Night 2 of cleaning out the freezer a success, and a cookie recipe:)

Helllllo readers!  Today is a special day, as it is Melissa's bday - make sure to stop by and wish her the best of days!

It was sunny again today, we got pre-approved and can start looking for houses, it's our 10 month (wow, huh?;)) wedding anniversary, and night 2 of cleaning out the freezer was an even bigger success!  Leftover frozen hamburg, spaghetti sauce we already had in the fridge, can of red kidney beans, and a chili seasoning packet (yes, I know, I can make it from my own seasonings at home quite easily, next time!) = easy!  Topped with avocado and a side of homemade cornbread and nachos with cheese, and we were good and happy, eating away our Mexican food, laughing at Seinfeld, and talking house business:)

Chili:  you need -

• 1 lb hamburg
• 1 15 oz can red kidney beans, drained
• 1 packet of chili seasoning
• 20 oz of spaghetti marinara
• 1 cup water
• 1 avocado

Brown hamburg over medium high heat until cooked thru.  Once cooked thru, put into small medium sized pot.  Add chili seasoning, the spaghetti marinara, the drained kidney beans, and 1 cup of water.  Stir together and bring to a boil.

Once boiling, reduce heat to medium low and let cook for 9-11 minutes, stirring occasionally, until all ingredients have mixed together and are cooked thru.  So easy, and a great way to use stuff you already, most likely, have!

Now onto the good stuff - cookies!  All I do is follow the  Tollhouse recipe and add a cup of coconut flakes - that simple!  You just have to make sure not to use too much coconut, as it cooks faster and sometimes makes it more difficult for the dough to stay together.

Off to hopefully read some blogs and watch a DVR'd Project Runway before sleep:)  I hope my old boss, who we're having a surprise birthday party for tomorrow at work, is so surprised and happy!  And I know my co-workers all love these cookies, so I hope they are happy with them:)  

Tomorrow night - a meal recipe/photos for, oops, not so Wicked Cheap Wednesday!  See you tomorrow!

Happy Sunday! Can't wait for the Oscars!

Hello blog friends!  Hope you're having a wonderful weekend!  This weekend has been fab for CheyCanCook - yesterday my mom and I went to the Tyson American Cup, the best international gymnastics meet that the USA hosts!  Mucho fun and a great meet! 

Then last night, the husband and I then went and celebrated Melissa's bday!  Happy almost birthday, BFF!  We will celebrate some more when we've all had more sleep:) 

So tonight it's back to cooking for me, AND the Oscars!  Granted, I've only seen one of the movies nominated, Inglorious Bastards, but I plan on seeing the others when they come out on DVD/On Demand:)  I love the dresses, interviews, and the people-watching!  I wish I had thought of it sooner, because I would love to try to create the same menu that Wolfgang Puck is making for the Governor's Ball after the Oscars, with my own spin of course - note to self, remind self of this next year!  Create Wolfgang's menu, watch all nominated Oscar movies, and friends commit to do the same, and host an Oscar party - sounds like a plan to me!  Next year!

Tonight, instead of chicken pot pies, smoked salmon, and baked Alaska, we'll be having this beef stew that I've made numerous times before.  I guess beef stew wouldn't be the perfect Oscar meal because of the chance it could drip down your gazillion dollar dress:)  But we'll eat our beef stew and italian bread and enjoy the Oscars all the same:) 

Do you love the Oscars?   What is your favorite part?  Who do you want to win/which movies have you seen??   Does anyone host a party?

Talk to you all later - it's time to clean!

Oh so tired!...but I have to get you this Crab Rangoon Recipe!

I am all shopped-wrapped-worked out today, and it hit me all of a sudden about 11pm!  I am awaiting one last gift that is coming tomorrow, and I am done - woohoo!  I love shopping, and I always make sure to get gifts people will really like, not just to get them a gift, but it tired me out this year, even though most of it was done online and one day at the local mall.  I feel very accomplished to be all wrapped up and ready to play Santa...Santette?  Mrs. Claus?  Whatever;)

Anyways, the next party food I made was Cheaters Crab Rangoon website.  I originally found it on the Kraft website, but it is since gone.  After panicking a bit, I found the exact one at grouprecipes.com.  One of our friends, Ed, told me he ate 9 of them (I think there were 18 total) so I think people enjoyed them:)  I don't care for crab rangoons, so I didn't have any, but from the feedback I received I'll definitely be making them again:)

You will need:

• 1 can (6 oz) white crabmeat, drained, flaked 
• 4 oz of cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup sliced green onions
• 1/4 cup mayo
• 1/4 tsp garlic powder
• 12 wonton wrappers ***I actually was able to get 22 out of this mixture!  Maybe I could have filled the wrappers more, but I didn't want to overflow them and make them not a one-bite app. 

What to do:

• Mix crabmeat, cream cheese, onions, garlic powder, and mayo in a large bowl.  Preheat oven to 350.
  

this was after I had used some

• Spray 12 (in my case, 22) medium muffin cups with cooking spray and gently place one wonton wrapper in each cup, allowing edges to naturally extend above the sides.
• Fill evenly with crab mixture

• Bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes, or until edges are golden brown, filling if heated through, and bottoms are slightly crispy, not "wet" from the cooking spray.  Serve warm and garnish with additional green onions if you'd like.

I have one simple recipe left to share - and since tomorrow night is going to be crazy busy for me - get out of work at 5, make dinner, help cleanup dinner, make stromboli, make meatball bubble bites, make cookies for a friend at work, get presents together, fix nails...etc etc...I'll post it now:

Cracker bites:

You will need:

• One box of Melba cracker, or cracker of choice
• 2 large tomatoes, cut into small pieces
• fresh basil leaves, shredded into small pieces
• any kind of cream cheese you would like - I used garden herb

So easy - spread cream cheese on each individual cracker, and top with basil and tomato = quick success!  A nice bite sized treat with a good mix of flavors and textures:)

Now, obviously my goal is to get back here at some point between now and Christmas Day, but if not, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all!  I can't wait to hear about your days with family and friends, and I hope you enjoy some good food that we can talk about...and maybe even some not so good food that we can try to make better for next time:)!

~Chey

And the party cont'd with...Meatball Bubble Biscuits!

I was very very nervous to make these - the steps on the Pillsbury site seemed alittle confusing to me, but once I was able to wrap myself around it, I was very pleased with the end result!  I will be making these to bring to the husband's parents' house for Christmas Day:)

You will need:

• 1 can (12 oz if you can find it which would be 10 biscuits - I could only find cans of 8) Pillsbury Grands Jr Golden layers refrigerated buttermilk or flaky biscuits
• 10 frozen, but cooked already, italian style meatballs, thawed, and cut in half - I live by one certain brand, but I can't think of the name now - I'll have to look in the freezer:)
• 2 sticks of string cheese, each cut into 10 small pieces
• 1 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 tsp italian seasoning - I used oregano because that's what I had on hand
• 1/4 tsp garlic powder
• 1 cup marinara sauce, heated, for dipping - even though the husband wants me to try it the next time with the sauce inside...we'll see:)

• Heat oven to 375.  Separate dough into the correct # of biscuits that it says on the can - in my case, it was 8.  Then separate each biscuit into 2 layers (alot easier than I thought it would be).  Press each down so it's about 3 inches across.
• Place one meatball half, cut side up, and 1 string cheese piece in the center of each dough round - I guess this is where you would put a small amount of sauce inside them if you chose to go that route.  Wrap dough around the meatball and cheese, making a ball, and pressing the edges to seal.  Place on an ungreased cookie sheet or cake pan, and make sure they are seam-side down

• Sprinkle evenly with the Parmesan cheese, italian seasoning/oregano/whatever seasoning you'd like and garlic powder

• Bake until golden brown.  The Pillsbury recipe says 20-25 minutes at 375, but at 10 minutes, the bottoms of mine were already getting very browned.  I reduced the heat to 350 for the next batch and they took about 13 minutes = make sure you watch them!!  All ovens are different, and obviously mine was feeling a bit crazy that day!

See those big ones, the bottom 3 - I tried to use other frozen biscuits I had - I tried microwaving them to thaw them, and then separating them, but they were way too gooey and way too much dough/not bite sized like I wanted.  Definitely stick with the Jr Grands.

I hope they turn out this great for Christmas Day - fingers crossed!

I hope everyone is also enjoying this time leading up to Christmas:)  Tonight I wrapped, finished some cards, and watched It's A Wonderful Life and it felt so good:)

Back tomorrow with another party hit - someone told me they ate 9 of them!  See you then:)

Yay for the Annual Christmas Party!

I'm back!  Melissa and I once again threw a fabulous get together for a great group of our closest friends.  Great food, great drink, great weather...well a blizzard started at some point during the overnight, but it just added to the holiday feel:)  I already can't wait for next years!  I believe this was our 5th one, maybe 4th, and I hope we continue to co-host together at one of our houses for many many years to come!

Before the party, though, came the menu preparation and the cooking of course!  Melissa and I wanted to make sure there was plenty of variety, mostly finger foods as it wasn't a sit down meal, plenty of different flavors and textures; really just plain ole good, yummy food for everyone to enjoy!  I'm hoping that Melissa will post what she made and I can connect you over there to see it, but I made:

• fudge - same recipe I've posted before, always a hit!
• buffalo chicken dip, with celery, carrots, pretzels, and pumpernickel bread for dipping
• meatball bubble biscuits
• crab rangoon bites
• crackers with herb cream cheese, basil, and tomato

I wish I had some leftovers right now!  Our guests were also kind enough to bring some yummy treats food-wise and drink-wise, so a big thank you to them as well!

I'm going to have separate posts for each recipe so it's not long and you can jump to the ones that interest you most - please let me know if you think of anything, especially an appetizer, that I can bring to my in-laws on Christmas Day:)

Here's a couple photos of the party to enjoy :)

party food, picture stolen from Melissa:)

Myself and the husband :)

My version of the Elaine dance from Seinfeld:) 

It's okay to make New Year's Resolutions in November, right?

So, from the one entry I did in September, you can tell I was sick. Thankfully, a new pill I've been put on and a lot of rest, bloodwork, specialist visits, etc has helped with the dizziness/tiredness/nausea I was (am still rarely) having (not pregnant everyone!). But all that time on the island I called our living room couch gave me a lot of time to think, which is both good and bad. I mostly thought about how wonderful my husband has turned out to be - taking care of me, putting me on "bed rest" and pretty much doing everything I usually do besides working full time - cooking, errands, cleaning, the usual running the household type stuff - I like that we are old-fashioned like that:) I couldn't have asked for a better best friend and he knows it:)

I also have thought a lot about healthy living. Nothing I did or didn't do made me this sick, just a case of bad luck and being around germs, just like everyone else is all day long. But it really has opened my eyes to eating healthy - I never ate "unhealthy" per say, but instead of having a lunch of chips one day just because I feel like it, that will no longer happen; things as little as going out in the morning to work with wet hair, that will no longer happen. So I guess I'm going to turn into this maniac about doing everything I can to make sure I don't get this sick ever again.

So healthy eating, exercise (think cardio pilates, training for 5k's, and Zumba in the winter I hope), and positive thinking. A vacation wouldn't hurt either....;) Also, more time for me. Before I got sick, I was spending a good 9-10 hours a day at work, by my own choice, to help out others. I'm not saying I'm not going to help others. But when my life consisted of getting up early to get to work early, working all day (and thru lunch most of the time, oops), and after everyone else left, driving home in traffic, making dinner, helping to clean up dinner, etc, it was 8pm and I was E-X-H-A-U-S-T-E-D - there no time for me. Yes, I know 8pm means there is still time for me, but really how much after you've worked that many hours in sometimes stressful situations? I need to really make sure I leave time for me - scrapbooking this week has been great; I love going to the movies or dinners with my girlfriends which I haven't had time to do in awhile, a walk with my ipod after work, things like this.

My "creative" hours are going to be between 8-10, somehow, whether it be simpler dinner some nights, working not as much overtime at my very busy job, etc, to make this happen. Of course I'll be watching DWTS, SYTYCD, Project Runway (did anyone else see tonight's?!?) during this time, but it's still my creative time. TV off by 10 (my DVR will be busy after 10pm a couple of nights!), online time, then reading, then sleep - it sounds regimented and boring, but I think it's what I need. If it's regimented it gives me the next thing to look forward to:)

So, oops, this wasn't a cooking post, but more of a "me" post that just everyone can see who stumbles across my blog:) If you read this and know me and see me out with wet hair, yell at me!

Happy New Year;)

OH WAIT - I can relate this to cooking. On the island couch, I had plenty of time to peruse my cookbooks, magazines (not just US Weekly), and many helpful online websites and blogs for recipes, so there will be some good ones coming, just maybe not every night;)