Do you decorate the house for fall? Putting pumpkin spice wax squares in my candle warmer is about as far as I go, but I do enjoy looking at autumn decor.
Archives for September 2016
Celebrating 200 Posts
This is a very exciting day. I have officially written my 200th post on NashvillWife.com! My blogging journey began in 2009, but it wasn’t until May 2015 that I started Nashville Wife.
Sharing life with you over the past 17 months has been wonderful, and I look forward to continuing to do so for many years to come. I love getting to know each of you via comments and email. Please let me know if there are any posts (either general or specific topics) that you would like to see on the blog. I value your feedback. 🙂
Thank you, from the bottom of my heard, to all my loyal readers. Y’all are the best!
Ellie
Easy Hot Chicken Wings
One of those meals is hot chicken wings with butter, hot sauce, and, well, that’s it. At first glance, it sounds quite unhealthy, but you only have to add as much of each ingredient as you desire. I was able to find a brand of hot sauce (Frank’s RedHot) that only contains cayenne pepper, garlic powder, vinegar, water, and salt. And I always add veggies to the meal.
If you live in the United States, you are aware that tonight is the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. We try our best to be informed citizens, so we will be eating our hot chicken wings while we watch the debate. Here’s the recipe…
Easy Hot Chicken Wings
Ingredients
- Chicken wings frozen, not fresh
- Hot sauce
- Butter
Instructions
-
Arrange chicken wings in an empty crock pot, and cover with hot sauce. We use about 1/2 cup hot sauce per 15 chicken wings. You can adjust the amounts, but I wouldn't recommend cutting it down too much. (No one likes burnt chicken wings...LOL.)
-
Cut butter into chunks, and place on top of chicken wings. I use 1/2 stick of butter, but you can use less. Cook on high for 6 hours.
-
If you are home and are able to gently "stir" the chicken wings after three hours, that's great. If not, just "stir" them 20 minutes before serving. The chicken falls off the bone quite easily, but beware of little pieces of bone and cartilage.
Homemade Apple Butter Tutorial
It has been several weeks since my sugar-free peach canning tutorial, so Mr. Handsome and I decided to take on another project: apple butter!
We found an apple orchard that was changing owners and selling golden delicious apples for $0.50 per pound, so we decided to stock up. In just 30 minutes, we picked 70 pounds of apples!
Our KitchenAid attachment didn’t arrive on time, so my dedicated hubby spent Saturday afternoon smashing apples by hand into a mesh strainer. After two hours of work, we ended up with two pints of apple butter.
Then on Monday, Mr. Handsome came home from a nine-hour day at work and barely even sat down before joining me in the kitchen for five hours. Using the KitchenAid attachment was WAY more efficient. By the time everything was said and done, we had made 35 pints of apple butter.
Working on the project with my man was a blast. He spent the first 11 years of his childhood on a 75-tree orchard and has lots of great memories making apple butter, applesauce, and apple cider with his family.
And now for the tutorial! 🙂
Step 1: Load apples into the kitchen sink, and rinse. You will also need to sterilize your jars. This time, we ran our jars and rims through the dishwasher sterilize cycle and washed the lids in hot, soapy water. (We used pint-sized jars.)
Here is a note from the Ball/Kerr website
on sanitizing your canning lids: “Our Quality Assurance Team performed
comprehensive testing to determine the need for pre-heating lids.
Ultimately, we determined that it’s completely safe to skip pre-warming
lids in the canning process. While it’s still safe to simmer your lids
before use, you should never boil them. Our recommendation for over 40
years has always been to simmer (180°F) – not boil (212°F) – the lids.”
Step 2: Chop apples into quarters, and add to a pot of boiling water.
Step 3: Boil gently until soft, and remove from water using tongs. (We transferred ours into a colander with a bowl underneath to catch drips.)
Step 4: Process apples using the KitchenAid Food Grinder and Fruit/Veggie Strainer attachment.
If you don’t have a KitchenAid, you can smash apples through a mesh strainer by hand. Another method is to peel, core, and quarter the apples before boiling and then run them through a food processor after boiling.
Step 5: Dispose of core/peel waste, and transfer applesauce to a large pot. Add the following ingredients per ten cups of applesauce:
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1-1/4 teaspoons allspice
1/2 teaspoon ginger
4 teaspoons cinnamon
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup molasses
2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup white sugar
Bring mixture to a boil, stirring constantly. When apple butter is HOT, remove from heat, and add to HOT, sterilized jars using a clean spoon. (Jars should be sitting on a clean towel while filling with apple butter.)
Leave 1/4 inch of empty space at the top of each jar. Using a clean knife, remove any visible air pockets.
Step 6: Wipe rims of jars with a clean towel to remove any drips. Place lids on jars, and screw rims on firmly (not too tight). Using a jar lifter/canning tongs ($3.00 in the Walmart canning aisle), load jars into waterbath canner (or a large pot that is tall enough to allow jars to be covered with 1-2 inches of water). Jars should not touch each other.
Bring to a boil, and boil for 10 minutes. If you live at an altitude of 1,000 feet or greater, you
will need to add to the processing time. Click here to see the Ball/Kerr altitude chat.
Use tongs to remove jars, and place undisturbed on a towel for 24 hours. (Make sure jars don’t touch each other.)
Lids should seal within 30 minutes. To check if they have sealed, press
down on each lid. If they don’t bounce back, they are sealed properly.
Jars that don’t seal within 24 hours should be refrigerated and eaten
within 7 days.
Have you ever made apple butter?
Adventure-Themed Wedding Shower
Over Labor Day weekend, Mr. Handsome and I (along with his parents and three youngest sisters) attended an adventure-themed wedding shower for my brother and his fiance. My mom and the maid of honor spent many hours planning this family event.
For lunch, guests feasted on a smorgasbord of Middle Eastern food (pita bread, humus, baba ghanoush, beef schawarma, saffron chicken, salad, and rice. It was different, but it turned out to be delicious!
Our Visit to Noah’s Ark
A few weeks ago, Mr. Handsome, myself, and four of our friends visited the Ark Encounter, a theme park located in Williamstown, Kentucky. The park, which opened in July, currently houses a petting zoo and a life-size replica of Noah’s Ark but will eventually feature other attractions, including a walled city and a replica of the tower of Babel.
At 510 feet long and 80 feet high, the Ark is the largest timber-frame building on the planet. As we walked through the multiple-story museum located inside, we could smell the sweet scent of freshly cut wood.
The $90 million ark was funded by donations, bonds, and memberships (appropriately called “boarding passes”). The structure was constructed using the latest environmental technologies, making it one of the largest “green” building projects in the nation.
Mr. Handsome and I were amazed by the sheer size of the ark replica, and we thoroughly enjoyed walking through the exhibits and learning more about the history of the original structure. The top floor of the museum featured several dozen manuscripts of the Bible printed over the past two thousand years.
If you’re looking for a family-friendly getaway, we highly recommend visiting this northern Kentucky attraction. The Ark Encounter is just a day’s drive away from 2/3 of all Americans, as well as millions of Canadians.
As we were leaving, a storm blew in and made for an epic photo op!
Here’s a video that shows an aerial view of the ark…
Protein Powder for My Hubby
Earlier this week, Mr. Handsome asked me to buy him a new container of whey protein powder for working out. During a Walmart run yesterday afternoon, I stopped by the vitamins/supplements section to choose a product but noticed that every single one was advertised as “naturally and artificially flavored.”
Glancing at the ingredients lists, I was shocked to find a host of artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives. Discouraged, I headed home and spent about 20 minutes researching all-natural why protein powders. I found one on Amazon that was a decent price and had great reviews. Mr. Handsome said he was game to try it, so I placed the order.
Thanks to Amazon Prime, our Bodylogix Natural Whey arrived the following day. We both tasted it and thought it was great!
What are your thoughts on protein powder?
Breakfast [Non]Casserole
As the oldest of seven children, Mr. Handsome has eaten a lot of casseroles in his lifetime, and he has really come to detest them. So when I called this dish a breakfast casserole, he immediately corrected me.
“No, no,” he explained. “It’s not a casserole. A casserole is a disgusting mess of mushy ingredients all mixed together. This is totally different.”
“Then what should we call it?” I asked him.
“The ultimate breakfast sandwich,” he announced.
It’s incredibly easy to make. Here’s the recipe:
Breakfast Sandwich Casserole
Ingredients
- 6-8 pieces Whole wheat bread toasted and buttered
- 1 lb Ground sausage browned
- 8 eggs scrambled with a bit of milk
- Fresh or canned mushrooms sauteed (optional)
- Shredded cheddar cheese
Instructions
-
Line a 9×13-inch pan with bread slices
-
Evenly distribute eggs, sausage, and mushrooms over bread slices
-
Cover with shredded cheese
-
Bake 15 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheights
Recipe Notes
You can assemble this dish the night before, store it in the fridge (covered with plastic wrap), and bake it the following morning.
Mr. Handsome would love to know what you think of his dish! Oh, and I looked up the definition of casserole (“food baked together and served in a deep dish”) and I still think this qualifies.
How to Plan a Clean Bachelor Party
After roasting hotdogs and s’mores over a fire, they headed to a park district gym to play basketball for three hours. (Thankfully, only a couple minor injuries were sustained.) For dinner, they picked up ribs. Then they went back to our grandparents’ home to spend the evening playing games and watching sports. (Our grandparents graciously spent the night at another family member’s house so the guys could have full run of the house.)
They planned to have cereal for breakfast, but our grandmother surprised them with eggs, bacon, and pumpkin-flavored pancakes. Everyone had a blast and agreed that it was the best bachelor party they had ever been to.
#NeverForget
Four years ago, my parents and I visited New York City. Our trip only lasted two days, but we made use of every minute we had in The Big Apple.
On the first day, we strolled through Central Park and Grand Central Terminal, ate lunch at the Plaza Hotel, enjoyed a delicious dessert at Georgetown Cupcake, took a ferry to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, rode the subway to Hoboken for more treats at Carlo’s Bake Shop, and absorbed the magic of Time Square at night. Over a 12-hour period, we walked all the way from 86th Ave on the Upper East Side to the southern tip of Lower Manhattan.
The next morning at 5am, we braved the rain to be in the background of NBC’s TODAY Show in Rockefeller Plaza and had a quick chat with anchor Ann Curry. Then we power-walked over to ABC Studios to catch the end of Good Morning America, where we came face-to-face with country music star Carrie Underwood.
Our next stops were Trinity Church Wall Street, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the Empire State Building, the United States Branch Bank, and the New York Stock Exchange.
Two hours before heading to the airport to catch our flight home, we visited one final attraction, the September 11 Memorial at Ground Zero. Although the museum was still under construction, simply standing on the grounds of the World Trade Center was a humbling experience. We passed by the Survivor Tree and peered over the railings of the reflecting pools, which were built within the footprint of the Twin Towers.
May we never forget the 3,000 men and women who lost their lives during the terror attacks of 9/11 and those who risked their lives to bring thousands more to safety.
What are your memories of September 11, 2001? For those of us who were old enough to remember, the footage of the airplanes flying into the Twin Towers will forever be ingrained in our minds. We must always pay tribute to that day, for as Winston Churchill once said, “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”