Ham Noodle Casserole

Ham Noodle Casserole

Ingredients:

1 box of your favorite noodles

1 stick of butter

1 cup of shredded cheddar cheese

16 oz sour cream

2 Tbsp Parmesan cheese

pepper, to taste

Ham steak, diced
Crushed red peppers, to taste
(Optional: broccoli, peppers, onions)

Directions:

Cook the noodles according to the box, drain.

Meanwhile, melt the butter.

Stir the melted butter, sour cream, some pepper, and both cheeses together.

Add ham steak pieces and noodles, mix well.

Cook in preheated oven at 350 for 15 minutes, or until bubbly.

(This can also be cooked in the microwave!  Since all the ingredients are all ready cooked, you just need to melt the cheese.)

*Optional: Add steamed broccoli and/or sauteed peppers and onions

**Adapted from original Recipe from Kristin Z.

Blackened Chicken with Garlic Alredo

Little man loves pasta, so we have it often. Browsing Pinterest I came across this recipe for Blackened Chicken with Garlic Alfredo, it looked good, so we gave it a try.  The original recipe calls for a Creole seasoning from Pampered Chef, but I don't have that so I made a few changes. 

Blackened Chicken with Garlic Alfredo

Ingredients:

Bow Tie Pasta (or your favorite)

Tony Chachers Creole Seasoning

salt & pepper

Garlic Alfredo Sauce

olive oil

chicken Breast

broccoli (optional)

Directions:

1. Pound chicken breast to an even thickness.  Drizzle olive oil over chicken breast to lightly coat.  Sprinkle creole seasoning over both sides of the chicken.
2. Heat skillet on medium-high and add chicken.  Cook 3 minutes on each side
3. While chicken is cooking, cook pasta.  Add broccoli during the last 2 minutes.  Drain and toss with Alfredo sauce, heat over low heat.
4. Place chicken on top of pasta.  Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese, if desired.

Final Product

Foil Packets

This might be one of my new favorites!  Easy prep, easy cook, easy cleanup...what's not to like!

Foil Packets

Ingredients:

Your favorite veggies (I used green peppers, zucchini, broccoli, onions, carrots, and potatoes)

Kilbasa (or chicken, steak, pork chops)

olive oil

salt & pepper

garlic powder

foil

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  While the oven is preheating, start chopping those veggies. Slice meat.
2. If using chicken, steak, or pork cook meat over medium heat for 5 minutes in olive oil and garlic.  Just long enough to get the pink out.
3. Add all ingredients to Freezer bag and mix well.  Make sure everything is covered with the oil.
4. Dump bag into foil packet and place on cookie sheet.  Bake for 40 minutes.

Note: I was out of foil so I used an aluminum pan, covered with another aluminum pan.  

Irish Cream Bundt Cake

My husband loves St. Patrick's Day and all that comes with it.  Corned beef and cabbage, Irish soda bread, Shepherd's Pie, you name it, he loves it!  A few years ago we started having a few friends over for an Irish feast and I needed a dessert.  I came across a recipe for an Irish Cream Bundt cake and everyone fell in love with it.  They all request the "Butt Cake" that I make on St. Patrick's day year round.  (Boys have no clue what a Bundt cake is, so Butt cake it is...)

Irish Cream Bundt Cake

Ingredients:

1 cup chopped pecans (optional, but highly recommended!)

1 (18.25 oz) package yellow cake mix

1 (.4 oz) package instant vanilla pudding mix

4 eggs

1/4 cup water

1/2 cup vegetable oil

3/4 cup Irish cream liqueur

1/2 cup butter (softened)

1/4 cup water

1 cup white sugar

1/4 cup Irish Cream liqueur

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.  Grease and flour a 10 inch Bundt pan.  Sprinkle chopped nuts evenly over bottom of pan.
2. In a large bowl, combine cake mix and pudding mix.  Mix in eggs, 1/4 cup water, 1/2 cup oil and 3/4 cup Irish cream liqueur.  Beat for 5 minutes at high speed.   Pour batter over nuts in pan.
3. Bake in the preheated oven for 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.  cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then invert onto the serving dish.  Prick top and sides of cake.  Spoon glaze over top and brush onto sides of cake, Allow to absorb glaze and repeat until all glaze is used up.
4. To make the glaze: In a saucepan, combine butter, 1/4 cup water and 1 cup sugar.  Bring to a boil and continue boiling for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.  Remove from heat and stir in 1/4 cup Irish cream.

the finished product (before the glaze)

What is your favorite Irish Dessert?

"Nesting"

I guess you could say the nesting has begun! I need to constantly be cleaning, organizing, or doing something "productive" or I go crazy. Tonight, I chose to be crafty.

As Brett was growing up his mom would chart their growth on their kitchen wall. You know, stand tall, mom places the ruler on your head and marks the wall with your initials and the date. Such a neat thing to look back on. However, the house is now up for Sale and unfortunately we can't take the kitchen wall with us. With baby #1 on the way I wanted to come up with a way to measure his growth, that we could take with us.

I came across this on Pinterest and thought with a little work, I could make this kid friendly. The final product...

I started with a plain 4 foot piece of shelving board, purchased at Lowe's.

Then I painted it, with an 89 cent bottle of craft paint, and added my measurements.

Lastly, I hot glued the soccer ball, football, basketball, and baseball on!

So easy! I love the way it turned out and I can't wait to hang it in his room!

Any one else want one, I still have at least 6 weeks before baby comes, I could make a lot of these!

Strawberry Valentine Oreo Cookies

These bad boys just came out of the oven...Mmmm

I LOVE Strawberry cake mix, it is my absolute favorite! So when I found this recipe on Pinterest, I knew I would have to make them. The last 8 minutes have been the longest 8 minutes of my life. Want your own Valentine Oreo? Here's How! Only 4 ingredients if you cheat like I did.

Strawberry Valentine Oreo Cookies

Ingredients:

1 pkg of strawberry cake mix

2 eggs

3/4 cups shortening

Frosting (I used Butter Cream flavor)

Directions:

-Mix cake mix, eggs, and shortening until well blended. The dough will end up really thick!

- Roll into balls (make sure they are close in size so that your cookies will be easier to assemble). I used a cookie dough scoop!

-Place dough onto ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes.

-Immediately transfer cookies to cooling rack.

-Once cookies are completely cooled spread frosting between two cookies, smoosh together and enjoy!

If you would like to make your own cream filling. Here's how:

Ingredients:

8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature

1/2 stick of butter, softened

2 tsp. vanilla

4 c. powdered sugar

Directions:

-Mix all ingredients until smooth until smooth.

I chose to use store bought frosting because, well let's be honest I'm pregnant, I forgot my sticky note that said "Barbee get cream cheese" and well, that's a main ingredient, and I had store bought in the cabinet:) They taste just fine, but I'm sure the home made would be delicious too!

Why are you still reading my boring blog...GO...go make cookies!!

The Bump

I've tried so hard to get a "bump" picture each week. I've only missed a few, so crazy to watch and see the difference from week to week.

Week 6-the week we found out we were expecting!

Week 7, I only took a pic with my shirt pulled up, no need to see my bare tummy online!

Week 8-This was the week we told the news

Ellen, Grandma, and Sarah's reactions! (Sarah please don't kill me for your blurry beautiful pic)

Butter Bean's first picture. The family decided he looked like a bean.

Week 9

Week 10 or 11 both me and Brett!

Week 12-starting to show

Week 13

Week 14

Week 15

Week 16- mom and dad to be

Week 17

Week 18, I decided it would be cool to get the stomach bug. No pictures were taken during this time. I might have forgotten during week 19, and 20 too.. oops. What's it called pregger brain??

More to come!

It's a...

BOY!

This week Brett & I had our anatomy scan and 22 week appointment and found out we are having a boy!

Now begins the process of choosing a name. Never knew it would be so difficult! We have the last name picked out, Jeschke. Do you like it?

Hurricane Irene

We were "hit" with yet another natural disaster this weekend. I say "hit" lightly because well she kinda changed directions and didn't really hit us at all. Hurricane Irene made her way into town Saturday. They were expecting us to get hit pretty hard, people over reacted in my opinion.

Allll the water in Giant was gone as you can see from the above photo, people were filling up gas cans with gas, people were freaking out.

We did end up loosing power for about 2-3 hours on Saturday night, and of course it was right as I stated to fix dinner. So I had to get creative.

I had to cook over a Sterno. Sesame seed chicken over a Sterno, I'm kinda proud of myself :)

After dinner we decided to play Mexican Tray. Its a game of dominoes and it lasted 5 hours.

The next morning, praise the Lord, the only damage we had was this little guy.

Not sure where he came from, but he was lying perfectly on our stairs...hope he isn't to important, since we just trashed him :)

And on Monday night Brett started his last first day of a Fall semester for his Master program:)

And since he is so wonderful he takes pictures for me:)I'm so proud of him and thankful for his dedication and hard work! He's almost done, graduation is in 9 months!!

A First

I survived my first earthquake today...True story. I was sitting at work, felt the building shake, looked at my co-worker, said do you feel that, then everyone started screaming "Earthquake!!" and running around. I of course found this funny, stayed in my seat and laughed..then ran to a doorway. Some people ran outside, others just feel on the floor. I'm thankful that it wasn't that bad and that we can laugh about it. But it was kinda scary now to think about. It was a 5.9 and We survived. And just for fun a photo from the quake today.

Just kidding, this photo is going around on the web. We do over react...

On other news Brett starts his fall semester next week, so summer is officially almost over, bummer.

Where oh where have the Jeschke's been...

We're back! Sorry for such a long delay, I have a whole list of excuses but I will spare you those. Well all but one, my computer died:( (pretty good excuse right?) and well since Brett uses his often times for school, my blogging becomes lower on the list. Good news is I have the most amazing husband ever and he got me a brand new beautiful blue (the cutest little thing) Netbook for Valentine's/an early birthday present so I can now keep in touch with the World Wide Web!

Since June we have had lots of fun! We celebrated my 23 birthday in July, which I can say without any hesitation was my most interesting birthday in the past 23 years. I had sharp pains in my lower left abdomen, and my doctor thought it may have been my apendix, so I got sent immediatly to the hospital for a CAT scan, (which is quite possibly the worst thing ever, due to the yummy drink they give you), which then sent me to the ER. See interesting right? Brett was a trooper and even thou we didn't get to go out to the fancy dinner I had desired, we made do with a local sandwhich shop then he had made a cake for me at home that we had for dessert.

In August we celebrated our 3rd year anniversary! I can't believe we have been married for over three years, time flies! This year we spent the weekend with friends at Smith Mountain Lake. Then we headed to Harrisonburg, got a hotel room, and dinner. We were able to walk around JMU's campus and enjoy some of our old favorite spots and the next day we finally made it to Redish Knob (Brett promised me when we were dating that someday he would take me:))

September was a blur, Brett stated Grad school, we went on a camping trip (with our new camping gear!) and in October another best friend from home got married. Jess and JJ had a beautiful wedding and it was such a fun weekend!

Halloween this year was a blast, I usually hate getting dressed up as something I'm not, but this year was a little different. My friend Caitlin and I headed to target the day of in search of the perfect "couples" costume for Brett and myself. Well I did indeed find the perfect costumes!!

Also in October we were finally able to go to a JMU football game with some of my girlfriends, we tailgated and had tons of food!

November was a slow month we pretty much laid low and prepared for the upcoming holidays. The early weeks of December were filled with lots of work for me and resting for Brett and he began his winter break. This year we headed to Martinsville for Christmas and had a wonderful time with the Knighten clan. The day after Christmas Brett and myself along with my parents went on a sleigh ride through the festival of lights! it was very cold but so much fun!!

We rang in the New year dog sitting, I woke up with 5 seconds left until the ball dropped! I also began a new project, Project 365. It has been my goal to take one photo a day for the next year, so far I think I'm doing good:) and will catch you up on that next.

We just recently celebrated Brett's 26th Birthday!! Its so much fun to celebrate with him! I had to work a couple of hours that morning but I was home before he woke up and was able to make him Breakfast, and we hung out for the rest of the day then went out to Outback for dinner.

Birthday Cake at Midnight (this is a tradition of ours!)

Oh and I made him a Hobbit Hole Cake:)

And well today is Valentine's Day and as you already know I am loving my Valentine and my new computer <3.>

Ok, so I will try to keep up better, now that I have no longer have the excuse of no computer.