What you need to know about the girl behind the lama

I have 126 followers.  Crazy right?  Blogger tells me that I’ve had 344 page views in the last month (!!!!!).  Blogger also tells me that the most visited page in the last week has been “About Me”.  That’s a brand new page and I am so glad that you want to get to know me!  So here’s a post all about me and the things you might want to know!

My name is Laura.  I am 30 years old.  Married.  Mother to one adorable almost 10 month old (see picture for proof of cuteness).

I grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin – land of cheese and beer! This means that I’m an avid Packer fan, a cheese snob, and I like snow.  I say “I know, eh?” a lot.  I use the word bubbler (although I’m a little self conscious about it now that I live in Illinois).    I speak unnaturally fast.

Growing up I loved to do crafts with my mom.  I took knitting lessons and went to sewing classes.  I was a dancer until it got in the way of my dreams of being an Olympic swimmer (OK, I really just wanted to make Varsity …). 

I have always been a bit of a math nerd.  Yep, I was on the math team in high school (cool right?).  I actually enjoyed calculus.  This turned me to engineering as I started college.  I graduated from Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI with both a bachelors and masters degree in biomedical engineering. What’s that you say?  It really sounds scarier than it is.  I’m really a mechanical engineer with a minor in biology.  During school I spent some time working for a company designing artificial joints – shoulders, elbows, wrists and fingers.  During grad school I designed gaming devices for use in arm rehabilitation (think early Wii Fit type stuff).  After grad school I worked at a children’s hospital helping doctors understand walking patterns in children with disabilities. 

I started selling on Etsy in 2008 after our wedding.  My husband was still in law school (read – he was busy) and I had gone into crafting withdrawal.  One thing lead to another and POOF Lama Works was born!  What’s with the name?  It’s not llama … like the animal (which I’ve heard numerous times).   First name LAura … last name MAys … put the two together and you get Lama! 

OK enough about Etsy, that’s old news that you probably already know.  What else might you not know?

I love, love, love to cook.  I make most things from scratch because we just don’t like processed foods anymore.  Not everything, but most sauces at least.  While I love to cook, I really don’t like to bake.  I don’t have the patience to measure things so they never turn out quite right. 

I like to garden.  I usually grow mostly tomatoes because I love making my own spaghetti sauce.  I also usually have peas, lettuce, zucchini, onions and tons of herbs.  I have more oregano than I will ever know what to do with.

I’m also super musical.  Growing up I learned to play the piano, violin, flute, piccolo and trombone.  I still play the flute almost weekly in some musical group or another.  I still play the piano quite a bit, but just for fun.  I met the Mr. playing in the band in college (awwwwww).  I am truly blessed that I have someone that will hum along (usually in harmony) pep band music when we are watching a Marquette basketball game. Even with the addition of the little Mr. we still play in our community band once a week and are in the church choir together.

I’m a super positive person and I try to live to make the best of each and every day.  I once went to an interview and (after giving me the job) told me that they thought that I was a bit fake because no one could be that happy and excited about life.  Once they got to know me they realized that indeed someone can be genuinely that happy and excited.  My glass is always half full and I try to see the best in everyone. 

I’m a bit shy, especially in big groups, but if you get to know me I can be pretty goofy. 

I love being a mom.  I love being a work at home mom and do not regret giving up my day job.  I’m proud to be a cloth diapering mom.  I make almost all of our baby food.  I sing “The Wheels on the Bus” a LOT.  I refuse to read him “I’ll Love You Forever” because I can never read it without crying. 

So that’s a lot about me.  Is there anything else you want to know?  I’m an open book!

Thanks for taking the time to read this!
Until the next time…
The girl behind the Lama
~LMM

Get Ready for Once a Month!

It’s that time of the month again!  The new Once a Month menus are out and ready for you to cook!  Now the premise is that many of the foods used for this month are generally either in season or on sale in the month of June, so use the entire month to shop the sales and stock up so you get the best deals.  I have yet to do this so I might give it a try.  In theory you shop all month, cook at the end of the month and then eat these meals all through the month of July.

I still have about a dozen meals left from my May cooking day and I think I still have one or two left from April that we haven’t eaten yet.  We are almost out of breakfast foods.  Honestly, we can’t get enough of those pancakes, so we’ll definitely be making more of those this weekend.  We still have plenty of lunches left for the month too. 

The amazing women at Once a Month Mom have created not one, but FIVE different menus to choose from depending on your dietary wishes:

Traditional
Whole Foods
Diet
Gluten and Dairy Free
Vegetarian

So keep me posted – I’d love to hear if any of you are going to try this out!  I may just try out the Whole Foods menu this month.  I probably won’t make all the add on’s, but I think that menu has more things we’d enjoy this month.  I am definitely enjoying not having to cook every single night, especially in this heat.  We’ve also noticed that we hardly ever go out for dinner anymore.  Why go out when the food you have at home is just as good, if not better and way cheaper?  I’m all about saving money any place I can. 

Happy summer!

Until the next time …
The girl behind the lama
~LMM

The Goodness of Whole Wheat Sour Cream Pancakes

I don’t make pancakes often.  They aren’t hard, but I very rarely care to take the time to make a big stack that we eat just a few of.  Now that my little drool bomb has discovered the wonderfulness of sweet potato pancakes I make HIM huge batches and freeze them.  Freeze the pancakes … why have I never thought of this before?  Make a ton, flash freeze them, pop them in the toaster on defrost and you have a wonderfully warm and better yet, crispy pancake!  Huh …. it’s like a whole new world opened up to me.  We did this last month with the once a month cooking waffles and they were great!  It did take us awhile to get the settings on the toaster right, but once we did it was like buying frozen waffles – but better and healthier! 

I was pleasantly pleased to find pancakes on the May Once a Month Cooking menu.  I didn’t blog about it (but should later this week maybe?) but it was another successful cooking night!  While my hubby has been stealing almost all of the pancakes, I had my very first this morning, slathered in a good coating of Nutella.  FYI – I also just tried a scoop of Nutella stirred into my morning coffee – YUM!

Anyway, I was skeptical about the pancakes but they were great!  I’ve never made pancakes that don’t come from a box and you just add milk or water and these had of all things wheat flour and sour cream in them.  Could that be good?  I’m on a mission to open my eyes to new things and try more foods that I *think* I might not like.  Who am I to say that I don’t like something until I try it and give it a chance?  It’s a grand theme I’ve adopted to my whole life in the past few years.  You’ll never know unless you try, so what have you got to lose? So I tried the pancakes and who knew they would be fabulous and healthy??  Try them out, and make sure you freeze the leftovers for later!  Lay them out in a single layer on a cookie sheet and pop them in the freezer.  Once they are frozen, just stack them into a Ziploc bag.  To reheat them we used the defrost button on our toaster, which I think just toasts them slower and longer so they don’t burn on the outside.

Let me know if you try them and what you think!  Thanks again to Once A Month Mom!!

Whole Wheat Sour Cream Pancakes

Makes 8-10  3” pancakes

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup all purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup milk (dairy or nondairy)

1 egg

3 tablespoons sour cream

1. In a large bowl, whisk the flours, baking powder, sugar, and salt.

2. In a measuring cup or small bowl, whisk the egg into the milk. Pour into the dry ingredients and stir just until combined. Add the sour cream and give the batter one final stir.

3. Spoon a quarter cup of batter onto a griddle or skillet set over medium heat that has been coated with nonstick cooking spray. Flip after 3-4 minutes, just as you notice bubbles forming around the edges of each pancake, and cook 2 minutes more.

 

Until the next time …
The girl behind the lama
~LMM

Another new look!

So who knew that you could add different pages to your blogger page?  Not this girl!  I just spent the last month searching for a web design host.  I don’t think I want to sell things on this web page (yet!), I really want it there so that customers in my area can find me.  Google “Wedding invitations Quincy, IL” and voila – my page pops up! 

So I went through a couple of vendors and designed my own page, which by the way you can view at www.invitedbylamaworks.com.  What I really wanted was just my information, maybe a gallery of projects, and most importantly – a way to contact me! I had no idea I could do all of this right in blogger and it would be FREE.  Good-bye intuit!  No need to pay $20 a month for a website that no one sees.  At least I know that my blog gets seen.  It already has followers (right?  You are out there aren’t you???) and I’m comfortable using it. 

Also, I love Etsy, but with my latest journey into Envelopments, I am a bit restricted.  It’s a long story that I’d rather not get into, but Etsy won’t let me sell some Envelopments products, but they won’t tell me which ones.  Since I don’t want to get shut down again, I have to be cautious.  I still want to sell all of the designs I have available to me and I want people to know about them!  So check out the tabs at the top of the page!  I’m going to get up all of the different Envelopments invitations that I can sell.  If you see something there that isn’t in my Etsy shop, just use the new “Contact Me” tab to find my email address.  I also love working on custom designs, so if you don’t see something you like, but like me (YAY!) I can copy just about anything that you’ve seen elsewhere online – just send me a picture!

It’s a work in progress for sure and it will definitely take time.  I’ve also made a tab for more information on my donations to the American Cancer Society (ACS Donation tab) to take away some clutter from my side bar.  You can also find out more about me and Lama Works, in the “About Me” tab – picture included!  In case you didn’t notice I’ve also changed the look a little bit.  I wanted something simple.  Nothing fancy, nothing too distracting. 

So that’s what’s new!  If you’re reading this in an RSS feed, I would highly recommend taking a gander at the actual blog page to see what’s new!

Thanks for reading!
~LMM

Little Life Lessons

I know he’s only 8 months old.  I know he’s cute. I know he won’t learn all of life’s lessons at once … but if he could please, PLEASE learn the following as soon as possible:

1.  Mommy’s hair is not for pulling as hard as you can
2.  Mommy’s hair is not to be used as a tool to keep your balance
3.  Mommy’s hair is not to be used as a climbing device
4.  Pulling the hair of the woman in front of you in church is definitely not OK
5.  Mommy’s shirt is not a Kleenex

That’d be great.

Sincerely,
The girl behind the lama .. AKA
Mom

Once a Month Cooking–Recap Thoughts

So, what did I really think of once a month cooking?  I think for spending 2.5 hours in the kitchen it was a huge success!  I think on a normal day I would probably cook with more vegetables, but for a quick and easy meal that I’ll grab on a day that I’m too tired to cook – I’ll take it.

I think there were a few key things that made it such a success.

1.  I had a great partner.  Since he’s my husband we work really well together.  He was anticipating my moves and was always right where I needed him to be.  He was so efficient he even cleaned a spoon before I was done with it.  I was anticipating what he would be doing next and prepped his labels for the bags or got his ingredients to him before he even knew he needed them.

2.  Good pots.  I think I used 3 different pots and 2 cookie sheets throughout the night.  I absolutely love my Rachael Ray cast iron pots and they served me well last night.  I believe I have both a 5 quart and a 7 quart.   I personally would love to get a few Le Creuset pots if I could (hint, hint family members!).  I also used one other large pot while the cast iron ones had food that was being packaged in them.

3.  I skipped all the pasta.  I don’t care for pasta dishes that are frozen and then reheated.  Maybe you can help me and tell me what I’m doing wrong, but mine always end up mushy and kind of bleh.  The way I see it, if I’m too tired to cook I’ll grab a frozen dish.  If I’m too tired to also boil up the pasta to go with it, I’m probably too tired to throw a casserole into the oven. 

4.  Look ahead!  I found that as I was cooking I had some down time.  Why not get started on another recipe while you wait for meat to brown up?  Take advantage of every spare minute you have and you’ll finish ahead of schedule.  This also means reading and almost studying the instructions ahead of time.  You may be able to find shortcuts that work for you by reading everything over first.

5.  Food processor.  Amen to whomever it was that bought us the food processor as a wedding present.  I’ll admit, I don’t use it much.  Pie crust … bread crumbs … sometimes baby food, but that’s about it.  I don’t know how long it would have taken me to chop all of those vegetables.  So pay attention to the notes in the direction that denote veggies that you can use the food processor to chop.

6.  Counter space.  Room to groove meant I had a place for a soup to sit for awhile until I got the next sauce going.  Once that didn’t need my attention I could package up the soup.  I recommend using every inch of counter/table/floor space your kitchen will allow.

7.  Fast rinsing.  Do yourself a favor, rinse all those pots out ASAP before anything gets caked on!!  You know how long it would have taken to get all the broccoli cheese soup out of that pot?  If you rinse it while it’s still warm and hasn’t started to stick, it cleans in a jiffy!

8.  Parchment paper.  I recently discovered parchment paper and I’m not sure how I ever lived without it before.  It keeps everything on your cookie sheet perfectly cooked without over browning and it’s so easy to just throw it out, no clean up necessary!

We’ve got two freezer dinners on the menu for this week and we’ve been eating waffles and pop tarts galore.

I’m really encouraged by how many comments I’ve received about this both here on my blog, my lamaworks facebook fan page and my personal facebook page.  Keep them coming!  I’ll try to post again the next time I try it out.  Maybe we can all try it together!

Next on my list is once a month baby food … that is as soon as I use up the 50 bags we already have in the freezer – I’ll admit that I’m addicted to making baby food, but that’s for another post.

Thanks for reading!!!

Until the next time…
The girl behind the lama
~LMM

Once a Month Cooking–How did it go??

I would consider our first attempt at once a month cooking a success! 

If you’re looking for the recipes that we went with check out this post.

First thing Friday morning I loaded 8 chicken breasts into the slow cooker so that by the time we started at 7 I had that ready to be cubed.  You have no idea how much time this alone saved!  So much easier than cubing the chicken … then sautéing.  Great idea!

Throughout the day I got all of the vegetables chopped.  All but the asparagus could be finely chopped, which meant I could make good use of the food processor.  With a zip, zip, zip I had 3 onions, 2 carrots, 2 heads of garlic and 4 heads of broccoli chopped.  That took maybe 30- 40 minutes?

We finished dinner and my hubby got the kitchen spotless and ready to go.  We started right around 7. I did a majority of the cooking and he followed me around stealing my dirty dishes and packaging up the stuff to freeze.  He was also on baby duty and managed to wash a load of diapers, give the kiddo a bottle and get him down for the night.  I truly couldn’t have done it without him. He had my pots clean before I even realized I needed for another dish. He also kept things moving into the freezer to cool, then into labeled bags to freeze. 

I got the beef going for the taco sleeping bags and taco pasta while he got the baby ready for bed and make the Teriyaki chicken.  While that was cooking up I got the batter all set for the waffles.  With the waffle batter done I finished up both the taco dishes. Delish!  We had already made both of these earlier in the week so we knew they were good.

While Andrew got those packed up and started making the waffles, I got the broccoli soup going.  I added a bit extra cheese to the soup, but I grew up in Wisconsin, I add extra cheese to everything.  At this point it was 8:00, only one hour in!

Broccoli soup was easy enough, and the chicken chili was even easier!  Dump all ingredients into pot, simmer for 20 minutes!  Chili was a little spicy for my liking, but I think a good dollop of sour cream will take it down a bit.

While that simmered away I made the pesto.  I don’t make pesto enough, and I should because I grow bushels of herbs in the summer.  I’ve never had one made with asparagus, and it actually was pretty tasty!

Not much left after that!  We threw together the artichoke sundried tomato chicken pasta minus the sundried tomatoes because I realized mine were really old and way past the point that I could rehydrate them.  We decided we’d just freeze as is and mix it with pasta sauce when we ate it later.

I’m pretty sure Andrew was still working on waffles at this point.  I kept walking past the waffle iron and couldn’t wait to try one.  It make the kitchen smell like a snicker doodle cookie.  YUM!  We had some for breakfast this morning and they were delish!

We closed the night with some pop tarts that I forgot to take pictures of.   I filled the pop tarts with peach butter and apple butter that I made last fall and man, are they good!

We made all 10 recipes in about 2.5 hours.  We ended up making 13 dinners, 7 lunches and about 14 breakfasts.  Not bad for a Friday night hey?

More to come later on my thoughts on the whole process … for another post!

Think you’ll try it?

Until the next time …
The girl behind the lama
~LMM

Once a Month–Let’s Go!

So earlier this week I posted a bit about once a month cooking.  I’ll admit, I’m intrigued.  I cook a lot, so I don’t feel like I need to cook all of my food for the month, but it sure would be handy to have a bunch of meals in the freezer for those days that I just don’t want to cook or when I have a friend or family member that needs an extra meal.

We tried a few recipes last weekend and they were a hit! 

So here we go!  We are using 9 of the recipes from the April OAMC menu and one from last August because I couldn’t resist:

• Teriyaki Honey Chicken
• Taco Pasta
• Broccoli, Ham and Cheese Roll
• Asparagus Pesto
• Baked Chicken Penne with Artichokes and Sundried Tomatoes
• Chicken Salsa Chili
• Broccoli Cheese Soup
• Tacos in a Sleeping Bag
• Honey-Yogurt Waffles
• Homemade Pop Tarts

So last night I did a little grocery shopping – total cost?? $120

That’s right, $120!  Out of this cooking adventure I should be able to make 14 dinners, about 2 weeks worth of lunches and about a month’s worth of grab and go breakfasts for the two of us.  Officially each recipe is supposed to make 2 dinners for a family of 4.

I cannot tell you how much I love this website!  The organization of how the meals and ingredients are chosen, the grocery lists, the step by step instructions, the “how to” instructions are just all fantastic!

So here we go!  I *think* I can do all of this cooking in about 4 hours.  The hubby and I are looking forward to a fun date night cooking together!  Who says you need to go out to have fun?  Why not a night in the kitchen?

Stay tuned for a review of what actually happened!!

Until the next time …
The girl behind the lama
~LMM

Maybe a new way to look at cooking?

I love to cook for my family.  Love, love, love!  Not every day though.  So what do we do on those days that I just don’t want to cook?  We go out to eat.  We order pizza.  We stare longing in the fridge just hoping that something will magically appear. Let’s face it.  Options one and two cost money and option three will probably lead to options one or two.  We are not unlike many families that are trying to live on a budget so going out to eat every time I don’t want to cook is just bad for the budget.

Today I happened to stumble upon a website called Once A Month Mom.  I actually found it when I was looking for new baby food recipes, but I think I’m going to use it more for big people food.  Each month she posts about 15-20 recipes.  The theory is that you shop throughout the month for the ingredients you need and cook all day (or over the course of two days) to have all these meals ready to go.  She plans the menus seasonally so a fair number of ingredients should be on sale during that particular month.

Now, it’s designed for two people to cook together.  Two people split the cost of the food and spend a day or two working together and at the end of it, each of you has 15-20 meals that will feed your family of 4.  Genius! It’s not enough to feed your family every night of the month but it’s definitely enough to keep you going on those days you’re just too busy or too tired to cook.

What I really love is the organization of her recipes.  She not only has a spreadsheet for you to keep track of the food you need and how much you spent on it, but her instructions are fabulous!  She optimizes everything from the order in which you chop the vegetables to the order in which you cook things. Example, you’re making Taco Sleeping Bags (a nifty taco hot pocket to pop in the microwave for lunch) and Taco pasta.  Make all the taco meat together, kill two birds with one stone!

Did I also mention that she also has labels you can slap on your freezer bags to remind you of what is is and how to reheat it??

I’m not ready to dive right in quite yet but I did test out a few of the ideas.  The Taco Sleeping Bags were a huge hit for lunch today!  I also made the taco pasta sauce.  I’m thinking I’ll freeze the sauce and while I reheat it make the pasta.  I personally have never been able to freeze pasta without it coming out all mushy.  So that cooking took me about 30 minutes and included 3 lb of beef, 2 packets of taco seasoning, 3 tubes of crescent rolls, a can of tomato sauce and a can of diced chilis.  What did I get?  Enough taco sleeping bags for 4 lunches and a meal of taco pasta. 

This might be my solution to having quick breakfasts, lunches, and a few meals in the freezer ready for me when I’m just too tired to cook.

Think you’ll try it??

Until the next time …
The girl behind the Lama
~LMM

Introducing ….

The first 3 Envelopements invitation suites available through LamaWorks!!   I’d like to introduce you to ….

Pamela and George

Elizabeth and Philip

and Aubrey and Isiah

Step one was to convert all of my current listings to the new paper and pricing.  Step two is to sort through all of the Envelopments templates and figure out which ones I have the fonts for.  There are plenty more to come! 

I’ve got my design and parts kits so I can start to get together my own designs soon.  My hope is to have some ideas done by the end of the week, order the paper while I’m gone for Easter and get some new listings up at the end of the month!

What do you think???

Until the next time…
The girl behind the lama
~LMM