Recipe: Homemade Mac-n-Cheese Squared

*I'm sort of just using this blog to post a recipe so I can share it with Twitter. I may come back to it someday, but I'm too overwhelmed with family stuff and my obligations to Book Binge. I'm on Twitter off and on if you want to keep up with me there!

This is my take on Yard House's (mac+cheese)2. For those of you who haven't experienced the awesomeness of (mac+cheese)2, I feel sorry for you. Luckily you can have something similar by trying out this recipe.

Warning: This isn't even remotely healthy. Trying to make it healthy will compromise the integrity of the recipe. I suggest using this as one of those once-in-awhile omg-who-needs-arteries type meals.

The great thing about the Yard House dish is the mushrooms and truffle oil. Because I'm cheap, I don't buy truffle oil. And because my family hates mushrooms, I only add a small bit of diced to the dish. It isn't as good as the real thing, but it's close enough.

You can use just about any cheese combination. Whatever you have in your fridge is fine. I would recommend using at least 4oz of Velveeta (or another processed cheese) to add creaminess and 2-4oz cream cheese for flavor. Even if you don't like swiss, it's a must. It gives the dish depth. Trust me. I wouldn't lie to you.

1/3 cup all-purpose flour
2 2/3 cups milk
3/4 cup shredded fontina or Swiss cheese
1/2 cup shredded sharp cheddar
1/2 cup shredded Monterey Jack
4oz cream cheese
4oz Velveeta
1/4 cup grated fresh Parmesan cheese
8 slices lean bacon
1/2 cup of diced mushrooms (I use baby bellas. They give it awesome flavor)
1/4 teaspoon ground Black Pepper
1/4 teaspoon seasoned salt
2 chicken breasts, cubed
6 cups cooked pasta (about 3 cups uncooked) your choice (I generally use rotini or penne)
Cooking spray
1  cup breadcrumbs (I like sourdough, but you can use whatever you want/have)
1 tablespoon butter or stick margarine, softened

Preparation

Preheat oven to 375°.

Fry bacon in a large skillet. Remove from pan once cooked and drain on a paper towel, then crumble. Add mushrooms to the bacon grease in the pan and saute 1-2 minutes. Remove mushrooms from pan and add cubed chicken pieces; saute 3-5 minutes until cooked through. (Yes, cook mushrooms and chicken in bacon grease. I TOLD you it was bad for you)

Lightly spoon flour into a dry measuring cup; level with a knife. Place flour in a large saucepan. Gradually add milk, stirring with a whisk until blended. Cook over medium heat until thick (about 8 minutes), stirring constantly. Add cheeses; cook 3 minutes or until cheese melts, stirring frequently (add more milk if sauce is too thick). Remove from heat; stir in macaroni, chicken, mushrooms, salt, pepper and half the crumbled bacon.

Spoon mixture into a 13x9 casserole dish coated with cooking spray. Sprinkle breadcrumbs over mixture, then pour melted butter over the top. Bake at 375° for 30-40 minutes or until bubbly. Sprinkle remaining bacon bits over the dish and serve hot.

Happy 1st Birthday Princess Bowie!

*I scheduled this for yesterday but for some reason it didn't post. I'm posting it a day late instead.

Today PB turned one. I can't believe its been a year already. She's a very adventurous baby. She gets into everything and lately she's all about climbing. She climbs up bookcases, on tables and even uses her little chair as a stool. She's giving me gray hair.

She still isn't walking. She takes a few steps then gets scared and sits down. It makes me laugh how fearless she is when going up, yet she's a big fraidy cat going forward. She's adorable.

Still, it seems like yesterday when she was small ans cuddly. Or having a fit about Tummy Time. Or learning to roll over, then crawl. MM and I are both a little depressed today. It's definitely bittersweet.

Princess Bowie: 10 Months

Sometimes I share pictures of the baby on Twitter. This is one I posted to mark 10 months. Isn't she the most adorable baby ever? She has so much personality.

Can you believe she's now 11 months. On November 19 she'll turn 1. It's kind of drepessing.

She's super clever. This week she started standing on her own. As in, she'll stand up from sitting on the floor without using anything to pull herself up. I know she'll be walking soon. Which is also depressing. I'm not ready!

She loves to dance. Her newest favorite jam is Gangnam Style. She squeals and gets down every time it comes on. So funny.

She is still one of the happiest babies I've ever seen. She rarely fusses. We are seriously blessed.

When Ted Attacks

(I could go into a long, drawn out explanation of why I haven't been blogging this past year. Instead I'm going to sum it up in a sentence - I had a baby. 'Nuff said. Rather than doing a series of posts catching you on my life, I'm just going to jump right back into it. For two reasons. 1) I'm lazy. 2) I have a baby.)

A couple of years ago MM and I went on a cruise with some of our friends (I think 6 other couples?). During our "at sea" day, I decided to relax in our room while MM went out and met our friends. We agreed to meet on the Lido deck at an arranged time. Only that never came to be. I waited on the deck forever. Then I wandered the ship - periodically checking our stateroom - before finally giving up and finding the bar (alcohol makes everything better, right?). 

I'm not going to lie - I was really annoyed with MM at the time. Hello, he abandoned me on a freaking cruise ship! And I just knew he was with our friends..somewhere. Eventually we did meet up and he said they'd been hanging out on the adults only deck (the only one I didn't check, of course), watching the sunset. He said they thought of me, however, and I shouldn't be too upset that I missed watching it with them. 

They were helpful and took a picture. 

He said this way we could photoshop me in. "It'll be just like you were there, babe!". He thinks he's so funny. (but he's totally not)

Flash forward to a couple months ago. MM and I went and saw Ted in the theater on Date Night. Seriously, one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long time (though kind of bogged down and a little weird in the middle). We laughed for days. When we got home MM found a Ted app for his phone. It had quotes from the movie and who knows what else (I just rolled my eyes at him). 

One of the features of the app? Putting Ted in your pictures. I bet you can see where this is headed. 

 

Oh yeah. Replaced by Ted. 

Thanks babe. I'm feeling the love.

Welcome to the World, Princess Bowie

Me at 38.5 weeks  11/17/11

This post is 2 months overdue. I hadn't realized how long it has been since I updated. I kept meaning to write a new post, but you know how that goes.

The last few weeks of my pregnancy went fairly well. I was tired a lot, but I had my nausea under control. Our biggest concern was that the baby was still breech and was running out of room to turn over. At 35 weeks the doctor told us we'd most likely have to do a c-section. I was really bummed about it. I had both TG and LM naturally. The recovery time for a c-section is a lot longer. Yuck.

At 37 weeks we scheduled the c-section. One doctor was still optimistic that she'd flip, but the other didn't think it would happen. We were hopeful, but went ahead and scheduled the c-section to be on the safe side. We set it for Tuesday, 11/21/11 at noon, when I was 29 weeks. I was a little bummed that I'd be in the hospital for Thanksgiving, but eh..such is life.

On Friday, November 18, we had our last weekly checkup appointment. She was still breech. The doctor said it was possible she'd flip once I went into labor, so I should have an ultrasound to verify before doing the c-section. I could tell he didn't think it was likely. By then, I'd sort of resigned myself to doing the c-section. No, it wasn't ideal, but at least there would be less stress on her and to be honest, it was kind of nice knowing when it would happen. We were able to make plans for TG and LM and the dogs, etc, etc.

That afternoon I took my math final and came home exhausted. I made a list of all the last minute things I wanted to do before the c-section on Tuesday:

• Get a mani, pedi and eyebrow wax
• Pack hospital bag (I'd started it, of course, but needed to finish)
• Clean the house from top to bottom (with help from MM and the kids)
• Take MM grocery shopping so he could buy stuff he'd actually cook (MM isn't so great in the kitchen)

..and on and on it went. There wasn't anything major on the list, but there was stuff that needed to be done. That night I was tired and uncomfortable when I went to bed. That was nothing new. I'd been tired and uncomfortable for months. I woke up several times in the night to go to the bathroom and get a drink. The last time I went to the bathroom was about 3:30. After that I knocked out and had some crazy dreams. I woke up again around 5:00 and tossed and turned for awhile. I rolled over and faced MM and started to drift off. At 5:30 my back started hurting so I rolled over the other way....and felt a trickle of liquid run down my underwear.

I poked MM and said, "Either I just wet myself or my water broke." MM said, "You wet yourself. Go back to sleep." You wish, MM. You wish.

I had him haul me out of bed and as soon as I stood up there was a gush of liquid. Alrighty then. Not the most comfortable feeling in the world. My water didn't break with TG. With LM it did, but I was sleeping and most of it had leaked out before I got out of bed. This was a totally new - and pretty disgusting - experience for me.

Aside: Let me tell you something, there was a ton of fluid. A ton. No one told me there would be that much. I soaked through 4 towels and 3 large overnight pads. Plus some. And I leaked all the way to the hospital...and more when I got there. It was crazy.

But I digress. So MM hauls me out of bed and I realized yep, my water has broken. I told him to wake the kids up while I took a shower (which ended up being pointless because of all the fluid, but I didn't find that out until later). He was still in a daze and mostly asleep. It was funny watching him stumble around trying to pack a bag, get the kids ready and get himself ready. Also? MM makes really lame jokes when he's tired. In case you were wondering.

It took us about an hour to get ready to leave, by the time we fed the dogs, got the kid ready, got all our stuff and the baby stuff together, etc. By then my contractions had started, though they were pretty mild. TG had state finals for marching band and had to be to the school by 6:30. She decided she wanted to go ahead and compete so we dropped her off on our way, then dropped LM at my mom's.

We got to the hospital about 7:00am. By then my contractions were starting to get a little worse, though they still weren't too bad. Mostly I was just uncomfortable. We explained about the baby being breech and the scheduled c-section and were directed to the Triage center, just in case we needed to be prepped for surgery. After checking in and having an ultrasound, they determined she was still breech. I was also dilated to 3cm. Had she not been breech, my labor would have gone pretty fast.  It just so happened that my doctor was in the hospital doing rounds. He okay'd the surgery and they started prepping me for it.

There was some kind of snafu with the pharmacy and some meds I needed. By the time they got it worked out I was in full blown labor, with contractions coming less than 5 minutes apart. I was NOT HAPPY. One of the benefits of doing a c-section is getting to skip labor, right? MM was great, though, helping me breathe through the contractions and helping me focus on other things.

Around 9 a.m., approximately 4 hours after I went into labor, they wheeled me into the OR and I got my spinal. That was fabulous. Well, at first. Then it was just weird to not be able to move at all. While they prepped me for surgery, MM had to wait outside. They brought him in as soon as I was fully numb. The doctor was already making the incision when MM was led into the room.

The surgery went really fast. I don't know what I expected, but within 5 minutes of him starting. I heard the baby cry. Naturally I started crying then, too. While the doctor finished the surgery (I chose to have a tubal ligation..so no more babies for me) MM went with Princess Bowie while they cleaned her up. I could hear her crying, but hadn't seen her yet. Before they took her out of the room, the nurse carried her over and rubbed her face on mine. Since I was looking at her upside down, I didn't get a good look. I cried harder. MM took a ton of pictures, then followed the nurse out of the room so they could weigh her and all that.

Princess Bowie approx 9:58 a.m.

The next little bit is kind of a blur for me. I know they finished the surgery. What a strange sensation. It didn't hurt, exactly, but there was a lot of pressure while the doctor finished sewing me up. Shortly after he finished they took me into recovery. I don't know how long I was in there before MM and Princess Bowie showed up. As soon as they came in MM brought her over so I could hold her. She was beautiful. I had to ask MM how big she was, because he forgot to tell me.

As predicted, MM fell in love with her about the second she was born. By the time he met me in recovery she owned him. He spent most of the time we were in recovery texting all our friends and family about her. I didn't care since I was busy falling in love myself.

Princess Bowie
Born 11/19/11 @ 9:49 a.m.
6lbs 10oz
18.5 inches long

....to be continued

Weird Cravings

We've all heard the stories about women who had crazy cravings during pregnancy. Pickles and ice cream. Beet soup. Dirt. (yes, I have a friend who craved dirt while she was pregnant).

Me? I've never had really weird cravings. But I have had weird "for me" cravings.

When I was pregnant with The Girl, I craved McDonald's McChicken sandwiches with sweet-n-sour sauce on them. That's pretty much all I could keep down. I'd have at least one a day. I have no idea why I craved them. It was weird for me, because at the time I hated chicken and didn't eat it at all. But man did I snarf on those sandwiches.

With Little Man, I craved Filet-o-Fish sandwiches from McDonald's. Only..I hate those. I think they're nasty. OMG did I want them, but I couldn't stand the taste. So I'd buy a fish sandwich and a hamburger. I'd take one bite of the fish, then a bite of the burger, then the fish, then the burger. That was the only way I could eat it..if I had something to kill the taste in my mouth.

With this pregnancy? Chicken McNuggets with sweet-n-sour sauce. I don't know what it is with me and McDonald's during pregnancy, but OMG do I crave those suckers. MM finds this very amusing. Sometimes one bite will do me, other times I'll eat 10 of them and still want more. It's crazy.

The worst craving I've had so far, though, was for Krispy Kreme donuts. We don't have a KK near here and they stopped carrying them in our local supermarkets ages ago, so it's probably been 5 years since I had a one. But the Saturday before Halloween I got the worst craving for a cream filled glazed Krispy Kreme. I wanted it SO EFFING BAD. I drove to all the stores in town, to make sure they didn't have any, then went to our local bakery and stood in front of the donut case for a good ten minutes. I just couldn't do it, though. I wanted a Krispy Kreme and that was that.

MM was gone with LM doing some boy scout thing all morning, but when he got home that afternoon I told him we were going to find a Krispy Kreme. He tried to talk me out of it, but I was determined to have one. I figured we could drive to a supermarket out of town to get one. MM told me to call around and see who carried them. No one. I seriously called grocery stores from here to 50 miles away and not one had them. I was so frustrated!

MM said he thought there was a KK about an hour away and told me to look it up. Sure enough, there was one 89 miles away. But...89  miles for a donut? Even I'm not that crazy. I told MM to just go down to the grocery store and buy me a donut. I'd make that work. He said, "that isn't going to take care of your craving, babe. We both know it." He was right, but to drive that far for a freaking donut? No. Just no.

Finally MM said, "I'm driving an hour to get a donut. I'm going to be pissed if you aren't in the car with me."

That, my friends, is the reason I married him.

So we drove an hour to get a Krispy Kreme. We decided to get a dozen and bring them home. The kid behind the counter kept telling me the ones on the top shelf were $.50 more or $.20 more or whatever. Finally, after about the 5th time the kid reminded us, MM said "Look, we just drove an hour for these. I don't think $.20 really matters all that much." The look on the kid's face was priceless. I'm sure my face was beet red, but whatever.

I grabbed a little cup of donut holes at the register, and MM and I ate those on the way home. That night after dinner I cut one of the donuts into 4 pieces and we all had one (me, MM, LM and TG). The next morning MM woke me up with the box under my nose. He said, "How about breakfast in bed?". That set the tone for the day. By the time we went to bed, we'd eaten all but two. The next day (Halloween) I had a doctor's appointment. He said, "you had a little sugar in your urine today. No trick-or-treating for you." I said, "That's because I ate a dozen donuts yesterday." and MM laughed.

You know what? It was totally worth it.

Pregnancy Update: Week 35

Only 5 weeks to go. YES! I feel like we're finally on the downhill slide. I am so ready for this kid to get outta me. We saw our doctor yesterday. She's still breech (her head is near my ribcage). I really thought she'd flipped over this week, so I'm totally bummed. If she hasn't turned by the time I go into labor I might have to have a c-section. DO NOT WANT. I'm really hoping she turns! The doctor did tell us today that if we go into labor he won't stop it. I really hope I go into labor early (don't tell MM I said that).

I'm super big and uncomfortable now. Just between you, me and the internet, I've gained 45lbs. FORTY-FIVE. MM assures me it's all baby, but we both know he's lying. Still, a lot of it is baby. My stomach is huge. She's starting to run out of room in there, I think, because her kicks have gotten more painful. She's in my ribs and my pelvis a lot, too, which is muy uncomfortable. Sleeping at night has become almost impossible. I toss and turn all night, trying to find a comfortable position. Either that or I'm getting up to pee. I must get up 5 or 6 times a night. Sometimes more. I'm ready to have my body back.

My feet and ankles are swelling like crazy. My right foot swells more than my left, so it looks like I have one normal foot and a giant club foot. I try not to look at them much, since it just depresses me. The good news is I can't see them unless I work at it, so ignoring them isn't hard.

This past weekend the So Cal Bloggers - Tracy, Lori, Renee, Wendy, Rowena and Nikki - threw me a baby shower. It was a ton of fun. I had a blast playing silly games - Pin the Sperm on the Ovaries - and eating excellent food. We got some great gifts. Lori made us a super fabulous diaper cake that I adore! (I'll share more about the shower and pictures later). Last night MM and I went through them and organized everything. I think I'm moving into the nesting stage. I want to get everything in order, just in case I go into labor.

Speaking of, MM says I'm not allowed to go into labor until at least the 19th of November (my due date is the 27th). He has way too much going on at work before then. Plus, he has it worked out so he'll be off a total of 8 weeks, but that won't work unless I wait until after the 19th. Like I have control over when I got into labor? Riiight. Poor MM, he'll learn someday.

The Girl is starting to get really excited for the baby to come. She's great about putting lotion on my feet and she gives me foot massages. She's always asking if she can rub my tummy, too. She keeps saying she's going to take care of the baby so I don't have to, but we'll see how long that lasts once the crying begins.

Little Man is a little hesitant about the baby. I think he's worried about his place in the family once she's born. I know he'll lover he and be a great big brother, but it's going to take some time for him to adjust to the idea of having a little sister and not being the baby anymore. He's still really creeped out by my stomach and refuses to touch it. It cracks me up. I ask him if he wants to feel her move and he runs. Poor LM.

Last time I promised a picture. MM took this after the shower on Saturday. Here it is, me at 35 weeks: