Barley Chicken Casserole...a one pot wonder!

The rain has started in Oregon and we have had some pretty incredible storms so far.  On one of those days last week, I was in need of some comfort food.  My brain immediately thought of the baked chicken and rice recipe that I love and I started digging through the cupboard to see if I had everything I would need.  I didn't but I did have a half a bag of barley.  I only have one recipe that calls for barley and I decided at that moment that perhaps I needed two.  Off to Pinterest I went!

My search paid off.  I found a recipe here and made a few tweaks to make it a one pot meal (because why not if you can) and oh my gosh...AMAZING!  It was exactly what I needed.  It was super creamy and delicious.  Joe didn't even get a chance at the leftovers. 

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup chopped celery
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 cup of barley
• 1 can of cream of chicken soup (yeah, I know, horrible processed cream of chicken soup...but I know it made this dish.  I keep one in the cupboard for rainy-day-I-need-some-comfort-food occasions.)
• 2 cups of chicken broth
• 1 teaspoon of thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon of sage
• 6 chicken tenderloins

Directions

1. Melt butter and saute the celery and onion until translucent. (Make sure you pick a pot that is big enough to add the other ingredients, has a lid and is oven safe.)
2. Add minced garlic and barley and cook for two more minutes.
3. Add the cream of chicken soup, chicken broth, thyme and sage and stir well.
4. Lay the chicken tenderloins on top of the mixture, cover pot and put in the oven at 350 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes.  (I did pull it out at 1 hour to check it and I mixed it a bit and then threw in a couple of handfuls of sliced mushrooms on one side since Joe loves them..and well, I don't.)

Looking at this picture makes me want to make this again...very soon!!!

Time is making fools of us again. ~J.K. Rowling

Can it really be almost two months since I have written a blog post?  And even more since I have really "written" a post versus posting pictures.  I know the answer is yes because I can feel that I haven't been writing.  So much has happened and is happening and is going to happen that stealing a moment or two in order to sit down and write hasn't happened.

I am tired.  In some ways it is a very good tired.  Taelin is loving school for the most part and my schedule change has allowed me to be able to volunteer in her class once a week.  A week ago we arrived back home after spending 8 amazing days together in Disneyland.  I never get tired of spending time with Joe and Taelin...especially in Disneyland.  Halloween was a smashing success and there are many holiday traditions that I am looking forward to in the next 8 weeks.

But I am tired in some not so great ways too.  Work has been exhausting.  I absolutely love my work with my teachers but that is not where the majority of my time is being spent this year.  There have been more evenings full of work, late into the night.  My frustration with a system that is getting further and further away from what I believe learning and teaching is about grows by the week.  All of that is exhausting.

I remember writing before how this was going to be a year of change and I was right.  We are already making decisions about what school will look like for Taelin next year.  Those decisions are going to have a trickle down effect that will be welcome (I think) but will result in a some hard conversations and decisions in my career.  Change can be easier when is just a surface level change...dance on Monday instead of Thursday.  But when the change looks to your identity, who you see yourself as, it becomes a whole lot more scary.

So, I need to come here more.  Hopefully there are still a few of you around, willing to read my ramblings.  If there are, I promise I will be here later this week.

Photo A Day Sept 1-7

September is upon us and I have to say that only a week and half in and I am feeling sort of/kind of transitioned to my new work schedule.  There are still a few things to get used to but I do have to say that I am loving just working the morning most days and having the afternoons off.  It is too early to say for sure, but the fact that I am working on photos the second week of September is telling.  

Anyway, here is the first week of September!

sept 1, 2014
an early birthday card from Taelin

sept 2, 2014
happy birthday to me!
Joe and Taelin made a beach cake (because it is my favorite place)
Taelin was so incredible excited to celebrate my birthday...such a sweet girl.

sept 3, 2014
an afternoon trip to the library

sept 4, 2014
riverfront park on a sunny afternoon...perfect 

sept 5, 2014
so wants to be a reader

sept 6, 2014
woke up throwing up....luckily it was a short lived bug

sept 7, 2014
dance starts this week...she is SO excited!

Slow Cook Beef Barley Stew

We had a break from the summer heat last weekend (which was not something I was necessarily looking for) and I had the perfect opportunity to make a crock pot meal that I had on my "want to try" list.  The last couple of weeks have been a bit of a transition for both Taelin and I with her starting kindergarten, my work schedule changing accordingly and having dance two nights of week.  I have most afternoons off (YAY!) but two days a week Taelin has dance from essentially 3:30-6:00 once you add the driving time, etc.  This means even though we have time in the afternoon, the evening rush to get dinner on the table (that didn't come from a drive-thru) still exists sometimes.

So, I have been looking for a few new crock pot recipes that would be something I could put in when I get home at 1:00 and have ready when we pull in the driveway after dance.  Because I am not a huge fan of how chicken comes out in the crock pot and we bought a 1/4 beef, I have mostly been looking for beef recipes.  Let me just say, I found one of the easiest recipes ever and it was SO incredibly good.

I found the original recipe here, well actually I found it on Pinterest, but eventually was led to that blog post.  I didn't have everything exactly on-hand so I improvised a bit and came up with an amazing stew.  (They called it a soup, but it was far too thick to be called a soup.) Here's what I ended up doing....

Ingredients

1 1/2 pounds of stew meat
1 cup barley
1 1/2 frozen pearl onions
1/2 bag of baby carrots, I didn't even bother chopping them...rebel, I know.
1 14 oz can of tomatoes
48 oz of beef stock
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon ground pepper

Directions (this is my favorite part about the recipe)

1. Put all the ingredients in the crock pot and mix.
2. Turn crock pot on high for 5 hours.
3. Stir once, half way through cooking time.

Seriously, that was it.  Freakin' bloody brilliant.

This recipe ended up making the biggest batch ever!  It was an unexpected surprise that I not only got dinner than night, but enough for two more meals that are tucked neatly away in my freezer for those days that I am less organized. I froze a one cup portion to see how it would do and I would say other than the carrots, it was just as amazing!.

Taelin and I made homemade biscuits, which were a great addition.  Taelin has also been flexing her dinner preparation muscles a bit more and has recently taken on chopping lettuce for salads.  It takes infinitely longer when she does it.  We either have really, really tiny pieces of lettuce (at the beginning of the chopping) or HUGE barely cut pieces (at the end when she is tired of chopping)...but a Taelin prepared salad along with the stew and biscuits was just perfect!

Photo A Day August 11-31

Seven days into September and I figured that maybe it would be time to sit down and share the rest of August with you all.  Taelin is currently on the mend of what is hopefully just a 24-hour stomach bug.  I say hopefully for the obvious reason that I hate Taelin not feeling well, but Tuesday is the first day of kindergarten and it would be more than a little sad for Taelin to miss that since she is so looking forward to it!

Anyway, the Scooby-Doo marathon is in full swing this morning and we are hoping to make some zucchini bread later this afternoon but for the most part I am finding myself plopped on the couch next to Taelin and will some time to catch up on photo organization.  August was a busy and fun month!

aug 11, 2014
enchanted forest with cousin Lucy

aug 12, 2014
swimming with the smiley's

aug 13, 2014
hanging out with nana who helped watch taelin since I was back to work

aug 14, 2014
working on bike riding 

aug 15, 2014
why oh why is spaghetti ever on a kids menu?

aug 16, 2014
ballerina yoga

aug 17, 2014
love, love, love them

aug 18, 2014
in san francisco for work and luckily had an afternoon to see the sights

aug 19, 2014
i miss them so much when i am gone, but thank goodness for facetime

aug 20, 2014
amazing dessert that was very much necessary

aug 21, 2014
home! joe said it took taelin an hour to put all the stickers on

aug 22, 2014
so excited for dance to start up again...she can hardly wait

aug 23, 2014
maddie came over for the evening and they were so excited to at least
 fall asleep together before jim and jocelyn came to get her

aug 24, 2014
our very dead cedar tree.  i couldn't be more sad about it

aug 25, 2014
sorting my project life cards by color...i hope i don't regret it.
it does take up way less space

aug 26, 2014
cousin facetime initiated by lucy.
i think they would have kept going it we had let them

aug 27, 2014
taelin made a scooby doo reunion puppet show

aug 28, 2014
a crazy work week ended with a night out for dinner

aug 29, 2014
it rained all day so beef barley stew with homemade biscuits hit the spot

aug 30, 2014
we were out shopping for someone's big girl bed
and stopped for lunch to use a gift card we had
(no decision was made about said big girl bed)

aug 31, 2014
taelin has her very own purple video game controller and joe found a
lego avengers game that they had a good time playing "we beat level one already
and will beat level two without any problems.  we are really good."

Change always comes bearing gifts. ~Price Pritchett

Kindergarten is coming.  Taelin is going to be doing morning kindergarten at the same place that she did preschool.  She knows the teachers, knows the school, has friends...there isn't much changing in that regard.  But our schedule is changing.  Instead of going 3 full days, which has been the schedule for the last 3 years, she will be going 5 half days for kindergarten.  All this means that my schedule as work as changed too.  I am so incredibly lucky to have such an amazing job and boss that has given me the flexibility that let me make good decisions for our family.  I really wanted to be able to volunteer in Taelin's room so I decided that I will have Monday off, then work Tuesday-Thursday morning and then all day Friday.  The Friday isn't ideal, but it is what has to be because of staff meetings and professional development.

So, naturally, because I am me, I have been feeling worried about this change.  My 4 full days off in a row will be gone.  Sleeping in, snuggling in bed reading books,  making homemade waffles will no longer happen on Friday, which was our tradition.  I just kept feeling like there was all this "wonderful" ending with a huge "unknown" looming in it's place.

But Monday I got a glimpse of the gifts that might be coming.  I am not supposed to be working on Mondays, but the beginning of the year is just crazy and it demands flexibility.  There was a district thing that I had to be at that got over at noon so Joe (being the most awesome husband in the universe) stayed home in the morning with Taelin.  We made a huge list of things that she could do independently while Joe worked and I went off to my meeting.  At noon after the meeting was over, I grabbed my bag and said goodbye to my co-workers and headed to my car.  I was home 20 minutes later and Joe was out the door a few minutes after that.

Taelin told me all about her morning as we made lunch together.  After lunch, we did some chores around the house and then ran to the grocery store.  We came home and watered the garden and ran through the sprinkler.  Taelin showered up and we snuggled up on the couch with our homemade chocolate cookies made the day before and made a stack of read books so high that it eventually tumbled over.  We folded some laundry together (I wonder how long she will love folding laundry?) and then figured out what to make for dinner.

It was an absolute perfectly boring, regular afternoon with her.  I loved it all.  An suddenly that unknown looming is a little less unknown and a lot less looming.  My morning honestly went so fast that I hardly felt like I worked.  And when I got home, I wasn't exhausted from being at work and it wasn't a race to make dinner/eat dinner/clean/shower/bedtime.

I don't know why I don't figure it out.  Change always ends up being ok.  Things end but those ends are new beginnings and I need to remember that when change is coming.  That way, I can enjoy, savor and celebrate the endings instead of missing them worrying about what is unknown.  Maybe one of these days I will remember that in the right order. Maybe.

Photo a Day July 21-Aug 10

This week marks the start of the 2014-2015 school year for me and we are having a lazy day at home before I gear up.  I thought it be best if I got caught up on my photo organizing which means getting caught up on my Photo A Day!  We have been cramming summer into these last few weeks of July and first weeks of August since we got such a late start due to illness.  Beach trips, a baseball game, swimming almost every night, the drive in and mini-vacation to Great Wolf Lodge with an ear infection thrown in the middle of it because apparently we were too healthy.  

Anyway, we have had a lot of fun.  School may be starting up but we will have good weather for awhile (fingers crossed) so our summer fun isn't over...we just have to schedule it a little differently!

july 21, 2014
Mr. Hopkins finally was on the carousel

july 22, 2014
cuddling on the couch

july 23, 2014
puddles

july 24, 2014
kindergarten backpack purchased

july 25, 2014
baseball game family picture

july 26, 2014
ear infection = disney store shopping

july 27, 2014
black eye thanks to a slide

july 28, 2014
scrapbooking together

july 29, 2014
mama and taelin beach day!

july 30, 2014
playing at the park

july 31, 2014
beach day with Lucy and Tina!  they had so much fun!

aug 1, 2014
school supplies purchased!  this girl is ready for kindergarten

aug 2, 2014
drive in time again!

aug 3, 2014
pool fun!

aug 4, 2014
beach day with Nana!

aug 5, 2014
that bowl is going to take forever to dry!

aug 6, 2014
new pink boots!  yeehaw!

aug 7, 2014
mini-vacation to the play in the water

aug 8, 2014
all showered up and ready to drive back home

aug 9, 2014
Maddie turns 7!
the matching outfits were NOT planned but sure were cute...

aug 10,  2014
hard waking up