Yummy. Easy. Jambalaya.

I made Chicken Andouille Jambalaya tonight.  It was delicious and easy.  You should make it.  This recipe is so easy and yummy there is nothing more to say - so make it  =)  

I made it with Kielbasa - not Andouille  =)  Just to let you know  =) 

Amazing Herb Roasted Chicken!!!

Herb Roasted Whole Chicken

Last night's dinner was deemed "Deloycious" by Sweet Husband.  He is a man of few words, and displays excitement subtlety.  Saying dinner was "Delyocious" was the greatest compliment ever! I made the Herb Roasted Whole Chicken compliments of The Pioneer Woman  =) This is an easy - let me say that again - EASY recipe!!  You can prep in about 5 min, pop that lil chick in the oven and then be on your merry way to do as you please for the next hour and fifteen minutes.  Here is how my lil bird turned out: 

 You need to put this recipe in your Toolbox so you are locked, loaded, and ready to go on a night when things get crazy busy.  

Creamy Lemon Pasta

The herb roasted chicken was served on a bed of pasta with mushrooms.  I love the phrase "served on a bed of pasta."  However, I do not like mushrooms - I choked on one as a kid and ever since mushrooms make me skittish. I wanted to make linguine with a cream sauce so I found another pasta recipe on The Pioneer Woman and used the section for the sauce.  The recipe is under Grilled Chicken with Lemon Basil Pasta.  I did not add chicken or basil - I just made the sauce.  I changed a few things in the recipe becuase my asthma goes nuts when I have too much dairy.  You can make her sauce just like the recipe - I just substituted some non-dairy products and the sauce was delish! Here is what I did:  

1.  Heat 1/2 stick of butter 

2. Add 3-4 Lemons (I only used 3, the sauce was very strong so a 4th would have been too much but you can always add more at the end if needed)

3.  She calls for 1/2 cup half and half and 1/2 cup cream.  I used 1/2 cup cream and a 1/2 cup Soy Milk (Silk Very Vanilla).  

4. I added a cup of Rice Cheese. This is the greatest non-dairy cheese ever.  It melts like, tastes like and has the texture of real cheese.  Here is a picture of what I buy - usually only Dierbergs carries it.  It is a little pricey but you can get coupons on line by registering online.   I LOVE this cheese. 

 5.  Then you just whisk the sauce, add salt and pepper.  

G-R-I-L-L

Sweet Husband is a resourceful man.  He is also very handsome, sweet, intelligent, and funny.  He has excellent taste in beer and a keen eye for items he can repurpose.  Sweet Husband will graduate next fall with his grad degree as a Family Nurse Practitioner - we are both so excited!  I am so proud of the way he tirelessly serves others through his profession.  I am so blessed by having him as my husband - I love him, very much.   

So the point of all this mushy mushy lovey dovey stuff about my Sweet Husband is to show you another one of his wonderful creations - our new Fire Pit/Grill  =) 

Sweet Husband found the bricks for free at a house the city just demolished a few blocks over.  His dad gave him grill grates and then Sweet Husband stuck some long metal tongs with handles through the grates to hold them together and allow for easy grate removal.  I don't have a pic of the grates, but I will add it when I get one!  The fire pit makes a perfect grill and it makes the food taste exceptional. 

Love Summer

Summer break is here!  My first semester of grad school just wrapped up and I have a few weeks to do some serious cooking!  I am excited to start exploring some new recipes! Here is what is on the menu this week!!!

Tonight:  Pan Fried Rib Eye Steak with a Side Salad, Roasted French Bread and Chocolate Chip Cookies for dessert =)

This is the steak prior to cooking.  I thought the recipe was awesome, but I am not a big fan of lemon pepper.  So I diverted from the recipe a little.  I let my ribeyes marinade for about 7 hours in olive oil, season salt, pepper, oregano, basil, and thyme.  I also put some Italian Parsley on the top while it marinated.  After that I followed the steps in the recipe to cook the steaks =) 

The rest of the week:  

Greek Salad

Herb Roasted Whole Chicken with Linguini (minus the mushrooms for me!)

Cajun Chicken Pasta

Chicken and Andouille Jambalaya

Grad School

There are many things I love about being in grad school - learning incredible information, having stellar professors, seeing Jordyn Gehret every single day.  But the one thing that I do not love about grad school is the amount of time it takes away from my ability to blog.  I think I am going to have to start blogging once a week on Sunday afternoons.  I am sad about this because I enjoy blogging - but when I prioritize based on what I need to do vs. what I want to do...relaxing and blogging come after school.  Oh prioritization.  This is only for a season though, and what a season this shall be  =)

I do need to get to studying....but before that, there is a book I would like to recommend - I think I am going to get it.  My friend John and his wife Anne Marie gave this book to a good friend of ours that does not like to cook.  The book is The $7 a Meal Healthy Cookbook.  It has 301 nutritious, delicious recipes that the whole family will love - all $7.00 and under!!! I am very excited about this book and I look forward to making some recipes from it!  

OK, study time.  

"If we had no winder, the spring would not be so pleasant:  if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome." 

Anne Bradstreet, British Poet. 

M-O-V-I-N-G-

Sweet Husband and I are getting ready to move into a house we are renting!!!  We are so excited!!  We also get our dog on Sunday - also incredibly exciting!!!!  

Here are some not so exciting things about moving: 

1.  Packing

2.  Peeling off the decorative stickers that you put on your wall - I feel like I have done intensive surgery to get them off! They are wonderful but I will never get the intricate patterns again =)

3.  Getting boxes packed and not being able to move around your apartment due to the excessive amount of stuff we have  =(

Things I love about moving: 

1.  We are getting our very own WASHER AND DRYER!!!  No more shared laundry machines! This also means no more surprise articles of clothing ending up in my laundry.  It seems many folks don't double check that the washer/dryer is completely empty.

2.  Bigger place to live

3.  We get our Lil Monster Jake =)

The best part about moving 

1. Having the support of friends and family to help us move all of our stuff - even our piano =)

I will update pics soon - I won't be doing a lot of cooking as the majority of my pots and pans are packed as well as my magical apron  =) 

Sweet Daffodils to Sit On

So today I took on my first painting project for a free awesome find!  I found these wood folding chairs outside by the dumpster in Cougar Village.  

That is right - by the dumpster.  

Now lets just kick off our stilettos and get serious - Drop your fear of checking out your neighbors junk.  If you have a fear of picking up awesome things next to...or sometimes inside....a dumpster you are really missing out!  I wasn't sure what to think the first time Sweet Husband pulled out a huge pillar from a dumpster filled with demolition stuff.  This thing was huge, white, and filled with nails.  But my heart skipped a beat after I saw it all cleaned up and painted the most luscious red.  It now stands in our living room forever reminding me of how someone's trash is truly your treasure  =)  

OK so on to these lovely chairs!  I found them by the dumpster and they have been our porch chairs for about a year but I never painted them.  A few weeks ago I was in Aledo, IL, Sweet Husband's hometown, and saw similar chairs painted yellow.  

That was it - I went to Home Depot and hunted down the perfect yellow:  

Dazzling Daffodil.  

This is the Before shot.  One of the chairs was worn down to the wood.  The other chair (on the right) had paint and some lacquer still in tact.  I used some sand paper to lightly rough up the wood/lacquer and also to remove flaking paint.  

Now here is a key product that you need when painting on wood that has lacquer on it (you can also use this for many other surfaces!)  You need:  Glidden Gripper Primer. This primer helps the new paint stick to the wood/lacquer.  If I didn't use this primer the paint would not have 'stuck' well to the chair.  This primer is amazing and I highly recommend it!!!

 

Next Step:  Start Painting!!!!!

Next Step:  Take a break and take a pic of how hard you are working!!!

It took me about a half hour to prime and then a half hour to paint each chair.  

And then they were D-O-N-E

Lovely porch chairs for Sweet Husband and I

Malted Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ladies, hold on to your horses.  These cookies will knock your stilettos off! These are yummy, thin cookies that are crunchy on the edge and gooey in the middle.  

Sweet Husband loved these cookies and I am certain that you and your Sweet Honey will too!!!

First things first - you are going to want a mixer, unless you prefer a great arm work out.  I don't have a mixer so I creamed butter with my own hands/arms.  I also don't have a cooling rack - I have a great solution for this later on...

The best way to cream butter without a mixer is to let the stick of butter get to room temp, cut the butter into squares and then use a wood spoon to chop at it and make it all one hunk.  (The word Hunk might make you think of your Handsome Hunk....don't get distracted....back to the cookies)  =)  

After you get the butter into a nice big hunk (focus) of butter you add in the sugar (brown and white).  At this point I switched over to using my Pampered Chef 4-pronged ground beef thingy (I tried to find it on-line for you at Pampered Chef but I couldn't find it)  This meat thingy also works well for making homemade guac - it's great for crushing avacados!  So you just squish all this around until it looks like this.....

Yummy!!!  WARNING:  This butter/sugar/brown sugar mix is incredibly delish!!!  And yes, I ate every bit that just happened to get on my finger  =)  

It pays to be a messy cook!

At this point you have mixed in the flour, malted milk, and chocolate chips.  I used the chocolate malted milk but I am sure you can use regular as well.  

This is a before and after of the cookies.  2 Main things you should know - 

1.  Make sure these cookies have a lot of room.  They spread out and get really thin.  2.  Let the cookies cool but not too much....they get really crispy on the edges and are difficult to remove without breaking.  I suggest you re-spray your baking pan/sheet between each batch of cookies and also let them cool just enough so they are not too gooey to get off the pan but also not too crisp that they just break.  

OK so actually there are 3 things - 

3.  You MUST watch these cookies like a hawk!  There are only a few seconds between burnt and yummy - set a timer and keep an eye on them!

Speaking of cooling - I don't have a cooling rack. So instead I used a fan and my cookies - aim the fan and you get instantly cool cookies...and a cool pan!  

Hello beautiful!!!!!!

That is one thin, yummy, ooey, gooey, full of goodness cookie!!!

What's Cookin Good Lookin

Here is the dinner menu for this week:  

Bowtie Lasagna

Mexican "Flatbread" Pizza

Beef with Snow Peas

Malted Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies  (This is just a dessert, not a dinner - but it would be lovely as dinner!)

Chicken Spaghetti 

Some other recipes I would love to try out:  

Via Cappuccino Muffins

Sweet Cinnamon Scones 

It's Tea Time

Summer is here and nothing compliments summer better than family, friends, BBQ and tall pitchers of iced tea. My new favorite is Blueberry Tea.  It is a light tea but is bursting with flavor!  What are some of your favorite teas for summer?

Want to try some new recipes for iced tea - check out these Iced Tea Recipes

What you should know about making Tea

I love Iced Tea in the summer.  And I love it with some sugar and fresh squeezed lemons.  Since the weather in IL has been rainy for the last month I haven't been able to make sun tea.  So instead I heat up water for tea in my cheery red tea kettle. I like having the tea bags in the kettle while it boils so I get every last drop o' tea out of the tea bag.  Frugal yes....smart....well I thought so, until this happened.  

While cooking a lovely dinner I asked Sweet Husband, "Do you smell that?  Does it smell like something is burning?"  Sweet Husband sniffed the air and agreed something was burning.  I checked the oven.  Negative.  I checked the pasta I was boiling.  Negative.  Then I looked at the tea kettle....the papers on the tea bag were on fire.  Sweet Husband came to the rescue and put out the fire for me.  Lesson Learned:  keep a shorter string on the tea bags. 

Jake's Bed - Made with Love

As Sweet Husband and I were perusing the aisles at Pet's Smart we realized that dog beds are incredibly overpriced.  As I looked at the pillows my domestic side kicked into full gear and out flowed from my mouth, "You know honey, I bet I can make Jake a pillow just like that."  And so, that is what I did.  I made our silly boy Jake a huge dog pillow!!!  In the store the large pillows were priced starting at $80.00 - which is a bit ridiculous.  I was able to make this pillow for $39.00.  My fabric ranged from $5 a yard for the Navy and White and $9 a yard for the Navy Canvas.  I got 2 yards of each, heavy duty needles, thread for denim (it is really strong) and I also bought 3 bags of stuffing.  This bed is for a dog that is about 70 lbs and 3 feet long. 

 

Material - Navy and White stripes and the bottom is Navy canvas

Sewing the sides together! 

Stuffing

Fill er' up

FILLED! 

Jake approved =)

Jake's Crate

Sweet Husband and I now have a dog!!!!!!!  Big smiles and squeals!!!!!!!  Our dog's name is Jake and he is the sweetest sweetie ever!  Sweet Husband and I put the dog crate together the other night.  Here is our teamwork =)  

Sweet Husband is super sexy when he is hard at work  =)  

Here is the massive crate  =) 

Tortilla Soup

Last week I made Tortilla Soup.  Sweet Husband said it best "Honey, this is amazing."   =)  I recommend you make this recipe for the sweet man in your life....

Improvisation - a key ingredient for cooking

I was inspired by Kara to make yummy BLT's for dinner tonight - with Duke's Mayonnaise - thank you Kara for bringing this to my attention!  Let me just say that Duke's Mayonnaise really tastes different than any other mayo I have had - so you should get some. 

We started off cooking turkey bacon.  I was looking for our tongs and realized we didn't have them anymore - who knows where they ended up.  A friend of mine as some tiny bamboo tongs that she uses when she cooks bacon, so I looked around my kitchen for something similar - and this is what I found: 

A wood close pin  =) It worked perfectly!

I cut up some tomatoes, fruit, and pulled out Duke's Mayonnaise.......

Yum....dinner.....

A Lovely Day

I spent the afternoon with Laura sipping on tea while I learned how to make a yummy Mediterranean meal for Sweet Husband and I.  Laura talked about ways we can make dinner beautiful - not just putting a good meal on the table but how you can make it look really beautiful with garnishes and pretty dishes - and fresh flowers! My mom and dad always made yummy meals and made them look beautiful too.  Dinner was always a wonderful time for my family to get together and just talk and enjoy one another and some yummy food.  

When I got home that night I put some fresh cut strawberries and apples on a pretty plate so Sweet Husband would have a healthy snack when he got home from a 14 hour work day.  I don't really do appetizers because I am trying to finish the main course up.  But I like to have something for Sweet Husband to eat as dinner finishes up.  So Laura suggested fresh fruit and veggies as an appetizer.  She said you might have fruit and veggies in the fridge but it takes time to cut them up - if you already have them sliced and laid out nice on a plate you can just dig right in until diner is ready =)

This was our dinner table - Water with clementine slices and a garnish for the glasses (Sweet Husband's glass is missing because he was drinking out of it!) Lilacs on the table and then in the middle I had the fruit.  I also put the flowers that Laura gave me from her garden on our ottoman in the living room - I just love fresh flowers! 

On the Menu:

Lemon Rosemary Chicken

Chicken Breasts, Salt/Pepper, Olive Oil, 

Lemon Pepper, Lemon Juice, Fresh Rosemary

Bake for about 40 min on 400 degrees

Tabbouleh 

See Recipe Below

This is DELISH you will want to make this!!

2 ¾ c. water

1 1/2 C. bulgar (cracked wheat) or couscous (we used couscous)

½ tsp. salt

Bring water to boil and put in the grain.  Turn off heat, cover and let sit on burner for 10 min until liquid is absorbed.  Cool and place in large bowl.

Add to grain in large bowl: 

1 medium cucumber, diced

3 medium green onions, coarsely chopped

1 - 2 (15 oz) cans of kidney beans, rinsed, drained (You can make this without beans if you choose)

1 cup crumbled feta cheese

1 cup chopped parsley

½ cup chopped basil

¼ - 1/3 C. fresh dill, finely chopped, (or 1 tsp. dried dill weed)

1/3 - ½ cup lemon juice (2 – 3 lemons)

¼ cup olive oil, (start with less and add more as needed)

freshly ground pepper to taste

¼ tsp. cayenne pepper

3 medium tomatoes, coarsely chopped, (add just before serving so that tomatoes stay fresh)

Chill in fridge for a few hours and let herbs meld together for most flavor.

 

Worst Dinner - to date

I came up with a snazzy little recipe for Baked Ginger Lemon Chicken:

• Chicken Breast
• 2 Inches Ginger
• Zest and Juice of 1 Lemon
• Olive Oil
• Bake at 400

I let the chicken marinate all day and then baked it.  The chicken wasn't dry, but it was as bland as a room without some hot pink.  Dinner ended up in the trash - there was no reviving it.  Sweet Husband was, well, very sweet.  He hugged me as I was near tears and said, "Babe, it's OK, you worked really hard and I am really thankful for your hard work."   

Sweet Husband always makes me feel good even when dinner is an epic failure - he has had a lot of practice encouraging me through many less than delish meals!  =)  So instead for dinner we had PB and J with veggies. 

First round of Try Outs

Here are some new recipes I will be trying out - I will keep you posted on how they go! 
PS - many of the recipes call for heavy cream -you can substitute non-flavored coffee creamer or you can also use Silk creamer.  That is what I will be using =)

Chicken Piccata 

Chicken Tortilla Soup

Beef Stew

Tomato Sandwiches

Beef and Bean Burritos

Spaghetti with Artichoke Hearts and Tomatoes

Mexican Lasagna

Vote Yes for Pig Cake

I just love The Pioneer Woman's Blog.  Thank you, Thank you, Thank you for your dedication to snapping photos every step of the way to show me exactly what ingredients I need and what to do with them! OK, back to the Pig Cake - I got the recipe for Pig Cake from The Pioneer Woman's Blog.   I am going to love this cake! You are going to love this cake!!!   

I say we make it this weekend =)

Homemade Pizza

On The Menu Tonight - Homemade Pizza!

I am not certain how this will turn out.  I cooked the dough but it tastes a little bitter, hopefully the sauce will help cover that up  =/  Here is the dough ball: 

Baking the dough

Sweet Husband will be home soon - I can't wait to serve him homemade pizza for the first time!!

Project: Storm Windows

 My sweet husband and I spotted two of these storm windows for trash pick up outside a gorgeous home in Edwardsville.  We double checked with the owner that the windows were intended to be 'trash' (although our treasure).  We loaded them up in the truck and headed home! Sweet Husband is going to show me how to clean them up and hinge them together to create a screen  =) 

I will put up a new post when they are done!

Here is the finished project!!!  We have it in the corner by our couch.  I have Christmas decorations on it - cinnamon scented pine cones =) 

10 Reasons to L-O-V-E- Aldi's

1.  Pina Colada fruit bars - cool and refreshing for summer

2.  Yummy Guacamole in individual packets - In a rush? Just pop some in a pretty dish and it looks like you sliced and smashed your own homemade guac! 

3. Shopping at Aldi cuts your grocery bill in half....seriously. 

4. The cart system - Attention all Grocery Stores:  You should use the Quarter Cart System - put in your quarter, take a cart, shop till you drop, fill up your car, return your cart, get your quarter back.  Genius.

5. Older folks tend to shop at Aldi - and lets face it older married couples are the sweetest thing  =) 

6. Spinach is .99 a bag!

7. Juicy pears and pineapples!

8. The hodgepodge of kitchen, home, office, outdoor, and camping equipment that you can find at the end of this one aisle.

9. Delish take and bake pizza in the deli section

10. There is no choice for paper or plastic - so be Green and bring your reusable bags

http://www.aldifoods.com/index_ENU_HTML.htm

Gettin' my Domestic On - Chicken Lemon Soup

Alright, tonight is a serious test of my cooking abilities.  I am making Chicken Lemon Soup.  This soup takes 12 hours to make and requires 4 inches of ginger of which I have no clue what to do with the 4 inches of ginger.  However, this recipe brings a lot of excitement as I needed to buy some additional cooking tools.  The first is a lemon zester - the name alone is awesome so I am excited to see what some zest can do for my cooking.  The second tool is a lemon squeezer thing that gets the juice out of the lemons without letting seeds get into the soup.  My sweet husband said, "I bet you could just use your pretty hands for that" to which I replied, "I am pretty sure I could just use my hands, but I can't resist the chefy feeling I get when I hold that shiny, yellow lemon squeezer thing!"  He smiled - I love this.  

And now it begins - my domestic is on and we are cookin some Chicken Lemon Soup =)  I will keep you posted....

Here are all the yummies cooking up together - this is my first time cooking with ginger...it smells delish  =) 

 My handy dandy yellow lemon squeezer thingy  =) It squeezes the lemons and also gives your arms a nice work out - as if we really needed it though  =)

Deceiving Snow Peas

Last night I dusted off the rice cooker and made some yummy Chinese stir fry.  A tip about rice cookers - if you have not purchased one you should!  When you buy one make sure it has a veggie steamer tray on top - this makes dinner a cinch.  I cooked up some rice and steamed the veggies as it all was cooking.   I plated our dinner and was excited to see my husband's reaction.......I was pretty certain that this would be a hit! Little did I know that snow peas need to be popped out of the hard, bitter covering before you eat them.  Next time, I will know.