by Just Precious on December 30, 2009 · 2 comments
Its bitter outside. But its homey and warm inside. Because a few nights ago I crockpotted a whole chicken, then turned the left overs into a warm chicken soup. So easy you’re going to hate me because you never did this before. So good you’ll love me because you’ll start making it all the time.
Ingredients
- 1 whole chicken (about 5 lbs)
- chicken broth (about a cup)
- salt
- pepper
- paprika
- peeled orange
- yellow cooking onion, cut into crescent moons
- carrots
- favorite chicken spices (tarragon, thyme, whatever you like. Optional)
Get Cookin’
- thoroughly wash chicken (remove the giblets!), stuff orange segments inside and place in crockpot
- around chicken, place a pound of baby carrots, or regular carrots cut into bite-size pieces, and onion pieces
- sprinkle paprika, salt and pepper (and any optional spices and herbs) on top (to taste)
- pour 1/2 cup to 1 cup chicken broth around chicken
- set crock pot to “slow cook” 8-10 hours.
Check to ensure the internal temp is ideal for chicken, then serve your dinner. Chicken will be very soft and fall off the bone.
Because you’re sure to have leftovers, here’s dinner number two:
Ingredients
- leftovers (above)
- 2-4 stalks celery, cut into moons
- more onions and/or carrots, if necessary
- more chicken broth, if necessary (this depends on how brothy you like it. I don’t usually add any).
Get Cookin’
- STRIP your chicken. Dispose of all bones and skin. You can store the leftovers in the fridge overnight before preparing soup if you would like.
- Combine ingredients in a pot and simmer.
- That’s it. No. Really.
Star Power Rating: Is there anything better than homemade chicken soup on a bitter day? I don’t think so. 5 out of 5.
Notes for Next Time: The huz added a lot more salt and pepper than I did. The directions are “to taste.” I suppose he has better taste. Use your judgement and don’t be shy with your spieces.
by Just Precious on December 29, 2009 · 1 comment
In October, I realized that my boys didn’t know their princesses. And, so, for the past 2 and a half months I have schooled them. Trained them. At times practically sat on them to make sure they watched every single princess movie they didn’t know at Disney on Ice: 100 Years of Magic. And short of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (which, mind you, I did “borrow” from the library, but it was VHS and I couldn’t tame the tracking because the tape was in such bad shape) they were able to completely follow the Princess sequence last night at Disney on Ice: Let’s Celebrate. So well, in fact, that Middle proclaimed the Princesses were his favorite part. (More specifically, when Mickey became Minnie’s prince was his “actual favorite part.”)
So, I’m feeling pretty proud that the boys are now prepped to charm with their Princess knowledge. But, of course, there’s always something, right? And tonight that something happened to be that it was my husband’s first ever Disney on Ice. And he didn’t know his princesses. In fact, about half-way through the sequence (a bit before Tiana danced on the ice) he leaned over and commented, “are all of these people supposed to be Disney stories?”
Which made me realize that I now have less than 2 months to school my husband on the princesses. Because there is no way I’m going to retell each and every story to him as we run up to each princess asking for an autograph or picture while at Disney World.
Disney on Ice: Let’s Celebrate celebrates some of children’s favorite holidays through the characters of favorite stories. It begins celebrating Unbirthdays (of course with the Mad Hatter, Alice and the White Rabbit, as well as Pinocchio, Gepetto, and the Fairy), and continues celebrating Halloween (with a collection of evil villians like Captain Hook and Cruella DeVille), Valentine’s Day (that’s the Princess segment, of course), summer vacation and, of course, Christmas.
Now, this is where I have to bring up the fact that such a big deal was made over celebrating Christmas. In fact, most of the holidays mentioned were commercialized religious holidays. And it really wouldn’t bother me, had there been even one tiny mention, or even one little song that mentioned so many of the other holidays left out. Holidays like 4th of July, Cinco de Mayo, Thanksgiving and, of course, Chanukah. Those are all holidays of celebration. And while I understand that most preschoolers don’t recognize the celebration in those holidays, wouldn’t it be great to help to introduce others to these celebrations? Even with one song sung by a few characters that recognizes that there are hundreds of things to celebrate?
Okay, I’m now down off my soapbox. Because the show was absolutely fantastic. The kids were mesmerized. The huz was concerned because he didn’t see movement from Middle for nearly the entire show. But that non-movement translated to complete focus and fascination of such a sensational spectacle. The music, the fireworks, the sets, the costumes, the characters. Everything was so real to the kids.
By-the-way, Big’s favorite part was the Christmas celebration. When I asked him it only confirmed what I already knew. When Jessie, Buzz and Woody skated out with the toys he jumped out of his seat with excitement.
Oooooh. WDW here we come! I’m just so excited to see my kids there.
Disney on Ice: Let’s Celebrate is at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia through January 3. You can get discount tickets with coupon MOM at comcasttix.com. Follow this link for more information.
I’m a Feld Family Activator (through Mom Central). As an FFA, I received tickets for my family to attend Disney on Ice last night. Many thanks to FELD Entertainment and Mom Central!
by Just Precious on December 23, 2009 · 1 comment
This week, while checking out Just-Precious’ stats, I noticed a large number of searches related to Precious Personalities. And it reminded me that I haven’t blogged about good ol’ PP in a while. Because. Its not there. Go ahead. Click on it.
Owning and managing a boutique was a dream for years. And when Big was about a year old I decided to make it happen. It was wonderful. I loved shopping for others. I loved finding new products that weren’t at the Big Box stores. I loved making people’s shopping experiences pleasurable. And I still do. And will always love to do that.
So why? Where did it go? Well… When you purchase a domain (that’s a URL), you purchase it through a site host. Which I did. Over 5 years ago. Sadly, my computer crashed about 2 years later with all of my records for Precious Personalities. And when it was time to renew the domain every password in my book wouldn’t get me in to my site host. Strangely, they didn’t offer a feature to send or reset my password. Infact, when I called and spoke to several people I was informed that while they still did host the domain, they had some sort of a problem on their end and couldn’t access my account. So whether or not my password was missing suddenly didn’t matter. There was absolutely no flipping way they could access it. And neither could I. Rather irresponsible, right?
What’s more, because they had ownership of the domain, even though they couldn’t access my account, they could still send me e-mails stating that I needed to renew and could “park” my domain.
Now, parking my domain is very kind of them. Really. No one can just grab it because it belongs to them. Even though the name has been copywritten by me, the domain belongs to the site host. And if anyone (ie me) wants to own PreciousPersonalities.com you have to go through the site host that I went with 5+ years ago. 5+ years ago, this site host was consistently rated in the top 10 hosts. Ironically, now its difficult to find them on a site hosting listing. Hmmm… wonder why?
So, here’s the deal with Precious Personalities. I’m holding out. I’m waiting for the site host to unpark my copywritten title so that I can scoop it up through a (currently) more reputable host. Like JustHost.com (who hosts Just-Precious.com). Because I am simply not crazy enough to purchase my domain hosting through a company so disorganized that they can’t seem to access my account and do anything.
And then. And then I’ll have to rebuild Precious Personalities. From. Scratch. Which isn’t a job that takes a few minutes. No. Hours.
So, please. Bare with me. I have one outstanding order and the orderer knows that it won’t be delivered until February. Per his request. Otherwise, I’m not taking orders. I’m not filling orders. I don’t have a store or an e-mail address. And I’m sorry. Because I do love shopping for my customers and finding amazing new products to stock my shelves. Products you won’t find anywhere in the Big Box stores.
I do plan for Precious Personalities to be back. Eventually.
by Just Precious on December 22, 2009 · 1 comment
I’m very, very grateful. This weekend we received a very generous check from my Grandmother, specifically requesting that we spend $xx on each child in gifts this holiday. With her permission, I’m saving about half of that so that they can select gifts on our upcoming trip to Disney. But because I want to make sure that they open something under the tree, I went back to their amazon lists and selected a gift for Big and a gift for Middle that hadn’t yet been purchased. (Incase you’re just so curious, Big will receive a wooden chess board and Middle is getting Battat’s Dalmation Vet Kit.) But Little doesn’t need much, much less want anything. Still, wanting for her to open something under the tree, I ran a google search for 6 month old present.
Rather than reinventing the wheel, here’s an awesome list of gifts for 6 month t0 1 year olds. In the end, I decided on gifting Manhattan Toy’s Snuggle Pod, though the decision was tough. It came down to the Snuggle Pod, Infantino Penguin Bowling, and the Melissa & Doug Bug Jug. Finally decided on the Snuggle Pod because I could use my Amazon Prime. It does make a difference.
Disclosure: Nothing was given to me for this post. Other than a generous gift from my grandmother. Thanks Nani!
