Month: October 2012

Recipes

RECIPE: Black Pepper Beef and Cabbage Stir Fry

Tara

Black Pepper Beef and Cabbage Stir Fry (4 servings)

  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 4 cloves garlic, chopped
  • 1/2 pound ground beef
  • 1/2 small head cabbage, shredded
  • 1 red bell pepper, cut into strips
  • 2 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 1 teaspoon cornstarch
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1 teaspoon ground black pepper

Directions

Heat a wok or large skillet over medium-high heat, and add oil. Saute garlic for about 5 seconds, then add ground beef. Stir-fry until beef is evenly brown. Stir in cabbage and pepper, and cook until vegetables are tender, and beef is fully cooked. Stir in soy sauce. Mix together cornstarch and water, and stir in. Season with pepper. Cook, stirring, until sauce has thickened.

Recipe Source: Allrecipes.com

Personal Review: I love cabbage and I love Chinese recipes so I thought this sounded like an awesome recipe. And it was – to an extent. I had an issue with the ground beef. I do not recommend using the regular ground beef (like I did); I would definitely recommend using a leaner cut of ground beef. Because of the meat I used it was a little greasy for my tastes. Other than that it was a good recipe, though. I think next time I will also add some onions to this recipe. I probably also used way too much soy sauce because it was a little on the salty side – but I didn’t measure out what the recipe called for, I just eyeballed it.

This review might sound negative, but it’s really not. I liked it, but it definitely needs some tweaking to make it a great recipe.

Book Giveaway, Book Giveaway Winners

Betrayal & Envy Winner

Tara

Thank you everyone for entering my giveaway of my ARC of Betrayal and finished paperback of Envy!

Using random.org,

Jessica

was chosen the winner 🙂

Congratulations!

I will get your books out to you this week, but it might be Saturday before I can get to the post office.

Have a great week everyone :):)

Baby Book Addict

Garrett at 4 months

Tara

Wow, I still can’t believe that Garrett turned 4 months old on September 30th. I have no idea where the time has gone – it’s definitely flying by.

And he’s changing soooo much!! It’s truly amazing.

He has pretty awesome head control. He wants to sit up a lot. He babbles quite often – this one’s gonna be a talker!

Monday he just went wild with rolling over! He’s been doing it for quite some time now, but that was the first day that he actually realized what it was he was doing. And once he started there was no stopping him! He’s actually much better going from back to belly than he is belly to back (I would have thought the opposite would be easier).

When he’s doing tummy time he pumps those legs like he’s trying to crawl. I’m definitely gonna have a stinker on my hands!

At his 4 month check up (Tuesday), he weighed 12lbs and was 23.5″ long. Still very much on the small side, but the doctor said that he is growing adequately and should be caught up by the time he’s a year old. I still don’t quite understand how they can compare a 5lb baby (at birth) to a 9lb baby (at birth) in their growth patterns, but I guess that’s why I’m not a doctor, haha!

We got the go-ahead to start solids. Our doctor gave us very specific instructions on how to introduce them. Cereal is first, night feedings, for the first month trying a different cereal each week. At five months we move the cereal to morning and start vegetables (green ones first) at lunch and dinner. Then we will move on to fruits. We started on Tuesday night and it did not go very well. I think I ended up wiping more of it away than he ingested. And he screamed the entire time. So we didn’t try that for very long and moved on to his bottle. It’s definitely going to be a very long process getting him introduced, but I’m definitely ready to start solids!

So altogether lots of great things are happening. He’s definitely growing up.

However, there is one possible problem. The doctor (the new one) heard a heart murmur during his examination. They have scheduled us to have an ultrasound at the heart center at the local hospital to have it checked out. If you have been a long-time follower, you already know that I had an issue show up on his heart during my anatomy scan around my 20th week of pregnancy. Nothing ever seemed to come of it, so I just assumed everything was alright. No one at the hospital mentioned anything like this, nor did his previous doctor. So I’m a little concerned that all of a sudden this pops up – I hope it’s nothing, but we do need to have it checked out. My dad had a heart murmur when he was born and he’s perfectly fine, but it is something to have looked at closer.

Overall it’s been a wonderful past 4 months. And I’m so looking forward to seeing him learn new things everyday in the future.

I’m such a lucky gal 🙂

Bloggiesta

My Bloggiesta Wrap-Up

Tara

*Sigh*

So I didn’t get to spend nearly as much time on Bloggiesta as I had hoped. In fact my weekend plans abruptly changed on Thursday evening and I ended up not being at home hardly at all. However, I was able to get a few things done.

Here is my original list:

  • New layout √
  • Work on my review index
  • Schedule some posts
  • Clean out my Google Reader √
  • Work on a blog calendar √
  • Whip up a few more recipe posts √
  • Find better social media buttons √
  • And anything else I can think of

So what exactly did I accomplish?

Well, I found a new layout (what do you think?) which happened to have social media buttons integrated in it (a twofer, lol!)

I cleaned out my Google Reader. I was only able to clean out the subscriptions that were inactive. I had also hoped to go through the posts I had either starred or saved in order to write down book recommendations – but I didn’t get that part done.

I got my recipe posts scheduled for every Thursday through November 1st. And I’m going to make 3 new recipes this month and will be able to schedule them as I make them. I plan on starting to participate in the weekly Weekend Cooking event from now on.

And I worked on my blog calendar. I was able to get it all put together and I’m very excited about it!

(I used PicMonkey to make that super cool collage – a tip I learned from Trish (@TriniCapini) via Twitter during Bloggiesta!)

Overall I’m quite pleased with the progress I made on my blog – even if I didn’t have half of the time I anticipated having when I originally signed up. I’m a little bummed that I wasn’t able to work on my review index at all – that really needs to get done, ASAP! The only posts I was able to schedule were my recipe posts – I had hoped to get a few other things scheduled, but it didn’t work out that way.

Either way I had a great time. Maybe next time I will be able to do a little bit more (including more socializing) but I did find some great new blogs that I’m going to have to spend some time exploring 🙂

Watch for a Garrett 4 month update tomorrow 🙂

 

Mailbox Monday, Meme

Mailbox Monday, October 1, 2012

Tara

Mailbox Monday is being hosted at the Mailbox Monday site for October.

One book this week, but one I’m super excited about!

From William Morrow through Shelf Awareness [So glad I found Shelf Awareness Pro!!]:

The summer of 1985 changed Reggie’s life. Thirteen, awkward, and without a father, she finds herself mixed up with her school’s outcasts Charlie, the local detective’s son, and Tara, a goth kid who harbors a dark secret. That same summer a serial killer called Neptune begins kidnapping women. He leaves their severed hands on the police department steps and, five days later, displays their bodies around town. Just when Reggie needs her mother Vera – an ex-model with many “boyfriends” and a thirst for gin – the most, Vera’s hand is found on the steps. But after five days, there’s no body and Neptune disappears.

Now a successful architect who left her hometown behind after that horrific summer, Reggie doesn’t trust anyone and lives with few attachments. But when she gets a call from a homeless shelter saying that her mother has been found alive, Reggie must confront the ghosts of her past and find Neptune before he kills again.