Blog Archive

Thursday, February 17, 2011

A diet is(n't) a piece of cake

Does this inspire me?


nah, she's too tan. 

 



Does this?



Absolutely. 


Monday was Valentines day. We Celebrated.
Lobster Nachos. Jumbo Margaritas. Crab legs dipped in butter. Cheddar Cheese Biscuits. Loaded Baked Potatoes. Come home. Crash in bed. Don't touch my stomach. It's going to explode. 

Oh boy

I'm good at making excuses for eating the way I do. 
'We've had a long day' 'Let's celebrate' 'I haven't had this in a while' '
Let's not waste it' 'Pasta's good for you' 'I need comfort food' 
'If I don't eat this you will' 'I'll go to the gym tomorrow' I'll start eating healthier tomorrow' '

Anyways, that's not the point of my blog. Making yummy dinner is, so, here you go...

Homemade Mashed Potatoes: 

I am ONLY going to make suggestions, because I truly believe every wife needs to have her own version, her own masterpiece, something her husband craves for when he walks in the door. You wanna hear, "Nobody makes these like you do, darling"

So, I only SUGGEST:

Using Gold Yukons -They're high on the starch list. 

Boiling for 20 minutes - You don't want them too gooey

 Using a stick of butter- wives with picky eaters, learning how to incorporate butter is key

Half and half- Don't go healthy and use skim milk, or do, it's up to you...

 Using Salt and Pepper- Flavor enhancer

Using Garlic powder- Flavor enhancer for Philadelphia natives

Leave the skins on-Peeling takes too much work, and your husband is waiting, hungrily

WALAH, instant potatoes, instantly go out the window. 


As I'm mashing Ben walks in the kitchen and says, "Don't you think that's too much butter? Was I not supposed to see that?" 

No, you weren't, Ben. Oh well. 

Happy cooking!!!

Friday, February 11, 2011

Honey Citrus Salmon

I braved up and made Curry for the first time. Who knew cooking exotic foods could be cheap!

I  budget when it comes to food. We have to, or I'll overspend in buying 10 different types of cheese and and 5 different types of juice. Anybody else obsessed with Creamy Havarti? Mozzarella? Gouda? Sharp Cheddar? Cheese balls? Just thinking about it makes my stomach grumble. But I've been able to say NO to excessiveness, and stick to what I need (Except for buying butterfingers at the check out lane....those damn candy bars get me every time....)


So here's for your budget-friendly minds. If a recipe calls for many ingredients,  check to see what you have already, and substitute as much as you can!
So if it calls for Paprika, replace it with a splash of Cayenne Pepper. If it calls for Lemon Zest, skip it completely. Sure it might give it an extra kick but those little ingredients can add up to $20 extra at the grocery store.

If you have an idea of what spices bring to the food, you can be creative with what you have in your cupboard. Your husband isn't going to notice those missing scallions on his food, I promise. (Thats $4 saved, right there!!)


Anyways, back to Curry. With curry, comes smell. Our house still reeks every time I walk in the door! Maybe it's because of the left overs in the fridge. I also haven't washed the crockpot. Disgusting? Maybe. But who wants to clean a dish when they can watch 'Dexter' with their husband instead? Or you know, write a blog?

Here's a new recipe that looks fabulous.....I got it from a blog called "Sprinkles of Parsley"  and she has amazing ideas and pictures for each step. This recipe grabbed my attention the second I layed eyes on the finished product. You're demanded to check this out and let me know what you think! I'm going to use lemon juice instead (I have a ton of it in my fridge) of the zest...I'm cheap and I can still make it work.

Honey Citrus Salmon


P.S. For all you wives with picky husbands as eaters, I'm sorry. Life is a little trickier for you....so I'll post recipes more often that might be more suitable to those taste buds. Ben makes life easy as he eats literally everything under the sun (even raw meat, ugh!!). It also allows me to experiment and make tons of mistakes. Isn't he great?

Happy cooking!!!

Rosie

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

A salty night, let's try Thai

https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=1febb058c1&view=att&th=12e0b90f103befcd&attid=0.1&disp=inline&zw 














3 great things about this dinner:

1.) The bean dip (Well, I did Tortilla Chips!!) 
2.) Being with my husband
3.) The beer

3 not so great things about this dinner:

1.) The saltiness
2.) The saltiness
3.) The saltiness


By the time you're done eating this, you have destroyed your blood pressure, and left no trace of water  in your body....I suggest gonig halfsies on the salt. Ben ate all of his and most of mine, and had a dream last night of all his teeth falling out. Maybe I should try something a little healthier..

And I'm thinking, THAI CHICKEN! (Yes, Chicken again!! Is Thai healthy? I didn't check)

Pad Thai
recipe image
Rated: rating
Submitted By: TRANSMONICON
Photo By: Allrecipes
Prep Time: 40 Minutes
Cook Time: 20 Minutes
Ready In: 1 Hour
Servings: 6
"This is a traditional Pad Thai recipe used by a friend's mother. It has a sauce of fish sauce, sugar, vinegar and red pepper."
Ingredients:
1 (12 ounce) package rice noodles
2 tablespoons butter
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken
breast halves, cut into bite-sized pieces
1/4 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons fish sauce
3 tablespoons white sugar
1/8 tablespoon crushed red pepper
2 cups bean sprouts
1/4 cup crushed peanuts
3 green onions, chopped
1 lemon, cut into wedges
Directions:
1. Soak rice noodles in cold water 30 to 50 minutes, or until soft. Drain, and set aside.
2. Heat butter in a wok or large heavy skillet. Saute chicken until browned. Remove, and set aside. Heat oil in wok over medium-high heat. Crack eggs into hot oil, and cook until firm. Stir in chicken, and cook for 5 minutes. Add softened noodles, and vinegar, fish sauce, sugar and red pepper. Adjust seasonings to taste. Mix while cooking, until noodles are tender. Add bean sprouts, and mix for 3 minutes.





Monday, February 7, 2011

The Battle Begins

Martha Stewart is officially amazing. She lovingly crept into my husband's brain, picked out his favorite ingredients, and smashed them all together. 

 If I present this as well as Martha Stewart did, I may call myself an artist. It looks too pretty to eat!!!


Cayenne-Rubbed Chicken with Avocado Salsa



INGREDIENTS

Serves 4.
  • Coarse salt and ground pepper
  • 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • 4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves 
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 1 medium red onion, finely diced
  • 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
  • 1 Hass avocado, pitted and cut into chunks

DIRECTIONS

  1. In a small bowl, combine 1 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper, and cayenne; rub all over chicken.
  2. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium. Add chicken, and cook until browned on the outside and opaque throughout, 8 to 10 minutes per side.
  3. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, combine onion and lime juice; set aside. Just before serving, fold avocado chunks into onion mixture; season with salt and pepper. Serve chicken topped with salsa.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Chicken or Beef?

What can a wife do with two hot plates, a microwave oven, and a mini fridge?

1.) Eat out
2.) Be eternally thankful she's not cooking
3.) Refrigerate soy sauce (for those nights she orders chinese)

Yeah, I know, all those super wives out there would take one look at this list and gawk. And yes, we kept a six pack in our fridge. Ben and I called this our extended honeymoon, and it was amazing.

We lived above a garage where the bed took up a quarter of the apartment, where the dining room table was the place we played rummy and where the kitchen sink was the perfect size to hold a newborn baby. We absolutely cherished our studio apartment, and more importantly it kept me from the harsh realities of everyday cooking.

But now I've moved into the battlefield. My two hot plates transformed into four gas burners and my mini fridge transfigured into the size of a, well, slightly larger mini fridge.

When we first moved in it was like we moved into a castle. And I was SO excited to start cooking, I jumped in and became a front runner.

I made Spaghetti and Meatballs, of course. And lot's of mexican food (it's Ben's favorite). Fajitas, Quesadillas, Burritos!!!

My first two weeks were glorious. I never ran out of ideas, and I even made soup for when we were feeling under the weather (what a good housewife I was becoming!!)  But two weeks in I came to a harsh stop, and realized something that I believe will stick with me for the rest of my life....

What is there besides chicken, or beef??? (basically, that's what you have every dinner, OK?)

What starch is there besides rice, pasta, or potatoes???? (if you can give me another starch  I'll be shocked)

This was a horrifying realization for me, that most of you have gone through already. But this was new to me. For a week this haunted me until I decided to take on a different perspective,

Variety is NOT to be the spice of life in this category. What you DO with these categories are.

And thankfulness.

The children of Israel were huge complainers, but God fed them so faithfully with manna.

 God had something a little bigger in store for them to live by, besides food. And the same is still true for us today.


Deuteronomy 8:3And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.


So as I learn to expand my cooking skills,  I can stay extremely thankful that I can put that chicken or beef on the table for my husband to come home to and be filled with. And more importantly, I have the word of God to chew on, every day! Now there's some variety!!

....And what am I making tonight? I'm not sure, it's 8:30 in the morning. However, starting this Sunday I'm going to try and plan for the week, like some of you have suggested.

BTW, check out this amazing snackadium that Becca M suggested I make for the Superbowl. I'm attempting this, because if I didn't, I'd lose weight....

Have a great weekend!!

Thursday, February 3, 2011

You have no choice...

When I was six years old, my older brother asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up.
I responded rather quickly with,
                                             "The lady in the shoe Phillip!! Or a Robot!!"

You know, the woman who had the hundred kids? Where everything in life was just, well , fun and filled with all the playing I could want???

            (Do you know with whom and how she acquired that many?)

But I also ALWAYS wanted to be a wife, married at 18 to the man of my dreams (it was to be a french model). And although I didn't get married QUITE that young, 17 years later I married the most wonderful man that I had added as a friend on Facebook.

And who would of thought that cooking was among the daily responsibilities of a wife... and why would I? I thought of the snuggling, the holding of hands, the tax benefits!

 And with all the advice you receive before you get married, I never ONCE had someone tell me about having to cook.....dinner.....every......night.

Before marriage, I ate popcorn and drank wine for every dinner and snuggled up with roommates eating cookies and trader joe's dark chocolate.

But then you get married and there's a husband all of the sudden who's had a long day of work, who's tired and hungry,...

and as a wife you're new job title includes the word CHEF.

"My dear, not only will you not go hungry, but in my house you're eating like a king!! Anything for you!"

Basically, what I'm saying is, you have no choice. You don't, unless you're a millionaire with Emerill in your house cooking for you every night.

Otherwise, you're in the same boat as me. And if you're among my friends (or my mother), I've probably called you asking what you're making for dinner.

So this blog is about just that. Dinner, and all the memories and experiences that come with it. Hoepfully one day I'll post some great recipes that others will use, along with the awful ones. And if I feel up to it, the great recipes that required to much time and concentration and was destined for failure so instead we ordered sushi. But that sounds expensive, so I'll stick with the basics for now.

And BTW, if you have recipes, or ideas, or stories, I want to hear them! I want to cook them!!