What’s Your Hashtag?

I love Instagram. I love feeling like I’m part of someone else’s dinner when I see other home cook’s uploaded pictures. I love feeling excited when the “ding” pops up that a celebrity chef liked one of my pictures. I love when another user asks for one of my recipes. Yet I still have plenty of moments where I shake my head. Such as, when I look through pictures of users who are on Weight Watchers. They have usernames like WWjen or WWfoodlover … all of them start with “ww”.  Anyway, I scan their photos and most of the time I see healthy meals, small portions, point tracking, and updates of their weight loss progress.  A recent WW person started following me and I took a peak at her photos. Corn dogs, chili covered fries, ice cream sundaes, fast food french fries, fried seafood … the list goes on and on. This lady did her point tracking but her meals were disgusting! Who thinks a corn dog and a side of chili fries is healthy? I guess a corn dog is 2 points and fries were like 4 … she had some left over points and made an ice cream sundae, topped with whip cream and chocolate sauce. What that heck is she not learning from WW? She had other photos of her “progress”, usually the screen shot was something like “come on, you can do it … the points are adding up but you’re still struggling to lose weight”. NO KIDDING! She would tag the photo with something like #TailgateWeekendFail or #ICheatedThisWeek. Sorry hun I’m pretty sure your 75+ photos are not just from a bad weekend or a few cheat meals.  You can’t cheat the system! If you eat like garbage you body will become a wasteland.  Cut out the junk, cheat ONE day a week so you don’t go crazy, start to work out (walking around the block for 30 minutes is a great start), and then maybe you’ll see weight loss. It’s obviously not guaranteed and everyone is different but it’s a good start. You won’t see a change if you don’t make any!

Here are some yummy meals that can help you get going to that goal of a slimmer waist 🙂

First up, pesto covered salmon with a veggie quinoa salad. Buy jarred pesto and slather that fish up! Bake for 10 min on 400 – done. The “salad” was prepped in the morning so all I had to do was reheat it after work. Quinoa takes 20 minutes to cook and it needs to be constantly stirred, the last thing I feel like doing at night. Anyway, chop a red bell pepper and red onion, (cook until veggies are soft), mix in balsamic vinegar, top with pine nuts – serve. PS the ‘white stuff’ on the fish is fat, don’t be grossed out. I buy frozen filets; 1. 4 pieces = $12 (2 fresh filets cost that) 2. I don’t have to deal with the skin 3. My fridge doesn’t stink like fish. Sounds like a big bonus to me.
Next, turkey burgers! Cut the beef y’all, do yourself a giant favor. If you get the “fatty” turkey then you may be able to trick the meat lover in your family however don’t quote me on that. Ok so the burgers – bust out your food processor and toss in an onion and garlic. The juice of an onion is a great way to add moisture to turkey burgers or any burger for that fact. Added to the mix, wor. sauce and Fiesta burger seasoning. Crucial. I love the flavors and with the food processor no one got large bits of anything, it was pulverized to perfection. With 1.25lbs of ground turkey I made 5 burgers, 2 small ones for me and 3 bigger ones for my husband. I ate 1 and he at 2 which meant leftovers. I’m finally getting the hang of this! I forget what our sides were but you could do a salad, baked sweet potato (better than regular), cole slaw, corn, peas/carrots, etc. Nothing greasy! Don’t forget a whole wheat bun; slower releasing carbs compared to white bread.

A fun weekend activity: we made salsa. I have no idea how to can so that’s on my bucket list … because we have a mega tupperware filled to the brim of fresh salsa. It’s not perfect, it was also our 1st attempt but it’s yummy. My husband added roasted corn which was necessary for sweetness with all of the acidic ingredients (tomatoes, cilantro, lime juice, onion).

We all love take out right? Of course! Do yourself another favor and make your favorite meal at home. Our test was general tso’s chicken. I found this awesome website Damn Delicious and found a recipe for a lighter version of this favorite “Chinese” dish. I say that with quotes because you should know that is an Americanized menu item. Made with corn flakes and just absolute yumminess, this will be a keeper! We loved it – paired with quinoa fried rice and not only did it feel like we called in this order but we felt good afterwards. You know how you feel after ordering take out – BLOATED & full of regret. Not with this dish! It was a bit time consuming but my husband helped and we cut the prep time down. I don’t like spicy food so he added red pepper flakes directly to his bowl instead of the sauce.  We have at least 1 serving leftover.

Remember my new goal of creating leftovers? Well I have been making extra and hiding it. Literally. I take the extra portions, put them in tupperware, and hide them in the back of my fridge. I love my husband but if the food doesn’t smack him in the face then he won’t look for it. HA! The leftovers aren’t meant to make a full meal, he has them as snacks when he comes home from work (if he works an AM shift he’s home around 3, eats, heads to the gym, and dinner is between 6-8pm depending on my teaching sched). This works out perfectly

This could work for anyway, serve your plate and hide the rest! That way you won’t be tempted to go back for seconds or thirds.

Back to the meal – sloppy joes. I freaking love Martha Stewart. This week is all about my favorite cook book, Great Food Fast. Easy recipes to follow, simple ingredients, and minimum prep/cook time. I prepped this one in the morning, again making an easy reheat for my 1 hr time slot for dinner 😉 A recent discovery, all of the nutrition facts are in the back of this book! If you need to light that fire of learning how to cook you should buy this book. It’s the one I started with and love it.

Again I used ground turkey to cut the red meat. Make breaking up the meat easy, I use a rubber spatula and basically stab the you-know-what out of the meat, ha! Hold the pan with your free hand or you may have treats for your fur-babies. The meat gets super tiny and there aren’t any lumps. A wood spoon doesn’t get the meat broken up very well and half of the meat gets stuck to the spoon too. DO NOT BUY Manwich – that stuff if filled with nasty/bad for you ingredients. Make it yourself, hide those veggies, and you’ll never know the difference. Except you won’t feel like garbage afterwards.

Hold on to your bloomers because this dinner was ready in a blink of an eye and it only used 5 ingredients. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE! Red & yellow bell pepper, sweet Italian turkey sausage, pasta (we use Dream Fields, slow releasing carbs),  Parmesean cheese, and butter (only 1 TBSP!!!). Seriously that’s it! The salty flavor of Parm. cheese and flavorful sausage will blow your taste buds away. Isn’t it funny how the simplest of meals can make you the happiest?  Yes, a Martha meal. My husband was a bit skeptical of how it’d turn out but was pleasantly  surprised 🙂 Martha does not disappoint!

I ran out of ketchup.

My parents would be shocked.

I was saddened by the discovery.

My husband just laughed.

At 3:30pm yesterday I realized I didn’t have enough ketchup to make a bbq sauce; I didn’t even have enough to make 1/2 of the recipe. I had maybe 2 TBSP of ketchup remaining and that surely wasn’t going to cut it. There was a day when my mother always had a back up bottle in the pantry because I literally drank ketchup.  I too began stock piling ketchup, buying the mega 4 pack at Sam’s however as of lately with all of my new cooking adventures, I find myself using less and less of this fabulous condiment. I mean, to give you an idea of my ketchup addiction: I wouldn’t even touch a steak without ketchup – I don’t care if I was at home or at a 4 star restaurant. I could give a hoot about the eye rolls in my direction. I LOVE KETCHUP. My favorite dinner is chicken nuggets with too much ketchup for every bite.

You know you’re obsessed when:

This is the first time I’ve ever run out of ketchup and I’m sure it’ll happen again but it made me stop and think – I hardly buy ketchup anymore, it’s not on my weekly shopping list anymore… maybe monthly if that. Wow, what a difference a year makes. Yes, in 1 year I’ve almost kicked my addiction of ketchup. I still use it but as sauce bases or for the obvious hot dog dinner.

I digress; hubby picked up an emergency bottle on the way home from work and dinner continued.

burger recipe here                                                                       green bean salad recipe here

A ‘montage’ of pictures for the last 2 weeks of meals …
           

slow cooker ribs                                                       meatball subs – leftover from a spaghetti & meatball night 😉

                        

mac n’ cheese & pork chops w/ caramelized onions/apples               slow cooker stuffed peppers

potato salad (Martha, you disappointed me… this was not very good; from her “Great Food Fast” book)

PIZZA NIGHT! No recipe… just used my imagination 🙂

                     

stuffed portobello caps (George Foreman recipe)                                pork chops … try this yummy marinade
goat cheese, evoo, black pepper, pesto, & I added tomatoes

Twerking. I mean, tweaking… recipes that is.

Not much has happened this week that is blog-post worthy … I mean, I made a phenomenal pizza which I’ll absolutely share with you – all credit goes to Ree Drummond.  Since I’m cooking a lot of repeats of our favorite recipes I do try to make at least 1 thing new each week or tweak an oldie to make it a “newbie”.

Oldie made “newbie” – salsa chicken (chicken breasts, salsa, cheese)
The recipe calls for taco seasoning to be sprinkled on the chicken … well I used fajita seasoning – WAY BETTER! Not just any fajita seasoning, you know it had to be Bolner’s. Pour on the salsa as usual, but get a fun one … something with chunks of veggies in it, not just runny/cheap/generic salsa. Considering chicken and cheese is el-cheapo, splurge a few extra bucks on decent salsa … it adds to the texture as well.

What else did I make … (I need to consult my menu board, it’s been a LONG and CRAZY week).
Oh yeah – store prepared kabobs (beef wrapped in bacon and scallops wrapped in bacon … double turf & 1 surf, HA!)  As a side I made a Martha dish, cherry tomato and basil crisp (which turned out more like a crumble, but it was still good 😉 ) It might because I used whole wheat bread – maybe it doesn’t firm up as nicely as white. I was trying to make a healthy swap.

So I ‘cheated’ with something prepared but wanted the meal to feel homemade. Easy.

Another simple creation, inspired by Martha but I put my own twist on it.  Originally it was supposed to be spinach penne and ricotta… well that’s not substantial for this house so I bought regular penne, added fresh spinach which I had leftover, and sliced Italian sausage. Oh man, now that’s a filling dish. I didn’t have any pine nuts but I sure did have almonds! Chop those babies up and sprinkle on top – great textures between the pasta, spinach, sausage, shredded parm, and soft ricotta.

Okay, okay … the pizza!
My cheat: Bisquick mix for the dough! Sprinkle onion and garlic power in along the way, BOOM. So good.
Follow Ree’s recipe for the pizza toppings … it’s easy; really, really, really easy. Don’t cheat on the cheese, get what the recipe calls for – all of the different flavors are like an explosion and when you add the tomato/basil/balsamic vinegar mixture to the top – holy cow. It’s amazing!

I added the cheese to a RAW Bisquick dough (shoot, don’t forget the pesto!!!) – let the dough turn golden brown and the cheese becomes ooey-gooey – 15-20 minutes (25-30 if you like crispy) … let it sit for the cheese to firm up just a bit (it’s easier to cut), add the tomatoes and life will be good in 3, 2, 1… YUM!

This was our first pizza on a pizza stone – BUY ONE. Just do it. Those pizza pans with holes are garbage. Lesson learned.

We’ve got pork chops and a grilled zucchini salad for tonight. Not just any pork chops, hitting up the old blue cheese and cranberries (I’m going to freeze it like a ‘steak butter’ and let it melt over the pork chop as I’m plating).

ENJOY!

 

 

cheap cheap cheap eats

I’m all about cheap eats and recreating dishes I see on menus, for waaaaaaaay less.  With returning from vacation and a few inspirations I decided to make our final Lenten meal a special one. Considering my husband will be working on Easter, why not splurge on a dinner I know he’ll be able to actually enjoy fresh.  I say ‘splurge’ in the sense that it’s not a dish I’d typically cook; just a touch of fancy. It was definitely not a splurge on my budget, which I’m sure anyone would appreciate.

My inspiration: Salmon Niçoise Salad … I know it sounds fancy but it’s quite simple. I saw this on 2 different menus while in Palm Springs, CA. Now, the spinach salad alone (some versions are a dark green leaf or spinach, doesn’t matter) was $10, if you wanted to add salmon it was an extra $10. I mean, what a rip off! I can buy 3-4 bags of spinach for $10 … yes salmon can be pricey especially if it’s fresh, but I’d be more content with it only being an $8 surcharge.  Anyway, I wanted to create my own version on a smaller budget. Needless to say mine was $6 per serving … that’s $12 for the two of us. HELLO! I just saved $28 🙂 .

On to my version: I didn’t like how the salmon filets were looking on my grocery trip and then I eyed tuna steaks. They were frozen which is a great way to save and only $6 for 2!

 

No it doesn’t look exactly like the Nicoise Salad but again, it’s my version! We wanted baked potatoes so instead of incorporating them into the salad, it became a side.

Tuna marinade: EVOO, honey, dijon, parsley. Let it sit for 30 min or more (S & P both sides of the steak!)
Salad dressing: red wine vinegar, EVOO, dijon, pepper
I kept similar flavors from the original but after finding so many versions of this recipe, I took ingredients from a few and combined them – it turned out quite nicely!
Baked potato: butter, cheese, S & P (really, did you need me to explain that to you?)

I grilled the tuna on my George Foreman, they only need 4 minutes to cook – no sense in heating up the grill for that.  Let them sit for 5-10 minutes OFF of the grill so it can cook all of the way through without making the center too tough.

Man this was the best idea ever and I’m so glad the salmon looked sad at the store. It’s okay to improvise if you can’t find an ingredient, find something in the same family and you’ll be just fine.

—-

Here are a few other creations from this week:
Lasagna – ground turkey, mushrooms, cheese, onions, DONE.

Josh’s famous chili:

Annnnd Feta/Spinach Chicken Sausages with spicy black bean patties

So there you go, a few new recipes. Try them out & let me know how they go!

 

Brinner!

It’s not a term that IHOP made up for their newest commercial… It’s a term clearly made up by college students that when the cafeteria didn’t have anything tempting for dinner, you went directly to the cereal bar. How can you go wrong with cereal? It’s seriously a life saving creation and clearly needs its own triangle on the food pyramid. So you get aquatinted with ‘brinner’ but after 22 y.o. it seems unacceptable to eat only cereal for dinner (my husband will tell you I’m full of lies) … Introduce the frittata. It’s like the rich uncle to a scrambled egg. You can add whatever you want, I picked (actually, Martha) ham, fontina cheese, green beans, and chives.

It’s like a quiche but minus a crust. It’s like an omelette but minus the flipping and folding. It’s way better than scrambled eggs, and it just makes for a hearty meal. Whip up home fries and voila! Brinner is served.

Martha will instruct you to cook using a cast iron skillet but I haven’t made that purchase yet. It’s not necessary so no excuses to not make this… I sautéed everything on the stove and while that was going on, I popped a casserole dish in the oven to heat up. Throw the cooked mixture into the casserole dish, pour in eggs/cheese and it will turn out perfect. Promise*

It’s pretty funny to see the difference in Josh’s plate vs my plate. That boy eats so much food! His doctor reminded him that he needs to keep up his carb intake because diabetics need that for their brain. Carbs = brain food, in moderation of course. That’s why I chose regular potatoes and made a huge amount of the home fries (more leftovers while I’m out of town). I got on this shopping habit of ‘no carbs’ but that’s what doctors are for, to keep you in check.

As usual dinner didn’t happen on Thursday (hopefully the ingredients are still good for Tuesday!) … We ordered pizza, which I felt bad about since my husband’s friend was over again. Although we didn’t just call Papa John’s, we kept it classy with BJ’s and got 2 yummy pizzas. One they messed up (ordered the 5 meat and asked for jalapeños to be added to 1/2… Yeah well only half got meat and the other only jalapeños. Really?!) we also got a buffalo chicken pizza and it was definitely spicy. It was no Frank’s Red Hot but it was still good.

I’m in Vegas for one more night, I return tomorrow… Back to the daily grind and figuring out my weekly menus. I’d have to say that I’ve enjoyed having a few days off from cooking but I sure do miss it. We all need vacations and while you may think it’s for one reason, it can easily inspire you for another.

Disclaimer
* if you can’t even boil water than this guarantee is void.

Quit Yer Belly Achin’

I love the Facebook posts around holiday season: “Oh my God I ate too much” or “Oh my God I REALLY ate WAY too much”.  I say, host your own gathering and control the food spread. Obviously you may not be able to do this every year but it could be a start; show your friends how you can create an amazing buffet and not feel disgusting at the end of it.  Oh the other part of that is, freaking control yourself! Just because 10 trays of cookies are prepared doesn’t mean you need to sample a few from each.

Honestly sometimes I eat a light snack before going over to someones house. It’ll hold me over in case there are some bad foods offered – I won’t be hungry to eat; it can also curve my hunger in case there aren’t any finger foods and one must wait until dinner.  I don’t want to scarf my dinner down so fast that my belly hates me. It’s all about self control.

I may be blessed in the sense that my good friend Chelsea is all for eating healthy and cutting processed foods, it made Thanksgiving easy. There were no cries from the peanut gallery when I introduced my low carb/low calorie menu.

On to Christmas, my family came to town! I got to cook one dinner (Christmas Eve) for them, Chicken Marsala.  It was a bit difficult cooking for 5 adults when I’m used to only myself and my husband (even though he counts for 3 or 4 sometimes 😉 ) Dinner turned out great and they liked it.  Clean plate clubs all around. I added prosciutto this time (now that I don’t live in the ghetto, my new/fancy grocery store sells it!) and now I can taste why it’s necessary.  You need some kind of salty flavor since mushrooms are quite bland – the flavor of the Marsala wine cooks out and even using s/p on the chicken, the dish was still missing something the first time I made it.

Everyone was in the kitchen! Josh requested ‘rusty mashed potatoes’ so he had to prepare them. They are pretty easy because they don’t require any peeling. He lucked out. My mom is a slicing and dicing machine.  She turned her nose to my mandolin and said “I’m your mandolin, give me those veggies”. Yes that’s my standard peppers, zucchini, and squash medley. It’s easy and tasty. Plus how pretty is it? So many colors!

We did have Christmas dinner at home, it was prepped and cooked by everyone.  It started with marinating a 3 lbs beef tenderloin the night before. I’m still getting used to the fact that my fridge can hold such an item – I love marinating food over night, the flavors are amazing! Easiest marinade ever, I didn’t “food process” it, just throw everything in the baggie (yes, dice the shallots and I put the rosemary branches in whole). I doubled everything since this piece of meat was extra special. Let that baby sit over night, pull out 30 minutes prior to grilling and you’re set.

My dad braved the cold San Antonio weather to man the grill. He is the ultimate grill master; I won’t EVER order steaks at a restaurant.  He has made me expect the best when it comes to meat.  We’re slowly working on our grilling skills so hopefully Josh learned a thing or two while my family was here. I never experienced an oven cooked meat for a holiday while growing up. Even in 5 feet of snow, the grill was going.

Of course we had a theme for dinner, surf and turf! The seafood market at my new/fancy grocery store is fantastic. Obviously so is the meat market; they trimmed the tenderloin to perfection.  Seafood counter purchases: large scallops, jump shrimp, crab legs, and salmon. We kept it simple with the first three items: melted butter and threw in garlic, boom, there’s your sauce.  I used my favorite Martha recipe for the salmon.  Chelsea helped prepare a double recipe of it, brushed some on prior to cooking the salmon and then people could spoon on whatever they wanted once it was on their plate.

I know you must be dying to find out what side dish I served. Drum roooolllllllll…. Mushroom Orzo! Geeze it was delish! I went back for seconds and there was only a small spoonfull! WHAT! The chef missed out! I have officially added it to my recipe box and will be making it again.  I actually didn’t have enough orzo so I threw in some quinoa. It was so pretty!

I went with probably 2 dozen pearl onions, I don’t even know where the creator got only 8 from. Each of us would get 1/4 of an onion? Ridiculous! You’ll have to peel these stubborn suckers. Boil them for a few minutes, let them cool, and you should be able to pop the skin right off. Do this, save your sanity. Why yes that is a wine measuring glass! An awesome gift from my parents, based on the cooking regime Julia Child believed in: “I enjoy cooking with wine, sometimes I even put it in the food I’m cooking.” One side of the glass is “sips for the chef” and the other is an actual measuring cup.

I’ll leave you with an assortment of pictures from that day – going back for 2nds or 3rds isn’t so bad when you prepare a healthy dinner! Enjoy!

 

 

 

I have not abandoned you…

My daily routine has been nothing close to normal which explains why I have been scarce on posting.  I have however made some pretty tasty meals (and 1 near disaster, lol).  Here’s a peek at the last 2 weeks, I’ll include recipe links under each photo description. After the holidays my goal is to be back blogging 2x each week, with better updates of our diabetic eating adventures and life changes to being healthier.

   Good ol’ Martha is back at it … baked shells with winter squash

Of course I couldn’t find winter squash puree like the recipe calls (hunted 4 stores) for so I had to put some elbow grease into this dish and dice up my own squash. What a pain. I thought to myself “I am not making any more recipes that call for squash”… peeling and dicing it took FOREVER.  I used the amounts in Martha’s recipe and ended up with enough for 2 fairly large casserole dishes. That was actually okay because I now have a fridge that can hold leftovers. Delish, filling, seasonal, comfort food, hearty, vegetarian … I’d absolutely make this again!

Ain’t nothin’ wrong with buying dinners prepared by your local grocery store.  Now that we live near a fancy ‘HEB Plus’ we have a lot more to choose from. The seafood counter is 10x better than our previous HEB.  Josh requested seafood burgers and I added Maryland style crab cakes plus vegetable couscous.  If I recall those were bruschetta salmon burgers – O.M.G.  Everything you’d find in bruschetta (tomato and basil) + salmon.  The vegetable couscous was made by yours truly from a diabetic cook book – pick your favorite veggies and add them to couscous. It couldn’t be easier.  I’ll be buying crab cakes from the store again too; being from the East Coast I was satisfied with what Texas had to offer as their version of “Maryland style” crab cakes.

  Again, store bought pre-marinated beef kabobs.  Yeah I was a bit lazy that week. Actually, no I wasn’t! I decorated our house for Christmas, had a dress rehearsal at my school, had 1 studio recital, finished unpacking our last 5 boxes … and purchased a living room. I wasn’t lazy. So, kabobs + leftover veggie couscous. Easy dinner!

This is my happiest meal yet … I made it on Wednesday with Josh’s help. I had him home for 3 dinners this week; I am one lucky wife 🙂 His sister had actually pinned a similar recipe but when I clicked on the photo that annoying alert came up “this link might contain nudity”. What? A picture of a chicken breast? Haha. Anyway, the link was removed so I just Googled “mini chicken pot pies” and found this little gem!  From start to finish, dinner was ready in 35 minutes.  I purchased chicken tenders for easier prep and a can of peas/carrots. These would be so cute for a pot luck, they fit in your hand and are not messy! Once they cooled you could pick them up to eat, no fork needed.

  Yeah, remember that whole “I’m not making any more butternut squash recipes” comment? HA! After going a few times to Panera and having their Autumn Squash Soup I insisted on trying to make my own. Round 1: blah. Round 2: I won! I purchased 2 large squash which made enough soup for an entire week. Again, my fridge holds plenty of leftovers 🙂 thankfully that gave me an opportunity to improve the flavor.  Sadly, round 1 was a Marta recipe … I don’t know what she was thinking but it had ZERO flavor.  I then searched for a copy of Panera’s version – there are quite a few bloggers out there that devote their time to copying restaurant favorites and posting the outcomes.  So round 2 was thanks to this chica;  well sort of. I added honey, cinnamon, and curry that she suggested – I already had a decent base so didn’t feel the need to add milk/cream or apples. WOW what a huge difference those spices made and holy cow it was sooooo freaking good. I’m pretty sure I did a happy dance around my (huge) kitchen.  If you want a creamy base then add cream or milk, but those are diabetic no-no’s and I don’t feel my taste buds missed it.

Ah, a classic…stuffed pork chops.  I might have blogged about these already but whatever. Blue cheese and cranberry stuffed pork chops. Easy. Done and done. You can stuff a pork chop with anything!

I do have other meals that I made but WordPress doesn’t like video files I guess … or at least won’t allow them on a free site. Oh well, I shall describe them!
1) vegetable tostadas which turned in to vegetable tacos, lol. Saute zucchini, mushrooms, and scallions – layer that on a tortilla and top with feta cheese and your favorite salsa. Super simple yet a incredibly filling dish. I added chorizo and queso fresco stuffed jalapenos as a side. Yes, Martha’s tostada recipe calls for the veggies being grilled … well an “arctic blast” came through Texas and it seemed silly to start up the grill. The stove worked out just fine.
2) curry chicken. Martha, you redeemed yourself from that bland soup. A year ago I would have turned my nose to curry but I wanted to test it out in my own kitchen to see if I’d like it, I’ve heard good things about “curried” foods. Oh man, it was so tasty and not really all that spicy – that was my biggest fear. I used a lot of curry, in my opinion and Josh said he could taste all of the flavors, we both loved it!  I cooked up some brown rice and stirred it in the pot of chicken curry, let everything sit for a few so the rice could absorb all of that yummy-ness.

I think that’s it… my last 2 weeks.

This week: chicken bombs + baked beans and a salad; gouda/spinach stuffed pork chops + green beans and mashed p’s; standard spaghetti + garlic knots; steaks + sweet potatoes and a salad.

Have you started thinking about the week of Christmas? I HAVE, I HAVE! My family is coming!!!!!!!!! Time to show them my new found love for cooking.  Of course we’ll be hitting up a few restaurants but what is planned: chicken marsala + garlic mashed p’s; lasagna roll ups + pork/quinoa meatballs; and for Christmas DRUM ROLL >> SURF & TURF! Salmon filets, crab cakes, scallops, beef tenderloin and a few veggie sides.  LOVE IT!

OH! MY NEAR DISASTER MEAL! I found this pork tenderloin marinade and let’s just say I won’t be making it again. Blah flavors. Honey, lime juice, and garlic.  No more needs to be said about that meal.

Feel free to follow me on instagram MRSDLH50 … my pot pies were “liked” by TLTFOOD – season 2 winners of the food truck race on the food channel. HOW COOL!!! HA!

Buca di Higby

Lasagna + ricotta stuffed chicken parm = bonus Italiano week!

I had most of the ingredients to make both dishes and since I’m all about using what you already have, it was the obvious choice to put them on the menu last week.  I only needed to buy chicken breasts and ricotta cheese; cheap shopping trip!

But of course, this is a recipe promoted by Martha Stewart – the dishes are easy, only call for a few ingredients, and are seriously fool proof … perfect for a beginner cook!  I cut the ingredients down for a smaller lasagna (we still had leftovers!), just for 2 people.

I had 2 sweet Italian sausages leftover from the spaghetti bake. I had lasagna noodles leftover from the slow cooker [lasagna] attempt. We always have plenty of sliced cheese options in our fridge, I’m telling you- we love cheese. I typically have 1 or 2 jars of marinara sauce in the pantry, never know when it will be a spaghetti kind of night. Ok, easy peasy, it’ll take you maybe 15 minutes to prep the lasagna and 40 minutes to bake it.

Having friends over? Make the original recipe, it’ll definitely be a crowd-pleaser.

Josh requested garlic bread as a side but to mix it up I found garlic knots which were super squishy and nice change from the usual “Texas Toast”.  Oh and that’s me as “quality control” to ensure the cheese was indeed delicious.  Approved.  I added a picture of the counter to show you I am not the neatest of cooks; feel free to make a mess while you’re cooking – I don’t have assistants cleaning up behind me like they do on TV shows. So if you’re wondering why Giada’s kitchen is so CLEAN … she has minions doing all the dirty work during commercial breaks.  I do have an amazing husband who cleans up after dinner though. God bless. If he ever complains, I remind him that scrumdiddlyumptious dishes mean a not so tidy kitchen as the end result.  If he wants an easy clean up, he won’t get a fulfilling meal. HA!

BTW: the lasagna picture from the recipe website looks a little deflated. I made thick layers to give it more appealing finished look.

 

 

Originally on the menu was plain old chicken parm.  It’s becoming one of our favorites around here and I’m making it about every other week … so to change it up and use the leftover ricotta, I figured – ricotta stuffed chicken parm. Best idea ever! I butterflied the chicken breasts, breaded both sides, and spooned on the ricotta. Bake time is the same, it came out bubbly and oozing with cheese.   This became a fancy-pants lunch since it was intended for dinner the night before (we had date night to Ruby Tuesday’s); I didn’t want the ricotta going bad so why not make a decent lunch.  Plus Josh was heading out for the weekend for work … sent him off with a full belly 🙂 .

If you’re wondering about my nifty dredging set up – Pampered Chef! I just got it the other week and was excited to put it to use. It’s the simple things! They clip together and are dishwasher/microwave safe.  Possibilities are endless: chocolate covered strawberries, deep fry station, sundae toppings, whatever!

lesson learned

Tuesday: I had good intentions for a steak and sweep potato dinner. Those good intentions quickly went up in smoke. Literally.  I don’t know why I thought broiling everything was a brilliant idea. We have been holding out on refilling the (grill) propane tank with our move fast approaching.  We can move it ourselves but our new home has a gas line out to the patio so our thought process was ‘why pay for propane when we’ll be paying for a gas line to be installed’ … of course the close date has been pushed back 2x already. As I hang my head in shame, I managed to burn perfectly good steaks and sweet potatoes.

Sure, the potatoes look ok – we scrapped the charred layer off which was almost impossible. I just had to add more spices before mixing them with the butter.  That steak photo was taken the 1st time they came out of the oven.  I cut in to my steak and it was more than moo-ing. Now, I love a medium rare steak but this was TOO RARE. Back in the oven they go … womp womp womp.  Josh noticed smoke billowing from the oven door and barely saved the steaks. They weren’t completely burned but they had gone past the medium rare state. Ugh. The smoke was due to the juices from the steak I cut in to.  It’s fair to say, if something it supposed to be grilled … DO IT. Go refill your propane tank and cook things properly. Lesson learned.

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Fortunately the other dinners for the week turned out GREAT.

Monday: Kielbasa & glazed carrots

Due to the diabetes in our house, I used ‘fake’ butter and Stevia instead of real sugar.

Sass up your salad: add craisins, croutons, and blue cheese crumbles (left over from my Carl’s Jr creation!)

Saturday: make your own chicken tenders, sweet p fries, and sweet corn/pepper combo

Tenders & fries are free foods for Josh so I picked up this new frozen corn product (corn: bad food!). It was actually pretty good; the peppers added a fresh flavor to cut through the sweet corn.

There’s nothing wrong with purchasing frozen. If it’s what you have time for, some type of veggie is better than none at all.  If you’re health conscious, check the back label to make sure the product fits into your lifestyle.  I’m not buying the cheese covered broccoli anymore or slimy sauce covered noddles (sorry Lipton… we used to be BFF’s!); that’s the nasty stuff.  There are diabetics out there that will continue to eat those things and just take more insulin to compensate. WRONG. 1 small spoonful is all Josh could eat of those Lipton noodles. Who eats 1 spoonful of them? They’re addictive!   Just change your diet, it’s so much easier to cook “healthy” than have to calculate how many units of insulin you’ll need to cancel out the sugars.

Somebody call Kenny Loggins…

After raining every day last week the weekend brought cooler temps, down to 83! Windows were open & AC was turned off; it was fantastic. Although it went right back up to 94 yesterday… boo.  I knew the mid-80’s wouldn’t last forever but in hindsight, I know it’ll NEVER snow. I was quickly reminded how the rest of the country is actually experiencing fall, my SIL woke up to a brisk 38 degrees the other day. No thank you!  We’re nearing our one year mark since moving to S.A. and even in November, the temps were all other the place… one day 90 the next 70. No snow though 😉 .

The highlights of our weekend

yummy cocktails to celebrate a date night & the fact that about 75% of the drywall was put up in our new home
(Cheesecake Factory on Friday)
+
THE BEST FOOD EVER from Arcade Midtown Kitchen (Sunday)
(chicken and waffles, HELLO!; calamari; lobster stuffed crepe)

Josh had a cooking experiment trying to toast almonds and season them with Old Bay. Upon tasting his “creation” his exact words were “I’m pretty much a chef extraordinaire”. This folks, is how I know I can literally cook ANYTHING for dinner and he’d be happy. He’s a simple guy!

The weekend would have been better if the Steelers had wanted a “W” … anyway, moving on.

I let y’all in on my weekly menu ahead of time … I know of one person who tried the Chicken Casserole, she sent a pic and it turned out great! I hadn’t eaten dinner yet when she sent it so I was super jealous.  Who doesn’t love a 1 or 2 dirty dish recipe?! I think it makes a meal taste that much better knowing you don’t have a mega clean up waiting in the kitchen.

Monday was a delish repeat; I plated it differently so with eat bite you’d get a little of everything … I had to make mashed p’s instead because I forgot that the last box of stuffing I purchased was only 1 serving. Whoopsie-bears! So I added Feta cheese into the mashed p’s to contrast the sweet cherry/rhubarb sauce: super yummy success!

Another switch-er-roo for those steak pitas … I dunno, I got bored with the idea of going Greek again so after a quick search I found a tasty recipe for Thai Steak Wraps.  Yes, there are a lot of ingredients but remember what I told you waaaaaay back when – once you start cooking more, you’ll acquire spices and will be able to cook almost anything!

Add a salad and you’ve got a complete meal! Quick note about salads, we were getting tired of the same ol’ salad each night so I bought different lettuce (we’d been on a spring greens and spinach kick but were so over it) … more toppings too: craisins, croutons, sliced cucumbers & tomatoes differently (yes, this counts as a change!), plenty of cheeses to choose from as well. Same side dish but just mixed it up a bit; think of it like a “make your own frozen yogurt bar” … set it up like a buffet and pick what you want. Kids might be more eager to eat a salad if … they helped make it!

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Poor Ella, she has no idea …

that she’s in THE DANGER ZONE! (courtesy of Josh, gave me a good laugh after a long day of teaching/lessons)
If you don’t understand, your loss.