Pinned It: Ranch Pork Chops/ Brownie Cookies

This week I made Ranch Pork Chops in the crock pot. This is the second time we have made this meal and it is not only easy, but so yummy. I am not normally a big pork chop fan they are usually a little tough and dry. However this meal is the exact opposite and is in the crockpot for 5 hours and ready for dinner with little prepping. All you have to is make the mashed potatoes, or if you want I am sure it is good with rice or pasta. There are some changes you can make to the recipe. If you would like you can sear or brown the pork chops before adding it to the crock pot. You can also make the parmesan mashed potatoes with it; which I did the first time but not the second.
Ranch House Crock Pot Pork Chops with Parmesan Mashed Potatoes
6 pork chops, 1/2 inch thick
1 packet dry Ranch Dressing Seasoning
10 oz can Cream of Chicken Soup
4 lbs peeled, cubed potatoes
5 Tablespoons real butter
1 Cup fresh grated Parmesan cheese
6 cloves roasted garlic (click for directions how to roast garlic)
1- 1 1/2 Cups warm skim milk (any milk will do, I just happened to use skim)
1 Tablespoon salt, or to taste
1 teaspoon fresh cracked black pepper, or to taste
1. Place pork chops, Ranch seasoning and soup into a medium sized crock pot over high heat for 4 hours or low heat for 6 hours.
2. Place potatoes into a large pot of cold water. Place onto stovetop over high heat and bring to a boil. Once water is boiling, cook for 10-12 minutes or until potatoes are fork tender. Drain and transfer to the work bowl of a stand or electric mixer. Mix on low until potatoes are mashed then add butter, parmesan, garlic, milk, salt and pepper. Season to taste if needed. For thinner mashed potatoes add more milk, slowly until your desired consitency.
3. Scoop mashed potatoes onto serving plates and top with pork chops and soup gravy from crock pot. Enjoy!

Next we made brownie cookies. YUM!!! James said we need to make these every time!! They arent as easy as mixing the brownies poouring in the pan and throwing in the oven. They take more time like cookies and making batches. I also did not add the chocolate chunks because I bought the Double Chocolate Ghiradelli brownies which already have chocolate chips in them but feel free to make it your own and add chocolate chips (semi, milk, butterscotch, or dark) or maybe even peanut butter cups...let your imaginations roam.

Brownie Cookies

• 1 package (18 To 21 Oz. Box) Fudge Brownie Mix
• 1-¼ cup All-purpose Flour
• ¼ cups Packed Brown Sugar
• 2 whole Eggs
• ½ cups Butter, Melted And Cooled
• 2 Tablespoons Water, Or More As Needed
• 1 cup Dark Chocolate Chunks

Preparation

1. Whisk together brownie mix, flour, and sugar.
2.Using a heavy spoon, stir in the eggs one at a time, followed by butter and 2 tablespoons water. If the batter appears like there is too much flour, add 1 more tablespoon of water. Batter will be very thick.
3. Fold in chocolate chunks
4. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours.
5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
6. Grease a cookie sheet.
7. Drop heaping tablespoons of dough on the cookie sheet. You want pretty thick cookies here to get the brownie feel, about 3 inches apart. Press down slightly. Don’t flatten completely. Bake for 8-10 minutes.
8. Remove from oven, allow to cool 2 minutes on cookie sheet. Transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.

These are tried and approved!! Enjoy!!

Resolutions Week 1

I feel this week we/I did pretty good on most of my resolutions I have set for myself/family this year. Some I did not get to because we were out and about during the day so I didnt get quite on top of my exercising in this week and then on the days I was home I was catching up on cleaning. This week I should do pretty darn good because I will be on top of the cleaing so no catching up and its going to be a beautiful week weather wise and that in itself is great motivation. Here is how I did on the following just so I can see my progress through out the year and it doesnt hurt the accountability factor.
-Complain less/be less critical and more encouraging towards the hubby: I actually did well with this because I am also doing the some of the "Love Dare" challenges through out the week. I am not neccessarily doing the all or in order but I have been picking a few to do and sometimes doing them more than once through out the week. I find that weekends are hard to not be critical on some of things he does especially with Hallie because its just me during the week and its easy to not have to join our parenting styles. On the weekends our parenting styles clash a little and I know that I just sometimes need to compromise or just step back and let him do his thing and figure things out!

-Follow a daily cleaning routine: At the beginning of the week I always have little motivation to get back into the groove of our schedule. By Wednesday I was determine to start it this week and stop myself from saying that "Oh I'll just start fresh next week" thats my motto! So I got caught up on Wednesday and on Thursday I did those chores plus Fridays because I thought ahead and new we would be out with my sister and nephew most of the day Friday so went ahead and did those chores on Thursday. So for this challenge I am very satisfied with my work this week; although the weekend got away from us, so hopefully next week will be flawless!

-Stick to our budget/start the Dave Ramsey method: I feel we are doing well with this resolution although we get paid bi weekly and still running on whats left over from last paycheck we have been sticking to our budget and being frugal in most departments, obviously this needs improvement and I feel will always be a work in progress.

-Get dressed everyday (bye bye pjs all day everyday): I did not do well this one... I will be honest my pjs are just sooooo comfortable!! Hopefully I will do so much better this week

-Keep up with blog: I will say I think I did a very successful job at this resolution! I hope to continue to do well with this; it has really given me something to do and keep me motivated and accountable in all things I want to do and get done in my life this year and for years to come.

-"Yes" mom Friday: I did okay with this one this week. As I said before we were out with my sister and nephew most of Friday so there wasnt a whole lot of times I had to say "no" to very many unrealistic things that day. She is pretty good when we go out and shop. The only struggles we have is wanting to be out of the cart most of the time but she did very well this time. And then that night we went out with James and walked around our new Kohls to see what they had for Easter dresses we also went to Macys. She did amazing in all of those places. We then stop in at Barnes and Noble and let her play for a little while. One she loves books so she could have stayed in there for hours. We then decided to go to the inside play area they have at our mall. We didnt pack our stroller so we let her walk on her on and she listened very well to us when we asked her to come a little closer to us if she started to walk a little to far ahead. I know we may sound most parents let there children run loose and are very independent by her age (22 mos) but she is my baby and I like her to be close to me. We are slowly realizing the "big girl" she is becoming and we are slowly allowing it and becoming comfortable with it but it is SO HARD!! I just want her to be baby forever.

Are you prepared?

In our current world today I feel like my family needs to be prepared more and more for anything! Not only are we in tornado alley and we need to be prepared to take shelter in less than 10 minutes sometimes, but I also want to be able to be prepared for job loss, financial trouble, or even spikes in food cost. So right now for my family I am focus on 72 hour kits and food storage (canning, gardening, etc.) Eventually I really would like to be a partial "homesteader" I would love to have an extensive garden, water collection system, some chickens, etc. Will we ever get there I have no clue... is it fun to dream... YES!
Here in the past 2 months my parents have started having a few people gathering just so we can learn more about canning, gardening, rain water collection, etc. It has been really fun to learn what others know so much about since I know so little. It is quite the motivation to know that it can happen and with not much money out of our budget to do somethings to just get started.
This month I focusing on 72 hour kits for the three of us and an extra for the car; just in case James is at works if anything does occur. Then next hopefully our focus will be on our garden and then be able to preserve our produce from that garden (canning). I am really excited to get started on these things and be able to keep up with it on Wednesdays. Now understand I am not looking to be a "doomsday prepper", but I DO want to be PREPARED. My philosophy is be prepared for IT. We have made a list of our top five ITS.
1. Tornados
2. Financial trouble/decline
3. Job loss
4. Food Price increasing
5. Anything Else: at this point there isnt a five other than the product of possibly 2-4 together.

My goal by the end of this year is to have our 72 hr kits completed, at least 3 months food supply, gardening, having a compost, and an emergency fund of at $1000 and hopefully a few months of living expenses. I hope that these will be interesting posts for anyone who checks out the blog.

What About Hallie Tuesday

I feel this will be the easiest way to really keep up with what is going on with Hallie and the latest she does, funny things she has said or done, and/or what I just love and adore about her!! Occassionally there will probably be inserts or times I just have to get a post in about our darling daughter just so I dont forget a moment, phrase, or happening that is significant to her or her life. I am really excited about Tuesdays but also nervous... I dont want to forget anything and that has really been my goal since the moment I found out I was pregnant I was determined to keep a pregnancy log of significant moments: ultrasounds, cravings...etc. I did pretty good and even wrote up her birth story with some help and motivation from my doula and her own that she wrote for us. Then that got me excited to keep a journal on her life I kept up with it her first 4 months of life then she got more active and there was less sleep time to just sit down and write; she also began to do more and more, and say more and more that it began hard to keep up with and remember to jot down. So hopefully I can be more successful if anything with keeping up on posts on Tuesdays for Hallie. Some days it might be like a journal entry another it may be a one liner phrase she may have said and others may be a list. So here it goes...

Today was a up and down kind of day; we have those more frequently now that we are quickly approaching our twos! It started of great we woke up, had breakfast, and watched some Curious George. We got some of our morning chores done and then it was lunch time and then nap. After nap time is when the downward slope began; Hallie woke up whiney and clingy, so we sat and cuddle until she was ready to play. It turned into a nice day but windy so we went outside and played for a little while and watered our flowers. Hallie played with her rocks in her rock garden and we pointed out the sky, birds, trees, and planes. We went over our baby signs and learned some new ones. We caught on very quickly and was able to learn FIVE new ones just in ten minutes: mama, dada, baby, light, hat and thank you. Currently she knows night night, eat, bath, hurt, more, rock, cat, fish and lion. She is soo smart and is retaining more than we could even imagine and some days she doesnt reveal she has learned something until days later it just comes out and we are both shocked. The other day during one of our tv shows a man on the show joined a band; a day later on Super Why two of the characters were playing some instruments and Hallie just said aloud "Band". I could go on and on with what Hallie says, mocks, repeats, and does. She is amazing and I love to be able to be home with her daily even though we have some rough days (and very rarely nights) I still love her extremely. The other day James said she is such an amazing little girl and all I could reply was I am thankful everyday that our Heavenly Father has sent us such a funny, loving, SMART, beautiful spirit... we consider ourselves VERY lucky. She is stubborn and strong willed much of the time but on the next extreme the most loving and snuggly baby. We love her and cant/DONT want to imagine our life with out her in it.

Grateful Monday

On Mondays I am going to list something(s) I am grateful for. Mondays are a difficult for most people around the world. Your weekend of relaxing, fun, or in my case an extra person to help with the little lady have all gone and the work week begins. James has a particular hard time with Mondays because he has to leave us girls and its a long day at work from him(mostly because he misses our better third, Hallie). Hallie also has a hard time with Monday mornings when she first wakes up she expects to see Dada and she sometimes asks for him other mornings she doesnt... or if we have seen my family over the weekend she usually will ask for them(mainly my 11 year old sister Jill; Hallie thinks they are besties) So the point is Mondays are hard to get through so why not try to take a positive spend on it, heck my grateful Monday might be the only positive thing that comes out of my Mondays... just kidding my days are pretty rewarding with this 21 month old around.

March 4th, 2013
Today I am grateful for our crazy Texas weather; last week it was mid 60s sometimes even mid 50s... but today OH today its going to be a high of 81F folks!! Thats right 81 degrees! Where as most Mondays if this happened I would have said oh my goodness its only March, or I wish this weather would make up its mind we are gonna get sick with it being cold one day and summer the next, but today I am going to be grateful that I can wear short sleeves and flip flops, enjoy playing outside with Hallie without a jacket or the wind, and be GRATEFUL that its not windy or in the mid 50s or like our family in Tooele Utah where their high is in the mid 30s and rain/snow... I think I will LOVE everything about our 80 degree weather today...

Pinterest

On Saturdays I am going to try to make it a goal to post something I either made for food, craft, emergency prep, sewing, etc. I will admit I am a Pinterest ADDICT... its not like I get on for hours and let my housework and family go to way side but I do jump on my phone which is what the problem really is its to easy to access, haha. I usually get on and begin to pin during naptime or when I am laying in bed trying to get myself to sleep. And now its become alot of pins which I am sure alot are duplicates if so more than that I am just too lazy to go thru and organize especially because it is too much of a process to delete a pin, Pinterest fix that!!! Well that became a rant... Anyways I want to start actually using my addiction and actually have some things to actually show for it.

So hopefully this will become a fun day to look forward to and I will actually fill like my time spent on Pinterest is worth it! Here is my board where I will also include the ones I have actually done, enjoyed, and are keepers. http://pinterest.com/theblakes08/accomplished-the-pin/ Enjoy!

Resolutions

I am self-diganosed OCD. I love to make list about a list about a list. I will make a new list with some recent tasks some which have already been completed just so that I can mark them off for that sense of ACCOMPLISHMENT! So each new year I will admit I am a goal maker or resolutions as most call them. I make my list on January 1st every year but I seem to not follow thru; now that being said I in some way accomplish 6/10 resolutions I make. And now that I am married and also have a daughter we make Marriage Goals and Family Resolutions(along with my own personal goals). I think it helps gives us all some sense of direction in what we should/want to accomplish as a couple, family, and individual throughout the year. This year I am DETERMINED to accomplish ALL of my goals and in there entirety. One of my goals is to keep this blog update and maybe even have some themes for each day so that it will be easier to keep up with and know what I should blog about(maybe that will help). I have always been a journal keeper and when I was in my teens it was soo easy to just sit down before bed and make an entry. Even up into college I was able to at least up date weekly; then I got married and then entries were monthly thereabouts and THEN the darling daughter came along and when journaling she be the most important it has fallen short and non existent. It makes me sad and regret a little bit that I didnt make time for this important task in our life and mostly her life for her to hopefully someday look back on. So I am hoping I can recover that lost skill and begin to keep at least a weekly update about what our family is up to but mainly what little miss is currently doing and saying. So lets hope 2013 is my year to accomplish my goals and continue throughtout the years. I  hope each visitor enjoys this blog and maybe try there hand at making and keeping goals if you arent already... Feel free to share your goals, regrets, and by all means SUPPORT (haha)!!

My Resolutions:2013
-Run 3x a week (couch to 5k)
-Home workout 2x a week
-Complain less/be less critical and more encouraging towards the hubby
-Follow a daily cleaning routine
-Stick to our budget/start the Dave Ramsey method
-Get dressed everyday (bye bye pjs all day everyday)
-Go to bed at a decent time and regularly
-Drink more water
-Keep up with blog
-"Yes" mom Friday (I got this idea from another blog; she found herself just saying no or not right to her children just because she was caught up in her own chores/schedule so she made it to where she only says Yes on Friday; of course with the exception to unreasonable things)