Something New and Yummy For Pot Luck - Crock Pot Bread Pudding

Crock Pot Bread Pudding

No lie, it is really good! I got this recipe from my cousin Pam. I made it for the first time for last Sunday’s Potluck. It must have been good because they ate all of it. This is the basic recipe:

Pudding:

8 generous cups of bread (any kind) torn in chunks
¾ cup sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
¼ tsp nutmeg
4 eggs
2 cups milk
½ stick melted butter
(You can add nuts or raisins or anything along those lines with the bread.)

Combine all the ingredients except for the bread in a bowl.
Put bread in a greased crock pot
Pour liquid mixture over bread
Cook on low for 3 to 4 hours

Sauce:

1½ sticks butter
2 cups powdered sugar
½ cup brown sugar
¼ tsp of whatever flavoring or extract you like
½ tsp of vanilla
(1/2 cup nuts optional)

Heat to combine and thicken
Serve on the side to pour over pudding when it is dished out.

I used ¼ tsp vanilla and ½ tsp of almond extract to flavor my sauce. That worked really well and tasted like pralines.

When I made this I doubled the recipe and it filled up my big crock pot. Next time I don’t think I will double the sauce, it is really rich, a little goes a long way. I used plain white bread this time; I would like to try it with a sweet bread. Next time I will also add nuts. And I was wondering how it would taste with some cinnamon in it or cinnamon raisin bread...hummm...

I got up early and started the pudding on high for about an hour. Then it sat on low for 3 hours during church. That worked out really well, just make sure to stir it to get all the bread nice and soaked in the sugar/butter/egg mixture. Oh and reheat the sauce before serving. It does not have to be refrigerated while the pudding is cooking.

If you try it, let me know how you like it.

Houston 2009

While we were in Houston, we decided to take the kids to NASA. That was super fun. The boys loved the giant space playground. Owen especially loved the ball pit, no suprise there. We stayed for hours and still didn't get to see everything. I would love to go back when the boys (ie Owen) is older.









As always, my favorite thing to do in Houston is the Little Train. Ross felt very grown up because he got to sit away from me with Buddy. Owen was very sad until the train started rolling, then he brightened right up. I love the train, next time Mary P and I are going to by an all day ride pass and ride and ride and ride.

Geaux Ross and Owen

Since I want Ross and Owen to go to LSU (on scholarships of course) I have to start indoctrinating them early. Over the Mardi Gras holidays, I took the boys to Houston to see Aunt Joantastic and their cousins. Since I-10W runs right through Baton Rouge, it was a great chance to stop and visit campus, pick up a new LSU sticker for the Jeep and introduce Owen to Mike the Tiger. I hadn't seen Mike's new home either. It is a nice place, much better than his old home.

Really who can pass on a University that is so cool they have their own Tiger. Geaux Tigers!!!!

Mardi Gras Dauphin Island Style

This year we only went to a couple of Mardi Gras Parades. This was Owen's first Mardi Gras and our first time at Dauphin Island but not the last for sure. We had a great time at the parade and really enjoyed the small town/family atmosphere. We came down early and picnicked on the parade route.

Ross had a great time begging for beads. Owen had a great time jumping up and down in the truck bed. He loves riding on Jason's shoulders too. Everyone got lots of bead and other goodies. It was a lot of fun, thank you Danielle for inviting us.

Because she asked so nicely...

I got fussed at this weekend for neglecting my blog by my Mom-in-Law who is a wonderful lady. Since she requested more updates on the boys, I will do my best to comply by catching up and keeping up. I really do love my blog, even if I am having a fling with facebook.

Here are a couple of shots I took today of Owen riding in the Jeep with me. The weather has been warm and dry so we took the tops out for the weekend and had some good family fun. I will leave the tops out at long as the weather holds. Owen loves to ride in the jeep, with his hat on, backwards, don't ask me why...

I know, I know I am biased...

but really, Owen is awfully cute!





I couldn't resist sharing this pictures.

Dog Pile

Jason and I may be the last couple left with a standard sized bed. It is plenty big for the two of us, but lately we are thinking we need to upgrade.

Owen always wakes up around 1 am to come get in bed with us. But he doesn't just quietly climb under the covers, he climbs over me and jumps and wiggles until he has wormed his way in between Jason and I. Like a wedge in a log. Then he spreads out and kicks against me till I move over enough to suit him.

I usually end up getting up and putting Owen back in his bed so that I can sleep. I may have to repeat this performance 2 or 3 times unless I gate him in his room.

Then around 6 am, Ross comes in and wants to snuggle too. Owen follows again shortly, but his doesn't want to just climb quietly in. He will climb over Ross to wiggle and dive and jump until he wedges himself in between us. "Jealous" says Jason, "Rotten" says me. We both agree that morning has become "Dog Pile in Mom and Dad's Bed".

But we don't mind because it usually turns into a tickle fight with everyone laughing and really that is a nice way to start our day.

Neglecting my Blog for Facebook

Yes, it is true, I have been spending a lot more time on Facebook lately and neglecting my blog.

Really it is Jason's fault. Jason got on Facebook too and I am having too much fun watching him and responding to all his notes. For those of you who don't think Jason can talk, you haven't seen him type.

Yesterday we had a great time at Church. Strange as that sounds. I really enjoyed teaching my class of 10, 11 and 12 year olds. Testimony meeting was great. We have a small but choice group of Primary children. Our sweet children, starting with my son Ross, made a beeline for the pulpit to bear their sweet testimonies. Pretty soon the adults are going to have to fight their way to the stand through a crowd of Primary kids. The sweetest was little Gavin who declared "I love Jesus and him loves me." Really, what else can you say.

After Church Jason and I took Ross and two friends to see a Chamber Music Concert at South Alabama. It was a string quartet with a guest pianist. They were all amazing, a flawless concert. Ross got compliments too for being so well behaved. It was a really good time with my family.

If you aren't already my Facebook friend, I hope you will look for me. I promise to spend more time on my blog too.

Hasn't Failed Me Yet Grilled Chicken

I promised Andrea I would post my Grilled Chicken recipe. What you really need to do is bombard Andrea with requests for her Banana Pudding recipe. Yum yum!

Here it is Italian Grilled Chicken:

3 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 Tbsp Lime Juice
1 Tbsp Italian Seasoning - I combine 2 parts oregano, with 1 part basil and 1 part rosemary to get about 1 tbsp
1/2 tsp garlic powder
a good shake of dried minced garlic
1/4 tsp black pepper

Combine in bowl and microwave 1 minute

This is for 3 or 4 chicken breasts, skinned, but not necessarily boned. Sometimes my chicken is still partial frozen. You just dip the chicken in the mixture or you can marinate it overnight or while it defrosts. Just get the herb mixture on the chicken one way or another.

Spray cold grill with Pam. Heat grill to 400F. (I have a gas grill.)
When grill is hot, cook on each side 3 to 5 minutes to get good marks and seal in the juices.
Then turn heat to Low and move chicken up to cooler rack and cook for 5 to 10 minutes to finish. If you use Chicken Tenders, grill time is nearly cut in half. Just try it a few times if you don't already have the hang of your own grill.

To make a meal, we really like PastaRoni Garlic and Olive Oil Vermicelli with the chicken. Add some salad or canned fruit and it doesn't get much easier.

A Little Too Holy

On Sunday after Church, the Odom's came to visit much to our great delight. Ross and Owen love Cecily and Ariel. Andrea kept me company while Jason and Michel went Home Teaching. When the boys got back, they took off their shoes to get comfortable.



That is when we noticed that Jason was taking the commandment to be holy a little to seriously. He had a hole in his socks. Mike, being the good friend that he is, quickly showed off the hole in his socks too.




Hummm...really what more can I say except stand back girls, he belongs to me. :)

Almost Ready For Owen

Owen dragged out the rocking chair so he could watch Veggie Tales with one of his favorite girls, Cecily. She is such a good mother. Last weekend, she even fed him spaghetti, no small feat. If only Cecily was old enough to babysit...

The King of Our Castle

I couldn't resist sharing a few pictures of Owen. I have said it before, what a nut!

You Just Can't Go Wrong with Muffins

I am always hesitant to try recipes off websites and in cookbooks cause you don't really know how they will turn out. The best recipes are the ones I get from friends and family. I have started collecting them in a book, so I always know where to find a "sure thing". I thought I would share a really great one with y'all. I got it from a lady Jason works with. It has been tested many times on unbiased friends, relatives and Jason so I can give it the Jason and Mike Good Muffin Endorsement.

Donna's Blueberry Muffins

Preheat oven 375F

Batter:

1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter (use the real stuff, it makes a difference)
1 egg
2 1/3 cup all purpose flour
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cup blueberries

Cream the butter and sugar. Add egg and mix well.
Combine dry ingredients. Add dry to creamed while alternating with milk. (This is when I really really love my stand mixer, if you don't have one, it is a great investment.)
Stir in vanilla. Fold in berries.
Pour into 12 muffin cups. It looks like more than 12, trust me, you can do it.

Topping
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
1/4 cup butter (again, real butter makes a big difference, come on live a little.)
1/2 tsp cinnamon (I like it better without the cinnamon.)

Combine dry ingredients. Cut in butter till crumbly. (If you don't have a pastry cutter, what are you waiting for, get one!)
Spoon topping onto batter. (Again, you will think it won't all fit, but it will, just pile it on.)

Bake 25 to 30 minutes till nice and golden brown. For mini muffins, cut baking time to 15 to 20 minutes.

I am going to try the muffins with strawberries this week. I have already used chocolate chips instead of berries. That was good, it just needed a little more milk. I used cocoa powder instead of cinnamon in the topping. The muffins themselves aren't really that sweet, so you cannot skip the topping.

And a bonus recipe: Homemade Hot Chocolate (cause you can't have muffins without hot chocolate.)

1 tbsp real 100% Cocoa Powder
2 tbsp sugar
Hot Milk about 10 to 12 oz
1/4 tsp vanilla (optional)

Combine cocoa and sugar. Here is the real trick, add just enough milk to the sugar/cocoa mixture to form a slurry so the cocoa is smoothly dissolved. Then stir in rest of milk. It is even better if you add a little cream too. If you like dark chocolate, use a little less sugar.

Good stuff for cold Saturday mornings! Let me know if you try them.

I Have Other Fish to Fry...

I haven't added any new posts this week because I have been distracted with other projects.

Namely, I have been uploading pictures and information on my family history to the Facebook page dedicated to my great great great great great grandfather Hugo Ernestus Krebs.

Next week I am going to start adding similar information to my other blog about my family history.

I will let you know when there is anything good to look at on that blog.

I also have to write a talk on 2 Colossians 3:1-2 for Sunday:

If ye then be arisen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.

So far I haven't had any good ideas, anybody got any suggestions?

The Third Time is the Charm

Last night I saw Twilight in the theater for the third time. I really enjoyed it the most this time. The theater was almost empty and completely devoid of giggly girls and obnoxious boyfriends.

The surprise of seeing it again was that I had time to notice that the quiet hottie in Twilight, Charlie. Billy Burke nearly steals the movie.

I can't wait for New Moon!

If only I had had my camera!!!!

This weekend was Stake Conference.

In case you don't speak LDS, a Stake is a geographical division of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints similar to a Parish in the Catholic Church. Wherever you are in the world, you are assigned to a Ward or Branch in a Stake based on your address. If you live between Pascagoula MS and the Alabama/Florida line, south of Monroeville Al and Lucedale MS, you are in the Mobile Alabama Stake.

Stake Conference is a Saturday night/Sunday morning meeting held twice a year where all the members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Mobile Alabama Stake get together for training and instruction at the Stake Center in Mobile Alabama.

The speakers are always good, but to be honest, I think the best speakers are always on Saturday night when only the adults meet from 6 pm to 8 pm. Lately, Jason and I have taken turns going to Stake Conference meetings because Owen is better at home during these longer Church meetings.

The theme for last night's meeting was certainly missionary work. There were 4 awesome talks on preparing your missionary and what returned missionaries learned/wished they had learned before they left. I plan to summaries and report on those talks too. There were 3 other talks, a great one by our Stake President (no surprise, he is amazing), a talk on Relief Society (the women's group - good but I will admit I was making a grocery list during her talk, sorry, right now my heart is in Primary) and another talk by the new Stake Young Women's President on teenagers.

Rhonda is her name. She and her husband are two of my favorite people. Rhonda has no children but is a teacher/administrator so by proxy, she has lots and lots of children.

She gave us three pieces of wisdom concerning teenagers:

1) Teenagers don't care anything about what you say or do until they believe that you care about them.

2) Teenagers are just little kids in big bodies.

3) Teenagers secretly love boundaries.

She went on to expound on each of her points.

1) She recommends you spend a lot of time listening to teenagers so you can get to know them. That is the best way to let them know you care about them. Listen more than you talk.

2) Teenagers think they are grown up but they aren't, don't forget this and allow them to make important adult choices they aren't ready for. Also, don't be surprised by childish behavior.

3) Rhonda described how every spring, cows moved to a new pasture will walk the fence and lean on it to make sure they can't get out. She said that when a teenager is on your last nerve, they are really just leaning on that fence. I say the same goes for 21 month old Owen's. She also reminded us that sometimes it makes all the difference when a teen is able to blame the boundary. "No, I can't skip school and go drinking at the beach, my Mom will kill me!"

Finally, she presented an object lesson. This is were the camera would have been nice. Typically, visual aids are not used from the big pulpit to help maintain a reverent attitude in the Chapel. But the Saturday night meetings are a little less formal as Rhonda said. Then she pulled out a big shiny meat cleaver which she described as a helpful but dangerous tool that you would not hand to a child/teenager without instructions and supervision. Then she pulled out a big axe which she described as a helpful but dangerous tool that you would not hand to a child/teenager without instructions and supervision. Then she pulled out a HANDGUN, a real honest to goodness handgun (I am not lying), which she assured us was unloaded and described it as a helpful but dangerous tool that you would not hand to a child/teenager without instructions and supervision.

As you can imagine, by this time she had the total attention of everyone in the chapel. Finally she pulled out what she called the most dangerous tool of all, which almost every teenager in the world is using everyday, usually with no instruction and no supervision. Can you guess? A laptop computer.

Rhonda described her frequent interaction with the newly formed and quickly expanding Alabama Task Force on Internet Violence Against Children. She related the story of a 14 year old girl from our area who was lured into a real world meeting with a 15 year old boy she meet on a chat room. However, this wasn't really a 15 year old boy, it was a 30 something year old man with a long, long record in slave trafficking. Really, really! For this girl a series of miracles happened and she was recovered in Ft Walton unharmed. However, the man and his associates got away. She is the only one of his victims known to have escaped.

Rhonda has some great advice. Don't let your kids have a computer in their room, keep it public and in this high tech world, you can't be a low tech parent.

Needless to say, she got her point across because 24 hours later, I can recall her whole talk almost word for word. Ross is already using his own computer to go online, but with lots of supervision and boundaries from his Daddy. Ross' computer sits right next to Jason's in full view of the kitchen.

I have no doubt, Rhonda's talk will be remember for a very long time by every one at Conference which certainly was her goal. I really wish I had had my camera, you don't often see a gun in Church!

Maybe I need to take a few minutes to explain...

A few of the people who read my blog have known me and my family for a long time. I realized that some of my posts may be a little confusing since my family tree has forked a little along the way.

So, for anyone still keeping track this is how it goes:

Ann (that's me)is married to Jason and we have two sons: Ross and Owen.

My amazing parents were John and Judy (both have passed on).

My totally awesome sister has her own blog, she goes by Herkerma.
Herkerma is married to "Larry" and they have 3 kids: "Buddy", "Bear" and "Weezy".

Jason's parents are Alan and Teena or Papaw and Mamaw (who by the way are the very best "other" parents a girl could ever have).

Jason has a sister Angela and a brother Chris.

Angela is married to Matt and they have 3 kids: Ashlynn, Noah and Ella

Chris is married to April and they have 2 kids: Kylee and Peyton

Jason's grandmother pops up too occasionally, she is also Mamaw or Neenee.

Here is the whole lot of us.



Now for the part that might get confusing.

I was adopted, not a secret. A few years ago I found my birth mother. It is a very long story, that I might blog about later. If you want to know now, ask me. It turns out that I am more interesting than I look. ;)

My birth mom is Dorothy. She married Bob (not my birth father). Bob has passed on too.

I have a sister Nancy and brother Jon.

Nancy has a son: Jack

Jon is married to Melissa and they have 3 daughters: Arielle, Danielle and Sophia

Here we all are at Sea World:


Without getting into details, Dorothy made the right choice for both of us when she gave me up. I grew up with the best parents a girl ever had , a wonderful sister and a loving family and she was able to start a happy new life.

I will never ever be able to tell Dorothy how grateful I am to her for giving me life and then loving me enough to give me a life. But I will keep trying.

Being adopted has been a great blessing to me. My whole life I have been surrounded by amazing people who love me. Now y'all know why I am so special. :D

Our Thanksgiving Trip to Orlando Part 1 1/2

I realize that I still had a few pictures left from Disney World.

We spent the afternoon in the World Showcase.




Then Ross, Jack, Jason and Nancy wanted to ride Mission Space. Owen was too small so he and I roamed around and waited. Owen was very happy to be out of the stroller. We found an open space with some grass so that Owen could run around and push the stroller around. We also went and checked out the Baby Comfort Station in our ongoing effort to visit every bathroom in the park.





About the time it got dark, Owen and I had had enough. The best thing about the resort we stayed at was free bus service around Disney. Nancy and I took Owen back to the condo. Jason, Ross and Jack stayed behind to ride more rides and see the fireworks show. Jason said they really like the Turtle show.

Disney was fun but we missed a lot because of Owen. I don't mean that as a slur on Owen. It isn't his fault for being little, I guess we will just have to go back in a few years. Honestly, I would like to go sometime without the kids to see all the things I want to see. Oh well, maybe a second honeymoon in about 20 years.