Happenings in the life :)

Over the last few months we've been pretty busy. I've never had so many social engagements! We were able to be apart of a beautiful wedding in March, My brothers birthday in April and my Grandma's funeral in May. All throughout we've had our ups and downs in the kitchen (which is what my blog originally started out as!).

We've had our weeks of going out to eat (shame on us) and weeks when we spent $0 on restaurants (yay we can do it!). 

Here is an overview :)

Simple chicken and veggie skewer with Italian dressing for seasoning

Fresh cut up asparagus with olive oil, garlic powder and Lawry's seasoning

The meal put together with Jasmine rice and random hot dog :)

One of our favorites! Fried rice-cooked rice, chicken (chopped), chopped onions, chopped green peppers, 1 egg. The seaoning and sauce varies every time I make it. This time I used soy sauce and sesame oil (when sauteing veggies). I also use a clove or two of garlic and some Lawry's. We usually have a sauce when it's done. Rico uses terriyaki sauce (the sauce from Target) and I use sweet Chili sauce :)

Enchiladas-Best recipe ever! I will post the recipe at a later date.

Best friends birthday food :) Greatest dips I've had in a long time! And fruit/veggie pizza!

Best homemade pizza! Ingredients

Target thin pizza crust, fire-roasted pizza sauce (at Target), real mozzarella (deli area at Cub), pepperoni, onions, green peppers, regular mozzarella, garlic powder, oregano, lemon pepper seasoning.

As you can tell I've used the word best a lot. I only do that because these are the most memorable meals I've had. Of course there were more but I didn't have my phone. And I didn't want to be the girl that takes a picture of my food for every meal :) Even though I kind of am!

I've learned recently to budget and grocery shop for the week (learned that from my big sis! Good job Big sis). I created a meal schedule so I know what ingredients I'll need and what I can use from  my pantry. When we first got married I always had a lot of food on hand (not the right kinds) and my pantry was always too full. Mostly canned food and noodles (my diet lacked in a lot of ways)! I also had frozen pizza on hand ALL THE TIME. When I had homemade pizza and a family members house I decided this was a better option. The supreme pizza I got from Target had sausage...NO THANKS! Everyone wins! 

Hopefully I'm not the only one that started out this way. As I stated before, I didn't learn how to cook from my mom. I'm definitely learning now! Thanks to those of you who have helped me :) You know who you are!

I will also mention that my pantry has never been so organized!

Recently I decided to revamp my spice cabinet. I'm not done but here are some of my during pics:

I started planting too! I have kale, cilantro and peppercini peppers!

Thanks for listening to what's going on in my life :) 

There is a lot I didn't cover but that's OK, I don't want to bore you :)

Hijacking best friends kitchen

So this weekend the girls and I got together and dd what we do best! Chick flicks, baking, cooking, and shopping! 

Here is a little overview of our food adventures:

Thai pizza

Breakfast muffins:

Grilled cheese and tomato soup:

Black bean and quinoa enchilada bake:

We all picked a meal and made our favorites. 

Thank you wonderful women for a fabulous weekend!

These recipes can be found on my Pinterest boards (breakfast/what's for din din? Mexican) and here is the Thai pizza (we used Trader Joes dough):

http://www.simplysogood.com/2012/02/thai-chicken-pizza.html?m=1

The tomato soup was organic tomato soup from to Trader Joes and the cheese we used was muenster :)

My ultimate favorite dinner :)

So if you know anything about me now it's that I really enjoy cooking...now :) growing up I did not want to be in the kitchen. I thought of cooking and baking was a chore. My mom was so sweet and wanted me to learn so I wouldn't have to struggle on my own. Of course bein a girl after my dad's heart I would be watching tv or finding anything to do BUT be in te kitchen. My mom laughs about it now but honestly I regret it. She is one of the best cooks and bakers I know! There are so many meals that I call and ask her for the recipe and she is ready to tell it to me by heart. She is definitely my inspiration for wanting to be in the kitchen! Love you mom!!

Now onto my meal that I could eat every night if Rico would let me...chicken fajitas! I have come to master the art of how we like then!

First thing I do is cut the 2 breasts of chicken into strips and leave it in the pan so I can come back to it. Then I cut the red pepper, green pepper, and onion into strips as well and place it in a deep skillet. Then goes the olive oil into both pans and I turn them on at the same time. After many fails I've learned that the chicken and veggies take about the same amount of time. 

I made my own taco seasoning for the chicken:

This recipe makes more than I needed so I put the rest in a zip lock

When the chicken is done I put 2 Tbsp of the seasonin and 1/4 c of water and let the chicken summer for 5 min.

For the veggies I seasoned with lawrys salt and garlic powder.

After the veggies and chicken were done we made our creations. Rico likes tortillas and I like making a salad :) 

Here is Rico's:

And mine:

So there is my go to dinner :) I hope someone will be inspired to make this wonderfully colorful dish. It is my absolute favorite! In fact someone asked me what food I would eat on a desert island for the rest of my days and this is the dish I would take! If I'm really inspired I'd make guacamole but I was on a time crunch (as in I was too hungry to think about making anything else :)).

Honey Chicken Magic

I recently found a gem in the blog realm:

http://fun-with-sharps.blogspot.com/2012/10/well-you-cant-say-i-never-cook.html?m=1

I am so impressed by these recipes that I couldn't find one I didn't want to try!!

Tonight I tried Honey Chicken. The recipe is a little large so I only cut it by a third. I found a website that you can calculate recipes if you want less or more!

The recipe:

The beginning:

The middle:

I added water when it was done because I had to wait to eat it and didn't want it to get too dry.

The end result:

I made red potatoes and broccoli! For the potatoes I dropped the rack as low as I could and preheated the oven to 450 degrees. While it's preheating cut then up and mix with a 1/4c oil and desired seasoning. Place the potatoes face down on a cookie sheet (I put tin foil down first).

After 10 min I put the broccoli in (it was prepared similar to the potatoes)!

Here it is:

With this wonderful meal we ended it with a bowl of ice cream and now have two days+ Of leftovers!!!

I consider this another win for the cookbook :) Rico enjoyed it too; he was proud of me!!

Happy Valentines! How I get to celebrate <3

I'd like to take a moment and just share my experience with Valentines. You can go back in history and view it as a historical holiday or you can think it's a retail holiday but I was raised differently. My family had a candlelit steak dinner every year (until we decided eating in the dark wasn't worth the ambiance). My mom would give us a small box of chocolates and we would share quality time with each other. I've decided that it's a holiday to be celebrated! With coffee...

And I embraced it today at work and decked myself in hearts:

You can't see them but I have heart earrings on too :)

After Rico and I have celebrated the cliche way with flowers, the movie Valentines Day, gifts, chocolate covered strawberries, we chose to stay in and make a meal. Rico's favorite meal is meatloaf, mashed potatoes with gravy, and baked broccoli. I made it and for the first time everything was ready at the same time!!! Here is how it turned out:

I seasoned the potatoes and broccoli with our usual spices, lawry salt and garlic powder. I added sour cream and butter to taste to the potatoes! Here is the recipe:

February 13: Spaghetti

I have decided that it is time to start a food diary so that I can help anyone who is newly married and needs ideas or helpful tips on cooking beautiful healthy (semi-healthy) meals for most nights.

Tonight we didn't have a lot of time to prepare our meal so Spaghetti was our best option. BEST SPAGHETTI NIGHT EVER!!!

Every time we make spaghetti it gets monotonous and boring. Well tonight was different. We were introduced to brown rice pasta and I wanted to try it out.

We used:

1 lb of Ground Turkey

1 jar of Traditional Prego (added: Ketchup, Heinz 57, lemon juice, pinch of sugar, Frank's hot sauce)

1/4 C Green Pepper (diced)

1/4 C Onion (diced)

1/4 C Red Pepper (diced)

1 t Garlic Powder

1 t Lawry's Seasoning

Brown Rice Spaghetti (the amount is up to you)

1 Package/Can Corn

It took us 30 min. and we ate it in 5 :)

This recipe is great because it makes leftovers for both lunches the next day.