Hungry times

I plugged my camera in today to upload my pictures from this past weekend and realized just how much I have been slacking on our meal updates! Cinco de Mayo mister and I went out with some good friends but we decided against going to a Mexican restaurant because we knew they were going to be insane, we were able to order up some queso but it just was not quite up to par.. so we made queso at home a couple nights later! Forgive how sucky some of these pictures are, between school starting and being sick I have been such a slacker!! 

JJ and Erica!

Nothing beats velveeta and rotel! 

Last week was really difficult between being super sick, starting school and losing a close friend and I was in no mood to get off the couch let alone cook so Mister took care of me! Boy did he have some tricks up his sleeve! He cooked some insanely delicious dinners. Starting with a beef/tomato/rice stuffed green pepper situation. Yumm. 

Wednesday nothing sounded good, I was so stuffed up and felt so gross.... and then Salmon was mentioned. Salmon is my absolute guilty pleasure. Salmon breaded served with a delicious cheesy pasta and I am in heaven. Mister had stumbled upon a recipe that involved sauteing garlic, onion, butter and about half a cup of half and half and shredded mozzarella cheese. That delicious combination over some bow tie pasta with spinach and a nice piece of salmon, and this sick girl was in a happy place! 

Sunday I was feeling much better and since I had been taken care of so well over my sucky week I decided to make some pancakes for the mister!! I have been dreaming of making these cake batter pancakes from How Sweet It Is for months and it seemed like the perfect day! The pancakes turned out delicious, we were not huge fans of the glaze but that could be because I used pure vanilla not vanilla extract. The pancakes with maple syrup and sliced up bananas turned out to be the perfect sunday breakfast, who can resist sprinkles?!

I had my first test of the semester today and it went well, have a bunch of homework left to do and Thursday early morning we leave for Georgia!! 

xoxo

Thursday Pizza

A few months ago I saw this post about a homemade breakfast pizza on Smitten Kitchen and knew I had to make it. I am a full believer in breakfast for dinner and one of our favorite things to make at home is pizza, combining two of my favorite things? Easy decision! 

Last year for Mister's birthday I gifted him a pizza stone - best thing ever! It is awesome for homemade pizza, store bought pizza, bread of any kind. We tend to keep the stone in the oven at all times. This is where I got ours, I also recommend the scrubber and pizza peel! 

As I looked over the recipe again last night I decided to make a few changes, first of all, I was not going to make the dough - too lazy! Publix always has fresh bags of dough in the bakery section so all you have to do is pick it up! Secondly, we still had some fresh mushrooms and spinach from the farmers market last weekend that I really wanted to use. 

To start if off - we preheated the oven to 350 with the pizza stone in it and start turning the dough into crust!

We put the crust onto our pizza peel so it will be easy to transfer to the stone 

followed by a layer of cheese and four eggs

Pilled on some sliced up mushrooms and spinach

Finally transfer the pizza onto the stone! We cooked it for about 30 minutes

It was HEAVENLY!!! The egg was so perfect, I could not get enough of it! It's the weekend folks - go make yourself a pizza!!!

xoxo

all on my own

In January one of the first meals I made all on my own was an awesome spinach and cheese stuffed chicken. This week I was thinking of making it again but I was already out and couldn't completely remember what ingredients it needed, but I thought it was ricotta and cottage cheese, well I was wrong. So needless to say I got home and had the wrong ingredients but still wanted something stuffed chicken.

So for the very first time, I made dinner without a recipe. It was a scary experience to say the least. I still had the recipe up for reference, but since the ingredients I had were so different, I had no idea how much to use. 

I started by slicing up the spinach smaller since I remembered that last time the pieces were too big, I also included mushrooms because they sounded delicious. I put those on the pan so start cooking and got to pounding out the chicken

Once that was done I put a couple tablespoons of ricotta cheese and cottage cheese in a medium bowl. I added the cooked spinach and mushrooms in and started stirring. I glanced at the recipe from last time and saw that it called for fresh garlic so I added some garlic powder and prayed that it would taste good. Then the fun began!

I took the chicken and added a large spoonful of the mixture in the middle and started the "rolling" process, which I pretty much failed at. You would think a girl from Texas who has mastered the fajita roll could handle the chicken roll, still not quite there!

Once that was all done I dipped the chicken rolls into an egg and water mixture and bread crumbs!

Around this time mister got home and looked at me like I was crazy because there was not enough counter space so my laptop was on the floor right outside the kitchen

After 35 minutes at 375 the chicken rolls were perfect!! Served up with some steamed veggies and it was a perfect Monday night meal!

xoxo

impromptu dinner

Last week after a later than usual work out mister and I were hungry... but we just did not know for what. Normally we would go back and forth trying to get the other person to decide and then end up having chicken and some sort of vegetable with rice, but I remembered we had a fresh, delicious avocado screaming to top a delicious chicken sandwich. 

So we got into itty bitty to hit up publix for some fresh buns, organic fresh chicken (we did not have any thawed out), a salad mix, almond slices and a raspberry vinaigrette. 

First we sliced up the inspiration for the dinner (pics taken with my phone, forgive me)

We used a pre-mixed salad, but added sliced almonds, mushrooms, grapes and a raspberry vinaigrette - it was awesome

Mister covered the chicken in a honey bar-b-q sauce we had left over from wings and cooked them on a non stick pan

Once the chicken was cooked we put it onto the fresh bun, added the avocado slices with the salad as our side and it was delicious!! All the flavors combined perfectly for an awesome quick impromptu dinner!!

We also had enough left over for me to take for lunch the next day, which was a great change from my usual sandwich!

xoxo

getting back in the swing of things

The house is still a mess... but it is not as bad. We are slowly getting back into the swing of things and the bathroom is looking better! Monday night I primed the ceiling and walls of the bathroom. I also gained about a million percent more respect for my mamma. Please tell me how that woman was able to paint a mural on her bathroom ceiling Michelangelo style?! I was barely able to prime the ceiling without feeling like I was about to drop a gallon of paint on my head. It didn't help that I was balancing on the sides of the bathtub! Tonight I will paint the ceiling and hopefully tomorrow will be the walls, we might just have this done by the weekend!!

Sunday night Mister made spaghetti, we were both in the pasta mood. Once I finished priming I decided to make baked spaghetti pie with the left overs. I picked up a really pretty pie pan from crate and barrel at an after Christmas sale and had used to use it, granted this wasn't real pie but it sure was yummy! A few years ago my parents got me " Deceptively Delicious"

It is written by Jerry Seinfeld's wife, and is all about hiding vegetables in everyday cooking. It is an awesome cookbook and I really recommend it. She puree's cauliflower and hides it in the baked spaghetti and you cannot even tell! I didn't have any cauliflower on hand so I just put the leftovers in a bowl, added some more sauce and a bit of mozzarella, mixed it all up and into the pie pan it went. I cooked it at 350 degree for about 35 minutes and it was yummy!! It really is a great way to change up left overs.

Other than that I am just counting down the days until my mom gets here!! We picked up a bed for the guest room over the weekend so we will be putting that together this weekend, cleaning and organizing and getting everything all ready for her arrival next Friday!!

Quick Dinner

I tend to spend more hours than I would like to admit looking at recipes and baking tips. Wednesday I came across a lasagna recipe and knew exactly what we were having for dinner. It was so easy, unique and delicious! 

Here are all the ingredients! 

Mix all the delicious cheese's together with some italian seasoning

Put a layer of Wonton wrappers in a cupcake pan

Followed by a layer of Sauce

and cheese!

Next you dip a wonton wrapper in water so when you put it on it seals with the other wrapper

then some more cheese and it is ready to bake for 12 minutes and eat!!

It was really yummy and cute! The only thing we would have changed was maybe adding some garlic or  something to all the extra wonton. In general it was so easy and perfect for a busy night!

We are off to Daytona for the weekend, I am really looking forward to having some time with friends and the sun! 

Wings

So last week Mister and I made some delicious wings inspired by Pioneer Woman. It gave us a perfect opportunity to use our giant bowl we bought a few months ago and were super excited about buying but yet to use! 

While Mister likes his hot and spicy I prefer honey bar-b-q! So we split the wings in half and had some of each!

First we put each half in a bowl 

Then added the sauces and started tossing the wings around. We added a bit more honey to the BBQ sauce

We put them on pans lined with aluminum foil, and baked them, adding more sauce half way through

Then they were all set, paired with celery and carrot sticks!! It was seriously delicious and super easy

I think this is something that we will end up doing a few more times, it was seriously delicious and easy enough for a weeknight!

Super Bowl Snacks

This past weekend was the super bowl, which was an awesome excuse to make delicious corn dip and some pretty fantastic cookies! My mom got the recipe a couple years ago from a friend and it was an instant favorite in our house. I made the dip Saturday, it is always best to make it the night before you will be eating it so all the flavors can really mix together. The recipe can be found here. It is probably the easiest thing in the world to make! Last week Sean sent me a link to some cookies he found so Sunday morning I made smores cookies which were a perfect mix of all the traditional smores flavors without the camp fire!

Corn Dip

You take all the ingredients, drain them and dump them in a bowl!

Mix it all together, let it sit overnight in the fridge and serve with Fritos Scoops!

 

This picture really does not do the dip justice, the lighting was all funky, it is actually a delicious creamy white bowl full of heaven!

Before I go into the cookies here are a couple pictures of the canisters we picked up from Ikea around Christmas time, I LOVE them. I originally wanted them for keeping my baking ingredients in..

but then I decided I also wanted them for all of our pasta! We do not have much pantry space so we decided to get a book shelf with doors from Ikea. The top half of the door is glass so we could not really put our pantry items on the top half. I did not want to lose all that space so I thought if the pasta was displayed it could be pretty and practical! The bottom half of the doors are solid so it added a ton of storage space for us.

Now to the cookies!!! I was doing a balancing act of laundry (walking to and from the laundry room in the rain), making cookies, dealing with a cat who acts like we never spend any time with him and skyping with my awesome parents.. so I kind of sucked at taking pictures of the first steps... but essentially you take a rolling pin to some graham crackers to get crumbs, mix everything up (try not to eat half a bowl of dough...its yummy)

 

Plop them on the pan and cook for 7 minutes then take them out..

 

stick a few mini marshmallows and chocolate chunks into the cookies... 

Stick them back in the oven for a couple minutes and you have awesome cookies!! I took these to a super bowl party where they were deep frying EVERYTHING. I'm not going to lie, these suckers deep fried took it to an entirely new level of awesome...

 

 Later this week I am going to be attempting to make hot wings and will make sure to post the pictures!