Oven Baked Boneless BBQ Ribs

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 2-2 1/2 hours

Ingredients

• Boneless Pork Ribs
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon Grill Mates Pork Rub
• 1 tablespoon paprika
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 2 cups favorite BBQ sauce

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
2. Mix together sugar and spices.
3. Rub mix on all sides of ribs.
4. Lay ribs on 2 layers of foil.
5. Lay 2 layers of foil on top of ribs.
6. Fold edges of foil together to seal.
7. Place on baking sheet.
8. Bake for 2-2 1/2 hours.
9. Remove from oven and heat broiler.
10. Carefully remove ribs from foil and arrange on broiler pan.
11. Brush on BBQ sauce and broil for 2 minutes
12. Repeat on other side.

Personal Flair and Reflection
     These were scrumptious and juicy!

Source
My own variation of http://www.food.com/107786

Homemade Mac-n-Cheese

Prep Time: 20-30 minutes
Cook Time: 25 minutes

Ingredients

• 16 ounces elbow macaroni 
• 1/2 cup margarine
• 6 tablespoons flour
• 4 cups milk
• 16 ounces block cheese
• dash of salt and pepper
• saltine crackers

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cook noodles until tender and drain.
3. While noodles are cooking, mix butter, flour, milk, and salt/pepper over medium heat.
4. Cut cheese into smaller chunks and slowly add to mixture.
5. Cook over medium heat until smooth.
6. Continue stirring to keep from sticking to the bottom of the pan.
7. Add noodles to the sauce.
8. Pour noodles and sauce into baking pan/casserole dish.
9. Crush crackers and sprinkle on top.
10. Bake for 25 minutes.

Personal Flair and Reflections
     Growing up my grandmother and my mom would make homemade mac n cheese that was my absolute favorite! After I went off to college, I asked my mom for the recipe (thinking it was some secret family recipe). All to find out this recipe came off the back of the Mueller's pasta box.
I have adapted it to my style and even like to add our own special ingredient. This special ingredient is cubed ham! Yum!
     The recipe on the box only calls for half the ingredients. But we love it SO much, that I double the recipe so we can eat it for lunch the next day. :)

Juicy Oven-Fried Italian Cheesy Chicken Breasts

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 30-35 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1 packet Good Seasons Italian Salad Dressing Mix
• 3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
• shredded cheese to top

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. In a bowl, mix butter, garlic, and salt.
3. In another bowl, mix Italian dressing mix, bread crumbs, cheddar cheese, and Parmesan cheese.
4. Dip chicken in butter mix.
5. Coat buttery chicken pieces with cheese mix.
6. Place in baking pan
7. Bake uncovered for 30-35 minutes (longer for thicker pieces)
8. Top with shredded cheese for the last 5 minutes

Personal Flair and Reflections 
     Can you say yummmmy? This was a huge hit in my house.
The Good Seasons Italian Salad Dressing Mix has become a favorite seasoning of mine! It has fantastically sensational blend of flavor!
     I am not a huge fan of white meat - mostly because it is too dry or flavorless. But not the way I make this recipe! My personal flair on this recipe is that I cut the chicken breasts into fourths, and I cook them in a pan that is barely big enough to fit them all. I place the chicken so they are touching and have a tight fit in the pan. The smaller pieces allows for the juices and flavor to get absorbed all the way through. And fitting them tightly in the pan causes them to cook in their own juices more.
     This recipe is very juicy and full of flavor in every bite!

Special Note: This recipe can also be used with pork chops! (Although the pork chops don't need to fit tightly and touching,  and can be normal size etc.)

FLYing Habit of the Month

     Each month, FlyLady focuses on one thing to make a habit. For the month of November, we are working on making menu planning a habit. To help me with this habit, I am starting a pretty pink binder (in honor of Breast Cancer) with recipes that have been family tested and approved. I have different sections, and plan to eventually have at least 30 recipes in each section (although this will most likely take me longer than the month of November, but that's OK)!
    My sections are: Main Dish, Sides, Veggies, Fruits, Desserts, Lunch, and Breakfast.

I hope to provide a nice variety of foods for my family (kid-friendly!). I have never been the most daring eater in the world, and really was never taught to like or eat many foods. As I am a mom now, I want my children to learn to be better eaters than I was/am. In attempts to do this, I want to learn to like new things, which means I need to learn new ways to cook things. I will eat a lot of things if they are prepared the right way (I am a very textural eater). So I have decided to add this journey to my blog about the Gunter Life journey! As I add a new recipe to my binder, I will add it to my blog to share. And of course, please feel free to share some of your tried and true recipes as well!

I already have a few recipes in my binder (not including our family favorites that I make without recipe). I will begin with those, and continue as more are added. Enjoy the next few posts with some yummy food!

*Day 4: Something You Have to Forgive Someone For*

This answer came pretty quickly to me, but it is something that I have been working on for a long while. In some regards, I have moved forward ... in others, it is still a work in progress.

The people ... my parents.
The what ... a lot.

Without writing a book about my life story (which I could and maybe I should someday), my childhood was not all peaches and cream. I grew up with parents whose personalities made them clash ALL the time, so much so that there weren't many days without fights (that sometimes turned physical). As the oldest of 5 kids, I took on a "caregiver role" for my siblings. When I was around the age of 12, they decided on a divorce - which opened up a whole new can of worms revolving around custody battles, bad mouthing one another, using the kids to hurt the other parent, and the list could go on and on. We went from parent to parent, to foster care, to parent, to family members, back to parents; and some13 years later, they are still having issues (that I am thankfully completely separated from).

Upon starting my own family, I resolved to forgive my parents and move on so we can all have a good relationship. I want my children to know and love their grandparents (all of them), and I don't want them to inherit the stupid drama that I have dealt with for the first 22 years of my life.
I am happy to say that I have a good relationship with both my parents and my stepmom, and I have been able to learn from their failures (and their successes) to make me the mother and wife that I am today. I have been able to see the way they treated each other and their children (even if unintentionally) and turn that around so that I can have a healthy relationship with my husband, and am able to encourage my children and teach them good values in life. And most importantly, I have learned the value of modeling for my children. My parents forgot the value of their actions when it comes to raising children. Words only go so far. Children pick up on what they see the people they love do.
For me, I think who my parents were has helped me to define the kind of person I want to be. And I thank God for helping me create a good life out of something yucky.

The part of all this that I struggle with 100% forgiveness is when I look at my siblings. I think they were impacted more so with all the "junk" because they were younger. I have seen my siblings struggle with issues of faith, with relationships, and some even with the ability to make wise decisions for themselves. And this ... I blame my parents (both of them). I see my parents' issues and their inability to demonstrate for my siblings how to make good choices or how to love your spouse as reasons why my siblings don't realize there is more in store for them if they just fight for it. I pray that they can see that even though I grew up in the same  household as them, I was able to break the cycle and make a great life for myself ... and this is possible for them as well. THIS is my work in progress in the forgiveness department.

*Day 3: Something You Have to Forgive Yourself For*

Honestly, as crazy as this may sound to some, I have to learn how to forgive myself when I fall short of my given expectations. And for those of you who know me know that I hold myself to pretty high standards. When I was in high school, I had a handmade "sign" on my wall with a quote for me to live by. The quote was from Henry Ward Beecher and it said, "Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anyone else expects of you." And I do. I am your typical perfectionist. And when I am unable to live up to my own expectations (which is often), I beat myself up. It's amusing to me that I have so many people comment on how much I do, and how impressed they are with me, and yet I just want to laugh and say, "Yeah right! I am horrible." as soon as people start complimenting me, I start thinking of the areas I fall short of where I would like to be. I have always been this way. One good example is school. From K-12 I had straight A's (and yes I was valedictorian), but in 7th grade one of my midterm report cards (not even the final grade) had a B on it. I got sooo upset and actually crumpled up my report card. Of course I got fussed at for what I did to the report card, not the B.
I have found that now that I am a mom with the responsibility of modeling good life skills to my daughters, I have raised my standards and beat myself up more when I fall. So much so that I emotionally feel down and almost depressed at times.
     In my attempts to solve this problem, I have started the FlyLady "self-help" for people like me. The entire premise behind this process is to help us FLY. FLY stands for Finally Loving Yourself. I still have a long way to go. But once I learn to forgive myself for not being perfect, then I think I can be happy with less than.

*Day 2: Something You Love About Yourself*

I love that God created me to be a Mommy.  My body was literally designed specially for this purpose. It fascinates me to think about all my body did to create a little being inside of me, to give birth, and to nourish them. Wow. I just love how loving my daughters from the start, knowing how to meet their needs, and raising them seems to be so natural for me. It is truly one of my greatest blessings.

  I simply love being a Mom! Watching two little girls grow up, learn new things, and prove how smart they are absolutely makes me beam as a Mom. I truly feel like this is my purpose in life. L-O-V-E <3