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?

Surprising Creativity at Such an Early Hour...

A few days ago, I did the horrible awful.

Everyone knows what it is... knows that feeling of dread that YOU were the one that did it.

Then searches and scours every target and walmart and website to find the replacement that doesn't exist.

I. broke. the. coffee pot.

I was slicing my giant yellow watermelon and when the knife finally went through the bottom of the rind, one half of the melon rolled right into the coffee pot causing a glassy graveyard in my sink.

Day 1 of no coffee pot was fabulous! We both left early for work, headed to the most convenient 711 on our routes, and I honestly enjoyed my butter toffee coffee with caramel macchiato creamer! It was only 1.59 too! What a deal.

Day 2 we are too lazy to get up early and both drink the sludge at work.

Day 3 I GET CREATIVE. See amazing picture below.

Yes, that is a tea pot with a chopstick to let the little dripper flow. Mr. Coffee Maker was a little confused, but he did fabulously and we got a homemade cup of jo with minimal effort.

And to celebrate my success, I enjoyed one of my favorite breakfasts...

Happy Thursday Everyone!

Work Night Dinner

Besides researching slow cookers this week - because fall is HERE and I desperately need to start slow cooking roasts and root vegetables and stews, I have been working quite a bit so on nights like tonight, an easy meal is essential.

I found a huge glorious honeycrisp apple at the store this week and imagined it sliced with some beautiful cheese for an appetizer. So tonight we started with a nice fall appetizer of apples and sharp aged cheddar cheese.

For the easiest dinner ever, I threw some chicken breasts in a ziplock in the fridge before I left for work with italian dressing to marinate all day. When I got home I cooked it up and served it with some baby potatoes and a green salad.

And as I write, I am happily munching on some yellow flesh watermelon. Its similar in flavor to regular watermelon but looks so different! You could definitely fool someone that its pineapple - which could be very fun - I might give that a try...

And since I missed a few meals here is a quick overview from the past few nights...

On sunday we had a quick spaghetti with the best stewed tomatoes I've definitely ever had. Great flavor and they came from a can! With (of course) garlic bread.

I was blessed with an entire pallet of eggs from my mother so last night was omelet night!

I had broccoli and onion in the fridge with some hot sauce and cheese... yummm.

And thats all for now folks! I'm full of watermelon and its time to watch some of my recorded Fall TV shows... How could you not love Fall??

Thee First Post

Let me just start off by saying, the Kilbanes are picky banana eaters. I understand that there are multiple stages to a banana's life... starts off really green, heads to semi green, gets into the I'm mostly yellow with a tinge of green, then the most wonderful stage- perfectly mellow yellow with not a hint of brown in sight. After this stage comes the dreaded spots... we will no longer eat said banana once it aquires "the spot". Into the freezer it goes and once 3 have accumulated... you know what that means!

BANANA BREAD TIME!

Here is the perky little loaf that those dear brown bananas turned into... and mini chocolate chips thrown in never hurt anybody.

I do realize that my first post on Butter and Scones is not of scones... but the bananas were getting impatient in the freezer and the husband and I really cant eat a loaf of banana bread AND a slew of scones in one week. (Well we definitely could, but we also are attempting not to be 400 pounds by our 1 year anniversary)

I will tell you this... the banana bread took 45 minutes to bake and I get impatient, so I did whip up some fresh Lemon Curd that will be smothered on those delicious scones very very soon. Mmmm... I can hardly wait.