Homemade, Heathier Mac and Cheese

I met Tim over 10 years ago. We met in high school. When we used to go out to eat, he pretty much ate the same things: chicken parmesan, chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese. Since then he has opened his pallet to new things but I like to make some of his favorite meals every once in awhile. So when I saw this recipe on myrecipes.com for healthier mac and cheese, I jumped on it. And it was a hit! So I wanted to share this since its healthier, fast, delicious and a big hit in our home.
First let's grab all of the ingredients:

4 cups of uncooked macaroni (elbow is recommended but I have used different types and its a hit)
3 tbsp. flour
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper
2 1/4 cup skim milk
1/4 cup (2 oz.) 1/3 less fat cream cheese, softened
2 tsp. Dijon mustard (spicy works well too)
2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp. bottled minced garlic
1 1/4 cups (5 oz.) shredded reduced fat cheddar cheese (it can be mixed. I used different reduced fat cheeses)

While the pasta is cooking, place the flour, salt and pepper in a large saucepan. Whisk it together.

Turn the burner to medium heat while whisking the milk into the flour mixture. Make sure you mix it well.

After the milk is mixed in well, start to whisk in the softened cream cheese in parts.

After it is mixed in, bring the sauce to a boil while constantly whisking. Reduce the heat and simmer for 2 minutes to let the sauce thicken. While thats simmering, measure out the cheese. (I always throw a little extra in there)

Then stir in the minced garlic, mustard and worcestershire sauce and simmer for 1 minute. Remove it from the heat and begin stirring in the cheese until it melts. Then combine the pasta.

YUM! It is really delicious. Its creamy and you would never know that it was a healthier version. A cup and a half of it is around 252 calories!

You can even add different things to it. Hot dogs, chicken or veggies. This time I added steam broccoli and it was delicious.

Have you remade any of your favorite dishes? Tim was really excited when I made over one of his favorites so it was a little healthier.

Home Goals for 2012

Umm, before I start, how cute was James in my earlier post? He never voluntarily snuggles with me so when he climbed over and wedged himself next to me, my heart melted. I am still smiling.

But back to the post. I heard that The Nester was doing a home goals challenge for 2012 so I decided to take the opportunity to write down my goals...well just one main goal. I'm excited about this year. Tim and I are ready to make some major changes to our house. We have been in it for 18 months and we have been saving for one of our biggest changes yet...do you think your ready for this jelly?

HARDWOOD FLOORS!

Beautiful, gorgeous hardwood floors! Don't get me wrong. I have really enjoyed our house so far but with a dog it is so hard to keep the carpet clean and dust free. I also love the look and so does the hubby. It's not always easy to get us to agree on house decor so that is another win.

We are looking at a lot of places for prices but until we share what we find, here are some inspiration photos that we found to motivate our decision.



I love the mixed woods and neutral palette. Or this one...



This room was made for me. I love the floor, the texture, the couches with the hints of blue and the beams..I can't get the beams in this house but they are a dream.

I am excited to share our adventures of installing the hardwood floors, staining and sealing them soon.

As for my other house goals, they are all listed to the right of the page. I plan on tackleing a lot of them over the next year or so and I will probably be adding to the list as well. I'm excited to be sharing all those do's and don't on this page during the year.

Snuggle Time

How can I do any work when he decides to come up and snuggle with me? I LOVE moments like this. :) I dont know what I would do without him.

New Year...New Recipes

Well since, I have been slacking a little bit on my "working out" resolution, I figure I might as well work on my other resolutions like working on my blog. Hope you like the new updates. :) I also want to try to post some sort of cooking post once a week since I love trying new recipes and although I love cooking Italian, I want to explore some things outside of my comfort zone.

Last year when I tackled my first crock pot soup of the colder season it was a success despite my mistakes. So I was excited to try this Crock Pot Potato Soup Recipe that I got from Pinterest.

www.pinterest.com

It looked good and it didn't require anything that I didn't already have. When I see ingredients like that, I figure its meant for me to try. So this morning (even though I was running pretty late) I made sure I prepped the crock pot.

So I started by cleaning off the potatoes and dicing them. I added the garlic and the chicken broth. Then I started the crock pot on low for 10 hours and left for work, hoping for the best.

I was really looking forward to this all day to be honest. I ate really healthy food all day and was ready to dive into some delicious potato soup. When I got home it smelled great and looked...interesting.

I didn't want to judge yet so I decided to keep going. While I was blending 1/3 of the recipe with cream cheese, I was also cooking bacon.

I know, I know. The bacon is too big for the pan. But this is what I pulled out and I wasn't going to use two pans...because let's be honest everyone- no one likes to wash two pans when they can only wash one. :)

Anyways, at the end, it was looking pretty good.

I was excited.

But it wasn't that great. It let me down like my hair on a rainy day. (You can't tell from my previous posts but my hair is pretty thick and curly.)

The recipe called for the skins to stay on but I think it would have been a lot better if I peeled them off before cooking them. I also realized that I didn't put quite enough broth in. It could have used a little bit more flavor. Plus, I think it might be great with another vegetable in there.

Overall I think this recipe has potential but I don't want to back it or post it until I have it right. So for now, call this a sneak preview. When I make it again with a few modifications we will see if this is a winner.

Happy Wife= Happy Life

This is a motto that my husband likes to live by. We all joke but it is true in many ways. So when I told my husband last winter that there is a definite draft in our house and we need to insulate, he happily agreed. :) Then life happened and we delayed the project. Now that the weather is getting colder (this has been our mildest winter yet!), we decided to revisit insulation and tackle the project ourselves.

We live in a 1940s style bungalow. There is no basement or attic. Just crawlspaces. We decided to head down there and see what type of insulation they had down there.

Don't worry- since we have no idea what is down there, we took precautions with gloves, a mask and goggles. I also wore long sleeves and work jeans to make sure I was covered.

When we got down there we realized that the insulation was old and falling apart. So everytime our radon system fanned out the air in our crawlspace, it took all the heat with it. Bummer. So whats the next step?

We hit Lowes and got new insulation. We went with R30 16 inch insulation.


Not only was it a little safer for us to use but it is also an Ecotouch product. That means we get to save a little green in our pocket come tax time. So needless to say we were a little excited about that.




We have a 1,000 sq. ft. house so we got enough to cover the lower part. That came out to 30 rolls. I wish I took a picture of it all stacked up in our dog room. It was pretty ridiculous. Here is a shot of the crawl space. It's not the easiest spot to take a picture so sorry for the bad shot.

First the Hubby ripped out the old insulation. We took that right out to the garbage. Then we rolled out the insulation and began measuring each above section and started stuffing. That's about it. Some parts might not stay up on their own so we use wires to hold them up there. It started looking really good.

About 2 days and 6 hours later it was all up and looking great. I swear it feels warmer already. I can walk around without multiple layers of socks. It's great. The next step is putting up the vapor barrier to seal in the insulation and protect it. That is going to take a little longer but I hope to be back in the next couple of weeks with that update.

It's a Christmas Craptacular

Remember the post about my office decorations?

Well I got the inspiration from another Matthews that knows how to decorate for Christmas...



That's Tim's Uncle Phil and his beautiful wife, Sharon. Every year they welcome us into their home to experience what has been lovingly referred to as the Matthews Christmas Craptacular. For as long as I have known this family, Uncle Phil has been decorating the inside of their house for Christmas. It's not just a simple tree with stockings on the mantle. It is every decoration you can think of in every direction you can imagine.


Maybe instead of trying to explain it, I should show you what I mean. Get ready...

See what I mean?

Let's break down all the awesome work that that man goes through for his family and friends to enjoy.

1) First all of the kitchen cabinets are carefully wrapped in decorative Christmas wrapping.
2) Lights are hung around the perimeter with care.
3) Next, the chandelier over the dining room table is decked out in Snowman lanterns, garland, and ornaments.
4) Ornaments and strings of beads are hung from the ceiling.
5) I am sure there are a ton of decorations that I am leaving out but let's keep moving.

Impressive right? It's like Christmas Exploded in their house. Here are some more angles for you to get the real idea of the awesome decor.

Here is a blurry glimpse of the mantle and bookcases in the living room. They are covered with every stuffed animal for Christmas you can think of as well as garland and mini Christmas trees galore.

What's that you say? You want another close up of that chandelier in the first picture. Okay.

It's beautiful. I love the ornaments from the ceiling. He spent 8 hours hanging each of those ornaments. First he hot glued fishing line to the ceiling where he wanted the ornaments. Then he went back when they were dry and hung all of the ornaments. It's pretty amazing and time consuming.

Finally I have a picture of their tree but I have to warn you. It is much more impressive in person. Most of the ornaments seen in the picture are actually moving and making noise. There are more disco balls on there then you realize. I wish I took a better picture but I was too busy stuffing my face full of delicious dips and chatting with family that I forgot to snap one later.

It's pretty big. I couldn't even get it all in the shot. I love the disco balls. It makes me want to get some for our tree next year.

So that is a glimpse into one of our most treasured family traditions... visiting Uncle Phil's Christmas Craptacular.

What's your favorite part? Mine is hands down the ornaments hanging from the ceiling. 

PS: In case your wondering, the outside of his house only has a single lit star guiding you to their house. :) It's simple and gives no indication of what awaits you inside.



Getting back into art...starting with a red umbrella

So I already talked about my father in law in this post. He's an extremely talented person when it comes to building anything. He sees potential in any house...even if it needs a lot of work. So when Tim's mom asked me to paint a picture of him and his dog Jazz, I was excited...and nervous. I mean I love to paint but painting people is extremely overwhelming to me. I mean what if they don't like it? What if I don't make them look good? It's too much. But I decided to take on the challenge when she gave me this awesome picture of him and Jazz in a canoe. 

Doesn't this picture make you smile? They look so content. Jazz is extremely well trained. If it was a picture of our pup James, we would be in the water next to the canoe. That dog cannot sit still in a small boat. He rather be swimming.

 But I digress...back to the painting.

This canvas is an 11" X 17". If it was any bigger, it would take me forever.  I started slow. I sketched out him, Jazz and the canoe. Then I began with the background. The limbs were first, then I started to tackle to greenery. 

It was going slow but steady.



Finally I had the background done. I have to say that although I usually follow one or more images pretty closely, when it comes to the background, I don't get too caught up in following the photo exactly. If I did, I would be too obsessed with getting it perfect. 



I was determined to push off painting Eric himself so I moved on to the clothing and the pup. It's tough to paint a black dog but all you need to do is focus on the highlights rather than the shadows. At this point I was pretty excited by how it was turning out. 

At this point I just started to get in my usual painting groove. Once I got over painting his face and finishing the canoe, the rest pretty much flew by. Here is the final product.

I'm so excited by how it came out. Sorry about the bad quality picture but my hand was cramping pretty bad by the end. I think I love the water and Jazz the best.

 I was pretty excited to take something like this on that I feel like I need to keep going. February 17th is Drexel University's AAGA Annual Art Auction. It's this awesome event that I had the privilege of being a part of for the last 3 years. If you are in the Philadelphia area, come out to a great event where you can get original art by Philadelphia artists at a great price. Now I just need to figure out what I should paint?