skipping the cake

Kevin and I have both put on quite a few pounds this past year. I guess the stress, lack of sleep, and spending every spare minute working on the house, shopping for the house, or worrying about the house have taken their toll.
Last spring his school had a weight loss contest so he spent this past holiday season bulking up with the intention of showing the largest loss and winning the big prize in the 2015 contest.
He lost a bunch of weight relatively easy once before by doing P90X and eating ham and peas for a few months. I stocked up on the peas thinking it would be the same this go around.
Well it's been 26 days and not much has changed about his eating habits. The week before last he spent his lunch break on teacher training day at the local Quaker Steak and Lube lunch buffet. He got meatloaf, mashed potatoes, gravy, and wings but he "skipped the cake."

He is down 7 pounds.

a pear by any other name...

FOLLOW UP: our tree is no dud. We pick pears after Halloween. They were juicy and yummy and filled the bed of the glass blocker's truck because I had no time to deal with them. He got cash and pears. Not a bad deal for a window. 

Original Post from September 2014
So we have a ginormous pear tree in our backyard. It is full of green pears. Squirrels are enjoying the crunchy pears. Us, not so much. I've done a lot of googling on how to ripen pears. I've asked everyone I know who might know how to ripen pears.

I've heard a lot of things:

• Pick them all on Labor Day.
• Set them on cardboard in the basement to ripen.
• Don't pick too soon.
• Don't pick too late.
• They must be chilled before the ripening process will start.
• Put them by ripe bananas.

My head is spinning from all the pear ripening information and I still am lacking one ripe pear.
Maybe our tree is a dud.

why, it's the natural choice, that's why.

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freezer meal exchange group followup

Original post here: http://familyof9.blogspot.com/2014/08/freezer-meal-exchange-group-experiment.html

This is the follow up. These are reviewed in the order of how we ate them. Despite what my family may have to say I still think this experiment was worth it and I am grateful to the ladies who participated.

What we got:

1. Chicken Paprika: Kids were expecting my high fat version made with skin on dark meat and real sour cream so this just pissed them off,
2. Chicken Taco Chili: Given to a friend recovering from surgery.
3. Breakfast Burritos: A very good idea I will steal and put less spice into, kids dipped in ketchup to take the kick out of them, these are great for a quick breakfast as they are running out the door.
4. Ground Turkey Chili: Pretty good but no one eats chili except me.
5. Cilantro Lime Chicken: A little heavy(for my taste) on corn and black beans which turned mushy in the slow cooker turning chicken black. I fished out most of the chicken and a little of the corn and black beans and stuffed inside flour tortilla Chipotle style.
6. Beef and Vegetable Soup: This was more like a stew and had the perfect ratio of vegetables to beef, a little bit of a sweet flavor, delicious.
7. Chicken Broccoli Rice Casserole: I really liked this one but it was made with brown rice and no cream sauce so again, pissed off my teenage boys.
8. Beef Stroganoff: Sigh. Family much prefers my version.
9. Pasta e'Fagioli: An Olive Garden rip off. This was SUPER! I cooked it a night I had to run off to a training and it was quick and delicious. The next day the day care kids gobbled up the leftovers.
10. Chicken Cacciatore with Tortellini: The tortellinis were cooked to perfection and Caroline had 3 bowls! I called my sister over and she ate it up. She is very picky so that says a lot. By this point, when I say "it's a freezer meal" they boys are not interested so I don't have any feedback from them.
11. Stuffed Peppers:
12. Skinny Sour Cream Enchiladas: I was unsure what to expect after seeing lots of moisture in the bag but WOW these came out great. They were very creamy and chickeney but light on the spice. Day care kids ate them up as did my son-in-law. Two thumbs up.