Wrenikje Recipe

As requested, here is the recipe for wrenikje (cottage cheese perogies) that I got from my mom who makes awesome perogies.

Dough
4 cups flour
2 cups light sour cream (1 small container)
2 egg whites

Filling
4 cups dry curd cottage cheese (1 large container)
2 egg yolks
salt & pepper to taste (1 - 2 tsp)

Mix dough ingredients (love my KitchenAid!), roll out, top with filling, cut & seal (love my perogy cutter!). If you freeze them first there should be less chance of them opening up.

Then boil and serve if you like them that way. Or boil and fry if you like them that way. I fry mine just using Pam so I can pretend it's healthy.

With the leftover dough, we make empties - boiled and fried as well - we nicknamed them "heart attacks".

Last time I made these the recipe made 46 perogies and 8 "heart attacks" - enough for 2 meals for our family (when I make them alongside farmer sausage and corn)

Gravy
2 tbsp margarine
2 tbsp flour
milk (may 1 1/2 cups?)
salt and pepper to taste
sausage drippings

Melt margarine in a saucepan on medium heat, add flour to form a roux, stirring like this for one or two minutes to "cook" the flour. While whisking the entire time, slowly add milk. Stir continuously (or milk will burn) until it boils at which point gravy will thicken. If it is too thick, gradually add more milk until it is the desired consistency. Add in sausage drippings (if you have) and season to taste.

Serve over perogies, noodles or rice.

Enjoy!

Push Up Update

I have to admit that I did not do pushups during our little holiday - but I did swim every day and one day I even exercised on the hotel elliptical and treadmill for 30 mins (total, not each:)

But today I was back on the pushup attack and managed to do Week 2, Day 1 which was 5 sets of pushups - 14, 14, 10, 10, 15 with 60 seconds rest between each set. Which means I can do 63 pushups in less than 10 mins - not too shabby if I do say so myself!

Menu Wednesday

Here's Menu Wednesday as promised!

Just to make you jealous, here's some of the places we ate out on the weekend - Paradiso, Ruby Tuesdays, Chili's, Green Mill, and Johnny Carino's. Carino's was amazing! This was the first time we'd been and it was sooo good. Definitely going back there.

Anyway, here's the menu for the rest of the week....

Wednesday - Rachael Ray's Chicken with Mushroom-Dijon gravy (but with no dijon cause I don't have any).
Thursday - wrenikje (cottage cheese perogies) and sausage (which I practically don't have to make cause they're in the freezer!)
Friday - spaghetti
Saturday - probably tacos
Sunday - probably homemade subs - has to be a quick one before the SS Christmas concert!

Best school lunch idea EVER!

A few weeks ago at a girls night out with the ladies from our now-broken-up-bible-study group, we were discussing meal planning (hence my renewed effort to plan meals - Menu Monday!) and school lunch packing, and somehow the fact came up that my awesome pizza dough recipe made enough for 3 pans of pizza and I only need 2 pans for supper and some leftovers. I've never had much luck freezing dough and using it later. So Pam (the cooking guru!) gave me a wonderful idea!!!

She said to roll out the remaining dough and top it with pizza toppings, roll it up and cut it (like cinnamon buns), then bake and freeze - voila! Pizza pinwheels - perfect for school lunches.

Our kids absolutely LOVE them!!

So, thank you to Pam for the great idea - and now I am passing it along to all of you in bloggyland!

Christmas Traditions

I'd like to start more traditions in our family - especially Christmas traditions. We already have a few - we always attend the Christmas Eve choir service at our church, for ex, but I'd like to have more. I recently found this blog that has 100 Christmas Tradition ideas! The trick will be finding ones I like that my other half doesn't find too dorky. I'm much more apt to be dorky than he is :) I also find the trouble with 100 ideas is that it's so many I don't even know where to start!

At our COFFEE Connections (morning out for ladies at our church) this morning one of the women talked about a tradition they did - each child got to pick a character (shepherd, wise man, etc) and they would start from varying places in the room, depending on how far they had to travel to see Baby Jesus. As their particular part of the story was read they would move towards the Christmas tree. When the time came for Baby Jesus to be born, they would take a special gift ornament off the tree. It was a small box wrapped in gold wrapping paper, signifying Heaven and tied with a blue ribbon to signify royalty. Inside the box Baby Jesus was also wrapped in red and white tissue paper. White signified Jesus' absolutely purity and sinlessness and the red stood for the blood He shed to pay for our sins. I thought this was a fun tradition!

What are some of your favorite Christmas traditions?

Menu Monday

Monday - homemade chicken fingers and fries
Tuesday - sweet n' sour sausage and rice
Wednesday - tacos
Thursday - spaghetti and focaccia bread
Friday - supper with the inlaws
Saturday through Tuesday - restaurant meals cause we're going away for the "weekend"!!!

So, next week will be Menu Wednesday I guess :)

When Nathan Met Tammy

A new friend of mine asked me how Nathan and I met and I thought it would be a good idea for a post ...

We were actually set up by a mutual friend. A guy I went to church with (Mario) and Nathan played on the same hockey team. Mario brought Nathan to church one Sunday to check me out :). Then Mario invited me to come watch one of their hockey games. I went and was introduced to his friend Nathan. I didn't really think anything of it at the time because I was enjoying having recently become single. It took a couple of months for Nathan to get the nerve up to call me and ask me out for coffee. And it was very unlike me to say yes to a guy I barely remembered!

But I did say yes and we went to Manhattan's restaurant for our first date. I actually remember hoping that I wouldn't have a good time because I was enjoying being single. But, obviously I enjoyed myself a lot! We absolutely hit it off right from the start. I was 17 (fairly close to 18) and he was almost 19 when we started dating in January of 1995. We knew very quickly that we would get married. When I re-read the Valentine's card I gave him merely weeks later, I can't believe what I all wrote in there!

We were engaged in November when he proposed to me at Manhattan's, and were married the following July - 12 wonderful years ago!

I love him more all the time - I am blessed to be his wife. I am a stronger and better person because of his love and encouragement.

These are the lyrics to the songs sung at our wedding.....

Years From Here (4PM)
Standing here face to face, I feel my heart overflowing with love and emotion
The moment you took my hand, there was no doubt in my mind about our future
I don't need a crystal ball, through your eyes I see it all

Years from here, we'll look back and treasure
this moment forever inside our hearts
And from here to there, we'll make a million memories
that we can share years from here

I can promise you this with every breath I take, I'll live to love you
I'll go above and beyond to give you everything that one man can give you
I know we've just begun and the best is still yet to come

Years from here, we'll look back and treasure
This moment forever inside our hearts
And from here to there, we'll make a million memories
That we can share years from here.


The Smile on Your Face (Alison Krauss)
It's amazing how you can speak right to my heart
Without saying a word you can light up the dark
Try as I may I could never explain
What I hear when you don't say a thing

The smile on your face lets me know that you need me
There's a truth in your eyes saying you'll [always love] me
The touch of your hand says you'll catch me where ever I fall
You say it best when you say nothing at all

All day long I can hear people talking aloud
But when you hold me near you drown out the crowd
Old Mr. Webster could never define
What's been said between your heart and mine

The smile on your face lets me know that you need me
There's a truth in your eyes saying you'll [always love] me
The touch of your hand says you'll catch me if ever I fall
You say it best when you say nothing at all

The smile on your face lets me know that you need me
There's a truth in your eyes saying you'll [always love] me
The touch of your hand says you'll catch me if ever I fall
You say it best when you say nothing at all


[ ] lyrics changed by me
I know I also changed the lyrics to that crystal ball line but I can't remember it exactly right now!

PushUp Update

My abs are so sore. Seriously.

Pushups affect your abs much more than I thought they did. On Day 1 of my workout I had a really hard time doing the situps after the pushups. Today, for Day 2 - my abs hurt so bad I literally could not do the situps at all. So, I will wait till my abs have recovered a bit, and then I will do 1/2 the situps and see how that goes.

My armpits hurt too of course. Ugh - this is gonna be hard!

Each workout is 5 sets of pushups. Day 1 you rest 60 seconds, Day 2 you rest 90 seconds, Day 3 you rest 180 seconds (or more if needed), then it starts over again at 60 seconds. Today I did 10, 12, 8, 8 and then the max you can do - which was 14!!!! Go me!

Menu Monday

2 posts in 1 day?! Pick your jaw up off the floor and read on...

OK, so I've decided that I have to get back to menu planning because it's just ridiculous to wait until 4:45 pm every day to decide what to make for supper that night. I've done it for 2 weeks now and I'm going to start posting Menu Mondays! (I think you'll notice we tend to have the same boring things over and over again :)

Monday - chicken and mushroom sauce over noodles, peas, garlic bread
Tuesday - wrenikje (perogies with cottage cheese inside) and sausage
Wednesday - tacos
Thursday - hopefully a quick restaurant meal - we want to go see "Boy in the Striped Pajamas" (the kids will have babysitter food - either pizza pops or sandwhiches)
Friday - homemade pizza

There ya have it. OK, I know I didn't do Saturday or Sunday - but hey, 5 out of 7 ain't bad!

And, yes, I am making those perogies from scratch myself - I'm pretty good at it too, if I do say so myself :)

Now, I better get defrosting that chicken....

Edited to add: we ended up having chicken fingers and fries instead - kids request. I tried a new chicken finger recipe and it was awesome!!!

Here it is...
1lb chicken breast (I just used 2 large ones)
1/2 cup flour seasoned with paprika, oregano, pepper, italian seasoning, seasoning salt
2 eggs, beaten
2 1/2 cups corn flakes processed in the blender along with a little more of the above spices
2 tbsp margarine
2 tbsp oil

Flour the chicken, dip in egg, roll in corn flakes. In a skillet on medium high heat, heat margarine and oil. Fry chicken for approx 5 mins on each side. If you can't fit all the chicken in at one time, reserve some margarine/oil for the 2nd go round otherwise the 2nd batch won't taste quite as good/unhealthy. You could also bake these for a healthier version - but they won't taste the same! :)

New fitness goal

Since giving birth 10 months ago for the fourth time, I have managed to shed most of the baby weight I had leftover. I've lost about 20 lbs and have only about 6 more pounds to go to reach my goal weight. However, I've been at the point for about 2 months now already. Part of the problem? All my clothes fit again. Huh? How is that a problem you ask? Well, it's harder to be motivated when one of your big motivating factors was to be able to fit into your pre-baby clothes!

So, I'm making a new fitness goal - I found The Hundred Pushups Training Program. Now, I have to admit I'm rather out of shape at this point - something which is rather unusual for me actually. I have been committed to exercising about 5 days a week for about 10 years now. During the summer my exercise takes the form of hour to hour and a half long walks pushing a heavy double stoller with my best friend Candace. For some reason though, I just haven't managed to get myself back into exercising indoors after the weather made these outdoor walks rather unpleasant. And since I was only walking in the summer and not weight training - well, let's just say that I felt my pushup test was rather pathetic. I did the initial test which is basically just doing as many full body pushups as you can with proper form.

I did 11.

Now, I somewhat regretting pushing past 10 because that means my training program is starting off a lot harder than it would've been if I had done 10 cause I made it up into the next category! Argh! Anyway, today was my first training day and I am committing to going through the program and I'm making it public so I have some accountability!

I'm adding an extra challenge though - I'm also going for 100 situps (using the Bender Ball I purchased which makes them really hard!) . I'm using the same program to work up to this goal.

So, there you have it! Go me!

Edited to add: I am also doing aerobics every other day - and I'll likely do some lower body weight training the same days I do the pushups/situps training.