Ideal Verge - Your Daily Dose of Knowledge and Inspiration.

This has been one of "those weeks" -- and I feel like I just can't seem to do anything correctly, and everything seems to be just slightly off balance.

it stinks.

I try to maintain a positive outlook on life, the universe, and everything, but today was one of those days that I wanted to crawl back in bed as soon as my feet hit the floor. The good news was that dinner pretty much made itself

We're home, safe and sound. Disneyland truly is the happiest place on earth. We couldn't have had a better time, and coming home to all of your lovely comments and emails has turned me into a weepy blubbery mess.

Thank you. You are all wonderful people. And! Evidently quite opinionated about DVD players... While vacationing, I got to thinking that if I gained 8 pounds (down 4 thanks to the

photo updated 2015 via deposit photos @lidante

Day 295.
October 21, 2008

We love rotisserie chicken in this house. Costco clearly labels their chicken as gluten-free, so I usually pick up 2 when we go.

But I haven't been going.

I find myself grocery shopping a few times a week now with this crazy crockpotting year, and it just isn't feasible to go to Costco. I'm only meal planning a few

I made a whole chicken yesterday in the slow cooker, and it turned out really well. We had some tomatoes that needed to get used up before they turned into pasta sauce, and I threw them on top of the bird while it slow-cooked. I loved the end result: a moist, flavorful chicken with gooey packed-with-flavor tomatoes. For an added bonus, you can save the crock drippings to make steamed rice.

The

originally posted on July 29, 2008. Updated July 2015.


Day 211.

The kids and I went to the "good" library over the weekend and I checked out a bunch of cookbooks. One of the books was put out by Cook's Illustrated, and was called The Complete Book of Poultry.

There are probably a good five hundred recipes in this book, but narrowing down what I was going to attempt first was rather easy---I

Fish! It's what's for dinner.

I love making fish in the crockpot. I love making pretty much anything in the crockpot, but the ease of making fish is just so wonderful, I'm surprised everyone doesn't cook fish this way.
It's easy.
It's moist and flavorful.
It doesn't heat up the house on a hot day.
it doesn't stink up the kitchen.
and clean up is practically non-existent.

SCORE!

I had a bunch

originally posted May 21, 2008. Reposted in 2015.



Day 142.




Last weekend I went through the pantry and put like items together. Since I had helpers, it took a really long time, and it sort of looks the same way it did when I started, but I now have a pretty good idea of our inventory.




We have a surplus of garbanzo beans.




So I made falafels.




In the crockpot.


I've never made