Roadblocks

Yea so I have not been wanting to cook. I am not sure why we go through these lulls with things. I am sure Tito can't wait for me to be over it though. We bought a grill and I was so excited, but I have only used it twice. The weather has turned cooler, yay that it is plus. Fall is my favorite time of the year, yet I am not feeling very full of joy these days. Funny how that happens. Anyway enough of my depression. I am reading a great book right now, Waking the Dead by John Eldredge. Very good read, of course I haven't read one of his books yet that was difficult.

On to cooking. So I cooked steak and some grilled veggies and sweet potato fries over the weekend. Oh they were so yummy. I love grilled veggies. I also made homemade banana walnut bread for our growth group on Sunday. It was very good, Tito was bummed I didn't make a cake he could it.

I have been getting out with my friends more the last couple of weeks. My friend Kristal and I had lunch at Southern Grounds, its off of Cowan Rd in Gulfport, and I was very pleased with my Tomato, Bacon and Cheddar Panini. I also had a brown sugar and cinnamon scone that was wonderful. The atmosphere at this little coffee house that serves lunch is very friendly and inviting. I was surprised to see all the people showing up there for lunch. The only down side to it is they are only open till 2.

I have been taking Brooklyn the little one I babysit to a Mommy Mixer group from our church on Tuesdays. I know she is a bit young but I enjoy us being able to get out of the apartment once a week. I can't wait for her to get a little bit older so she can start engaging in some of the things we are doing.

I had dinner at Los Tres in Gulfport for our Ladies Night Out (LNO) time. (Something the church does). It was pretty good. I had the Monetary Chicken with rice. It was very good. I ate way more of it then I should have, however it still bothered my stomach so I am guessing they use corn oil to cook the veggies and chicken in. So I can't say that I will frequent there.

I have been crocheting up a storm. Tito asked me last night if I really enjoyed doing it or if it was just a filler for my time. I said, I like it. I enjoy seeing how cute things come out when I am finished. Who would have ever thought that knotting yarn (that's basically what it appears like you are doing) could make such adorable things. I am happy to say I am getting better at it. I will post some pics of my finished projects at the end of this post.

Anyhow so that's my happenings for the last week or so. I am hoping to get back to my bread making and baking very soon. Oh yea, I have also been doing Brazil Butt Lift workout!! OMG...my fanny has been killing me. Can't wait to see if I lose inches at the end of the 4 weeks.

Loves Angela

Been awhile..

I don't really know what has happened that has stopped me from blogging and cooking for matter. Maybe life, maybe bordedom, maybe life and boredom..haha. But I am back and ready to bring it. We bought a new grill (yay!!) I decided that is why we like to eat out cause we both love grilled food. I especially love grilled veggies. We made a trip to GA and TN and really enjoyed ourselves. I met Gelato and fell in love, (don't worry its a frozen dessert not another man..lol) if you have never had Gelato you should find a place that sells it (and makes it fresh themselves) it will ruin you!! You will never want plain ole ice cream again. It was soooo soooo very yummy. We have also had to give up driving to the Whole Foods Market in New Orleans until our home in GA gets some reliable renters in it. While I can't buy all hormone antibiotic free meats at the commissary they do have some and I know that their standards for meat are higher then other grocery stores. I found Gelato at the commissary and was so excited I bought two flavors and tried it as soon as I got...it was ok. Not the same as the fresh stuff. But it will have to do for now until I can find a place around here that sells it. I am still working on Christmas gifts but its taking longer then I thought it would.

I love the fall, ever aspect of it really except 1. I don't really like fall and winter fruits that much...I know I am going to have to expand my pallette and try some but I am really afraid. I can only eat apples if I peel them but I can manage that, but pears are so gritty....I really don't like it and then their is the dreaded fig...ugh, really not looking forward to that one. Well enough of my chatty cathy-ness. I gotta run till tomorrow...Loves Angela

Oh PS tomorrows dinner will be Chicken Caprese with bacon (our favorite but I am beginning to get bored with it. Spell check isn't working....so sorry about all the errors:O(

Burger Come Back

I haven't been posting because I have been sick. As much as I have tried to stay away from the sick people out there I still  managed to get their sickness. So while I was sick my hubby had to pretty much vend for himself for a couple of days. For lunch today he brought home Sonic (ick) but I appreciated the fact that he was trying to take care of me and feed me. lol

I was feeling well enough to cook today so I decided to make some orange muffins. I think they taste ok but Tito says they taste like flowers...lol. I shouldn't have used olive oil for the oil in the recipe cause they smell kind of like olive oil they taste fine though. I also decided to take the easy way out for bread this week and used the master boule recipe my sister gave me to make some ciabatta bread. I made two small ciabatta bread rolls to use as buns for the homemade hamburgers I was making for dinner.

I made homemade hamburgers and french fries (yummy) there is nothing like homemade fries. I also sauteed some onions and cooked up some of the deer sausage a friend gave us that Tito has been dying to try.  It  turned out pretty good. I use Montreal steak seasoning by McCormick in my hamburger patties. I added some pepper jack cheese and lettuce and tomato.Tito said "yum so much better then that burger from sonic" He even liked the homemade bun it was on. It made me feel good to come back from being sick and make him a meal that made him happy:O) (minus the orange muffins)

I love feeding people. Hope everyone had a great week!! Happy to be back on my feet

Loves Angela

Crazy busy

Wow! My life was so busy since last Wednesday, no wonder I was so exhausted by Sunday not to mention feeling under the weather.
 Let me update you on the last several days:

before I put it in the oven

Wednesday my girlfriends came over for dinner with their little boys and we had a great time visiting and catching up with one another!! Brooklyn even was in a pleasant mood for the first part of the morning so I was able to get my pizza's almost made up by time my girlfriends got here. I made a whole wheat plain cheese pizza for the boys. I was very pleased with myself because it was all homemade (except the cheese :o) I thought the pizza turned out beautifully...

The only bad thing was it bubbled in the middle the last few minutes of baking. I am not sure why but it still tasted fine. I forgot to take a picture of the Margarita pizza I made for us ladies but I did get a picture of a slice. It tasted just as good as the cheese only pizza. We also had mango strawberry smoothies...they were de-lish!!

I also have been keeping really busy trying to expand on my reduce skills by "reducing" the amount of money I spend on Christmas. So I have been slaving away with my crochet needles making gifts..hopefully I get everything done by Christmas!!

Just started my first baby blanket ever as well...its a little frustrating for me because I am dealing with curling and rippling but its because I don't keep the same tension...I guess..oh well maybe over time I will get better at it and I am hoping that once I am done I can block it to fix my mistakes.

Mom and dad visited for the weekend and we had an awesome time!!  Friday night we didn't feel like waiting till 9 to eat so we decided to order pizza from a local restaurant called  Winter Garden bistro. They sell Toarmina's pizza (which I have never heard of) but it tastes very good and isn't very greasy. Well we decided to save money and order the 24 inch Jumbo...lol. We  had no idea how big this pizza would be. It barely fit in the front of my dads truck! We didn't even dent it and Tito and I had pizza leftovers for three days.


We went to the Long Beach Farmers Market this weekend and I was so excited when I saw that they had local farm raised eggs!! I can't wait to dig into them. But we have to finish off the other eggs first!

Also we went shopping over the weekend for my daughters birthday gifts and she said she only wanted stuff from this store called Justice. Well I almost chocked when I saw the prices of this clothing store for little girls. I had to pretty much shop clearance only. (Thats probably the way I should always shop anyway). Well as we were checking out we found out that it used to be Limited Too. So it made a lot of sense that it was so expensive. However the cashier was really nice and gave us the coupon discount (even though we didn't have the coupon) and we got 40 percent off of our total purchase...so naturally they gained a new customer by being so kind:O) I just know that if this is all she wants for Christmas I am going to have to start buying a little at a time.

I made Carne Asada and home made tortilla's for my parents on Saturday night and they really enjoyed it. I love when my dad is pleased with my food!!

So that pretty much sums up my last several days.

So on the menu this week is:

Eggplant and Zucchini Picodillo

Stuffed Poblano peppers (I didn't get to these last week)

Hamburger Steak

Some type of Chicken and chile soup!!

Hope I can stick a little closer to my menu this week. Hope you have a great day:O)

Loves Angela

Fishy fish...yuck

Yea tonight was fish night. I decided to fry the fish and make french fries...bottom line way too much grease for this lady...but Tito enjoyed it especially since I made him rice to go along with it. The fish was really fishy tonight and if you know me you know I don't like fishy fish...I know that it doesn't make sense but it is what it is. So needless to say I didn't really enjoy dinner much at all tonight and I know I have to figure out a better way to cook the fish.

On the up side. I am having friends over for lunch tomorrow and can't wait to try out my margarita pizza recipe on them. I am also going to make some mango fruit smoothies and blondies are in the oven as we speak...I have to get a head start,sometimes I am a little too ambitious and forget that I have a two month old I am keeping that demands a lot of my attention.

Well gotta run, I am just beat today and I still need to finish up a few chores before tomorrow.

OH yea I almost forgot. I figured out how to cook brown rice in the rice cooker finally. I have to add 2 1/4 cups of water to 1 cup of rice and I added a little salt to it. The rice came out great (not anywhere as good as white rice but way healthier right...that's what I keep telling myself anyway)

Anyway have a great night!!

Loves Angela

Roasted chicken night = SUCCESS!!

Ok so I get tired of chicken its not really my favorite meat at all so tonight I was anything but excited about cooking roasted chicken breast. I knew I wanted some sweet potatoes, and that I had to cook one of the two eggplants I had bought over the weekend at the farmers market. I also bought some small grape or cherry type tomatoes from the farmers market that I wanted to incorporate before they went bad. (not sure what kind they were cause they were like yellow and purple reddish colored but very sweet)

Well all day today while I was holding Brooklyn (the baby that I keep) I was watching Food Network. It must have been Italian day cause it seemed like that's what a lot of the hosts were making. Anyway...Giada came on about 3 and wouldn't you know she was cooking eggplant. So I paid attention to how she cut it and cooked it. She made a Basil pesto eggplant mixture to go over some pasta...I can't wait to try the recipe. I couldn't do what she did but at least I knew what to - kind of do with an eggplant, and I gotta tell you this has been one of the foods that I have not been keen on cooking because I didn't think I liked them.

So while I was making  Honey Wheat Bread I had some time to think about what I was going to make for dinner. I decided I was craving bruschetta so I decided that I would give tonight's dinner an Italian spin...(uh oh I see a theme occurring here cause we had spaghetti last night). So I put together my normal rub for my roasted chicken (salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, oregano, and basil)and peeled and cubed the sweet potatoes (not sure they fit into the Italian theme..LOL) and got all that in the oven. I chopped up some of the tomatoes I got over the weekend and added some salt, pepper, 2 cloves of garlic, basil and olive oil and toasted some Ciabatta bread we had. Then I put my chopped up eggplant in a pan with olive oil  and added some chopped zucchini. ( Next time I know it takes zucchini longer to cook then the eggplant, it was a bit mushy but OMG)..the flavor was so good. I never knew I liked eggplant. I could have very well done without the chicken tonight for dinner. Before I pulled the chicken from the oven I added a little smoked Gouda cheese to it..oh that was so yummy. Tito said the bruschetta was awesome....yea success.He liked the flavor of the eggplant zucchini mixture but agreed with me that it was too mushy. Dinner was wonderful...there I go again tooting my own horn...but it really was.

On a side note...today for lunch I use some of the ciabatta bread and added some of my marinara (the meatless one) that I made last night for dinner on it then put a little Gouda cheese on it and threw it in the toaster oven for a few minutes...oh goodness that was delightful too!!

I never in a million years would have figured that I would love to cook and that I would love to try new food...who knows maybe next week I will try leeks...ok maybe not next week but I do plan on trying them in the future!!

Loves Angela

Started Italian ended American

On Sunday's I usually make a big lunch and then we just have leftovers for dinner. Well staying true to my menu that I planned I decided that today I would make spaghetti because it was something I could start before church and finish up quickly after church.

All homemade, ok not really the ciabatta bread wasn't

First let me say that trying to find tomato sauce that has less then 5 ingredients proved to be a daunting task yesterday! I finally had to settle on tomato puree, and I bought some organic fire roasted tomatoes (also 5 ingredients or less). So I was nervous about using tomato puree but excited to try and make my own sauce. I started by sauteing 1 diced onion in about 3 tablespoons of olive oil, then I added 4 minced garlic cloves and sauteed till they were brown. Then I chopped 3 roma tomatoes and added them and cooked it all down. To that mixture I added 2 cans of tomato puree and 1 can of diced fire roasted tomatoes and half a can of water. I probably didn't need the water but I was nervous that it wouldn't make much sauce. Let me tell you the smell was awesome. I also added about 1 teaspoon of oregano and about 1/2 tsp of basil a little salt and pepper also. I don't measure when I cook so sometimes its hard to tell how much I used. I let it come to a boil and then I turned it to low and went and got ready for church. Before we left for church I turned the stove off but left the pot on the burner.

So on the way home I asked Tito if he was ok with me not adding meat to the sauce. There was a very long quiet pause before he answered...lol. He said, "I am all for us eating right and more healthy but if you try and turn me into a vegetarian I am going to be mad!!" I started laughing.
I explained that I wasn't trying to do that and that I  have read that if you can eat a couple meals a week without animal protein  its better for you. So anyway when I got home I cooked up some ground beef and separated me some of the sauce and added meat to his sauce. (he was happy) The sauce turned out wonderful. But it was chunky and my kids are not going to eat a chunky sauce so I have to figure out how to make a smoother sauce. Tito did complain about the noodles too. In my haste at the grocery store I just grabbed a box of whole wheat spaghetti and didn't even think to make sure it was angel hair. (he has become acccustomed to eating the whole wheat angel hair because they taste less grainy)

While I was finishing up lunch I decided I was going to make the apple pie I have been craving all week. So I threw together an apple crumb pie. It wasn't ready until about an hour after we ate but it was really good.