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For example, the “to-do”list. I’ve mentioned once or twice here that I love lists. I am obsessed with lists. I love to read lists (you know when you get a new calendar or time management program and they have examples of how to use it? I scour those reading the lists that are on the example. Anyone else do that?? I am list obsessed.) Often times, I will create lists just so I can mark things off. I will often sit down at night and make my to-do list from the day I just finished and then mark it all off, just so I can have that sense of accomplishment. Yes, I know that truly organized people sit down and write out their to-do list for the next day. That is not the way the “organized in a very chaotic way” folks like to roll.

This past Sunday I did a little pantry organization project. Inspired by an episode of Real Simple Real Life, I decided to buy some nice clear plastic containers from The Container Store. I went to town using my handy dandy new Brother P-Touch label maker and started dumping things into containers and labeling my shelves and the containers. I realized things were getting a little out of control when I labeled a clear, mind you, container full of what was obviously pretzels, “pretzels”. As if you couldn’t tell by just looking at the container that it contained pretzels. Still, it got a label and I was a happy, chaotically organized camper.

During my pantry organization project I realized I had an insane amount of flout and raisins. It was with a thrilling glint in my eye that I decided to pull an issue of Simple & Delicious magazine off of my labeled Cookbook shelf, grab a clear container of raisins marked “raisins” and take my over abundance of flour and put it to good use. This Cinnamon Raisin Bread from the most recent issue of Simple & Delicious is really good and it makes two loaves. Guess what you can do with that second loaf? Stick the bread in a Ziploc bag, take your handy dandy label maker and create a name label of who you want to gift it to. You will feel like you are the most organized person on the planet!

I am giving you all the chance to be “organized in a very chaotic way” too. I have a new Brother PT-80 P-touch Electronic Labeling System to give away so you can be label obsessed just like me. Along with that, Kate from Kate in the Kitchen has two more cookbooks to include in this giveaway. The lucky winner will win the Labeling System, the 2003 Taste of Home Annual Cookbook and the 2005 Light and Tasty Annual Cookbook. Lots of great stuff to snag up here! Enter to win by leaving a comment on this post sharing with me one simple organizing tip. Steal it from FlyLady, borrow it from Real Simple… just share any tip you can think of that has to do with organization. All comments must be accompanied by a valid email address. Comments will be accepted up until midnight on Monday, December 15th.  Good Luck

Oh – and before I share the recipe… did you know that my first guest blogging post is now up at the SC Johnson Right@Home website? Won’t you please go check it out?

Cinnamon Raisin Bread (2 Loaves) from Simple and Delicious Magazine

1¼ hours | 15 min prep

2 Loaves

The post Cinnamon Raisin Bread Recipe appeared first on Dine and Dish.

I guess I would say I parent mostly based on my instincts. I rely a lot on advice from other moms, blogs and my own family. I know a lot of people who do read the parenting books and they waste no time at all in passing on the information to me 🙂 One of the biggest reasons I have avoided parenting books is because I always had the feeling that I would question my own parenting instincts after reading one. I did not want to feel extra guilty about the job I was doing as a parent simply because someone else did not agree with how I did something.

Recently, Naomi of Rock-n-Tot, Tracing Handprints and Being Savvy Cleveland stopped by my blog and commented on my post about Jacob, Parenting With a Heavy Heart. That day, I took a look at her blog and was intrigued by a parenting book she had reviewed on her site titled “Even June Cleaver Would Forget the Juice Box.”  You may remember back to the beginning of the school year when I realized the day of that I forgot my daughters 1st day of preschool. How about when we had the lovely situation where Kelly completely undid her car seat while driving down the interstate and my day ended in being puked on. Another gem.. the day I locked both girls in the car at the grocery store parking lot? Those were all days where I lost the Mother of the Year award (and the reason I started investing in a therapy fund for them for their adult years). Those parenting moments where you feel so guilty and so inept to be a parent and just know in your heart of hearts that you are the only mom in the world who would have this experience with their kids.

Parenting these days seems to be done in extreme measures. If your child hasn’t already had 3 years of soccer under their belt by the time they are 7, good luck finding a team that will take them. Mom’s are shuttling kids each and every day after school to this extra curricular activity or that. Birthday parties… oh don’t get me started on the birthday parties. Gone are the days of a simple cake and ice cream party, here are the days of traveling petting zoos, tot makeovers and live bands. It has all gotten to be a bit rediculous to see the pressure moms have on them to keep up with each other and to be “perfect”.

Enter Even June Cleaver Would Forget the Juice Box by Ann Dunnewold, Ph.D. This book needs to be in the hands of every mother on planet earth. Give it away at baby showers. Have a neighborhood book club featuring this book. Do something, please, so that mom’s all over the world can realize that there is no need to be a perfect parent. From the back cover, “Follow your gut, not your guilt. Connect with instead of compete with other mothers. Curb your need to overprotect, overperfect, or overproduce.”

Parenting books aren’t my thing, but if they were all as real as this one, I think I’d be singing a different tune. Namoi graciously sent me an extra copy to give to one of my readers. If you don’t win a copy, be certain to pick up a copy at your local library or head to your neighborhood bookstore and pick one up. It is an attitude shifting book that every mom needs to read! To win, please leave a comment on this post telling me what the best piece of parenting/marriage/life advice was you have ever received. All comments must have a valid email address. Deadline to enter is Tuesday, December 9th midnight CST.

And, since this is a cooking blog, I am adding a “recipe” if you can call it that for one of my kids favorite and simple treats. If I don’t have enough left over pie crust when making a pie to make them these cookies, I’m in big trouble with them!

Pie Crust Cookies

Use this pie crust recipe or your favorite pie crust recipe… it works either way!

2 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cold vegetable shortening
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into bits
1 teaspoon lemon juice or cider vinegar

5 to 6 tablespoons ice water

3 tablespoons sugar mixed with 2 teaspoons cinnamon

Place flour, sugar, and salt in a mixing bowl or a food processor bowl. Mix thoroughly. Cut in shortening and butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add lemon juice or vinegar and enough ice water to make a dough that just clings together. Cover dough with plastic wrap or foil and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Roll dough our on a lightly floured board or pastry cloth to 1/8-inch thick. Cut into desired shapes. Transfer to ungreased cookie sheets. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.

Bake in the center of the oven for 9-11 minutes, until golden. Remove to wire racks to cool.

Updated 12/10/2008 – And the winner is…. Stephanie from Fun Foods on a Budget. Congratulations, Stephanie!

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I started the Dine & Dish blog in November 2006. Back in my beginning blogging days, I was a very eager, typical new blogger. I cooked and posted on my blog almost every single day. I spent hours reading through blogs and learning the ropes, so to speak. I spent a lot of time networking with other bloggers, reading through magazines getting ideas of what I could blog about, and generally working on an attempt to build my blog up to be one with a decent reputation in the blogging world. Of course, back then, there weren’t as many food blogs as there are today. The network was quite a bit smaller and seemed a little easier to navigate.

Some of the bloggers I feel the most connected to today are ones who I met when I first started blogging. One person, in particular, is my friend Kate over at Kate in the Kitchen. Kate and I first connected on a crazy whim. Being a new blogger, I had over eagerly committed on my blog (and in a published letter to the editor of Food & Wine) to try the Food & Wine 100 Must Try Tastes. Soon after I posted this ambitious goal, I got an email from Kate saying that she was going to try the same thing. We had an immediate connection with common goal and eventually grew to become friends beyond blogging. (I must note that I quit the Food & Wine challenge part way through… some of the items were extremely expensive and impossible to get my hands on living in the Midwest. I was naieve, to say the least!)

Kate is one of those people who has managed to stay true to herself with her blog. She is a talented writer, an excellent and creative cook, and has a genuinely warm heart that comes through in all that she does. She hasn’t fallen prey to what I call the “blogging game” and has managed to still be successful. I admire her a lot for her ability to balance and to keep her blog organic to who she is.

Kate has generously offered up TEN cookbooks from the Taste of Home Annual Cookbook collection for me to give away on my blog. TEN cookbooks! That means over the next couple of weeks you will have the chance to add some of the best Taste of Home cookbooks to your collection.

For this first giveway we are giving away the Taste of Home Annual cookbooks from 2000 and 2001. There are going to be two winners for this particular drawing. All you need to do to be entered in the giveaway is leave a comment on this post. You must include a valid email address… just makes sense so we can get a hold of you if your name is drawn from the Random Number Generator.  It would be great if you would head over to Kate’s as well and give her a shout out… tell her thanks for offering up these great books! While you are there, stop and browse a little but be prepared to have your bookmarks locked and loaded to go… she has a lot of great recipes you’ll want to save to try!

Comments must be left by midnight on Friday, November 21st. Winner will be notified on the next day.

Oh – and stay tuned. You never know when a new giveaway for some of the other cookbooks might pop up. To keep abreast of it all, make sure to subscribe to Dine & Dish by email or follow me on Twitter. Some of the giveaways are going to be quick, and some may last a little longer… you will want to be the first to know!

This recipe is from the Taste of Home Best & Loved Cookies and Bars cookbook that is on newstands now. Delicious!

Strawberry Cream Cookies from Taste of Home

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 package (3 ounces) cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• Seedless strawberry jam

Directions:

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter, cream cheese and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg yolk and vanilla. Add flour and mix well. Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour or until easy to handle. Shape dough into 1-in. balls. Place 2 in. apart on ungreased baking sheets. Using the end of a wooden spoon handle, make a 1/2-in.-deep indentation in the center of each ball; fill with about 1/4 teaspoon jam. Bake at 350° for 10-12 minutes or until set. Remove to wire racks to cool. Yield: 5 dozen.

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I grew up living in the country and all of my friends lived in town. I remember always being jealous of the folks in town because they could have Pizza Hut delivered to their homes. We lived too far out, so if we wanted pizza, we either had to go all the way into town to eat at the Pizza Hut restaurant, have dad bring some home after work, or make our own at home.

One of the silly big thrills for me when I left home for college was living in a town where you could have food delivered straight to your door! Pizza, Chinese, Sub Sandwiches… a whole new world of delivery options were available to me. It was quite an exciting thing for this small town country girl!

I now live in a Kansas City suburb, and we really don’t have many delivery options besides pizza. With the delivery options available, my family prefers Pizza Hut.

The other day, a representative from Pizza Hut contacted me about trying out their new Tuscani Pasta. She wanted to have some delivered to my family for dinner and also wanted to give three of my readers the opportunity to win gift certificates of their own to give the new Tuscani Pasta a try. I haven’t been feeling well at all the last couple of weeks (hence my lack of blogging…sorry!) and my husband has been traveling. The thought of having something delivered to my house besides pizza thrilled me, and I readily accepted.

Pizza Hut delivered their Premium Bacon Mac ‘n Cheese Tuscani Pasta to my house this past Friday along with an order of their garlic breadsticks. I half expected the pasta to be dry, but the Pizza Hut Premium Bacon Mac ‘n Cheese arrived and it was creamy, cheesey and full of flavor. The serving was extremely generous… we were able to have 2 1/2 meals out of this one order of pasta! The whole family loved it and it was such a welcome change from our normal delivery options.

Pizza Hut would like to offer three of my readers gift certificates for their own order of Tuscani Pasta and breadsticks. To be considered, please leave a comment after this post telling me what your favorite delivery food is. Earn an extra chance to win by making a comment with a link back to this post on Twitter and leave an additional comment on this post notifying me of your Tweet. For another extra chance to win, post about this giveaway on your blog, then leave an additional comment on this post linking back to your post. The giveaway will end on Monday, October 20th at 11pm CST, the random drawing will take place and winners will be announced on Tuesday. Thanks and good luck!

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