Recipe: White Cheese Sauce

This cheese sauce tastes very similar to the white cheese sauce that I used to get at Miguel's in San Diego while I was in college. We would go there and eat the chips and the cheese sauce and barely have room for dinner. That could be part of why my freshman 15 turned into a sophomore 30, but it was delicious!

Ingredients:
1.5 cups Whipping Cream
1 cup Sour Cream
1 tsp Chicken Bullion Granulars
2 Tbsp Salted Butter
1 Tbsp Flour
1 jalapeno, minced
1 Tbsp juice from bottled jalapenos
6 oz (or more) Shredded Cheese (cheddar & jack)


Directions:
Heat whipping cream in saucepan over high heat, when the cream is about to boil, stir in the sour cream. Once the sour cream has melted (dissolved), reduce heat to medium. Stir in chicken bullion and jalapeno juice and simmer.

In a small skillet make a roux: melt butter over medium heat, add flour and mix with a whisk until the mixture turns a pale gold.

When the cream mixture is about to boil, add the roux whisking constantly until roux is incorporated. Turn heat to low and stir in minced jalapeno and shredded cheese until cheese is melted.

Serve with tortilla chips. Makes about 3.5 cups.


The original directions called for 2 oz total of cheese, which I tried the first time I made this and it wasn't nearly cheesy enough. Since I upped the amount of cheese, I also decreased the amount of whipping cream (originally it was 2 cups). For the minced jalapeno, I usually just get about 6 slices out of my jar of sliced jalapenos and dice them up. Much easier than using a fresh jalapeno.

I love this sauce, I could probably eat about half of it by myself which is why I don't make it that often. But it is so freaking delicious. And much easier than flying to San Diego just for White Cheese Sauce. You definitely want to keep it warm, the last time I made this I put it in a mini crock-pot on the "warm" setting.

Project Life: Week 24

Week 24: June 11 - 17


I ordered my pictures on Monday night, picked them up over lunch on Tuesday, ended up going to the Baseball game that night, sat down to work on Project Life Wednesday evening, decided that I wanted to do something a little different with a few pictures and make an insert which meant I had 6 empty 3x4 inch slots so I had to order MORE pictures which I picked, photoshopped and ordered on Wednesday night, picked up my new pictures on Thursday over lunch, work on my layout Thursday evening, took pictures of it during lunch on Friday and now I'm finally posting it. Makes me tired just thinking about it.


I've been taking more pictures of what we're eating for dinner recently. Mostly because I sometimes want to post recipes here, so I like to have a picture of my "plated" food. This week I took 3 dinner pictures and combined them into one 6x4 print, I also typed the name of the dish on each section - the first one is hard to read, it is the the BLT Chicken Pasta Salad.


I also took quite a few sprinkler/water pictures which is what was made into an insert. The previous week Justin had bought some water guns and we finally played with them outside. I love the picture of Claire being excited about the water gun. I had so many cute pictures of Claire, but I forced myself to only order one.


Sunday was Father's day, so on Friday night I had the girls all come outside and wash Justin's car (and mine while they were at it). Saturday morning, Claire & I went to The Berry Patch to pick berries. Definitely should have forced the Anaya & her friend to get up and go with us, we ended up only picking a pound because Claire wasn't cooperating with me. I made two Father's Day desserts so I included a picture of them. Then I made Justin and the girls pose in the backyard for a Father's Day picture.


Thanks for coming and seeing my Project Life!

Baseball Game

I was planning to work on my Project Life layout last night, then at 4pm, our company receptionist/office manager sent out an email about Royals tickets for that night. I called Justin to make sure he didn't mind and sent in a email to try and "win" the tickets. They do a drawing I think of all the people that say they want the tickets, I'm not sure if not very many people wanted them or if I was just lucky, but I won the tickets. So after a quick dinner, we headed out to Kaufman Stadium for our once a year baseball experience.

I've been spoiled by the company tickets, they are in the Diamond club. There are seriously FOUR actual rows in front of us and then a few rows of dugout seats and then the field. And in the Diamond Club, they have people that come down and take your order for food and drink. There's no way I would spend the amount of money required to buy these tickets - we enjoy going, but not THAT much. This picture - from my seat, no zooming.


I wasn't originally planning to take Claire, but she would've been so sad to stay home while Anaya, H and I went. And I had four tickets. So she got to come too! And she did MUCH better than I thought she would do. I did take the iPad so that she could play with it when she started getting antsy. She and I also went on a walk around the entire stadium.


We ended up staying until the beginning of the 9th inning. At that point, the Royals were ahead 8 to 2 and Claire was crying because everyone was screaming and yelling because someone hit a home-run that got 3 runs in. Then Claire looked at me and said "All Done" and did the sign she does when she's all done at dinner time (hands out facing up and kind of shrugs). So we packed up our stuff and went home, it was about 10pm at that point.


By the time we got home and put Claire in bed and took H home, it was too late to work on PL. Maybe tonight?

Water Table

I almost got rid of Claire's water table last year. We don't usually take good care of it, I think we may have filled it up once last summer (if even that) and then flipped it upside down and then rain water filled the underside and leaves and bugs and crap and someone would've had to clean it and yeah. But last Thursday, Justin cleaned the water table. Ok, the underside is still kind of gross looking, but it's MUCH better than it was. Since the water table only came with three toys and I didn't want to bring out the real pool toys, I brought her LittlePeople Noah's Ark out for her, I need to find the rest of her animals and bring them out too.


On Friday, Justin surprised us when we got home with one of those little plastic pools for Claire. We have a toddler-sized inflatable pool, but we just wanted something small she could wash her feet off in if nothing else. We've had a plastic pool before too, it got all gross and nasty and then I threw it away. I think that was 2 years ago? On Friday, Claire was happy to sit in it and play with her Little People animals. She hasn't gotten in her little pool since Friday, not sure why not, but I'll ask her if she wants to get in the little pool and she'll say "Nooo".


I have discovered that I can read a book while Claire plays in the water table. I could probably do something a little more productive too - like weed a flowerbed in the back yard, or something. But I've mostly been reading ridiculous romance novels from the library. And I have to say, I LOVE that my house faces west, that means the backyard is in the shade in the evening. By 6pm, the patio is in the shade and even though it is warm outside, it is not terrible to sit in the shade while Claire's splashes around the water table.

Menu Monday

It seems like the price of groceries as suddenly gone up A LOT. I'm not sure why, but I go to the store with less than 10 things on my list and spend at least $50. Sure, I sometimes buy things that I don't intend to buy, but seriously, food is expensive. And I did stock up on a few things the past couple of times I was at the store (lots of crackers for snacks, and frozen pizza & mac and cheese for quick dinners).

So, here's what we ended up eating last week:

Monday - Breakfast - Bacon, Eggs, Toast
Tuesday - Palermo's Pizza
Wednesday - Beef & Cheese Stuffed Shells, Green Beans
Thursday - Marinated Pork Chops, Pasta Salad
Friday - Mac & Cheese, Cantaloupe
Saturday - Hot Dogs, Corn, Cantaloupe
Sunday - Leftovers

Ended up re-arranging and changing a few things. We didn't have enough leftovers for Tuesday, so we had a frozen Pizza. Justin doesn't like have "similar" dishes two nights in a row (or even in the same week), so Chicken Parmesan got bumped around and eventually off the menu all together since we'd have the Beef & Cheese shells and they both have marinara sauce on them. Friday we didn't feel like cooking and none of us we particularly hungry so we had a box of Kraft Mac & Cheese. Then Justin decided he wanted Hot Dogs for dinner on Saturday and since I had to pick up some stuff to make cookies I went ahead and got Hot Dogs and buns while I was there Saturday morning, luckily I hadn't bought the Deli Meat yet so that just go pushed to next weekend. And we did have enough leftovers to eat on Sunday, so we just did that instead of making Fried Eggs.

The current grocery ad does not have much that I actually want in it, so I think I'm going to hope that the ad that comes out on Wednesday is better and try to eat things that we have between now and Thursday. Since we didn't have the Parmesane Crusted Chicken we'll have that on Monday night. I stocked up on Smoked Brats the last time they were on sale and we have buns from last Saturday, so that's Tuesday. We don't actually have Tuna right now, but I need to run by Target on Monday or Tuesday to pick up Project Life pictures so I can get a can of Tuna while I'm there.

The plan for this week:

Monday - Parmesan Crusted Chicken, Peas, Bread
Tuesday - Smoked Brats, Pasta Salad
Wednesday - Tuna Salad Sandwiches
Thursday - Steak, Pasta/Rice side
Friday - Breakfast - Pancakes, Sausage, Fruit
Saturday - Deli Subs, Fruits & Veggies
Sunday - Palermo's Pizza / Leftovers?

Project Life: Week 23

Week 23: June 4 - 10

I was not feeling the motivation to work on Project Life this week. I had all my pictures selected by last Tuesday, but then I just ignored them until Monday night when I finally just ordered them from Target. I wanted to do some journaling on them before I ordered them, but I never got around to it. I mean, I could've waited to print them, but I had to go to Target on Tuesday anyways to buy a DVD for Claire (maybe 'had to' isn't the right phrase), and I didn't want to make anymore trips to Target than necessary.

So I got my pictures and I cut them apart, but I still wasn't really in the mood to do all my journal strips and cutting them apart and sticking them to each picture. So I took a picture of my work in progress and started writing this blog post, but it wasn't THIS blog post, it was about my lack of motivation. It as just going to be blog filler for the PL week that would get done eventually.


At one point I started brainstorming other approaches I could take to my journaling this week. Not counting my insert, I had already filled all but one of my 3x4 spots and the only 6x4 spot left was for my title card. Finally I decided maybe this week I wouldn't use a standard title card. Maybe this week I should type all my journaling for all my pictures on one 6x4 piece and use that as my title card. At which point I got motivated and got it all done. I ended up printing one more 3x4 picture to fill in the one spot I had left originally (it's the picture of Strawberry Cheesecake).

Full spread without insert:

Left side:

The only unfortunate thing is that I closed all of my photoshop files without saving them, and after looking at the title/journal card, I wish I had made my font larger. But I really don't want to re-type all of that, so we'll see if it looks okay tomorrow.

Right side:

Insert:

My brother-in-law and new sister-in-law got married that weekend, so the insert is all about their wedding. The picture of just my family was taken with the timer while my camera was balanced on a bike rack (which I think annoyed Justin - he was worried it would fall). Unfortunately the focus ended up being on the plants behind us so we're a little blurry, but it's still a pretty good picture.


Thanks for coming and seeing my Project Life!

Menu Monday

It's that fun time of the week when I have to plan out our menu for the week. I hate menu planning, but at least this way I get it all done at once instead of attempting to figure something out every single day.

Monday - Breakfast - Bacon, Eggs, Toast
Tuesday - Leftovers?
Wednesday - Beef & Cheese Stuffed Shells, Green Beans
Thursday - Parmesan Crusted Chicken, Peas, Bread
Friday - Marinated Pork Chops, Pasta Salad
Saturday - Deli Subs, Fruits & Veggies
Sunday - Fried Egg Sandwiches

Sunday evenings are usually my lazy dinner evening. We have a big lunch with my parents so sometimes we aren't terribly hungry. Sometimes we end up getting fast food (like last Sunday we ended up getting Arby's) because I'm not always in the mood to cook. If we end up having fast food during the week it is because I haven't gone to the grocery store yet, but on Sundays it is because I am lazy.

I think I actually had one other meal planned for this week, I made the menu up during my lunch break at work and then I left my menu plan at work. Whoops. So I'm blogging about it from memory. Which is why tomorrow night is followed by a question mark, although since I didn't go grocery shopping since my grocery list is also at work with the menu plan, that means tomorrow night could be interesting.

Speaking of Arby's, have you had their Triple Cheese and Bacon Angus sub thingy - something like that. Oh my goodness, it is so delicious. Justin got one on Sunday and I ended up eating half of it. Also, do you remember the Little Miss and Mr Men books? In their happy meals they have little plastic Little Miss and Mr Men characters. We have 5 of the 6 characters (you can buy the toys without the kids meal, we haven't had Arby's that much). Claire loves them. I need to pull the books out that we have the match the characters that she has and read them to her.

Father's Day Cakes

I made two cakes for Father's Day. My dad specifically asked for a Pineapple Upside-down Cake and I knew that wasn't what Justin would prefer. So on Saturday evening as an "early father's day", I made a Peanut Butter Cake for Justin.

The Peanut Butter Cake was delicious, although the icing was ALMOST too rich. Justin prefers thicker cakes so even though the recipe said to make it in a 10x15 Jelly Roll pan, I used a 9x13 Cake pan. But I made the same amount of icing/glaze so it was pretty thick on my cake. It almost tasted like Peanut Butter Caramel - soooo good, but so rich. I'm thinking about making it again and making the peanut butter sheet cake but with the chocolate icing you put on a Texas Sheet Cake, or maybe make the chocolate sheet cake with the peanut butter icing.


Then on Sunday after we got home from church, I threw the Pineapple Upside-Down Cake together. I don't have a link to the recipe because it is out of Pioneer Woman's first cookbook - the Pineapple Upside Down Cake in a Cast Iron Skillet. I was a little worried about the batter because it was REALLY thin, but it turned out amazing. So delicious. I probably should've squished my pineapple together a little bit more than I did, but live and learn!



Then this evening I made everyone go outside and I took a picture of them. Justin & his girls...on Father's Day 2012:

Tell Your Story - A Photography Challenge 2

It's time for another photography link-up with Jenny Meyerson!

After her last link-up, I went ahead and created this post with just the list of things to take pictures of so that I wouldn't forget about it. Well, I didn't forget but I kept thinking that I had lots of time before the link up...and then I didn't.

1. Something you can’t live without.  There are lots of things I wouldn't want to live without, but I had a hard time coming up with an appropriate picture for this category - do I go all serious and take a picture of running water? Or my family?  A little more humorous and take a picture of coffee?  Or my phone?  Finally ended up with my camera, now while I could probably live without this particular camera (even though I love it a whole lot), I would be hard to live without ANY camera.  (Picture is from last Christmas when I got my new camera).


2. A favorite snack.  My favorite snack changes...a lot.  And since I'd like to lose some weight, I don't currently buy one of my most favorite snacks (frito chips).  We'll call this my favorite snack when I'm attempting to lose weight - Red Grapes.  I usually wash them all when I get home from the grocery store and put them in a plasticware container to make it easier to grab some when I need a little to eat.


3. Your ride.  My car is a Mazda6; I call it "Silver".  I have such a love-hate relationship with this car.  This is supposed to be Justin's car.  The one that is supposed to be my car is also a Mazda6, but it's a 2004 with a v6 and a sunroof and it's green - Sepang Green to be exact.  As opposed to this Mazda6 that is a 2006 with a 4-cyclinder engine and no sunroof.  The reasons why we switched cars are fairly ridiculous, mostly because Silver had an issue with it's rotors that we just resolved after 5 years of dealing with vibration when breaking.  I'm more tolerant of it, so I drive it.  It's resolved now and hopefully doesn't come back.  So we could switch back, but the one that is supposed to be my car now smells like smoke since Justin gets in the car right after smoking.  So I get to drive Silver and Justin gets to drive my car - that I bought before I even MET him.  Not that I'm bitter.


4. Weekend routine.  Claire and I are always the first two people to get up in the morning.  In an effort to no disturb everyone else and to keep Claire distracted from Anaya's room on the weekends when she is here, we usually come upstairs and crawl in my bed and watch tv for an hour or so.  It gives me a chance to "rest" in (since sleeping in hasn't happened since January 2009).



5. A place you get your food.  I do most of my grocery shopping at either HyVee or Price Chopper.  Price Chopper is closer, but the bakery, produce & meat at HyVee is better.  So it mostly depends on what's in the ad at each place and what other errands I have to run.


Go to Jenny's Link Up to see other people's 5 Things for June.

Recipe: Chicken BLT Pasta Salad

This recipe is a bit of a mixture of a couple of different recipes that I found online. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect.

• 1 1/2 cups uncooked pasta (I went with bow-tie)
• 3 cups torn lettuce/greens (I went with romaine)
• 1 lb of chicken, cooked and in bite-size pieces
• 1/2 lb of bacon, cooked and crumbled
• 1/2 cup grape tomatoes, halved
• 3 Tbsp mayonnaise
• 2 tsp BBQ sauce
• 3/4 tsp white vinegar
• salt & pepper to taste

1. Cook pasta according to package directions and rinse with cold water. I cooked my pasta, chicken and bacon last night and then just put them all in the fridge for easy assembly tonight.


2. Salad: Combine pasta, lettuce, chicken, bacon and tomatoes in a large bowl.

3. Sauce: Combine mayonnaise, BBQ sauce, vinegar, salt & pepper in a small bowl. Whisk together well. Depending on the BBQ sauce, it may be a bit thick, if it is too thick to pour, add up to 1/2 tsp of water.

4. Pour sauce over salad and toss to coat. Serve immediately. This made about 4-5 large servings. (the picture above is a sm-med serving, the picture below is what was leftover)


The recipes that I modified all had this as a side-dish. I decided to make it my main dish so I increased the amount of chicken and bacon. I think it would also be good with some additional veggies - cucumbers, shredded carrots, peppers, corn, etc. I meant to add cheese to it, but then I forgot until we were already at the table eating and no one wanted cheese enough to go get it.

It definitely needed more of the sauce, double or even triple it. I ended up making some more before I put the leftovers in the fridge. I cooked the chicken with Penzey's Arizona Dreaming seasoning mix - I love that mix. The sauce was delicious, just needed a lot more of it.

I'm not sure how well this will keep in the fridge since the lettuce is already mixed it. I guess I'll find out tomorrow. Next time I will probably just serve it with a bowl of lettuce so that I don't have to worry about the lettuce wilting and ruining the rest of it.

For easy printing, I also posted this on TastyKitchen.