Voila, Dinner!

I still haven't gone food shopping yet and things are getting rather sparse in the fridge and cabinets.  So on the ride home I was thinking about what to cook for myself for dinner since Mr. B had to go to NYC for work and wouldn't be home until late.  I knew I had some cream of cheese soup that I wanted to experiment, I thought maybe I could make a soup with some potatoes and pepper.  But when I got home I was starving and the potatoes would take too long to cook.  Then I noticed that we had some left over white rice, eggs and cherry tomatoes.  So I made a garlic rice with tomatoes and an egg! It was a nice quick easy and yummy meal.
Here's how I did it:

First I sauteed up some garlic in EVOO.  

Garlic & EVOO

 While that was going I fried up an egg in my fancy egg frying pan.  :)

Egg!

 Then I added the white rice.  Almost burnt the garlic...oops!

Garlic rice

 When the rice was almost heated up all the way I added the cherry tomatoes that I cut in half. 

 I just let the tomatoes get warmed up.  Then I put the rice mix on a plate and topped it with the fried egg ( i like it over hard) And Volia! Dinner! :)

Garlic rice with tomatoes and an egg

Popcorn time!

So I was in the mood for some tonight.  I'm working on perfecting my stove top popping technique.   It's so much cheaper than microwave popcorn and it taste better in my opinion than air popped popcorn.  I remember my parents cooking it this way when I was younger... before we started getting the microwave kind. We always used the same pot and in my head it was always the popcorn pan after that.  I can still remember the popcorn pushing up the top of the pot as it finished popping. :)
Here's how I make it:

Ingredients

Ingredients: Popping corn, vegetable oil, butter flavored popcorn seasoning, and cayenne pepper (for a kick)

I pour just enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan and add a couple of kernels. Heat on medium high. Once those pop you know its hot enough for you to add the rest. 

Sorry for the blur but you get the idea

I add just enough popcorn for it to be a single layer on the bottom of the pan. Then I cover, but tilt it to let out any steam.

I give the pot a little shake and shimmy every now and then especially when it starts popping. Listen to the popping, when it slows down take it off of the heat. 

I sprinkle some popcorn seasoning on it, usually butter flavored.  Lately I've been adding some cayenne pepper to kick it up.  In the past I've added some garlic pepper.  Its yummy either way!! :)  You can add whatever flavors you like.  Its fun to mix it up.  Put some taco seasoning on the popcorn and then you can have some taco popcorn. So I just season it as i feel like it and then I have some delicious popcorn!! :) Takes maybe 10 min max, probably less than that.  The longest part is waiting for the oil to heat up. 

Yum Yum Yum

Engagement

It's been one year since my husban (boyfriend at the time) ask me if I would marry him.  Well actually,  its when he had asked me if I wanted a surprise, then said surprise and handed me the ring... atleast thats the simple version.  hehe Romantic isn't he :)

High Five

This is one of my favorite pictures from our wedding, i think it's a fun picture :)

What is it?

When we moved into our house (during the winter) we noticed there were some flower beds in the yard.  In the spring time things started to grow in them. Now some of the plants are blooming but I have no idea what they are.   There was a nice big orange poppy that flowered earlier in the year.  I didn't know what it was but my mom was able to find out that it was a poppy.  Right now we have these spikey pink and red flowers blooming.  I have no idea what they are!!!

Spikey Red Flower

Spikey pink flowers (in background)

I've tried Googling spikey red flower but I didn't see anything that looked like my flowers.  I still think its cool that things are flowering in our yard without me having to do anything.  Someday I'll figure out how to garden for real. :)

Lovely Lunch

Early today I had a lovely lunch with my momma, and two aunts at Pickity Place in Mason, NH. 

Pickity Place- Seating in front of the Gift Shop

It was really cute restaurant in an old cottage in the middle of the woods (literally down a dirt road) surrounded by beautiful gardens.  They have a delicious 5 course lunch that was made with lots of herbs and ingredients right from their gardens.  Everything tasted so fresh.  I tried their lavender lemonade to drink.  At first I thought it was a little over powering but it really was so refreshing.  :) They have a cute little gift shop set up and a garden shop.  It was really a nice place to have lunch with friends and family.

 

 

 

Garden at Pickity Place

 I really liked all the dips and mixes packets they sold made from their herbs.  I bought a Boursin French Style Garlic Cheese spread that I can wait to mix up. It smells yummy right through the packet.  It has garlic, dill basil, thyme, marmoram, and pepers in it, in case you were wondering.  I'll let you know how it is when I mix some up someday!

It's a Bee!

It's a bee!!!

Check out the bee in our "garden"... its mostly just weeds. I wanted to see what would grow in the garden first before I try my hand at gardening. I've been awful at it so far.  Mostly I've just tried growing indoor plants and they usually don't last too long or the cat eats them.  She at my last plant that had actually lasted for a couple of months.  It probably lasted so long because she's was living upstairs.  She just finally got used to the dog and has been venturing down stairs more often.  Oh well, maybe next year we'll have a nice pretty garden outside. We do have a nice pretty bunch of daylilies by the river, those are nice and hopefully my black thumb wont have an affect on them.   

Daylilies by the river

Oooh and I'm trying to grow some tomatoes in pots.  Derek came home with the plants one day.  They haven't died yet.  There are actually a couple of green tomatoes growing on them.  :)  And there has been some rhubarb growing since the spring.  Who knew it had such huge leaves!

The Rhubarb back in April

Fried Rice, yum!

I love making fried rice with left over white rice.  Speaking of which, our rice cookers was one of the best $10 dollars we've ever spent!  I love being able to just put the rice and water together, turn it on and walk away.  Then about 20 min later, bam its done! :) No stirring no worrying, it switches to warm once its all done cooking.

Coley's Fried Rice

  I like making my friend rice with some kelbsa,  I learned that from a coworker!  I'm sure you could probably use any kind of sausage and it would have the same effect.  Basically it just adds alot of good flavor to the rice.  So I'll chop up some kelbasa and put that in the wok to heat up.  I'll scramble a egg with the kelbasa.  Then I toss in some frozen veggies (un frozen-ified) and the leftover rice.  Then I mix it all up and heat it up for a bit.  Then volia! Fried Rice!

What's for Dinner?

SooOo on the way home tonight from work I was racking my brain about what I should make for dinner.  I knew we didn't have much at the house so I would have to be creative.  Mr. B had bought some artichoke hearts in a can randomly a while ago. They've been sitting in the cabinet ever since, so I wanted to try to use them. Last night I baked so chicken drum sticks and we had some of those left over.  And we always have some pasta.  Then I came to thinking maybe I could try to make a pasta dish out of chicken and artichoke dip, cause that's all i could think of to do with the artichokes.  I checked the fridge and we had about half a thing of cream cheese.  So I figured with those basic things I could whip it up!  I've never made artichoke dip before so I quickly googled it to get and idea of it.
So here's what I did.  I got some pasta boiling, about half a box of penne.  (actually I thought I had put the pot on to start boiling, however after googling the dip I walked into the kitchen with the back burner blazing red hot and the pot of water freezing cold... oh well)  I put some olive oil and a bunch of garlic ( cant have enough garlic) in a pot to start cooking.  Then I grabbed two drumsticks and got them meat off of them and added that to the garlic and olive oil.  Then I added the about half a package of cream cheese, about a table spoon of mayo,  a handful of Parmesan cheese, sprinkle of garlic pepper and mixed it all up!  Oooh and i found a frozen hunk of freezer burned mozzarella cheese in the freezer and added that too and  VOILA! Deliciousness!!! :) :)  Hot chicken and artichoke dip with pasta! Yum!

Hot Artichoke and Chicken Pasta

A Dogs Life

Our dog Riley likes to sleep.  When we first got him we bought a dog bed for him to sleep on.  That didnt last too long, he ripped it to shreds and decided he'd much rather sleep in a chair...  Yup a chair.  Not like a comfy recliner or anything. Nope, he liked to squeeze into a rickety old computer chair that leaned backed.  It was rather interesting watching him get into it. I really don't understand how he even fit in it.  But most mornings I would find him curled up in it.

Then one day we brought home a couch.  And now boy does he love to spread out on it.  I read somewhere that redticks were nesters and that its hard to keep them off of couches but boy can he help it!

The Peterborough Diner

The Peterborough Diner

Tonight Mr B. and I strolled down to the Peterborough Diner for dinner. It's a cool little diner that has some good diner food.  I felt like trying something new tonight so I got a Monte Cristo sandwich.  It was delicious! I've never had one before but I was feeling adventurous tonight.  I'm glad I was because it was so good.    It was made on french toast (on a sandwich?  so good!), turkey, ham, Swiss cheese, with Russian dressing.   The cheese was all ooey, gooey, and yummily melted.  I should have taken a picture of it but I at it up instead.  I wish I had discovered this sandwich sooner!