something to try

I saw a recipe on Rachael Ray today that I want to try. I doubt my husband would eat it because it has cauliflower, but it sounds really yummy to me! Here is the recipe I copied from the Rachael Ray website.

Heat a couple of inches of water in a covered pot. Trim up the cauliflower and halve when slice into 1 inch thick slices or break into florets. Arrange cauliflower in boiling water and season with salt. Cover and cook 3-4 minutes, then drain the cauliflower and arrange in a small shallow casserole dish.

Heat a small sauce pot over medium heat. Melt butter, whisk in flour, cook 1 minute then whisk in milk, season with salt, pepper and nutmeg; thicken for 3-4 minutes. Stir the Fontina cheese and the sage into the sauce and melt, about 1 minute. Pour the sauce over the cauliflower to cover evenly, top with remaining 1/2 cup parmigiano cheese and a sprinkle of parsley. Bake 30 minutes until golden brown and bubbly.

Christmas Craft

So for Christmas my mother-in-law asked for a new sewing box. She said she has tons of sewing stuff, but doesn't have a box to put everything in. Seeing this as an easy gift to find I headed to the store only to find plain, boring boxes. I'm certain this has nothing to do with waiting until four days before Christmas to find her gift! The store had two different sewing boxes. There was one that was all tan and one that was black with tan plastic (the one I got). I felt so bad that the box was so boring so I went a few isles over to the ribbon section. I found some cute pick polka doted ribbon, some nice purple ribbon, and some liquid stitch. I ran home, made sure the hubby thought his mom would like the colors and started my Christmas craft! When I finished I thought the top still looked a little plain, so I went back to the store this morning and picked up some pink embroiderd letters. The letters aren't on there permanently yet, because I don't know if I like them straight or doing a semi-circle thing. But I'm pretty proud of it and I hope she loves it! Here are a few pictures of it.

Rolls!!

Hey guys,

I tried a new recipe today after my hubby asked me to make rolls, I found this one and it sounded pretty good! We’ll see how it goes. They’re in the oven right now and they smell delicious!!

Traditional Roll Dough
3 1/2 to 3 3/4 cups all purpose or unbleached flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup shortening or margarine or butter, softened
1 teaspoon salt
1 package regular or quick acting active dry yeast
1/2 c very warm water (120 to 130)
1/2 c very warm milk (120 to 130)
1 egg
Mix 2 cups of the flour, the sugar, shortening, salt and yeast in medium bowl. Add warm water, warm milk an egg. Beat on low speed 1 minute, scraping bowl frequently. Beat on medium speed 1 minute, scraping bowl frequently. Stir in enough remaining flour to make dough easy to handle.
Turn dough onto lightly floured surface. Knead about 5 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Place in greased medium bowl and turn greased side up. Cover and let rise in warm place about one hour or until double. Dough is ready in indentation remains when touched.
Punch down dough. Cut or roll as directed for any of the variations below. Brush with margarine. Cover and let rise about 30 minutes or until double.
Heat oven to 400. Bake 12 to 18 minutes or until golden brown
Crescent Rolls: Roll half of Traditional Roll Dough into 12-inch circle on floured surface. Spread with margarine or butter softened. Cut into 16 wedges. Roll up, beginning at rounded edge. Place rolls, point sides down, on greased cookie sheet and curve up.

Putting off homework :-)

This is my attempt to put my homework off for a while! So, lets see, the hubs had to work on Saturday so we had a very quiet Friday night. But Saturday since he was working I spent the day with my ma'ma! I hadn't seen her since our wedding, so it was awesome to see her! Saturday night one of our friends had a birthday party so we went over to his house and had a great time. I am really enjoying all of our new friends we've met with our move.

Sunday was pretty lazy; I woke up earlier (of course) and did some homework and cleaning around the house. My hubby woke up just in time for lunch, so we took me out to lunch, and then we did our usual grocery shopping. We were suppose to hang out with some of our friends that afternoon/night, but when we got home I put the groceries away then found my precious other half laying in bed again! Needless to say we ended up watching movies and cuddling under the blankets the rest of the day. It was wonderful :-)

Monday was, well Monday. On the plus side, the Mr. came home for his lunch hour, it was nice to see him in the middle of the day, and I got out off class early! I came home and made some yummy hotdogs and baked potatoes! Then we of course watched the premier of House!!

That leaves me with today! I trained at the gym for an hour and did a small upper body work out myself, but wasn't feeling the whole closed in thing. So I drove over to my favorite trail and did a 3 mile jog. It was awesome! EXCEPT, I tripped over a rock and twisted my ankle and scrapped up my knee pretty badly; but I finished my run. Now that I'm back at home getting ready for the day I realize I hurt my ankle a little bit more than I thought. It's a bit swollen and I can't invert my foot, but I can still evert it fine. We'll see! I just hope I can walk to all my classes and such.

Ok, I guess I need to finish up my homework; maybe the Mr. will come home for his lunch hour again!!

Karaoke, Dinner, and Shelves!

So here’s a weekend summary! First off, my weekend was pretty awesome! Friday I took it easy and got a few errands done, and then when the hubby got home we got ready to meet a few people for dinner and karaoke. Yeah, I said karaoke!

We meet a group of people at a restaurant/bar and had a few drinks and dinner, and then we all headed down the road to a bar that was doing karaoke to meet another group of people. Neither one of us are karaoke people, but we thought it would be fun to see our friends embarrass themselves. After a few drinks my husband thought it would be funny to sign me up and not tell me. So they called my name and all of our friends got me up there; thankfully, two of our friends came with me! Although it was a mean thing to do, the hubs did pick out my favorite song “Wonderwall” by Oasis. After we had finished a verse my husband (who in the 4 years we’ve known each other, I have NEVER heard sing) came up and stole the microphone from me and sang the rest of the song as if it was a hard rock song. So it was me and three guys in front of a crowd singing Oasis; surprisingly fun!

The rest of the night was pretty much as exciting, we watched our friends sing and dance and I gossiped with the girls and he joked with the guys. Awesome Friday night! Oh yeah, I had to work the next morning too!

Saturday night the hubby and I went out to dinner with my best friend and her fiancé. We talked about their up coming wedding, family, and all that great stuff. We had a wonderful time. They live 2 hours away, so it’s always a nice treat to see them! After dinner we went over to Wal-Mart to look for some shelves for our laundry room. Since we don’t have a pantry or much cabinet space, I wanted shelves so our kitchen won’t be cluttered. We found some and put up them up when we got home. Once they were up we started filling them right up and it’s amazing how much space they saved.

The new shelves sparked me to reorganize the kitchen, so now it’s Sunday and my kitchen is organized and clean! Then this afternoon my brother and his friend called to see if the hubs and I wanted to meet for lunch (of course!). Lunch was great and now I waiting for a friend to come over to catch up on old times. Great weekend!

Zesty Mess

I just thought I'd share a nice little newlywed story! So the website www.thenest.com is a site for newlyweds with lots of idea and advice. I went on there Monday and found a recipe that sounded like a twist on chicken alfredo it consisted of cream cheese, zesty Italian dressing, chicken, and pasta, it also called for mixed veggies, but I took them out since I knew the hubs with pick around them and throw them out.

I put the cream cheese and the dressing in the slow cooker and let it mix together. It had the consistency of alfredo dressing, but smelt a bit zestier. I cooked up the pasta, threw it in some bowels and topped it when the sauce. The hubby took one smell and just said, "I don't think I'm going to be able to eat this," jerk! I told him to try it. We both took about two bites and looked at each other and laughed, it was HORRIBLE!!! We ended up throwing it all out and going to Taco Bell.

But the good part is that I finally got to use my mini crock pot!!! It was awesome! A little hard to clean, but so cute and perfect! I can't wait for it to get a bit more cold so that I can make a pot of chili!

Biscuit Bliss

To celebrate Labor Day I decided to make some homemade biscuits; because, who doesn't love a fresh buttery biscuit? So while the hubby was still asleep, I slipped out of bed and made my way to the kitchen, pulled out all of the ingredients and pulled up the recipe at (http://oldfashionedliving.com/biscuits.html). I was a little nervous because when I followed it the dough was very wet and sticky, so I added about 1 more cup of flour. After the dough was finally a nice consistency I rolled it out with a glass (because I don't have a rolling pin), then I used the glass as a cookie cutter and cut out all the biscuits. Then into the oven they went! They called for 15 minutes, but I ended up cooking them for 20, because they weren't browning on the top. As soon as they came out I couldn't wait to try them! About this time the husband woke up and came into the kitchen to see what type of trouble I was up to. He was quite excited to smell homemade biscuits, so I put some on a plate, cut them in half, buttered those babies up pulled out the apple butter and wa-la, breakfast is served!


A minute later I looked over to ask the hubs if he liked them and they were already gone, so I'm going to assume he enjoyed them. When I asked he said they were pretty good, and then he continued to lick his apple butter spoon. So SUCCESS!!! Now that breakfast is over we're going to head out and enjoy our wonderful day off with each other!


Here is the recipe I used:
Baking Powder Biscuits
(from a 1933 Recipe)
Ingredients:
2 cups sifted flour
2 tsp. baking powder
4 tablespoons butter or shortening
1/2 tsp. salt
about 3/4 cup milk
Sift Flour once, measure, add baking powder and salt, and sift again. Cut in shortening or butter. (this is where I use my hands by rubbing the butter into the flour). Add milk gradually, stirring until soft dough is formed. Turn out on slightly floured board and lightly "knead" for 30 seconds, enough to shape. Roll 1/2 inch thick and cut with 2 inch floured biscuit cutter. Bake on ungreased sheet in a 400 degree oven for 12-15 minutes. Makes 12 biscuits. You can also make tiny tea biscuits that are only 1 1/2 inches wide with a small cutter or glass bottom. These are great served with tea, jam or honey. Makes 24.

Recipe Recap

So, the recipes turned out really well. The only thing I would change would be to not put the onions into the meatballs, it made the texture non consistent. After I finished cooking though, a couple of my husband’s friends called us and wanted us to go out to dinner. So instead of insisting that we stay home and eat the food that I just made, I threw the food in some tupperware and got ready to go out. My husband decided that he was too hungry to wait until dinner though, so he ate a few of the meatballs and rolls, what a man.

Dinner was a lot of fun; I really enjoy his coworkers and their spouses. It’s made the move here a lot easier. After dinner we went over to one of their houses and hung out for quite a bit. Once we got back home the hubby was hungry for more rolls. Needless to say they are all gone now; SUCCESS!

I was going to try a biscuit recipe for breakfast, but we don’t have any baking powder, so we settled for cheerios! Maybe I’ll make them tomorrow morning, after I’ve had a chance to hit the grocery store.

I’m not really sure what the plan is for today, we’re just kind of lying around enjoying the fact that we have absolutely nothing to do, :-) what a perfect Saturday!

Holiday Weekend KICK OFF!!

So we have decided to stay in for the night to kick off the holiday weekend, which means I'm going to try my hand at making a nice dinner. I'm going to make spaghetti with homemade meatballs and homemade rolls. I really hope it goes well, I've been searching for recipes all day and I've found the ones I'm going to use. I have all the ingredients and I'm all set! I have a movie ready for us and I'm going to have the place nice and clean for when the hubby gets home from work, as if he'll even notice; and of course I'm going to try and look and cute as possible, which he always notices :-). I hope everything goes well, wish me luck!!

Here are the recipes I used:
The first one is from http://www.breadworld.com/
Homemade Rolls

Makes: 12 rolls
Prep Time: 40 minutes
Proof Time: 30 minutes
Bake Time: 20 minutes
2 to 2-1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 envelope Fleischmann’s RapidRise Yeast
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons butter OR margarine
Directions
Combine 3/4 cup flour, sugar, undissolved yeast and salt in a large bowl. Heat milk, water and butter until very warm (120º to 130ºF). Add to flour mixture. Beat 2 minutes at medium speed of electric mixer, scraping bowl occasionally. Add 1/4 cup flour; beat 2 minutes at high speed. Stir in enough remaining flour to make soft dough. Knead on lightly floured surface until smooth and elastic, about 8 to 10 minutes. Cover; let rest 10 minutes.

Divide dough into 12 equal pieces; shape into balls. Place in greased 8-inch round pan. Cover; let rise in warm, draft-free place until doubled in size, about 30 minutes.

Bake at 375ºF for 20 minutes or until done. Remove from pan; brush with additional melted butter, if desired. Serve warm.
The second recipe I used is from http://www.about.com/
Meatballs

I also added ¼ cup of parmesan cheese, ½ tbs of parsley, ½ tbs basil
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:
•1 lb. lean ground beef
• 1 egg
• 2 Tbsp. water
• 1/2 cup bread crumbs
• 1/4 cup minced onion
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/8 tsp. pepper

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In large bowl combine egg, water, bread crumbs, onion, salt and pepper and combine. Add ground beef, broken into chunks, and mush with your hands to combine. Form into meatballs about 1" in diameter and place on a broiler pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes until meatballs are no longer pink in center. Cool and freeze, or use in your favorite meatball recipe.

1 pot + 2 potatoes = Screaming Smoke Alarm

So...mashed potatoes. Simple? Easy? I thought so too. So I had some chicken marinating and the wonderful idea for grilled chicken and mashed potatoes. I had class from 4-6:40 and my hubby gets home from work around 5:30 so I wanted him to start boiling the potatoes so that when I got home I could grill the chicken, mass the potatoes, and enjoy my feast!

My dinner dream didn't turn out so well. Before I left for class I peeled and cut the potatoes and put them in a pan and put the pan in the fridge and left the hubby a detailed note on what to do and when to do it. I went to class with dreams of fluffy potatoes awaiting me at home. Thankfully, class was dismissed 30 minutes early; I hopped on 95 and made my commute home. I got home and the hubs had the potatoes boiling :-) I gave him a kiss and hug and told him I was going to jump in the shower. While I was in the shower he yelled in that he had to go run an errand and he would be back in a few minutes.

As I’m enjoying my much needed hot shower, I hear a sharp, high pitched noise. Yep, the smoke detector was screaming at me! I jumped out of the shower and ran into the kitchen; the pan of potatoes was a goner. Not only were the potatoes ruined, but the pot was destroyed. The hubby had left the potatoes on High when he left. My vision of mashed potatoes for dinner was not a smoky pile of mush. I turned the vent on high blast, put on some pjs and then proceeded to open the windows and back door.

The hubs walked in about 10 minutes later, looked in the sink to see the pot with the burnt potatoes still stuck to the bottom and asked what I had done. After we had a quick convo about leaving the stove top on high when no one is watching, I decided to not fully let go of my plans and made grilled chicken with roasted red potatoes. It ended up being delicious, but I’ve been craving mashed potatoes since the disaster.
Any advise for the college wife?!

Dinner Disasters

Just a little background information, I just began my senior year in college in Virginia and my husband and I were married in August 2009. So one weekend I got married and two weeks later I started my last year at college. It's been a busy summer, especially since I also took summer classes while doing some last minute wedding planning.

I am new at this whole wife thing, so I'm still trying to figure out the ropes and I felt that I could write about all my new adventures of being a new wife. Right now my adventure is actually an ongoing disaster. My husband is a very picky eater, and it's a job all in itself to find food that he will each that is even slightly nutritious. He still eats like a child; he loves PB&J, Kraft Mac & Cheese, chicken nuggets, chocolate cake, and ice-cream. He won't eat anything green and the only "vegetables" he will even consider eating are corn and potatoes. I've tried hiding vegetables in his food or doing new recipes that incorporate some vegetables, but he eats around them and picks out what he'll eat and then throws the rest away.

I've made a few things that he likes; I've made homemade Mac & Cheese and cornbread muffins. He also likes my pancakes and eggs. So breakfast is taken care of, it's just dinner I'm worried about. I know he loves meatballs, but I haven't been able to find a recipe that he enjoys. Every time I try a new one I here a reluctant "it's good baby," I just want him to really enjoy what I make him for dinner. One problem is that we use ground turkey so it's never very moist. I did have a horrible attempt to make them moister and instead of chopping onions, I blended them. They smelled wonderful, but were absolutely nasty. Live and learn I guess.

I just don't want to be asked if we want to just go to McDonalds or Burger King anymore, I hate fast food and don't want my family to become dependent on it. I grew up with home cooked meals and intend to raise my family on it also. We need to be saving our pennies and eating at home, I just wish I could find more things he enjoys and aren't repetitive.