Happy....January 2nd:)

Did it snow where you are today?  Sure did here, not too bad though, phew!  I think we are in for the worst tonight and tomorrow morning, though.

Today my plan was to clean until 12pm only...then, it got bumped to 2pm...it is 5:25pm and I am not done!  And it's not because I've been procrastinating...it's because 1.  woke up later than I wanted to and 2.  lounged with my husband for about 3 hours...I'll take that as a very good reason that I am still cleaning and didn't get to any of my "fun stuff" today :)  Do you ever have days like this?

So I was hoping to blog today about the oh so many fabulous recipes I had found in my cookbooks, online, and other blogs, and what my plans are for the year, cooking wise.  Different country/ethnic meals each night during the Olympics anyone?  Well since this was on my "fun list" along with scrapbooking, sending out some cards, and watching Lifetime, it didn't happen.  But now, you have this to look forward to tomorrow...hopefully:)  I have promised myself I am not going to clean tomorrow, I AM NOT!  Tomorrow, before I head back into work for what looks to be a very busy week, I will do my "fun list" that I had planned to start today initially at 12pm, then 2pm...then never ;)  Recipe research, scrapbooking, making a nice Cranberry pork loin recipe I got from another blog, etc etc....  I hope to get back onto the blog world tonight to catch up on some of my favorite pages and post some NYE pics...but that will only happen if the husband chooses another movie like last night (Year One = strange!).  Check this out to tide you over for now though - amazing!  Yes, my best friend, and her cooking, are amazing:)

Hopefully talk with you later!

PS - big thanks to Katy at SimplyYummyGoodness for helping me add my "Become a Fan on Facebook" box:)  It's greatly appreciated!

Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year to all of my bloggie friends!  I hope you had a great New Years Eve and an enjoyable/relaxing New Years Day.  Last night the husband and I got together with some great friends on the Cape for some food, Apples to Apples, the ball drop on TV, and some unexpected dancing and fireworks!  It was a great night!  I can't wait to relax, cook, and scrapbook (oh, and blog!) all weekend because we're going to get ANOTHER snow storm!!!  Eeek!

I thank all the readers that posted their guesses about the food I made for NYE.  Here are the answers, and recipes:)

Photo 1 - Oreo-Crusted Eggnog Cheesecake from www.cookiemadness.net

You will need:

• 40 oreos, crushed - I put 16 at a time in a plastic ziplock bag and crushed them with a roller
• 6 tbsp melted butter
• 4 (8 oz) pkgs cream cheese
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 3 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 4 tbsp rum 
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 4 large egg yolks

Mix oreo cookie crumbs and butter; press onto bottom and a little over halfway up the sides of a 9-inch springform pan.  Set pan on a cookie sheet and bake at 325 for 10 minutes

Beat cream cheese, nutmeg, sugar, flour, rum, and vanilla until smooth.  Add eggs, 1 at a time, scraping sides of bowl after each egg.  Add the whipping cream and egg yolks and stir until smooth.  Pour into crust.

Bake at 325 for 1 hour and 10 minutes, or until center is almost set.  **For mine, it was alittle overcooked at the 1 hour 10 minute mark, so I'd start checking next time after 1 hour**  Run knife or metal spatula around rim of pan to loosen cake; cook before removing rim from pan; place onto serving tray or plate.  Refrigerate 4 hours, or overnight.  Highly enjoyed by those who picked at it with a fork:)  Instead of the original recipe, which called for whipped cream on top, I top it with more crushed oreos - yum!

Not the prettiest cheesecake ever, as the sides seem to be a little too cooked, but it worked:)

Photo 2 - Pistachio Champagne Delight

Whipped cream was a good guess (It did look like that in the picture, very strange!), but this was a great dip with Cracker Quartets.  Since it was refrigerated overnight, and then in a cold car, we had to let it soften a bit at room temperature so the crackers wouldn't break, but I would eat this again tomorrow.  My new fave and quick recipe!  This one is from www.whatscookingamerica.net, a great site!

You will need:

• 3 ounces of goat cheese
• 8 ounces soft cream cheese
• 1/2 cup pistachios, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup finely chopped chives if desired

In a medium-sized bowl, add goat cheese an microwave until soft.  Mix in cream cheese.  Add pistachios and chives and mix it all together.  Refrigerate atleast 8 hours.  THAT'S IT!!

When ready to serve, remove from fridge, let come to room temperature, and serve with crackers or even veggies, like carrots or celery....and champagne:)

 

Photo 3 - Another one from www.whatscookingamerica.net, Goat Cheese, Grape, and Pistachio truffles

I highly enjoyed the four I ate while making them.  Unfortunately, they never made it out at the party because there was so much food, but because they just need to be refrigerated, I brought them back home and will either eat them myself or maybe bring them to work Monday:)  Note - must reallly reallly like goat cheese to enjoy these, as it's a very strong goat cheese taste.  If you want to tone it down, I would suggest mixing the goat cheese with cream cheese.

You will need:

• 1/2 lb pistachio nuts, chopped
• 8 oz (I used 10 oz for 30 instead of the 24 the recipe calls for) goat cheese, room temperature
• 24 seedless red grapes, stems removed, and wiped clean

So easy!  Take about 1/2 tbsp or more of goat cheese in your palm.  Wrap around grape to cover completely.  Do this for each separate grape and then chill on a sheet pan for 15 minutes.

Roll the cheese-coated grapes in the chopped pistachios (I spread the pistachios on a small baking sheet - you can even toast them if you'd like) to cover completely and chill for 30 minutes, or until coating is firm.  I chilled them for almost a full day, until it was time to take them to the party.  Again, they never made it out, but they sure were tasty when I was making them:)   Sorry I didn't take more pictures of these, by this time I was falling asleep while rolling in pistachio nuts:)  I will try to take a picture of one up close this weekend...before I eat it;)

Some of my fave recipes at the party were Eric's Penne Alla Vodka, Melissa's Eggplant Crostini's, Caitlin's mac and cheese, and Ed's homefries (morning after) - I hope to get those recipes and try them out for you soon!

Enjoy the first few days of January, everyone!  I can't wait to catch up on reading some of your blogs:)  This is going to be a great year!  What are your resolutions?  Any new hobbies you want to try?

My word of the year is prioritization; my resolutions are to get in great shape and stay healthy; my new hobby is going to be Zumba...and hopefully more, maybe even floral arranging:)

Enjoy your night! 

Let's play alittle foodie game...

Ahh, it's 12am and I'm sitting down, after being up since 6:30am - I sit at work all day, but am mucho busy, so that doesn't count.  Got home, cooked dinner, then started making things for the NYE extravaganza we're attending tomorrow night, packed for the night (no drinking and driving people!), and now here I am:)

We're going to play a game - I'm going to post pictures of what I made tonight for the party tomorrow night, and you have to try to guess what they are:)  Answers, and recipes, to come Friday;)  Have a very happy and safe New Year everyone!!!

 

 

**Sorry about this one, I forgot to take a picture while they were still out**

Good luck, and I hope you enjoy this:)  Read ya Friday!

You're Da Bomb! The Steak Bomb that is;)

We had a couple grilling steaks in the freezer, the husband saw steak subs on Phantom Gourmet, and immediately asked me to try to make him my own version of a "steak bomb."  I was going to save this for WCW, or Wicked Cheap Wednesday to new readers, but I couldn't!  So easy, had all of the ingredients, because I had the steak already, and was a nice change from how I usually make these subs (with sausage). 

What you'll need:

• 2 grilling steaks, boneless, cut into bite sized pieces
• half a green pepper, sliced into thin pieces and then cut into small pieces
• half a red pepper, same as above
• 1 whole white onion, sliced thinly
• salt, pepper, crushed red pepper, and any other seasoning you may like
• ketchup, mustard, or any other topping you may like
• 4 American cheese deli slices

Heat a large fry pan or wok on medium heat.  Once heated, add Pam spray, let sizzle for a second, and add cut up steak, salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper.  Let cook until it looks about halfway cooked, to your liking.

Add cut up peppers and onions and turn heat up to medium high.  Continue to cook until vegetables and steak are cooked thru to your liking. 

Once cooked to your liking, tear up the 4 deli cheese slices and put on top of steak/veggie mixture and let melt. 

 

Once melted, remove from heat.  Put into your favorite bread/roll (we used sub rolls tonight) and top with ketchup, etc if you choose - I choose not to:)  Enjoy with a nice garden salad and some fries and enjoy!

This meal was quite easy to make and I was able to multi task while making it, as it didn't require much attention.  The hardest part was cutting up the steak and veggies!

 

 

***Since tomorrow night I'll probably talk about my NYE recipes, I'll break this down as a WCW:

2 grilling steaks - $5 or less at this time of year

1 white onion - $1.50

1/2 a green pepper - .50

1/2  a red pepper - .50

sub rolls - $2.50

4 deli slices of American cheese - about .30 cents

 

As long as you have the Pam spray, salt, pepper, crushed red pepper, ketchup, salad stuff, and a side, you're looking at only spending about $10.30 for a  great meal - for us, it made 4 helping and there are leftovers:)

Time to play some Bejeweled, check up on some other blogs, and read Scarlett:)  Has anyone else ever read Gone With The Wind followed by Scarlett??  I love it! 

Chey continues to cook, but is sad Christmas is over:( Slow cooker orange chicken!

I'm going to keep Christmas going, somehow!!  Well, I know one way - catching up on the 2 scrapbooks I started for the season and have yet to finish...or come close to finishing!!  Tonight I did some while watching The Sound of Music, and today I put gifts away while listening to Christmas music...I can make it last atleast until my birthday in January:)

But anyways, back to the cooking!  Slow cooker Sunday was back!  I was afraid it wouldn't be, as the husband, as well as 5 other family members that I know of, came down with a nasty stomach/flu bug and has been down and out.  He's still not 100%, but his appetite was back enough for him to give me the go-ahead to make dinner...all by 10:30am, as I had to get it into the crockpot no later than 11:00 :)

What you'll need:

• 1 lb or more boneless chicken thighs - I used 1.85 lbs - I am keeping the other measurements for the l lb version, but obviously I upped my amounts to correspond to about 2 lbs instead
  
• 3 tbsp flour
• 1/3 cup orange marmalade
• 1/3 cup bbq sauce
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
  
• 1 tbsp ground ginger
• white rice
• veggies

Place chicken pieces into the slow cooker.  Cover with the flour and then mix the chicken and the flour together, so all of the chicken pieces have a good coating.

 

Add the marmalade (more if you want a more orange-y taste, or less if you don't want the taste to be that substantial - I've even added duck sauce before too which it made it even more orange-y delish), the bbq sauce, soy sauce, and the ginger, and again mix everything together.

Cover and cook on high 3-4 hours (or until chicken is cooked thru) OR what I recommend is cooking on low for 6-8 hours.  I cooked it on low today for 8 hours, and when I removed the lid the chicken was so moist (I find chicken cooks best in the crockpot) but had a nice outer texture where the sauce really stuck on.  Yum!  This is one of the best recipes ever to come out of the Kraft Magazine!

We enjoyed this tonight with some white rice, asparagus, and broccoli...oh and I like to add nuts to mine (tonight was cashew pieces).  I hope you'll try this recipe sometime - it's so easy and delicious!!

This week I hope to blog about chimichangas, a wonderful Wicked Cheap Wednesday, and some festive recipes for a cheese-lover NYE!!

PS - why is tomorrow already Monday??