told fifty gazillion times, but usually I tell it in person, and have the luxury of the people I'm talking to being able to see my brilliant hand gestures which, I assure you, totally give the story a certain...something.

Annnnd therein lies my problem. I cannot force funny out of my fingertips tonight. Not even a little. So my brain is mush right now and I can't even manage to pry out of it a story that will probably remain etched in my mind forever and ever amen.

If you didn't get that last line, you don't listen to country music, and I say shame on you.

So anywhosies, if any of you out there in Readerland would do me the honor of commenting (you don't have to have your own Blogger account to "Follow"!) and giving me...anything. Encouragement?

Like I said, my brain is about 42% pudding and 33% residual child scream echo and the rest percent desperate, unrequited need for pizza at this moment.

Obviously I'm having insecurity issues and I'm like WAY FREAKING SUPER NEEDY.

Tell me I'm pretty and smart and funny, okay? Okay, thanks.

Also, if someone wants to bring me a pizza? That'd be way super great and I'd love you forever and do your taxes for the rest of forever, but only if you never want a return ever again and you'll probably get audited.

PS - I got a job today. Praise me for that, too.

Beef, Hot Dog, and Biscuit Bake

Alright, reader peoples, I've been gone for, like, 3 days I think? Not okay. I have all sorts of fun plans for what I'm writing about for the next couple nights, and I'm going camping for the next couple nights, so I better get crackin'.

Yesterday was long and stressful and lately I've been insatiably hungry for maybe a week now and we have a bunch of random half-eaten ingredients in our fridge and, naturally, that led to my making some kind of variation of this "Beef & Bean Roundup"thing my mom made for us all the time growing up. One of my favorite dishes ever. You can make it with all sorts of stuff that you probably have in your fridge and pantry. So here's the version I had:

Beef, Hot Dog, and Biscuit Bake
or I've Gotta Get this Crap Out of My Refrigerator Before it Goes Bad
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 20 minutes
Bake at 350 degrees


Ingredients:
1 lb ground beef
1 ish bottle of barbecue sauce (I say "ish" because I only had about 2/3 of one left and it worked just fine)
1/2 pack Oscar Meyer wieners (really, you can use any hot dogs you want, I just wanted to be able to write the word "wiener" as many times as humanly possible in a single post)
Bisquick
milk
cheese of your choice (preferably shredded)
spices (your choice)
chopped onion

Quite obviously I added ingredients as I went, but these are the basics.

Directions:
1. Brown the ground beef, throwing chopped onions in toward the end - it keeps them crisp!

My perfectionist stepbrother-in-law saw the beef on the cooktop and asked if I wanted to fix it because it was "so imperfect!!" I told him I was leaving it there because it was how I felt. Yesterday was a bad day. 

2. I also stirred in these spices as I browned the meat. Just for me. Because I can:

3. Slice up the wieners into you-could-safely-feed-them-to-your-17-month-old-sized slices
4. Combine the beef, onions, and hot dog slices into a 9" x 13" x 2" baking dish

Well, crap...maybe not.

...okay, let's try a 9" x 9" baking dish?

There we go. If I didn't mention before, I'm making this up as I go along.

5. Empty the entire bottle of barbecue sauce into the baking dish and stir into the meat*

6. In a medium bowl, follow the instructions on the back of the Bisquick box to make biscuits. It's just Bisquick and milk.

Of course, I got to this step in the cooking process last night and realized zOMG WE DON'T HAVE ANY MILK WTF?! and had to run to the store in the middle of dinner prep. So...if my prep time is sort of like, you know...off...now you know why. And you're not allowed to get mad at me.

7. Scoop dough on top of the meat, in regular sized biscuit portions, to cover the dish

8. Place the dish in the oven (350 degrees) and bake for 20 minutes.

9. Immediately after removing the dish from the oven, sprinkle biscuits with shredded cheese. Or, if you're like me and don't realize until the moment you take the dish out of the oven that you have no shredded cheese of any kind, do something like this:

with a cheese like this:

Then scoop onto a plate like this:

And enjoy!

*instead of barbecue sauce, you can use one of those really big cans of baked beans. Choose the bean flavoring (maple, hickory smoked, etc) on what spices you did or didn't put in the meat while cooking it. I would have used hickory smoked baked beans  if we'd had them!

Hope you like it!

...On The Floor

I had one of those I'm the worst mom ever moments today.

It's similar to a moment I had around the time Logan was 9 months old and I was trying to transition him from bottle to sippy cup (a process which I completed a whopping six weeks ago...don't judge my parenting). I accidentally forgot to put the little plug thingy, which ONLY allows him to drink if he sucks on the sippy spout, into the top of the cup, and that meant that when he tipped the cup up to his mouth, the juice in it just trickled into his gaping pie hole without him having to work at it. He was thrilled.

Quickly I realized my terrible parenting misstep and freaked out and went charging across the room at him in slow-motion, screaming, "Noooo!" (but it was all low-pitched and dramatic and I was running like Pam Anderson in Baywatch. Was that too far? Yeah, I thought so too.) I snatched the cup away from him, crammed the plug in the lid, handed it back to him, and held my breath...and he couldn't figure the cup out.

All I could think was Oh my gosh my child is never ever going to learn how to suck juice from his sippy cup and he's going to go to kindergarten with a bottle in his lunchbox and all the kids are going to pick on him and call him a baby and he's going to drop out of school at 13 and run away from home and get addicted to crack and meth and painkillers and he's going to rob banks and become a murderer and I RUINED MY BABYYYYY *insert sobbing*

Of course, about 2 weeks later, he was gunning around the apartment sucking down juice like he was about to cross the Sahara. I guess we dodged the middle school dropout/drug addict/murderer/bank robber bullet THAT time.

But then there was today's moment.

I came home from work (I'm filling in at my old job in the Springs for 3 days) today and Logan was running around in his wet bathing suit (he'd been in the kiddie pool on the deck). My mom saw him grabbing his "boy parts" and asked if he needed to go potty. He said, "Pee-pee," and ran toward the bathroom. She put him on the potty and he didn't go, so she put his trunks back on and he came trotting back out to me, grinning like crazy. A few minutes later, he did the same dance with me, and I asked if he needed to "Pee-pee? Poop? Potty?" not sure which one he'd recognize most.

"Pee-pee!" he screeches and hauls tail back to the bathroom. I strip off his clingy trunks and perch his cute little hiney on the big-person toilet seat (no baby seat yet...again, don't judge) and say "Go pee-pee!"

After a few moments of him sitting...then fidgeting...then fussing, I let him scoot himself off the toilet seat and rationalize, Okay, if he had to pee, he would have gone, right? Like...his thingy has been exposed for long enough that he would have gone already, right? (shut up, I didn't say it was a good rationalization) and I let him take off, bare-cheeked, into the living room.

After about 90 seconds, he screeches, "Pot!" ("potty") again, and takes off for the bathroom. I trail behind by maybe eight seconds because I figure (see earlier rationalization) he's just trying to open the toilet lid and drop something worthless (like my bra or my car keys) in the water. The kid cannot resist water, and above all, potty water. I don't get it.

I arrive at the bathroom door to see my child standing in a puddle of his own urine, all smiles. "PEE-PEE!!"

...and here's where I win the Worst Mother of the Year award...

My first reaction is "Uggggghhhh, Logan, seriously?! On the floor?!" which startled him.

Frack. Frack frack frack.

See, he'd been telling me THE WHOLE TIME that he had to pee. He KNEW he had to pee (and almost-seventeen-months is on the earlier side for that knowledge). So he kept going to the bathroom because, here's the best part, my son is smart enough to have figured out that that is the room in which you make pee-pee. And I just used my "I'm so tired of your tomfoolery" voice with him.

Frack.

Of course, similar to the Sippy Cup Incident of 2010, I realized .2532 milliseconds after I said it that I TOTALLY SHOULD HAVE JUST PRAISED THE FREAKING CRAP OUT OF HIM FOR BEING (almost) 17 MONTHS OLD AND KNOWING THAT THE BATHROOM IS FOR GOING PEE-PEE, KNOWING HE HAD TO GO PEE-PEE, AND PUTTING THE TWO TOGETHER AND MAKING IT TO THE BATHROOM.

Frack frack frack FRACK.

So then I start into this ridiculous over-compensatory, high-pitched whine, praising and praising and praising him for his feat.

Me [an octave below that range of sound only dogs can hear]: OH MY GOSH BUDDY YOU WENT PEE-PEE IN THE BATHROOM YAYYYYY *claps like an idiot* I'M SO PROUD OF YOU I'M SO PROUD OF YOU YOU'RE THE AWESOMEST KID EVERRRR!!!

Logan: *confused stare*

Yeah so...my kid's going to wet the bed until he's 12 and need a lifetime of counseling, probably. Hopefully no murders, though.

Of Superficiality and Ugly Non-Prescription Glasses

I'm speechless. Seriously, I don't even know how to preface the horrors and absolute asshattery I'm witnessing at this moment. And who would've guessed that I'm watching it on MTV?! Shocker, right?

True Life: I'm a Sugar Baby. Huh say whaaa?

Olivia, 21, is looking for a sugar daddy. Why? Because "Like...I like having, like, nice stuff...but like, I really don't feel like...you know...doing anything for it." I'll give you a minute to soak up that brilliant mind-gem. Now I'm gonna encourage you to go get a drink of water or read a Shakespearean sonnet, or really anything that might encourage a few brain cells to regenerate, ok?

So she needs a man who will wine and dine her and buy her expensive clothes and jewelry and, oh hey, I'm looking to go to Italy and the Caribbean and, well, basically everywhere in the entire world staying at 5-star hotels, so how's about you fly me all around the world, mmkay? Peachy, thanks. Oh, but I'm trying to get back with my ex, so can we have your condo while we mend our relationship? Great, you're just aces, gramps!

GG, 21, is in LA, trying to launch a music career while teaching hip-hop in stripper heels (I have no freaking clue). Apparently stripper-heel-hip-hop hasn't quite caught on like she would have hoped (or, more likely, hallucinated) it would, and it doesn't cover her bills, or the investments she needs to make in order to begin the music career she so desires, oh, or of course there's the lifestyle she desires, full of $500+ pairs of shoes and purses and sunglasses that just get HANDED to her.

THE KICKER: These girls expect their sugar daddies to pay for every dinner, piece of jewelry, flight, hotel, VIP lounge night, and bottle of champagne whose name people like me are too poor to even be allowed to know how to PRONOUNCE...completely willingly, without hesitation, and with no expectation of any physical relationship with them. One of them even said "That's just gross!" after getting off the phone with her SD who said, "This relationship needs to have some give and take. It's a two-way street."

Now let THAT sit there and soak into your brain matter. Uh-huh, that feeling is your brain twisting itself in knots and gajillions of neurons firing at the same time to try and make this compute. Little hint: it won't compute...ever.

But somehow she gets money and gifts and he gets sex and it's not prostitution.

Krystina...WFT?!

Well, who'd want to, I guess...

And then there's Shaun. Dear, sweet Shaun.

Shaun, 22, is looking for a sugar-mama-cougar because, similarly to Olivia's completely reasonable statement regarding employment or furthering herself as a human being in any way, "I work at a computer software company right now, but like...I don't want the nine-to-five work lifestyle." Apparently earning anything that's out of his reach in life is "just not him."

One of his equally intelligent friends (who I almost thought was gay when he came flouncing in front of the cameras the first time, but by the end I couldn't tell) tried to play wingman/life coach/fashion consultant/dating-a-cougar guru and took him to a club that was known to be heavily laden with those classy ladies who obviously spent way too much time in the sun when they were younger (you know, before they invented skin cancer) and have had obvious botox and facelifts and have that teeny bit of a pooch above their jeans that just screams, "I used to be super hot and in shape and I want you to still believe I'm that fit, but I have a child who graduated high school two years behind you!" You know. Those fine, upstanding women that are probably at a club like that to have one last affair before their baby-making parts lose the battle with gravity and fall out of their bodies and onto the ground between their feet one day in the middle of Bergdorfs (I had to Google that place to make sure I was on target with the whole rich-middle-aged-woman thing...appreciate the work I put into this, k?).

So anyway, a cougar walks up to this guy, WHO, I might add, is not attractive in the face, sweats like Nixon did in that one black-and-white Presidential debate against Kennedy like fifty years ago (the date on that one was NOT Googled, I just threw a big number out there), and is grossly out of shape...and wears a puca shell necklace, and asks "How old are you, anyway?" What's his response? "How old do you think I am?"

*record scratch* Is that not a game guys played in that awkward middle school-to-high school transition when they were trying to grab some 11th grader's boob? And didn't she always roll her eyes and walk away feeling slightly better about herself, but slightly worse at the same time?

Anyway, the woman with whom he tried to play 13-year-old, acne-faced, 11th-grade-boob-grabbing games made it abundantly clear that he was in no way ready for a relationship with a woman who was old enough to not need a fake ID to purchase the pinot he'd later roofie. She called him "the epitome of a Scottsdale douche bag," turned around, and strutted her suspiciously young-looking backside far away from Shaun.

Cheers, you cradle-robbing "Real Housewives of Southern Arizona"-wannabe. You tell him.

In the "since the filming" section at the end of the show, I was very pleased to know that Olivia has a boyfriend her own age, GG has a full-time job with some accounting firm as a customer service rep and still has not put out an album and DOES NOT have a sugar daddy now, and Shaun's sugar mama got laid off (I wish I'd seen how that conversation went) and she then accepted a job in California...a very long way from Shaun.

THIS IS LIFE LESSON TIME, FRIENDS, SO LISTEN THE HECK UP!

Don't be stuck-up and shallow and expect to be handed anything you may want for nothing. People will not like you.

Or they'll at least want you to get naked for them. So I guess...if you like that kinda thing...go get yourself a sugar daddy/rich cougar?

The (Not-So) Funny?

Brittany Gibbons is funny. Not just "Oh, that's silly" funny. She is "I just laughed so hard I snorted and possibly may have pooped my pants an eensy bit" funny. Seriously, check her out here: http://barefootfoodie.com/

I try to read her stories to my husband, and I think because of all my laughing and snorting, the humor in the story is lost. HOWEVER, since you don't have to sit through my rendition of her anecdotes, you'll probably find them as funny as I do. So go...be amused. And if you're a fan of poop humor, read "Backed Up."

I am not Brittany-Gibbons-funny. I wish I were, because then I could make a bunch of money writing stream-of-consciousness stories about how my 17-month-old is driving me crazy or how my husband will probably NEVER, EVER hang up the shower-water-soaked towel he uses when he's done with it. Because that's my life right now. Be jealous.

So here's the deal. Right now I'm watching My Strange Addiction on TLC and like...are they serious? Some guy eats bullets and champagne glasses. One guy is married to a silicone sex doll. This woman can't stop picking her scabs.

And I come to a sudden, blinding realization: I could never, ever be a therapist. I'd honestly either laugh at my clients or I'd just stare at them in judgmental disbelief. Um...of course it's not healthy to eat drywall, you lunatic.

Anywho, that's all the cleverness I can wring out of my little brain for the evening. Puh-leeeeez stick with me. I promise I'll get cooler and funnier.

Oh, and also follow me on Twitter: @KSchinsky

PS - any of my friends on Facebook who saw the picture I posted earlier of my "Habanero Cheese" (what the crap, right?)...totally not worth it. At least not on a burger with sour cream and Lays potato chips.

Buh-bye!!

"Ewww..."

There are things you expect to hear out of your 16-month-old's mouth. For instance, with Logan, I expect to hear things like Mama, Dada, "'mote" (remote), car, "Bob" (Spongebob), and Elmo. Earlier today, though, I heard a new one.

I was in the kitchen, cleaning up the last of my dinner mess from last night, when I heard Logan in the living room.

"Ew," he says, playing with his blocks.

"Ew? What's ew, buddy?"

"Ewwww." He looks over his shoulder at me and laughs.

"Ewwww!" I grin and laugh back at him. Then he gets up and trots into the kitchen.

"Ewwwwww! Mama!" Suddenly he looks very concerned and is squatting over and pointing excitedly at his behind.

Ohhhhh. Now I get it. So I pick him up, and sure enough...ewwwww.

I think this sort of epitomizes life with a toddler. Ew.

Delicious Dinner...and a Whole New Blog!

Well, here it is, folks - a whole new blog for a whole new chapter of life!

I am now very gladly taking suggestions for my young woman

of God/young mom/new wife/housekeeper/future nurse blog. I'm thinking easy DIY house fix-ups, crafts you can do with kids, cheap/easy clothing ideas, day trip ideas, recipes (food and drink...I am married to a bartender, after all!)...things like that.

Thank you all in advance! Here goes nothing!

Cheese-Stuffed Shells, "Almost-from-Scratch" Marinara Sauce, and Garlic Toast

Prep time: 30 minutes

Total cook time: 1 hr, 45 minutes

Bake at 350 degrees

Now, I'm not going to lie, I am no pro when it comes to timing the cooking of multiple dishes so they all finish at once. However, I am trying! I'm fairly sure that will be a main theme in this little corner of the Internet...working on getting this whole grown-up/wife/mother/student/woman of God thing as close to "right" as is possible. Anyway, the point of that is this: I'm not exactly sure how long this whole meal took to put together, but I have some pretty good estimates for each recipe.

"Almost-from-Scratch" Marinara Sauce

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 1 hr, 10 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 (24 oz) jar spaghetti sauce (I prefer Prego)
• 2 (14.5 oz) cans peeled and petite diced tomatoes (teeny little cubes!)
• 1 (6 oz) can tomato paste
• 1 yellow onion, finely chopped
• 2 1/2 tsp garlic, minced
• 1 tsp dried thyme leaves
• 1 tsp dried oregano leaves

Directions

1. Cook onions in spaghetti sauce for 10 minutes over medium-low heat.
2. Add all other ingredients and continue to cook over medium-low heat, covered, for 30 minutes.
3. Uncover and turn heat to low, and cook another 30 minutes. Stir frequently while cooking. Ladle into ungreased 9" x 13" x 2" baking dish to 1/4 inch deep.

*Note: I'm not at all a fan of the texture of cooked vegetables, but if you are, replace 1 can of petite diced tomatoes with 1 can (14.5 oz) stewed tomatoes and don't chop the onion as finely.*

Cheese-Stuffed Pasta Shells

Prep time: 15 minutes

Cook time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 (12 oz) package jumbo pasta shells, cooked, drained, and cooled
• 1 (15 oz) container part skim ricotta cheese
• 4 c. shredded mozzarella cheese
• 5 oz (one half of a 10 oz package) chopped and frozen spinach, thawed and drained
• 1/2 tsp minced garlic
• 1/2 tsp salt
• shaved parmesan (optional)
• crushed red pepper (optional)

Directions

1. In a large bowl, mix all ingredients (except the noodles) until well blended together.
2. Fill cooked shells with cheese mixture and place filled shells into the marinara-lined baking dish. You'll have to pack the shells pretty tightly together; I ended up with about 8 stray shells. Thankfully, my 16-month-old loves cooked noodles!
3. Ladle remaining marinara over shells in the pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

*Note: If you're a cheese fiend like me, top the dish with shaved parmesan for the last 5 - 10 minutes in the oven. :-)*

Garlic Toast

Prep time: 5 minutes

Cook time: 5 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 loaf of your favorite bread (I chose an Italian artisan bread that looked particularly appetizing)
• Olive oil
• Garlic salt

Directions

1. Cut bread into half- to three-quarter-inch slices. Make as many or as few as you think you and your guests, family, etc, will eat; this is the quick and easy part, so you can make more in no time if you want!
2. In a small dish, stir together enough olive oil to lightly coat the slices of bread and enough garlic salt to fit your taste. Brush the mixture on one side of each slice of bread.
3. In a toaster oven, if you have one, toast the bread until golden and crispy (2 - 4 minutes).
4. If you don't have a toaster oven, place bread slices on a baking sheet and place in the oven immediately after removing the stuffed shells. Turn the oven temperature to 450 degrees, and bake for 2 -4 minutes; keep a close eye on the bread, though, because each oven will heat up at a different pace.
5. Use any leftover marinara to dip the garlic toast in :-)

...and VOILA!!

There you have it! Let me know if you try it, and if you do...how is it? I don't like to brag, but mine was fabulous ;-)

A Thing (opinions sorely needed)

I really, really want to have a "thing." You know what I mean. I want to have something quirky that identifies me and is meaningful and could possibly even be considered cute or endearing.

I'd love to blog. Like...as a job. But how the heck do you do that? Seriously, if anyone knows how you get that gig, let me know. I'm totally interested.

Maybe about something like...my clothes? But I'm jeans and t-shirts one day, leggings and flowy shirts the next, and loose cotton dresses the day after. Maybe some kind of fashion blog about rotating trends? Every day gets labeled something new? Weirder things have made successful blogs. Definitely an idea to keep in mind :)

I could cook, but I'd have to find a niche. Young mom/busy will-be nurse/wife of a bartender...I guess I could find something there. But I'd need an awesome camera (or at least help working mine correctly) to really document and show off what I'm making if I want to be successful.

I could do a "variety show" type blog. Cook one day, make an awesome drink the next, come up with a sweet outfit, write a story, do a cool craft with Logan and show it off, manage to take a cool picture for once in my life and share it. I think I like that idea. Opinions? I mean, the variety would have to be limited-ish, but I think that's my best bet so far.

There is one thing I've decided I'm GOING to do. It just came to me an hour ago. But it's super secret ;) Seriously, though, it won't even be something I'd be able to put online, but's it's an awesome idea and I'm so happy I thought of it.

A couple posts ago, I talked about how I can feel a huge life shift coming for me. I have no idea what it means or where it's going to take me, but it's coming. I want to detail it all. I want a record of it, and I want it to be fun and exciting to look at or read. I really want it to mean something. I just need a push toward it...and an outlet for it.

Any and all comments/advice/etc is greatly appreciated!

-KHS

Life...?

I don't really know how to put into words what it is I'm feeling. Yesterday was stressful and today was stressful, and both for very different reasons. It used to be that I'd have days like these and think, "Wow...I really need to write," and then I'd just sit down and type or write, and all the words would just fall off my fingertips without any effort. I used to enjoy going back the next day and re-reading what I'd written, because I thought I wrote with grace and said things that were worth reading.

Up until I was 16, I thought I was going to be a high school teacher...either English or history. I loved writing and reading, and I adored history (although it was definitely never my forte). And then I discovered the medical world. I did an internship my senior year of high school at Memorial Hospital where I followed doctors, nurses, and therapists around a bunch of different departments. The program was aimed to give those of us who wanted a career in medicine a very raw, real glimpse into the life of the medical professionals we aspired to be like. We were required to make a journal entry with every visit (twice a week), but we weren't given any guidelines on what or how to write. I was a writer who had realized she wanted to be a nurse, and my first journal entry on my first day at my internship sounded like just that. I tried to be poetic and insightful, and then I looked back on it a few days later. They sounded ridiculous, and they certainly were not nurses' notes. I quickly cut back on writing...a lot. I started watching insane amounts of Discovery Health and reading my anatomy book in my spare time.

That was a huge shift in my life, and one of my first times seeing who I was truly going to be as an adult. I really, really hate terms like this, but I guess it was one of my first instances of self realization...or something like that.

Right now, I guess, I'm going through another something like that. We just moved just over an hour away from everything I've pretty much ever known. Just me, my husband, and my son. I guess it's not as hard as it could be - the house we're living in belongs to Andy's parents, and it's basically the Schinsky/Schaetzel (Andy's stepdad) hub because it's right in the middle of the cities they all live in. I've been coming to this house for Schinsky family stuff for almost 3 years and I know where everything is and how everything works, and I've always felt comfortable here. Huge, huge plus. But I know NOTHING about Littleton. No streets, no stores, no nothing.

I can feel it...I'm on the verge of an enormous shift. I don't know in what way, exactly, but I know it's coming, and I think I'm really excited about it. Just have to keep praying through the whole thing. That's one thing I need to come back to in a big way. That's the only thing in my life I'm not feeling okay about now. But I suppose that's another entry for another day. If anyone's still reading, thanks for sticking with my. I'm incredibly scatterbrained lately.

So...here goes nothing. Life.