2013 - Week 52

Hello from Week 52, the last full week of the year. My, this year has sure flown by.

Being as it was Christmas this week, I didn't have time for much exercising, but I did do a little Wii boxing, now that we have our TV all set up and then there was a lot of moving things around and cleaning to get our house ready for company, so I'm going to say that counts :)

We had a fantastic time with our families and celebrating the birth of our Savior. I hope you all got to spend some time with loved ones as well. If you happen to be baking a breakfast for those you love, might I suggest this really tasty and tropical recipe: Sunshine Baked Oatmeal.

It really brightened up our cold morning and it was very good :)

My only other cooking was to make the amazing Truffle Mac & Cheese again (you can get the recipe and see my original attempt here), oh so good. I hope you'll give it a try sometime too (or at least petition Noodles & Co. to bring it back on their menu ;))

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to every one of you :) See you next year!

2013 - Week 51

Hello from Week 51 :) Now that I've given all of these treats away as Christmas presents, I can share them with you all on my blog. I was just baking up a STORM this week . . . whew, it was exhausting, but so nice to be able to share things made with love (and butter) with those I love :)

Some of these recipes were old favorites: shortbread and royal icing cookies, and others were not as familiar or first time trials: peanut brittle, cranberry treasures, toffee, and trail mix bites.

The shortbread was one of my one-day challenges last December and it was such a hit last Christmas that I decided to make it again. I made three batches and I found that the first two (in which I just microwaved my butter slightly to get it to approximately room temperature) turned out much better than the batch where I properly left it out on the counter to acclimate on its own. I don't really know why that is, but there you go, one example where not planning ahead actually improved the results.

Shortbread and 105 cutout cookies :)

The royal icing cookies were the most time consuming project, but thankful my lovely friend (who I gave the first knit headband to) helped me with the decorating, and provided the recipes for me to use. We didn't quite follow the "10-second rule" that is described in the link for the royal icing recipe because we didn't want to have to make two consistencies for each frosting color (one for outlining and one for filling in/flooding) and it still worked out beautifully. This is the recipe for that cookies that I used and they were really tasty:

SUGAR COOKIES

1.5 cups powdered sugar

1 cup butter, softened

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

0.5 teaspoon almond extract

2.5 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cream of tartar

~     Mix powdered sugar, butter, egg, vanilla, and almond extract.  Mix in flour, baking soda and cream of tartar.  Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours.  Heat oven to 375.  Divide dough into halves.  Roll each half on a lightly floured surface.  Cut into shapes.  Bake until edges are light brown, 7 to 8 minutes (or a bit longer depending on your oven). 

I'm not quite sure who to give credit to for that recipe, but whoever created it did a nice job :)

Sorry I don't have a picture of the rest of the treats . . . these guys were the stars ;)

Inspiration for the light bulbs: Inspiration

Reindeer using gingerbread men shape with mint M&M noses . . . so cute.
(Thanks to footballgrl16 for the idea)

For the peanut brittle, the recipe is very simple, but written for someone with a 700 Watt microwave. Mine is a 1000 W, but I don't know how old it is or exactly how much power it's still giving out, so it was a bit of a guessing game. I found a 700 W to 1000 W cooking time conversion chart and just kind of went from there. The recipe calls for a 6 - 7 minute first cook and a 2 - 3 minute second cook and after three batches, I determined that 5:15 and 2:15 worked out pretty well for me. I could have done it a bit longer because it wasn't quite as golden as I was hoping for, but even the paler batches (I started with 4:45 / 1:45 cook times) tasted just fine and were enjoyed by everyone who ate them.

The cranberry treasures are a recipe that my in-laws make every year . . . with a little bit of a twist. They usually make "raisin treasures", but since I'm not the hugest fan of raisins, last year I suggested that we substitute dried cranberries instead . . . mmm, instant improvement in my book :) The little cookie bits were kind of putsy to make, and my husband did the coating and clustering of all of the other bits (they are basically chocolate covered clusters of mini-marshmallows, tiny cookies, and dried cranberries . . . yum) so I can't comment on that, but they turned out great. Give this recipe a try and let me know how you like it:

CRANBERRY TREASURES

1/4 cup butter, 1/4 cup sugar, 2 TBSP cream, 1/2 tsp vanilla, 1 cup flour, 1/4 tsp salt, 1 cup raisins or dried cranberries (optional: add marshmallows and nuts as desired)

1. Cream butter and sugar. 

2. Add cream and vanilla and blend well. 

3. Mix in flour and salt.

4. Shape dough into long 1/4" rolls. Place on ungreased cookie sheet and cut into 1/2" lengths. Bake at 325 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Cool.

5. Prepare Glaze:

6 oz. chocolate chips, 3 TBSP light corn syrup, 1 TBSP water. Melt these in microwave or over hot water for glaze. Stir together.

Stir together cookie pieces, raisins, nuts, marshmallows, etc. with glaze. When all is well coated, drop onto waxed paper and allow to cool. May be refrigerated to speed cooling.

On a not so pleasant note, I'm fairly certain the Devil possessed my toffee (not really, but boy was it frustrating, and I'm ashamed to admit that I skipped our Advent church service to keep stirring this blasted toffee). I suppose after all of the success of the other recipes, something was bound to go wrong, but this toffee just went very, very wrong. I should have known it was going to happen, because the same thing happened last time I used the recipe, but I was hoping for better results this time . . . insanity, right? Here is the recipe, in case you dare try it:

1 lb. butter (I always bake with unsalted)

2 C sugar

1 - 12 oz. bag chocolate chips (I used milk chocolate this time)

1 C chopped nuts (I used pecans)

Butter jelly roll pan. Cook butter and sugar in heavy saucepan over moderate heat (stirring constantly) until hard crack stage (310 F on candy thermometer). It will be caramel colored. Quickly pour into pan until hardened. Melt chips over hot water or in the microwave. Spread half the amount of chips with knife. Sprinkle with half of the nuts. Let set and then turn over and spread remaining half of chips and sprinkle with the remaining nuts. Let set and then break into pieces using a knife.

The premise of the recipe is good, but be warned, it will most likely "break" on you. After 3.5 hours stirring and breaking at least 7 times, I don't think I will ever use this recipe again. I'm still willing to try another toffee recipe because I like toffee a lot, but this one is very finicky, if you ask me. I love the lady who gave it to me, and her toffee is fantastic, so it's probably just me, but you have been warned. I think a new candy thermometer would have helped a lot too because mine is one of those old fat ones and therefore it impeded my stirring in the section of the pot where it was clipped. If your toffee does break, you can fix it by adding a tablespoon or two of hot water, but I did that so often that I had ended up with way too much water in it and as a result had to cook way longer than I should have to get it to come together nicely. Eventually I just took my candy thermometer out and stirred it steadily until it was all back together again and used my digital thermometer every once and a while to check the temperature. It was probably not the best for my nice thermometer, but at least I fixed the toffee . . . that was so frustrating. 

Last but not least is the simple trail mix bites. They were very easy and tasty. I wanted to make something at least sort of healthy for my health conscious brother . . . I think they turned out rather well. I might have made them bigger than the blog called for, but oh well ;)

Finally, in addition to all of this baking and cooking, I also did some Power Yoga and finished another knit headband (the same pattern as I made last week). I think I'm getting the hang of cables now and I'm anxious to try something new . . . maybe learning to knit in the round? Sounds scary, but I found a hat pattern that I want to make so I guess I had better learn :)

I hope your week was not as busy as mine and that you are never in need of any Christmas treat recipes ;) Talk to you next week.

2013 - Week 50

Hello from Week 50 :)

More power yoga for me this week, and I definitely needed it for all of the treats that I'll be eating in the coming weeks ;)

Happy (and warm) knitter

The biggest news this week is: My Scarf Is FINISHED :) Yay :) I like it a lot and I hope that you do too. This is the pattern that I used: Bella Lana scarf. I thought 32 stitches was a bit wide though, so I dropped it down to 24 and it still worked out great. I used almost 3 complete skeins of yarn because I like my scarves a bit longer. I ended up repeating the pattern of 18 rows sixteen and a half times I believe. I didn't do the best bind off because I didn't know how to do a rib bind off, but if you make this, I would recommend figuring that out because my bound edge looks a little flared. Oh well, I still love it :)

Isn't it cool?

Yay sparkly :) 

Since I loved my scarf so much, I decided to try my hand at a new cable knitting pattern, this time a headband though, for a few of my friends' Christmas presents. I used this pattern: Fraga Headband. It was interesting trying to learn a few new knitting skills, the crochet provisional cast on, and the kitchener stitch bind off, but I think I did okay for my first attempts. Luckily the yarn was a bit forgiving and any mistakes easily blend in :) Both the the recipients loved them I think.

Cozy

Lovely lady in a lovely headband :) 

I did try two of the crock pot meals this week too. The beef stew was just okay, but the black bean taco soup, which I will dub "Nacho Soup" was really yummy (especially after the addition of some sour cream and cheese and scooped up with chips . . . mmm). Sorry there aren't any pictures . . . we ate it too fast ;)

One more thing to share this week . . . cornmeal tree cookies. You may remember from earlier this year (see blog post here) when I made these cute cornmeal sugar cookies for Valentine's Day and I'm pretty sure that mine were prettier than Martha Stewarts (although she gets all the credit for this awesome recipe). I wanted something relatively easy that still looked impressive for some cookie exchanges that I was a part of. My cousin Sara also made these for her Christmas cookie exchange . . . great minds think alike :) I decided to change it up a bit though and turn them into glazed trees. Here are the results:

Mmm . . . glazed trees :) 

I think they turned out nice, and they really do taste good. I hope all of my fellow cookie exchangers enjoyed them :)

I hope you are all having a wonderful time preparing for Christmas. Stay warm, and I'll talk to you next week :)

2013 - Week 49

Hello from Week 49. I have to make this quick because I'm super busy in Christmas mode now . . . ah.

First of all, more Power yoga this week. It's getting easier (probably because I've been going every week) and I'm liking it more, even if I still wish it were warmer in the studio ;)

I made the bean soup recipe (one of my frozen crock pot meals) and it was another disappointment, I'm sorry to report. The beans were still a tad hard, the rice kind of disintegrated, and it was too salty for me. I think if it had gotten a chance to cook longer and the beans had gotten done it would have been better. I made two of those, so next time I'm going to try for a longer cook time and maybe add some more rice. I guess that's one of the issues with making the same freezer meal twice . . . if it's good you get to enjoy it again, but if it's not then you have to eat it again ;) I'm keeping tabs on which ones I really enjoy and when I do my next round of freezer crock pot meal prep, I'll make those again and discard the recipes for the others. And yes, there will be a next time . . . I've saved SO much time by not having to cook and just making these for weeks now. There have been a few other things I've cooked here and there, but I've been spending a lot less time doing it these days. I don't think it will work out so well in the summertime when we don't want to be eating hot soup every night, but on these chilly winter nights, having a hot meal ready when I get home is awesome :) If you'd like to try it, check out my blog here for the recipes that I made, and if you have any freezer crock pot meals that you love, please share them because I'm trying to put together a list of recipes to try next.

My new thing for this week was that my husband and I got our first real full-sized Christmas tree now that we have a nice house to put it in.

The proper way to carry a tree ;) 

Our tree :) 

Isn't it lovely? I hope you and yours are enjoying the excitement surrounding the upcoming Christmas season and remember to keep Christ in Christmas :) See you next week!

2013 - Week 48

Hello from Week 48 :)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Due to the holiday week, we had a few fun firsts. It was our first Thanksgiving in our new house, and although I woke up with a migraine, it still ended up being an awesome day. Some of our lovely friends brought over their Thanksgiving leftovers when I was not feeling well enough to go to their house, so even though I felt lousy all morning and slept most of it, I still got turkey and all of the fixings, and got to spend a whole day in our new house. I did get quite a bit of laundry done too . . . hooray for having a washer and dryer in my house :)

Thanks Bill & Kathi for all of the tasty food :) 

We also ventured out for our first ever Black Friday shopping experience. I don't like to give in to the consumer culture too much, but there were some great sales at our local home improvement store :) We clipped the items out of their weekly flyer before we went and knew exactly what we were getting, so it was pretty painless. We didn't even have to get up early :)

Since our TV is still not set up, I counted the walks that we went on with my in-laws over Thanksgiving weekend as my exercise for the week. It wasn't too cold out, so the walks were rather nice :)

I did make a few recipes this week, but nothing too exciting. I made the roasted cauliflower that I had made before (still good as ever) as well as the Panera Bread focaccia bread recipe (I use 2 tsp. active dry yeast and 1 Tbsp. Italian seasoning mix) and my mother-in-law's pumpkin pie recipe. My husband is the king of pie crust, so he made some wonderful crust while I whipped up the filling. I convinced him to try the braided edge on the pie, and it looked nice until, during baking, half of it fell into the pie . . . oops. Next time we'll have to attach the braid to the rest of the crust better, but it still tasted wonderful.

Braided crust

Pie when it was still beautiful ;)

As far as my crock pot meals good, we had the pork with veggies this week, and it wasn't very good. It was a little mushy, but I guess that is to be expected as it cooked 12 hours (8 hours on low and 4 hours on warm). We still have another one of those, but that's okay...it was filling when served over rice.

That's it for this week . . . see you next week :)

2013 - Week 47

Hello from Week 47 :)

This week was full of unpacking. It's so nice to be getting settled in our new house. I did take some time to do some yin yoga to stretch out my muscles that were pretty sore from moving boxes around. It's just not as good because it's not in a heated studio, but it was still a good practice.

The following picture is of the first real meal we had in our house. It was the chicken broccoli alfredo crock pot meal that I prepped a few weeks ago. Overall, I would just review it ask okay . . . it needed more salt and some crushed red pepper and the sauce was very thin. The recipe said to "salt and pepper to taste" but considering the mixture contained frozen raw chicken, I was not tasting it, so adding it afterwards was okay. The second day we ate this, I put the sauce on the stove and thickened it with a cornstarch + water solution and it tasted better that way. The meal was rounded off with garlic bread and salad . . . not too bad :)

The better crock pot meal came later in the week with our first trial of the chicken taco soup. It was actually really good, just a slight kick, and full of good flavor and healthy ingredients. I added a bit of sour cream and topped it with some shredded cheddar cheese . . . yum. It was especially tasty scooped up with tortilla chis too :) I'm glad we have another frozen meal of that recipe to look forward to.

I did a little baking too and made some mint chocolate cookies from this recipe. I didn't really want to make cookies, I was more in a cake mood, but I had the chips to use, so I made them, and they were pretty good. Not my favorite (even though I do love mint chocolate), but good nonetheless.

Okay,  back to more organizing now . . . have a great week :)

2013 - Week 46

Hello from Week 46 :)

Now that we are all moved in, it's time to unpack and do lots of work around the house. That was my exercise this week . . . raking leaves and hauling boxes. Thankfully, I think we have most of the boxes moved to where they need to go now, so we just have to unpack, sort, and put everything away.

I did manage to find a little time (mostly for a few minutes before bed) to do a little knitting this week, even though we were so busy. Sadly the scarf is not done yet, but it's close. One of these days I'm going to be done, but for now, we've been spending most of our time cleaning, unpacking and organizing.

Speaking of, my new thing for this week was deep cleaning the washing machine that we were so graciously given by a friend. It came with their house and they already had one so they gifted it to us. I think the previous owners didn't clean it very well, so it was kind of gross, but I followed the directions on page 14 of this cleaning guide (with the addition of a load with the bleach container filled with vinegar and a rinse load of just hot water at the end) plus scrubbing in every nook and cranny I could reach. I think it's much better now and if I just keep doing the cleaning cycle about once a month it should stay nice and clean :)

In other cleaning news, the lights above our sink in our bathroom were frosted glass . . . or so I thought. Upon closer inspection, it appears they needed some dish soap and elbow grease. Which one of these is not like the others?

So much better :) 

Now, lest you think it was all work and no play for me this week, I present you with Snickers Apple Salad :) I actually forgot to take a picture of it once it was done, but it was beautiful and tasty :) I couldn't really remember how I'd made this in the past, so after looking at various recipes, I decided to try a combination of Candy Bar Apple Salad from Taste of Home and Snickers Caramel Apple Salad from chef-in-training.com. My recipe (which is a double batch of those recipes, of course) was:

2 - 8 oz. containers of lite whipped topping
8 medium Granny Smith apples (I know there are 9 in the picture . . . I got hungry)
16 fun sized "snickers" bars
2 - 3.4 oz. packages of vanilla pudding mix
2 C skim milk

I combined the milk and the pudding mix while I chopped the apples and candy bars up. Then I added them in turns with the whipped topping, folded it all together, and served it with caramel ice cream topping drizzled over the top. Yummy, and I didn't even have to turn on my oven ;)

Anything that starts with these ingredients is bound to be tasty :)

Well, I think that's all I have for this week . . . let me know if you have any other cleaning or organizing/unpacking tips for me. See you then :)

2013 - Week 45

Hi from Week 45 :)

This entry is going to be rather short because I don't have a whole lot to share. We were really busy all week packing and then on Saturday we had our big move. A huge "Thank You" to all of our friends that helped us move . . . I am so thankful I didn't have to move all of those boxes of books myself :)

I did manage to get my hour of Wii boxing in before we packed up the Wii and the TV and I'm still making progress there. I don't think I'll ever "beat" the game because the sensors aren't quite sensitive enough to pick up all of my movements, but it's definitely still good exercise.

Knitting is still going well too . . . the scarf is almost done :) Stay tuned for pictures of it soon. The only picture I really have to share with you this week is a brilliant Pinterest find that made moving my clothes much easier:

Wrap garbage bags over your clothes in the closet and move them "as is" to your new closet. I packed all of my hanging clothes in less than 10 minutes :) Hooray

Alright, I'm off to go unpack some more . . . talk to you all next week :)

2013 - Week 44

Hello from Week 44 :) This week has been very hectic as we prepare for our big move :)

My Wii boxing is still going well and my husband is starting to think I'll be able to beat up anyone that tries to mess with me ;) I'm not too sure about that, but it's a good workout at least. My task of knitting is still going well too . . . I started my third skein of yarn for my scarf and I think I should be able to finish it very soon. I can't wait to post pictures, I love it.

For my recipe this week, I'm sorry, but I can't actually give you the recipe. I had some leftover carrots, celery, an onion, some hamburger and some red potatoes from my Crock Pot Meal Prep Extravaganza last week, so I thought shepherd's pie would be a good option. I perused various recipes, and after finding so many that included things that I didn't have or didn't want to use, like canned soup or gravy, I finally decided this one sounded the best: Zippy Shepherd's Pie. I felt like doing it my own way though, so I basically just used that as a guideline (and that is also why I can't give you the recipe . . . I don't really know what I did). I browned the meat, drained off the fat, and then added various seasonings like Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, Pampered Chef red curry rub, salt and pepper. For the veggies, I cooked the onions in a bit of olive oil and then added some chopped up raw carrots and celery, a generous amount of garlic (have you figured out how much I love garlic yet? ;)), and two cups of beef broth. I let that cook, covered, until the veggies were done. Then I fished out the veggies with a slotted spoon and brought the broth to a boil and thickened it with some cornstarch + water. While I was doing all of this, I also had the potatoes (I don't even know how many . . . sorry) boiling and then my husband mashed them into red potato garlic goodness. I mixed all of the meat, veggies and gravy together and divided it between a 9" x 13" and an 8" x 8" pan, then he covered that mixture with the yummy potatoes and I topped them off with grated sharp cheddar cheese (Shh . . . I almost used a whole 8 oz. block of cheese . . . it was worth it :)). I placed them under the broiler for a few minutes until the cheese had melted and slightly browned in a few spots. Looking back, I think I would have preferred it without the browned spots, but it was still really good. This was WAY better than my last attempt at shepherd's pie. So, be brave, add flavors that you like, and make up your own shepherd's pie . . . let me know what you come up with :) 

Mmm . . . Shepherd's pie :) 

2013 - Week 43

Hello from Week 43 :)

Fall has finally arrived and we had a great time with some friends on a fall colors road trip and having fun at a farm market (complete with awesome petting zoo). We had so much fun :)

For my exercising, I did more Wii boxing and it went much better this week.

Looks good to me :) 

I didn't have any new recipes because I'd made a huge batch of chili that fed us for most of the week, but then I had a big summer squash that needed something done with it. When I cut into it I realized it was very hard on the outside, more like a winter squash. So, since I couldn't saute it like I was planning, I looked up other things to do with it and found these recipes: stuffed roasted squash template and quinoa stuffed squash. Using these for inspiration, I cooked some quinoa in chicken broth while the squash baked in the oven. I sauteed tomatoes with garlic, a jalapeno pepper, a chipotle pepper, some roasted red peppers, a little bit of applesauce and lots of spices. (As you can guess, I was trying to use up a variety of ingredients in my fridge and freezer) I called it chipotle Scarborough stuffed squash because there was parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme in it :) I also made a three cheese blend (mozzarella, cheddar and Parmesan) that was mixed with the filling and melted over the top. It was a different type of meal than I usually make, but I thought it actually turned out pretty well.

If that wasn't enough . . . considering we are planning on moving very shortly, I wanted to get some crock pot meals prepped and put in the freezer so once we move all we have to do is pop them in the crock pot, go to work, then come home to a ready made dinner so we can work on our new house :) I had a few hurdles trying to get all of my ingredients, but finally, in four hours, we prepped twelve crock pot meals (my awesome husband took care of all of the meat for me). Of course I can't tell you how any of them taste yet, but I'll fill you in as we try them. It was kind of a crazy day, but I think the hard work will pay off in the end. These are the two websites I used: Six Sisters Stuff and Loving My Nest and this is the list of what I made:
1 - Black Bean Taco Soup

1 - Chicken Broccoli Alfredo

1 - Hearty Beef Stew

1 - Cilantro Lime Chicken w/ Corn and Black Beans (although I forgot the limes so I used lemon juice)

2 - Bean Stew

2 - Pork and Veggies

2 - Chicken Tortilla Soup

2 - Chicken Taco Soup

And the grand total of almost all of my ingredients (I didn't have to buy too many new spices) was only $76.27 . . . and considering each of those meals should feed us for 2 meals, that's 24 hearty, tasty meals for only ~$76 (or about $1.60/person/meal . . . not too bad if you ask me :) I even had some carrots, potatoes, and hamburger left over :) I'm very much looking forward to trying all of these creations.

Food Part 1

Food Part 2

Food Part 3

Our Well-Stocked Freezer :)

Have any of you ever tried anything like this before . . . any good recipe suggestions? 

Okay, I guess that's all for now . . . see you all next week then :) 

2013 - Week 42

Hello from Week 42 :)

Not too much to report this week because our major task was the inspection of our prospective home. It took about three hours and I learned a lot of things. Everything went pretty well and we are hopeful that we will be able to move into this home in the very near future . . . how exciting :)

Other than that, I did more Wii boxing and a bit of knitting. I'm making myself a new scarf and I really love it so far. The pattern looks really professional and my husband got me the beautiful yard I'd been wanting as a birthday present :) I'll make sure to post pictures as soon as it's finished :)

Alas, no new recipes to share this week . . . sorry. Since it was my birthday last week and I love free things, I'm signed up for just about every restaurant "free birthday meal" program out there so we ate out a lot last week. Plus, we were really busy, so it work out well to not have to cook. Hopefully I'll have some recipes for you next week.

Until then :)

2013 - Week 41

Hello everyone from Week 41 :) Thankfully, my husband fixed the corrosion issue on our second Wiimote so I could get back into my Wii boxing this week. It kind of kicked my butt, but it was fun to get back into it.

As for my new thing this week, I tried purple cauliflower for the first time. I really love cauliflower (especially covered in cheddar cheese), but purple cauliflower is even better :) Moms of the world, have your little ones caught on that "snowballs" really aren't snow balls? How about trying some purple cauliflower, or as I like to call it, "fairy puffs" :) I was worried that once it was cooked, the cauliflower would lose its lovely purple color like some other vegetables (I'm talking to you purple beans), but hooray, it stayed purple the whole time. What a wonderful vegetable :)

See, isn't it cool? 

It's even purple on the inside :) 

I also found some awesome recipes this week that I think you will all love. First of all, this super easy crock pot BBQ chicken recipe. I only had five or six chicken thighs, so there was quite a bit of sauce left over, but it was really good and went surprisingly well with the super easy cornbread that I made and the green beans :) I didn't have any creole mustard, so I just used regular yellow mustard and as my hot sauce was less hot than the Tabasco they were probably calling for, I put in closer to one teaspoon instead of the one quarter tsp that was listed. I put the partially thawed thighs in my slow cooker with the temperature probe set to 170 F on low heat while I was at work and when I got home, voila, dinner :) That cornbread recipe was one of the easiest I've ever made and it turned out great. Definitely a keeper :)

YUM

Now if you thought that recipe was good, just wait until you hear about the copycat truffle mac & cheese that I made. I was so bummed when I recently went to Noodle's & Company to get my free birthday bowl of noodles. Their truffle mac & cheese has quickly become one of my favorite dishes so when I saw the sign that it was being discontinued I was a little heartbroken. Since it was its last day, I figured I had better order it, but disappointment again . . . they were out of truffle sauce . . . oh no! So, I had to settle for something else, but I went home with the determination to figure out how to make it myself because it was just so good. Luckily, the blog Pretty Kitten's Kitchen made it super easy because she'd already figured it out for me. I didn't have any panko breadcrumbs, so that wasn't quite right, but the rest of the recipe was easy, and pretty spot on in my opinion. It's also not as unhealthy as I would have imagined. I even substituted skim milk for the cream and it still tasted good. Also, I used baby portobello mushrooms which I think is closer to what they served at Noodles & Co., but any mushroom you like would be fine I'm sure.

So, my task to you is to go try at least one of these fantastic recipes and let me know what you think. Unless you are a bit of a foodie, you probably haven't invested in any truffle oil, but you can always try one of the other recipes. And then go buy some truffle oil and make the mac & cheese . . . it's worth it :)

See you next week :)

2013 - Week 40

Hello from Week 40 :) This week, I tried out my hour long Pilates work out. It wasn't as difficult as I remember it being from doing it in high school, but it was still pretty challenging. Also, our house hunting is going very well :) I'm happy to report we have an accepted offer!!!!!!!!! We still have the inspection and all of that to do, but if all goes well, our days in our apartment are numbered :) Anyone want to help us move? ;)

As for recipes, I was quite busy this week. First of all, with the help of my lovely husband (who did the nasty head chopping off part), I made some baked trout. One of my coworkers really enjoys fly fishing but doesn't like to eat the fish that he catches, so he shared some with me. I'd never had trout before, but this method of cooking them was excellent, and if you don't mind picking out all of the bones, the trout was very good :) I combined a few different recipes and finally came up with my method: After cleaning and removing the heads, rinse the trout in cold water and pat dry with a paper towel. Rub olive oil inside and out and season with some salt and freshly ground pepper. Stuff a few lemon slices and some fresh parsley inside the fish, place fish on a piece of aluminum foil with a few more lemon slices, and seal up in a packet shape. Bake at 400 F for ~25 minutes or until the thickest portion is at 140 F. Enjoy. Hooray for almost free, healthy dinners :)

I also wanted bake something special for a dear friend who lives far away. Since I had to ship it in the mail, I did a little research on what sort of foods last a really long time, and the best dessert I could come up with was biscotti. Last year, she had been missing pumpkin pie, so this year I decided on gingerbread biscotti . . . hopefully the flavors remind her of home :) I've never actually had biscotti before, and gingerbread isn't my favorite flavor, so these weren't my favorite cookies. But I think biscotti is typically dipped in coffee, so that might improve them. They are pretty good, if you like crunchy biscotti :)

Shaping biscotti

Finished product

I signed up to make treats for our church's Sunday morning Bible study this week too and instead of the usual ~30 people, this session there has been close to 100 every week. This is wonderful, but it meant that I was going to have to make LOTS of treats. I made the following recipes: cinnamon coffee cake II, a double batch of mini cheese danishes, a double recipe (in a 13" x 9" pan) orange cornmeal cake (covered with orange glaze (1 cup powdered sugar + 3 Tbsp. orange juice, omit sugar topping)), and 24 chocolate peanut butter cupcakes (I used an apple corer to remove the centers before adding filling, the bag piping did not work). I must say, they were all tasty and well received :)

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Mini Cheese Danishes

In Progress

Mmm

I hope you enjoyed all of the recipes this week. Let me know if you try any of them :)

2013 - Week 39

Hello from Week 39 :) Two small things to share this week before I get to the fun stuff: 1. For my exercise I did more pilates and Fit Sugar workouts . . . I really do love the 10 minute workouts . . . it doesn't seem so bad because 10 minutes goes by really quickly and the instructors are very encouraging. 2. I finished my whole dream journal. Since it really isn't enhancing my life in any way, I decided not to start another one, but I thought it was pretty crazy that I had so many dreams that I filled a whole journal with them already. It will be interesting to go back and read through it some time and remember all of the crazy things my mind created while I was asleep :)

Okay, for my recipe to share this week, I made a faux alfredo sauce using cauliflower (creamy cauliflower sauce). I know, it sounds weird, but it was actually really good, didn't taste like cauliflower hardly at all, and it made me feel much less guilty covering my chicken fettuccine with a creamy white sauce :) I added some fresh black pepper and garlic salt to it for extra flavor. Also, I just drained out the water, added the recommended amount back in, and blended it with my immersion blender . . . I thought that was much easier than trying to transfer the hot cauliflower to a blender or food processor. Try it out, I think you'll like it.

For my task this week, since I was still not up to scrapbooking and our house stuff was kind of in a lull, I decided it would be okay if I got back into knitting. I'm so glad I did . . . it was so much fun and I really enjoy making presents for people :) (Family, consider yourself warned about Christmas ;)) I really love knitting because I think the finished products look so professional, and one of my favorite things about knitting is cables. I don't know how many cable knit sweaters I own, but I just love the look of them, so I decided to be brave and give it a try. After watching this video: Knit Mug Holder and reading over this pattern: "Pumpkin Spice" I was pretty certain that even with my basic knitting skills I could complete my first cable knitting project . . . and I did. I would say it only took me a little over two hours and the whole project was complete :)

I wanted it to fit a little higher on the mug, so I put the button closer to the end.
Thank you to my awesome friend Karmen for the button :)

Ta da

If you are afraid to try cables, this is a great project that whips us easily and doesn't require a big time commitment . . . definitely a good place to start.

Now, once I had finished this, I took it with me to show a friend who had recently had a birthday. She seemed to like it a lot, and since it was still near her birthday, I decided to try out another pattern and give it to her as a present (along with the Mr. Coffee mug).The pattern I got from "Purl Avenue" . . . she has some neat stuff on her site. This one was a bit more complicated since it had three cables instead of just one and it was wider, but I still managed to finish it. Because the cables were bigger, my stitches got much tighter at the crossovers, which worried me quite a bit, but I guess that is normal. So, I just focused on keeping them loose and not stressing about it too much, and I think I came up with a pretty good product. I ended up repeating the 12 row pattern six times to get the ~ 9 inch long sleeve.

Finished mug warmer (sewn together . . . no button on this one)

Two finished products . . . sorry, the pictures don't really do them justice

So there you go . . . that's what I've been up to this week. Let's see what we can create next week :)

2013 - Week 38

Hello from Week 38. For my exercise this week, I went to another power yoga class and thankfully, I wasn't as sore this time. My neck was a bit stiff the next day, but that may have been from just sleeping funny too, I'm not sure. But, no one really wants to hear about that . . . let's get to the fun stuff :) I have a few new recipes and tips to share with you this week, so I'll get right to it. First of all, my top tips:

1. This is something that seemed like a revelation to me a few years ago and most people probably already do it, but just in case someone out there isn't doing it, I thought I'd write it down: Whisks are NOT just for wet ingredients. My mindset was always that whisks were for wet ingredients only, but then some recipe somewhere directed me to whisk together my dry ingredients before mixing with my wet ingredients, and of course I always follow the recipe to a "T" ;) (okay . . . most of the time), so I tried it and it was magic. The ingredients were very quickly and easily incorporated, and I didn't toss dry ingredients all over the kitchen like I usually do when using a spoon or spatula. Magic :)

2. This is how you should cook corn on the cob: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-never-shuck-corn-again/?ALLSTEPS Okay, so I can't get 100% behind this method, because I don't like having to chop off the end of my corn like that (it seems wasteful), but it really did work. There were a few strands of silk left, but they came off very easily. No more boiled, overcooked corn, no more taking forever to pick off every little bit of husk and silk, and no more microwaving in plastic wrap that could potentially give off harmful chemicals . . . hooray. Corn cooked perfectly in the wrap God gave it to us in, no mess and tasty corn :) I just peeled off the few outer layers of husk and popped them in the microwave (five minutes for two ears). Once they were cooked I carefully removed the rest of the husk and the silk came off very easily too, even without trying to slide it out of the husk like the method I mentioned above. Sorry this tip is coming a little too late and corn season is pretty much over, but just save this tip for next summer and I'm pretty sure you'll thank me :)

Now for the recipes I made, apple kuchen with custard, armadillo eggs, and petite pumpkin spice doughnuts.

I had gotten a bunch of apples from my mom and this cake looked like the perfect way to use some of them up. It was simple and tasted really good with some Bird's custard that I whipped up in place of the hot cream because I didn't have any cream. I also got to serve it to my friends in these really cute little dishes I got recently . . . a great find at an estate sale :) I felt really fancy with my "professional" plating ;)

Prepared

Baked

Coated

Plated

My adorable little apple kuchen armada ;)

The armadillo eggs were a Pinterest find, and I must say, they didn't turn out as well as I had hoped. That could also have been because I didn't read the recipe carefully enough before making it . . . oops :( I just kind of made it up, so in my haste I forgot the egg and breadcrumbs and of course, my armadillo eggs fell apart (hence, no picture . . . sorry). I also missed the bit about baking them in the oven and put them in my cast iron skillet . . . that probably didn't help either. So they were pretty tasty, but not very pretty . . . I'm going to have to give them another try sometime, although next time, I'm definitely wearing gloves when I cut up my peppers, either that, or use something a little milder than a jalapeno. My hand was burning for hours . . . ouch. Oh and p.s. soaking in milk, olive oil or cold water didn't make it go away any faster I don't think . . . it just takes time (about 24 hours to fully go away I would say).

The final recipe was these adorable little baked doughnuts. Now before you go thinking that they must be a "healthy" doughnut because they are baked and not fried . . . check the end of the recipe where you are instructed to dip them in butter and roll them in sugar . . . yup, there went your "healthy" idea ;) However, I found that a little too overpowering, so just a really light coating of butter (like when I ran out of butter and just swirled the doughnuts in the buttery bowl . . . those were perfect) and then some cinnamon sugar was really good, and they were even good plain. They weren't super sweet without the cinnamon sugar coating, but they still tasted good and I thought they were fun because, in my mind, if you set them in a large bowl with milk in it, they would look like giant Cheerios . . . fun :)

Thanks for the new pan Mom :) 

Adorable

Mmm . . . sugary

They look so little in my husband's huge hands :) 

So, I hope you enjoyed those, now go and try some of those recipes at home, and let me know what you think . . . see you next week :)