easy way to shred chicken

Here is a cooking tip that I recently discovered and its quite the time saver.

You can shred chicken with a stand mixer.

I used to shred the cooked chicken using two forks -- hold the chicken with one fork and scrape pieces with the other one until it was shredded.   It was time consuming and quite the workout.   I made a double batch of a casserole once - one for us, one for our neighbors who'd just had a baby - and thought my arms might fall off from all the chicken shredding.

I read (on a blog I'm pretty sure) that you could shred chicken with a stand mixer, and I had to try it.
It works SO WELL!  Just cook the chicken as you usually would and then drop it in the bowl and let the large paddle do the work for you.   It didn't seem like it would work at first -- it just pushes the pieces around ,but give it a little time and it does work!

I wish I'd thought to take a photo of before/after, here is the blog I think I read it on - they did put up a photo, and apparently its on pinterest too.

We've done it twice now - once for the casserole and once this week for chicken tortilla soup.   Kevin said the soup was better this way (and I have to agree) since the chicken was all the same size and you got the same amount in every bite.

I'm going to be on the lookout for recipes calling for shredded chicken now!

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday to my better half!   This year's birthday is going to be much warmer than last year.   We were on vacation in Lake Tahoe last year and needed jackets and loved every minute of it.

Spending the morning lecturing may not be as fun, but is a pretty good way to start a birthday, and we'll be going out for a nice dinner.  

Kevin got my gift to him working.  I didn't realize getting him a new ipod would turn into 'tech support' time for K, luckily he is very techy and has more patience than I do, so he made it work.....

I love you so much and wish you a wonderful day!

Belated Fathers day

Happy Father's day to all the dads!  I'm a day late, because we were celebrating with the dads in our lives all weekend. We saw my dad on Saturday and celebrated with the Tucker dads on Sunday.

We spent the day at my in-laws and went swimming with our niece and nephew.   I hadn't played "Marco Polo" in years, we had a great time with them.

Our nephew is the sweetest, he was making cards for his dad and grandpa and asked if there was an uncle's day, and made a special card for Kevin...so Happy Uncle's day too!!

Saturday recap

We had a busy weekend and have some accomplished projects and bumps and bruises to show for it!

We tried to go blueberry picking last weekend but waited too late and they were picked out by the time we were going to go (thank goodness we checked the website before driving out there).   This weekend we tried again, and succeeded!  We went early in the morning to make sure we’d be there on time.   My dad and I went; Kevin and my mom stayed in the nice cool house and got to sleep in.  I’m glad we went early! There were so many people, and we probably should’ve been there even earlier.  We were lucky to get buckets (They ran out of buckets at 7:30 am)   Together my dad and I picked right at 20 lbs of blueberries.  I see lots of blueberry goodies in my future.  I could have done without the hour wait to pay for them – we did use our time well by me getting in line while my dad continued to pick.  Next year, we’ll leave even earlier.  Though I actually hope next year they’ll be open during the week, I think that is a big part of why they are so crowded this year.  In case you are interested, the place we went was Moorhead blueberry farm.

Later that day, after my parents left Kevin and I continued putting together a garage cabinet we’d purchased – all part of our goal to organize the garage.  This was the hardest item we’ve put together and the item fought back.  I ended up with cuts and a bump to the head before we finished.  We did finish it (finally) and it looks great.  We’re glad we have to wait on missing parts for the other item, gives us time to heal before we have to get started on it.   I think that putting together furniture could be a contest on a dating show -- you really see if you can work together!

I slept so good that night, lots of sun and hard work will do that to me.

new word

We invited a word the other night....a "pee-piphany"   - when an idea or realization comes to you when you are using the rest room....

Well, turns out we only thought we invented it....its already in the urban dictionary.

Now I need to figure out what the word is for when a great idea or solution comes to you in the shower or when you're driving -- that happens more often for me.

Have a great Saturday!

almost Wordless Wednesday

This is what Kevin sees every afternoon.  Smokey waits for me to get home and walk through the door.   He knows I'm home before K does since he can hear the garage door.  

He's a silly dog, but he's our silly dog.....

Kevin's random ideas

Kevin doesn't have much of a presence on the blog, to remedy that we'll start sharing Kevin's random ideas...he has some doozies that I just have to shake my head and laugh at....

here is the first installment...

This morning he said we should've named our dog "sir"  -- can you imagine calling our dog in public?  people would think we're crazy....if its a girl "ma'am"

We love to talk about what we should've named Smokey as we've seen his personality come out...my favorites - Hoover or Kirby since he sucks up food (as long as it isn't dog food) like a vacuum cleaner.

I know there are other good ones, I just can't think of them now

HOW is it already June???   I'm not ready for summer to be here, but here it is....