It's been a while...

I know it has been quite some time since my last post... but hectic life and eating schedules have hardly permitted even pictures of our food! Gasp! Then my computer was acting up till my wonderful brother just came and fixed it in about 15 minutes. Oh to have the gift of computers- you're pretty much everyones best friend. Scrolling through my phone I really haven't been taking pictures of some of the most recent creations... I will get back on that. So here are some of the things from the past months that I never got a chance to post...

One amazing find this fall was PUMPKIN SPICE BUTTER! We put that stuff on pancakes, muffins, toast, sandwiches, and of course sweet potatoes. So awesome.

This fall we happened to come across these ridiculously awesome Almonds... I was like a kid in a candy store. We happened to be in Ohio when we found them and if I could've fit 10 cans in my bag... you bet I would've.

These are turkey cranberry wraps. Turkey and cranberry sauce in perfect harmony all rolled up

A fall favorite: crock pot chili - Ohio style! They like to put chili over spaghetti noodles. Its like a new version of spaghetti, give it a try!

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Blackberry Almond Spinach Salad - we eat salad about 4 times a week so I try to switch up the lettuce and toppings so that we don't get bored of the same things.

A dessert from thanksgiving... pumpkin bars with a gingerbread crust. I found the recipe here

I also made two rustic pies. I was super busy with work around the holidays so I bought pie crusts, a ton of apples, a bag of cranberries, and just went for it. Peeled and sliced the apples then tossed them with cinnamon sugar, made a cranberry sauce with the cranberries and sugar, then piled it all on the crust folding up the edges around it and dotting with butter. I egg washed the crust and sprinkled with sugar then baked them on cookie sheets till the apples were soft. Tart and sweet and they make a pretty picture!

The picture says it all- we LOVE pierogies... if you've never had them go buy a box of Mrs. T's Pierogies in the frozen food section. This is the only boxed/frozen meal I will buy and its because I did try making them from scratch one time and it was an all day-back breaking affair. We stock up on 3 boxes when they're on sale for those "I'm too tired and lazy to cook" nights except for we look forward to those nights because we get to eat pierogies - which are delicious.

Basically a ravioli but with mashed potatoes and cheese or mashed potatoes and onion inside...

Here we have a simple weeknight meal: BLT's with fresh bread/lettuce/tomato/bacon and a bowl of chowder

For our fish fix- here is a really simple dinner. Thaw out some frozen fish, salt and pepper the fillets, sear it in a pan with a little oil, then put it in a baking dish. Smother it with some pineapple relish (my mom gave us a jar of harry and david relish but you can find some unique relish/chutney type of toppings at trader joes or the grocery store). Put it in the oven at 350 for 10-20 minutes depending on how thick your fillets are. Just keep checking them so they don't dry out. I finished them off with a squirt of lime juice- absolutely amazing!

My mother in law was kind enough to give me her mothers cast iron skillet because I have been searching and wishing and hoping for one for months now. I've been having a lot of fun cooking in it although it is seriously heavy and I FRIED two of my fingers on it trying to get the 20 pound bread out of the oven. She also gave me her Irish Soda Bread recipe with the pan that you bake in the skillet! This was a really fun recipe that makes a huge loaf of bread - as you can see.

Cheap dinner! I went to Sprouts looking for some meat to make and found two giant turkey legs for under 3 bucks. Awesome! Smothered them in BBQ sauce (Jack Daniels BBQ Sauce is really good when you don't have time to make your own) and threw them on our awesome little grill. Unfortunately our awesome little grill doesnt give enough flame to actually char the outside like you want on a turkey leg... I had to throw them under the broiler at the end but don't tell my little grill- he works so hard.

Stuffed mushroom caps! Tommy loves these so I made them for his birthday dinner. I just stuffed them with some spicy italian sausage, onion, parmesan, and topped with muenster cheese!

My friend gave me cute heart shaped cookie cutters and a delicious pumpkin pecan pancake mix for christmas. It was breakfast for dinner... which is really wonderful because who has time to make this in the morning??

The other day Tommy and I had a hankering for Sauerkraut. Granted, I have only had sauerkraut maybe once when I was younger and don't remember what it tastes like. So I emailed my grandma in Oregon who is a sauerkraut pro and learned how to prepare it. Boil the stuff with a sprinkling of sugar, add your polish sausage... pretty easy!

Then, being who I am, I took Grama's awesome sauerkraut and made it my own... by putting it on a sandwich! Please excuse this horrible picture I was too excited to get a bite that I didn't bother to take a good picture. I got fresh sandwich rolls from the bakery at the grocery store, mashed some avocados up and spread that on the bottom, put a piece of havarti cheese on the top and loaded the sauerkraut and sausages in the middle. The flavors blended SO WELL and the fact that I slightly toasted the sandwich roll so it had a beautiful crunch but stayed soft in the middle made a big difference. MMmmm... will be repeating this one.

WOW! Please try this drink... I had lemons and cucumber and decided to make a concoction. Little did I know this concoction would go down in the books. SO refreshing. We will be drinking this all next summer. Here's what I did. You can make this with or without alcohol and its amazing both ways. Juice your lemons, add your cooled simple syrup (sugar dissolved in boiling water), slice half a cucumber and throw those in the mix, add a can of sprite/7up, add ice cubes, if desired add some Citron or vodka or something similar. The flavors instantly take you poolside at a day spa in the middle of summer. HAPPINESS.

And now... for the Pièce de résistance! I am so pleased to share this creation with you. The funny story behind this is that I have no idea if I thought this up myself or saw it somewhere. I don't remember seeing it ever in my life... but I woke up one day with a picture of it in my head and began searching the internet to see if it existed... apparently it did. I bought fresh ready to use pizza dough from the deli at the grocery store (I randomly saw this one day and thought it was amazing, and its cheap too!). I painstakingly pealed and sliced as thin as humanly possible a couple of potatoes and some onion. I made garlic oil in the morning to marinate all day to spread on the dough... POTATO PIZZA my friends!

Here's how I made mine: roll out the dough, spread garlic oil all over dough (I made a crushed garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper, chili pepper flake mixture and let it sit all day to combine the flavors), spread a very thin layer of havarti cheese slices (you want a mild white cheese or you won't be able to taste all the subtle flavors), layered on potato slices, sprinkled thin slices of onion, topped with cracked black pepper... baked it on a pizza stone at 450 for about 10-12 minutes till the top potatoes get curled up and crispy.

It's truly amazing how the bottom layer of potatoes get soft similar to scalloped potatoes, and the top get kind of crispy. There wouldnt be a lot of flavor without the oil mixture so that step is really important.

I made two pizzas to try out two kinds of crust. I used a white wheat, and just a regular crust. The wheat was much more chewy and substantial... I think I would roll the wheat crust thinner in the future or else your jaw gets tired. To the wheat pizza one I added some prosciutto on top for a little added something. Both were excellent and the prosciutto was definitely not "needed".

Hope you enjoyed... leave a comment if you have any questions!

Too Much Goodness, a Seriously Long Post...

To start off this post full of absolutely delicious food, we'll begin with breakfast! The most important meal of the day (so I hear). I think they are all pretty important. This ordinary french toast was made extra special with a coconut coating... along with our coconut syrup and a side of lemon guava! Now thats a great way to start the day.

Next up: my sister and I had a baking day a bit ago where we made some extreme cookies and cream cupcakes for our brother. He sent us a recipe and we delivered. The bottom of these cupcakes has half of an Oreo for the base. The batter has chunks of the cookie with a cream cheese frosting to top them off. I will include the websites where I got the recipes for all of the items that I used a recipe for at the very bottom of this post!

And now for our feature presentation... My dad just left for a long trip and I wanted to have everyone together for a dinner at our place before he left... I asked what he would like to have for dinner... and then I knew I should never have asked. Chicken. Pot. Pie.

Just thinking about it made me cringe... the crust, the filling, the baking... so much work! But it was his request so I did some research, figured out a few shortcuts that saved my life while seriously enhancing the final product. Let me tell you... AMAZING.

Now appetizers are wonderful things. I feel like they encourage chatting and relaxing and hanging out all at the same time. Basically the perfect way to start a lovely evening. I had a ripe pear and cream cheese on hand and figured out a way to incorporate them into what my dinner guests agreed, were extremely addicting little morsels. I sliced a baguette, sprinkled on some white peach balsamic vinegar and broiled them to toast the bread. I mixed the cream cheese with some goat cheese and spread a dollop on each toast. Thinly sliced pear went on top, another sprinkle of crumbled goat cheese, a tiny drizzle of honey, and a sprinkle of cinnamon. Texture, flavor, eye appeal... these had it all!

Now for the PIES... I chose to do individual servings because it is SO much more fun and everyone gets their own crust, which is basically the best part. For my shortcuts: I got a fully cooked rotisserie chicken from the store (the ones sitting under the hot lamps). I always love this chicken because it's salty and seasoned and always moist. This was the perfect choice, I must say. It saved me a pan since I didnt have to cook the chicken, and the flavor it added was ridiculous. (Note: you do have to pull and shred all the chicken off the bones yourself which takes a little time) The next tip is to use store bought pie crusts. I bought a package of 2 crusts and cut my 6 circles out of them. Just be sure to brush the tops of the crusts with eggwash before they bake for that lovely brown crust.

For the filling: rotisserie chicken was combined with fresh carrots, mushrooms, celery, peas, chicken stock, and a roux to thicken it all up. Boy was it thick and creamy!

Being consumed with the pot pies, I forgot to get my salad ingredients at the store. With a case of lovely apples my dad so nicely dropped off from costco... I made an applesauce which turned out to be the perfect side dish! Just apples, lemon juice, water, cinnamon, and I added a healthy pour of molasses... this side dish made the whole apartment smell amazing.

As you can see, that egg wash makes the crusts just PERFECT

This photo is for real... not a spec of food left anywhere!

Once again we had brown bananas that, as you already know, we won't eat. So I found a recipe for banana cake and used my leftover cream cheese frosting from the Oreo cupcakes to top off the moist banana treat.

And just a few more pictures from meals over the past week...

Finally... The End!

Here are the websites for recipes, but as you may have noticed, I pretty much tweak every recipe to my liking, and you should too! Thats the experimental fun of cooking...

Chicken Pot Pie

Banana Cake

Oreo Cupcakes

One Crazy Week

This week has been more than a bit crazy with big changes and sickness and work and on and on it goes... I'm sick in bed today which gave me time to write this post when otherwise I would have been working.

With both of us being sick this week, Tommy and I have been consuming a lot of tea with honey to soothe our throats. I love tea.

I've been planning this awesome salad with all things fall to top it. I was trying to figure out all different flavors and textures that would compliment each other. It turned out AMAZING! Everything was just fresh and healthy and delicious.

Heres the toppings: cinnamon chicken, molasses glazed nuts, dried cranberries, goat cheese, raspberries, and extra juicy pear!

We got a pork roast on sale this week and I used half of it for BBQ pulled pork with beans. This is meal reminded me of a plate you'd get at a fair or something similar, maybe on a soft bun. So with it I made corn with crumbled cheese, some chili powder, garlic salt, and pepper like you would dump on a roasted corn at the fair. Delicious!

Halibut Dinner (& other goodies from the weekend)

There was a small blunder made on my part when I picked a few frozen packages of Halibut from my parents fish locker to take home.

I defrosted one of these packages planning to make some kind of Halibut dinner with the nice filets... until I realized I had a bag of Halibut Cheeks!

Halibut cheeks are like scallops. They're tender little morsels that I absolutely love. They deserve respect and all of your time and effort - so I decided to gourmet them up with a panko/coconut breading and pan sear them. Served with the little nuggets, I boiled some sweet potatoes and sprinkled them with cinnamon for that beautiful aroma. We also had an exorbitant amount of cucumbers so I turned them into a pretty salad by marinating them in Italian Dressing and adding some pickled carrots.

Having some coconut syrup from Hawaii on hand made it easy to whip up a little dipping sauce...

For a quick "breading tutorial" this first image is the coating process with flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs/coconut to create the perfect crust.

And the finished product

And now for the WEEKEND RECAP:

On Sunday I was hankering for a homemade egg mcmuffin, if you will, or any kind of egg breakfast sandwich really. We had no english muffins on hand so I had to come up with a substitute, which really shouldn't even be called a substitute because these biscuits should be what all breakfast sandwiches are made with from here on out, worldwide. Uh-Maze-Ing.

No more talking... just LOOK!

This next picture involves nothing that I did... this is purely God's amazing creation untouched! The best homegrown grapefruits brought home from one of Tommy's co-workers.

And for the last post of the evening, a healthy lunch before my sister and I went shopping a few days ago... so that we could eat an extremely unhealthy Aunt Annie's Pretzel (which we ran out of time for and my hips were screaming thank you)

I had some leftover chicken breasts from dinner that I chopped up and made a curry chicken salad with apple chunks. I love curry anything - but I really love curried chicken salad especially with crispy apples in it...

Thanks for letting me share... if you ever want a specific recipe just ask! I don't like to take up precious picture space with them generally. But I WILL be posting all of my fall pumpkin recipes on here (pumpkin scones, pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin butter, etc.) as soon as my freaking grocery store starts stocking the canned pumpkin. GET ON IT PAVILIONS... I've only been waiting all year for October! End of rant... over and out.

New Addition

First of all, having leftover Macy's gift cards STILL since the wedding is amazing. All of those things you didnt register for or just now realized you probably really need, can still be purchased! It's just lovely. Such a lifesaver. When I buy my last household item with the last dollar on that gift card, it will be a sad day.

Secondly, let me introduce you...

This is Bella my brand spankin' new slow cooker! She will be keeping our bellies full and warm this fall and winter. In fact, she's already started!

To break her in we had homemade chili. Just browned the beef, sauteed some onions, green pepper, and jalapenos, threw them in with some cans of beans, tomatoes, and corn(no, corn is not a normal chili ingredient- but I know my target market and he loves anything with corn).

I also made some of the quickest and easiest biscuits to go with it. They're called Cream Biscuits and it was SO simple! Just flour, salt, baking powder, sugar, add the cream, voila! And they only bake for 12 minutes so they're done in a jiffy. Add butter or lemon curd to those warm guys and you've got yourself a winner.

See now I didn't even clean the edge of the bowl for the picture, I was too hungry and I had to get to the biscuits before they got cold... you understand, right?