Waffles

I made some yummy waffles morning in my new to me waffle maker! :) They were so good.  We even had some real maple syurp!

Chili & Smoothies!

So we had some steak in the fridge that needed to be cooked  so I whipped up a small pot of chili.  Turned out delicious! :)  Just cut up, browned and seasoned the meat.  (seasoned with garlic pepper, cayenne pepper , salt & pepper and a little taco seasoning) Then added 1/2 an onion, red kidney beans, chopped tomatoes.  Let it simmer for about 2 hours and voila!! Yummy! :)  We had little cups of it and saving the rest for dinner tomorrow!

Quick Steak Chili

After that I made a delicious strawberry blueberry smoothie.  Derek watched a documentary on Netflix about food so he got the urge to buy a juicer and tons of fruits and veggies.  He hasn't juiced anything yet but I've blended some of the fruit into yummy smoothies! :)

Strawberry Blueberry Smoothie

Brownie Sundae

Yummy! :) 

So last night I decided to make a brownie sundae out of the last frozen brownie in the freezer.  (I had made brownies a while back and we couldn't eat them all so I froze them individually wrapped in tinfoil for just such occasions as this! :) )

I had the fudge brownie warmed up on the bottom,  chocolate ice cream, chocolate sauce, whipped cream, some mini chocolate chips and a strawberry on top! Delish! :) 

Also apparently Derek did a little shopping last night and picked up the baby a toy.  He went to build a bear and made a bunny! So cute!:) So what type of outfit did he pick out you asked?  A cute little ballerina outfit?  a princess outfit?  NOPE!  A star wars, Jedi knight outfit!  hehehehe its still wicked cute tho! :) 

Pizza! Frozen to be exact, buffalo chicken to be even more exact. :)

Yum yum!  I've been pretty lazy with my cooking since Mr. B's been away for work.  I picked up this frozen pizza at the supermarket today because I know Mr. B doesn't like buffalo chicken pizza and since he wasn't around I thought I'd try it out for myself.  And I thought it was delicious!  So delicious I burn the roof of my mouth even tho I waited three min after I took it out of the oven.  Hehe oh well, it was worth it.  Mr B's and I usually get market basket bake and rise frozen pizza.  Its  quick and delicious.  It has a nice crust that puffs up while it bakes. Mystic Pizza's Buffalo chicken pizza didn't puff up as much.  It's an accurate depiction of the crust in the above picture.  But it was very good. The crust had a nice crunch to it but the dough it self still had some bite.  The buffalo sauce was tangy and yummy.  Not too hot but still had a good kick to it. The chicken itself was good too.  I sometime get scared of chicken in products like this but it was pretty good quality. :)

I did enjoy it very much as a quick dinner for one.  It's good enough for dinner for two with maybe a salad on the side to healthify it up a little bit.  :)  Anyway I give it an A-.  It would have been an A+ if only it was made with Frank's Red hot.   That stuff if just the best.   hehe

We went to Mystic Conn. on our way back from our Honeymoonette.  I took a picture of Mystic Pizza even though we didn't even go in or get any pizza.  hehe

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

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

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!