Getting up to Speed

The morning after Randy's and mine adventure to Aqua, we had to leave St.John's a day earlier than expected. Sebastian was boarding at the SPCA in Grand Falls and they called me to tell me he had ingested a lot of Easter grass and been throwing up, not eating, and not going to the bathroom. After a (thankfully) not expensive vet appointment, he is on the mend but it was a scary moment for me nonetheless. So if you have pets, don't use Easter grass! It's indigestible and if it gets wrapped around a pet's intestines, you're looking at a 600 dollar surgery.

I left St.John's super early (7 a.m.) and was driving all day so by the time I got to Grand Falls, I was lazy and tired and didn't want to cook. Randy and I picked at food for most of the day which included Pogo's, chips, and ice cream.

On Wednesday, I made a recipe for Spinach Ricotta Gnocchi that I got from a Campbell's cookbook my sister gave me a few years back. I made one tweak - it calls for frozen dumpling-shaped pasta and I just used some penne noodles.

The recipe is really simple with only a few ingedients. You'll need:
- 2 cups frozen cut leaf spinach, thawed and well drained
- 1/2 cup ricotta cheese
- 1/4 cup grated Romano cheese
- 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
- 1 1/2 cups Prego Traditional Italian sauce (or any Pasta Sauce will do)
- Half a box of penne noodles

Boil the pasta. Add the spinach during the last three minutes of cooking. Drain the pasta mixture well in a colander. Return the pasta mixture to the saucepot.

Stir the sauce, Romano cheese, and ricotta cheese in the saucepot. Cook over medium heat until the mixture is hot and bubbling, stirring occasionally. Top with the mozzarella cheese:

Not a great picture, but I took it on my phone. This makes six servings and is a tasty meal with easy-to-find ingredients and requires very little prep and cook time.

On Thursday, I had planned to make some chicken wings with homemade pasta salad. I boiled a package of chicken wings for ten minutes. While they were boiling, I made a sauce comprised of:
- 1/2 cup chopped onion
- 1/2 cup ketchup
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup vinegar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon worchestershire sauce
- 1 teaspoon mustard

Place the sauce over the wings:

and bake for an hour at 325 degrees. Cover with tin foil before placing in the oven.

While I was waiting for the chicken wings to cook, I made a pasta salad to serve with the wings. To make the pasta salad, you need:
- 2 1/3 cups colored vegetable pasta
- 2 tomatoes (chopped)
- 2 green onions (chopped)  ** I didn't have any, so I omitted this
- 1/2 green pepper
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil
- 1/3 cup ketchup
- 1/4 cup vinegar
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- salt and pepper to taste

Once the noodles were boiled, I let them cool and mixed all the rest of the ingredients together. I mixed it all around and served alongside the wings when they finished cooking:

The wings were perfect - the chicken fell off the bone easily and the sauce was subtle but delicious and really made the chicken moist. The pasta salad was great as well. Both of these recipes came from a book of recipes my mom hand-wrote and gave to me as a Christmas gift one year. Thanks Mom!

Yesterday I went with a recipe for 'Mini Pizza Tarts' that I found in my Makkovik Community Cookbook I purchased while teaching in Makkovik, Labrador three years ago. All that's needed for these are
- a box of 16 tart shells (thawed)
- half a green pepper (chopped)
- half a can of Klik (chopped)
- One onion (chopped)
- One can of tomato soup
- Pizza spice (I substituted with a tablespoon of oregano and teaspoon of basil)

All you do is simmer the tomato soup in a sauce pan. Once it's hot, add all other ingredients except the cheese and tart shells. Stir it all around and then pour into the tart shells:

For some reason, I could not get that picture to rotate.



Top the pizza tarts with mozzarella cheese and bake in a 325 degree oven for about 15 minutes. I served these tarts with the leftover pasta salad from the day before:

These tarts were awesome. I know some of you are probably turned off by the fact that I used Klik (a questionable lunchmeat) but as long as you can get past the appearance of it while you are cutting it, it actually makes a good addition to the tart (although I am sure you could use any meat you like that you would normally put on a pizza). Randy especially liked these and it was nice that since I made 16, we had several leftover which made for some nice bite-size snacks while drinking wine and playing Mario Party (which I won, boo yah!).

Today I am getting a break from cooking while Randy cooks a roast. I was initially quite reluctant to having him cook a roast - I have flashbacks of being really grossed out by roast when I was younger. But now that I am older, and my tastebuds have become more accepting and mature, I'm willing to give old hated foods a re-try. So he will be cooking a roast with homemade gravy, potatoes, carrots, and pease pudding. I'll keep you posted on the verdict.

Shoutouts from the past few days include: Bacon-wrapped Scallops, Miss Vickie's chips, dark chocolate, and homemade chocolate chip banana bread (thanks, Ma!)

Here's Sebastian with his tongue stuck out....d'awwww........

The Mammoth Post - Part Two: St.John's/Marystown edition

Randy and I had planned to go into St.John's on Good Friday, but I decided to make a one-day detour to Marystown to see my grandmother. I stopped at Port Blandford along the way and picked up a ham and cheese sandwich on white bread from the gas station. I'm a sucker for gas station sandwiches. I know. Gross, right? I'm not talking about the factory pre-packaged ones (like Smith's Subs) but the ones actually made in store. Spaghetti and sandwiches are two things that I think always taste better when someone else makes them.

I got to Marystown around 2:00 p.m. and grabbed a couple quick snacks before heading up to the nursery home. For supper, Dad treated me and my brother to a three course meal! First, we had an amazing salad Dad had picked up at Costco. I don't have any pictures of this (again, no camera and I probably wouldn't have had time to take a picture anyways considered I pretty much devoured my meal) but it had lettuce, sliced apples, walnuts, and cranberries with balsamic vinaigrette. The main course was pan-fried salmon (with the best salmon I've had in awhile...not too fishy, nice and flaky, and also from Costco) with baked potato and sour cream. For dessert we had a strawberry and rhubarb pie (warmed) with Capuccino Haagen-Dazs (or "Helly Hansen" as Dad called it) ice cream. Delicious! Were the couch not so uncomfortable, I would have taken a blissful fat nap afterwards.

The next morning, my brother and I drove into St.John's...but not before stopping for Mcdonald's breakfast. I got a Sausage Egg McMuffin meal with hashbrowns and a coffee, and Chase got a McGriddle meal with hashbrowns, a coffee, and an orange juice. Mcdonald's breakfast is by far the best McDonald's meal. And it also helps that it's the only meal I can eat from there that doesn't feel like a massive brick in my stomach afterwards.

Since Chase and I left Marystown early, I got to St.John's around 1:00. The Pittsburgh game was on so Randy and I went to the Don Cherry's in Mount Pearl to have some snacks and watch the game. We ordered a pitcher of beer, some Mexican Dip with pita triangles and chips, and Irish Nachos. Super yummy, but later became a pretty big weight in my stomach. Since we snacked on this all day, I didn't really have supper but grabbed a wrap from Marie's Mini-Mart (which was revolting) before going over to my friend's for the night.

On Sunday (Easter Sunday), Randy's mom cooked a big turkey dinner for lunch complete with turnip, salt meat (be jealous now, Pamela), dressing, potatoes, carrots, cranberry sauce, and pea's pudding. I filled my belly quite contentedly and diescovered two new facts:
1. I actually like cranberry sauce. I had always avoided it in years past because I either assumed I didn't like it or didn't like how it looked out of the can. But I was a brave girl and gave it a whirl and whaddya know? Me likey.
2. I like pea's pudding. Never had this before but now I have, and it was good!

After taking a delicious fat nap, I abstained from food for most of the day until later that evening when Randy and I made a last minute decision to go to Jungle Jim's - the main reason being that we had an envelope of fortune and wanted to use it before it expired. Also, we tried two other restaurants before hand - one of which was closed (Don Cherry's) and the other which looked kinda lame (Rustler's). We split a kitchen sink complete with mozza sticks, hot wings (which were unbearably hot), waffle fries, onion rings, and chicken fingers, to name a few. We also had a beer each. It was super tasty, super unhealthy, and we couldn't finish it all. Turns out, our emvelope of fortune was for 10 bucks off our meal so hooray for discounts!

On Monday, we had a turkey sandwich for lunch with the leftover turkey at Randy's parents and that evening, we went to Aqua. Aqua Restaurant and Bar is a fancy restaurant on Water Street which I had bought a Groupon for awhile back and was anxious to get my eat on at. At this point, I had purchased my Iphone so I was able to take some picture of our meal.

We were greeted promptly by our wonderful host and given our choice of seating (we sat by the window...I like watching people go by). I had perused the menu online prior to going and had my mind set on the lobster poutine. However, Dine Around St.John's was on the go until the end of the month meaning that nice restaurants participating offered a three course menu for a reduced price. So for 39 dollars, I could get an appetizer, entree, and dessert. Unfortunately, the lobster poutine was not on the dine around menu, but I figured I could always come back another time to get it.

After we placed our orders, we were given some warm foccacia bread with balsamic vinegar and olive oil for dipping. Next, complimentary as well, we were given this thing:

I can't remember exactly what was on it because I was mesmerized by the presentation but I think it was a small piece of cod on top of a chip of some sort with a bunch of seasonings. It was bite size, cute, and very tasty.

For an appetizer, Randy ordered the califlower and cumin soup:

The soup had sour cream (that dollop in the middle), chickpeas, parmesan, chili oil, cauliflower and cumin in it. It was really hearty and tasty (I had a mouthful) and almost had an Indian food-type taste. My appetizer was the pear and rocket salad:

It consisted of red onion pickle, candied walnuts, blue cheese, and honey curry dressing. There was a little bit too much blue cheese in my opinion, but I still really enjoyed it.

For Randy's main course, he ordered the braised beef shortribs:

The menu claims these have "screeched-in" bbq sauce, cheddar cauliflower puree, corn, wilted spinach and hickory sticks. Randy really liked the presentation but said the meal itself was nothing special. He said the ribs were thick and very filling but the taste was nothing spectacular. He wasn't a fan of the hickory sticks either which he said tasted like burnt pieces of potato. Not a bad meal, but not great for the price and the atmosphere.

My main course was the Big Mc Caribou burger:

Kind of a bad picture, but I took it on my phone. This burger had bacon, blue cheese mayo, and rocket and tomato jam. It was served with sweet potatoe fries (that came in a little flower pot which I thought was very cute) and homemade bakeapple ketchup with a little spray bottle of malt vinegar. The presentation was very cute and the burger was delicious. No Labrador caribou, but a very tasty burger anyway. The sweet potato fries I was pretty disappointed with. They were pretty cold when they came out. And since our server was so nice, I felt too bad to send them back. So I ate my delicious caribou burger with gusto but nibbled my cold fries a little reluctantly. Burger? Win. Fries? Not so much.

My dessert was called tetley tea pot de creme with local berries and jam jams:

Again, points for presentation! It came out in a mini Mason jar with a Purity jam-jam propped up against it. This dessert was very tasty, not too sweet, and the perfect portion size to give you a sweet fix without being too much.

Our bill (tip and all) came out to about 130 bucks (60 of which were taken off the bill due to the Groupon). My overall assessment of Aqua:

Pros:
- Great service, friendly staff
- Excellent presentation
- Personal hand towels in the bathrooms
- Great tasting desserts!

Cons:
- Hard, uncomfortable wooden chairs
- Cold fries! :(
- Limited wine list
- Long wait times

Shoutouts from the St.John's edition go to: Party Mix, Strawberry Daiquiri Cheesecake, Mini Eggs, Cherry Balls, Red Pepper Jelly

Here's Sebastian loving his Halloween costume:

The Mammoth Post - Part One

I'm back after a week without posts. My excuse this time? I spent the past few days in St.John's and Marystown so I have been absent from the blogging world. However, my little trip was filled with yummy food adventures, not all of which I have picture of, unfortunately, because I didn't bring my camera. I did, however, pick up an Iphone 4 (as an extreme ledite, this is a massive accomplishment) so I do have pictures of my last restaurant visit.

Sunday, April 17th, I was in a very lazy mood and did not want to cook. We had some leftover turkey from the day before (naturally) and some crab dip left over from Friday night, so I created a mish-mash no-cook supper featuring leftovers. I piled my plate with cold turkey and mustard (divine) and some crab dip with Old Dutch Lightly Salted plain rippled chips and Toppables crackers:

Yes, I didn't cook, and yes, it looks gross, and yes, I had chips for supper. But hey, when you're lazy and even the microwave seems like too much effort, leftovers like this are the way to go. And I'm an adult, I can eat chips for supper.

On Monday, Randy decided to use the last of the leftover turkey to make turkey soup. I'm not quite sure all of the ingredients in it because I let him commandeer the kitchen while I watched Teen Mom the news. I know he added turkey (white and dark meat), potatoes, carrots, vegetable soup, and chicken oxo.

Homemade Turkey Soup simmering

The soup turned out to be really delicious. Randy claimed it was a small pot but it was enough to have for supper plus lunches for the next two days. It was a pretty cold day on Monday too so it was nice to have something warm, hearty, and homemade especially since we probably only have a few more 'soup days' left before it's too warm to eat soup. Ah, who am I kidding? It's Newfoundland. A girl can dream.

On Tuesday, I decided to make a Sweet and Sour Pork Stirfry recipe from my Company's Coming Stirfry cookbook Mom gave me for Christmas. For this recipe, you need:
- White vinegar (3 tbsp)
- Cornstarch (4 tsp)
- Cooking oil (1 tbsp)
- Pork tenderloin, trimmed of fat, cut into 2 cm cubes ( 1 1/4 lbs)
- 2 medium carrots, thinly sliced
- 1 medium green pepper, cut into strips
- 1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
- Water (1/4 cup)
- Salt (1/2 tsp)
- Can of pineapple tidbits (with juice) (14 oz.)
- Brown sugar, packed (1/3 cup)
- Soy sauce (1 1/2 tbsp)

Stir vinegar into cornstarch in small cup. Set aside.

Heat wok or lage frying pan on medium-high until very hot. Add cooking oil. Add pork. Stir-fry for about 5 minutes, until lightly browned.

Add next 5 ingredients. Cook, covered, for about 3 minutes, stirring occasionally, until vegetables are tender-crisp.

Add remaining 3 ingredients. Stir. Stir cornstarch mixture. Add to pork mixture. Heat and stir for 3 to 4 minutes until boiling and thickened. Serves 6.

Per serving: 250 calories, 4.8 grams total fat.

This meal wasn't bad - not crap, not great. It definitely was not one of the better strifry meals I have made with this cookbook.

I had been dying to make a recipe using puff pastry for awhile so on Wednesday, I chose a Rachael Ray recipe called "Fancy Pants Salmon" from the "Look and Cook" cookbook Randy gave me for Christmas. As a side, I chose the "garlicky creamed corn and spinach" side from the same cookbook.

For the salmon, you'll need:
-2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
-4 skinless salmont fillets (if serving 4, I halved all this for two servings)
- salt and pepper
- 1/2 pound fresh mushrooms, thinly sliced
- 1 or 2 small leeks, halved lengthwise, thinly sliced (I omitted this entirely and it was still good)
- 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
- 3/4 cup heavy cream
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon leaves (these have a very strong taste...if I made this again, I would omit them)
- 1 sheet frozen puff pastry dough, 11x17, defrosted
- all-purpose flour
- 1 egg, lightly beaten with a splash of water

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Place a large skillet over medium-high heat with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Season the fish with salt and pepper and sear for a minute on each side. Remove the fish and reserve. Add the remaining tablespoon of olive oil to the skillet. Add the mushrooms and brown for 5 to 6 minute, then add the leeks and cook until softened, about 2 to 3 minutes more. Season the mushrooms with salt and pepper, then add the mustard, cream, and tarragon to the skillet. Bring up to a bubble, reduce the heat to medium, and simmer until thickened, 3 minutes.

Remove from the heat and let cool. Roll out the puff pastry with a little flour on a large work area. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and arrange the rectangles of dough on it. Divide the mushroom cream sauce among the rectangled of dough, making a small pile in the middle of each.

Place a piece of seared fish on top of the sauce and fold the edges of the dough up around the fillet. Trim the excess dough. Use the egg wash to secure the seam, then place the fish seam side down on the lined baking sheet. Cut a few slits in the top of each pastry parcel. Brush them with the egg wash and transfer to the oven.

Bake until the pastry is puffed and golden, about 15 to 20 minutes. Serve immediately.

For the garlicky creamed corn and spinach, you'll need:
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 3 cups frozen corn
- 2 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
- salt and pepper
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- nutmeg
- 1/2 pound fresh spinach

Heat a large skillet over medium heat with the butter, add the corn and cook for 5 minutes.

Stir in the garlic, season with salt and pepper, and cook for 2 to 3 minutes more. Add the cream and nutmeg to taste and cook, stirring occasionally, over medium-low heat for about 15 minutes, until very creamy. Wilt in the spinach, adjust the seasoning and serve.

The finished product came out like this:

And for a look at the inside:

The puff pastry was awesome. The pastry itself was light and fluffy and the egg wash kept anything from seeping out of it. The sauce complimented the salmon well, taking away from the fishiness of it and keeping the whole thing nice and creamy. The garlicky creamed corn and spinach I was not a fan of. The garlic was almost overwhelming and it was just kind of a flop. No real taste to it. I wouldn't recommend making the side (but provided the recipe just in case you are feeilng bold).

Thursday was the day before Randy and I left town so I wanted to make something quick and easy and use some leftover ingredients that might go bad while we were gone. So, I went with an old staple: Pad Thai:

Yeah, it's not the best presentation. I slopped it all in there because I was starving and just wanted to chow down. Later that night, Randy broke out a pack of bacon and a can of water chestnuts and made bacon-wrapped water chestnuts.

Yep, we sure devoured an entire pack of bacon. Bacon-wrapped anything is boss in my books, but water chestnuts are so thin and light and crunchy that you don't even notice you have downed a half pack of bacon between two people. Truth be told, if he had cooked the entire pack, I'm sure we would have eaten it.

That's all for this installment - since I have quite a lot to write about, I've decided to divide it up into two posts. Stay tuned for my next post - the St.John's Easter Holiday post! Spoiler alert: I ate a lot of junk.

Shoutouts go to: bacon wrapped water chestnuts, butter pecan ice cream with chocolate syrup, and plain saltine crackers.

Here's Sebastian chillin' with a Christmas present:

The "Easter Bunny" was good to us

Happy Tuesday, everyone! I guess for most people, it's a short work week which is always something to look forward to.

Friday night, I made a crab dip for Randy and I to enjoy while we watched Pittsburgh play. I actually got the recipe from a Yuletide magazine I bought from a student last year. I combined a can of crabmeat with a half cup of mayonnaise, three tablespoons of French dressing, one block of cream cheese, two tablespoons of ketchup and two tablespoons of chopped onion. I threw it in the fridge for a couple hours to thicken up and get all flavorful:

This dip turned out great. Not too thick or too runny and worked great both spread on crackers or as a chip dip. Since I only used a small can of crabmeat, the crab was very subtle; I'd use a bigger can (or two cans) if you really like the taste of crab. We devoured this over the span of a couple days and I will definitely make it again. I'm looking forward to a day when I have a bigger kitchen with more storage space so I can buy some cute little serving dishes/platters for this kind of stuff.

Saturday was mine and Randy's Easter. We're going to be in St.John's for Easter Sunday so we decided to have our own little Easter at home before we leave. We agreed to give each other Easter baskets just for something fun to do. Here's Randy's before he came out to see it:

And of course, I couldn't leave Sebastian out of the mix:

Randy picked up a turkey to cook on Saturday as well which was fantastic because a) I got a break from the kitchen and b) When Randy cooks turkey, he is a perfectionist - meaning he puts a lot of effort into it and makes sure it is exceptionally juicy and delicious.

This is the bird, pre-devourment:

As I usually am when a turkey is cooked, I was in the mood for a hot turkey sandwich. Actually, in the mood is a bit of an understatement. I obsessed about it all day. Randy swore he wouldn't butcher the gravy like he says he did last time (again, I thought it was fine but he was not convinced) and it turned out awesome. I threw in some Mccain spicy fries and had a moment in foodie heaven:

This was the perfect example of a meal that once I ate it, I was a little sad and wished I could go back in time and eat it again. And you better believe I cleaned my plate of every little bit of gravy.

Perhaps to counteract my Saturday food fest, I made a healthy dessert. I bought a cookbook that I mentioned before called "Now Eat This" by Rocco Dispirito which makes over unhealthy comfort foods to be healthier. There was a recipe for black bean brownies in there that I wanted to try. I know, first thought: beans in brownies? Ew. But all the beans do is add volume and fluffiness to the brownies; you don't taste them at all.

After I had a mini heart attack caused by a blender leaking egg whites all over my counter, I mixed up the batter and baked these puppies for half an hour. They came out looking like this:

Despite sucking at all things cutting/slicing, I sliced them the best I could and tossed most of them in a container for freezing:

Each brownie (if you slice them into 12) has only 53 calories and 1.6 grams of fat! They were light and fluffy and not dry at all. My only complaint is that they had too strong of a coffee taste - if I make them again, I'll be sure to use less espresso powder. See the bottom of the page if you are interested in the recipe.

In the interest of making this post less time-consuming, I'm going to save Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday's meals for my next post. I'll leave you with a sequence of pictures documenting Sebastian's obsession with his Easter basket. I don't know if it was the catnip in the basket or if he was just intrigued to have something different in his environment, but he went crazy for his basket!

Shoutouts from thr past few days go to: Cookies and Creme mini chocolate eggs, Whoppers, Plain chips

Black Bean Brownies

Nonstick cooking spray

 1 1/2 cups canned black beans, rinsed and drained

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tablespoon espresso powder (I would use about half of this next time)

3/4 cup egg whites

2 tablespoons low-cal, low sugar chocolate syrup

2 tablespoons reduced fat sour cream

1 tablespoon melted, unsalted butter

8 tablespoons granulated Splenda

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray an 8 x 8 inch glass baking dish with cooking spray.

2. Combine the beans, cocoa powder, espresso powder, and egg whites in a blender. Process until the mixture is smooth, about 2 minutes, scraping down the bowl halfway through.

3. Add the chocolate syrup, sour cream, butter, Splenda, and vanilla. Process until all of the ingredients are combined, about 1 minute.

4. Pour the batter into the dish and smooth the top with a spatula. Bake for 28-30 minutes, turning the dish halfway through the baking time. A toothpick inserted in the centre will come out with soft batter clinging to it.

5. Let the brownies cool completely in the baking dish on a wire rack. Cut into 12 squares and serve.

We have groceries again!

It's been five days since my last post and normally, I'm not this tardy. I actually worked four out of five days this week so I haven't gotten around to blogging. Randy and I got groceries on Thursday so early this week was pretty slim pickin's in the recipe and meal department.

Sunday I decided to make some salmon as I had some leftover in the freezer. I didn't have a recipe on hand so I figured I'd just jazz it up with some spices. After googling a few things, I settled on a mixture of paprika, salt and pepper, and thyme. I baked it for about twenty-five minutes and served it with some chicken country rice (Sidekicks) and some sliced carrots.

This meal was gross. The carrots and rice were fine, but the seasoning, despite how thick it was, did nothing to add any flavour to the salmon and the salmon dried out very easily. It just tasted too dry and too fishy and I only ate about half my salmon before throwing it in the garbage.

We had some leftover moose sausages in the freezer that a student of Randy's sold him back in the fall. So on Monday for supper, we decided to do an oldie but a goodie: breakfast for supper. Randy fried up the sausages with some onion and a lot of Frank's Red Hot Sauce. I made some scrambled eggs and we had some toast with a loaf of whole wheat bread from Wanda's Bake Shop. Wanda's Bake Shop is this cute little bakery at the end of our street in Grand Falls that sells all kinds of bread and rolls, pies, and cookies. The owners are the most delightful people and they're always super friendly whenever I go in. We try and buy our whole wheat bread there when we can because it always tastes deliciously fresh and additive-free.

Notice how I globbed on the cheese whiz? Cheez whiz is my love. The only thing that could have made this meal better is if I had had some bacon and toutons as well. But then I might have exploded in a fit of culinary fullness glee so I was more than happy to settle for this.

On Tuesday, I made chicken spaghetti and homemade garlic bread. I had a jar of marinara sauce in the fridge so I fried some sliced chicken in a little olive oil and salt and pepper, combined it with the marinara sauce and some mushrooms to make my sauce. I piled this on top of some whole-wheat spaghetti and got to work on some homemade garlic bread. I buttered two slices of bread, sprinkled a little garlic powder on them, then covered them in bacon and shredded marble cheese.

Considering our pantry and fridge were pretty bare at this point, this meal was actually pretty delicious! Especially the garlic bread. Yum! I could have easily eaten two or three more slices of this.

Wednesday was the first game of the playoffs for Randy so he was in the mood to order a pizza. There are three real places to order take-out pizza here: Greco, Doninni's, and Lefty's. I have never really enjoyed Greco; it's too expensive and too doughy. Doninni's is half decent but I always find it to be really greasy. Lefty's is the perfect mix of take-out pizza: cheap, tasty, and not too greasy. We swung by Lefty's and picked up a medium pizza with cheese, bacon, green peppers, onions, and mushrooms.

Since this is Randy's new wardrobe until the Penguins get knocked out of the playoffs:

we settled in with our pizza and a beer and watched the first game. Well, that's sort of a lie. I started watching some of it and then snuck off to the other TV to catch America's Next Top Model (don't hate).

Thursday was a rush meal - I had to sub and when I got home, we went out and got groceries (yay, groceries!) and at 6:30, I had to meet a friend for a jewelry party. There was a slice of leftover pizza left so I had that along with some bacon carbonara pasta.

Yes, I know it's bland, but forgive me, I had no time and no groceries! Today, I got back into the recipe groove and made a cheeseburger casserole. The recipe comes from a cookbook my mom gave me when I went to university entitled "Where's Mom When I Need Here?". Most of the recipes are pretty simple and include a lot of easily accesible ingredients (no panda bamboo shoots or other ridiculous items). I fried up 1/2 pound of ground beef with a diced onion in a frying pan until the meat was brown and the onion semi-transluscent. I then added a can of tomato sauce and some salt and pepper, frying uncovered for about five minutes. When that was done, I set it aside, boiled about two cups of macaroni (possibly a bit more) and mixed together in a bowl: one tbsp dried parsley, 1 cup sour cream, 1/2 cup cottage cheese, and 1/2 cup cooked, diced carrots. I then folded in the cooked macaroni. In a greased casserole dish, I combined one layer of meat mixture, one layer of sour cream mixture, and then repeated the layers. I added about 3/4 of a cup of shredded cheese on top and baked at 350 for 30 minutes. It came out looking like this:

And a better shot of the inside:

I served mine with a homemade dinner roll and washed it down with some diet A&W root beer:

Yum! This is pretty tasty. It looks kinda like slop but on a Friday when you are in the mood for something slightly junky (that isn't fast food), this is a great meal to make. Easy, tasty, and quick. Perfect!

Not sure what I am making tomorrow yet, however I did make a crab dip for Randy and I to enjoy with some drinks and hockey tonight. Go Pittsburgh!

Shoutouts from the past few days go to: mini quiches, peanut butter balls, homemade ice cream sandwiches, and carrot cake.

Here's Sebastian loving his Christmas outfit:

I am, in fact, alive.

So I am back after a bit of a blogging hiatus. I had intended to make a post on Wednesday, but came down with a pretty bad case of nausea/severe headaches/overall malaise on Wednesday and pretty much just stayed in bed for two days. I'm not really sure where it came from ( I hardly ever get sick) but I have my suspicions. There was a plastic sandwich container lid left on our oven with the oven turned on. Needless to say, I grabbed it as soon as I noticed but by that time, some of the plastic had already melted onto the stovetop burner. I turned the burner on high to burn off the remaining plastic, but didn't bother to open a window. Shortly afterwards, I started developing a pretty stong headache which led to everything I mentioned above. It left me feeling pretty blah for two days straight so I have stayed away from the computer. Except of course to google 'smelling burning plastic'. NEVER google medical related things. There is so much conflicting information, you don't know what is right and what isn't, and all it does is leave you even more paranoid in the end.

Moving on, the grocery situation in the Power/Smith residence is bleak once again (getting groceries this week) so it's been experimentation use up all leftover food week. Tuesday, I heated up some Jillian Michael's black bean chilli for myself and Randy. When I made it, I made an extra batch to freeze for those times when you just don't want to cook or you don't have a very inspiring fridge and pantry.

I love the colours! So tasty and so good for you too. All that red nonsense is the Frank's Red Hot (Xtra Hot) sauce I doused mine in.

I spent all day Wednesday in bed (and for once, was thankful I didn't get any calls for subbing) and was in no mood to cook. Even the thought of popping a slice of toast in the toaster seemed like too much effort. I recruited Randy to pick us up some Mary Brown's and we ate it in bed. I only have two very blurry pictures that I will save you the pain of viewing - I was hungry and sick and cranky and in no mood to photograph my food. I ate a Big Mary with medium taters (which I found to be reallllllly salty) and a butt load of Apple Juice.

Thursday I was feeling a little better and managed to haul my butt out of bed to make some sweet and sour meatballs. I combined a little over a pound of extra lean ground beef with about a cup of breadcrumbs, one beaten egg, 1/2 cup milk and a bit of salt and pepper. I fried this up in a skillet until they were browned but not fully cooked:

I put all these in a casserole dish while I made the sweet and sour sauce. I combined a cup of ketchup, 1/2 cup water, 3 tablespoons of brown sugar, and four tablespoons each of worcestershire sauce and vinegar. I brought it to a boil and then poured over the meatballs.

I put these bad boys in a 325 degree oven for an hour. Seems like a long time considering they are already half cooked, but I found this to be the perfect time because it lets the meatballs soak up lots of the sauce and makes them more moist in the end.

I made some brown rice and served these on top of it:

These were great! Very filling and I even had enough leftover to have for lunch for me and Randy the next day.

Friday, Randy had offered to take me out for supper. We were both working that day and neither one of us was in the mood to go to a fancier place and wanted to have a pint of beer with our meal, which in Grand Falls leaves you with two options: Don Cherry's or Jungle Jim's. He let me pick and I opted for Jungle Jim's because it had been awhile since I was there. I am really not a big fan of Jungle Jim's. The menu is huge and overwhelming and I usually find that no matter what I order, it all tastes pretty much the same. But I was in the mood for brick in your guts type food so I figured it would be the right place for that. We got there and ordered a pint of Coor's each while we perused the menu. The mug came frosted and the beer was so cold and delicious (and well-deserved after my day subbing in a Skilled Trades class, I might add!). I decided to order the Safari Wrap with fries and Randy ordered a Cajun Chicken Salad. My wrap and fries came to me like this:

It was okay. The wrap had chicken, bacon, cheese, lettuc and mayo in it. I was starving and in the mood for junk so this was pretty  much what I had in mine. Ordinarily though, I probably wouldn't order it. A little boring, and a little bland, but it was good for what I was in the mood for.

This is an off-centre (good photography skills, Babe! lol) picture of Randy's salad:

I asked Randy to give his two cents and all he said was it was "fine". So when I asked him to elaborate, he said "the lettuce was lettucey, the sauce was saucy, and the chicken was underflavored. It didn't have enough Cajun seasoning".

While Randy paid the bill, I meandered into the bookstore adjacent to Jungle Jim's and found a 10 dollar legal write your own will booklet. I'm pretty intrigued and will probably go back and buy it. I don't think it's a full-on "this is where my possessions will go" will package (as I'm fairly certain you need a lawyer for that) but it is a booklet where you can let your thoughts on life support for yourself and whatnot be made, legally binding. I know it may seem a little morbid for a 25 year old, healthy woman to be thinking about this, but I think it's important! The last thing I would want is my family to have me on life support as a vegetable, unable to move on with their lives. So if I ain't pullin' out of it, I want something that can tell my family to pull the plug.

Earlier in the week, I had watched an episode of Rachael Ray where she made a grilled chicken and bacon macaroni and cheese and I could not get my mind off of it. I decided to make it yesterday, minus a few ingredients that I didn't have. I won't post the whole recipe, but you can find it by clicking on this link:

http://www.rachaelray.com/recipe.php?recipe_id=3868

Holy crap, was this good. My alterations to this were:
- No chicken stock (didn't have any on hand)
- Marble and pecorino-romano cheese instead of gruyere and sharp white cheddar cheese
- 1/2 a red onion instead of one whole onion

This recipe was so good! I wouldn't recommend doing what I did and using too much Pecorino-Romano cheese  - it is a little salty and in high quantities, can overwhelm the food. Still, it tasted pretty damn good.

This is me grating the cheese for it:

I won't post any more prep photos because I'm not including the recipe. But check out the creaminess:

Yum. Served with a dinner roll, of  course. And...

Yay, leftovers!

That's about all for this entry. I haven't changed the poll yet because of a lack of interest; I may get around to doing it later but we shall see. A snack that I have been loving lately is two Breaktime chocolate chips cookies with a  tablespoon of light frozen coolwhip between. Two cookies only has 70 calories and the cool whip is low in calories as well. Voila! Homemade (light) ice cream sandwich.

Shoutouts from the past six days go to: homemade ice cream sandwiches, fat cheesies, and justifying bites of cheese that are "too small for the grater"

Sebastian passed out from too much tube