Holly's Hobbies

Shaker Style Throw

2014-05-13T11:30:00.000-04:00

This is a crochet blanket that I made Dad and Elaine for Christmas 2013. It turned out much better than I expected, I was modifying a pattern and that's not something I had ever done with a crochet pattern before. I ended up doing 12 columns by 16 rows and 5" squares so it came out to be a queen size throw instead of a lap blanket. I didn't actually finish it until January 3rd, I think, but thankfully they were understanding. I let them see the in-progress blanket at Christmas, hehe.

It was tough to part with this one, it was so heavy and soft. I absolutely love it. Sly did too, he kept saying they couldn't have it, lol.

Here's a link to the original pattern - Shaker Style Throw.

Here's a link to my Ravelry project page.

Menu Monday

2014-05-12T22:34:00.003-04:00

Grilled Chicken and Herbs from Allrecipes.com

Pita Pizza
Grilled Chicken and Herbs
Grilled Yellow Squash
Pasta Bake
Pepperoni Crescent Pizza Rolls
Easy Shake and Bake Chicken
Slow Cooker Pulled Pork
Stove Top Granola

I've got a couple weeks worth of menus here. I'm not sure what we're going to make for Mother's Day dinner yet, we had to postpone it until this upcoming Friday. We might not make anything and just order out but we'll see. ;)

We also got about a pound of lettuce out of the garden this morning. Sylvester was so excited! He loved ripping the leaves off and then helping me wash them. I had a salad tonight with grilled chicken from last night, so good. I love salad, mmm.

I'm not sure how much more lettuce we'll get this summer, these plants were already starting to bolt. I guess 94° is a little hot for lettuce. It's a little hot for me too this early in the year, hah.

Menu Monday

2014-04-28T21:41:00.002-04:00

Streusel Topped Blueberry Muffin from Allrecipes.com

Streusel Topped Blueberry Muffins
Double Decker Tacos
Baked Slow Cooker Chicken

Not a lot going on this week. Easy peasy menu. Sly's work schedule as changed so we're kind of winging it until we get used to it all.

Speaking of winging it, I think I'm going to take a break from posting every week. It's starting to feel like a chore, first world problems, and I don't want it to. So, if I get a wild hair and post I will but otherwise I'll try to get them up once a month or something along those lines. I want to post about something other than food! I've got tons of knitting/crochet/crafting I haven't posted. I need to catch up.

I hope everyone has a wonderful week.

Menu Monday

2014-04-21T07:30:00.000-04:00

Vegetable Stir-Fry from allrecipes.com

Vegetable Stir-Fry
Slow Cooker Pulled Pork
Baked Chicken Nuggets

I didn't make the Slow Cooker Pulled Pork last week so I will make that tomorrow. I don't want it to go bad before I get it cooked! We will also be grilling some hotdogs and burgers this week.

Sly got me a basket, for lack of a better word, that is used to make veggies on the grill. I'm excited to try it out. I have tried to cook veggies on the grill without something like this but it doesn't seem to work out very well for me. Tinfoil gets poked or something, veggies fall out when I'm trying to pull them off the grill, etc. Now I need to find some really good seasoning to go on them!

I have a lot of romaine lettuce in the garden already, I need to get it out before it bolts, and enjoy some salads. Sylvester loves salad so that's something we can all eat for a quick and easy lunch.

I think that's enough rambling for one day. Have a good week!

Menu Monday

2014-04-14T06:30:00.000-04:00

Grilled Yellow Squash from Allrecipes.com

Grilled Yellow Squash
4-Square Family Pizza
Black Beans
Zesty Chicken
Slow Cooker Pulled Pork
Sliced Baked Potato with Cheese

We'll be grilling twice again this week, hotdogs/hamburgers one night and then chicken another night. I'm excited to try the Black Beans but I'll need to make something else for Sly - he doesn't eat black beans. Other than that I'm not really trying anything new. Using tried and true recipes this week. Yum!

Hope everyone has a great week. :)

Menu Monday

2014-04-07T19:48:00.000-04:00

Grilled Chicken from Allrecipes.com

Grilled Chicken
One Pot Chicken Lo Mein
Grilled Cheese Roll Ups
Pita Pizza
Summer Squash (hand written recipe)

Our goal for this summer is to grill food twice a week. It's incredibility cheap, decent for us and easy. Could it get any better? I am going to try to add a (non canned) veggie each time we grill out. I might do a potato or fries if we have hotdogs or a squash recipe if we eat chicken. You get the idea. Sly and Sylvester won't eat squash, but maybe they'll try it again eventually.

I found the website for the Summer Squash recipe on Pinte rest. I love that website. I've gotten a serious kick out of looking at the vintage recipes, especially the hand written ones. It makes me wish I could get my hands on any of my grandmother or great-grandmothers recipe books!

Menu Monday

2014-03-31T20:30:00.000-04:00

Key West Chicken from Allrecipes.com

Key West Chicken
Healthy Homemade Granola
Shredded Chicken Tacos
Boston Baked Beans

I really don't have much this week. The weather is supposed to be pretty so we're hoping to grill out twice. Once we'll just do hotdogs and hamburgers and then the chicken. I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

Menu Monday

2014-03-24T22:16:00.002-04:00

Buttery Cooked Carrots from Allrecipes.com

Easy Crispy Baked Chicken
Buttery Cooked Carrots
Grilled Zucchini
Pita Pizza

I made Cajun potato wedges last week so I'm going to make some chicken this week, the Easy Crispy Baked Chicken, that's a bit spicy. I'm going to switch the seasoning they give and put in some good ol' cajun seasoning. I'm not a fan of spicy food but Sly is and the type of seasoning we have isn't insanely "spicy" or hot. It's just amazingly flavorful.

The weather will be pretty later this week so we're going to try to grill out again. I think, if we could, we would grill out every night. Sly and I just love it and Sylvester will, usually, eat the food without complaint. Which is pretty much a miracle.

I hope everyone has a great week. :)

Menu Monday

2014-03-17T06:00:00.000-04:00

Baked Slow Cooker Chicken from Allrecipes.com

Baked Slow Cooker Chicken
Beef or Chicken Marinade
Sweet Baby Carrots
Cajun Potato Wedges

I posted a Chicken and Rice recipe a couple weeks back and I think I'll make it with the left over chicken from the slow cooker. Sly doesn't eat rice so I'll have to make sure he has enough potatoes left over. ;)

I hope everyone has a great week.

Menu Monday

2014-03-10T10:55:00.000-04:00

Pepperoni 'n Cheese Crescent Rolls from Allrecipes.com

Pepperoni 'n Cheese Crescent Rolls
Chicken Fried Steak
Egg Salad
Easy Shake and Bake Chicken

I marinated some chicken in Olive Garden Salad Dressingfor about an hour and a half (while it thawed) and then grilled it - it was so good! I think I've done this one before but I can't remember if I actually talked about it. I highly recommend trying it. What's strange? I don't like their salad dressing on salad. Hah.

I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

Menu Monday

2014-03-03T22:10:00.007-05:00

Awesome Grilled Cheese from Allrecipes.com

Grilled Cheese
Double Decker Tacos
Grilled Chicken and Herbs
English Muffin Pizzas
Grilled Yellow Squash

It's going to be a long and tiring week so I decided to do extra simple things for the menu this week. I don't have much to add about last weeks recipes because we've had them all before. So, instead I'm going to add a couple I'd like to try soon - like these Battered Fruit Rings, Stuffed Pizza Rolls and Chicken and Rice.

I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

Menu Monday

2014-02-24T06:00:00.000-05:00

Slow Cooker Chicken and Dumplings
Pita Pizza
Ham and Cheese Rolls
Chicken Bake with Green Beans and Potatoes

The link to the Chicken Bake is just a link to Pinterest. I'll try to get it posted soon as a recipe of it's own since the website is gone. That's the one thing I dislike about Pinterest. I hate losing stuff. :p

Menu Monday

2014-02-17T22:55:00.001-05:00

Double Decker Tacos from Allrecipes.com

Double Decker Taco

Easy Shake 'n' Bake Chicken

Slow Cooker Chili

Best Ever Muffins

Pepperoni Crescent Rolls

So, I totally blew off making chili last week but we already have the stuff so I'm going to do it this week, hopefully including the corn bread muffins because I also bought the stuff for those.

We splurged and bought a bunch of fruit that totally isn't in season, we bought strawberries, blueberries, a pineapple and grapes. We're desperate for Spring to get here!

Speaking of Spring, I went to Sprout Robot and saw that I need to start stuff in the garden! I need to plant carrots, green onion, regular onions and head lettuce. I guess we'll be doing that next week, huzzah! The gardens are already built but I need to fill them with dirt and seeds. I'm so excited!

Menu Monday

2014-02-10T06:30:00.000-05:00

Slow Cooker Chili from Allrecipes.com

Slow Cooker Chili

Chicken Tacos
4-Square Family Pizza

I really don't have much to add this week, honestly. I'm making a couple other things that don't really have a recipe to link to, I'll be making some hamburger helper and grilled cheese but nothing major. I might make some of these Cornbread "Waffles" to go with the chili.

I hope everyone has a lovely week!

Menu Monday

2014-02-03T05:00:00.000-05:00

Cheesy Chicken Quesadillas from Allrecipes.com

I got to thinking about coupons this last weekend and I want to get better about printing them off again. I was pretty good for a while, far form an "extreme" couponer, but I just got out of the habit. It's nice to save $10-15 a week for us, especially when we normally only spend about $100 on groceries.

I hope everyone has a great week!

P.S. Yesterday was my Mom's birthday! Happy Birthday, Mom!

Menu Monday

2014-01-27T14:47:00.000-05:00

Stove Top Granola from Allrecipes.com

So, we're looking forward to some pretty nasty weather this week. We *might* get 2-4 inches of snow and 1/4-1/2 inch of ice. Before you start to laugh, that's really weird for us. ;) I'm mostly worried about the power going out due to downed power lines, that will make for a couple of nasty nights. I'm glad we got our propane tanks filled!

Anyway, I wanted to mention that you might wonder why we eat so much of x, y or z and it's mostly because we buy a lot of food in bulk (thank you, Sams). So, if we buy crescent rolls, for example, we buy a pack of six which means we will eat them a few times over the course of two weeks. Same goes for chicken breast, eggs, etc. We're having cubed steak this week, and probably next too, because it was on sale for $2.99lb so we bought all they had. Haha.

Y'all have a safe week. I hope we don't freeze! I live on the coast so I don't have to deal with weather like this. WTH? :p

Menu Monday

2014-01-20T06:30:00.000-05:00

Pita Pizza from Allrecipes.com

This is our "long" week of work so I put simple things on the menu. If I do put more complex things I usually end up ditching them for easy, so I figured I'd skip that step and just do easy stuff. I've also been eating a lot of steamed carrots, I got them cheap last week so that's been a staple.

I'm interested to try this macaroni. Sylvester is a total Mac n Cheese addict. I use Annie's boxed stuff right now but I'd rather be able to make it whenever I want with simple ingredients.

I've been watching my calories lately and losing some weight but this last week I have been craving junk food like crazy! I'm not really sure what to do to curb the cravings but I've got to find something. Yikes.

Menu Monday

2014-01-13T06:30:00.000-05:00

Baked Chicken Nuggets from Allrecipes.com

We're also going to grill out one night this week but it seems silly to put hotdogs/hamburgers on the list there. I also didn't make the ham last week, so I'll be doing that tonight.

In other news I managed to cut myself twice cooking dinner last night. Geez. I was all worried about using the mandolin slicers but apparently I should have feared the knives.

Hope everyone had a good weekend.

- Holly

Menu Monday

2014-01-06T09:30:00.000-05:00

Teriyaki Chicken from allrecipes.com

Not a lot new going on this week. I think we're still in a post holiday haze. LOL. How long can I blame stuff on that? Hopefully a while. ;) Anyway, we're trying a couple new recipes this week - the teriyaki chicken and the baked donuts. Donuts are a serious weakness of mine but I have been avoiding them while losing weight but I think we need something sweet and treat-like this week. I hope they turn out well!

Menu Monday

2013-12-30T06:00:00.000-05:00

Double Decker Tacos from allrecipes.com

It's the end of the year already! This time of year is always exciting, I love hearing peoples new year resolutions and taking bets on how long the last. I'm not a new years resolutions person, why set myself up for failure? I do like thinking about things I'd like to learn in the next year, though. What books do I want to read? Things I want to finish? I'm a list maker to the core. List make me happy.

Anyway, there's a couple new recipes this week, the Greek Marinated C hicken and Peanut Butter Pretzel Granola Bars (man, that's a mouthful). I also want to make some more granola but use some kind of flavoring.

I hope everyone has a wonderful New Year! Stay safe. People seem to get crazy this time of year. :)

Holly

Merry Christmas

2013-12-25T20:10:00.000-05:00

Just a quick note to say Merry Christmas! I hope everyone had a safe and great day. We had lots of family yesterday and today, it was fantastic. Lots of good food, good company and the joy of seeing Sylvester open presents. :)

Menu Monday... The Return...

2013-12-23T06:00:00.000-05:00

Stovetop Granola from Allrecipes.com

Slow Cooker Creamy Macaroni and Cheese
Meatball Subs
Sweet Potato Casserole
Blueberry Muffins
Egg Salad
Stovetop Granola

It's Christmas time! Woohooo!! I'm writing this post on Yule, it's currently 78 degrees in my house and I'm loving being sock free. I'm not going to lie, I love hand knit socks, but I love not having to wear socks. :p

Alright, this week is a little weird because it's Christmas week. We're doing two celebrations - Christmas Eve we're going to have Meatball Subs and chicken fingers. My Dad and Stepmom just moved (they will have been here for 3 days) and we just aren't up to doing a huge dinner after that. And frankly, we don't care, it's about being with family. Christmas day we are doing a larger dinner, Sly's family is coming over and the whole nine yards. I'm only making the Mac 'n' Cheese this year, thankfully.

Merry Christmas! Merry Yule! Happy New Year! :)

P.S. I've been making this granola weekly. Double batch. It's amazing. We sometimes add pecans or cinnamon. Pumpkin spice... cranberries, raisins, etc. We haven't bought chips since we started making this stuff. Why eat chips when you can have this? It's amazing stuff.

Menu Plan

2013-12-20T19:04:00.000-05:00

Flaky Biscuits from Allrecipes.com

Slow Cooker BBQ
Slow Cooker Beef Roast
Easy Shake and Bake Chicken
Flaky Biscuits (Breakfast for Dinner)

We've had the crud around here so we're taking it easy and doing lots of easy meals. I'm writing this after I've cooked most of this - this was a new (to me) Beef Roast recipe and it's very good. It was much appreciated and we had no left overs. Granted I only had a 2lb roast but I'm still surprised we ate it all.

Menu Planning

2013-12-17T23:16:00.000-05:00

I've been just terrible about getting the menu up on Mondays. DH is at home on Mondays and I'd rather spend time with the family, to be honest. I'm going to start posting it on Fridays every week. It'll be easier that way and it will let me do it through out the week so I can post date it. We'll see how it works out, if it doesn't work, I'll write it on Fridays and post it on Mondays.

I added a gratuitous picture of Sylvester to make up for my slacking. His expression kind of fits though. Bad Mommy!

Menu... Oh well...

2013-12-11T20:23:00.002-05:00

Garlic Mashed Potatoes from Allrecipes.com

Okay, I'm terribly late this week. No real excuse, I just wanted to play Neverwinter and crochet instead of doing it. Hah. At least the crochet is a Christmas gift. ;)

I normally wouldn't have put the Kraft Fresh Take on here because I didn't really "make" anything in it but it was so good I couldn't resist. No, I'm not a Kraft spokesperson or anything, I just like good and easy food. We had the Cheddar, Jack and Bacon one. MmmmMmmMMmMMmm.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful week. I'll try to be better next week about getting this up on time, I promise!