Fondue with Chicken Broth

I, Georgann, wanted to use some meat and veggies leftover from our fondue dinner last week. (Dave and I "fondued" with Lois, Dana, Marc, Brad AND introduced fondue to Kathryn. So much fun!!) Usually I make stir-fry with the leftovers but tonight I decided to do something I've been meaning to try for a while:  fondue using chicken broth instead of oil.

I had a bit of store-bought chicken broth left from another recipe and added to it broth made from chicken bouillon cubes.

Here's my take on the experience. I liked it! A lot. The broth heated to boiling very quickly and I didn't have to worry about it getting too hot to the point of catching fire. The chicken and steak cooked up nicely and stayed very moist.  It didn't fry to a crisp in a matter of moments.  We had mushrooms and onions. I wondered if they would take longer to cook. My worries were unfounded. The onions were delightfully tender crisp. This method seemed to enhance the true flavor of the mushrooms.  The food didn't seem to stay as HOT as the oil method. No burned mouths tonight. Clean up was so much easier, too.  No oily mess. Our house doesn't smell like fried food!

One negative:  I don't believe beer batter could be used with the chicken broth method.  And my family would miss that!

All in all, it's a great, cheap, healthy alternative to oil fondue!  Delish!

From KU to ROO - Cory is a fan

Going to Kansas City, Kansas City here we come

From Dana:

Surprise! We are in the truck headed to Olathe! Hooray! We decided yesterday afternoon, so it's a bit of a surprise to us too. We'd been looking for a window to come up and visit and with the cold, wet weather this week it seemed like a great time for Marc to get away since he can't do much work. 

We are looking forward to seeing Grandma and Brad and Kathryn--getting some one on one time with them, it's been a long time (Mom is making fon due for us Thursday night). And Marc wants to get a haircut and possibly watch Lone Survivor if he can find it in the theatre. 

I want to try to meet up with Rachel to get my bridesmaid dress (so I know what my goal is come July 5th--eek!) and I have lots of returns/shopping to do that I've been saving up for the past 3 months or more. 

Brad has asked to use the truck to move some stuff from Olathe to their house, so that'll be a good excuse to check out the newlyweds' new digs. 

We are needing to be back by Monday, so going to the gathering for Joel on Sunday night probably won't work out. :(

Do you have a spare bit of time? Come visit!

Get me outta here!!

Elsy and I have been cooped up and honestly, I'm bored!! So good ole Pinterest came to the rescue and entertained Elsy for 30 minutes! She loved this! Anthony even got a part of the action for a little bit!

Sick weekend

Wow...these past couple of days have been tough! Props to all of you who have been stay-at-home moms (or are currently!). I have been home with sick Elsy since Wednesday. And when I say home, I mean home - not able to go anywhere or do anything. She had a 103 temp starting on Thursday and today it's finally down to 100 - and she slept in today until 10:15!!!!!! Goodness. She really wasn't feeling well. What 17-month-old does that?? When I took her into the doctor on Thursday, she checked out "normal" and the doctor said it was just a virus. If she still has her fever tomorrow, I'm bringing her back in! But half the battle is her unwillingness to take medicine. We have literally tried everything. She's too smart for us!! 

Some relief I've had is weekend guests! Abby, Brad and Kathryn came to visit. Elsy had her moments of feeling OK for them but I'm sure some other moments caused all three of them to question whether or not they wanted kids!! The best night was the first night. Elsy was feeling pretty good. Abby got here earlier than the Ellises and she was greeted by a very enthusiastic girl, ready to say her name over and over again! She loved to say Abby! I have a video of it but still haven't figured out how to put it on here. But here are a couple other pics from this weekend. 

The weekend wasn't quite like planned - sick girl, garbage disposal and dishwasher going "down", church celebration cancelled, cooped inside all weekend, but I'm glad I have understanding relatives who couldn't care less!! 

 We were worried about them getting home today because of the weather but it sounds like they did ok. Glad they visited and gave me some sanity and adult conversation!!!

New Clothes

My mom (and dad) recently bought Cole some new clothes. It was fun. My mom made a wish list on Carter's website and shared it with me so I could add clothes I liked and the right sizes and then she could pick from those options. I went ahead and requested 12 month clothes for this 9 month boy and wasn't disappointed (though my initial thought when I pulled them out of the package was that they were way too big!).  Check out his new digs...

Thanks, Mama!

Playing By Himself

One thing Marc and I have enjoyed lately is watching Cole keep himself entertained and play on his own. He goes a mile a minute--crawling here, pulling up there, flipping through pages of a book, walking along the couch, crawling over General, grabbing magazines out of the rack, squealing and smiling with delight the whole way. We can just watch and be entertained ourselves. 

Here he is at Al and Shirley's playing. 

They discovered recently that he loves playing with the box in the picture. It's stable enough to lay on and crawl over and he likes the noise it makes when he hits things on it. I liked his outfit this day. The sweatshirt came from Great Aunt Mary, I believe.