The Chickens have been liberated from their Rubbermaid home.

And moved to a Little Tykes home....in the yard. Because chickens are smelly when in very enclosed places. And I am over it. I would have liberated them to the big chicken coop, but they would surely be pecked to death within minutes. Chickens are mean like that.



As you can tell by its overwhelming cleanliness, no one ever plays in this thing. As such, it has housed chickens before and at one time resided permanently in the big chicken coop. The chickens seem content and are liking the change of scenery. Rubbermaid box for a month cannot be very exciting. A little grass under your feet and an occasional earthworm is what makes a chicken happy, I think. Happy chickens give me more eggs (eventually) and that is what we like to encourage around these parts.

Placemat Pillow Project

I found this fabulous and crazy simple idea to make throw pillows out of double layered placemats at this fabulous site. How I didnt think of this before now, I have no idea....but I give full credit for this to the artsy-crafty babe.

Anyway, I found this placemat--two acutally--at World Market. (The best store ever.)

Match my couch and have a different print on back which I thought would be cute.

So here is how you do this...so totally easy.
First, take a seam ripper and tear out the stitches on one end. You dont have to go all the way across if you are using batting as a fill, but you probably do if you use a pillow form.

Next, you cram it full of batting.

You can kinda see the pillow in the background that came with our couches and that I detest. We have 4 of them and I have them stuck in a trunk because I hate them--they are all 80's geometric print. Barf. I decided this would be a great use of the batting in them so i ripped them open with the same seam ripper and am stealing the stuffing out of them.
Anyway, the final step is to sew up the seam you ripped out. I suppose you could do this by hand, but I used the machine. You could also embellish these at this point if you wanted. I didnt.
This is the final result which honest to goodness took me 5 minutes to make both of....

That is the hated pillow shell hanging over the top which I will probably just pitch unless i can think of some better use.
These arent huge, but perfect for a little back support while sitting on the couch. That is all we use them for anyway. If I want a sleeping pillow, I will go to bed.
Here are others that I got to do the same thing with.

We have two matching beige couches in the other room that are very plain--since I refuse to put the hideous 80s pillows on them. I am going to make these to go on those couches and then I have my eye on a really cute elephant pillow at World Market, but so far I am too cheap to buy it. Maybe next trip.
My sister has this same project in the works...you can see hers here.

Menu Plan Monday-5/04/09

Okay, last week's menu was a wash. I planned 6 days and we ate 2 of them. I was running around like a chicken all week and cooking was low on the totem pole. The only things I made from last week were the Shrimp and Grits and the Pot Roast. The rest would have gotten bumped to this week, but now I am not in the mood for any of it.

So, here is the new week's menu!

Monday--Burger Florentine

Tuesday--Grilled Fish Tacos with Low Carb Tortillas and homemade Guacamole

Wednesday--BBQ Chicken with homemade Alabama White BBQ sauce

Thursday--Chili

Friday--Out for our 16th Anniversary

Saturday--Turkey Legs and Yard long beers at the Renaissance Festival--it got cancelled last weekend due to rain, but we would have eaten this twice anyway!

Burger Florentine

by Dottie at the Low Carb Friends board

2 lbs ground beef

1/2 cup diced onion

1 bag frozen spinach*

8 oz cream cheese

1/2 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup parmesan cheese

Salt and Pepper

Brown ground beef and onions. Add spinach and cook until meat is done.

Meanwhile, cut cream cheese into several small cubes (ie break it into little pieces with your fingers). Add to cooked meat mixture along with cream, parmesan and salt and pepper. Cover pan with lid and cook a few minutes until cream cheese is softened then mix everything together well.

You could now bake this in a casserole for 20 minutes on 350 like the recipe says, but i never do. This is like hamburger helper for me and gets served right out of the skillet. Make sure you use enough salt and pepper...this stuff is awesome.

*(sub chopped broccoli if you dont like spinach, but spinach is waaay better)

Alabama White BBQ Sauce

from Low Carb BBQ Book by Dana Carpenter

1/2 cup mayo

3 tbsp white wine vinegar

1 tsp spicy mustard

1/2 tsp creole seasoning

1 clove crushed garlic

1 tsp prepared horseradish

Just whisk this alltogether and baste chicken with it. Turns an amber color when you smoke it on the grill.