Menu Plan Monday 2/8/10!

Trying desperately to get back on track!!

 

Menu Plan Monday at orgjunkie 

Monday: Leftover pulled pork from Super bowl Sunday

Tuesday: Skillet Shepherds Pie 

Wednesday: Leftovers

Thursday: homemade bbq or white chicken and bacon pizza. Dough recipe from My Litter of Six 

Friday: Dinner with the TTC girls at Graffiti 

Saturday: V-Day dinner out, unsure where

Sunday: V-Day dinner in ... any suggestions on what to make?

SUPER BOWL Day!

As I type this, the Who are sucking on my TV. General rule - the older you get the worse you sound, no matter how good you might have once been!! I am enjoying the commercials, though. There have been some cute ones!

It isjsut J and I today, so I made a smaller version of Relish!'s Super Bowl menu.

Of course, the best reason to watch is for an excuse to eat cheese, crackers and dip lol

 

We were going to have the tortilla rollups  as well as the slow cooker pulled pork sandwiches, but decided on only one main dish. I was soooooo nervous to make it. Of course I didn't have all of the ingredients so the sauce was just bottled BBQ sauce, an onion and a packet of Emeril's Essence that I had lying around. They turned out really good!! Even better with cheese.

 For dessert, I made a penut butter brownie recipe from All You magazine. Of course I messed that up too lol too much butter so they are greasy! And also very thick and crumbly. But tasty!!

pre-baking

And after baking, in football shapes and piped via a plastic bag. One day I will have  a real pastry bag set! I used the leftover icing on thr leftover brownies.

I hope that you all are having a great Super Bowl evening!

Superbowl and Giveaway Promotion

Now that Christmas, vacation and my crazy work schedule are over (My insane and horrible co-worker is GONE!!!) I am getting back to reality and BAKING. Tomorrow, in the midst of the coming snow storm, I'll be baking peanut butter football brownies. I'm looking really forward to it.

J isn't into sports at all, so we have low key Super Bowl plans. I only watch for the commercials.;) I am doing a modified version of Relish!'s SB menu. Slow cooker pulled pork (so nervous about making this) and tortilla roll ups. Was gonna make potato bites but... I forgot to buy potatoes! LOL We are also having some snacky, cheese and crackers and dip etc. I will take pics and blog about it!


Also, Lesley at Dragonflies 'n Daydreams is having a huge Valentine's Day giveaway. Lots of great stuff. Click on the pic to enter!

Sad Day, Bad Day but Great Dinner

Gotta look at the little things, right?

After a weekend of steadily getting worse, we decided the best thing to do was to put Torrie down. I am not a big animal person, but Torrie was such a sweet and loving fluffball. She was a very gentle and nice cat who loved her Mousie! RIP, there's a special spot in kitty heaven for you.

Last night, I dropped my laptop on the floor - AGAIN. I always trip over the cord. Well, this time the back cover popped open and in trying to get it back on, I screwed up the hard drive. It worked for a little this evening then boom... went to black and now it can't find Windows. A new laptop was NOT in the budget... and what good is paying off a credit card if  you just put stuff back on it? AURGH!!!!

If you know any laptop deals PLEASE let me know!!

Knowing it was going to be a bad day, I decided to make oven fries tonight. We were already going to BBQ chicken, and then Jeff kicked it up notch with bacon and cheese :) So I thought oven fries would be a good compliment to that. They are really easy to make but they take a long time to cook. I just started making them and wish I'd been making them all along lol Tonight I used my silpats to make them and it was SO MUCH BETTER!!! A little burning but NO sticking!!!! 

Here's the recipe: (picture to come later)

Take some russet potatoes and slice into fry shapes. I like mine thin. I use 5 or 6, that way we have leftovers.

Pour some oil into a deepish, flat bottom dish. Canola or olive oil are what I prefer. Enough that you think it'll coat the potatoes.
Add some spices - garlic powder, garlic salt or regular salt, paprika, Italian spices... whatever you prefer!

Add Parmesan cheese. We just use the kind in the green container. Add about twice as much as the rest of the spices - this is what coats the potatoes.

Mix up then add the potatoes some at a time.

Stir to coat, pick up with tongs and let some mixture drip off.

Put into jelly roll pans - heavily sprayed or with a Silpat.

Cook at 450 for about 45 mins or until brown and crispy and soft. Turn halfway through.

I love this recipe because it makes me feel like a "real cook" by not measuring!!

New Year!

Happy New Year!

We are getting off to a sad start here, as one of Jeff's cats is very sick. She is old and probably has kidney failure. :( So sad to see her going downhill. We are doing what we can for her but she probably won't last much longer.

Exhausted...

Exactly how are we to survive when we have kids? LOL

Will get pictures of Christmas up soon....

Cookie Madness Begins...

Have been spending the evening looking up cookie recipes. Going with some standards and a few new ones.  Thinknig about chocolate peppermint cookies.

But i am STUMPED on candy. Can't seem to find a fairly easy non-chocolate candy recipe. Any suggestions?

Pre-Christmas Cookies...

I had not been to the grocery store since before Thanksgiving... Jeff and I were living on tidbits, rummages and the things my parents left behind... It was crazy. We went to the store today and are all filled up. Hopefully we can last until Christmas... but of course I realized tonight I am almost out of sugar! I stocked up on everything else. Oh well.

I NEVER buy cookie mix but... ;) I got it for pennies. However, I couldn't just make a cookie, I needed to dress it up a bit. I found this recipe: Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Bars except I only had one block of cream cheese. Until today! So I decided to make it to hold us off until the Christmas baking begins!

All ready to go into the oven!

The comments on the Web site say you should use 2 bags of cookie mix, so there's more on top. That is a very good idea!

I added mini chocolate chips to make up for the lack of topping ;)

MMMMM delicious!

Favorite Christmas Ornaments (Blog hop)

I have seen this on other blogs and thought i would give this a try on here!

The Blog Hop theme for this Monday is "CHRISTMAS ORNAMENTS". Show us a pic and/or tell a story behind your favorite Christmas ornament. Your photos and stories will help others with ideas for ornaments in the future.

It was really hard to choose one or two! I always get a new one every year nad since meeting Jeff have gottn WAY into the Hallmark ornaments! They are all so cute!

My grandparents got me and my brother these ornaments and a couple more when we were young. It is so simple but one that always reminds me of Christmas growing up.

This was the first ornament Jeff gave me. <3 It is really cute - this is a bad pic!

Hi there!

Long time no post! I got caught up in preparing for my parents Thanksgiving visit. They were here a week, and it was FABULOUS!!! Always great to see them. We had turkey day at J's parent's house. There were 18 people. So much fun!

A few days later, J and I went on a quick trip to Walt Disney World! We met up with a few of our friends and rushed around looking at all of the Christmas stuff. Osbourne Spectacle of Lights is purely amazing. Jaw dropping! The castle lighting was spectacular as well!

All in all a great weekend - and now  am back home with a cold! I will get into the swing of things soon!