Another website created to help mom in the kitchen....

I just stumbled upon this courtesy of my BFF Gwyneth Paltrow....I for one, really enjoy a nice instructional video when it comes to cooking.  I love Pioneer Woman for her step-by-step photos and I think I will enjoy this one for the videos.  It doesn't hurt that celebrities are a guilty pleasure of mine so seeing the inside of Jerry Seinfeld's house and he himself, wandering around in the background, is an added bonus...
http://www.doitdelicious.com/

Oh yeah, and back to my lovely buddy, Pioneer Woman, I got rave reviews for her sweet potato recipe - extremely easy and yummy!   Perfect for Thanksgiving!
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/10/soul-sweet-taters-step-by-step-recipe/

And fine, another pic that makes me smile - I can't help myself....

Shake-shake

Thank you to the Pioneer Woman for two great cooking feats yesterday:  for dinner, I made her pasta with tomato cream sauce - it was delightful, sinfully fattening, but oh so good.  Both Ryan and Grant ate it up, 3 for 3 at dinnertime is rare and a big success in my book.

For dessert, we made the most heavenly sugar cookies I have tasted in quite some time (let alone made, all by myself, and from scratch!) ---- 'all by myself' would be a lie, little Ms. Ryan was right there with me to help smash the dough down and put a little 'shake-shake' on top (sprinkles).

Sadly, all of this happened yesterday because precious, little Reese has been home sick with a fever the last few days.  Thank you Reese for taking one for the team and allowing mom to be home with you thus giving us edible meals again!   Part of the fever culprit would be those two little puppies that popped up in her mouth - you can somewhat see below in this pic - you can tell in her eyes she isn't feeling well....It just makes you want to grab her, head to bed and cuddle - the one positive of a sick babe, they sure do want to be around and love on mom:)

Thank you Ella!

For saving the Stiff family from more dinners like last night....  Martha freakin' Stewart, quite frankly, sucks (pardon my french).  I attempted to make some deceptively delicious looking casserole dish from her magazine and it was, in all honesty, the worst. thing. ever.  So on a wet, dreary, cold autumn day; a day in which a hot, bubbling casserole would have been oh so lovely, Ryan and dad set out to save dinner with a little fast food.  Anyway, my mother-in-law sent me the link to this website and as I type, we have some mushrooms simmering away down on the stove and a lovely meatloaf is about to be prepared for dinner.
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/

An update on dinner to come later.....I don't want to get ahead of ourselves here, but Ella, you may have just saved this family from cooking mediocrity.  Thank you!

Because this is technically a blog about the girls, a random photo for your viewing pleasure: