On to smaller portions

Two recipes down this week! But only (bad) pictures for one! 

Turkey Taco Cassserole 

It was a Weight Watchers recipe and I might've un-Weight Watchered it. But I was using ingredients we already had at the house. It's one I'll probably do again. Crush some chips, throw them on the bottom. Saute onion and garlic. Cook the meat. Add in salsa and taco seasoning. (And green chilies!) Pour it all on the chips, sprinkle some cheese, bake for 30 minutes at 350. Boom... it's done!

THEN I made Cashew Chicken and it was delicious as well. So high five for me. (It also gave us three extra lunches. Good thing I don't mind leftovers.)

Something I'm going to have to work on is cooking smaller portions. Since I'm finally moving out of my parents house! It's been a good eight months since coming back from Bulgaria but it was just time to try to be independent. (I told my parents they were more than welcome to buy my groceries if they wanted to stay involved! Ha!) So now my resolution will be just for me. And JLN if he shows up. 

The big move day is next week! So excited!

Food

I think I'm over my resolution. I'm not doing so well about posting about the food. And I always forget to take pictures until we're about to eat it.

Anyways, thanks to the great Pinterest phenomenon I made another recipe from that. If you can call it a recipe. Let's call it Salsa Chicken and it's pretty much the easiest thing ever. 

You need:

- A jar of salsa (I used a 12 oz)

- Packet of enchilada seasoning

- Chicken breast (I had 4 small pieces)

Mix the salsa and seasoning in the crockpot. Toss in the chicken breast. Put the lid on, cook on low for 8 hours. 

Done. 

It's delicious. And you can shred it with a fork. I made that last Tuesday and we ate the leftovers yesterday (Sunday) and they still tasted good. There ya' go. 

I love Crockpots.

Food Fail and More

Week #7 of the year was a fail. That's okay though. I was kinda busy. It was V-Day, I went to a Market Research Study and I went to Abilene! 

I made Stuffed Peppers on Monday so I'm good for this week. (They were really good too - I always forget how easy these are to actually make.) There were also two red ones which would've made for a better picture but those were already taken...

This past weekend I went to Abilene with Jonathan. It'd been nearly FOUR YEARS since I'd been back to ACU. I had big plans to walk around campus and check it all out but the rain had other plans. Praise God for the rain but it's high time Abilene gets some kind of drainage system installed. It was awful. But I still went to the updated Campus Center, bought a new sweatshirt and found my old mailbox. Then we walked over to the new Rec Center - GRACIOUS! That thing is fancy. I'm only about five years late. Jonathan and I got back in the car and drove to our old houses. It was so good to be back... I love that place! :)

One of the only pictures from the weekend. Oops.

And just to show y'all he did good on V-Day... He sent these to my office!

Now flashback to Christmas.... My parents gave me a sewing machine. I figured it was finally time to learn. A few weeks ago I took the machine out of the box and promptly realized I had no idea what to do or how to use it. I hit up Google and found a place called "City Craft" in Dallas that does beginner sewing lessons. I signed up and attended the class last night. So much fun! They let me bring my own machine and the teacher showed me how to set it all up. There were only six of us in the class so my constant confusion and hand raising wasn't too much of a problem! 

We made a small bag in the class - in progress

Final product:

There's definitely going to be a learning curve but I'm excited about what else I can learn to make. Only time (and Pinterest) will tell... 

It's my lunch break right now and I'm still sitting in my office. (Because I got an office a couple of weeks ago!) 

And if I don't do this now, I'm pretty sure it won't happen before the week ends.

Let's go ahead and get this out of the way: 

I'm counting my Super Bowl Party cooking as my thing for the week. In no way did I make all of this. There were 20ish people there and enough of the guys brought their girlfriends so we had TONS of food. The thing on the left that's mostly gone in that old school baking dish is Pizza Dip. And I am so proud to say I did not make this... JLN did. All by himself. He didn't want my help at all. So cute.

My dish was Cookie Dough Dip. Delicious. Rich. You should probably only make it once every five years. I mean, it's not Paula Deen but it definitely uses a stick of butter.

 Thank you Pinterest.

More importantly...

My Moon & Lola (large purple acrylic) Monogram Necklace came in the mail yesterday! It was worth the six weeks wait to get it. (I'd assume now it would move a little faster since it's not holiday season.) They have so much cute jewelry. And lots of custom monogrammed things! Ah, I love all things monogrammed. 

Happy Weekend!

Week Five: Garlic & Brown Sugar Chicken

I did week five and on time! I just didn't post it for some reason. Hm.

Anyways, I made Garlic & Brown Sugar Chicken. I found the recipe on Pinterest which took me to THIS link I read a lot of the reviews and implemented some of them such as lining the baking dish with foil. It was easy to make and pretty quick. Next time, I'd marinate the chicken for awhile with teriyaki sauce or something of the like...

The recipe as is gives it a nice glaze though. I'll definitely make (a variation) of this one again.

I realize that this is not a very appetizing picture. After JLN and I had started eating he asked, "Weren't you supposed to take a picture?!" Thus... this is it. With his iPhone. (We had mashed potatoes and sauteed squash and zucchini on the side.) The picture on the recipe website looks way better. 

Speaking of Pinterest recipes, Carrie Jo hosted a Superbowl party yesterday and I made Cookie Dough Dip (Hello fat fat) and JLN made Pizza Dip. (Seriously, he made it all by himself. I was so proud. He was too. So cute.) Both are/were delicious. I brought the leftovers to work because goodness knows I don't need that stuff lurking in my refrigerator. 

I feel like I'm pretty good at spelling but "refrigerator" is one of those words that always takes me two or three times to get right. I always add a "d". 

Otherwise, I cut four inches off of my hair last week. And got bangs. I dig it. My new glasses have been shipped and I should be receiving them this week. Maybe there'll finally be a picture of my face.

Until then...

Week Four: Chicken Curry

Week four.... and done.

Chicken Curry with Couscous and Garlic Green Beans!

I had another jar of curry from Williams-Sonoma and since we're trying to use up the food we have in the house before hitting up the grocery store again this was it!

Obviously I went real fancy here by using a premade jar of curry, microwaveable couscous (this brand is delicious!!) and canned green beans. The most laborious part was cooking the chicken before adding the curry sauce.

Finished product. It was good. And the parents both enjoyed it. I get a little nervous "making" curry since we never grew up eating Indian food and my mom doesn't do spicy so well. This one had a little bit of kick but nothing she couldn't handle!
(@Lyndsey - You could totally do this with veggies instead of chicken. One day I'll do a vegetarian recipe in honor of you... although Dad will need to get his protein somewhere!)

Tonight I went Bulgarian style and made Musaka. (No pics.) This was the first time I tried to make it since I've been back in the States. I was a little disappointed... but then I had the realization that it wasn't how I made it but that the vegetables in the Bulg have far more flavor as compared to what's available here. I kinda miss going out to the backyard to the garden and grabbing veggies there. The Bulgarians did always say they had the best produce!

And for your listening pleasure... Straight No Chaser.
This is my current jam. On repeat again and again. Love. 

Week Three: Chicken Chipotle Soup

Last night I made it to week three! Three weeks down, 49 to go!

I made Chicken & Chipotle Soup with Avocado & Lime from the Williams-Sonoma "Soup of the Day" cookbook. It was easy and pretty good. Originally I was going to do something from my Paula Deen "Southern Cooking Bible" but after the announcement of her diabetes, I decided her food probably wasn't what me (or my parents) need to be eating right now! Ha. (BTW, sorry Paula.)

Here's the book....

Here's the completed soup: topped with avocado and lime!

The soup wasn't too difficult to make although when I did my grocery shopping Tuesday night I couldn't find a mint sprig and I had no idea what kind of chile to get. There were about seven different options and there wasn't one labeled "Chipotle Chile in Adobo" sooooo I was confused. I ended up just buying a jalapeno, holding and roasting it over the gas stove, peeling and de-seeding and chopping. Worked well enough. (Plus Vic doesn't do too spicy so I wanted to make sure she could eat it!) There are chickpeas in the soup which added a nice flavor... and we even had some at the house so I didn't have to buy any. 

Am I supposed to actually give the recipe on here? Does anyone care?? I guess it's easy enough to google if you want to create your own. 

And just for good measure... here's an informal introduction to the man-friend:

And coming this weekend, my first book club with ladies from church. We'll be talking about The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. If you click here you can find a stellar review of the book. (I found when I tried to explain it, I did it absolutely no justice!... Then you should bookmark that website.)

Yesterday I started Fame by Karen Kingsbury. I won this set of books from a blog of an old colleague (she's not old, just the job!). Check out her blog here. Thank you Sara! :)

Number of books for 2012: 2 (1 down, 1 in progress)

Week Two: Finished Early

Monday night I went ahead and made my Week Two recipe: Pork Chops with Caramelized Onions.

It was good. Although I had higher ambitions to actually use the Slow Cooker but when I got home from work my mom said, "Why don't you just do those now?" So being the obliging/gracious/fantastic daughter I am, I gave her the night off. (The recipe has it for both oven and slow cooker so it wasn't an issue!)

Williams-Sonoma Essentials of Slow Cooking

(This is a fantastic cookbook, you should get it!)

The ingredients which were all on hand (Except you're supposed to use two yellow onions but I was using what was available!).

The dish.

I realize this presentation doesn't look as good as it tasted. We also had mashed potatoes and I probably  should've taken the picture once I scooped the pork chop and onions onto the potatoes. Live and learn, eh?

At least I'm two for two so far.

(Tonight I made a Chicken Coconut Curry with Couscous. Williams-Sonoma sells a Coconut Curry starter - not the cheapest thing but the taste and ease of cooking is worth the cost! Dinner was pretty good if I do say so myself...)

Now, if the weather would only go back up to 65 degrees and sunny... that'd help resolution number two.

  Or I could go to the gym. But I'll sit at my computer and blame my lack of exercise on the weather instead! :)

A not-so-hot start

Ummm.... about this resolution... we can count Pinterest recipes too, right? 

Sure, it's my resolution.

As I realized I nearly failed in my resolution during the first week, my man friend said to count what I made from a recipe via Pinterest this past Sunday. I'm gonna say Pinterest can count because who wants to have not failed the first week of a NY's Resolution?! Plus, it means I actually did something from Pinterest! (Although I don't have a picture because I had this other great plan on what I was going to do but this first week of 2012 didn't start in the most ideal way.)

Anyways, I made this. Or a version thereof.

Picture from here.

Recipe here.

Pizza Casserole!

Delicious. Mine didn't exactly look like this because the 13x9 pan is not in the house. (It got left at my aunt's at T-Give and we haven't gotten around to getting it again! Aunt Suzy, let's meet so mom or I can get this pan back!) I used another dish that made it go up instead of long. Either way. It's good.

I did make some changes to the recipe trying to do it somewhat "healthier". I used turkey pepperoni (tastes the same) and ground turkey instead of sausage. This recipe does make a lot though... I ended up eating it as lunch leftovers four out of five days this week! Even my dad and brother ate some too. I think next time (which there will most definitely be!), I can cut the recipe in half. Thank you Pinterest!

Let's see if I can make week 2....

New Year's Resolution - Starting Early!

I have a New Year's Resolution. 

And it's all thanks to sister the first, Lyndsey! For Christmas, she gave me two new cookbooks. "Paula Deen's Southern Cooking Bible" and "Milk & Cookies." 

The resolution is that once a week I'm going to try out a new recipe. So I started today! Who cares that it's still 2011?! While I was working at Williams-Sonoma I bought a couple of good cookbooks ("Soup of the Day" and "Essentials of Slow Cooking") so I have plenty to check out. 

(When I was living in Bulgaria, I cooked from scratch nearly every day. I miss it. I did have much more free time out there though...)

Today I made Ambrosia Chicken Salad from "Paula Deen's Southern Cooking Bible." It was super easy, we already had all of the ingredients on hand and everyone (myself and the 'rents) liked it. And here we are...

Ingredients: Cookbook, Lime Juice, 20oz. can of Pineapple, Mayo, Shredded Coconut, Salt, Chicken and Almonds.

Completed! I topped it off with Craisins and put it on a bed of lettuce!

One recipe down, 52 to go. Let's see how long I last.... :)