Chicken Scampi

If anyone has ever watched the Food Network they may have heard about a show called the Worst Cooks in America. Well compared to those folks I am not the worst cook, but pretty much we eat similiar foods every month. I have started making a menu of our dinners every month and have been inspired by the show to try new things. So I added Chicken Scampi to the menu. Erin and I had it at Olive Garden when we went out one might before she left. It was great and Joe had found the recipe to it online a few years ago and it just happened to be in our recipe book. So I went and bought the ingredients and gave it a good attempt. Well the first problem was the garlic. I used the butcher knife to the clove of garlic method I had seen multiple times on tv. What they never show is that 10 of the 20 cloves fly off the table and onto the ground depending on how hard you hit it. Then I got to use my food processor I never knew I had. It came with my blender that I use all the time for making baby food, and just recently found the food processor attachment and used it. Joe thought the whole kitchen smelled like garlic!! Well one of the ingredients in Chicken Scampi is wine. Something called Chiablis. If any of you are wine drinkers you might know what this is, I am not and Joe ended up going to 3 different stores looking for anyone that was opened on Sunday and came home with a bottle. Of course, since we drink so much wine in our house, we went on a made hunt to find a cork screw to remove the cork. We came up with nothing, and ended up taking the bottle to our neighbors and using theirs!!! So I followed the directions and was very happy that it looked good. I took a bite, and thought wow that is spicy. Not sure where the spice came from, Joe asked what was in it and sure enough the crushed red pepper flakes stuck out. But then I said Italian Seasoning. Did you know that crushed red pepper is in italian seasoning??? I did not. So I got a double dose of red pepper flakes. So next time I will eliminate the red pepper flakes and use the italian seasoning and hopefully it will be good. It still tasted good, but both the boys said "HOT". Joe and I, enjoyed it and I do hope to make it again, I just need an hour of no kids to make the sauce and everything. So the only remaining question is how long is wine good for?? Since it won't get tasted at our house, unless I make this dish again, how long do we keep a corked bottle of wine around??

an earthquake

Sickness is something that comes with having kids. I can remember about twice when Joe or I was sick prior to having children, and one of those was the night before Luke was born. However, once you have kids there seems to be a lot of colds, coughs, runny noses, fevers, and sleepless nights. Joe blames it on Chuckie Cheese. Joe and Erin took the boys there last weekend, while I had a baby shower at the house. Luke and Graham started with runny noses on Thursday, and Joe started feeling a little under the weather Thursday as well. Friday, Joe said he felt worse than a cold, but no fevers, or chills, just not feeling well. He went to bed at like 8. I was woken up at 4 in the morning with a mini earthquake in my bed. I wake up to realize that Joe is having rigors. He was shaking uncontrollably. I told him he needed to get some tylenol, so he goes into the bathroom and i heard the bottle shaking back and forth very fast. I then proceeded to get up to help him with both the tylenol and the water to wash it down. Needless to say, his fever was not far behind as was his body aches. He laid in bed most of the day. He came out 2 or 3 times for like 15 minutes each to try to help, but couldn't last more than 5 minutes before he felt awful again. I diagnosed him with the flu and tried to keep him away from the kiddos, especially Eli. the kiddos weren't that far behind, but no rigors or fevers in them until right before bed. They were interested in laying on the couch yesterday and watching movies, which is not like Graham at all. Today, more fevers for the boys, and they got diagnosed with ear infections, but i don't think they have the flu. Luckily, our nice neighbor decided to make us chicken soup, and that saved the day!! So i am praying Eli and i do not have anything, as Eli is still getting over croup from last week and still have a lingering cough. Me, well i am still healthy at the moment, and plan to stay that way. All I can say is thank God it wasn't the GI bug, as that would have been worse than what we had. Hoping everyone else is staying healthy!!

Erin has left

We said goodbye to Erin on Wednesday. She has been with us for 4 months and the boys enjoyed her stay a lot, as did Mom and Dad. Graham was her little buddy most of the time and looked for "E" a lot when she wasn't there. She will be missed by them all. As well as us!

Photo Shoot

Well we survived Christmas and the holidays. Sorry no blogs about that, maybe we will catch up someday, but with 3 kids, no promises. We took the boys to get a picture taken after Christmas. It worked out pretty well with the 3 of them, only a few tears. We hope everyone is having a great New Year!