Doctor Jones, I Presume + Grilled Lemon Yogurt Chicken, Honey Garlic Chicken & Veggies and Marinated Flank Steak Recipes

The beginning of the school year is in full swing and still very intense. I have been going to work an hour early and staying a few hours (or more) late every night. I am thankful that the kids have been able and great about stepping in and helping by making dinner a few times, though it was weird not to have an First Day of School photos to take this year.

Ethan and Ellie have made some wonderful dinners that were plentiful enough that I was able to take some to work the next day for lunch.

We've also been busy trying to get our home more organized. We've finally begun to fix some of the things that needed repair or replacement for a while. This includes our new faucet. It is pretty fun. Larr and I put the kids in charge of picking one and installing it.

We did the same thing with the new light in the room near the kitchen. Ellie reorganized the space and picked out a new desk. It makes the space feel significantly less crowded and I love the new location for the printer.

They also picked out a new lighting fixture that Ethan installed. It is very different from our traditional 1970's style ceiling fan that was there before. It was a good bit of work for Ethan to install. The previous owners of the house had done some creative wiring. Ethan got Uncle Doug on the phone and the two of them figured it all out. I like them a lot. They transform the space. I kind of feel like I am in the office of Indiana Jones (from the Indiana Jones movies). I feel like I should have a leather hat and whip at the ready. The kids thought that was strange. Whatever, I love how it reminds me of the Indiana Jones ride at Disney Land. As you wind through the line to get onto the ride, you walk through several scenarios, one of which is his office. I even hear the theme music in my head, just a little bit. The kids are pretty sure that is weird. But then again, they don't appreciate how Larr and I can come up with a few lines from a song for most the topics that bring up. That drives them a little crazy. Oh the fun we have around here.

We are going to get more retro style bulbs, and then it will be even more like I. Jones' office.

I've also spent some serious time reorganizing my art supplies cabinet. Here are the before and after photos. It looks worse in the photo than it felt to me when I stood there and picked out art supplies.

Ellie says that she is proud of me for getting rid of some stuff and making the items so much more accessible. It amazes me that I got rid of two whole, large trash bags of stuff from the cabinet, and it is still full. I am hopeful that this system will work well. Time will tell.

Larr was busy in the workshop integrating and organizing his tools. He incorporated the tools he received from his father into our tool collection. He also organized the tool cabinet that is not shown here.

Whew, that was a lot. Next, I need to clean out the built in closet in my art room. I decided to take a break and make some art before I make another mess. The mess that I made to organize that cabinet was a bit frustrating and stressful. The piles seemed to multiply like gremlins.
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Here are some of the things we will have for dinner this week:
I made a lasagna. I also made some flavored rice. This will speed things up during the week.

Grilled Lemon Yogurt Chicken
via: Allrecipes.com

1/2 cup plain low-fat Greek yogurt
1/2 lemon, juiced
1 tablespoon lemon zest
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon paprika
1 teaspoon herbes de Provence
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 (5 pound) whole chicken, cut into 8
pieces

1/2 cup plain low-fat Greek yogurt
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon Harissa
1 pinch salt


1. Whisk together the 1/2 cup yogurt, the juice from 1/2 lemon, lemon zest, olive oil, garlic, paprika, herbes de Provence, 1 teaspoon salt, and black pepper in a bowl. Pour into a resealable plastic bag. Add chicken, coat with the marinade, squeeze out excess air, and seal the bag. Marinate in refrigerator for at least 3 hours.

2. Preheat an outdoor grill for medium-high heat, and lightly oil the grate.

3. Combine 1/2 cup yogurt, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, and harissa in a small bowl. Set aside.

4. Remove chicken from bag and transfer to a plate or baking sheet lined with paper towels. Pat chicken pieces dry with more paper towels. Season with pinch of salt.

5. Grill chicken, skin-side down, on the preheated grill for 2 minutes. Turn each piece and move to indirect heat.

6. Grill, turning often, with lid down until well-browned and meat is no longer pink in the center, 30 to 35 minutes. An instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the thigh, near the bone should read 165 degrees F (74 degrees C).

7. Serve chicken with the yogurt Harissa mixture on the side.


*** Harissa is a North African chili paste. If you don't have it, you could make a paste with
1 t. sriracha or chili garlic sauce
1 clove of crushed garlic
1/2 t ground cumin
1/2 t. ground coriander
1/2 t. salt.

This makes a very moist and flavorful chicken. I marinated for about 6 hours and it was perfect.

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Honey Garlic Chicken and Veggies (Crock Pot Recipe)
via: Damn Delicious

8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
16 ounces baby red potatoes, halved
16 ounces baby carrots
16 ounces green beans, trimmed
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves
FOR THE SAUCE
1/2 cup reduced sodium soy sauce
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup ketchup
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

In a large bowl, combine soy sauce, honey, ketchup, garlic, basil, oregano, red pepper flakes and pepper.
Place chicken thighs, potatoes, carrots, green beans and soy sauce mixture into a 6-qt slow cooker. Cover and cook on low heat for 7-8 hours or high for 3-4 hours, basting every hour.
OPTIONAL: Preheat oven to broil. Place chicken thighs onto a baking sheet, skin side up, and broil until crisp, about 3-4 minutes.
Serve chicken immediately with potatoes, carrots and green beans, garnished with parsley, if desired.

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Marinated Flank Steak
via: Pioneer Woman

1/2 cup Soy Sauce
1/2 cup Cooking Sherry
3 Tablespoons Honey
2 Tablespoons Sesame Oil
2 Tablespoons (heaping) Minced Ginger
3 cloves (to 5 Cloves) Minced Garlic
1/2 teaspoon Crushed Red Pepper Flakes
1 whole Flank Steak

Combine all ingredients in a glass or ceramic dish.

Remove flank steak from package and give it a quick rinse. Coat both sides of the meat with marinade. Refrigerate for at least 3 to 6 hours.

Remove the steak from the marinade and place on a plate while you heat up the grill pan. Make sure to turn on your overhead exhaust fan as the cooking process can be quite smoky.

When the pan is extremely hot, place the steak on a slight angle as this makes for more appealing grill marks. Cook without touching for about 1 ½ to 2 minutes. Rotate the meat about 45 degrees, keeping it on the same side, and cook for another 1 ½ minutes.

Now flip it to the other side. Cook using the same method on the other side, cooking for 1 1/2 minutes, then rotating it and finishing the cooking process. I cook the flank streak to medium rare, which usually takes about 5 to 7 minutes total cooking time. Remove the meat to a cutting board and let it rest for a few minutes before slicing.

When you’re ready, thinly slice the meat against the grain. That means find the directional striations/lines in the meat grain and slice perpendicular to it.

Controversial Optional Sauce: Before grilling the flank steak, strain the marinade into a small saucepan. Discard what stays in the sieve. Add ½ cup of water to the marinade. Boil the marinade while heating the grill for the meat AND add an additional 10 minutes. The point of boiling, obviously, is to take away any risk of bacteria from the marinade. Also, by boiling for ten to fifteen minutes, the sauce will reduce and slightly thicken. Then just spoon a little into a dish and use it as a dipping sauce for the meat.

(I think we will serve this for our family dinner.)
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A Small Hallway Enlightened

We have a small, pivotal hallway in our home where three rooms and a stairway intersect.

It had been left white - uncharacteristic for our house. For the last 19 years I have simply be uninspired to do something about it.

However, Ellie, my girl with creativity and drive, was inspired. So much so that she spent a few days before Christmas painting it. I think the colors she had in her head were different than what was in her head, but in the end we all love what she created. It feels so much more inviting now.

I wonder what her next project will be. The two of us have ideas for my bedroom, but they have not come together as of yet.

A Lighted Headboard - a Special Gift For My Girl

Every year I try to make a special gift for each person in our family. As the kids get older, it has become more of a challenge to find the right thing to make. Ellie, being the teenage girl that she is, loves to redecorate her room. She has a talent for it, too. (It's true - I would say this even if she was not my daughter.) She has wanted a headboard for her bed for a long time and Christmas lights are one of her favorite things.

From: Shelterness.com (very basic instructions)

When I stumbled upon this light up board, I was set on fire. I knew instantly that this was the direction I needed to go. I also knew that those kinds of things are always harder and more expensive than they look. In my excitement I drew up a sketch of what I wanted to do.

I tromped down to the wood shop teacher at my school and asked for his advice. John is wonderful that way. He never poop-poops my ideas, but gently grounds me in reality. He said that it would be an easy project. I would need to get a special drill bit to deal with putting holes in the Lexan. I would also need special screws called furrows so that they would look nice.

Next up, I went to our robotics teacher, Daryl, who is an equally wonderful guy. We had a chat about the virtues of plexiglass versus Lexan (polycarbonite).He invited me down to have lunch in the electronics room. In the interim he pulled out a small strip of each of the materials. He did a hand-on demonstration of the difference. Lexan is a wonderful, nearly shatter proof product. Plexiglass can be broken. Both can be easily treated with sandpaper to make it frosted. The catch was the cost. A sheet of plexiglass for my project, measuring 39" x 24" would be about $26 (I had a special birthday coupon from Ace Hardware and got it for half off.) whereas the Lexan would have been around $67. Since we had to buy not one, but two sets of snow tires and two dental crowns last month, I knew which option I had to take. It would be the plexiglass, but I was okay with that. No one would be sitting on or hammering the headboard; it would be a safe option. Daryl also demonstrated how I could take an orbital sander with 220 grit sandpaper and frost the surface. I could take out any patterns from that process by repeating the process with a much finer grit of sandpaper. Thank God for such great and helpful people in my life! These friends armed me with knowledge and the confidence that I needed to move forward.

Now, this new found knowledge is good, but I still needed more help. That help came in the form of my father-in-law, Don. He is a great woodworker. We have many lovely things that he has made for the kids over the years. I sent him the link I offered above. I also shared my sketch and away we went. Don, being the creative type that he is, redesigned it so that the plexiglass would not sit on the surface, but would sit in grooves instead. He sent me off to Jordan's Building Center with a list of what I needed: 2 2"x4"x8' pine boards, 1 piece heat temptered hardboard and a bunch of specific kinds of screws. We hauled that into the basement and away he went. When I returned the next time, Don had it mostly constructed and stained. Some of the measurements were off, so we had the plexiglass recut. I spent time frosting the plexiglass and then holding various parts together while he put in the screws. Originally we were going to install two verticl brace, but those did not work. He applied a small, wooden block to keep the plexiglass from bowing too much. I took three sets of special white Christmas lights with little faceted globes around each light and set to work attaching them with gluedots. (They are a wonderful, thick, sticky dot that was perfect for the application.)It was more challenging than I expected to make them random. My eyes and hands wanted to make them evenly spaced. In the end it took much longer to get done than we had expected, of course. (One should estimate the time for a given project and multiply that by 4 to get a real time estimate!) However, I am ever so pleased with the outcome. It felt really good to do that project. I needed that to help move away from the stress of getting everything ready for Christmas and tap into my creative side instead. I think it was good for Don, too. He seemed to enjoy having a special project to work on. I am thankful that I have such a great father-in- law who loves his grandchildren.

I was gitty with excitement to give her the gift. I had hoped that it would have been a complete surprise, but it was not. Ellie had started to move her bed into her loft when her dad stopped her. His remarks led her to guess what the big project that grandpa and I were doing was. I thought surely that she could not guess that it was a light up board, but somehow she guess that it involved lights, too. I don't know what she thought it might look like, but she is oh so clever and sly like that - kind of figuring out my surprise for her! Anyway, I dispensed with trying to hide it. The headboard was too large to stow away in my van without notice and it seemed silly to schlep it to the basement. Instead, we threw a blue sheet over it and called it good. Christmas morning Larr plugged it in and we waited the kids to stumble down the stairs to begin the holiday. Ellie seemed to like her present, thought I think I was way more excited than she was. I am an exuberant person, she is much more restrained. She installed it that very morning. One or two of the lights came free from its gluedot, but otherwise it traveled beautifully. She brought everyone up to her room to see her new stuff for her room. This included the lighted headboard, the new grey and white curtains I made for her windows and the cool light up Flamingo lamp that her dad got for her. My girl's room is stylin'!