not your mama's southern cooking

Parmesan Knots

2009-09-20T09:56:00.003-05:00

I am a lover of bread and always have been, so when a soon to be in law posted on facebook that she had just made parmesan knots and they were delicious... I was very intrigued. I looked the recipe up and when I saw they were made with canned biscuits I was very excited. I had not-so-recently bought a TON of canned biscuits because they were on sale plus coupon. The only problem was they were in cans of 8... and there is only two of us. So I had been saving them for recipes... recipes which I had not tried looking for because I have so many other things going on.

The original recipe is on allrecipes.com and makes 60 knots. I scaled it down quite a bit, but it did say they freeze/reheat wonderfully if you want to go ahead and make 60.

Parmesan Knots
allrecipes.com - with slight changes

one 16.something oz can of Grands Buttermilk biscuits (8 biscuits)
3 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon evoo
1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons parmesan (shaker parm)
1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
pepper

preheat oven to 450*

cut each biscuit in half, roll each half out into a 6-8 inch rope, tie in a knot, set on baking sheet/stone. mix the rest of the ingredients.

here is where my recipe differs from theirs - theirs says to bake the biscuits and THEN brush on the mix. i brushed on the mix, baked and then made another batch of mix and brushed on again. do which ever you like. I can only attest to my method and I was very pleased with my results.

Either way, they bake for about 10 minutes, watch for browning around 8 minutes and take them out a little early if necessary.

~~~~~

These were SO good. You could of never guessed that they were made from biscuits. This recipe is one of those that transforms something everyday into something totally different. It's also very easy and very addicting. I made 16, planned on freezing the leftovers and there were only 6 left over!

Camera phone picture - sorry!! I'm pretty certain I accidentally threw my camera battery charger away....

Spin Off

2009-09-20T09:55:00.002-05:00

My go to beer bread recipe is wonderful. But like everything else, it gets old after a while. Its just so darn easy to whip up though, so I thought I would put a spin on it and create something new.

I was inspired by this recipe, but just did not have the time or ingredients to make biscuit dough from scratch.

Bacon Cheddar Beer Muffins
recipe by me, inspired by TPW

2 and 2/3 a cup self rising flour
one 12 oz beer (i always use michelob ultra when making bread)
half pound bacon, fried and roughly chopped
1 and 1/2 cup shredded sharp cheddar

preheat the oven to 375*

spray 12 muffin wells with non stick cooking spray

mix all ingredients with a rubber spatula, being sure to scrape the bottom so there isn't any dry flour. divide the mixture evenly into the 12 muffin wells. bake for 25 minutes. let them cool a little in the muffin wells, and then "flip" them onto their side in the well to cool a little longer. best eaten warm.

~~~~~

These were really good! A great spin off!

Bring it on!

2009-09-12T15:10:00.006-05:00

It's the most wonderful time of the year!! There are ref's that are yelling and kitchens are smelling and every one's telling you be a good cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer..... it's the most wonderful time OF THE YEARRRRRR!!!

Football season, baby. Bring on the yummy hand foods. This one is a sweet dish, because that is what I crave lately. Sweets. My thighs are so happy. So happy that they are beginning to share the wealth with my calves. I would be concerned if I could see either of them.

Best Ever Apple Dip
recipe courtesy of a friend

8 ounces cream cheese (whipped is easiest to work with)
1 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 bag heath bits

Cream the first 3 ingredients with a hand mixer on low speed until combined. Pour in the bag of heath brickle and mix on low speed until combined. Refrigerate.

~~~~~

This dip is awesome. I'm not just saying that because I'm pregnant. I had it before I was pregnant and loved it then too. I also think adding some mini chocolate chips couldn't hurt!

Best Yet!

2009-08-12T17:48:00.000-05:00

I'm still learning but picked up a GOOD tip today in grocery shopping. Really stock up on "money making" items. Meaning items where the coupon discount is for more than you are actually paying for that item. That will put you in the negative and you'll have to use "filler items" to bring you back to the positive, aka - FREE GROCERIES!

I literally had ten minutes and 9 dollars for today's Publix trip and I plan on going back Sunday or Monday when I will have more time and can take advantage of the penny item, which I never get to do because I am always so impatient about going to the grocery and seeing how much I can save. Since we are back on the full side in our stockpile I can focus more on buying only the deals and trying to beat my best savings. This weeks best deal for our family was the Beneful dog food. The 3.5 pound bags were bogo making them $2.74 and I had 5 coupons worth $3.50 each, meaning that each coupon would put me negative $1.50. I actually got paid to buy dog food, and when you have to feed an 80 pound rottweiler... well, you can imagine how thrilling that may be. I really could of saved even more if I had of "bought" a couple more bags of dog food, but live and learn.

Once again, I only bought what was on sale and had a coupon for everything but the bread. My bread coupon was for bunny bread and they didn't carry bunny. Is that odd to anyone else but me? Our Piggly Wiggly carries bunny bread but I hate shopping where coupons aren't doubled. It seems like a waste to me. But if Publix doesn't carry the bread, I don't want the coupon to expire so I will probably use it at the Pig sometime. Luckily Sara Lee bread was on advantage buy making it cheaper than the other brands by $0.20

5 3.5 pound bags of Beneful dog food
4 packs of Knorr pasta/rice sides
2 boxes general mills cereal
2 loaves Sara Lee white wheat bread

Can you believe that without sales or coupons that little bit of groceries would of cost me $49.08??? Instead it only cost me $8.37 which is an 87% savings! If I had of picked up 5 more bags of dog food my total would of been under $1. I'm not too bright, am I? :)

Eat Fresh

2009-08-01T11:43:00.004-05:00

And I don't mean at subway. I love seafood, we both do. But store bought just usually isn't as good as eating it at the beach. My father in law recently went deep sea fishing and his team caught an enormous amount of fish. He gave us some fresh amberjack steaks to tide us over until the big fish fry and we could not of been more excited!!

Fresh is the way to go, it was so mild, so light, not at all fishy. Bradley blackened it with our new favorite blackened seasoning recipe and we paired it with a simple baked potato. It was a great summer dinner!

Blackened Seasoning Recipe
found here

2 teaspoons ground paprika
4 teaspoons dried leaf thyme
2 teaspoons onion powder
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons black pepper
1 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper, or to your taste (we used ground red pepper)
1 teaspoon dried leaf oregano
3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Combine all into a ziploc bag or jar, seal, shake to combine. This makes a good bit - but you'll be thankful! Pat seasoning onto all sides of rinsed fish and blacken!

The way we blacken fish is to heat a cast iron skillet outside on the grill burner. You want it to get it really steaming. Then drop in a tablespoon or two of butter and when it melts lay the fish down into the pan. Watch the sides, when they start getting cooked through, flip and finish the job.

It's easy to over cook fish, especially when your pan is THIS hot! So keep a watchful eye!

three's a crowd

2009-08-01T11:14:00.002-05:00

For some strange reason I thought it would be wise to hit up three stores for their sales in one day. And actually it wasn't even a day, it was after work. I will never do that again. The main reason being that once it was all said and done, I didn't see a big enough savings in adding an additional grocery store to my trip.

First up was Walgreen's. I was actually very excited about adding the walgreen's into my trip... until I read Publix sale ad and saw that most of the things on my walgreen's list were actually cheaper at Publix. My list of about 10 items dwindled down to 3, only one of which was on sale and the other two I had coupons for. I still did good, but it was thanks to my large discount coupons and not the sales. Doubt I will be going back. I bought Cascade gel which was on sale for $3.99 (discount of $1.50) two twix bars and an old spice deodorant. I had a 3 $1 coupons making my total $5.80 with a savings of $4.50.

I think the deciding factor in my "let's go to three stores!" idea was the face that we had been living off our stockpile and pretty much depleted it. We were out of everything. Literally I do not know what we would of eaten for dinner had I not gone to the store, and we still need a few things, but they either weren't on sale or I didn't have a coupon for them so they can wait until next week.

Winn Dixie was next. This is my opinion, "their sales... are not sales". At least not compared to Publix. Everything I bought was on sale except for one thing and I had a coupon for the full price so that doesn't count. I had a coupon for 7 of the on sale items and my total still shocked me. I will list out what I bought, since it wasn't that much:
2 packs of cole's garlic toast
2 big tubs of yoplait yogurt
2 tubs of breakstone's sour cream
3 16 slice packs of kraft singles
2 packs of ball park franks
2 packs of plumrose bacon
2 hillshire farms deli meats
3 martha white muffin mixes
cascade rinse agent
2 Tennessee pride pre-cut sausage patties
1 macaroni grill box dinner
2 bags of lays potato chips

My total was $53.29 and I saved $28.57, $18.73 in store savings and $9.84 in coupons.

Publix... ahhhhh! I wish I had of taken a picture of my buggy.... geez louise. Even the under carriage thingy was full. The cashier actually asked me how many people were in my house. But I got some awesome steals. Pop tarts were pretty much free when I combined a target coupon and a manufacturer's coupon, I got a free degree deodorant with a target coupon and I had several free coupons for baby items. Sadly I do not know my exact savings amount because she tore my receipt in the middle of my coupons. But I think it was $89.something and I spent $151.16. Much better!!!

Our pantry and fridge and even toiletries are well stocked back up now and I totally learned my lesson with taking on too much.

CVSaving

2009-07-28T17:14:00.000-05:00

I've been trying my hand at CVS sales for a little while. Nothing major. Today I actually learned alot from my CVS trip. The most important thing being to READ FINE PRINT on the ECB earning. Most earnings are one per card. Now I'm not going to cheat the system and get multiple cards, but I definitely would not of bought an additional razor if I had of realized before hand that I was only going to get 2 ecb's and not 4. Either way I only paid $5 for a $10 razor.... but still. Next time I will know!
The second thing I learned is to go to the little hub that scans your card and prints out any coupons you have waiting to be used as soon as you walk in. I was all depressed because my $5 off $25 coupon expired on 7/23 but a new one printed out when I scanned my card! Yay!! I was hoping for a neutrogena coupon I had misplaced to print out, but I guess it had already expired as well.

I purchased:

one 12 pack coca cola
one 12 pack sprite
two twelve packs 12oz dasani
one Schick quattro for men
one Schick quattro for women
one Aussie shampoo
one Aussie conditioner
two Colgate 360 toothbrushes
one Colgate total advanced toothpaste
two Irish springs 3 pack soap bars
one Palmolive dish soap
one neutrogena mascara
one neutrogena lipstick
one gallon milk
one Gillette fusion for men shave gel

total (with tax) before any sales, coupons or ecb redemption - $101.90
total (with tax) after sales, coupons and ecb redemption - $46.58

I saved 54%! I know that is a good thing, but I just feel like it could of been more. Do any of you have tips on working the CVS sales ad? What is your average savings at CVS?

My next venture is to try out the Walgreen's sales. I have NEVER sale shopped there but they had some good deals that matched up with my coupons, so I plan on trying them out Friday. Woo Hoo Friday night out on the town - saving! Ha!!

Be Prepared!

2009-07-23T19:20:00.004-05:00

Always makes me think of the Lion King song. Where Scar is singing with the laughing hyenas. Tee he he.

Anyway - Now that I have a baby on the way quick and easy dinners have been at the top of my list. Not only in the here and now when I am too tired to cook my usual over the top dinners, but for when we bring home our son. Something that can be made in minutes and is easy enough that Bradley won't freak out when I ask him to make it.

When I was little, mom use to make me "philly cheese and noodles". (I was actually in college before I was told that cream cheese was not called "philly cheese") Well these days there are tons of flavored cream cheeses out there. From sweet to savory. Two new kinds were introduced this summer, one of those being spinach and artichoke.

Bradley loves spinach and artichoke dip. So I bought it. I actually bought it when I was still battling nausea and I was nauseous when I bought it so just looking at the tub made me feel nauseous again. The pregnancy brain is an odd creature. But today I decided to bite the bullet, open the tub and make philly cheese and noodles.

Talk about quick AND easy!! This takes all of ten minutes. I boiled three servings of small sea shells in salty water, drained them and returned them to the warm pot. Then I scooped out a little less than half the tub, and stirred the pasta until the cheese melted and covered the noodles. I then stirred in a splash of milk to keep it from setting back up. There were actually big pieces of spinach and artichokes in the cheese, not just tiny specks.

Next time you're at the store pick up a savory blend that catches your eye and try it out. I promise you won't be disappointed!

Blog Number 2

2009-07-15T20:45:00.001-05:00

it might explain my current lack of enthusiasm for blog number 1

www.travismakes3.blogspot.com

weekly publix trip

2009-05-27T21:10:00.001-05:00

this week I needed a LOT - so I knew my ticket would be expensive but I still expected to get a lot and save a lot. I did both and my ticket was cheaper than it normally would of been. The BEST deal I found, and this was just luck, was that the b/s chicken breasts were on sale for $3.99 a pound.... but my publix (trussville) had them priced $1.99 a pound!! They even had them under a sign that said $3.99. I didn't say anything so go get you some extra cheap chicken before they notice. I should of bought more than 3 packs....

Some of my favorite deals this week were:

French's yellow mustard - BoGo - regular $1.39 after a coupon for each - FREE!

Taco bell home orignals dinner kit - BoGo - regular $2.69 after a coupon for each - $0.34

Kraft Mac n Cheese (blue box) - BoGo - regular $1.19 after a B3G1 coupon - $0.44

Uncle Ben's Country Inn rice - BoGo - regular $1.49 after a coupon for each - $0.25

I could just tell you my total and my savings.... but you wouldn't get a very good idea of how much I actually got (and I'm trying to get some friends on the bandwagon) so I'm going to list it out.....

2 bags Alexia frozen parmesan potatoes (delish, btw!)
philadelphia spinach artichoke cream cheese
2 18 count kraft cheese slices
2 8oz blocks Cabot cheese
3 packs boneless pork chops
3 packs boneless skinless chicken breasts
3 packs ground beef
2 pack oscar meyer bun length hotdogs
6 pack vienna sausages (for bradley.... im not THAT pregnant - yet)
4 can hunts tomato paste
8 cans hunts tomato sauce
2 shakers weber grill spices
2 bottles heinz vinegar
handle of publix veg oil
2 taco bell dinners
2 frenchs mustard
5 lb domino sugar
2 uncle bens rice
4 kraft mac n cheese
1 pack peanut butter chips ahoy (pregnant)
2 50 count boxes ziploc gallon storage bags
one clorox ready mop refill
1 4 pack of fresh corn on the cob
1/4 watermelon (pregnant)
publix white bread
publix hot dog buns
2 bags baked lays
publix tortilla chips
24 pack aquafina

Grand total $97.42.... savings of $48.86!!!!!!!!!!

I've only been doing this 2 weeks and so far I've spent $108.80 and saved $75.85. I think that is a GOOD DEAL!

ok im hooked

2009-05-21T17:07:00.000-05:00

A couple of months ago I decided to start clipping coupons. Well, I did, but I didn't use them in conjunction with sales, so it was depressing. I would save a little, but nothing fun. Lately coupons and saving has been the talk of the town. It seems like everyone I know has a coupon binder and only shops for items that are on sale and saves BIG. So I took the time to put together a binder and separate my coupons by month of expiration, then I matched it up with this weeks Publix sales ad and - voila!

3 - 1 pound boxes of muellers pasta
2 - 16 oz bottles of kraft dressing
2 - 16 oz bottles of kraft bbq sauce
2 - 16 oz containers breakstones sour cream
2 - 8 oz tubs kraft cream cheese
1 - 13 oz bag lays potato chips
1 - 10 oz box wheat thins
1 - 10 oz box triscuits
2 - 16 oz packages of Cole's garlic toast

All of these items were on sale, and I had a coupon for every item except the lay's chips, in some cases a coupons for each item (ie. I only had one coupon for all 3 pastas but had a coupon for each garlic toast). After the sales discounts and my vendor coupons........ my grand total was $11.38 and i SAVED $26.99!!!!!! I saved over double what I spent!!! And it's all good name brand stuff. Plus my wheels were turning, and as I was going down my grocery list I was coming up with meal ideas. Dressing as a marinade for chicken, cream cheese to make a sauce for the pasta. It is all becoming clear to me and I am definitely HOOKED!

Some highlights of my trip were -

the pasta was bogo and ended up being $0.75 a box. I had a coupon for $1 off 3 boxes so I paid $0.50 cents for three boxes, or - $0.17 PER BOX!! The boxes are regularly $1.49

the bbq sauce was bogo and ended up being $0.75 a bottle. I had a $1 off coupon for each bottle. So, these two bottles were FREE. The bottles are regularly $1.49

the cole's bread was bogo and ended up being $1.40 each. I had a $0.50 coupon for EACH package that doubled to $1, so I paid $0.40 PER PACKAGE! The packages are regularly $2.79!

The best part..... I never dug through a bunch of newspapers looking for coupons. I simply went to this website, where she has the sale ad posted for you with links to the coupons for each item. I just printed out the ones I wanted, made my list and went to the store! EASY!!!

I love this because Publix is my favorite grocery store. I despise wal mart. Publix's groceries and meats and produce are SO much better. Most people think that Publix is the highest priced grocery store around.... but you would be surprised! They also accept ALL competitor coupons. Just the other week I had a CVS coupon that entitled me to $5 off a $25 purchase, and Publix accepted it!

three quick things, ya gotta try!!

2009-01-30T07:22:00.000-06:00

first of all, for anyone who may read my blog but not my friend jaime's - the grocery game is something that really intrigues me and i plan on signing up for soon. i despise coupons...... UGH! but love saving money, and now that im buying a lot of fresh fruits and veggies for full price i need to be saving money else where. well that and the whole economy thing. basically im a sucker for easyness. go into the grocery, get what you want, get out. making a list and clipping coupons does NOT appeal to me, but its something i need to grow up and do. i dont budget and im a horrible impulse buyer. which is so not mature! i need to act my wage, so im going to use the grocery game to help me out and i wish you would, too!! ive already been clipping coupons and checking out the sales paper, and i cant wait to pick up a sunday paper for even more coupons! yay for growing up!!

number two - and this kind of ties into the grocery game and eating healthy. e-mealz.com is a co-workers sister's business. (jaime, look at the picture and guess which one, they look exactly alike!) the grocery game helps you make a list, emealz goes one step further and creates your menu!! how awesome is that!! for just $5 bucks a month, you pick your plan (points, low fat, just for two, family size, etc...) and pick your store and print out your recipes complete with grocery list. it even puts the correct price by each item!! this is also something i plan on implementing.

lastly, and not nearly as exciting as saving money and having a meal plan made for you with the push of a button..... but still tasty.... is asian pears. oh.... my.... gosh!!!! also known as (thanks to me) "appears", they are delicious bites of heaven. so juicy with a honey like sweetness. please go get one. i have found them at wal mart and publix and am totally addicted to them.

diet pizza

2009-01-29T20:11:00.004-06:00

gross, right? wrong!! :D by far one of the best pizzas i've ever eaten, i can't wait to eat the other slice for lunch tomorrow!!

i got the inspiration from this recipe

Caramelized Veggie and Goat Cheese Pizza
recipe by me, inspired by above

one precooked 4 serving whole wheat thin pizza crust (mama mary, buitoni)
1 & 1/2 cup sliced baby bella mushrooms
1 teaspoon sugar + pinch of salt
1 teaspoon evoo
2 cups thinly sliced onion (about one medium onion)
1 "cup" fresh spinach leaves - its hard to measure spinach, just get a nice handful
4 ounces reduced fat feta
1/2 to 1 whole roma tomato, thinly sliced

preheat the oven to 450*
heat a skillet and brown the mushrooms
drizzle the pizza crust with a little evoo and rub it in
crumble the feta evenly over the crust
once the mushrooms are browned, remove them from the pan and heat the oil, sugar and salt
add the onions and cook until they're see through and starting to brown, remove
add the spinach and toss around in the hot pan until it wilts
top the feta with the slices of tomato and then the rest of the veggies
be sure to cover the feta with the veggies, exposing it will make it harden
lower the heat of the oven to 425* and put the pizza in for 10 minutes
let cool and enjoy!

~~~~~

this pizza serves 4 at 400 calories a slice. that may seem like a high number for a single slice of pizza, but you are eating a quarter of the pizza and it is very filling. also verrrrrry good! the saltiness of the cheese goes perfectly with the sweetness of the veggies.

i only made half a pizza, but posted the recipe to feed 4. the other half was "meat lovers" and im sure not nearly as healthy, or good in my opinion! but bradley loved it.

patato patoto

2009-01-27T20:30:00.000-06:00

I am a carb-oholic, I would never last on atkins.

This mashed potato recipe is perfect! I subbed 1/2 cup of fat free milk for the 2 tablespoons of light sour cream and achieved great results without altering the calorie count. I left the skins on, but actually think the end result would be better without them. They all kind of clumped at the bottom of my stand mixer bowl anyway. Sprinkled lots of salt and pepper, this mashed potato recipe is not only fool proof but taste proof. You have no idea you are eating a healthy side! And with only 178 calories per 3/4 cup, you could easily sprinkle some cheese on top and not feel guilty.

I usually boil my potatoes with a chicken bouillon cube, but was running low and opted not to. I think it would of given them even more flavor, so if you have an extra one, throw it in!

Mashed Potatoes
recipe and picture courtesy of eatingwell.com

3 pounds baking potatoes (about 8 potatoes), peeled and cut into 1 1/2-inch chunks
Salt to taste
1/2 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth, heated
2 tablespoons reduced-fat sour cream
Freshly ground pepper to taste

1. Place potatoes in a large heavy pot and cover with cold salted water. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer, partially covered, until tender, 10 to 15 minutes.
2. Drain the potatoes and return to the pot. Off the heat, mash potatoes, adding enough hot broth to make a smooth puree. Stir in sour cream and season with salt and pepper.

PS - this is my 100th post; YAY!

4th and 4th

2009-01-21T20:24:00.004-06:00

Jaime tagged me to go to my fourth folder and upload my fouth picture.

I only have two picture folders, one is a catch all and one is a holding tank for blog photos. After I upload them to here I delete them to save space on this dino.

So how bout a pic from the 1st and 4th??

This is me at my fiesta wedding shower thrown by my office. This expression came with the sentence "why are you taking a picture of this??" I had spilled the drink on myself, haha!

That's a weight I wouldn't mind getting back to....... sigh!!

I tag........ amanda, je yall and annemarie

Recipe Review

2009-01-21T20:01:00.003-06:00

I have several low cal recipes book marked, and I plan to try them all and see which ones fool my husband and which ones will be filed under the "never make again it tastes like cardboard" tab. I don't wanna use the word diet here...

I eat whatever I want. Nothing is off limits. However, I only allow myself a set number of calories a day, so I have to budget them. Kinda like a bank account. Now, say I have $100 dollars to spend at the galleria. As soon as I walk in I see a shirt in the window at express and swoon and go try it on. It's $48 (and you know that's true!). As I'm walking out of the dressing room I notice the clearance rack and realize that I can get two shirts and a pair of jeans for $35. Why on earth would I blow half my money on one shirt when I could get one shirt plus an entire outfit for $13 less??? It works the same way with calories. At the end of the day, I want to come in on budget, and not overdrawn :D Sure I could have a coke, but for the same amount of calories I could have a string cheese and 16 wheat thins, with calories (money?) leftover!!

So when I saw a recipe on eatingwell.com entitled No-Bake Macaroni and Cheese, I wanted to give it a shot.

picture borrowed from foodnetwork.com who borrowed it from eatingwell.com

First of all, it should be titled Broccoli Alfredo. It in no way tastes like macaroni and cheese and if you dive in expecting it to then you might be turned off. With that aside, this is a great recipe! The recipe feeds four at 412 calories per serving, which is a little on the high side but it makes a TON and the serving size is really big. I think they intended it to be the main course, serving it as a side, you can lessen the portion and have fewer calories.

When I saw the calorie count I made one change and used fat free cheese instead, which lowered the count to 327.

Also - We tried whole wheat pasta for the first time. It has slightly fewer calories but extra good for you stuff. Well worth it. I couldn't tell a difference, and once you boil it the dark brown color fades a little. Covered in the white sauce, it looked like regular pasta.

This recipe will be tucked away for future use, filed under "Alfredo".

more, more for less

2009-01-21T17:00:00.001-06:00

Tuna salad is one of my comfort foods. Especially the way my mom use to make it, with noodles that were still kinda warm and diced cheese and pickles. Yum! The cheese would get just slightly melty. So good. I try to re-create it but Bradley is a "no noodle in my tuna" person.

While Bradley had traditional tuna salad, on wheat bread with cheese and bacon (ugh!!) I turned mine into "Tuna Noodle Salad... Salad...". This is a dish that you can play with to taste how you want. I used fat free ranch instead of mayo thinking not only would it get rid of all the calories in the mayo, but add a nice taste to the salad. Wrong. You definitely need to add spice/seasoning. I usually add dill to my tuna salad, but got in a hurry last night and forgot. So my dinner was a little bland but still worth it! Next time I'll just have to remember to add the dill!

Tuna Noodle Salad Salad
recipe by me

one serving size your choice pasta, boiled, drained, slightly cooled
1/2 cup tuna
hard boiled egg
1/4 cup fat free shredded cheese
2 tablespoons fat free ranch
add ins of your choice - dill, relish, chopped onion, chopped tomato, dash hot sauce, etc...
bed of lettuce

fork up the tuna and the egg to about the same consistency, stir in the cheese, stir in the ranch, stir in the noodles and add ins. serve atop a bed of lettuce.

~~~~~

Without any "add ins" the calorie count was 470. I ate mine with 10 saltines for an additional 120 calories. Lots of protein!! Big serving!! Also - please excuse my shabby pictures, hopefully my digital camera will turn up soon! Maybe its hiding where my coastas are hiding!!

more for less: lunch edition

2009-01-20T17:22:00.000-06:00

With the economy the way it is, gas the way it is and fast food the way it is..... it only makes sense for me to eat lunch at home. I can control the portion, I can control the calories and I get to see my puppies mid day :D

Most of the time you want lunch to be your biggest meal, because you are going back to work and using those calories for fuel, unlike dinner where you're going to sit on the couch afterwards and do a little channel surfing. But today I already knew what I was making for dinner and wanted to save my calories for that.

Last week I did a major grocery haul and cooked/prepped everything I could to make coming home for lunch quick! I bought a "family pack" of yellow squash for $4 that I sliced and browned on the nonstick griddle and stored in the fridge. I also cooked two bags of brown rice that I keep in the fridge until I need it. That way lunch is as easy as measure heat and enjoy!

So today when I stopped by the house to eat lunch and see the swearing in of America's new president, I reached in the fridge for starch and veg and to the freezer for protein. Gorton's seasoned fillets are so great and cook quickly in the toaster oven.

Brown rice really isn't that appealing to me all by itself, but I love to eat it because it keeps me full for hours. So today I added two low calorie condiments and it really impressed me! I now am a brown rice lover.

So lets count it up:

Cajun Blackened Fish Fillet - 100 calories
1 cup yellow squash - 40 calories
1/2 cup brown rice - 75 calories (mixed with the following 2 ingredients)
1 teaspoon margarine - 17 calories
1 tablespoon parmesan (the powdery stuff) - 25 calories

Now obviously the calories are slightly different depending on which brands you buy, but I'm sure this is a good estimate. That comes to a grand total of 257 calories! That is less than most lean cuisines people!! And just look at the amount of food it was:

Still hungry? Add some lettuce and low cal dressing for ~50 more calories. Still hungry? Add a clementine for dessert for 35 calories - and you're still under 350 calories for lunch. Now I know I have seen lean cuisines with a higher calorie count than that!

intervention

2009-01-19T17:30:00.003-06:00

Well its a new year.... and you know what that means! Everyone is back on their diet. This year I decided I didn't want to make a diet resolution, I wanted to make a healthy resolution. I want to be healthy. I want to be fit. I want to weigh what I weighed when I got married..... 2 and a half years ago. It was NOT that long ago, how have I gained this much weight?!?! Oh... I know how, I was eating bite for bite with my stick figure husband. Damn his metabolism!!!! So while he went to work every day and performed manual labor to sweat off what he ate last night, I set on my butt answering phones and typing binders. When I went out into the PR world last summer I thought, "Here's my chance, I can move around all day, I can resist snacking by not eating in the car, I can get up and walk around the neighborhood in the mornings since I no longer have a 45 minute commute to work." And I did all of those things..... and I gained weight. GAINED WEIGHT!!!!!!! OHHHH MYYYYY GOSHHHHH!!!

I was mad and I gave up, convincing myself that this is who I am and I'm happy. But the truth is this is not me, and I'm not happy. I mean I have never been that girl who could eat whatever she wanted and still be thin, actually I've never been "thin" but I have been healthy and a decent size before. That is all I want.

So it started small, cut out cokes and tea. Only water and lowcal milk. Easy enough. Then step two, portion control, no more second helpings!!! Little harder. Step three, actually start counting calories. Which is where the sneaky part came in. Making a little bit of food into a lot of food by adding fruits and veggies. That was easy.

In between all of this I was reading, reading and reading about what all my body needs and how many calories I need a day to lose a pound a week. I found lots of inspiration on youtube, seeing ACTUAL people with an actual need to lose weight, actually lose it. That helped a lot. Not seeing some skinny ho on the nutrisystem commercials with before pics that may or may not of been her telling me that I'm a fatty.

Now I've lost 6 pounds and I'm really starting to get excited about it. Almost instantly my face cleared up, as I had been a victim of dietary rosacea for a while. I knew exactly what was wrong with my face, but when people would ask why my cheeks were so red I would blame it on me being hot or sunburned. It was embarrassing to say, "I'm all flushed looking cause I eat pure crap".

One of my main reasons for not eating healthy was, "It's hard to be on a diet and feed your husband too, he isn't satisfied with a lean cuisine and a salad for dinner." Which is true, but this time I wasn't going to let that stop me. Now there have been nights when I had a grilled chicken salad and he dined on a chicken quesadilla AND chicken nuggets, but those are few and far between. He has been very supportive and even joked with me that, "Just because you're on a diet doesn't mean I am" as he tried my new slim version of a once calorie laden dinner.

I said all of this to say, I know I am not alone. So I am going to put this culinary brain to work and come up with some man pleasing dinners that are easy on the waistline.

The first being, taco salad. BIG on taste, BIG on portion, small on calories! And the best part, you stay full for hours, and I mean HOURS, like eat for dinner and go to sleep and wake up still full. That's what I'm talking about!!!

Taco Salad
recipe by me

cook a pound of ground turkey and then season it with taco seasoning like normal.

lay out a bed of lettuce

mix 1/2 cup of each of the following: turkey taco meat, fat free refried beans, brown rice - and kinda spread it out over the lettuce.

top with 1/4 cup of kraft fat free cheese

top with 1/4 cup rotel

top with 2 tablespoons light sour cream

sprinkle 1/2 of an avocado, diced over that

~~~~~

Now I forgot to take a picture, but this took up an entire plate and was mounded way up high. So so so good! All for 585 calories!!! It is full of protein, which keeps you fuller longer. Don't be afraid of the ground turkey, once it is seasoned and mixed with all of this, you can't tell a difference.

Now I'm off to step four.... THE GYM!! :D

Put a smile on your plate

2008-10-12T13:50:00.002-05:00

I know I saw this on some one's blog.... who saw it in some one's magazine..... but that is all I remember.

Breakfast quesadilla! It was easy to make and fun to eat, a great spin on the ordinary breakfast burrito.

I cooked bacon in the microwave, scrambled 3 eggs, and stuffed the two into flour tortillas and sprinkled the inside with cheese before folding it over and browning it in the toaster oven.

I dunked mine in homemade ranch from our local Italian dive... it was awesome! That is coming from someone who isn't really a breakfast fan much less a scrambled egg fan.

How to tell if you grew up in the country....

2008-10-12T13:48:00.001-05:00

Attention Carb Lovers

2008-10-10T17:18:00.001-05:00

You're gonna love THESE!

They bake up super crispy on the outside.... but the inside... oh man the inside... it's like mashed potatoes in there!

It is by far one of the best frozen foods I have purchased in quite some time.

Not to mention, when I googled them to get a picture for this post, I discovered they make all sorts of frozen foods. Can't wait to try some of their other stuff!

http://alexiafoods.com/index.html

Fall Dinner

2008-10-03T07:14:00.001-05:00

The ultimate fall dinner to me is a great soup with an equally great something to dip in it. Usually that is my cream of mushroom soup, but on a week night.... that doesn't work for me. Although I did use to do it while Bradley and I were dating. But I was trying to impress him and there were a lot of things I did while we were dating. Things that are now biting me in the butt. "Oh I love to clean" "No, don't you move a muscle!" "I will cook, serve you, refill your drink, take your plate away, clean the kitchen, make your lunch for tomorrow. I AM super girl"

Right.

I'm off track as usual. Back to the point. This week some weird things have been happening to me. Right when I am cooking dinner, I start feeling bad. By the time it is ready, I can't even eat. I tried to eat last night and all of it tasted really weird to me. Bradley ate all his and the other half of mine, so it was definitely just me. I thought long and hard about what I was doing different and I have been drinking a LOT of coffee now that its chilly outside and not so much water, if any. So today I am going to change that and hopefully be able to enjoy dinner tonight.

The soup was campbell's tomato - once again, wanted to make my own, time was not on my side - and the sandwich (which is really why I'm blogging this dinner) was a ham and cheese on rosemary focaccia. But the cheese was something the two of us had never eaten, it was havarti. It was really good, the package said to pair it with something sweet. The tomato soup was a little sweet but I think they meant apples or grapes. Either way it was pretty good and I'm glad I have some for sandwiches now.

I made them with just meat and cheese, I forgot to add mustard, and popped them into the toaster oven. Very easy dinner!

It's Fall, y'all!

2008-10-02T17:19:00.002-05:00

Which means it it my absolute faaaaavorite time of year!

Pumpkins, hay, cider, apples, soup, cool weather, scarfs, boots....... oh yeah, count me in.

I buy for fall all year round. I bought harvest place mats back in the summer and broke them out at the first hint of cooler weather. Don't even get me stared on all the pumpkin pie and mulled cider candles littered around the house, either.

These are so cute and versatile for the season. Because the pumpkin is just a pumpkin and not a jack o lantern, the mats can be used from mid September until Thanksgiving! And I love that they are made from a very rugged khaki linen.

Hmm.... but I don't have any Christmas place mats.....

Baptist versus Presbyterian

2008-10-01T17:20:00.000-05:00

I have always considered myself to be a covered dish baptist. Meaning that my church is a tiny church where everybody knows everybody and we look for any excuse to have everyone bring a covered dish and stay after the sermon for some good fellowship. We also don't care if you wear jeans and cowboy boots to church.

So when Bradley and I got serious and he asked me to go to his church with him.... I was a little apprehensive. What is a presbyterian? Will my church be mad? Will it un-do all my covered dish teachings?!?!

He explained to me that there were two things that made them different from my church - 1. they have chairs instead of pews. 2. there is a band in the choir loft.

So I went and he was right it was pretty much the same thing. There were bulletins, people singing hymns off key, prayer, the occasional old man nodding off and his equally old wife jabbing him in the ribs. Church is church people, I think naming them should be done away with.

But the longer we've been together and the more I've met people from his church and visited his church, I found out that there were an additional two differences he left out.

1. they don't bring covered dishes, they caravan down the road to guadalahara

2. a lot of the guys.... make their own beer. they even meet up every so often to taste each others creations.

Now I'm not implying they're meeting up and getting sloshed for Jesus. They're just good guys fellow shipping around a common hobby. What's wrong with that? Nothing.

Bradley's first attempt at making his own beer ended up as an alcohol free beer that tasted like apple juice. His second attempt worked just fine and we now are the proud owners of two cases of a "sam adams" knock off. The whole process is very interesting and it's fun to drink something that you actually brewed.

When I saw a recipe for Cheddar Ale Spread I thought of his latest creation and how neat it would be to make an appetizer that included it. This stuff is really good, addictingly good. I used spicy brown mustard instead of dijon, and actually think it could use a little more than just 2 teaspoons.

So, Jason - give Anne Marie this recipe and tell her to make it for your next get together of "sips and sermons" or "pale ales and parables"..... I could go on all night :D

I heart chips n salsa

2008-10-01T07:42:00.000-05:00

So much that I'm going to have them for dessert!!!

While the above statement is somewhat true, I put a spin on the traditional chips n salsa to make it more dessert friendly. Because only a special breed of people would actually want salty chips and spicy salsa for dessert, and just because I fall into that category doesn't mean the guests coming to my house last night would.

Last night there was a mexican theme in the Webb household. Instead of making soapapilla's for dessert, I wanted something that could be prepared ahead of time.

I took 5 taco size flour tortillas and sprayed the tops of them with a non stick cooking spray, and sprinkled cinnamon sugar on the spray. From there I cut them into triangles and spread them out on a baking stone.

They almost look like grill marks, huh?

Now they go into a preheated 350* oven for 15 minutes.

For the salsa part, I chopped kiwis and strawberries, sprinkled with sugar and let them chill in the fridge. I actually did them the night before to save time, and the kiwis lost their color. So if I were you I would chop just the strawberries ahead of time and sprinkle with sugar and right before serving, add the chopped kiwi.

Either way it plated so cute! Looked just like chips n salsa!

It tasted equally as good, just in a totally different direction!

It's official!

2008-09-26T07:20:00.000-05:00

I have taken the plunge and once again I am working two jobs. I really never thought it would happen again. But as everyone knows, the economy isn't at it's best right now, especially for those of us in the real estate industry.

However, I don't really see this new job as being a hassle. I think it is going to be awesome because I am combining two things I love most.... cooking and people!

I am now a Pampered Chef consultant!!!

I have to do 4 shows in my first thirty days. If you are reading this and you are even some what close to my area (Odenville, AL) and would like to book a party, please contact me! My email is pamperedchefdela@gmail.com and I would love to do a show for you!

Caribbean Queen

2008-09-24T07:18:00.003-05:00

Ha ha now you're gonna sing it all day!

I love to order things "jerked". I love jerk seasoning! But do you ever notice that the jerk seasoning used in restaurants is not the same thing as the jerk seasoning sold in stores? I have. I probably have 7 jerk seasonings in my cabinet searching for that one that isn't sugary but that is spicy! Haven't found it, short of making my own. Which for some reason emits high quantities of smoke while cooking.

The other day I was out working with another girl from work when she admitted to needing to stop by target for something. "Oh, me too!" I said. So we went. Now we are both big in the kitchen and are constantly swapping recipes and saying "you gotta try this". So of course we travelled over to the grocery side of target. I can honestly say that was my first time to be on that side, and I loved it! I want to redo my spice racks in their brand of spices, because of the cute little jars they come in. Not to mention they practically had a spice AISLE. I was in heaven. She was scouring the McCormick section for something. "You've just got to try it" she said, "Try what?". "It's this jerk seasoning. It's great!". I then informed her of my hunt for a spicy jerk seasoning and all of its dead ends. She assured me this one would not let me down and even though we couldn't find it in Target, I needed to find it and she would look at her local grocery for me a bottle as well.

I found it. She was right! I rubbed it on pork chops and let them hang out in the fridge for a while before Bradley threw them onto the smoker. It was spicy not sweet (even though there is sugar in the mix, it doesn't stand out as much as the heat) and I can't wait to try it out on fish! She said that if you visit McCormick's website, they have all kinds of recipes including it.

I actually just had a thought for what to do with my other too sweet jerk seasonings..... Check back this time next week to see what it was!

What is it??

2008-09-24T07:01:00.003-05:00

Mother in law and Father in law just recently spent a week in the mountains for their birthdays. They brought me back some good wine and this...

She was so excited to give it to me, saying things like "I hope y'all don't already have one". I looked at it.... and everyone waited for me to say something...

"OH!.....Is.....Is it a biscuit cutter?"

short pause

"Noooo it's to chop meat up!"

Boy, was she right! This thing is SO handy to have in the kitchen, especially since we now have a commercial barbecue pit in the back yard. You gather your cooked meat in a pile and shove this thing into it with a twisting motion. At first it doesn't really tackle the heap like expected, then out of no where, you've got a pile of perfectly chopped meat. It is such a time saver! It makes it look just like if you went to your local bbq joint and ordered a "chopped sandwich/platter". Love it!

Run for your thighs!! Its.... GRILLZILLA!

2008-09-23T20:53:00.005-05:00

Bradley's newest bob the builder escapade lead him to assist a friend in building what I like to refer to as "the biggest flippin' grill I ever did see", more affectionately known as..... GRILLZILLA.

Yes it is obnoxiously huge and yes he did have to build a new deck specifically for housing the flavor injecting beast. But that's ok because now my covered deck is going to be turned into a "tropical getaway".

I'm always trying to turn places into tropical getaways, seriously, can one of y'all just move me to the beach and call it good?? Please? My birthday is soon!!

This tropical get away isn't going to happen overnight, as patio furniture is DANG EXPENSIVE even in the off season when it is on clearance. Not to mention no where has it in the store anymore so I'm having to order it offline and pay for shipping and cross my fingers that nothing is damaged in the process. So I'm saving my pennies and if you would like to donate yours... please see me after the show. (ahem birthday soon ahem)

Where was I? Oh yeah, the big black thing in my backyard....

Anyway it came to us late Thursday night and we left a football party early on Saturday because Bradley was itching to go to the grocery store and buy large pieces of various animals to throw into its big steel belly. FEED THE BEAST! FEED THE BEAST!

Let the marination process commence!

And it was good. Sunday was spent "smoking" and not the wacky tabacky kind. (can you tell its past my bedtime?) He cooked a slab of ribs that looked like they were from a rhino.... or maybe an elephant, pork chops (that I rubbed with a new spice mix a friend told me about, don't worry I'll show you later) and an entire chicken. En......tire.....chicken. Remember Magda from There's Something About Mary? hehe That's what Mr Chicken looked like when he checked out of Hotel Grill-ifornia.

Of course we couldn't eat all that Sunday night, so we've spent this week finding new ways to enjoy smoky food. All jokes aside that thing makes some great food! The chicken was turned into chicken tacos last night and chicken nachos tonight. Both equally amazing.

Nothing special, just chips, chicken, rotel, corn, cheese and a spicy sour cream sauce I made up.

Take sour cream, mix in taco seasoning (to taste), mix in juice from rotel until it is a little runny and you are able to "drizzle" it on things like tacos and nachos.

YUM!

i love ya to (center)pieces!

2008-09-23T20:46:00.004-05:00

Last week I hosted a girls night in, with my two best friends. One I've known since kindergarten and beyond, the other stepped into my life around 8th grade. Both changed me for the better.

We had salad, bread sticks, chicken and pasta with tomato cream sauce, brownie sundaes, good wine, LOTS of laughter and some great catching up.

I wanted something girly and fun for our centerpiece that included fresh flowers. I'm addicted to glassware (I'll have to show you sometime) so I chose three pretty glasses and floated flower buds in them.

from my kitchen to your.... computer screen!

2008-09-11T16:43:00.000-05:00

My blog has been in the operating room and has emerged with a face lift. I kinda like it, but at first thought it was giving everything a yellow tint. So I decided to do some back reading to see if other posts/pictures looked yellow.

I stumbled across posts from when we had just moved in (January '08) and lots of empty house pictures. I then saw where I had promised pictures of my unpacked kitchen.... and never came through.

I'm glad I didn't though because it is just now to my standards. The only thing else I might want for it is a rooster picture, and I have been shopping carefully for the perfect one. I look everywhere I go.

My "theme" is warm neutral colors accented with fire engine red and black, peppered with roosters. I don't want my kitchen to turn into a junk haven, I just want a few rooster pieces. Right now I have a hanging iron rooster, a candle holder rooster for the table (which matched my place mats perfectly, accidentally!), a platter from belk that was marked down - put on sale - and I had a coupon for grand totaling a whopping 8 bucks and lastly, a statue rooster I found at Ross that was on clearance. I'm through with roosters, except for the picture. It will go where the fleur de lis "clock" is that never worked and I'm going to try and convert the "clock" into a trivet.

Yes, it is always this clean. Except for Sunday mornings during football season. After 12+ straight hours of football and snacks, all I want to do is go to bed while visions of Arenas and Tebow dance in my head. "I'll do it in the morning" I say.... every time.

For before pics, please visit here.

trying to be healthy....

2008-09-11T07:30:00.000-05:00

Doesn't always work out like you want it to.

I bake a lot of things that Bradley would fry, around here. Frozen french fries, frozen chicken fingers, frozen hush puppies. So when I decided to make chicken fingers myself and bake them I figured they would turn out like the frozen ones do.

Not exactly. They were good, but they didn't brown and had a very dry crust. I love to eat chicken fingers without needing to dip them in something, and these required a dip. All we had was ranch, but I would of preferred a parmesan based dressing for these "Italian Chicken Fingers".

Basically I used the pork chop recipe but replaced the chops with chicken tenders. I want to do it again because it was something new and tasty to perk up boring old chicken, but I guess I will have to shallow fry them.

And yes I admitted to Bradley that I was wrong and he was right in asking me to fry them.

See this picture? It's of three chicken fingers and they just look like one big blob. There is no definition of color. No browning around the edges.

I served it alongside my presto pasta entry and it made for a good dinner. Good not great.

feels like home to me

2008-09-11T07:00:00.001-05:00

I'm getting more and more comfortable in this new house. It was hard, even though I griped that our old house was too small, I loved it. It felt like home. There were tall tall trees in the yard, a back deck that looked straight into more tall tall trees and the inside was just like I wanted it. Except for the whole no dishwasher thing.

Even though now that we have one, I still find myself handing washing the dishes because I forget I have one.

We, like I'm sure most people who move do, still have boxes that need to be unpacked. Mostly picture frames. I'm not big on displaying portraits all over the house, especially if they are of people in a studio, yeck. Go outside for pete's sake, it's free out there!!!

But there was one picture I missed seeing around the house and that was our wedding signature picture. Or whatever they are called. I missed reading all the cute things it said. I missed seeing that picture of us just hours after we said "I do" and the glowing smiles we had. I can look at that picture and relive that night. I'll never forget it. I remember every detail, right down to the wine glasses of Jane and Greg's that they were sipping from. Love like that is what truly makes a house a home.

So Bradley bought me a little black shelf, hung it in the hall and I set the picture and our cake topper on it(It's a "W" I'm in love with them, they are everywhere here). Perfect!

I have a bad addiction to design shows, and when the "Top 20 design mistakes" came on.... I was front and center. When they get to the number about "no fake flowers" I thought to myself, "Yeah why don't people just buy their favorite flower, plant it and have an endless supply of fresh flowers to display??".

Then it hit me..... I have four big flower bushes overflowing with big orange and pink blooms. I've had them all summer but it never occurred to me to showcase them around the house. So outside I went to collect the prettiest 8 blooms (4 of each color). I battled a weird looking green spider that we won't discuss.... and ended up with 4 pretty little bowls of flowers. One for the kitchen table, one for the coffee table, one for the guest bath and one for my pretty new shelf.

This house isn't so bad, after all :D

Oh and now that I realized you could bring flowers inside.... and summer is over.... what kind of flowers do best during the fall months?

Don't even get me started on fall either..... fall really feels like home to me. Open windows.... billowing curtains.... pumpkins.... apples.... football and the voice of Eli Gold.... hay rides.... and my new harvest theme place mats I bought over the summer!!! I can't WAIT to use them!!!

My "Presto Pasta Nights" Entry

2008-09-09T21:27:00.005-05:00

When I saw this fun little blog-test I didn't scour my arsenal looking for the best recipe. I didn't stay up late thinking about ingredients. I didn't do any of the weird obsessive things I usually do when I am submitting a recipe for the world to see.

Why?

Because this summer I accidentally created my new comfort food recipe. It's nothing fancy. It's not gourmet. It is simply a way to use up all those awesome veggies from the farmer's market. There are no measurements, because you can make it for one or for one hundred and one (Dalmatians).

But it is something that you need to try, and therefore, I'm sending it in.

Presto Pasta Nights was the idea of Ruth over at Once Upon a Feast. It started in March of 07 and now here I am, over a year later, entering a dish.

Summer Pasta
recipe by me

ready cut macaroni - or whichever pasta you are currently in love with
butter
parmesan
evoo
zucchini - cut into half moons
yellow squash - cut into whole moons
vidalia onions - i cut mine into rings
minced garlic

boil the pasta in salted water. drain. while it's still hot toss with butter and parmesan.
heat evoo in a large skillet. add veggies. saute until they reach your favorite stage of done-ness.
add garlic and cook for an additional 30 seconds to a minute.
toss with pasta.
sprinkle top with parmesan.

~~~~~

So there you go. A very simple, very versatile, but still very delicious summer pasta dish.

(sauteed onions not pictured. please refer to the "chick food" post)

po'kchop po'kchop greasay greasay.......

2008-09-09T20:49:00.003-05:00

we think yo (fill in the blank)'s E-ZZZY E-ZZZY

The above chant is all the more reason why children should be home schooled. I learned that in first grade.... and we put "mama" in the blank.

But for real I just figured out WHY a first grader should not be singing it. Innocent mind...... hmm hm hmm...... where's that halo....

No really, I'm just blonde.

Now.... much, much later.... I sing it every time we have pork chops. Bradley even quit looking at me weird, he is use to it.

This is a very easy yet VERY scrumptious Giada recipe that I discovered a while back and we have it a lot for dinner. Might I add, you want to shallow fry in evoo. Your canola oils and veggie oils collect under the crust and that is just no fun at all. Evoo gives you a drier fry.

I made that up, but it's true!

Giada's pork chop recipe can be found HERE and it is tried and true! I usually buy butterflied pork chops and then finish splitting them, but any ol' chop will do!

What I really wanted to talk to you about was my new favorite side dish. Grits! They're not just for breakfast people. You can mix anything in there. Treat them like you would mashed potatoes. Wanna mix in corn, cumin, cilantro and a lil lime juice? You can. Wanna mix in cheese and bacon? You can. Wanna mix in sardines and anchovies? You can, I won't judge you.

I won't come near you..... but I won't judge you.

For this meal, I added in mozzarella cheese. Some halved cherry tomatoes and parsley would of been great mixed in, but you know what? I'm married and that's chick food. So... there you go.

My other side dish was canned asparagus (love!) tossed with lemon juice, minced garlic, salt and fresh ground black pepper. This, apparently, is not chick food.

Take note.

becoming a home....

2008-09-05T07:00:00.001-05:00

This is my guest room

I want to make it into a "guest suite"

I do not know why. We've been living together for almost three years and so far we've had two people stay the night at the old house (that ended up falling asleep in the floor watching movies) and one stay the night here (and hes young and was just happy to spend the night away from home).

But maybe it is because we never had a guest suite to sweeten the deal.

I can see it now.......

*que harp*

*computer screen goes hazy and clears up to two people sitting at their kitchen table enjoying morning coffee and planning their holiday visiting*

"you know honey we should really go visit all our family in St Clair county."

"i do miss them so, but with gas so high we cant afford to drive all the way there and then stay in a hotel and eat out at expensive restaurants just to be near family"

"well i heard that deLa and bradley just finished their guest suite. you know they love to cook so we wouldn't go hungry"

"oh honey that is an excellent idea! i love you! let's never stay in a hotel again!!!!"

*back to reality*

SEE! This is what I'm missing out on with my messy guest room. No house guests!

I know what I want to do.... it is just putting it into action. The bedding is taken care of, it will be our old bedding ensemble:

So that is taken care of. Then I want a little reading area with a comfy chair and a small table and lamp. That will be in front of the window. I also want a bookshelf to put a tv/dvd player and house lots of DVDs and books if the guests need some time to themselves.

I also want one of those things in hotels that you set your suitcase on.

But I have one problem...... the room needs to be painted. I want it to be a color that is VERY calming and soothing. Something that will make them feel at home.

What color makes you feel comfortable and relaxed?? Please tell me!

Our bedroom is painted a grayish brownish blueish color. It was supposed to be chocolate milk color. I already know it goes with the bedding, should I just use that?

What amenities would you want to have while you were away from home? Anything else I need to add to my guest suite?

I need to know what you think, and you need to tell me.... because, who knows... YOU may be my first house guest!

Can't leave well enough alone....

2008-09-04T07:31:00.001-05:00

Every couple of months I go on grocery shopping frenzies. It usually starts out with good intentions, just going to the store for a few things totalling under $20 dollars. Then I see something I like.... and something else.... and then it is all over.

See I can't knowingly spend lots of money on groceries. It hurts me. I know we have to eat, but I would much rather spend my money on fun stuff, like clothes or shoes. So I have to trick my self into accidentally grocery shopping. In between those times I drop under $20 dollars a week on stuff we run out of and desperately need (read: cheese and bacon and coke zero) at the grocery. This goes on for months.

Well this weekend I had one of "those" shopping trips. I found a new product I wanted to try and it was all down hill from there. I was meal planning like crazy. The product was a macaroni grill chicken helper type thing. I thought, "Yum macaroni grill how bad can it be?!"

I was right! But was it their fault.... or mine??

I tried the above version first. It was a basil alfredo sauce with chicken, noodles and sun dried tomatoes. Ok Bradley is not going to eat sun dried tomatoes. So I omitted those. Plus I only like them on salads, so tata matoes. Then I read the directions. "Brown chicken in butter". That's it? No seasoning?

No no no. Step back macaroni grill... let me handle this.

I chunked up chicken tenderloins and tossed them with a generous amount of italian seasoning. Heated up a few tablespoons of butter with some evoo and cooked my chicken.... all the way through because it wanted you to finish cooking them in the sauce and that's just gross. I also sauteed some onions and baby bella mushrooms in evoo and italian seasonings, and fried some bacon. I mixed the mushrooms and onions with the chicken, sauce and noodles, and topped the dish with crumbled bacon and parmesan cheese.

It was SO good! I guess I can't take any credit for the sauce, I mean right out of the box it was good. It was almost like a pesto alfredo sauce. I asked bradley if he thought it would of been just as good if I had of just made it like the box wanted me to and he said, "I don't want to think about it!"

Smells Like Fall....

2008-09-03T16:18:00.002-05:00

After buying a lot of granny smith apples, even though I knew I have a slight allergy to them (in "raw" form), and eating two and my bottom lip swelling way up.... I knew I had to find a good recipe to use the rest of them.

My favorite accompaniment to a granny smith apple is caramel. I thought back to my caramel apple pie and thought about making one of those, but wanted something easier, with ingredients found in my kitchen and a little lighter!!

My original baking experiment was with this recipe. Don't get me wrong.... GREAT recipe! But you need to make them with cupcake liners, because the heavy caramel chunks sink to the bottom and glue the muffins to the pan. Ok.... plan B.....

I modified and halved the recipe to make 24 mini muffins - sans caramel.

"Fall is So Close" Apple Muffins
adapted from the recipe above

1 cup self rising flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 & 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1/8 cup butter, melted
1 & 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
2 small granny smith apple, peeled and diced (i used a hand chopper)

preheat your oven to 350*

mix the first 4 ingredients and set aside. in a new bowl mix the milk and egg, add the butter and vanilla. Pour into the dry ingredient bowl and mix. Stir in apples. Pour into mini muffin tin and bake for 16 minutes or until bottoms are golden.

~~~~~

The batter is soupy and doesn't do a lot of rising, so fill the hollows up! The end result is very good and reminds you of being outside at Halloween and smelling fresh apples. Or it does me anyway!

party party party

2008-09-03T15:23:00.002-05:00

My kitchen has not recovered from hosting 2 parties this weekend. One Friday night and another Saturday night. Sunday it was ignored as we shopped for labor day sales and it was again ignored on Monday as we played with the toys we bought on Sunday. Tuesday was another off day and I used it to clean up. But then I baked and Bradley took over cooking up a batch of home brewed Samuel Adams. Then of course we made dinner. So I began tackling the project again today and started cleaning out the fridge. I found a few leftover cupcake truffles from Friday night's party and just as I was throwing them away I thought, "they're too cute not to blog!"

So here they are. An incredibly easy, but very impressive, dessert.

I got my idea from Cara's Cravings only I didn't spear mine. I also used a red hot for the "cherry" and the inside was made with a fun fetti cake mix. It's my fave box cake mix.

Sorry for the bad quality camera phone picture... this is the week where I don't know what I did with my camera!

Summer Time

2008-06-07T16:02:00.003-05:00

Tonight we are going to an outdoor dinner and were asked to bring "something". I racked my brain over what to bring, I read recipes, I went through cook books and finally it hit me. I wanted something cool, summery and refreshing. I'm making a fruit trifle.

Everthing about this trifle screams summer. From its airy pudding and easy preperation to its chilled trifle dish and sweet fruits.... ahhh yes - SUMMER!

Summer Trifle
recipe by me

one store bought angel food cake
7 kiwis
1 mango
1 package of strawberries
1 small pack of Jello instant pudding, white chocolate
1 small container cool whip
mini chocolate chips

cut all of the fruit into little bite size pieces, sprinkle with sugar, toss and put into the fridge so they can make a syrup amongst themselves. make the pudding and put it in the fridge to "pudding up". go play on the internet or watch tv or accidently fall asleep. wake up - cube the angel food cake into bite size pieces into the bottom of a trifle dish and gently press them into an even layer. top with the fruit salad and make that layer even as well. top with a thin layer of mini chocolate chips. now whisk in about half the cool whip with the pudding and pour over the top, smoothing out with a rubber spatula. decorate with a ring of mini chocolate chips an a sprig of mint if desired. cover with plastic wrap and chill until you are ready to enjoy!

I'm Sick

2008-06-03T08:04:00.004-05:00

But not as sick as I was.

Friday night we had a girls night and I stayed out later than I have in a LONG time. The night started out around the pool. I had two drinks and then turned to ice water around 9 or 10 o'clock.Then around midnight someone called "the dew".... which means this TINY tiny bar near my neighborhood where..... "country" people go to karaoke and dance with the lights on. I love it because you dont have to worry about guys hitting on you and then getting pissed off when you decline their offer. Theyre just a bunch of country guys and would rather sit and laugh with you about everyone dancing this physically hitting on you. That AND you know everyone when you walk in the door so no one would even dare hit on you out of respect for your - father, mother, husband, sister, brother......

Wow Im getting off track here. My point is that once we got to the bar, I was still drinking ice water and did the entire night. I was having so much fun no one even noticed. Someone even "complimented" me on the way I was putting my drinks away and I just smiled. So after we shut it down and I'm climbed into bed, I couldn't go to sleep for coughing. I blamed it on the smoke and just made myself sleep. I woke up at 8:30 and cleaned house and just felt like crap. My initial thought was "gah im hungover, im getting old" but then I remembered that I hadn't drank anything. That's when my ears started ringing and my throat started closing. OH no..... I'm sick!!!! I rolled around in bed all day waiting on Bradley to get home, come to find out he was sick in another region so he couldn't baby me. In fact I even went to the store to get stuff to try to make him feel better. We ordered pizza and went to bed early. Sunday morning he got up early and made breakfast and I ate half a biscuit and a few bites of eggs. I was just worthless.

He had to go do some stuff so I stayed in the bed and moved to the couch later on. Actually just in time for a huge black cloud to move in front of the window and forewarn me to let the dogs in now lest they be soaked rats in a few seconds. So I did. Daisy immediately went to the window and stared out, like she always does, nosy thing. Then I heard a "pop" and another "pop" and I yelled at her for hitting the window..... but was it her? Then I saw it... a golf ball bouncing in my yard. Who the crap is throwing golf balls at my windows.... wait.... that's not a golf ball... THATS HAIL!!!

Yes, it hailed in JUNE in Alabama. I am stunned. I thought it had to be cold. It was more like quarter sized once I got up and looked. This went on for about 30 minutes and I cringed every time one hit a window, just waiting for it to bust.

Bradley finally made it home and I was just rolling around in pain and congestion. The cough syrup I had was just laughing at me and my throat was killing me. So he decided to make me up his own special cough syrup. Oh boy.

Actually it was really good and we dubbed it, "The Sweet Jimmy". Rub a lime around the top of a shot glass and then dip the rim in a cinnamon sugar mixture. Fill it a little less than half way up with a mix of lemon/lime juice and honey and then top it with Jim Beam. Stir. Sip or shoot.... I sipped. I had two and it really did stop the coughing and kinda numbed my throat from the pain.

Monday was doctor but I got some bad news.... my doctor was out of the office and I could either wait until Tuesday or see the other doctor in the office. Great... shes gonna be PACKED, but I needed something now so I got an appointment for 2:30. Which meant I was gonna work up until time to go. A few of my customers called me and said "Oh Im sorry I was trying to reach DeLa" I was like its me I just sound like a man. Oh and did I mention that on Monday "work" consisted of building a Habitat for Humanity and it was sheet rock day?! The doctor yelled at me for that. Then she gave me a shot in the hip and like usual I almost passed out and my back really did have convulsing pain for about 5 minutes. It was weird, I hate shots. All this was after I set in the waiting room coughing on the magazines for 45 minutes. Then I had to make the long journey from Pelham to Moody and wait in CVS for my 3 rx's. I did find a cute little cordless tranquility water fountain to the day wasn't a complete loss. Got the drugs and then headed another 20 minutes east to HOME. I got an allergy medicine, horse pill antibiotics and home codeine cough syrup. She said not to take it during work or I would be loopy. I needed some NOW so I did something stupid that we both thought would be a good idea - take more than it said to. I went and jumped in the shower and by the time i got out.... Bradley had to help me to the bed so I could lay down and keep from hurling. I lied there for about an hour and finally set up and drank a coke then tip toed into the kitchen and set in a bar stool and told him how to cook dinner. I wanted to cook SO BAD that I got him to put me a chair by the grill so I could baste my corn as he turned it while laying down. I don't think the charcoal grill got hot enough to cook the corn or maybe I'm just use to canned corn or maybe I had a medicine mouth and nothing tasted right. But I'm saving it and plan on making a hash with it and some potatoes and bacon. Which I thought of last night when the cough syrup had worn off and I was laying in bed wide awake.

I also learned that if you are so doped up that you can't ring your mouth to eat dinner and need your husband to help you eat it - don't hang on to his right side if he is right handed and expect it to go much better. He was REALLY sweet and helpful though and I did get my fill.

Today I still feel dopey with waves of nausea. But life must go on.... so I'm off to eat breakfast, take medicine and start my day. Getting out of the house always makes me feel better.

Mother's Day... continued!!

2008-05-16T10:11:00.003-05:00

We had a great summery lunch and when women get together, you know dessert will be involved! I wanted something fun and light but I wanted it to be something that mama loved. Jaime at Burnt Toast blogged about making Turtles for her mother because it was her favorite. That's so funny because turtles are also one of my mother's favorites!! But her first favorite is key lime pie! I was off to find a recipe....

If you recall me talking about my grocery shopping mishaps in the Platinum Chef post, I'm just going to pick up where I left off -

They did not have key limes. Which made me so mad because I saw key limes at the dang Wal Mart just the week before and Publix didn't have any. Is that weird or what!? So I had to settle for a bottled key lime juice that I think may have altered the flavor of the dish. When I made the strawberry sauce, it had a medicine taste to it. The dish itself wasn't the best thing I've ever made. But I'm hoping it was the bottled key lime juice, because I don't see how you can go wrong with key lime mousse and strawberries.

The original recipe can be found on Culinary Concoctions by Peabody

**pictures to come, although they look really close to the ones peabody posted (and yes that is her first name, isn't that cool!?)

Look what I made!

2008-05-16T09:32:00.003-05:00

Jaime at Burnt Toast tagged me to blog about recipes I have made that I found on other foodie blogs.

HERE ARE THE RULES to LOOK WHAT I MADE!

1. List the names of 2-5 recipes you tried from other blogs. Provide a direct link to the recipe. If not available, give the blog link and let the reader search for the recipe by name.

2. Shortly describe your experience with the recipe.

3. Tag 3-5 other bloggers or the authors of the recipes you listed to post the links to the recipes they have tried from other bloggers. Note: If you are new to the blogging world and haven’t had a chance to try any recipes from your fellow foodies, just pass the tag on to someone else.

4. Notify the tagged bloggers about the tag either by leaving a comment on their blogs or by emailing them.

Here they are (in no specific order because they were all amazing and I couldn't rank them if my life depended on it) :

Chocolate Pie - Can you believe I don't even like this pie? Too much chocolate for me. I just love to make it because it is SO easy and the looks on peoples faces when they take the first bite makes me want to make it over and over again. Plus it is John Evan's favorite. Pioneer Woman get all the credit for the chocolate part, but I'm taking the credit for the cheesecake topping I created for it.

Savory Mini Muffins - I love fresh hot bread and these little bites of love did not let me down, thanks to Amber from Amber's Delectable Delights. I've made them 3 times since I found the recipe at the first of this month. The chedder dill are still my favorite of the two! But I have been running my brain trying to think of new herb/cheese mixes.

Jalapeno Poppers - Holy flippin crap! These things are the best thing I've eaten in a long time, Bradley and I made a meal out of them one Friday night. I added ranch powder to the plain cream cheese the recipe calls for, but they would be good no matter what you added to the recipe! Pioneer Woman wins another one!

Key Lime Mousse and Strawberries Parfait - These were good, but I wish I would of had access to fresh key limes! Peabody makes everything look so easy, and I have to admit I was intimidated by the recipe, but once I got started - it was a breeze!

I'm glad I was tagged to do this because it made me realize that I haven't really tried a lot of other blogger's recipes... I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing. But I will make an effort to try your recipes, even if I don't blog about them :D

I tag.... The "other" Jaime, Leslie, and Celeste

Loved

2008-05-16T08:42:00.003-05:00

Nicole @ Art and Aioli loved me enough to give me an "I love you this much" award. How sweet!!!

It is up to me to now pick ten other blogs that I love and pass the award on to them. This is going to be hard! I hope it is not just cooking blogs, because I love some people that don't post recipes.

Number 1 - My ever so sweet brother in law. I love him and I love reading his blog, so John Evan.... please have this award. His blog is located HERE

Number 2 - A good friend I met through work, Jaime. She is quite the multi tasking mama these days. With a new husband and a new marriage and there is almost a new baby here, she still finds time to scour the internet and find recipes to go home and cook after spending alllllll day in the office. She also has a great ability to create original recipes. She is located at Burnt Toast

Number 3 - Amanda is a friend I made when I got married. My husband's family and her family have apparently been life long pals. So I had no choice but to make a new friend and I'm glad I did! She is so funny and stylish! I just love her! She is located at A Day in the Life of a Bama Girl

Number 4 - Madison is another friend I made when I got married. She is Amanda's niece and new to the blogging world. Everyone loves a little traffic on their page when it is new. Plus she rocks, takes amazing pictures and I love her hair! She is located at Fun Sized

Number 5 - Amber from Amber's Delectable Delights. She is one of the reasons I bought a Kitchen Aid stand mixer, her bread recipes make me DROOL! And, believe it or not, I still haven't made bread with my stand mixer. But I plan on it and the first one I'm going to make is her Garlic Herb Swirl Bread

Number 6 - Annie from Annie's Eats also has great bread recipes I want to try out. She is also pregnant and I just recently found out that she has lived through Hodgkin’s lymphoma. All that said, I think she is awesome and has great recipes that I plan on trying my hand at.

Number 7 - Lori from The Recipe Girl is author of a blog I just recently became fond of. But with her scrumptious sounding recipes and mouthwatering photos, I know she will become a new must have in my daily blog browsing.

Number 8 - Paige from the Webb family! I love my Webb's and am so glad I was welcomed into the family with open arms. Her blog is a hoot to read and she has even posted about a belated Thanksgiving feast she put together for friends and family. She can be found at Days of Our Uninteresting Lives

Number 9 - Cynthia at Tastes Like Home is a true southern cook! I love to read about her southern dishes and can't wait to see if I can make them!

Number 10 - Danielle at Make No Little Meals. Her blog looks like something out of Food and Wine. The pictures, the recipes, the descriptions..... oh my gosh! This girl is something else!!!

Everyone remember - I LOVE YOU!

Platinum Chef, Challenge 7.... Mother's Day Edition

2008-05-10T16:32:00.015-05:00

I actually dubbed it mother's day edition because the recipe I came up with that used the five ingredients I considered to be "girly" and even though my husband would of probably eaten it..... it was more fun to have a girls luncheon.

Ok - down to business....

Platinum Chef was started by Cara @ Cara's Cravings. It is a spin off from the Food Network show "Iron Chef" where the chefs are given one secret ingredient and have to come up with multiple dishes all featuring that one ingredient.... and they only have one hour. You try making dessert out of shrimp!!! Or whatever the secret ingredient is that day. Cara made it a little easier for us bloggers. She set out 5 ingredients and gave a couple of weeks for everyone who wanted to play, perfect their dish(es) and submit it (them). The most recent winner is Danielle @ Make No Little Meals. That means that she gets a turn to host the event which entails picking the ingredients, having the dishes submitted to her and then the most important part, selecting the winner.

Her five ingredients were -

Bok Choy
Panko
Mint
Yogurt
Mango

Side note - I had a bad shopping experience that thankfully didn't affect my meal too much. My mint was a little wilty, I wanted really small shrimp and all they had was 21/30 count (which ended up being perfect), the mango wasn't fully ripe on one side and the bean sprouts had turned into a wormy mush. I could salvage the mint and mango but the bean sprouts were trash.

My first thought when reading the ingredients was "lamb" because mint and lamb go together so well. But I had never cooked lamb and it is rather expensive to buy around here. So I went back to the drawing board. Since the bok choy is a popular Chinese vegetable and panko is a Japanese bread flake, I chose an Asian theme. But.... that just helped me with the theme. I needed an actual dish. After much thought, I decided to go the summery route and make a salad.

I present to you, my Platinum Chef submission:

Bok Choy Salad with Mango Mint Dressing and Shrimp "Croutons"

Let's start with the dressing. Which by the way I think would be excellent to dip chicken fingers in. It was so summery and light and sweet but with a tiny kick of spice. I honestly was not expecting it to be as great as it was.

the ingredients are -

1 cup plain yogurt
juice and flesh of one mango
1 oz of mint leaves (about half a cup)
2 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp sweet hot mustard

Dump everything into a blender and use the "liquefy" button to turn it into a dressing. I did this the night before and let all the flavors party in the fridge.

See how delicious this dressing looks!!!

For the shrimp, I used a store bought Sesame Ginger marinade and let them soak overnight (peels and tails removed). I must say that I am not too fond of Asian marinades that contain mandarin orange, and actually did not know this one even contained it until I got home. I was a little apprehensive to use it, but after I tasted it, I must say this is my new favorite marinade for shrimp. It really compliments the taste of shrimp!

To turn the shrimp into croutons, I toasted one teaspoon of sesame seeds.

I combined the toasted sesame seeds with 1/2 cup panko, 1/4 teaspoon onion powder and 1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper.

From there, take the shrimp straight out of the marinade and dredge them in the panko mixture. Really press it into the shrimp.

Drop them one by one into hot vegetable oil and fry for about 30 seconds each. It really does not take long at all to fry shrimp! You don't want them to be overcooked and chewy.

Now the fun part - putting it all together!!! I plated up one head of chopped bok choy leaves, which perfectly served two people.

Topped that with fun asian inspired ingredients such as - chopped water chestnuts, diced red, green and yellow bell peppers, chopped carrots, enoki mushrooms, and crunchy rice noodles.

And for the finishing touch on my Platinum Chef submission, I spooned the dressing onto the salad and topped with the shrimp croutons. It looked amazing and the taste was equally amazing!

Infusing Oil

2008-05-09T18:36:00.006-05:00

I don't know why I wanted to do this, but I'm sure it was so I could blog about it! ha! It was really easy and very versatile! You can use whatever ingredients you want. I chose garlic, lemon and rosemary - I intend on using it with seafood.

Start with a very pretty bottle - be certain to make sure all the genies are out of it. I would hate to drown them with olive oil!!

Set out all your ingredients. I used a higher priced oil that I normally wouldn't buy, just so it would have a better taste. Because, let's face it, a great tasting olive oil is sheer bliss.

Cut 3 - 4 thin slices off the lemon, fold them and push them into the bottle. Bruise the rosemary before putting it into the bottle. De-paper and smash 3 - 4 garlic cloves and put them into the bottle. Shake it all around and get the inside of the bottle nice and wet.

Pour the oil into the bottle, make sure you leave enough room for the cork!

Set it in a dimly lit place and wait at least two weeks before you use it.

Well, Like I Promised....

2008-05-07T20:19:00.003-05:00

Here is my big announcement. Let me put a disclaimer in front of it -

If you are here for just recipes, you probably won't care. But I have a lot of family that reads this as a way to keep a check on me, so this is mostly for them. However I will take a "congrats" from anyone! :) I'm just so stinkin' excited!!

I am no longer going to be sitting behind a desk at my office. I am now a Public Relations employee and will be in charge of bringing back some of our customers who might have strayed away from us in St Clair County. I have been praying for this position since last summer and am so excited I do not know what to do with myself.

However, in the beginning it is going to consume most of my time. Which means I may not get to give my blog the care I usually do. But once I learn how to manage my new work load, I will get back into the kitchen. Plus I am cooking my Platinum Chef Entry this weekend for mothers day.

Just wanted to clue you in ;)

Cinco! Cinco de Mayo!!!

2008-05-05T20:49:00.008-05:00

I've been singing that all day, to the tune of I Dream of Jeanie.

Thank you for joining me on this awesome Cinco de Mayo! I have great news, but I can't unveil it just yet.... stay tuned. I should be able to tell you either tomorrow or Wednesday. Here, have some salsa while you wait!

Meanwhile, I would like for you all to notice how hard I have been working on my photography. I think if you go look at the beginning of my blog and then today's post you will really see a difference.

Tonight was allllll about our friends from South of the border. On this day, I like to sit and wonder...... I am here in America eating salsa and drinking coronas and singing my newly composed cinco de mayo song. On the fourth of July will there be senoritas sitting in Mexico eating french fries and drinking bud light and singing a song they made up about our Independence Day?

Another one of my favorite American - Spanish questions to ponder is, "Do they have peso trees like we have dollar trees?" Because I do love the dollar tree, although I have to be in the mood for it.

FUN FACT - my everyday dishes are from the dollar tree. Hey, scoff if you want but I love 'em!

Now let's get back to business. Tonight's meal was Mexican Hamburgers with guacamole and salsa. YUM!!

I made a Cilantro-Lime Mayo to smear on the buns. Take two nice scoops of mayo, stir in juice from half a lime and chopped cilantro. Just go by taste on the cilantro, I happen to like a lot, but if you don't then only use a little.

For the Guacamole I cubed one avocado, drizzled it with the juice from half a lime, added 1/4 tsp garlic powder, and forked in Ro*Tel salsa a little at a time until it reached the consistency I like - still a little chunky.

The Mexican Hamburgers were also easy. One pound of ground beef, 2 tbspns of the recently posted Mexican seasoning and the juice from.... you guess it, half a lime! Mix it all together and let it chill in the fridge for an hour or two. Form into 4 patties and grill.

I glazed them with a Smoky Chipotle Sauce right before they were finished grilling, so the sauce would set, instead of being runny.

1/3 cup ketchup
1 T mustard
1 T oil
1 T vinegar
1/4 t garlic powder
1/4 t onion powder
2 chipotle chilies, seeded and chopped
3 t adobo sauce

whisk all together and heat in a sauce pan. keep warm until ready to glaze your meat.

The finished product?? Maravilloso, como siempre!

"but I hate dill!"

2008-05-05T08:23:00.003-05:00

That's what Bradley said when I told him I was making mini cheddar dill muffins to go along with Saturday night's dinner. Little does he know that every time we have my version of tuna "sandwiches" there is a dill mayo to accompany it, and he loves the stuff. It's all in what you tell them.

Even though he hates dill, he loved these muffins. What's not to love? Bread - GOOD! Dill - GOOD! Sharp Cheddar - GOOOOOD!!!

This recipe was originally from Better Homes & Gardens, New Cook Book, Limited Breast Cancer Edition, modified by Amber from Amber's Delectable Delights and further modified by - me! The batter was thick and lumpy, which gave the muffins a real rustic appeal. It also made exactly 18, which worked out great since that is how many wells are in the mini muffin pan.

Cheddar Dill Mini Muffins

1 & 3/4 cups self rising flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 & 1/2 teaspoons dried dill
1 beaten egg
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup cooking oil
1/2 to 3/4 cup sharp cheddar

Grease 18 mini muffin wells or line with paper baking cups; set aside. Preheat your oven to 400*
In a medium bowl combine flour, dill and salt; set aside.
In another bowl combine egg, milk, oil and cheese. Add egg mixture all at once to flour mixture. Stir just until moistened (batter should be lumpy).
Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups, filling each two-thirds full. Bake for 12 minutes or until golden and a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in muffin cups on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Remove from muffin cups; serve warm.

when life hands you limes...

2008-05-03T14:48:00.004-05:00

then you know it is almost time for Cinco de Mayo!!

I am extra excited this year for Cinco de Mayo because it is the first year that we won't be making tacos at home or going to our favorite local mexican dive. Nope - this year I am cooking the Cinco de Mayo dinner! I have been planning out my recipe all week long and am just chomping at the bit to get out there and put it all together!

We went to the grocery store today and bought the ingredients for the dinner. I keep going into the kitchen and re-checking to make sure they are all still there. I don't think I've been this excited about making a meal since Thanksgiving!

I decided to go ahead and make my mexican seasoning, in an attempt to get a "fix" until the real thing! Sure, you can buy taco seasoning, but why? I'm sure most everyone has the ingredients in their pantry to put it together, and it is more fun this way!

Let's get started!

Mexican Seasoning
recipe by me

1 tbspn chili powder
1/4 tspn garlic powder
1/4 tspn onion powder
1/4 tspn ground red pepper
1/4 tspn oregano
1/4 tspn dried cilantro
1/4 tspn marjoram
1/2 tspn paprika
2 tspn cumin
1 tspn course ground salt

measure everything into a ziploc baggie, close and give a good shake. label it and make sure it is all used up within 6 months. 2 tbspns will season 1 pound of ground beef

Date Night <3

2008-05-03T12:24:00.011-05:00

Our date night this week consisted of quite a few things. I washed the sheets and some clothes, we worked on finishing the downstairs room, we wandered outside where we had an impromptu weed pulling session, we saw someone we knew and stopped to talk, we met someone new, we wandered back into the house and finally at 8 pm decided to start dinner and watch a movie. The movie - Ocean's 11. The dinner - easily an 11 out of 10.

This was by far one of the easiest dinners I have ever made and probably one of the best tasting. If you time it just right and don't count the time it takes your oven to preheat, this dinner takes about 15 minutes - 5 minutes prep time and 10 minutes cooking time.

First up, let me introduce you to someone I met at the beach, who is now one of my new best friends. It is basil garlic fedelini pasta and can be found at Harry and David's. Well worth ordering online and paying S&H if there is not a Harry and David's near you. Which is what I will be doing when this 12 ounce well runs dry. But what to put on it?? My first idea was a simple infused olive oil, since the pasta is already flavored. But that would be kind of plain. This pasta deserved a nice sauce. So I though on it all week and remembered something I saw a while back when I was trying to do weight watchers.....

Laughing Cow cheese sauce. It is supposed to be a lighter and healthier mock alfredo sauce. I modified my recipe a little bit, because I was out of parmesan.
3 wedges LC creamy swiss
2 tblspn butter
a soup spoon of roasted garlic sauce OR real garlic
1/2 cup milk
heat the butter, cheese and garlic sauce together until the cheese breaks down. whisk in the milk and heat until it starts to thicken.

For the protein of the meal, I chose tilapia. I wanted a simple and quick way to prepare it, so I chose to bake it.
***TIP***did you know that when you bake fish you should always preheat your pan? I did not until just recently. If you pan is preheated then it will sear the fish when you set it on the pan, keeping the juices from running out while you bake it. it really works, too!
For the topping, I melted 2 tblspns butter with 1 tblspn lemon juice and mixed it with 1/3 cup italian bread crumbs. Spoon it onto the fish and lightly press it into the flesh. Bake at 425* for 10 minutes.

It plated up so beautifully and tasted equally amazing. It was an absolute perfect dinner. Nothing needed tweaking at all. The swiss sauce complimented the pasta perfectly. The addition of lemon in the breading gave the fish exactly what it needed.

And then it happened...

I have an intense fear of moths. Pretty much any insect that flies, and some that don't, I am completely terrified of. So imagine my horror when I looked up at our big living room window and saw THIS -

Thank goodness it was on the other side of the window! This thing was massive, bigger than my hand! And that tail..... ughhhh that tail! It was two leaf like pieces and it moved them separately. I feel confident in saying that if I had of been outside and that evil thing had of flown up to me I would of died right there on the spot.

every rose has it's thorn - just like every flip has it's flop

2008-05-01T20:57:00.004-05:00

Sorry - Bret Michaels is on don't forget the lyrics and I can't stop singing this song.

My point is that tonight was a flip - flop kind of dinner. The "pilaf" was a flop, but I put a flip on the traditional hamburger steak. A sweet, smoky flip. (which also gave me this great idea for dinner on cinco de mayo!) It turned out great! I also succeed at making brown gravy. I don't know what I was so afraid of, it's just like making sawmill gravy.

Smoky Hamburger Steaks
recipe by me

1 pound ground meat
2 tblspn roasted garlic mustard - or plain with 1 clove minced garlic
2 tblspn worcestershire
1 tblspn balsamic vinegar
1/2 tspn cumin

mix everything together and let it marinate in the fridge for a couple of hours. form into 3 patties and pan cook until no longer pink.

barsotto??

2008-05-01T20:57:00.000-05:00

Wednesday at lunch, I had to watch Jaime (from over at Burnt Toast) eat her wonderful smelling risotto while I had a sandwich. Now, I am not complaining one bit, because my sandwich was really awesome - I made it out of left over bbq chicken Bradley grilled up Monday night.

"Grilled up" is so southern. "We're out here on the porch grillin' up a whole heap of something". Please try and work that sentence into your repertoire at least once this week and I promise you it will make you feel better. That, and a new purse. You deserve it!

Anyway -

I set there smelling the yummy cheesy goodness as we discussed just how hard it is to find arborio rice where we live. You people just don't understand! I told her about my plans to make a sort of "orzo risotto" and we talked about that for a while. It didn't occur to me until later that I have a lot of barley I bought and never really knew what to do with.

Although there was that 6 month span where I was on a quest to make the perfect pot roast and put barley in the bottom of my dish and then poured red wine on top of it and everything else in there and we had purple barley. That was fun. But it didn't use the whole box.

So I searched "barley recipes" trying to find something that would use ingredients I already had. I was in luck when I stumbled across this recipe. It was good and nutty and cheesy.... I enjoyed it. Then Bradley dropped the bomb on me, "Is this oatmeal?". I couldn't eat it after that, and I have no idea why.

Barley Pilaf
adapted from a recipe found on cdkitchen.com

1 cup quick-cooking barley
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1 tablespoon butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup chicken broth & 1 cup milk
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
1 – 2 tablespoons basil

In a large sauce pan cook barley in hot olive oil over medium heat about 10 minutes or until lightly toasted, stirring once a minute. Add onion and butter; cook until onion is tender. Add garlic and cook for about 2 minutes.

In a small sauce pan heat broth and milk. Slowly add 1/2 cup of the mix to barley mixture, stirring constantly. Continue to cook and stir over medium heat until liquid is absorbed. Add another 1/2 cup of the broth, stirring constantly. Continue to cook and stir until the liquid is absorbed. Add another 1/2 cup of the broth (repeat until all broth is used); cook and stir until liquid is all absorbed and the barley is tender.

Remove from heat. Stir in cheese; season to taste with salt and ground black pepper, sprinkle with basil.

~~~~~

Bradley reluctantly ate his, I couldn't finish mine, but guess who loved every bite??

new toy :)

2008-05-01T17:52:00.009-05:00

When you go to the beach with the girls, you do what girls love to do! Talk, lay out and SHOP!

While almost everyone else went to the clothing stores, Amanda and I browsed the cooking stores and "ohhhhh'd" and "ahhhh'd" over all the great finds. And trust me - there were some great finds! I got a kitchen aid hand chopper, in empire red, for $11! I also got a lovely bottle that I plan to use when I infuse my own olive oil. Stay tuned for that!

Right now, I want to show you something I found that I have been wanting since Christmas. A mortar and pestle.

What do I need with a mortar and pestle, you ask? Well it all started when Bradley gifted me with this super cool awesome spice rack with like two point five million different spices on it. Several of them were in "seed" state. Meaning, they needed to be ground up to use them to their full extent. One of which was - Coriander.

Coriander was new to me, but I have since read up on it and pretty much fell in love with it once I ground it and was hit with a giant cloud of lemony heaven. I think it is going to be the perfect touch to my chicken marinade.

Fun fact - coriander is the seed of the plant and is used as a spice. The leaves of the plant are used as an herb and have been given the name "Cilantro". Betcha didn't know that! If you did, please keep it to yourself. No one likes a bragger.

Just kidding!

Now, back to the matter at hand. I have found that if you do a little bit of grinding at a time, it works best. So let's place a few dried coriander seeds into the mortar.

Obviously that is less than what I would use if I was going to put it in a marinade, but this is for training purposes... and so I can get another whiff of that great lemony breeze!!

Once you have chosen just the right amount of spice you desire to pulverize, go ahead and use the pestle to grind it up. I like to do a circular motion.

Check it every now and then, to see if it is at a stage that fits your liking... and to sniff the pestle.

There you have it! From seed to dust in just seconds, and its completely man powered, so you are saving money by not having to buy gas!

what was your first?

2008-04-29T15:45:00.003-05:00

Potato cakes were among the first things I ever made. Sauteed onions were also around in the beginning. There is just something about sauteing an onion when you are 5 that makes you think you rule the world. Staying the night at meme's always meant two things - unlimited food network consumption and potato cakes.

Now that I am a little older and know how to decide what add ins will be good for a dish, I have expanded on the traditional potato cake. Although, the basic recipe is still pretty awesome in my book. Bradley has never eaten one and I always say I'm going to make them but we never have left over mashed potatoes. Truth be told, anything made from a potato in this house isn't going to be here long. I used my 45 minute drive home from work yesterday to think about all the things that I love to put on my baked potato and came up with this recipe -

Loaded Potato Cakes
recipe by me

2 cups left over creamed/mashed potatoes - still cold
4 strips of bacon
1/4 - 1/2 sweet onion, diced
1 cup your favorite cheese
1 tbl spn flour
1 egg, beaten
your favorite breading - i used a flour cornmeal mix with special spices
oil for frying

cook the bacon and crumble it into the potatoes. add the onions to the bacon grease and let them become translucent, drain them from the grease and add to the potatoes. stir in the cheese, flour and egg.

heat a pot of oil.

take a spoon full of the potato mixture and form a ball shape , roll it in your breading and drop into the hot oil. cook until golden brown.

~~~~~

Mama Mia, thatsa spicy meatball!

2008-04-21T15:15:00.003-05:00

Well, they weren't spicy but they are definitely meat balls!

This time when spaghetti night rolled around, the only thing store bought were the noodles. Angel hair, of course. I even made the garlic cheddar drop biscuits to eat with this italian delight. I didn't get to take pictures of the sauce, but I do have the recipe written down to share, eventually. I cooked it for 3 days. Actually, I made and cooked it a little on Thursday. Then it set in the fridge until mid day Saturday when I brought it to a simmer again until dinner was ready. I also made sure to make extra, so there would be left overs this week. I'm leaving bradley for my other love - the beach!

Jaime over at Burnt Toast recently made a gouda stuffed meatball. They were really good, believe me, I tried one! I went off of her recipe and omitted the stuff part and used roasted garlic dressing instead of milk. The dressing really shined through in the final product. It gave them an incredibly nice garlicy flavor. If you aren't a big fan of garlic, I would try using a different sauce, maybe a parmesan based one.

Parmesan Meatballs
recipe inspired by Rachel Ray's Mozzarella Stuffed Meatballs

1/4 cup Italian seasoned breadcrumbs
1/2 cup roasted garlic dressing
1 lb. ground beef
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
2 tbsp parsley,
1 large egg
1 tsp salt

In a medium bowl, soak the breadcrumbs in dressing. Add the beef, parsley, parmesan cheese, egg and salt to the soaked bread crumbs and stir with a fork until combined. Take two spoon fulls of the meat and form a ball. Cook them all together in a large skillet for about 20 minutes.

Part 2 of 2

2008-04-18T08:45:00.008-05:00

The meal is complete. Although, I don't think it has a better name. I really really really enjoyed it, I think Bradley just really enjoyed it, he didn't like that the onions still crunched. In his world, all veggies should be mush.

We both love pesto. It was so good! I purposefully fixed our plates to leave enough behind for my lunch today.

Preparation was not hard at all. Excluding the marination process, it took about 45 minutes. It could of been less, but at first I didn't think of multi tasking. It is also a 2 pan meal. One for the pasta and one for the steak and veggies.

Speaking of the marination process, mine really hit the nail on the head. The steak was so full of flavor and no one taste stood out above the rest. They all meshed very well, which made me smile. That is now my go to marinade. I have to buy more roasted garlic dressing....

Let's get started with the tutorial!

Steak with Pesto Pasta
recipe by me

one steak, your choice of cut and weight, fully marinated and brought to room temperature
your favorite house seasoning
1 tblspn olive oil
2 tblspn butter
1 & 1/2 cup dry pasta - i used penne
8 tblspns pesto sauce (or whatever equivalent that is)
1/4 cup parmesan
white wine
8 oz your favorite mushrooms (i used baby bella)
1/2 large sweet onion, thinly sliced
1 - 2 cloves of garlic, minced

bring a pot of salted and oiled water to a boil and boil your pasta for 10 to 12 minutes. drain and return to the pot. stir together with the pesto and the parmesan and set aside.

While the water is boiling for the pasta, heat your butter and oil in a large heavy skillet. rub both sides of your steak with your preferred house seasoning, i used herbes de provence, they are my favorite at the moment. get the pan nice and smoky hot and lay your steak flat on it. i cooked mine for 15 minutes, only turning once. this put it right about medium rare in the middle and more of a medium well on the ends. perfect for the two of us. when you are finished cooking, set it on a plate and let the juices re-distribute. DON'T CUT INTO IT YET! that ruins the tenderness.

now that the steak is finished, turn the heat down and let's de-glaze the pan to get all those yummy pieces un-stuck to it. pour a little white wine into the pan and rub the bottom of it. add the onions and let them start to break down. when they are almost finished caramelizing, throw in the mushrooms and garlic. they don't take nearly as long.

Aren't those mushrooms beautiful?? All that is left to do now is plate it up! I put the pasta on one side of the dish, topped it with the mushrooms and onions and fanned out slices of the steak beside it. a very easy and simple dish that tastes like it took you hours to prepare!

A MAN EATING FISH!

2008-04-16T20:56:00.005-05:00

Yes, that is what I saw tonight. A man eating fish, and he really liked it!!

ha ha!! hee hee! haaa..... ha.....huh....hoooooooo kay, you didn't find it funny....

MOVING ON!

I went on a tilapia buying spree earlier this year and there is a ton if it in my freezer. It wasn't until my freezer became so in need of a re-stocking that I realized how much was left! I have been wanting to broil fish lately and now was my chance. So I created a simple baste for the fish, stuck them under the broiler for 8 minutes and voila! Dinner in under ten! Top THAT Rachel Ray!!!

Broiler Fish
by me

2 tilapia fillets
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon basil
2 tablespoons grated parmesan
2 tablespoons olive oil

mix the spices and cheese together and then drizzle in the olive oil. mix well with a fork and let sit for ten to fifteen minutes so all the flavors can get to know each other

from there, line a cookie sheet with foil and set your fillets on it. spoon the mixture on top, try and make sure most of it stays on the fish. you can add more parmesan on top if desired. then, pop it under the broiler for 8 minutes.

Dinner is served!

PS - if you are married to one of those guys that will eat roasted grape tomatoes topped with feta and drizzled with balsamic vinegar.... that would go perfectly with this fish!!!

something old meets something new

2008-04-16T20:16:00.008-05:00

Tonight I decided to try cooking something that I was supposed to cook for the Platinum Chef competition that I lazied out on. I tried cooking leeks.

When I told Bradley what I was doing, he asked what a leek was. I showed it to him and his face fell. I knew what he was thinking so I reassured his onion hating self that, "they aren't nearly as strong as an onion. just be open minded." He was. He described this dish as "excellent". I really loved them, too. It was a sweet and savory mix that was oh so good.

Leeky Potatoes
by me

8 small red potatoes (slightly larger than new potatoes)
1 leek
1 teaspoon rosemary
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoon olive oil
salt and pepper

heat the butter and oil in a large skillet. stir in the red pepper and the rosemary and heat for at least 5 minutes to infuse the oil. i actually added the garlic at this point and i knew better than that, my garlic burnt. please do not make my mistake. do as i type, not as i do.

wash your potatoes and cut a small piece of each end off. then cut them in half long ways and slice them into half moons. make sure all your slices are about the same size so they will cook evenly. (the pieces with the flesh showing are the end pieces i cut off)

crank the heat up to about medium and let the pan get a little smoky. arrange the potatoes in a single layer and cook, tossing and stirring every few minutes.

prepare the leek by cutting the green end and the woody bit on the white end off and discarding. from there, cut the leek in half long ways, and then into half moons.

once the potatoes start to turn golden brown, stir in the garlic and cook for about 2 minutes. then sprinkle on the leeks and cook just until they become limber. if you overcook them, they turn to mush and aren't good at all.

salt and pepper to your liking, give it one last stir - and plate it up!!!

Part 1 of 2

2008-04-16T18:09:00.006-05:00

Today at work a recipe came to me. I have been wanting to try pesto, but hear how expensive it can be to make. Not even knowing if I will like it or if one of us will be allergic to something in it combined with the fact that I'm kind of on a budget right now led me to trying a jarred pesto before venturing out to make it on my own. Wouldn't you know it, publix had their classico jarred sauces on sale this week. I trust classico, so I purchased.

The recipe I wrote is called "Steak with Pesto Pasta". I know, I know... bad title. Maybe after I eat it a better name will emerge. Until then - ya gotta live with this one.

Part one is allllll about the marinade! I picked up a 1.25 pound top sirloin steak for only $8 at publix.

I also bought one of their "go green" shopping bags for $0.99 and the bag boy fit all $35 of my groceries in there. Including a 3 pound bag of potatoes..... it was a long walk to the car!! But I loved it. The pretty heather green color of the bag matched my shirt. As I walked to my 4 cylinder car, sunglasses on head.... flip flops on feet.... I felt so deliciously hippy!!

Back to the meat - I originally planned to make this dish tonight but then decided to let my steak marinade a full 24 hours so it would be really flavor full. That way, if the pesto pasta is a flop.... the dinner won't be a total loss!

I love to marinate steaks with mustard. Not only does it tenderize, it also adds a great element of flavor. I usually use course ground dijon, but recently ran out. While browsing the mustard aisle I found horseradish mustard. It appealed to both my love of mustard AND love of spicy things.

I really do love mustard. It's like the perfect condiment! I always have no less then 3 different kinds in my fridge. I love it almost as much as I love cheese, and that's saying something!

This is my newly revised steak marinade.

Steak Marinade
by me

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup moore's sauce
2 tblspn roasted garlic dressing (mine is from harry and davids, but any kind will do)
2 tblspn horseradish mustard
generous helping of fresh coarsely ground black pepper
nice pinch of kosher salt

whisk everything together. put meat in a gallon ziploc bag, pour marinade over meat, press out all the air, zip the bag, place in fridge until you are ready to cook the meat.

~~~~~

stay tuned...

life as I know it, in - and out of - the kitchen

2008-04-15T10:15:00.006-05:00

This post is dedicated completely to the "and out of" in the above quote. Life, as I know it, has been pretty hectic lately. Lots of things are changing in my life. That matched up with my horrible pollen allergy has not only kept me from having the energy/want to cook, but not even the desire to blog about documented recipes!! Yes, that's right! I have a great bread recipe and a new cookbook I need to blog about. And I am sorry. Please forgive me.... I still love YOU, so you should still love ME!

Ok - that was weird.

You've heard me talk about Jaime on my blog. I work with her and she's pretty much my hero. Not only does she have her husband completely trained, but she is a great cook. Even when she is 2 months from child birth! And don't even get me started on the fact that she is 7 months pregnant and from behind, looks smaller than she did pre-pregnancy.

Wow - I really got off subject for a minute.

The point is, she was tagged for a MeMe (which to me means something totally different than what it means to most of the blogging world) and had to tag other people whose answers she wanted to hear, and I was one of them. What I am supposed to do is choose 6 words that best describe me, at the moment. Here we go -

first time home owner

newlywed / in love

dog lover

changing

sun worshipper

outgoing

I am tagging -

John Evan - my brother in law

Kayci - a new friend

Paige - my cousin in law

Anne Marie - another cousin in law

Julie - I like her blog

Here are the rules:
1. Write your own six-word memoir.
2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like.
3. Link to the person who tagged you in your post.
4. Tag five or six (choice is yours) more blogs with links.
5. Remember to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play.

Best Macaroni and Cheese.... EVER

2008-04-09T17:57:00.007-05:00

For evah-evah, for real, bar none, that fat lady has sang, say good night barn "goodnight barn" - in other words, stop trying because I have mastered it!

There is an on-going joke in this house that if something is really good, then you better enjoy it because chances are if it just came out of my head I will never be able to make it again. I just get so excited and start throwing things into the mix and at the end I'm left wondering what the actual ingredients were.

So I have made a conscious effort to start writing while I cook, and boy am I glad I did. I will be the first one to say "I hate home made mac and cheese". Blame it on the fact that growing up mama always cooked velveeta cheesey shells so that was just what I was use to. With home made mac, you don't have that great drippy melty over processed cheese flavored sauce, and that was my favorite part!! I knew there had to be a way to bring creamy and cheesey (through and through, not just on top) to the home made mac and cheese, and I found it. For this certain recipe I used cheddar and gouda. But that is just because we had cheddar and gouda in the fridge. Today there is colby, monterrey jack and butterkase in the fridge and I would also recommend those cheeses, it is really just whatever you have on hand.

So here it is.... without further adieu..... the world's best macaroni and cheese, cross my heart and hope to die.

World's Best Macaroni and Cheese
recipe by me

3/4 cup elbow mac - season your boiling water with 1/4 tspn salt
1 tblspn butter
2 eggs
1 & 1/2 cup milk
1/2 tspn salt
1 tblspn flour
1 cup shredded cheddar
1/2 cup shredded gouda (if you use smoked gouda, the end result will have a "bacon-y" taste)
3 triangles laughing cow, swiss - sliced (i would stick to always using swiss)

boil your noodles in the salted water. preheat your oven to 350* and use it to melt the butter in a medium casserole dish. whisk together the eggs, milk, salt and flour in a large mixing bowl. stir in the cheeses. when the noodles are finished, drain them and put them into the mixing bowl with the cheese mixture, stir around until the heat starts to melt the cheeses a little. pour it all into the dish with the melted butter, and sprinkle a little extra cheddar on top. bake uncovered for 35-40 minutes, or until the center is no longer liquid.

~~~~~

Be prepared to get the urge to cry, sing, laugh, moan with pleasure, and possibly even the desire to slap yo mama! IT'S THAT GOOD!

Vinegar: It's what's for dinner!

2008-04-07T19:26:00.005-05:00

Sort of! As I mentioned in the last post, warm weather means you can find the two of us by the grill - chatting while dinner slowly cooks. It is a great way to catch up and wind down after a long day at work.

One of my favorite things for Bradley to grill are porkchops. Bradley has become very open minded in his eating, but he still won't let me mess with what he grills. It is "his territory". That's fine! But this marinade is so simple and so delicious that I don't see why anyone wouldn't want to try it!

Balsamic Blast Marinade for Chicken and Pork
recipe by me

Balsamic Vinegar
Course ground dijon mustard

mix equal parts and whisk together until mixture is soupy. pour over your meat and let it marinate for at least 30 minutes. cook however you like, but i grilled mine :)

~~~~~

Creative Casserole

2008-04-01T18:49:00.008-05:00

Last summer I developed an unhealthy obsession for hash brown casserole, and once I figured out I could make it.... oh, it was on! We were eating it once a week. Great for the waistline... I know! I could make a meal out of it myself, but Bradley needed something to satisfy his carnivorous tooth.

During the summer months I can't keep Bradley away from the grill. One of his favorite things to grill is chicken. One afternoon when I wanted hash brown casserole and he groaned at the thought of eating it again, I had the idea of adding meat to the casserole. We had all this left over grilled chicken, so I thought.... why not? And from that simple thought came this great recipe!

Chicken Hash Brown Casserole
recipe by me!

1-2 cups of chicken, shredded
equal amount of shredded potatoes
1 can "cream of anything" soup (i used potato and mushroom this time)
1/2 cup sour cream
1 cup shredded cheese
1/2 teaspoon celery salt
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon ranch powder
1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper
ritz crackers, crushed
poppy seeds

preheat oven to 350*. in a large mixing bowl combine everything and then dump it into a casserole dish and spread it out evenly. top with crushed ritz and top that with poppy seeds. bake for an hour or until the ritz turn golden brown.

~~~~~

Accidental Dinner

2008-04-01T18:31:00.008-05:00

Yesterday I completely planned on making my version of chicken casserole with some left over grilled chicken that we had Sunday night, it is one of Bradley's favorites. But when I went to the store and picked up a can of condensed soup for the casserole, I couldn't help but notice the recipe on the back that read "Seafood Tomato Alfredo". Uh... YUM, and it looked so simple! Of course I didn't stick to it, I used it as a crutch to create something totally off course for last nights dinner.

Seafood Tomato Alfredo
recipe by me with help from campbell's (serves 2, maybe 3)

2 tblspns butter
1 clove of garlic, minced
half a small onion, sliced into half moons
salt, pepper and red pepper flakes (if you're in a spicy mood)
1/2 can Campbell's Cream of Mushroom with Roasted Garlic Soup
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup diced fire roasted tomatoes (canned)
raw shrimp
cooked linguine pasta

heat the butter in a skillet and cook the garlic, onions, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes until the onions are tender. mix in the soup and milk, add the tomatoes and bring to a boil. add your shrimp and cook until they are done. pour the mixture over hot linguine.

~~~~~

Really good! Although, I don't know why they would call it an Alfredo if there is no cheese involved.

As you can probably guess, I had some left over fire roasted tomatoes. Oh, the taste of those tomatoes was SO good by itself!! But, in order to get Bradley to even think about trying them I knew I had to be cunning and mix them with a few things I knew he could not pass up. So I took the left over tomatoes, added a little minced garlic and feta crumbles and served it "bruschetta style" atop toasted sour dough slices.

Pizza, Pizza!!

2008-03-25T20:04:00.007-05:00

I can honestly say that I have never made my own pizza. Pizza is usually reserved for those nights when something is going on and there is no time for cooking. Or, since we have a great little Italian restaurant in this tiny town - when the craving strikes!

While we do have a great Italian restaurant, one thing my tiny town does not have is a great grocery store. I was actually shocked to see them selling feta cheese. They only had one kind of canned seasoned tomato sauce, and it was "lasagna style". I figured, "what's the difference?". And, yes, I am sure there is one but at this point... I had no alternative. It worked just as well.

I know I said one of the first things I was going to make when I got the Kitchen Aid was homemade bread. But I am a little scared of working with yeast. I never have.... not that I have ever let that stop me from doing anything else, but I am just not ready yet. I have found comfort in using a great alternative to yeast - beer. Every time I make beer bread I get ohhhhs and ahhhhs of pleasure. If you haven't made it yet.... you really need to.

While browsing pizza dough recipes and sighing at the amount of them that called for yeast, it hit me...... why should this be different from my beer bread? It is the same basic concept isn't it? So I searched for "easy pizza crust" and found this golden treasure...

Easy Pizza Crust
source - Internet

1 cup self rising flour
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 tablespoon grated Parmesan
2/3 cup beer
1 tablespoon olive oil

Combine the first 3 ingredients, then add the next two and stir until smooth and thick (like biscuit dough). Spread over 12" or 13" round pizza pan sprayed with Pam. Bake at 375* for 15 minutes (without toppings)

~~~~~

I used shiner bock beer for this because it is a really dark and full bodied beer and I was hoping it would add a great level of flavor to the crust.

It did, but next time I will just use Michelob Ultra, it just adds a "cracker" taste to dough. Instead of making round pizzas I made two rectangles and I also used my baking stone. I sprinkled it with cornmeal before I, literally, spread the dough out. Don't let the name fool you, this is not a traditional "roll it up into a ball and then roll it out with a pin" dough. It almost has the consistency of batter. I would advise baking it for a little longer if you want a crunchy crust, I wish I had of. Just make sure it doesn't burn. This is what my more visually appealing crust looked like:

From here I sauced them both up with Hunt's Lasagna Style tomato sauce and dubbed Bradley's a "Meat and Cheese Lovers" and mine "Spinach Artichoke and Feta".

The crust was actually very good. Frozen pizzas always have a WAY too thick crust for me. I actually prefer a hand tossed pizza but I want the crust that is under the sauce and toppings to be just paper thin. This was slightly under the "mid way" point of the two, leaning more towards the thin side.

Bradley's had a layer of "5 Cheese Italian Blend" shredded cheese, pepperoni, spicy Italian sausage, bacon and another layer of cheese.

Mine had the cheese blend, spinach, marinated artichoke hearts and feta crumbles.

I put them both back into the oven at 375 for about 25 minutes. The exposed crust really "crunched" up the way we both prefer it to.

Williams Sonoma

2008-03-25T14:26:00.003-05:00

Ah how I love thee!! And now I have an even better reason to love it, there is a chance I could win a $50 dollar gift card just by mentioning the contest to win a $50 gift card!

If you want to also sign up to win, please visit The Clean Plate Club and follow the instructions to enter.

If I win it, I would definately buy this herb mill, and still have money left over to get something else!

Platinum Chef Challenge

2008-03-25T13:10:00.004-05:00

I use to share an office with Jaime from "Burnt Toast" and one of our favorite things to discuss was food. What we cooked for dinner last night, what we were going to cook for dinner tonight, what new seasoning we found that the other one needed to try out.... you get the point. We are FOODIES :) In fact she is the reason that I started this blog. So, imagine my delight when I get an email from her clue-ing me in to this extremely fun contest that is completely centered around cooking!

It's called the Platinum Chef Challenge, and it all started here. Have you ever seen Iron Chef on food network? It is one of my favorite shows. Two great chefs enter and await the unveiling of the secret ingredient. Once it is revealed, they have one hour to take that ingredient and turn it into several different dishes and then they are judged on those dishes and a winner is chosen. I would love to do it! The dishes can be as simple as a bite sized appetizer or as complex as a multiple serving main dish.

The difference between the two, other than one is broadcast for the entire world to see and you pretty much have to be a famous chef to be on it, is that in this challenge, you get 5 secret ingredients.

This time around, the ingredients are:
capers
leeks
cream (of any kind, as long as the word "cream" is in the name)
rosemary
lemon

As soon as I saw the list I knew exactly the route I wanted to go. Seafood!!!! I immediately scribbled down the recipe and called my favorite grocery store to see if they had any fresh sea bass. They did not, but offered to order me some. That's why I love them and do all my shopping there.

My Platinum Chef entry will be:

Broiled Sea Bass with a Creamy Lemon Caper Sauce, served over a bed of Garlic Rosemary Leeks

Hopefully my fish will come in soon and I will be able to post up the experience before this weekend.

They should just grow cream filled!

2008-03-24T11:22:00.004-05:00

When we thought we were going to get off easy and only have to attend one Easter celebration this year, I had written a special recipe for green beans and planned on making that. Then the weekend filled up.... FAST! I spent Friday night washing clothes and cleaning house so I could get up early Saturday and make two desserts and start Saturday night's dinner in time to be at a friend's daughter's second birthday party at 1:30 pm. I was 30 minutes late. I was very busy! The first dessert was the chocolate pie everyone around me has grown so fond of. Only, to make it extra pretty for Easter, I lined the top with strawberry halves and filled in the center of that with mini chocolate chips. I had a request that more chocolate be on top, haha! As if the center of the pie wasn't enough. I also used Ghirardelli chocolate this time..... yum! I should of snapped a picture, it was VERY beautiful!

Dessert number two was something that I found a while back here and couldn't wait to try out. Mine did not turn out nearly as pretty... but I'm sure they were just as tasty! I did change the filling recipe up a lot though. The best part was hearing people say, "I've never heard of stuffing strawberries" and then watching them dissappear :)

Stuffed Strawberries
recipe by me, based on above link

2 pounds of strawberries
4 large egg yolks, I used SafeEggs
3/4 cup of sugar
1 tpsn vanilla extract
2 cups mascarpone cheese

Beat the egg yolks and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla and cheese.

To prepare the berries for stuffing, I washed them and cut off their greenery. Then I took the tip of my knife and stuck it in the opening of the berry, where it is hollow inside, and just twisted it to open it up a little more.

I put the cheese mixture into a pastry bag and filled each hollow and set it cream side down into a dish, then I swirled the top with the mixture so people would have a vision of what was to come.

~~~~~

Once I got into the swing of stuffing them, it was a breeze. I initially started by trying to carve out the insides and that just became too tedious. Amber's Delectable Delights shows another way to stuff them, and that would of worked if my berries had been a little more firm. Either way.... extremely tasty!!

Different as Black and White

2008-03-24T09:08:00.003-05:00

I am continuing to learn about cooking. I learn new things each time I cook and remember to either do it again or never do it again. This weekend I learned an important lesson.

Do you know the difference between black pepper and white pepper?

Let me enlighten you.

Black pepper is the entire peppercorn either ground or finely crushed, based on preference. It does have a kick to it. It is also harder for your body to digest.

White pepper is what remains of the peppercorn once the outer black shell is removed. It is much milder and easier for your body to digest.

When you are in the middle of a recipe and it calls for an amount of white pepper and all you have is black.... do not use the same measure of black pepper. Use about half of what it calls for. Trust me.

Now that we have that out of the way, we can go on to talk about my new favorite kind of mashed potato, the garlic rosemary kind.....

Garlic Rosemary Mashed Potatoes
based upon the original recipe found here

2.5 pounds of yukon gold potatoes, washed and cubed (peels remain)
2 tblspns of olive oil
1 & 1/2 tspns of minced garlic - which is about 3 cloves
2 tspns of dried rosemary - is you have fresh, it would work so much better, just mince it first
1/2 cup milk
1/2 tspn salt
1/4 tspn black pepper
8 ounces of cream cheese, cubed

Boil the potatoes. Meanwhile, saute the oil, garlic and rosemary. Once the potatoes are fork tender, transfer to your Kitchen Aid (or you can hand mash, this is just easier) and pour the garlic and rosemary mixture over them. Stir together. Pour the milk, salt and pepper over the potatoes and start the mixer. I kept it around the 2 - 4 speed. Once it is starting to look like mashed potatoes, drop the cubes of cream cheese in one at a time until they are well blended.

~~~~~

SO good! I really wish I had of splurged and bought fresh rosemary, because it wasn't as strong as I felt that it needed to be. The measure for black pepper IS correct in the above recipe, i used double that and really regretted it. It wasn't so bad that you couldn't enjoy the dish, but you could tell they were "over peppered". I plated mine up covered in the gravy from the roast - it was perfect!

Happy Easter!

2008-03-24T08:37:00.005-05:00

This year, my Easter basket was something that wouldn't just get shoved into a closet until it could be refilled next year. In fact, it was something that will get refilled time and time again before I even see Easter 2009! Now, THAT'S a riddle ;)

This was my Easter basket -
And I couldn't be happier.

It isn't just a crock pot. It is stoneware. The "pot" part can be removed and actually set on the table. If you didn't know it just came out of a "crock" you would never be able to tell! All this and it was only $40 at Lowe's.

The first meal I cooked in it had to be superb. My in-laws were coming over on Easter Eve for a quiet pre-Easter dinner. I always feel the need for everything to be perfect when they come over. I don't know why. I guess I want them to know that Bradley is in good hands. So for this meal, nothing could be store bought!! Well... if it was, they should not be able to tell! I had it planned out perfectly - a slow cooker pot roast, garlic rosemary mashed potatoes, my wonderful cheesy beer bread and the cute little cream puff parfaits for dessert. The original slow cooker roast recipe can be found HERE But of course I made a few simple changes.

Slow Cooker Pot Roast
based on Paula Deen's recipe

2 pound boneless chuck roast
herbs De Provence
olive oil
one onion, sliced
baby carrots
3 bay leaves
3 crushed beef bouillon cubes
1 clove minced garlic
1 can condensed cream of mushroom with roasted garlic soup
1/2 cup Chardonnay wine
water

In a cast iron skillet, heat up enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the skillet. Rub the entire roast with herbs De Provence (or whatever seasoning you prefer, I just wanted to use my new spice). Once the oil is REALLY hot, use tongs to position the roast in the pan until all sides are brown.

Transfer the roast to the crock pot and arrange the onions, carrots, bay leaves, crushed bouillon and garlic around it. Spoon the condensed soup on top of the veggies and pour the wine on top of the soup. Finish with 1 & 1/2 to 2 soup cans filled with water, pouring it over the veggies also. Cook on "low" for 8 hours.

If you prefer a thick gravy - Once the 8 hours is up, spoon out about 2 cups of the juice. Mix it with 2 -3 tablespoon of flour and pour it back in. Stir it together with the rest of the juices and hold it on the "warm" setting until ready to eat.

~~~~~

I haven't had much luck with cooking a roast in the past, but this one really shined! It was perfectly juicy. The searing before cooking really added a lot to the dish!

what do YOU see?

2008-03-22T17:21:00.006-05:00

I am constantly bringing home something new for the kitchen. Whether it be something to cook with or something to dish it up in or something to just set there and look pretty. I am particularly fond of anything solid glass. In fact, I have two cabinets devoted to nothing but glass. I have pilsner glasses, juice glasses, tea glasses, shot glasses, martini glasses.... well, you get the idea. My most recent glass adoption was a 5 piece set of some very odd bowls. Bradley just does not understand my obsession. He always asks, "Now... what are you gonna do with that???". And my response is almost always the same, "I would rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it". That usually quiets him up long enough for me to prepare something delicious to eat out of it, and then he gives it the "okay" to stick around the Webb house.

But I think I know what his problem is. He can't see outside the box. You see, when he looks at those very odd bowls, he just see this -

But, when I look at those very same odd bowls..... I see this -

I have the "foodie" mind set :) Call it a gift!!!

Semi-Homemade Dessert
recipe by me

4 large egg yolks
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups mascarpone cheese
Store bought cream puffs
Strawberries
Mini Chocolate Chips

Beat the egg yolks and sugar until fluffy. Beat in the mascarpone and vanilla until well combined.
Fill the bottom of your dish with the mascarpone mixture and fit 3 cream puffs around it. Cut the stem off a strawberry and split it open, place one slice between each puff, flesh side facing inwards. Sprinkle with mini chocolate chips

~~~~~

Now, obviously the mascarpone mixture makes way more than you need for 4 single serve desserts. So stay tuned and I'll show you what to do with the rest of it.

I love it when great things just come to me!

2008-03-20T08:52:00.006-05:00

I've made lasagna once in my lifetime, and it was because I lost a bet. It was the UA UF game where Prothro got so badly injured and bama still freakin' won. I had bet on Florida and since Alabama won - I had to cook lasagna for the first time ever. I remember it fondly, like it was yesterday....... it was pretty good! I was still in my beginning stages of experimenting with cooking and from what I remember I pretty much just winged the whole recipe. I have also always been a type of person that wanted to prove people wrong. Not that anyone ever told me "You can't cook lasagna", but everyone raved about how hard and expensive it was to make and I thought "No it isn't" and made it!

But I haven't made it since. I don't know why! Stop asking! But Tuesday I was reading over some lasagna recipes and replaying the memory in my head of my first lasagna and it came to me. Lasagna casserole! Now, I know, I didn't make that up. But I feel confident that I made up this certain recipe, maybe just not the name :)

Lasagna Casserole
recipe by me!

1 pound ground round, or any hamburger - that's just my fave
2 links Italian sausage - your favorite flavor, I used hot
1 - 2 cloves of minced garlic, depending on how much you love garlic
can of diced tomatoes, I used garlic and onion
small can of tomato sauce, I used basil, garlic and oregano
can of tomato paste, I used basil, garlic and oregano
2 tablespoons of parsley
1 tablespoon of savory seasoning
2 cans of sliced mushrooms, drained
1/8 to 1/4 cup of red wine
container of crumbled feta, I used a mix of tomato basil and garlic herb
mozzarella slices
4 dry cups of small shell pasta
finely grated Parmesan
bread crumbs
Italian seasoning

Remove the sausage from its casing and crumble in into a hot pan. Add the hamburger and garlic. Cook completely. Either drain off the excess fat or soak it up with napkins like I do. Dump in the diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste and mix it all together. Then add the spices, mushrooms and wine and mix that together. Let it simmer for 20 to 30 to however many minutes you might have. In the mean time, boil your baby shells. Then get ready to start layering!
Preheat your oven to 350*
I used a corning ware medium sized oval for this dish and almost ran out of room. So if you have a large one, I would use that. I don't so I had to make do and add it to my wish list.
The first layer is just a little bit of sauce. The second layer is about half the pasta. The third layer is the feta cheese. The fourth layer is a good layer of sauce. The fifth layer is mozzarella slices (as much as you want) and if you have any feta left over you want to sprinkle on that go for it. The sixth layer is a little more sauce. The seventh layer is the remaining pasta. The eighth layer is the remaining sauce.
Now for the topping. Dust the top with the Parmesan, you can use the kind in the shaker, I won't tell. Then dust that with bread crumbs. Then sprinkle Italian Seasoning on top of that.
Bake for 30 to 40 minutes.

~~~~~

This may sound intimidating, but it is so NOT! Most of my time cooking was spent out in the yard socializing with the neighbors. Once you brown the meat and get the sauce going, you don't have to watch it. Once you layer it and put it in the oven, you don't have to watch it. It makes itself! Just don't tell my husband that, haha!

I used feta because I am not a fan of ricotta, blech! Can't stand it. But if you like ricotta more, than use that. I didn't put salt in the sauce because I knew the feta was going to be plenty salty. So if you use ricotta or cottage cheese, then you might want to add salt to the sauce.

This served 3 the first night we ate it, and I think we all got seconds. The second night we ate it, which was even better, it served 2 and we both had seconds and there was still enough for 2 more servings! BIG casserole! Perfect if family is coming over! Make it the night before through the layering process and refrigerate. When you are ready for dinner, add the topping and bake!

Gutted, Stuffed and Wrapped!

2008-03-17T08:17:00.004-05:00

I love browsing recipes and one of my favorite recipes sites is ThePioneerWomanCooks.com. She is very "down to Earth" with her recipes, meaning that you don't have to search for the ingredients, most of them are in your pantry. And don't get me started on the simplicity of her recipes!

Much like her chocolate pie that I added to, I had to add to this recipe. Her basic recipe was: jalapenos, cream cheese, bacon. Very simple! But when most red blooded Americans eat something spicy, what do they dip it in? Ranch! (or bleu cheese, but for blogging purposes, please scream "RANCH" when answering my question)

So here is what I did -

Jalapeno Poppers
Pioneer Woman mixed with Country Woman

Jalapenos (you want the stubby round ones, not the long skinny ones)
Whipped Cream Cheese
Ranch Powder
Bacon strips, halved (you want two half slices of bacon per jalapeno)
wooden toothpicks

preheat oven to 375*

mix the ranch powder and cream cheese to your liking. split each jalapeno from tip to stem and scrape out the insides. stuff each half of the pepper with the cream cheese filling (don't be shy, more is more here because while baking, some of it will ooze out) and then wrap it with a half slice of bacon and spear it with a tooth pick.

arrange the poppers on a wire rack in a roasting pan, try not to let them touch so the bacon will cook evenly. depending on the thickness of the bacon, you may need to cook them for up to 45 minutes. start at 35 minutes and just watch them. My bacon varied in size, so 40 minutes was a good medium for me.

~~~~~

These were SO good and SO filling! If you aren't a fan of spicy foods, don't let that turn you away from making this recipe. The peppers lose their extreme heat and you are left with just a small kick.

Intimidation

2008-03-14T08:40:00.005-05:00

Today, my department is having a luncheon. There is an old co-worker coming in to town and instead of us going out to lunch with her and being rushed to get back, we thought it would be a whole lot easier (and probably more delicious) to cook and bring it to work. We chose an Italian theme and I picked dessert. I had originally planned on making the chocolate desire pie, but layering it with cheesecake. But that didn't seem "Italian" enough. Then I remembered some excellent tiramisu I had on a recent trip and decided on that. So I was off to find the perfect recipe, when I discovered that these days, people are becoming more open minded to the recipes passed down though generations and were substituting fruit in place of coffee and Marsala.

Unfortunately, I did not read the recipe before deciding on it. The ingredient list was so simple and I think that is what caught my attention. When I got home and actually read the recipe, it was so intimidating that I almost didn't make it. But I am glad I did, because I found SEVERAL shortcuts and came up with the recipe I am about to share with you....

Strawberry Tiramisu aka Tiramisu alle Fragole

For the "Soaking Sauce" -
1 & 1/2 pounds fresh strawberries, stems removed and sliced
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup water

For the Filling -
4 large eggs, separated (I chose Safe Eggs, since there is no heat involved)
2 cups Mascarpone cheese
3/4 cup sugar

And don't forget the lady fingers! I used about 30.

To make the sauce, combine all ingredients in a sauce pan and heat just long enough for the sugar to dissolve. Then transfer to either a blender or a food processor, whatever you have, and liquefy!!! Set it aside and let it cool.

Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. I used my Kitchen Aid and just a little cream of tartar to help the process move quickly. Transfer the finished product to a plate and set it in the refrigerator.

Beat the egg yolks with the sugar until they are fluffy. I, again, used my Kitchen Aid. It is just so helpful! Then, add in the mascarpone and continue mixing until well blended. Get your egg whites, and fold those in.

Now you are ready to begin putting the masterpiece together. I used my rectangle lidded pyrex dish. Dunk the lady fingers one at a time in the strawberry sauce and form a single layer of them in the bottom of the dish. Once you completed the layer, you can add a little more sauce if you wish. Then take about half of the mascarpone mixture and spread it over the lady fingers. Next, more lady fingers dunked in strawberry sauce, and finish off with the remaining mascarpone. I topped mine with mini chocolate chips, but you could also slice up some strawberries or use fresh mint.

This dish would also be very pretty prepared in individual serving sizes. Make sure whatever you prepare it in is glass, so the pretty layers shine through!

Happy Leap Day!

2008-02-29T16:05:00.005-06:00

In honor of the day, a few of us decided to bake something and bring it to work. Imagine that!

Last weekend Bradley went to a cookout for the "young men" of his family's church and I made a pie for him to take. It was a brand new recipe I was yearning to try out. When I asked him how he liked it, he said, "I didn't get to try it, by the time I was ready for dessert everyone else had devoured it."

Now that's what I like to hear!!! But it made me curious - was it so good that they really had devoured it? Or was it so bad that the first person to try it threw it away so no one else would have to endure the agony of ingesting it? The only way to find out, was to make another.

It is quite possibly the simplest dish I have ever made, the Kitchen Aid does the work for you! I followed the recipe from here exactly - except I used a graham cracker crust.

Then, because I'm never happy just leaving well enough alone, I added a topping. It's almost like a cheesecake topping. Which lead me into another recipe idea entirely.... that I might make and post when I feel the need to gain a couple of pounds by eating just one slice.

Topping:
1/2 tub of cool whip
splash of milk
1/4 to 1/2 cup of brown sugar
1 tspn vanilla extract
1/2 bar cream cheese, cubed

put everything but the cream cheese into the Kitchen Aid and mix with the whisk attachment until smooth. then add the cream cheese, one cube at a time letting all the lumps disappear before you add the next cube.

Spread the topping on the pie, I left about a quarter inch between the topping and the crust so the chocolate would shine through, then I sprinkled a circle of mini chocolate chips in the middle of the pie.

I call it, "Chocolate Desire Pie" and the only thing I have to show you, is a horrible camera phone picture. But I'm sure I will have another opportunity to take better pictures

A very postworthy purchase

2008-02-04T09:31:00.001-06:00

Ever since we bought a new home I feel like my blog has turned into more than just recipes. Not that that is a bad thing. I am just discovering so many things as I decorate the house that I feel the need to share with everyone.

Saturday we made our weekly trip to Lowe's and I picked up an orchid I'd had my eye on for a while. The glass brick window in our bathroom lets in SO much light during the day that I knew a house plant would flourish there and with all the steam from our showers, an orchid would be right at home.

Once I placed it just right on the bathtub I couldn't help but take pictures of it. The colors were so pretty against each other. I think I'm going to frame the 3 close ups and hang them together somewhere.

Brunch for 2... or 9

2008-02-04T08:23:00.001-06:00

Sometimes there is a traveling vendor who sets up in the building across the street from where I work that I affectionately call "The Book Fair", because that is what it was called when I was in school. Although this vendor has books of a more adult nature for purchase. They have a very large selection of cookbooks that I always browse through but hardly ever purchase. But the last time they came, I spotted something I had to have, The Blue Willow Inn's Bible of Southern Cooking. I have used it several times but mostly I enjoy just reading it. It tells you so much about cooking and portion sizes and menus for special occasions. It even has "southern sayings" along with their definitions.

This weekend I was reading it, trying to find something for new for breakfast and came along a recipe for "Cheesey Drop Biscuits". The ingredients were simple, but of course I couldn't leave well enough alone, so I added two more just to complicate things. They can easily be left out, if you prefer a more simple, by the book, kind of life.

Cheesey Drop Biscuits
recipe from "Bible of Southern Cooking"

1 cup self rising flour
1 stick of butter, melted
1/2 cup of sour cream
1/2 cup of shredded cheese

I added 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder and 1 teaspoon parsley.

The directions say to, mix all the ingredients together and drop by spoonfulls onto a greased baking sheet or a baking stone (I had 9 biscuits) and bake in a 350* oven for 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown.

Mine did not turn very golden brown, but were done baking. I'm glad I did not wait for them to turn golden because the bottoms were perfect, any longer and they would of burned. With the addition of the garlic, they were almost like Red Lobster's Cheddar Bay Biscuits. I've never made the copy cat recipe for those because it calls for bisquick and I hate the taste of bisquick, so it was nice to discover an alternative.

Entertaining Gran

2008-01-28T11:39:00.002-06:00

Bradley had a tradition with his grandmother that every Christmas the two of them would go to Red Lobster and dine on shrimp scampi and that would be his gift to her. It is one of her favorites and Bradley, much like me, loves all things seafood. A couple of Christmas' ago he was short on cash and decided to make scampi himself and have her over. It was actually our first Christmas back together and of course I was invited. Our company had paid for all of us to get the flu vaccination that day and I felt like complete crap, I went straight from work to the recliner in his living room and dozed in and out of consciousness. Well, he wasn't having the best day either. He had to stay late at work which meant dinner wasn't going to be ready on time, and the recipe he had found online from a "copy cat" website, left much to be desired. I think it went something like, "wine butter lemon and shrimp - bake at 400 degrees". I couldn't help him because of the whole dead to the world thing, and it was too late to find a new recipe, so we ate tough, tasteless shrimp and have joked about it ever since.

The following Valentine's Day, I decided to really wow him. We had just gotten engaged and were all in love and instead of him spending money taking me out, I wanted to show him how grateful I was to have him as a Valentine for the rest of my life. So our menu was simple: Filet Mignon wrapped in bacon with Burgundy mushrooms (which was special because it was the first dish I ever cooked for him), twice baked potatoes, salad, bruschetta and... shrimp scampi. I made it with jumbo shrimp and we each had 3 shrimp with our steak. It was divine, it was delightful, it was.... now my job to prepare the shrimp scampi every Christmas. Since our kitchen had been packed since Thanksgiving and we didn't get it unpacked until after new year's, Gran's Christmas present was a little belated.

I had spent almost a week researching scampi recipes and picking what I thought were the best qualities of each of them, to make into one ultimate recipe. I found that the one key ingredient was good wine. You could not skimp on the white wine. There are a million variations of white wine out there, so I just began reading labels until I found one that fit the dish.

It is hard to measure each ingredient because this is a dish that you need to tailor to the amount of guests you are having - in other words... do not get mad when you see the recipe.

I never thought I would be doing this, but here goes...

DeLa's Shrimp Scampi
recipe by me

enough shrimp for all your guests
olive oil
salt n pepper
minced garlic
chopped green onions
white wine
fresh lime juice

Let's start with the wine selection. I spent Thursday night in the wine section of a food giant reading labels and let me just say, unless you want wine in a box or arbor mist.... find some where else to get your wine. Finally I picked up a riesling and started reading it, the first sentence grabbed me and I threw it into my buggy, "Lemon and lime will leap from your glass.....". Well we need the tastes of both in this dish! Once I got home and kept reading, it added that it was the perfect addition to "prawns hot off the grill". Is that the perfect wine for this dish or what?!
Of course you have to make sure it is good, because we all know that you should never cook with a wine that you would not drink...

Mmmm, yes, perfect.

Now you need to clean your shrimp. For the three of us, I bought 2 pounds of medium sized shrimp. I would prefer that they be de-veined and peeled, but again... I was at Food Giant. Just give them a good rinse

Peel them how you like and toss them into a large skillet.

You could leave the tails on for an added "vacation feel", but I chose not to this time.

Drizzle with olive oil, just enough to slightly cover each one, you don't want it to be too oily.

Then sprinkle kosher salt (or any kind of salt) and fresh ground pepper on the top - to your liking. Once you have enough, jump in hands first and toss them around making sure that each one gets a little bit of all three ingredients.

The next two ingredients are also very important - the garlic and green onions.

I know what some of you are saying, "I don't like to bite into an onion". Well, I promise that in this dish you won't. In fact, you have to actually hunt for an onion to eat in the sauce because they do not stick to the shrimp. The onions add flavor and color and that's it. No crunch, so onion haters - please do not omit them!

I roughly chopped about 3 green onions and minced a clove of garlic and threw them right on top of the shrimp.

Now, add the wine. You just want enough to reach the middle of your pile of shrimp, not enough to float them around.

Give it a good stir to get the garlic and onions covered in the wine, too.

Here comes the time where you can just walk away. Let them soak for 30 minutes or just however long you've got.

Once you've finished letting them soak, set the skillet on the eye, turn it on about medium and do a constant stir while they are cooking. You want to keep moving them around so they all cook evenly.

Once they are all pink, remove the skillet from the eye and squeeze a lime over them.

Give the dish another good stir to blend in the lime juice... and there you have it. A perfect shrimp scampi.

Just a few pictures of the house

2008-01-28T08:48:00.001-06:00

The kitchen stayed in disarray this weekend. We did a lot of cooking, I even got to use my stand mixer - TWICE. So I don't have any pictures of that just yet. Here are some of the master bed and bath and the guest bath.

I replaced the plates in the master bed and bath with these :

This starts the guest bath:

Notice that the birds on the basket....

Are also found on the shower curtain!

And this little buddah guy was too cute not to buy!

Confronting my fears

2008-01-25T08:46:00.002-06:00

If you know me you know.... I have a fear of eating foods "off the bone". I started taking baby steps back in the summer as to killing my fear. I would sneak a bite from one of Bradley's extra meaty chicken drummies. If my teeth didn't hit bone, I was ok. As much as I want to be that girl in the bar eating wings and yelling at the ref's on tv with the guys.... I just can't. There are things attached to that bone that I do not want to bite down on. Not to mention it gets stuck in my teeth and don't get me started on the close relation I feel that it has to cannibalism. I know... I'm weird. But you knew that, too!

I also have a fear of eating most meats not prepared by me. I will not go into a restaurant and order chili. I don't know if they prepared the meat right or not. So I applied this to my bone fear and thought, "I bet I could cook chicken drumsticks that even I would be tempted to eat." And I did, and you will be tempted to eat them also.

This recipe is number one, VERY easy and number two, VERY versatile. You can change it up however you like to fit your taste. I was feeling a little spicy last night, so I went with that.

Start out with however many chicken drumsticks you think you can eat. I chose ten, thinking that it would be a good lunch for both of us the next day. Rinse them and make sure there are no... gulp.... feathers still stuck to them, and place them in a bowl to sit quietly until you are ready for them.

Now you need to melt one stick of butter...

Add in about a 1/3 cup lemon juice...

And one tablespoon of seasoning... your choice! I chose a creole seasoning.

Let that get hot and blended. Then one by one, swirl the chicken legs around in the mixture with your favorite pair of tongs.

Repeat the process until all legs have taken a butter bath and are resting peacefully on a rack inside your favorite roasting pan. You should have some butter mixture left over when you finish, so grab a basting brush and go to town!

You can start cooking these now or you can be like me and want to continue spicing them up. I could of just sprinkled more creole seasoning on top of them, but I opted for my favorite seasoning salt, "Season All"

Just give each one a little sprinklin'...

and put the pan into a 400* over for about an hour. You'll know they're finished if you can press on them and no, gag, pink juices flow out. You'll want them to get golden brown, also! Once they are finished all that is left to be done is plate them up!

This is such a great dish because it keeps the juices inside the chicken. They are tender and flavorful. And while I still couldn't bring myself to just pickin' up a leg and chowin' down like I was having dinner around the campfire, I did thoroughly enjoy them.

***STAY TUNED*** next week I will be giving away my secret scampi recipe and posting up pictures of the new house!

Team O-Town

2008-01-10T10:41:00.002-06:00

My 2 best friends, and one of my best friend's older brother, are now competing in "Scale Back Alabama". It is a state wide competition where teams of four work together to each lose ten pounds in ten weeks, and have fun while they are doing it the healthy way.

Our name is "Team O-Town", which is very fitting and very reminiscent of our high school days. And no, we aren't named after the boy band.

Weigh in was last night and the dieting started immediately after. I went to Publix because I wanted to make fish tacos, but with all the moving in and setting up.... the fish is still setting in the fridge letting the rub soak in. So while Bradley was working his fingers to the bone in the basement, my stomach was screaming at me upstairs while I was unpacking. Being in my healthy state of mind, I dug through the freezer to see what we had. Our freezer is actually very healthy... if only I could say the same for the refrigerator and pantry.

Have you tried these? They get my "rave review" of the day! Despite the fact that the fillet is a perfect square, it is actually a real piece of fish that cooks up nice and tender in the microwave. While it was cooking I made a salad of half spring mix and half baby spinach, topped it with a couple of pepperonis and a little low fat shredded cheese, then spritzed it with my Salad Spritz Cesar Dressing. I ate that while the fish was cooking and cooling. The combination was very filling, extremely tasty and all for under 250 calories!

Then at 10:30 when Bradley finally found his way to the couch, I made him a ham and cheese melt and he ate every bit and went right to bed and his pants still buttoned in the morning. Ugh.
Hopefully I will be able to post up some healthy recipes that are still very tasty. That's my plan, make it taste great so I won't have to cook two separate dinners every night!

first meal of the new house

2008-01-09T08:07:00.001-06:00

I don't know where my camera battery charger is right now, so you are going to have to visualize this. Once I find it I will show you what Bradley got me for Christmas and also show you how utterly sexy my stand mixer is on my counter and how cute my little teapot is on my stove.

But first I'm going to tell you about last night's meal. I had almost forgotten that I knew how to cook! It's been a long while since I got to make dinner. We don't have many groceries but we have some good staples so while we were unpacking the kitchen, I laid out some chicken breast strips to thaw. Chicken Alfredo sounded good to both of us.... actually, anything home cooked sounded good. You would not believe the amount of fast food we have been eating.

So I boiled some small shell pasta and topped it with a jarred Alfredo sauce. I'm picky about my jarred foods.... but I do love Classico's line of sauces.

I initially wanted to do a Chicken Bacon and Ranch pasta, but couldn't quite figure out how to make the sauce "ranchey" or if that would even turn out good. But I still wanted to include the bacon. So I rubbed one side of the strips with garlic powder, basil, oregano and ground red pepper. While that was soaking in, I fried 2 strips of bacon. Then I put the strips, spice side down, right into the grease. Yes... there goes that lean cuisine I had for lunch. Anyway.... let them get golden on that side, then turn them over and turn the heat down and just let them finish cooking.

Plating - Pasta mixed with sauce, crumbled bacon, freshly grated Parmesan and then lay the strips on top. Add a fork and a napkin - voila!

Now.... Let me introduce you to one of my kitchen besties. It is a chunk of fresh Parmesan that is contained in its own grater. I'll give you some time to pick your jaws up off the floor. Bradley is completely addicted to Parmesan, he puts it on everything. So this little guy gets used a lot! It is not on the aisle where the other Kraft parm's are, it is in the refrigerated section. Go get one... NOW!

Well... that is it for now. At least until I find my battery charger. I just had to make sure to tell you all about the "first meal".

small additions to the page

2007-12-27T16:04:00.001-06:00

Ah how I love a slow day at work

First off, I got a counter - look at the bottom of the page. So now I can count you people and oh and ah over how many times my page has been viewed.

Second, I wanted a little pin up girl that was cooking to put in the banner at the top of my page. To go along with the theme "I don't look like ya mama and I ain't gonna cook like her neither!" All I could find was the girl to the right, she isn't exactly what I wanted, but will do for now.

Enjoy :)

New Year, New Kitchen

2007-12-21T15:38:00.001-06:00

This is a foodie blog, so I can get away with posting a "brag book" of my new kitchen.... right?! Of course! Because I know you are all dieing to see it! But I am dieing to cook in it!!!! OHHHH MAN Do I want to get in there and just cook until my fingers fall off. Right now I can touch pretty much everything in my kitchen at the same time... and fold the laundry... and yell at the dogs through the window. Yes, we are country. This will not be the case any longer! There is plenty of cabinet space, plenty of counter space, plenty of SPACE. It is a little naked right now, but not for long! We take possession on January 7th!

Cranberries and Second Graders

2007-12-18T13:40:00.001-06:00

Bradley's Great Grandmother's Christmas Party was this past Saturday night. I had planned on making Paula's Pumpkin Gingerbread Trifle again, but at the last minute changed my mind. It was just too much to do, on top of making a pie and cooking dinner and packing and having to go to the store, in my pajama pants, while the meatloaf was cooking because we didn't have any potato flakes. So I decided to make a cranberry dip. I love cranberries, and apparently you have to love cranberries to love this dip because I got some mixed reviews. Well I say mixed... basically it was two reviews. Someone in Bradley's family patted me on the back and told me he loved it, as I did the march of shame out of the fellowship hall carrying my dip that was barely touched. Bless that man, he probably told his wife, "I just felt so bad for her that no one had eaten her... whatever it was". Then we went to his parents house and his little brother Raylen said "I tried it and it was terrible". It was as if i wasn't even in the room!!! All I could do was laugh, at least he is honest.

So I'm giving you this dish and fore warning you that in order to try it... you must LOVE cranberry sauce! I served it with pretzels, but it would also be good with home made tortilla chips - think "spinach tortillas in the shape of Christmas trees!"

Ruby Red Pretzel Dip
recipe courtesy of allrecipes.com

1 (16 ounce) can jellied cranberry sauce
3/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup white vinegar
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground mustard
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon cold water

In a saucepan over medium heat, combine the cranberry sauce, sugar, vinegar, ginger, mustard, cinnamon, and pepper. Stir over medium heat until smooth. In a small dish, stir together the flour and cold water. Stir into the cranberry sauce. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes. Transfer to a serving bowl and serve with your choice of dippers.

a "wild" weekend

2007-12-17T08:50:00.002-06:00

Wild Game.... that is!

A co-worker of Bradley's loaded us up with venison and wild hog. The venison steaks were awesome and so were the wild hog chops. Then we had this venison roast. I have never cooked venison, or as us southern folk call it..... DEER. I searched the Internet and people just don't post "venison pot roast" recipes, look for yourself! But now I know why.... because I made up my own "recipe" but I still don't have a list of measured ingredients for you, so let's play a little game. We shall call this.... DeLa's How To.

Today I will be guiding you through a crash course on teaching yourself how to cook a deer roast.

First git cher man ta shoot cha up a 12 pointah and skint it and gut it up real purdy like and take em down ta dolla brathas ta chopim up.

Now that I've got that out of my system.....

Put your roast in a loaf pan, because that is what it fits in best, and think really hard about what you have to marinade it in.

Deer is not known for being the most tender cut of meat.... and what do we know fixes tough meat?? Buttermilk!!!

So just go ahead and give it a nice "wilber" bath in the buttermilk. Let it sit for about an hour, flipping it over every 5 or 10 minutes and spooning the buttermilk on top.

This will free you up for a while. So lets use this time to chop up some veggies to roast along side the meat.

Lets see, we've got big carrots, idaho potatoes and onions. What ever you like to roast, really! Mushrooms would be a nice addition, maybe some leeks, sweet potatoes... the possibilities are endless. Just make sure that it is something everyone likes.

Once the roast is finished marinating and the veggies are chopped, you must pick a theme for the spices. You know, stuff that goes together. You could do it up south of the border style... lil cumin, lil chili powder, maybe baste it in beer. Nah, it is too cold outside to do that. Next idea. Cajun style.... some creole seasoning, whip up some dirty rice as a side dish. No.... this is harder than you think.

Enter your husband at stage right.... he is going on a rampage about why you are going to cook the roast in the oven and not in the crock pot. You mind is running with new and inventive ideas about what to throw at him when suddenly.... ah ha! You kiss his forehead and shout "mama mia! youa just gave me ze perfect idea!!" We are going to do this roast Italian Style, because he loves Italian food!

Rinse your roast and pull of what little fat is attached to it. Then take your roasting pan and put the rack in and place the roast on the rack and salt and pepper it. Press freshly grated Parmesan cheese into the top and sides, make sure it is really stuck. Use as much as you like!

Now you wrap it in bacon. Quick question.... Do you know why you should cook deer wrapped in bacon? Because deer is so lean, there isn't anything to make the meat juicy. If you wrap it in bacon then the grease has no choice but to run into the crevices and down the sides and just make it all juicy and delectable!

In keeping with the Italian theme, you go to pick the spices. Basil, garlic and oregano will be perfect! For the meat, let's use garlic powder, then we will sprinkle minced garlic atop the veggies. Put a bay leaf in each corner of the pan, just because I like to use them in pretty much everything these days.

Now for the gravy. Take one packet of Au Jus Gravy mix. Why, you ask? Because that's how mama did it.

Don't read the directions on the back - just listen to me. Wow, Bradley is starting to rub off on me! Mix the powder with two cups of boiling water until it looks like this:

Now, pour it into the pan, BUT don't pour it over the meat! You don't want to wash off all the good spices!

Now, place your veggies in the pan. Make sure it looks like too many because they shrink up. Just trust me. Besides, they're good for you so you can eat a lot of them. Sprinkle on salt, pepper, basil and oregano. Then mince up some garlic and sprinkle that on top, too. No I don't have measurements.... it was hard to measure it because you just want to be sure that all the veggies have a little bit of each spice on it. Then grate some more Parmesan to put on the veggies... just for good measure!

Oh man, does that look good?! Preheat the oven to 350*. Tightly cover the whole thing with foil and roast for about an hour and a half. Then uncover it and roast for 30 to 45 minutes. This is for a 2-3 pound roast. Adjust your times accordingly. Deer is a little dry anyway so you definitely don't want to overcook it!

Remove it from the oven, give it a chance to cool and let the juices redistribute. Pour that wonderful gravy into a gravy boat, you can add some flour if you like it to be thicker.

Mmm, doesn't that look good? It kinda shrunk up a little! But that's ok because we made extra veggies, remember?? So.... get to cutting!

Yum!!!! Now look at your pan and drool over how great the veggies look!!

Serve it up with leftover dressing that you couldn't write down the directions to if your life depended on it.... seriously I just pour each spice (about 10 different ones) into my hand until I think it is enough and then drop in into boiling chicken stock and then pour it over crumbled biscuits and cornbread and bake until.... it looks done. Haha, somewhere my mom's head is about to explode! But my secret is to use celery salt, garlic powder and onion powder instead of actually dicing up those vegetables because Bradley doesn't like to bite into a big piece of anything in his dressing. The things I do for him ;) But that is a totally different post!!

Now just sit back and wait on your husband to tell you that he was wrong and never expects you to cook a roast in a crock pot again!! And soak in the comments from your loving brother in law who has always been so sweet to you!

Well, I did it

2007-12-14T13:27:00.001-06:00

I bought what I have been eyeing for quite some time. I've been saving and scrounging and dreaming about it. Now it is mine.

I want to let you in on a secret about it, also. I didn't pay full price. Amazon.com has select colors for $199. Red, black and I think white. You better get one, too!

I can't wait to make all sorts of blog worthy dishes when my new best friend arrives!!

A southern craving -

2007-12-12T09:17:00.002-06:00

Yesterday I was craving cornbread like you would not believe. It was to the point that I almost stopped on the way home at Cracker Barrel to buy some. But since I made it for the first time not too long ago, I knew I needed to wait until I got home and make it from scratch.

Corny Cornbread
recipe courtesy of Paula Deen

1/2 cup vegetable oil, plus 1/4 cup for greasing pan
1 cup self-rising cornmeal
3/4 cup self-rising flour
1 cup cream-style corn
2 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 cup grated sharp cheddar, optional
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper, optional

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Generously season a cast iron skillet with up to 1/4 cup vegetable oil. Preheat the pan either in the oven or on the stove over medium-high heat.

Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl, stirring with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until combined. Pour batter into the preheated cast iron skillet. Place skillet in the oven and bake until golden brown, approximately 30 minutes. If making individual size corn breads in smaller pans, they will require a shorter cooking time.

~~~~~

Ok so it kinda rose, a lot. It was incredibly thick. But good! Don't get me wrong. I was going to make dressing with the left overs but there wasn't enough left over. The middle wasn't finished, so I turned up the heat to 400* and left it in an extra ten minutes. Very good! Very spicy! If you don't like spicy cornbread, leave out the cayenne, or just use a 1/4 teaspoon.

I'll have a blue Christmas....

2007-12-12T08:15:00.001-06:00

So I found this special beer. It's called "Blue". It was actually an accident that I found it at all, it was mistakenly stuck inside the wrong six pack at the store, and when I pulled out the bottle and saw it didn't match the rest, it was like finding a four leaf clover.

It smelled just like a blueberry muffin and tasted the same way. My eyes lit up and Bradley knew just what I was thinking......
Blueberry Beer Bread
recipe courtesy of me

2 & 2/3 cup of self rising flour
1 - 12 oz bottle of blueberry beer
1/2 cup of sugar
1 cup of blueberries

mix all together with a rubber spatula, pour into a greased loaf pan and bake at 375* for 55 minutes. let cool in pan while sitting on a rack for five minutes, then dump loaf onto rack and continue cooling.

~~~~~

We nibbled on the crusty edges and made moans of stomach pleasing pleasure. I planned on cutting the bread into thick slices and icing each one with a brown sugar glaze. So after dinner I returned to the kitchen to start slicing. First slice, great, second slice, great, third slice.... it started to fall apart.

Now is the place where I have to interrupt and tell you, I'm not perfect. If you think I am perfect, then you have obviously been talking to my parents way too much, haha! I know this announcement may come as a shock to you, so I'm going to allow you some time for this to sink in....

You back? Ok...

Apparently..... something went wrong. I don't know what. Maybe I should of "dropped" the pan a couple of times on the counter to let all the air bubbles out before cooking it. Maybe it was the different beer that I used. Maybe it was the addition of fruit. Maybe this certain combination needed a lower temperature with a longer cooking time. Whatever the crap it was, it made me MAD! There was a huge air bubble in the middle of the loaf and nothing around the bubble cooked. I wouldn't call it "raw" because there are no eggs in the dough.... it was probably edible, but I wasn't going to risk it. I had to tearfully throw the loaf away. Which then lead to an inevitable pity party where I gave up cooking and apologized to Bradley for being such a bad wife. This was after the cornbread didn't cook in the middle and for whatever reason I messed up mashed potatoes, which I didn't even know you could do!

At least it took a pretty picture -

Bad Blogger....

2007-12-11T08:59:00.001-06:00

So.... instead of cooking, baking and having fun in the kitchen together.... we have been house hunting, signing papers, packing and eating out - alot. And wouldn't you know it, the one night we stay in and cook delicious venison tenderloin wrapped in bacon..... i left my camera at work!

With the desire to be in the kitchen and taking pictures of beautifully prepared and easily edible meals nipping at my heels...I decided that maybe I could do something just as fun until we got back into the swing of things. It's something I like to call -

"Rave Reviews" by DeLa Webb

Today's review is for Green Giant's latest invention, Simply Steam.

Now, we did not have the one pictured above, we had Green Beans, Zucchini and Carrots in a light Rosemary Butter Sauce. This was by far the easiest and most delicious side dish I have ever pulled out of the freezer and *gulp* microwaved. The veggies were so crisp, sweet and full of flavor. The butter sauce did not taste "light" at all, and the rosemary really set it off. I highly recommend picking up a few, and if I recall correctly, they were cheap also, I want to say 2 for $3. I bought several different kinds until we figured out which ones we liked best, but I can tell you I will be a repeat purchaser!

Oh! And stay tuned, because I have TWO Christmas Parties this weekend I have to cook for, and I'm thinking about putting a spin on my bread recipe and making it more of a dessert bread.... Did I reel you in yet?!?

Last tailgate party of the season

2007-11-26T09:39:00.003-06:00

Except for bowl games, but we won't go there right now....

I think I've mentioned once or twice before, I LOVE CROWDS. I love hosting parties and thank God I married someone who feels the same way. Saturday night was the inevitable Iron Bowl. It was also the time when Bradley told me that I needed to add a little section to my page called "Bradley's Grill Corner". So today is my first installment of his creations, although I won't be posting the recipe to his famous ribs because even I am not worthy enough to know the secret ingredients that make them so delicious and buttery and melty and slap yo'sef tasty!

"Mmmm Mmmm Clark, that is goooooo-uuud!"

While our boys in white (and crimson) couldn't quite pull it off in Auburn, two and a half hours away in a tiny town that is Odenville... the Webb's pulled off yet another satisfying game day spread.

I also added something to my beer bread you might want to try, a teaspoon of garlic powder. Bradley accused me of not really making bread, that's how fast it disappeared. I only made one loaf, and should of taken Bradley's road and made several.... like he did with the slabs of ribs. I think we had about fifty.

Another first for me... crock pot cheese dip. How I missed making this pot of melty love I do not know. But I did a few things non traditional that to me, made it perfect.

Crock Pot Queso
recipe by me

2 lbs Velveeta, cubed
8 oz cream cheese, cubed
2 cans of Rotel, your favorite heat (I still prefer Mexican Festival)
small can of chopped green chilies ("Old El Paso")
1/3 cup taco seasoning

Put everything in the crock pot and make sure you have a hubby around who knows how to work those things, as I would have probably burnt the cheese. Give me a break, I have never made it before!!!

~~~~~

The ribs were great, the cheese dip great and the game... eh! We had fun, as always.