cicuska

no-fail simple delicious dinner in like 5 seconds

i started making this for dinner last week and it was a hit. one pot. a few ingredients. no cooking skills necessary. i mean you hardly even have to look at it and then it's done! i got the recipe from the back of the zatarain's spanish rice box and changed it up the tiniest tiniest bit. 

marketamerica.

ingredients:

a pack of chicken breast tenders (about 1lb)

some ground cayenne pepper (optional)

1 tbsp butter

zatarain's new orlesn's style spanish rice

1 can diced tomatoes (15oz)

1 can tomato sauce (8oz)

1 cup water

do this:

season the chicken tenders with the pepper (if you want) 

melt the butter in a big pot or a skillet (i don't have a skillet for some reason?) 

brown the chicken tenders in the melted butter, a few minutes on each side

pour the rest of the ingredients into the pot and stir it around

bring it to a boil, then turn it down and simmer with the lid on for 25 minutes

DINNER IS SERVED

easy, huh? next time i might add some onion and green pepper. i'm sure you can think of a million different ways to spice it up to suit your tastes. try it! <3

our first porch tomatoes

 

yum.

preparing for the baby : budgeting and planning

i am in charge of paying our bills, which is something i really enjoy. sometimes i think i have more fun getting all the bills paid on time than i do going on a shopping spree. whatever! i used to be a big spender, but then i took a position as an unpaid intern while i got my cosmetology license, things were tight, and now i can't seem to shop without buyers remorse... i consider this a good thing. 

greg and i haven't really been feeling the effects of the crappy economy, but we have a baby on the way and i will be out of work for at least a little while... hopefully a long while! so it's time for me to get down to business, get organized, and make this work. last night i took 2 big steps in "home management" thanks to some inspiration from simplemom. (check it out, one of my fav blogs)

1. i created a really simple yet awesome budget via pearbudget.com. i always keep a mental budget, but it feels really good to take it more seriously. and even better, it's going to be really interesting to be able to see exactly where our money REALLY goes... and it makes it more difficult to spend on stupid stuff that you know you shouldn't be buying (like starbucks way too often...) definitely check out pearbudget! you can try it for free for 30 days, and then if you want to keep using it (you will) it's only $3 / month.

2. i planned our dinner menu for the next two weeks. one of our biggest weaknesses is going out to eat way too much, so this is really going to help. simplemom uses google calendar, but i prefer to use my ical since it's where i keep all my other calendar info. so i plan out what i want to cook for dinner each night, and in the "notes" section of each night's meal, i put the ingredients needed for any unfamiliar dishes. i use this to make my weekly grocery list.

 

also, if the recipe is online, i put a link to it in the "url" section. to make this easier, i created a delicious bookmark account. it's really handy for bookmarking your favorite online recipes, because you can add tags to each page you bookmark. for example, if you know you want to make something with chicken on wednesday night, you can click on the "chicken" tag and see all of the recipes you've tagged with that word. wayyyy easy.

so this afternoon after work, i took used my ical planned menu for this week, wrote down the ingredients i needed to pick up from the grocery store, and was very pleased when i was EXACTLY on target for our "groceries" budget. hooray!! i love planning <3

food!

i made a lot of food yesterday...

i made chicken and dumplings for dinner last night, loosely following this recipe at bread&honey. i used peas instead of celery and added a lot more spices. it was so delicious and soooo easy. nothing like one pot meals, seriously. 

then i made mini versions of smitten kitchen's clementine cake... i prefer to call them "clementine muffins" because the term "cake" seems a little misleading to me... they weren't my favorite, personally, but mostly everyone at work found them to be delicious, and they were gone by the time i left tonight! :)

today at work, jeanie shared one of her "diet treats" with us... take 2 graham crackers, put some fat free cool whip in between them, then stick them in the freezer. sounds boring and not very tasty, but SOOO YUMMYYY! greg's picking up the ingredients at the grocery store while i type this. i'm going to try it with a little hersheys syrup. frozen smores!

vada must be going through a growth spurt ;)

in other food news...

veganyumyum.com is one of my favorite blogs ever. i have made several of lolo's recipes, including: hasperat, capellini in fresh tomato cream sauce, tomato basil sandwiches, pressed avocado, hummus, and cucumber sandwiches, and a few more. (basically, all the easy ones. cooking is cool, but not my all-time favorite, mostly because i'm really messy when i cook and we don't have a dishwasher!!! wtf.) every recipe has been completely mouthwateringly delicious, they are so well written and easy to follow, and the photos are beautiful. (lolo is quite beautiful herself, i never clicked her "about me" link before. jeez, now i like her blog even more ;) )

this afternoon for lunch i made kale and sundried tomato hummus. it took like 5 seconds... i put mine on some hearty wheat bread, SO GOOD. 

 

one of greg's all time favorite meals ever is his mom's shepherd's pie. i really went out on a limb with this, because greg is very particular about his food, especially his favorites. you know what i mean. anyway i decided to go for it and this evening for supper i made vegan shepherd's pie. 

he LOVED IT! (and so did i) i was so excited because i put a lot of love into it... i mean, this was my first time ever making real mashed potatoes. (yea, i know.) and i think i used every single dish i own while making it, too. anyway it was fun and a great success. 

ps. i'm not vegan or vegetarian... i wish i could be either, but i enjoy eating meat, and i don't have the willpower to give up cream cheese. :)

[images from veganyumyum.com <3]

i have a confession...

i go to starbucks every day and get an iced coffee... and so does greg. it's pathetic, but i can't help it. so i was thinking recently about this addiction, and how i could overcome it. drinking the iced coffee isn't really the problem, it's spending 2 bucks and some change every day on said iced coffees. it's stupid! i decided i needed to find out how to make the most delicious iced coffee ever at home so i could stop the money wasting madness. of course, as addictions go, i never made a single attempt at making my own iced coffee and have been to starbucks several times since i decided to "change." BUT THEN, tonight while i was reading through my newly updated blog subscriptions... I SAW THIS:

smitten kitchen had bestowed upon me a life saving recipe for the most delicious iced coffee ever. our first batch is "brewing" on my kitchen counter as i type. YUM. <3

[image from smittenkitchen.com <3]

$85. so?

<3

[image from spoonsisters.com]

my favorite iphone pictures ever

once upon a time gabby and i went to mill mountain downtown and destroyed some cappuccinos and a piece of chocolate mousse cake!

[photos from my iphone <3]

most delicious jell-o ever

i probably should have know this, but apparently you can make jell-o with orange juice... i made some sugar free strawberry jell-o and used 3 cups boiling water then 1 cup cold orange juice (with a lot of pulp), then i added whole half-thawed whole frozen strawberries about 2 hours later. once it was ready, i topped it with a scoop of extra creamy coolwhip... BEST JELL-O EVER. seriously. the orange juice gives it a little extra oomph and tang, the strawberries are a nice surprise every couple of bites, and the coolwhip smoothed everything out. i have always enjoyed jell-o but never knew it could be THIS good. mmmm.... :)

sweet

i learned about this in my daily candy email a few days ago.. solid non-sticky honey. 100% natural with no fillers or anything. and they're cute! i can't wait to try these.