new recipes

we have been trying out some new recipes and so far they have all been keepers! the hubs started off with some cilantro lime chicken fajitas. delicious!

 

next up was a belated fathers day meal (since i worked on fathers day). started out with frozen yogurt covered blueberries. i tried two different yogurts...regular strawberry and then vanilla greek style yogurt. the hubs liked the greek version better. and it seemed to freeze better as well. 

and then the main course. store bought sweet potato fries and broccoli with cheese sauce. and my first attempt at shrimp. i dont like shrimp but the hubs said it was really good. all thats needed was lemons, dry italian seasoning and some butter. easy peasy. 

our weekend, part 1

this past weekend the hubs & i took a little trip back to my hometown to hang out with my parents and siblings. we were able to spend a lot of time together.

the hubs and my sister even tackled a project together. she got a dresser from craigslist and is in the process of painting it. not sure how the hubs got wrangled into painting...since hes hardly done any painting here but oh well. gotta love their painting clothes too! i think by the time we left on sunday there were 4 coats of red paint with a few more needed.

note to self: painting red is a lot of work.

we also managed to squeeze a new cooking attempt into the mix. you see my mom has a recipe box. filled (like most people im sure) with a bunch of recipes that never get used. for the past i dunno how long whenever im looking for a recipe i always come across one entitled "duanes soft taco shells" after asking him the last time he made them (before i was born!) i figured why not try it out? and who better to try it out than the hubs!? :) 

these soft taco shells werent actually half bad. it was definitely a different taste, almost a cross between a soft shell and a crepe, but at least we tried right? right. who knows, maybe we will have to try a different recipe from the box every time we go visit???

pinterest meal

so march's resolution was to make a meal from pinterest pins ive been collecting. appetizer, main course & dessert. well that sorta happened. :)

so of course i procrastinate on this as much as possible. why wouldnt i? and then to top it off i had a cold the day i decided to do this. great.

originally i was going to make beer can chicken cuz i thought we had a small whole chicken in the freezer. well turns out we had half a chicken and didnt have any beer cans, even though that wouldnt have worked anyways. so i scoured the internet and made a mish-mosh dry rub (i dont even really remember what spices i put in) heres before cooking:

and then i was going to make this delicious looking pull apart cheesy herb bread for an appetizer. http://www.roxanashomebaking.com/pull-apart-cheesy-herb-bread/

yah well that didnt turn out. and i dont really know why. but heres the meal (minus the delicious & super easy green bean casserole we also had)

so that was supper. minus the dessert. cuz really i had nothing left in me to make a dessert. however, the night before i DID make a cinnamon roll cake for the hubs to bring to work. so that counts right? right. and i had even pinned it previously. so that helps out.

so theres march's resolution. with a twist or two. but hey, thats life. right? (at least thats what i keep telling myself)

but in other news, aprils resolution will NOT be at the last minute. so thats exciting. heres to hoping im feeling better by this weekend...

"new" cook book

so its a bit late, but february's resolution is complete. i blame it on the fact february had only 29 days. or the fact that i completely spaced and remembered on february 26th. whoops. guess thats what happens when you are having so much working, eating, sleeping, watching tv and surfin the internet for project ideas.

nothing too exciting here folks. a new cover, new binder and new tabs. woot woot. but the best part is that all the recipes now follow the same format. the same font. the same size. ie everything looks the same. we also added recipes that we had in a recipe box that we would always forget about so hopefully we will even be trying some new things in the next few weeks. and thats that. februarys resolution completed in march.

now to get searching for new recipes for marchs resolution...

homemade pasta

never again. ha.

so decembers resolution is to make homemade pasta. fettuccine alfredo to be exact. why does the recipe always make it look so incredibly easy? why?! ugh. so...homemade pasta. flour and eggs. easy enough.

yah, no. i dont know if i didnt knead the dough long enough or did it too much but turns out when cooked, these noodles were chewy. um no thank you. the hubs said he didnt mind it. i think he was lying. just sayin my opinion.

but again. never again. dah. and i was looking forward to this so much. oh well. guess ill just have to stick to baking. christmas baking :)

homemade bread

sounds kinda easy. well...lesson learned. my first attempt at bread was a major fail.

lesson one: read the instructions. turns out this recipe needed to rise for 12-18 hours. so i quickly searched for a different recipe to attempt. man, the pictures looked awesome. light, flaky & delicious. mine, not so much. mine ended up being a hard ball basically.

lesson two: dont take your frustration & stress out when making bread.

lesson three: when taking the bread out of the oven, its gonna be hot. dont burn yourself. 

lesson four: make sure da hubs isnt playing xbox so when you do burn yourself he can come to your rescue.

i didnt really want to completely fail on my first resolution of the year...so i attempted the original recipe. i remembered my previous lessons learned, and was pleasantly surprised when IT ACTUALLY TURNED OUT! we tried some variations too...added herbs, cheese and of course garlic (da hubs' favorite "super food")

this recipe was super easy (the hardest parts were remembering to make it ahead of time and to wait patiently for it to finish cooking because it smelled sooo good)  da hubs asked if i could make this every day. maybe ill have to teach him...

so i guess that makes me one for one. not a bad average. ill leave you with is, i think february is gonna be a good month. for a few different reasons. hopefully ill blog about them BEFORE the end of the month!