If you don't have enough of your own...

...stop by the video store (in my friend's town) for free ones!!



Thanks for the suggestions about food in the previous posts. Keep those suggestions coming! I will mention that I did make Stephanie's Barbequed Pulled Pork yesterday and I was in heaven. I saved some of the juice and poured it over ~ DELISH! It gave me even more confidence in my slow cooker. :) I will mention that my meat was 6+ pounds and I cooked it on low for 12 hours, and it probably could have gone a little longer. Just FYI. yummmmmo!

Put your thinking caps on!

I really appreciate Mrs. Fuzz for blogging over at Fuzz Food. I mean, I appreciate her in general but really appreciate her Fuzz Food ideas because, well... I need 'em!

We have major food issues at our house. While I loooove a gourmet meal (and don't mind cooking them occasionally) I am in no way interested in cooking one for myself. I'm not interested in cooking one for myself and my three kids who will most likely complain about it. However, I will cook (almost) anything for my husband. The problem is... he never tells me what he wants to eat and seeing as how we grew up in two completely different cultures (literally), our opinions about what tastes "good" are completely different. I am not even joking. If I think some meal is fabuloso he will probably think it's mediocre. The stuff I think is fine but not necessarily interested in cooking again, he'd eat for every meal.

His favorite food group is meat. While I enjoy meat, I'm totally happy going meat-free on occasion. To my husband, it ain't a meal if there ain't meat. Not easy on the budget and kind of a challenge to keep cooking up meat in every different way imaginable.

Since we can't agree on what tastes good, I'm already behind. Now, with his weird police-life schedule, I can never predict *when* he will want to eat. There are two ways I mean this. The first is that although I can usually count on him to want to eat just before he goes to work in the afternoon, sometimes he randomly wakes up in the middle of the morning and his first words are "What can I eat RIGHT NOW?" The second is -- and all officers can agree on this -- it's almost Murphy's Law that he'll be on shift in the middle of his meal and get sent on a call, leaving his food abandoned for the sake of public safety. lol.

What's my point? I've realized I have to prepare plenty of meaty dishes which can easily be transported and reheated. The crockpot has become my best friend. I prep all the stuff the night before, and while the kids are eating breakfast I throw it together. It's usually ready around the time husband gets up and gets ready for work. Voila!!

One thing about the crockpot (or "slow cooker") is that so many of the dishes are really bland. That's one thing the husband and I can agree on -- we need us some FLAVOR! :) I found an awesome blog, A Year of Slow cooking, and this lady sure does bring on the flavor! I liked her recipes so much, I bought her cookbook, Make It Fast Cook It Slow. So far, some of the winners have been:

• Slow Cooker Enchilada Casserole (I added a can of corn)
  
• Indian Curry (needed more salt)
  
• Breakfast Risotto (I used coconut milk since we are dairy free)
  

I just made the crockpot chicken stock today and I think it will be a great addition to my freezer.

So, all this to say...... Give me some ideas, folks!! What do you like to take to work, make for your police officer, and serve to your family?

Update: MrsOfficer2U posted about some of the foods she & her family are loving right now. Read it here. :)

Do you know...

What happened to copswife at Married2theLaw ?

Her blog is gone! :(

drama, drama

This is the first week since mid-December that DH has been on his regular shift. And yesterday he was forced to come in early so it hasn't even been entirely normal! blech!

His department spent some time training around the holidays; I guess crime is down so they can do that? /wink/ Anyway. They did a bunch of stuff, but of course the interesting part for me was the cool scenarios they practiced. Let me just say, even *I* thought some of the choices some of his coworkers made in the scenarios were downright ridiculous. Makes me a little nervous to send my man off to the care (i.e. "cover") of those other officers. Now there is plenty of gossip going around about who did what and why this officer is disliked or a bad cop or whatever.

It all just brought to light for me the fact that as much as my DH claims to be careful and a "good" cop, a dumb choice by a fellow officer in a situation (whether my DH is the cover or the other officer is) can bring him home in a box instead of his vest. sigh.

Where've you been?

Well I don't know exactly WHERE I've been, but I have been twittering more. I thinkthe pace of life has picked up so much for me that I'm really having a hard time forming cohesive thoughts for blog posts. Instead, I can come up with tiny twitter sound bites. If you are of a twitter mindset and want to follow me, you can find me over here:

handcuffed heart on twitter

now, it's off to bed! I'm exhausted.