A Decade of "Home"

We're celebrating 10 years in our house today. The previous owner only lived here for 4 so we've been in this house 2.5x longer than they were. We bought this house as our forever home with the intention to stay here until we died. That's stayed true until recently when we saw a house that was almost "perfect" on paper. Larger square footage. Has a pool - this one gives me mixed feelings. Completely updated. 

We contacted our realtor who scheduled a showing for us. She showed it to us and we walked around. 

Kitchen - almost every single cabinet had slide out drawers. Storage galore.

Living area with built-in shelving. I love built-in shelving.

Guest room with murphy bed and Elfa wall shelving which was going to stay with the house.

Enclosed sunroom. 

I was so torn after seeing the house. It was definitely bigger than our house, but it didn't "feel" bigger than our house. My kids loved the pool. I've always wanted a pool since I was a little kid (and I've never gotten it), but it's a dream I'm willing to relinquish because after seeing the cost of pool maintenance, I would like never to own one. The fact that the pool came with this house...was a neutral aspect to me. 

The laundry room was so much larger than our current one, probably double. Much more storage space with room for a second refrigerator. Also, you won't believe it. This house had FIVE TOILETS. Yes, you read that correctly....five toilets. Every single member of my family plus a guest could use a toilet simultaneously. 

So what was stopping me from immediately buying this house? You'd be surprised, there were some things.

The largest setback was the master closet. The bathroom was updated, and it was nice, but the closet was about 1/3 of the size of our current master closet. For such a large house with so much square footage, I was severely disappointed in the size of the closet. The owners had added a wardrobe into the room which was going to remain with the house, but it still wouldn't compare to what we currently have at our house. 

The second largest setback was the garage. It was a nicely done garage, but still only a two-car garage. Our garage fits three now. My husband really loves our garage and it would take a lot for him to give it up. I don't blame him.

So did we buy the house? Are we leaving our "forever home" after a decade of renovations and memories? Did the kitchen with slide out drawers in 95% of the cabinets convince me it was worth the trouble to move? 

Nope. 

Revisiting these pictures still makes me think what a beautiful house it was. It was move-in ready. There were so many things I liked about that house. But there are still things I like about our house which that one lacks. I don't think we'll ever be leaving this house without a reason of necessity, but you can never say never with absolutely certainty either. 

Homemade Chicken Nuggets

I'm taking a short break from Takeout With the Tos for a while because our summer schedule is different so I'm not entirely sure how the cooking is going to fit in. I'm working on thinking through how that's going to work. Next school year I will also have more time during the week so I may not need to cook on Sunday afternoons anymore! That's still TBD though. The series will come back after a few months but it may look a little different.

A couple weeks ago, I made chicken nuggets by scratch. Have you ever wanted to make them from scratch? Chances are, your answer is "no." For the longest time, it wasn't on my radar either. But then, I was scrolling social media and came across a post on how to make homemade chicken nuggets.

I made them. 

I saved it just out of curiosity thinking I may or may not make it. A few weeks after I saved this recipe, my kids were hungry when I was teaching so I made their requested food really quickly. My son requested chicken nuggets and my daughter requested something similar to a burrito. Long story short, I put everything on one plate, handed it to my daughter, and my son never got his chicken nuggets. 😭 I was very upset for him because those were the last chicken nuggets in our freezer. As a result, I decided to make homemade chicken nuggets and try this recipe.

If you want the TLDR version: I'm never making homemade chicken nuggets again. 😂 And I'm someone who goes through the trouble of cooking because I enjoy it. But chicken nuggets....never gonna happen. And here's why:

I followed the recipe shown above loosely. There was another recipe I looked up and kind of combined the two together into my own version of chicken nuggets. Here's the part that ruined the recipe for me: the ground chicken. I didn't have pre-ground chicken but I had plenty of chicken in my freezer. I used my food processor to blend it down. Don't get me wrong, I love chicken nuggets because of that ground up texture vs the fibrous meat strands of meat pieces. But physically making it yourself and dealing with it/cleaning it up? That is a whole other monster.

Mixture consistency. Love the food processor for stuff like this. Hate the cleaning. 

Then there was the frying process. Again, I'm not against frying food. I love frying food, and especially having our wok to fry in. But boy does it make a huge mess. 

My big mess.

I tried a few after I made them, and I definitely skimped on the salt/seasoning. Oops. It wasn't intentional. But with some barbecue sauce or ranch, these would be some yummy chicken nuggets. 

I'm never making these again because Costco sells freezer chicken nuggets from $3/lb all the way up to the fancier $6+/lb all natural chicken pieces. I'm for all of them. I'm going to compare my nuggets to the $6/lb ones because I used chicken tenderloins and there are no preservatives in my nuggets. These definitely already cost me $3+/lb to make at home due to the cost of the ingredients, the time it took to put everything together, and the hassle of cleaning up after myself. I'm glad I did it once....but never again.

For all its glory, here they are again. My homemade nuggets. 

Takeout with the Tos #13

I'm including this week's takeout menu and costs but the real story is going to be about one dish in particular.

Shrimp with Lobster Sauce: $17.99

Bok Choy: $14.99

Mushroom, Bamboo, Carrot Stir Fry: $14.99

Braised Pork and Tofu Puffs (not pictured): $20.99

Baked Drumsticks (8 ct): $12.99

Take-Out Total: $81.95

Tax: $6.76

Grand Total:  $88.71

 

My husband baked these drumsticks. My kids really liked it. They turned out well!

These were my two main vegetable dishes this week. I cut the bok choy into strips to create a different texture. I liked it, but I'm not sure the extra time was worth the result. But I'm glad I tried it once.

Shrimp with Lobster Sauce

 

 

My picture doesn't do the dish justice. My kids also don't eat peas so there's nothing green. I completely forgot about this dish until I was flipping through the Woks of Life cookbook and saw this recipe. I've always loved that slurry-sauce texture for this dish and anything similar. I don't actually follow the recipe anymore because I just make it the way I want to, but this recipe is still special to me.

My mother died 21 years ago. My dad hired a nanny to watch us after school and cook for our family, but that arrangement lasted a mere month. Maybe only weeks. The memory is hazy now unless I go back and flip through the journals. After the nanny had to quit, my dad had to figure out a way to feed us. He ended up cooking on Sunday afternoons for the entire week.    `

Yup, that's right. I follow the same routine now that my dad did for many years. He would cook multiple dishes and we would eat it as long as it would last through the week. Sounds familiar, right? I remember packing lunch my junior and senior year of high school. I went out and bought myself a glass Pyrex dish with a red lid. 

This is what my "lunch container" looked like in high school. Microwave friendly so I could heat it up at school. 

I knew it had the possibility of leaking, and I didn't have a lunch box so it had to go in a plastic bag into my backpack. I was ingenious enough to pack and store it correctly in my backpack. Half was rice, the other half were the meats and vegetables. I'd make sure to put it in my backpack with the rice side down. That way, if the juices started to run, the rice would absorb it and nothing would leak. 

I had two favorite dishes he made. The first was a shrimp and green peas stir fry. Simply done, maybe added some soy sauce. It was yummy. The second was a dish made with frozen mixed vegetables and ground beef. He made a sauce to go with it which was the slurry-sauce I loved. Whenever he made this dish, I got really excited to pack it for lunch. 

During my last year of college, I lived in an apartment with three other girls. I did my own cooking that year and made simple meals for myself. The first dish I wanted to cook was this dish my dad made with the ground beef and mixed vegetables. I did exactly that - stuck ground beef and mixed vegetables into a pot and cooked them. However, I couldn't get the sauce. My dad didn't follow any recipes so there wasn't anything to share with me. At the time, I had no idea about the powers of corn starch and water and how it changes when heat is added. So I made....ground beef and mixed vegetables with no sauce. That was the moment I realized cooking was a lot harder than I thought it to be.

Fast forward 14 years later, and I understand much more about cooking than I did when I first started in college.  This dish, shrimp with lobster sauce, will always remind me of the years my dad cooked, and the dish which instigated my love/hate relationship with cooking.  My dad doesn't cook much anymore if at all. I've shared some of my cooking with him. He doesn't share his thoughts or even express opinions, but I hope he's impressed. What he started 21 years ago, I continue today with my family.