Beefy!

A few weeks ago, J. was gifted a $25 gift certificate to the Meat House. We picked up 4 burgers (bacon & cheddar and bleu cheese & pepper) and some sausage. The bacon & cheddar were by far our favorite! J. wondered why we couldn't do it ourselves, so we picked up beef, hickory smoked bacon, and cheddar cheese and tried it ourselves. The results --- delicious! Every bit as good as the Meat House. J. was so proud of himself and I wasn't ashamed to eat two of them!

They look a little dark in the last image, but they weren't burnt! 

Oops

Oops! I am a terrible blogger, sorry! 

Last weekend I made a pot of chicken stock so this weekend I picked up a few things and threw together a delicious chicken noodle soup! Simple, but so good.

I will try to be better about posting. Honestly, I haven't done a lot of crafting lately.. or cooking either. The fall will bring back some creativity! 

A cheap meal

Sometimes I get excited when I can put something inexpensive together. This recipe has no name, other than "food" but J. loved this when I made it a couple of weeks ago so I made it again for him yesterday. 

1 box Ziti (with lines!)

1 large tomato sauce

1 large diced tomatoes

1 bag Banquet sausage crumbles (found at the Dollar Tree for $1)

Handful of shredded mozzarella

I cooked the ziti and heated the sausage in a pan and then added the sauce and tomatoes to heat through.

In my dish, I layered sauce, ziti, sauce, salt & pepper, ziti, and the remaining sauce. Top with cheese. 30 minutes in a 350 degree oven. 

Nothing fancy but it makes a lot!

A few things..

I've been a busy bee lately. With summer camp over (sigh of relief) and the kids back in school, I have a little more time to breathe and work on some things. Christmas is coming up, and with my wrist still sore I'll be doing less knitting and more projects. Anywhoo, here's a few things I've done recently.

 Grapefruit and vinegar cleaner. 

I've got 5 more grapefruits and a big bottle of vinegar to add before this sits and I bottle it into spray bottles!

 Banana bread. 

Honestly I've never made a banana bread I didn't like!

Creamed corn casserole. 

Eh.

It wasn't bad at all, but it's not something we'll eat on a regular basis. 

Good recipe for cleaning out canned corn I guess.

New Orleans

I still haven't knit anything new since the last time I posted anything. I've been having a weird pain in my right wrist as well, which bothers me when I'm not even using it for anything (lovely). ANYWAY! I went to visit my parents in Florida. I left 4/13 and returned 4/20. I had the best time. We went on a 3-day trip to New Orleans!

Crawfish salad. Mom's is shrimp!

These funny little bubble dogs are all over the place. They are made to look like Mardi Gras beads. I should have stopped to read the little sign, but I didn't, so I had to Google what they were all about. "Last year, LA/SPCA took in more than 7,000 unwanted, abused, or neglected animals, and found homes for over 1,600 of them. So when you see one of the bright Paws on Parade bead dog sculptures around town, the organization hopes that maybe you’ll smile, and think about ways you could help." from Mardi Gras Bead Dogs.

I had the best time in New Orleans! I'm still totally exhausted (not looking forward to work tomorrow), but it was well worth it :)

So much for knitting..

I still haven't been able to knit. I don't know what's wrong with me, but that craft fair is getting closer and I still don't have enough to participate. Instead of forcing myself to knit, I pulled out the Crock Pot last night and finished up this morning.

Made a whole box of linguine. Divided it up in 2 dishes.. 3/4 in a big one, 1/4 in a small one.

"Cream Cheese Chicken" from my favorite slow cooker cookbook. Looks disgusting, but is super tangy and delicious!

I found this stir-fry recipe on the back of a Kikkoman seasoning mix. I used stew beef instead of chicken.

Nom!

Mystery meal

I know you all know how much I love to knit/craft, but my heart is often in the kitchen. I love to bake, especially. Although I had Thursday off from work due to the snow we received, DH unfortunately had to brave the elements and go to work (3-11pm). Because most of his work is done outside I thought it would be nice of me to make sure he had something yummy when he came home.

Our cupboards (and fridge) were pretty bare, but I managed to whip up a little something delicious. I call it Mystery Meal because I really didn't know how well it would turn out.

I'm happy to say that we both really liked it! Here's what I did:

• preheat oven to 375
• boiled 3/4 package of Wacky Mac (cooked, drained, set aside)
• buttered a dish
• whisked 3 eggs in a bowl, mixed in Italian seasoning and s&p
• added it to the Mac, pour into dish
• cover pasta with a large can of tomato/pasta sauce.. any kind will do.. I used a 4 cheese one I think
• top with cheese (the more the better, IMO)
• 20 minutes until cheese melts a bit and sauce bubbles

I'm sure it would taste just fine without the eggs, but I wanted to give it a little more density. I'm sure DH would have liked some meat or something in there. Or a sauce with meat?

And then, because I'm that nice and had just one egg left, I made him some chocolate chip cookies :)

Chicken Pot Pie

Last weekend I roasted a small chicken to attempt to prepare myself for roasting my first ever turkey (which I purchased last night and is bathing in my sink until it's thawed). I had just enough left over meat to make this chicken pot pie recipe from Pillsbury.

It came out very yummy! I added way more pepper than it called for and a little less broth than what it called for. I don't like soupy pie :)

Farmer's Market bliss II

Yesterday, I turned this bounty from the Farmer's Market

into this!

With help from DH and my Aunt Julie, I found that the leafy things are bok choy, the white things are indeed radishes, and what I thought was parsley was actually cilantro. I'm still learning!

I'm fairly impressed with myself overall. I didn't have a recipe or a plan when I bought all of this. I made such a huge pot of soup, we ate it for supper last night, and will have it for lunch and supper tonight.. if there's left overs - lunch tomorrow!

Farmer's Market bliss

I don't think I can tell you how much I love the Farmer's Market! With $10 each, my friend Hannah and I hit the market in Deering Oaks this morning. One of the stands had buckets filled with beautiful ingredients for $7. I chose the one labeled "Asian Stir-fry" happily. It sounded delicious. As I was carrying it to the check-out, one of the girls tossed 3 radishes into my bucket. She said she had forgotten to put them in earlier!

As we were walking to get back to Hannah's car, I noticed the Leeks - $1.50 each. I had $3 left so I got two of them. Maybe you can help me with the rest? There are 2 leeks, 5 green onions, 1 green pepper, 1 orange and 1 red pepper, basil, celery, three radishes. I think the other herb is parsley.. not sure what the 2 big leafy things are though, or the 3 white things.. they look like radish, too..

Mmmm... & a question

Christmas came early this weekend when my mother gave me her bread machine! I'm so excited. The first thing I did when we got to the mainland was make DH drag me to the Hannaford for bread mixin's.

I started simple, with a Krusteaz country white mix (I also purchased Italian Herb) just to make sure I couldn't mess up. I've also bought King Arthur flour and yeast so I can try it on my own. I imagine that I'm going to get so much use out of this wonderful little machine (it kind of reminds me of Eva from WALL-E).

Delish! We have devoured half the loaf already!

My question.. what's your favorite recipe for a bread machine bread? I'd like to find a recipe for a really hardy bread.. my favorite is Arnold's OatNut if that's any help.

Farmer's Market pizza

On Wednesday I stopped at the Farmer's Market in downtown Portland while I was on my lunch break from work. I picked up a couple red onions, 5 gigantic fat cucumbers, and I also snagged a purple pepper because I had never seen one before. I spent $3!! I couldn't believe how cheap it all was.

Anyway, lunch today is a "purple" pizza (though the purple pepper turned kind of grey..)!