Resolutions

I don't make them. But I do try to do better than I did last year. And I try to get my shit together a little more each year. I've got a long way to go.

However, I was reading at this blog the other day about using January as your cleaning month. The only thing I have actually done is to clean up my inbox from all of those obnoxious e-mails and unsubscribing from them (Loft, Old Navy, Printstagram, Good Housekeeping, Ebay, etc.). And let me tell you, you will feel like a new woman (or man if Drew is reading this as my only male reader). Also, if you're like my friend Sarah you just need to clean out your inbox in general from the over 1,000 e-mails you're keeping "just in case." It stresses me out and it should stress you out.

Another thing Drew and I are doing this year is something I read on a blog whose name I can't remember but we are exchanging a list of 12 books we want the other to read and each month we're responsible for reading one. We have very different tastes.

Drew's all fantasy, sci-fi, and fiction. And I'm all historical, education, and non-fiction. So it shall be interesting. His first book is the Autobiography of Malcolm X and mine is the first of the Harry Potter's. Before you ask, the answer is nope. Never read them. If you know me you know my dear mama worried about wizardry/witchcraft/Halloweenie things in our youth. So that leaves my sister reading them at 20 and me reading them at 24. I hope they are still as magical at this age as everyone assured me they were in their tween years.

Other ways I'll try and better myself: being more thoughtful. I tend to get caught up in my business and forget that people are going through some serious stuff. Everyone remembers to check on you when your husband first leaves for basic training or when your divorce is freshly filed but what about in the months following. You still need a pick-me-up sometimes. My hope is to make more of an effort for all of my friends this year. Nine days in and it's a success. But we got a long way to go.

Also, the attempt to better myself that I know I'll break the fastest is the one where I say I'll try to enjoy cooking more. Yeah, it's all easy to research and prepare food when I'm sitting on my ass all day watching the Barefoot Contessa. But what about next week when I'm in class all day? I'll turn to Domino's, I just know it. But for now:

Chicken chimichimichangas (Drew insists on two chimis in his changa).

The filling and the finished product. Find the recipe here.

Sharing is Caring

I'd like to share some things with you. Cool products. Recipes a generous term for what I'll really share And other people's words of wisdom.

First of all: Barkbox. This is a message from Ike for all of his doggy friends. We just recently signed up and just received our first box yesterday. I, of course, forgot to take a picture of it. But it 2 different bones, 2 bags of treats and a toy. Here he is with a new bone.

Second: Mocha Club. If you follow the link and watch the video you can get a brief overview of the idea. Essentially they support development projects in Africa. I pay $9 a month. That's basically me giving up 2 peppermint mochas a month to give to something that matters. Watch this video, you won't be sorry. You can join me here. And, this is totally not the point but I received this beautiful scarf made by African women as a gift for joining.

Third: Dinner. I don't do soup. My family has soups for Christmas dinner and my mom has already bribed me by telling me she'll order me a cheeseburger after everyone has left. This soup, admittedly was kinda like groul. But those little zucchini spears were little slices of heaven. Make them. Put them in a skillet with a little olive oil, add some seasoned salt and pepper when they're done and call yourself a chef. Drew fell in love with me all over again as a result of these. Totally worth the bad alleged "chowder" recipe to find this good one. (Thanks emeals!)

Fourth: New Girl. If you haven't watched it, just do it already. Don't put it off any longer. It's the second best decision you'll ever make after you make those zucchini spears.

Fifth: Duck Dynasty. My real thoughts (or some similar) are found here and here.

Sixth: Dip some pretzels and some Ritz peanut butter crackers in white chocolate and call yourself a candy maker. Don't make the peppermint fudge that the Pioneer Woman will tell you to. It isn't good. But if you make it anyway just because it looks festive, give it to your neighbors. (worked for me).

My husband is currently ice-skating with his bff. Enjoy that mental picture friends. I'm off to spend the afternoon with my friend JoAnn. (the fabric store)

A Birthday and the haps 'round here

Don't ask me how I decided which of those words up there to capitalize and which ones not to. So today is my 24th and currently I'm celebrating by doing this:

Laying in bed, eating activia and reading online.

And I plan on staying right here until I have to leave for class at 3:00.


Other than that excitement our life has been pretty busy.  But I think we are now taking a swing toward more relaxation. We traveled to NoVa this weekend to work a wine festival which was quite the experience.

I will use this space to tell you the positives: we stayed for free in a nice hotel (I'm such a kid when it comes to hotels they excite me like nothing else can) we bonded with some friends over the experience and I got to eat out of a food truck for the first time.

The negatives include: having a panic attack, getting chewed out as a volunteer, not actually getting to sample any wines, and leaving my puppy.

This is the only picture I took all weekend:

In other news my blogger friend Colleen wrote about emeals a while back and I did some research and quickly became a believer.  I'm sure you all remember this post I wrote a while back so I'm hoping this cures me of that or at least makes life a little easier. We began yesterday and this was dinner last night, so far I'm very impressed. And to make it even better we grew the spinach ourselves!!! Our first garden food this year!

 

Emeals delivered a store list and meal plan to my e-mail yesterday and had every ingredient separated out to it's location in the store. It is a God send and made meal planning easy peasy. I chose crock-pot meals because they are easier but there are tons of other options. If you are a meal planner, I strongly recommend it.

 

And speaking of our garden it has come into it's own lately.

 



The lovely bags are to scare away deer because some got into our lettuce while we were away and Ike wasn't here to chase them off. I'm quite proud of our little patch of heaven on earth.

So that's the haps here in the Burg. Hope your summer so far is sunny and full of fresh garden foods too!

Some Pretty Sweet Recipes

And by sweet I mean cool. Hope you didn't think I meant actual sweets. Oh you did? Sorry. Well, now you're here so it won't to take a look at these awesome (there that's less deceiving) recipes.

I'm always looking for/trying new recipes so I thought I would pass these along to those of you who are tired of fixing lemon pepper chicken (that used to by my ONLY dish). Also, I don't fix things that are hard, it's just not worth it for me. I'm usually out of the mood to eat by the time I get done cooking anyway, so the easier the better in my opinion. Plus when I find recipes on pinterest I wish there was a disclaimer from people saying whether or not they actually fixed it and if it was decent. Because they ALL say "the best recipe I've pinned on pinterest" and I'm a pretty big skeptic so I doubt that all recipes on pinterest are "amazing."  Okay, here goes:


Okay this one isn't from pinterest, it's from Taste of Home Magazine (yes a magazine lady showed up at my door and momentarily seduced me so I figured I needed to get my money's worth from the overpriced magazine subscription to Taste of Home).

Shrimp Corn Cakes with Soy Mayo

Not super easy, but I did it so it is not impossible.

Sauce
1/2 cup mayo
1 Tbsp. Soy Sauce
1 Tbsp. Ketchup
2 tsp. Dijon Mustard
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/8 tsp. pepper

Shrimp Corn Cakes
1/2 Cup chopped onion
1 Tbsp. Oil
2 Minced Garlic Cloves
1/2 lb. uncooked peeled and deveined shrimp, finely chopped
3/4 cup All purpose flour
1/4 Cup Cornmeal
1 Tbsp. Cornstarch
1 tsp. Baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 cup cream style corn
1 cup whole kernel corn
1 egg slightly beaten

1. In a small bowl, combine ingredients for sauce, cover and chill until serving.
2. In a large skillet cook and stir onion in oil over medium-high heat until tender. Add garlic; cook 1 minute longer. Add shrimp; cook and stir until shrimp turns pink. Remove from heat.
3. In a large bowl, mix the flour, meal, cornstarch, baking powder, salt and pepper. In a small bowl, mix the corn, egg and shrimp mixture; stir into dry ingredients just until moistened.
4. In an electric skillet (which I don't have so I fixed mine on the stove), heat 1/4 in. of oil to 375. In batches, drop corn mixture by rounded tablespoonfulls into oil; fry 1 1/2 minutes on each side or until golden brown. Drain on paper towels. Serve with sauce.

I'm not a big shrimp fan but if I were I know I would love these. I loved the breading and the crispiness and the sauce. Just not the shrimp. So Drew took care of most of these bad boys. I may just make this same recipe without the shrimp sometime for myself.

Crock Pot Chicken Tacos/Burritos

Omgoodness, super easy. I will even trust Drew with this.

2-3 Tablespoons Taco Seasoning
3-4 Chicken Breasts
2 Cans Undrained Diced Tomatoes w/ Chillies

Throw it in your crockpot. Leave it for 4 hours on low. And there you have it. We put lettuce, sour cream, cheese and rice on our tortilla shells. Delish and easy. The recipe also said to add avocado and corn, that would be yummy.

No picture, sorry. But chicken tacos are pretty standard.

French Bread Pizzas

props

I made this while Bryce was here thinking he could help me, yeah right. He wouldn't even eat it. But it is (in most cases) kid-friendly and easy peasy.

French Bread Loaf
Pizza Sauce
Mozzarella Cheese
Toppings of Choice

If you can't figure it out from here, you should probably just call Domino's. But seriously, cut the bread in half, pizza sauce, cheese, toppings. Bake at 500 for 5-7 minutes.

No Boil 3 Cheese Manicotti

props

Freezer Meal Alert! Another meal you can trust hubby with.

Filling Ingredients-place in gallon size freezer bag
2 Cups Cottage Cheese
1 1/2 Cups Mozzarella
1 1/2 Teaspoons Italian Seasoning
1/4 Teaspoon Pepper

Remaining Ingredients
1 8 oz. package manicotti
1/2 cup mozzarella
1/4 cup parm.
Jar marinara sauce ($1 can of Hunt's is the perfect choice)
Cooking spray

Also I suggest disposable pans, this makes 2 small servings (each one feeding 2 approx. 2 people).

Knead filling ingredients in freezer bag.
Clip a small corner of the bag.
Spread 1/4 cup of sauce in each pan. Pipe filling into manicotti shells. Top with mozzarella and parm.
Cover shells with remaining sauce.
Label foil and spray to prevent sticking.
Baking Day: Thaw 24 hours prior to baking. Bake covered at 375 for one hour.

I usually make one right away and put the other in the freezer for a rainy day. No pics here either, sorry.

Buffalo Chicken Garbage Bread

props

Health conscious friends, read no further. This is not for you. But seriously, which of these recipes is?? Not really a dinner meal, more like a football game main course with other junky side foods.

2 Boneless Chicken Breasts
1 tsp. Olive Oil
1 Pizza Dough
8 oz. Mozzarella Cheese
3 oz. Cheddar Cheese
1/2 cup Wing Sauce
1/3 cup ranch dressing

Cut chicken into cubes. Add olive oil to skillet and heat, add chicken. Cook chicken completely, then add 1/4 cup wing sauce. Stir to coat chicken and let sit for 1-2 minutes. Let cool.
Preheat oven to 425.
Spread pizza dough on floured surface. Spread ranch dressing and remaining 1/4 cup of wing sauce on pizza dough. Add chicken and cheeses.
Roll the dough like a pinwheel, tucking in the ends so it doesn't ooze.
Spray baking sheet and bake 20-25 minutes.

The link has pictures to make it a little more clear if you need guidance.


There are more I'd like to share but I'm tired and you probably stopped reading 3 recipes ago. I'll post more another day.
Hope you all try some of these and like them. Feel free to comment with questions. Let me know which ones you try! :)

Day 5: Bacon Egg & Cheese Wreath

Up and at it early on day five. Fridays are my favorite day, Drew doesn't have work or class (usually just some homework) so we get to sleep in together and have breakfast together-a rarity. So once again I moved an item up on my list because I just really wanted to give this a try when the hubby was home.

Since Drew was home for this diy he was adamant that he wanted to lend a hand so I gave him the camera.....mistake. That's how I end up with little gems like this:

Oy with the poodles already! It is a little too early for something so frightening so I apologize.

Back to the breakfast, you're gonna need:

Can of crescent rolls

8 slices of bacon

5 eggs

1 Cup Shredded Cheddar Cheese (the recipe I followed called for Colby and Monterrey Jack but since I was making this on the fly I used what I had on hand).

Scramble your eggs (which I literally learned how to do 2 weeks ago). You'll notice here I have 6 eggs, that is because my granny spoiled my dog the last time we stayed with her by fixing him an egg every morning. So now each time I get out eggs Ike comes running, therefore he gets a scrambled egg when I feel generous.

Eggs scrambled, check. Preheat your oven to 375 and get out those crescent rolls, if you have a Pampered Chef pizza stone I suggest using it.







Overlap them and don't worry if they hang over you'll be folding them up. Then you'll need your pre-cooked bacon (I buy the kind already cooked from the store that just need a 30 second run through the microwave).

Then you'll need to add 1/3 of your cheese on top of the bacon.

Now you're ready to add those eggs!

Then another third of your cheese.

Now fold the ends of the rolls to the middle to create your wreath and add the last bit of your cheese on top.

Then you put it into your pre-heated oven for about 15 minutes, my oven gets super hot so mind didn't take quite that long. Just keep an eye on your rolls, when they are brown, it's done.

Add a little parsley, grab a glass of OJ and enjoy! I would also suggest a little salsa on top, I will do that next time. Easy and yummy!

Oh and please if you have any extra eggs left over please bring them to our house for Ike haha

Here's the link to the recipe I followed: http://bacontimewiththehungryhypo.blogspot.com/2011/02/beautiful-bacon-egg-cheese-wreath.html

Hers is prettier than mine, but I bet they tasted the same :)

Music Selection for the day:

Excited to see what day 6 will bring!