Best of Both Worlds Sauce

We eat a lot of pasta in this family. Mainly because it is delicious but also because it is a cheap and easy meal to throw together. Well one fine day I had a little leftover alfredo sauce. It was enough for one person but not quite enough for two. 

I've been to restaurants where they mix alfredo and tomato sauce together so I thought I would do that.

Oh my lambs. It was the most delicious pasta sauce I have ever tasted. It is now the only pasta sauce we eat. The other day I was out of heavy whipping cream so I couldn't make this sauce so we settled for regular tomato sauce. And I was disappointed. That has never EVER happened to me. I have never been disappointed by regular spaghetti sauce. 

We have been RUINED! Ruined I tell ya... and we love it..

Here is what you need.. and this batch makes a whole lot so feel free to half it.

2 sticks of butter

2 cups heavy whipping cream

2 cups parmesan cheese

3 tablespoons cream cheese

1-2 cups tomato sauce (I use Ragu)

parsley

basil

salt

pepper

You can use a sauce pan if you wish. I like this skillet that has deep sides. It is good for making sauce. Turn it on medium low - medium heat. My pans get super hot so I always tend to put the heat on a lower setting. 

ok melt the butter. All of it. and get excited.

When butter is melted slowly pour in heavy whipping cream and whisk away.

Get it all nice and mixed together and get it pretty warm. You don't want it to boil.

Throw in a few tablespoons of parsley.

Now add the cream cheese and stir it around until it melts.

Then add the parmesan! I like to do a parmesan and asiago mix. So really you could use any kind of mix and match you want.. just do about 2 cups of whatever your doing. Get creative.

Now add about 1 to 2 cups of tomato sauce. It just depends on what you like.

mix it. mix it good.

now add some more parsley. Maybe about a tablespoon or two.. and then 2 tablespoons of basil. or less. Do what you want to do! Season it to taste so they say.

There it is in all of its glory.

Pour over your choice of noodles, devour, and try not to go back and eat the rest.

Meeting Shamblin

I can honestly say as of right now my favorite day of my whole life was Mother's Day. May 12, 2013.
That was the day I met Mister Shamblin.

 

Ok so I will say that Shamblin wasn't exactly planned... I found out that I was pregnant 7 weeks after we had been married. OOPS! Nevertheless he may have been a surprise but I was excited for his arrival since I found out he was coming.

I have been around babies my whole life. I've always loved them. Even since I was a baby I loved babies. I wasn't nervous about being a mom at all. I was more nervous about labor day.. and even though it was tough and it was painful it was the BEST day of my life.
One of the best parts about it is that I can finally understand how my Lord loves me. I get all teary eyed just thinking about it..

My due date was May 8th but I had been told that more than likely he would be late. I expected that. I was scheduled to be induced one week after my due date. But by golly I was determined to have that baby naturally! Saturday May 11th my wonderful sister-in-law Mallory and my best friend Jessica were both graduating OU. My mom told me I would have to wait until after Mal's graduation before I went into labor. haha.. I told her it really wasn't up to me. Which is true.. Her graduation came and went and later that afternoon we attended her graduation party.

I loved the look on people's faces when they would ask me when I was due and I told them, "Last Wednesday." priceless.

After the graduation party I was doing everything I could to naturally induce labor! walking, yoga, eating pineapple... the list goes on. It quite an eventful day.
My husband suggested that we go for a ride in the car and he would drive really fast and then slam on the breaks and see if anything happened.. lol I love him. He is so goofy.

At about 10:15 pm I decided to hop onto my husband's exercise bike. We were watching Futurama. I slowly pedaled while I watched the show for about 15 minutes. Then I went and sat on the couch with my dear husband.

about 10 seconds later I thought I peed my pants a little bit...or was it..???! So I called my doula, Shelby.
"Shelby I'm not sure if my water broke or if I just pee my pants.." She told me that if it was my water it would just keep coming. So it did! Oh my goodness I was so FREAKING excited! She told me to go on a walk around the neighborhood since I was not having any contraction yet.
Paul and I walked around in the dark. He kept asking me what we need to do and I told him we would call Shelby after the walk but that wasn't really good enough. You see my husband is a planner. To the exact detail.. and God forbid if that plan was to change.
Me.. I'm the exact opposite. So I went through what I figured was going to happen. After our walk we would go to the hospital.
So I called Shelby and I was having irregular contractions and they were not painful at all. She told me that since my water broke I should go to the hospital.
Before I told my husband that he asked if we could go to bed and leave when I started having more contractions.. poor soul. He was already so tired. I told him we had to go to the hospital so off we went! We got there around midnight.

That was when I called my mom. She was so excited but she had just gotten home from Norman! So she said to call when I had dialated to a 6. At that point I was at a 4.
So I get to my hospital room and all of the nurses were so lovely.  They asked me a million questions and got me all hooked up to a bunch of different machines. Finally around 3:00 am they told me they were done and I could get some rest. I still had not had any painful contractions yet.
So the nurse left and turned out the light. Paul was instantly asleep and I laid there a little too excited to sleep. about fifteen minutes later I started to doze off when I felt this huge pop in my back.
It was weird.. really weird.

and then it started.
ok yeah.. that contraction hurt a little bit.
five minutes later...
yep that one hurt too.
3 minutes later.
ooohhhhhh that one was more painful.
3 minutes later.
ow. owowow.
3 minutes later.
OOOOWWWWWW. Paul wake up! I need you!

and so it began. Shelby got there to help out with the pain. And she was amazing. She helped Paul coach me through all of the contractions. We walked around the halls and tried a birthing ball. They checked me around 5:30 am and I had dialated between a 6 and a 7.

unfortunately little Shamblin was facing the wrong way. So I had been having horrible back labor.
It was rough. It hurt.
I had been on my side for a while. At about 5:00 am was when I decided I was done walking. I was just trying to breathe through the contractions.

At this point the room was full with my mom, sister, husband, doula, and my nurse.They were all just so amazing.

I slightly remember Paul's parents coming in. I couldn't really talk to them because I was concentrating.. very hard..

My dad was there too.

sleeping. as per use. :)

Around 6:00 I decided I was done with all of this pain business. I mean why choose it when I didn't have to right?

Thank the Lord for epidurals. I know he cursed woman in the very beginning telling us that bearing a child would be painful.. but after centuries of seeing that I think he decided to give us a break ;-)

After my epidural I was feeling so much better.

 Like.. a lot better.

I could finally get some rest!

and so could my family

Since I had an epidural it did slow my labor down so they had to start me on pitocin.

Then a little before 11:00 am they came in to check me again.

I was dialated to a ten!

and it was time...

time to start pushing!!!

 Good job Shelby!

 Look at how excited he is.  Like a little kid on Christmas.

This is the face of a man who is about to meet his son.

I pushed... and pushed.. and pushed.. I pushed for TWO hours and fifteen minutes.

Obviously Shamblin was comfy where he was and didn't want to come out.

But finally he did.

I think this is the point where I started bawling. Like a.. well like a baby.

Look at that long noggin. 

7 pounds and 15 ounces of pure pride and joy.

That is one proud papa.

Yep. Best day of my life.

Thanks be to Champagne&blush for taking my pictures. I have the best sister ever!

Bacon, Potato, and Spinach Frittata

I love breakfast foods. They are right up there with pasta dishes. Yet I have never been a huge egg fan. That is I have never really liked eggs by themselves. I believe that there really is no such thing as a type of food you don't like. You just have to know how to cook it the way you like it..

With that being said I love frittatas! Probably because I love veggies and you can put any kind of veggie you want into a frittata.

They also make delicious leftovers. You can eat it for breakfast or even pair it with some fruit for lunch! Yum.

what you need

oven proof skillet

10 eggs

1/2 C milk

bacon (however much you want)

half an onion diced

2 russet potatoes

1/2 C spinach

salt

pepper

thyme
1 C cheese

preheat you oven to 375.

Start off with that bacon. I cut mine all up into bite size pieces. Cook them at a medium heat to your desired crispiness. Paul and I like ours almost burnt. So crispy and crunchy and oh so good. When its a few minutes from being done throw in your diced onion. When its all cooked get the bacon and onion out with a slotted spoon. But leave all of that amazing grease in there.

Throw in those potatoes! stir them every once in a while. You want them to get a little crisp. This take about 5-10 minutes.

While your potatoes are cooking whip up the eggs, milk, salt, and pepper.

As you can probably tell there is a lot of milk in there.. Here's the deal I don't like using measuring cups. Why dirty another dish right? So I kind of put way too much milk in there.. so i just added a few more eggs!  No biggie. I think the only thing it really altered was the frittata was much more light and fluffy.. which I kind of liked. Also it took about twice as long to cook. So if you want a light and fluffy frittata double the milk and add about 3-4 more eggs.

Those potatoes should be starting to get a nice brown color on them. You want them to be fork tender so if they are still pretty hard just throw a lid on the skillet and check it every 2-3 minutes. I think mine became tender pretty quickly after I put the lid on.

Once the potatoes are tender throw in the spinach! I just did a couple handfuls.

When the spinach is all nice and wilted, which will take no time at all maybe about 2 minutes, throw in the bacon and onion you set aside a while ago! Mix all of those yummy ingredients together.

Then poor in the eggs. All of the grease just kind of floats to the top.. hello grease! You can season this to your little heart's desire. I used salt, pepper, and thyme. You can't go wrong with those. Maybe like a teaspoon of each? I don't know.. I'm telling you I hate measuring. Just eyeball it if you are a stud like me.. haha just kidding. It is probably more out of laziness..

Now comes my favorite part.. the cheese. You can use whatever kind of cheese that tickles your fancy. As for me I used a parmesan and asiago mix. Cook on the stovetop for another minute then put your skillet in the oven. Mine took about 28 minutes to cook. It depends on how much milk you used.. if you were a good kid and stuck to the recipe it should only take 10 minutes to cook. What I did to make sure it was done was wiggle the pan around. If the middle was still jiggly it's not done yet. If you wiggle the pan and it's firm it's done.

Isn't she beautiful? I just dabbed all of the extra grease with a paper towel but you can leave it there if you want. I won't judge you.