Wedding Gift

I have a wedding one the 27th of this month. It is for two friends at work that are getting married. They both have had establised households. The don't need the typical newlywed stuff.

As I set pondering what to get them yesterday I thought about something to put on their wall. I thought I might do their last name in filet crochet. I think they would both really like it. Not only that, but I have the supplies.

I want to look online and see if I can find an alphabet to plot out for the pattern. I haven't done filet since before my kids were done.

Cream Cheese Chicken Taqitos

Had these for dinner last night. They were sooo good. I didn’t even dip them in anything. That says a lot. The recipe says that it makes 12, but I got 20. I might not have been quite so generous on the filling, but I wanted to be able to roll them. I thought they had plenty of filling. I used a generous, but not heaping serving size tablespoon. Next time I think I will double this so that I can put some of them in the freezer.

Cream Cheese Chicken Taquitos

Ingredients

• 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• salt + pepper
• 8 ounces cream cheese
• ⅓ cup water
• ½ cup shredded colby or Mexican blend cheese
• 12 6 inch corn or flour tortillas
• optional: cilantro, salsa, sour cream, or other toppings as desired

Instructions

1. Mix chili powder, garlic powder, cumin, salt and pepper to taste, cream cheese, and water in a medium mixing bowl. (I put this in the microwave for 1 minute to make it easier to mix) Pour half of the mixture into your crockpot, place chicken in crockpot and pour remaining mixture over the chicken.
2. Cover and cook on low 8 hours or high for 4 hours.
3. Minutes before serving, remove chicken from crock pot, shred with two forks, and return to slow cooker. Give it a stir. Cook about 15 minutes longer.
4. Preheat oven to 400. Here is a great trick to keep your corn tortilla from falling apart. Place 1 corn tortilla on a skillet, put about ⅛ cup cheese on the corn tortilla. Warm the tortilla until the cheese melts, remove tortilla from pan. Melting the cheese on the corn tortilla will keep it from falling apart in the next step.
5. Place about ¼ cup of the chicken mixture onto the middle of each corn tortilla that has the melted cheese on it or a flour tortilla.
6. Top with 1-2 tablespoons shredded cheese. Roll tightly and place in a single layer on a greased baking sheet. If using corn tortilla brushing some olive oil over them will help with browning and crisping.
7. Bake 10 minutes, until tortillas are slightly browned and shredded cheese is melted. Serve with desired toppings and sauces.

Recipe from http://lecremedelacrumb.com

Knitting Needle Organizer

Today, although Valentines, is my normal shopping day. Told DH there was no way I was going to the grocery store. It is also Presidents Day Weekend and the beginning of Parade of homes. We did do a few small errands together and then he left me to my own devices.
Mentioned to D H that I couldn't find my table top and asked him if he had any idea what happened to it. He said no, and a light bulb went off. I know at one time he put a board under the mattress for his back. I mentioned that and he agreed that might be what happened to it. Sure enough when we got home there it was. It was even painted like I remembered. I am very happy that I don't have to buy a new one.
Went back to Lowes to get the hardware for my desk. I haven't been able to find what I bought yet. A really nice young man helped me find the right size hinge for the table legs so the will collapse. He asked me if I had any braces to keep them up when I had the table set up. Hadn't even thought if it. He found some collapsible braces for me. Even though I had to buy another package of hinges, it was worth it for that hint.
I took the paint samples from the craft room to JoAnn's Fabric. I wanted to be able to match the colors for my knitting needle organizer. That is the other thing that isn't working. I have at least 2 sets of most of the knitting needle sizes. I usually have 3-5 projects going at the same time. I made a roll up organizer for them about 10 years ago, but I have outgrown it. I hate having to paw through them to find what I want.
I saw a cool idea from Etsy, but the owner was sold out. It was very similar to what I had already done, but on a larger scale for over the door. This one has a top row for crochet hooks. I probably won't put that one in. I don't crochet much anymore. I will do one for double points, cables, short and long needles.

I'm making the back of it yellow and the pockets will be two different patterns of orange. I decided to bring in a third color after all
I also went to Michael's and picked up the second thread rack.

Pantry Organizer

Five years ago when I started on this craft room I wanted a gift wrapping station for birthday and shower gifts. I had intended to use part of my pegboard for it, but it didn't work out like I wanted. Last week when I was looking for other things I happened on this pin. She used an over the door pantry organizer from Walmart. I can afford this at $17.88 and easy to do.

I ordered one tonight. My Walmart didn't carry them. Did ship to store. I can't wait for it to come in and get it organized. Now I will have a place for bows, tape, tags etc.

Slow-Cooker Chinese Pork with Garlic Noodles

We had this for dinner last night.  My boys, 1 girlfriend and I really liked it.  My husband said it was okay.  It was really easy.  The pork had really good flavor, and then the sauce flavored the noodles.  This made tons.  For those of you that don’t have kids left at home, or are single, I recommend halving this recipe.  My husband and boys are not fond of cilantro, so I didn’t include that, and I forgot the peanuts, but we will do this again for sure.

Slow-Cooker Chinese Pork with Garlic Noodles

Prep Time 30 min

Total Time 4 hr 20 min

Servings 9

Ingredients

2 pork tenderloins (1 lb each), trimmed

1/4 cup reduced-sodium soy sauce

1 tablespoon hoisin sauce

1 tablespoon tomato sauce

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon grated gingerroot

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

3 tablespoons seasoned rice vinegar

1 teaspoon dark sesame oil

2 packages (8 oz each) Chinese noodles

1 cup julienne carrots

¾ cup diagonally sliced green onions

1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves

1/3 cup chopped unsalted dry-roasted peanuts

1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro

9 lime wedges

Directions

• 1 Spray 5-quart slow cooker with cooking spray. Place pork in slow cooker. In small bowl, stir together 1 tablespoon of the soy sauce, the hoisin sauce, tomato sauce, sugar, gingerroot and garlic. Pour over pork.
• 2 Cover; cook on Low heat setting 3 hours 30 minutes. Remove pork from slow cooker to large bowl; let stand 10 minutes. Pour cooking liquid through strainer into separate bowl; cover to keep warm. Shred pork, using 2 forks; cover to keep warm.
• 3 Return cooking liquid to slow cooker; stir in remaining 3 tablespoons soy sauce, the vinegar and sesame oil. Increase heat setting to High. Cover; cook 10 minutes.
• 4 Meanwhile, cook noodles as directed on package. Turn slow cooker off. Add carrots, onions, cilantro leaves, shredded pork and cooked noodles; toss to coat. Sprinkle individual servings with peanuts and chopped cilantro. Serve with lime wedges.

Note: I didn’t want to use my big crockpot, so I put the meat in my small one.  Cooked the noodles in my big metal pot and then transferred the meat/sauce to the noodle pot.

Button Jars

I posted a request for baby food jars last night on FB. Got a reply from a friend this morning saying she had some. She has been saving them even though her husband couldn't understand why she was. She said she knew one day someone would want them or she would find a use for them. She said she couldn't wait to tell him she was right.

Went at lunchtime to Lowes to look at paint. I'm thinking of adding a third accent color. I had found the name of the yellow on the paint can, but I didn't write down the name of the green. I stood there for about 20 minutes trying to find it. All of a sudden I remembered that I was just starting to blog when I was doing this. Sure enough there was a blog post with the paint colors in it. I really wanted to do a happy dance in the store.

As I have been moving around in this room I have decided I really don't like the dressers in the room. They don't work for me. I don't like getting in them. I would rather just see the yarn.

Looked around on my favorite place, Pintrest, and came up with an idea similar to this.

I am just going to use it for my yarn instead of shoes. That way I will be able to see it at a glance. I am going to divide it into cubbies like this. I bough white duct tape to find it together and to coordinate in the room. It will also make it stronger.

Came home with the baby food jars and put them straight into a sink of hot water to get labels off. The have redesigned the labels. They are more of a clear sticker now. I had to use a knife and a lot of elbow grease to peel them off. I tried two different things and couldn't get the glue to come off. Guess I will have to buy some Goo Gone.

Counter and Pegboard Baskets

I had asked one of the guys at church Sunday what the best tool to cut my kitchen counter with for my spice rack. He is a general contractor, so he would know. He said he would come over tonight and look at it. I thought I could do it with a jigsaw, or a circular saw. He said not a jigsaw. The blade wiggles to much. He didn't think it would cut a straight enough line.
Our knitting group was throwing a surprise party for our leader Carole. I had to leave before they got there. I asked DS1 to show them where I wanted it cut and pay attention to what they said.

As I was cleaning the other night I had a great idea. I had 3 pieces of wood left over from my spice rack that I didn't have a use for. I realized I could use them on my pegboard as shelves.

After the party I made a quick trip to Walmart to buy the pegs for the shelves and a new thread rack. Found a thread rack at Michaels and was able to use a 40% off coupon so it was only $8.99. Saw a pin on Pintrest that Target hat small metal buckets in their $1 section. Went to check them out. Bought three. One for my rulers and seam ripper, one for pencils and one for my exactly knife and scissor sharpener. Things I just want to grab that are long.

Came home and talked to DS1. I asked him if the contractor had come. He said yes. Asked him what he said and he said he didn't remember. I couldn't believe it. It had only been two hours. He suggested I call. I was really not very happy with him. He is 19, but I swear some days he has no brain cells.

Put up my shelves, buckets and thread rack. The shelves fit perfectly onto the long pegs. I will need to paint them. As I put them together i decided that I ought to use baby food jars to sort my buttons. They would be clear and small. I posted a request on Facebook. There are a lot of new moms at church. Shouldn't take long to gather them.

Filled the buckets and put them on the bottom row of holes. They look really cute. I need to find some small baskets for some of the flatter things like pins, tape measures, bobbins and sewing machine feet.

Put up the new tread rack. I didn't realize that I had so much. There were only a couple of empty spots when done. I guess I need two! I will need to mount more pegboard. I have some leftover, and a mounting strip. I just need to cut it to the right size.