Another fun Saturday post

Saturday's are for husband time, house hunting, shopping, cleaning, nights out, and me time, so I generally don't have a recipe to share with you.  Here's a fun thing, since I'm so into movies lately, that I hope you'll fill out:)  Enjoy YOUR Saturday!!

Your fave...

Sandra Bullock movie?  Mine, Forces of Nature (haven't seen Blind Side yet)
Kate Winslet movie?  All of them!  Revolutionary Road for the acting side of it
Leo DiCaprio movie?  The Departed
Matt Damon movie?  All of the Bourne Movies
George Clooney movie?  Up in the Air
Sex and the City character?  Carrie
Jane Austen novel?  Sense and Sensibility
"Girly" author?  Jennifer Weiner or Elin Hilderbrand
Scarlett or Melanie?  Scarlett!
5 movies of all time?  Sound of Music, Original Parent Trap, Departed, Titanic, and Up in the Air; #6, American Pie;)

Please feel free to add questions that the next responder after you can answer:)

What kind of seafood dish did we have tonight??

Happy Friday - you made it!  I woke up this morning initially to rain, then an hour later my windshield was covered with snow.  By this afternoon, it was sunny - oh crazy New England springs!

Tonight I tried a new recipe that my mom had emailed me awhile back - I have soooo many recipes in my email "recipe" folder, I need to start deciding if I'm going to keep them or not before it gets completely out of control!  I think this is a keeper - Shrimp Bake!

What you'll need:

• 1 cup butter, melted
• 3/4 cup lemon juice
• 3/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbsp salt
• 1 tbsp pepper
• as much CRP as you'd like
• 1 tbsp hot sauce
• 1 1/4 lbs large shrimp, uncooked, peeled and deveined
• rosemary twigs
• 1 white onion, cut into chunks or slices, whichever you prefer

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Mix together first 7 ingredients in a medium sized bowl.  Look how good this looks already!

Layer shrimp on the bottom of an 8x8 or 9x9 pan.  Cover first with the onion pieces, then the sauce, then some rosemary twigs.  Bake for 25 minutes, or until shrimp are fully cooked thru.

I took this out, and was like yes, this smells great (mixed with the lemon lavender Yankee candle I was burning in the living room), it looks yummy, we're going to really enjoy this with our crescent rolls - a nice, light meal for my ever-improving gastric system:)  The husband, when he arrived home, said "something smells weird" (he meant the candle) and "shouldn't this go over pasta or something?"  I responded, of course not, the recipe didn't call for pasta or anything like that, you just eat it on your plate - that's it!  Well, come to find out, after me eating it off my plate, the husband eating some, deciding it wasn't enough food, and eating a frozen bean burrito instead, that yes Cheryl, you are supposed to serve it over pasta or rice.  Oops ;)  

the burrito

Come to think of it, it would be a really good alternative to the standard shrimp scampi sauce/way of cooking it - next time;)

Enjoy your Saturday and Sunday!  Any fun plans?  We (the motha and bff) are going to the outlets - woot woot!  I just hope that, as my stomach has gotten better as the day has gone on tremendously, that it will keep up!  

What did everyone eat for dinner tonight?  Did you forget a MAJOR part of your meal like I did?;)  Bye for now!

Who doesn't love homemade blueberry muffins??

We sure love them here!  I ran out of breakfast bars, and needed something I could have for the rest of the week, and of course for the husband too, to break up his oatmeal routine a bit;)  Luckily I had all the ingrediens and off I went!  Where did I get blueberries that aren't $5.00/pint at the grocery store?  Frozen, from my parents blueberry bushes - thanks parents!  I love to eat blueberries, just not pick them:)

I followed the Frozen Blueberry Muffin Recipe from allrecipes.com to a T, just added more blueberries than just 1 cup - come on now, it's the best part!  You will need:

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine, melted
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup - no way, I used 2! - blueberries

**I did not do the topping, but if you choose to do it, it's only 1 tbsp sugar and 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg mixed together and put on top of the muffin mix before baking**

Preheat oven to 375.  Mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt and set aside.  In another mixing bowl, stir together the melted butter and sugar.  Add the eggs, milk, and vanilla to the butter and sugar and mix well.  Add the flour mixture to this, and stir until just moistened.  Fold in frozen blueberries. 

Fill greased or lined muffin cups 2/3 full - I like to overstuff mine:)

Gotta love these bendy muffin/cupcake liners I received as a wedding shower gift - thanks Mrs. Bacon - they are amazing!

Bake for 20-25 minutes (mine were 25) until a toothpick comes up clean.

I ate one almost immediately - it was the one thing that sounded edible to my stomach - it was soooo good!   I tried to take a pic but I ate it too fast - I'll try to take one next time I eat another;)

What are you favorite types of muffins, or breakfast foods, to make or eat?  I like to make omelets and muffins; like to eat omelets, muffins, and cinnamon buns!

Have a great day!

Wicked Cheap Wednesday...kinda - Salmon cakes with broc mac & cheese!

Happy Wednesday, all!  How are you all doing?  I'm alright - I feel like I'm getting better, as I felt I could eat a little bit more today, but it's still all funny in there!  GRR!  I have to go back to work tomorrow so I'm hoping it won't be too bad - no fun to be running to the bathroom all day!  And I'm sure not that appreciated:)

Tonight I made a new recipe from my latest Kraft Magazine.  I have to say this issue looks full of promise and I can't wait to try a bunch of these recipes!  To me, tonight's was a little time consuming and at times frustrating, but worth it in the end:)  Paired with simple and mac and cheese and steamed broccoli, I felt it was a balanced meal, somehow;)

Salmon cakes - you will need:

• 1 can, or 14.7 oz salmon, drained, and with no skins or bones ***I used 3 cans, 6 oz each, of the salmon***
• 1 6oz pkg of stuffing mix for chicken
• 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
• 3/4 cup water
• 2 green onions or half a red onion, chopped
• 1/3 cup mayonnaise
• 1 tbsp lemon juice

Mix all ingredients:

Yes, it has mayonnaise, and I had to touch it!

Form into patties - I was able to get 11 patties out of this much mixture, but more egg shaped than circular - place on a plate, and refrigerate for 10 minutes.

Heat a large, nonstick skillet over medium high heat.  Spray with Pam.  Once the 10 minutes are up, cook the patties until browned on both sides.  It took me about 20 minutes, and 2 batches, to make all 11.  

So, they don't look as they did in the magazine, of course, and they fell apart a bit, but they were easy to patty-back together once cooked.  From the little I ate, they tasted great, like from a restaurant!  I would make them a little more golden all around next time (it's tough, b/c the stuffing is what seems to brown, and how do you spread that out evenly??), and try to think of a dipping sauce to go with them - what kind of sauce are you thinking to go with them??  Husband loved them, so I'm happy:)

The cost wasn't the best WCW I've ever done, but it was $7.50 for the 3 cans of salmon, $1.50 for the stuffing, and I had the rest, so not bad, because I had the other ingredients already.  It's not something I'd make every Wednesday, though:)

How was your Wednesday?  Anything exciting happen?  Hope you'll give these salmon cakes a try and/or suggest a dipping sauce!  Fingers crossed I feel better and better each day! 

Gastroenteritis is not fun!

Hey all!  No meal tonight, as I finally told, well asked the doctor, nicely to see me today as I still wasn't feeling right - turns out, it's gastroenteritis, not just a stomach bug!  Fun times!  He's hopeful, as am I, that since I've had this for over a week now, that I'll be a-okay by the end of this week!

I'll be back tomorrow night with a recipe I hope - until then, stay well!

How good do these look for late night?

Thanks to the husband for modeling his cheeseburger with carmelized onions, and of course ketchup and mustard.  The onions gave the burger such a great taste.  I think this will be a new "thing" for us - trying different things on burgers - next up...??  Any suggestions?  

Thank you to Baking Bites for this fun recipe!  Easy to make, pretty easy cleanup, but very sweet - have a cold glass of milk ready for this one!  I left out corn syrup (only b/c I didn't have any, oops) and used honey roasted peanuts instead of just plain salted peanuts, but other than that I followed her recipe accordingly.  A nice followup to the burger, though:)

My stomach is making funny gurgling noises (last of the bug I'm hoping!) so I'm out for now...I'll be back Tuesday or Wednesday around dinner time with a new, and it kinda looks challenging, recipe - wish me luck!

Slow cooker Sunday! Kielbasa!

Happy Sunday, everyone!  My stomach is finally feeling pretty much back to normal, now I'm just in the tired zone - hopefully with resting today (besides a Wii workout and some cleaning!) and a good night's sleep tonight, I'll be back to fully "normal" tomorrow:)

So what's cooking over here you're wondering?  Slow cooker kielbasa!  Kielbasa was on sale this past week buy one, get one free, love those!  So last night, while we watched Pride and Prejudice, I defrosted a pound of kielbasa.  I think we both could've eaten it, once defrosted, and since it's bought pre-cooked, just like that but we held ourselves back:)

I read soooo many different recipes online about how to make it - with beer, with soda, with different jellies, different sauces, etc etc etc.  So I first decided to make it with these ingredients:

Yup, a jar of grape jelly, a cup of brown sugar, and a jar/12 oz of chili sauce.  Once I put these ingredients into the slow cooker, I wasn't fully satisfied, it needed something more, but what!  So I added these:

A tablespoon or so of horseradish mustard and about 1/4 cup bbq sauce.  After mixing up all of this, I added the cut up kielbasa, crossed my fingers, and said see ya in 5 hours (on low) and I hope mixing these tastes/textures together works out!

Well, it worked!  About 4 hours in I added a 1/2 cup more brown sugar to try to give it a gristly texture, and in the end it was amazing - flavorful, nice to look at it, and different!

I hope everyone has a great rest of their weekend!  I'm off to read for a bit before, hopefully, a great night's sleep to start the week off on the right foot!  

Also, hopefully  you'll share your own kielbasa recipes with me - I'd love to hear about them!