MoMo Monday Week #5

Last Tuesday was MoMo's birthday. 

Ok.....so technically I have no idea when her actual birthday is.  I didn't have her mom as pet or adopt her from a friend whose cat had kittens or anything like that (actually...she adopted me.  Another story for another Monday) but she needed a birthday. I took the month that I got her in and gave her the same birth date as me....so I deemed her birthday May 14th

Each year she gets a special dinner of salmon...this year was no different

I even let her eat it out of a fancy dish like one of those stuck up Fancy Feast cats.  Why they're on TV and MoMo isn't I'll never understand

She was a trooper with her party hat.  She wasn't a huge fan of it but the trick is to put it on her and then set her down right in front of her birthday dinner.....she forgets all about the hat

And of course....what's a birthday without cake???

MoMo got salmon and cake waaaasted!!!!!

Then she proceeded to curl up on the rug and fall into a deep birthday induced coma.  I think she had a good time

And here are the pictures I posted on Instagram that night

Come follow me.  TheBusyBroad

Happy Birthday little Mo!  Here's to many more years of a purrrrrrfect friendship.  (I couldn't resist a good cat pun)

DIY Custom Shirts Using Freezer Paper

I have been DYING to start making my own shirts.  My head is stuffed full of cool sayings and designs.....but I've been unsure of the best way to go about executing them

I really love all the cool shirts people make using iron on vinyl....but since I don't have a Silhouette Cameo or any other kind of cutting machine for that matter (This busy broad is also a poor broad) I haven't really felt like I should bother breaking into the world of vinyl.  Pretty much too depressing for me without a machine haha

So I decided to finally give the freezer paper technique of making shirts for an idea I had for my niece Elsa's birthday

If you follow me at all, you might remember that she had a camping themed party....so sticking with the theme I decided to make a "Happy Camper" shirt

First off I decided to use up some pink flower iron on letters I had left over from making the little girls flower girl shirts for the rehearsal

Then came the camper portion

I found an imagine online and printed it out.  Then I traced it with sharpie onto the freezer paper

I marked with an X what was to be cut out.  

CAREFULLY cut the entire image with an exacto knife as well as the X out areas....but be sure to keep the pieces..you're going to need those

Take the piece of freezer paper and iron it onto the shirt shiny side down.  It's the shiny stuff that makes it stick

Then position those little pieces you saved and iron those on too

Take your fabric paint and cover the whole area using a foam brush.  I did about 3 coats to get it even

Peel off the outside

And then the little pieces

Not perfect...but not terrible for a first attempt at a new technique.  You can see spots where I didn't have the paper ironed down good enough so paint seeped under.  Next time I will do a better job of checking that.  But once you put the shirt on a cute kid I think it  doesn't even matter....right?

MoMo Monday Week #4

Happy belated Mothers Day to all you mamas out there!  Hope yours was great....mine certainly was.

Yes....I may not have human spawn but my I am most definitely a mother to my MoMo.  Do I not feed her? Love her? Put a roof over her head? And pay over a thousand dollars recently to get her diagnosed and given surgery?  If that doesn't qualify me as a mother I don't know what does.  

Friday at work my supervisor was leaving and from across the kitchen I could see him mouthing something but I couldn't hear him.  I said "Huh....what?"  

"Not you he said.." and he turned to Persia my coworker and said "Happy Mothers Day" (she has a 17 year old and a 14 year old) 

I was pretty happy that she came to my defense and said to him "She's a mother too...what about MoMo?"  

Haha!  thanks Persia!  I'm glad somebody gets it ;)

Basically I think it boils down to the fact that there are 3 kinds of people in the world

Person #1  They don't like pets.  And that's where I ask.....what the hell is wrong with you??  Seriously?

Replace the word "pets" in that card and that about sums it up

Person #2  You have a pet, but your pets are just "pets"

And then Person #3  is me.....your pets are much more than just a animal roaming your house.  They are family.  You talk about them to anyone and everyone who will listen....heck even to the people who don't want to listen.  You take an insane amount of pictures of them and the people of Instagram and Facebook hate you (the ones without souls that is ) You may even write about them in your blog.....I'm not sure what kind of quack does that

With that being said.....back to Mothers Day.


The Boy....uhh...I mean MoMo made me a lovely card

I think she handles a crayon exceptionally well considering she doesn't have thumbs.  Don't you?

And now for some Mama and Me photos.  Or in this case MoMo and Me.......

I've showed this one before but it' worth showing again in my opinion.  The night of our wedding I rushed home to see her before the after party.  I love this picture because I'm still in my gown and she couldn't look anymore like an embarrassed child if she tried

Had enough?  

Ok.....until next Monday

Low Carb Everything "Bagel"

Recently there has been one thing I've been craving.....an everything bagel

Considering there are over 60 carbs in one.....making my own version had to happen

So here's what I came up with

Start out by making your basic One Minute Flax bread

1 pat of Butter 

1 Egg

1/2 tsp. Baking powder

2 Tb. Golden flax flour

1/4 C. Cheese

Start by spraying a ramekin with nonstick spray.  Melt the butter in the ramekin, then mix in the egg, baking powder, flax, and cheese.  It will look like this

Microwave it for....you guessed it....one minute.  Flip it over and if it isn't done on the bottom cook it about 20 seconds more

Just plain like this it's perfect for sandwiches and burgers....whatever!  Here it is as a breakfast sammie with bacon, tomato, a little mayo, and a fried egg

Now to make it into a bagel...

I made some of the "Everything" seasoning by combining equal parts:

Seasame seeds
Poppy Seeds 
Minced dried onion
Minced dried garlic

Plus 1/2 the amount of salt of all the other ingredients

Whether it be teaspoons, tablespoons,...however big a batch you want to make

I sliced my minute bread in half and sprayed the outsides with nonstick spray and dipped it in the seasoning

 Then toasted it in the toaster oven, cut side down to keep as much of the topping on as possible

Then I dressed it up the same way I do my bagels.  Loaded with cream cheese, tomatoes, shaved red onion (literally shaved with a vegetable peeler) sliced avocado, salt and pepper

So here's the deal.....don't go into this expecting it to really feel like a bagel.  It doesn't. Bagels have that very chewy...VERY doughy feel that this will never have.  Actually, this bread in general is much closer in texture to an english muffin.  I only call it a bagel because the flavor profile of the everything bagel is what inspired the idea

For me it was less about the bagel "feel" and more about the taste of the seasonings and gobs of cream cheese....I never ate bagels plain.  It was all about how I loaded it up.  So for me....this is a delicious alternative.  I was delighted to get all those flavors together again....and in a "toast" like manner

Note: Some of my topping did fall off.  The dried onion I bought was really big and chunky and I think that was part of the problem.  It was heavy and didn't stick as well as the other ingredients and took some of them with it.  I will look for smaller onion pieces and possibly use egg whites to stick on the seasoning next time.  Over all though it didn't really bother me.  What did fall off I would scoop off my plate and sprinkle on top of my bagel so I wouldn't miss out on the flavor

X-Ray Tech Graduation Party

My seester Kinsey graduated from X-ray school 2 years ago this month.  Yay for smart successful family members!

Here she is with her boyfriend Brian....he also graduated from the same school 

 

I have a few pictures I thought I would share despite their terrible quality.  These of course were my pre-blogging  days

I  mostly just wanted to show you a few ideas because at the time when I was doing her little family party....I remember googling ideas and there wasn't much out there.  So maybe this will give you  few ideas. 

I wasn't quite as creative back then as I am now  (that's me...tooting my own horn. Toot toooot!)  I think if I could do it all over again I would have gone CUH-RAY-ZE with the theme....I love me a good them!

But I was a little strapped for cash at the time and in the middle of planning my own wedding.....you know how that goes....kinda takes over your entire life

But here's a few little things I came up with......

I made her a cake to look like an X-ray...

I also bought her this dress offline....seemed fitting, don't ya think?

I studied an actual hand x-ray very carefully to make it look as close as I could.....but I know it's still waaaay off 

Printed out some Xrays offline and taped them to the sliding door so you could see them

 And made some little signs

 

I don't have any pictures, but I also cut bone shapes out of cardstock, strung them on string, and hung them around like garland

You could also pull out any bone Halloween decorations you have....that would be cool!  I have some now but didn't have any at the time

Another idea that I didn't get to do was to make "Barium" milkshakes.  I intended to buy cups and decorate them to look like the ones in the hospital and serve everyone vanilla milkshakes out of them......but I suck and it didn't happen.  Waaah!

It wasn't much.....but hopefully this will give you some ideas to help plan a graduation bash for the X-ray tech in your life

MoMo Monday Week #3

Don't let MoMo's sweet baby face fool you........

She's been known to punch her daddy in the face

And again........

Moral of the story.   Don't piss her off man

Ceviche

The first time I ever had ceviche was at my friend Kristina's house in high school

 That day the clouds parted, the sun came out, and my life was changed forever.  f you think this sounds dramatic....it's not.  It's just really that good...promise

It's so refreshing and addictive....and the bonus of it all is that it's actually really healthy . It's just shrimp and veggies.....whose gonna complain about that? 

It's a perfect summer time dish because like I said, it's super refreshing and requires no heat....so you get a meal without heating up your house.  A bonus for me because living here in AZ I avoid turning on the oven and stove at all costs about 4 months out of the year

Here's the delicious ingredients you'll need

Fresh shrimp, cilantro, red onion, orange and yellow bell peppers, cucumbers, and lemons

Start by fine dicing your red onion

And your cilantro

Then start to finely chop your shrimp.  When you think you've chopped it fine enough...you haven't.  Keep choppin!   I usually buy the larger tail on shrimps and it takes me longer to take the tails off and chop, but this time I paid a little more and got the smaller tail off ones to make it go a littler faster

 In a non reactive pan (I suggest glass) mix together the minced onion, cilantro, shrimp, and the juice of your lemons.  I usually used about 10 or so.   You want to put it in a pan with alot of surface area (I use a 9x13 baking dish) so everything can lay out in an even layer to allow the lemon juice to cook the shrimp evenly

Correction....it's not exactly "cooking"  Let me drop a little knowledge here.......

Technically, to cook something you have to apply heat.  The shrimps reaction to the lemon juice is actually just a denaturing of the protein.  The same denaturing process happens in cooking....but with the use of heat.  In this process the denaturing is being done by acid.   Make sense?

I paid thousands upon thousands, upon thousands of dollars to learn that.  Wanna thank me for this tidbit of information?  Feel free to send a check on my behalf directly to Sallie Mae....please and thank you

I kid, I kid

Unless of course you REALLy want to....I won't fight it ;)

Here's how it will look right after you mix it all together

Put it in the fridge and let it "denature" ;)  Stir it occasionally to make sure it is all getting coated in the lemon juice

I let these ingredients sit on their own for about 2 - 2 1/2 hours

In the mean time, finely dice your bell peppers and cucumber

I've seen some ceviches where they leave the shrimp whole and everything is really chunky, but I prefer everything chopped small so that you get a little bit of everything in every bite

After about 2 1/2 hours you'll see a difference in the shrimp.  It will be firmer and orangeish in color compared to the translucent blue look from earlier.  This means your shrimp is now "cooked"

Now mix in your bell peppers, cucumber, and diced avocado.  Add salt to taste

Your ceviche is ready!

Eat it on a tostada or with tortilla chips

I warned ya.....this stuff is CRAAAAZY addictive.  I crave it so bad I sometimes have to make stops at the ranch markets for theirs to tide me over.....but it's nothing compared to this

I also made some Posole today in honor of Cinco De Mayo

Go Here for the recipe 

*Low Carb Note*  This could easily be adapted to low carb by eating it with pork rinds, lettuce leaves, zucchini chips, or simply with a fork

Ceviche

2lb. Shrimp, finely chopped (white fish can be substituted)

2 sweet bell peppers, finely diced

1 red onion, minced

1 bunch of cilantro, finely chopped

5-7 avocados depending on size

10 lemons (roughly)

Salt

Mix together the red onion, cilantro, shrimp, and lemon juice and let sit in a glass pan with alot of surface area (such as a 9x13 baking dish) for about 2 to 2 1/2 hours, stirring occassionally.

After the shrimp looks "cooked" stir in the bell peppers, cucumber, avocado, and salt to taste and let that sit and marinate together for another hour or so before serving