Garlic Chicken and Caffeine

Not a high rating night. Ah well.

Easy Garlic Chicken

Prep Time: 10 Minutes
Cook Time: 10 Minutes
Ready In: 20 Minutes
Yields: 4 servings

INGREDIENTS:
3 tablespoons butter
4 skinless, boneless chicken
breast halves
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 teaspoon seasoning salt
1 teaspoon onion powder

DIRECTIONS:
Melt butter in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add chicken and sprinkle with garlic powder, seasoning salt and onion powder. Saute about 10 to 15 minutes on each side, or until chicken is cooked through and juices run clear.

Ratings: (out of 5)
Adam - Garlic chicken **, Caffeine **1/2 (with Mena Suvari's rated a *)
Melanie - Garlic chicken *1/2, Caffeine **1/2

Attention dogs

We saw this sign on our way through a local park last weekend. Maybe the dog owners out there can translate? =)

Wildcams

My parents bought a subscription to the National Geographic Magazine for me when I was youger and all of those issues still adorn shelves in our house. But now I've found something even cooler - the National Geographic wildlife cams. Click here to see the Africa cam - streaming live out of Botswana and click here to see wildcams in other areas.

Oh, and Addy loved the bird sounds of Africa!

Eighteen minutes

Until last weekend, the clocks in Adam’s and my bedroom were eighteen minutes ahead. They had been that way for at least eight months.

The normal person might ask why they weren’t set to real time. I think that we always had them set a little fast because we wanted to trick ourselves into being early (or at least on time) to things.

However, last winter, we were without power for over three days because of a terrible windstorm. My clock, when it’s on battery back-up, has something like a 57 second minute which caused us to move forward in time. When the power came back on, having forgotten that my clock runs fast, we set Adam’s clock (which doesn't have a battery back-up mode) to mine and went about daily life.

The first couple days after the storm, I thought that I was taking shorter showers than usual. I’d get out of the shower in the bathroom just a couple minutes after I walked in the bathroom from the bedroom (and yes, if you’ve done the math, you realize that I take long showers (or at least, I did – before Addy)). But I soon got hip to the jive and realized something was amiss.

But for some reason we didn’t do anything about it. We simply adjusted our schedules. We would just subtract twenty from the time on the clocks. Of course, since the clocks were only eighteen minutes fast, this in fact set us behind in our dashes out the door (and sometimes two minutes can make a difference – yes, we sometimes run that closely…).

I think that our clocks bothered Adam a little more than he let on (though once he told me that he just never set his clock back one Fall – so it was off an hour for half a year until Spring sprung forward). Anyway, I say that maybe he was bothered more than I realized because last Sunday night when I asked “Could we set our clocks to real time?”, he was actually giddy as he agreed.

I don’t know why we didn’t change them earlier – I guess it became real time in a way. Once we got used to the time fast time, we would had to have re-adjusted the clocks by the difference exactly in order to know what time it was (and when I say 'we', I guess I now know that I mean 'I'). I don’t know if that makes any sense at all… probably not. It does in my head though.

But anyway, we’ve re-adjusted now. Or rather, we’re re-adjusting now. It’s still hard not to subtract twenty from the time… doing so, of course, could make us super late. Two minutes is nothing compared to twenty.

Ah well. I guess it just takes time. =)

Feast of Love **** (out of 5)

Addy and I went to see Feast of Love at the Thursday Moms’ showing this week. It has some old favorites (Morgan Freeman, Greg Kinnear, Selma Blair, Missi Pyle) and several newcomers too.

The movie follows several couples through 18 months in their lives – through beginnings of love, endings of love, and the good the bad and the ugly of love. The couples’ lives intertwine and are all held together by the fatherly advice handed down by Freeman’s character.

Freeman is, of course, good in this movie (when isn’t he good?) and Kinnear plays the loveable and affable doof that he also plays in so many of his roles. He, like most of the other characters, is simply trying to find a place in this crazy world.

Selma Blair was almost forgotten (though she still played an integral part in the movie – just more in spirit than in character). Missi Pyle didn’t get enough screen time which is sad because she’s funny just by being. But then again, it really wasn’t that type of a movie.

The movie didn't really end – I was left with the feeling that life just continued for the characters after the credits started to roll. But that was fitting. I wasn’t upset that I didn’t get my resolution tied up with a bow as I am with some movies that just fade to black.

The show was rather explicit (that R rating allows more than it used to), and I thought it was unnecessarily so. Maybe I’m just getting stodgy in my old age though.

All in all, it was a pretty good movie, but I think that it is probably going to be pretty forgettable. I don’t know that I left with more than “love like it’s the last day of your life”. It’s good advice, no doubt, but I think that the movie was going for more than that… or trying to say it more poignantly at least. Still, it was a pretty good chick flick and a fun way to spend a couple hours. (I should mention that Addy slept on me for about an hour of it – which would have made any movie good, but I don’t think that swayed my opinion here – too much at least). =)

Breakfast for dinner

We had breakfast for dinner on Wednesday. Didn't get to a movie, as Adam was fixing our intermittent internet issues. YAY!! Having a consistent signal is worth missing a movie.

The casserole is a Seattle Smith favorite and the breakfast lasagna was the new recipe. We had juice and bacon too because breakfast is always a great excuse for those things. All in all, I think that the meal was a success.

Cheesy Ham and Hash Brown Casserole
Cook Time: 1 Hour
Ready In: 1 Hour 15 Minutes
Yields: 12 servings

INGREDIENTS:
1 (32 ounce) package frozen hash brown potatoes (I use southern style)
8 ounces cooked, diced ham
2 (10.75 ounce) cans condensed cream of potato soup
1 (16 ounce) container sour cream
2 cups shredded sharp Cheddar cheese

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x13 inch baking dish.
2. In a large bowl, mix hash browns, ham, cream of potato soup, sour cream, and Cheddar cheese. Spread evenly into prepared dish.
3. Bake 1 hour in the preheated oven, or until bubbly and lightly brown. Serve immediately.


Fresh Fruit Breakfast Lasagna
Prep Time: 30 Minutes
Cook Time: 10 Minutes
Ready In: 1 Hour 10 Minutes
Yields: 8 servings

INGREDIENTS:
1 1/2 cups milk
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 eggs
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 tablespoons white sugar

1/2 (3.4 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix
1 cup orange juice
1/2 cup sour cream
2 cups sliced fresh strawberries
2 bananas, sliced
1 cup fresh blueberries

1 cup whipped cream

DIRECTIONS:
1. To make the crepes, whisk together the milk, flour, eggs, oil, almond extract, and sugar in a bowl until you have a smooth batter. Lightly grease a small skillet and place over medium heat. Spoon in 2 tablespoons of batter and gently tilt the skillet to spread the batter to the edges of the pan. Cook until brown, 1 to 2 minutes. Flip the crepe and cook the other side until brown. Remove to a plate. Repeat with remaining batter until it is all used.
2. To make the filling, whisk together the pudding mix, orange juice, and sour cream in a bowl. Gently fold the strawberries, bananas and blueberries into the sour cream mixture.
3. Lightly grease the bottom of a baking dish. Cover the bottom of the dish with 1/3 of the crepes. Spoon 1/2 of the fruit mixture over the crepes. Repeat with remaining fruit and crepes, finishing with the crepes as the top layer. Bake in 350 degree oven for 10 minutes. Allow to sit 30 minutes before serving. Garnish with whipped cream.

Adam - Casserole ****; Fruit lasagna ***1/2
Melanie - Casserole ****; Fruit lasagna ***

Extreme Makeover Home Edition

Extreme Makeover Home Edition was in town this past week. Addy and I went to see the progress that was being made on the magic house yesterday. We also saw Micheal Moloney while we were there. The completed house was just revealed today, but the show won't air until January. We'll be watching then too!

Look-alike meter

So, I'm not positive that I buy it (come on - exactly in the middle?) =), but according to this, Addy looks equally like Dad and Mom. We'll have to post some baby pictures of the two of us and see what others think! (Thanks to Jamie for the link!)