Chinese Night and Mexican Night

Last night we had some friends over and I really had been wanting to make sweet & sour chicken, so I bought a jar at Freddies and combined it with some chicken chunks and peppers. I also pan fried some potstickers and made some rice in our rice maker. The only problem was the potstickers lived up to their name and actually stuck to the pan! Which is slightly embarrassing when you have company, but it ended up working out anyways. Dinner was delicious!!! We all loved it, so I will definitely have to make it again. Hooray for Chinese night!

Tonight I was in the mood for something south of the border. Chicken fajitas sounded like they would do the trick, so I cooked up some chicken in a pan and after they were done, I added the rest of the peppers from last night and some tomatoes plus a packet of Lawrys Fajita seasoning with about a half cup of water. I also heated some black beans and of course tortillas to put everything in. Wow, soo good! I think the smokiness of the seasoning made it extra yummy! Another success, this is getting kind of boring, I should have some disaster about now in my new cooking adventures :) Of course there is always tomorrow night!

Orange-tastic Chicken!

We just finished eating dinner and I have to say this time the Orange Chicken was delicious! This was my second time making the crockpot365 recipe for Orange Chicken and this time I modified it and left some things out. I made the chicken the way it says in the recipe except I dredged the chicken through some egg before the flour. The recipe for the sauce calls for orange juice, balsamic vinegar, salt, brown sugar and ketchup. Well we really didn't like the ketchup taste last time, so I left it out and instead I used soy sauce. I also added a tablespoon more of brown sugar and because I used soy sauce, I left the salt out. I think this really made the difference in the end. I was at a birthday party in the afternoon, so when I got home the chicken was ready and that meant I didn't have time to make rice, so I made a quick batch of couscous to with it. White rice probably would have made it more of a Chinese meal, but oh well it still tasted good with the couscous! Tomorrow I am going to try a glazed carrot recipe that I copied down from my friend so I am excited to try it out. Not sure yet on the main dish, I need to go to the store badly so we will see what find tonight or tomorrow when I go. More to come....

Potatoes drive me crazy!

Potatoes drive me crazy! The chicken turned out really good! I might add some more spices to it, but all in all it was pretty yummy. The potatoes on the other hand were rock hard! I had to broil them for awhile to get them somewhat soft and they were still under cooked. Should I have put the potatoes in with the chicken? Or cooked them separately? I just bought a big bag of potatoes so I am sort of stuck with them for awhile. I may try a different version of the potato soup I made before or just bake the suckers.

Also I think I am getting tired of chicken, so I am going to look online for some more recipes to try. I need inspiration! So more adventures to come!

Now back to more cooking adventures

It has been super busy and finally last night I felt like attempting to cook dinner again. I had been thinking about the Old Spaghetti Factory and their delicious mizithera cheese pasta dish and I decided I would make my own version, since I didn't have time to search for mizithera cheese. Anyone know where I can buy it? After realizing we had no fresh pasta in the house, Jacob had to make an emergency trip to the store and brought back 3 kinds of spaghetti. I went with the thin noodles and cooked them up. I then sauteed some chicken in my new pan and added salt and a healthy dose of pepper. I mixed the two together which was very hard by the way, I added parm cheese and an italian blend. You would think this would be enough but it really wasn't so I used the last of a jar of Triple Mushroom pasta sauce to spice it up. I really didn't think it was going to taste that good, I had so much trouble mixing everything and I was dissapointed because I really wanted mizithera cheese. I was pretty grumbly about the whole thing, maybe I was just hungry, I tend to get cranky if I don't eat :) Well dinner was wonderful in the end and Jacob loved it so that was enough for me.
Today I am sort of scrounging around in the cupboards to see what we have since William is taking his nap and I can't go to the store with him alone in the house. I think they take childeren away from their parents for that? ;) So I found more chicken breasts, big suprise since we have two costco size bags of chicken, and a can of sliced tomatoes, more mozzarella cheese, the last of the italian blend, and finally potatoes. I just got this all together so I am not sure how it will taste, but the chicken, tomatoes and cheese plus lemon pepper, garlic powder are all cooking in the crock pot with a barrier of aluminum foil and sliced up potatoes with olive oil and more lemon pepper on top. Stay tuned, I will give a review of my dinner later tonight.

Marinara Pesto Chicken

I got a little creative for dinner tonight and tried the Pesto Chicken recipe for a third time but added marinara sauce and a mix of cheeses. I watched the chicken closely this time and it ended up tasting better than all the other times I cooked chicken in my crockpot! I was very pleased! In addition to the chicken, I sliced up two potatoes and put them on a cookie sheet with olive oil and this lemon pepper blend that comes in a salt shaker. Oh my, those potatoes were soo yummy! Jacob LOVES potatoes, so he would be happy with them every night. The potatoes did take a really long time to cook though, so I may put them on broil next time. We ate early tonight because Jacob has a rehearsal with a singing group and can't eat too close to singing.

Anyways, we pretty much stayed in all day which was nice after a busy Saturday! Yesterday we went to my parent's house and they ended up watching my cousin's baby for awhile, which of course was just terrible that I got to see that adorable baby two days in a row :) My cousin and his wife in addition to her family were at the hospital again to see her grandmother. We watched the Duck game and decided to wallow in misery at Old Chicago pizza for dinner. The Oregon State game was on, so most of the restaurant was filled with Beaver fans except for this sad table in the corner with a father and son both decked out in Duck gear looking morose. At least the Beaver fans got to celebrate yesterday! I am not a huge sports fan or anything but my whole family went to the UofO and I did for 2 years, so we have to support the teams in good and bad times :)

Well I am off to an evening of relaxation before the very busy week ahead!

Babies and Taco Soup

Yesterday was soo eventful it was a good thing I wasn't planning on cooking anything! My good friend came over in the morning with her daughter and baby boy for a playdate with William. They had a really fun time playing and it was also fun to play with the baby. As soon as they left and I got William down for his nap, my best friend called and needed me to watch her baby because her grandmother unexpectedly had to go to the hospital. I was thrilled because her baby is also my cousin, she married my cousin, so I guess their baby is my first cousin once removed. Anyways, we had a fun time with him while he was here. You wouldn't believe this but literally as soon as they left, my girl friends were at the door for our planned girls night! Well the same friend that came in the morning, came that night too with her baby, so that was fun! All I was in charge of was making WW cupcakes which was super easy, a cake mix and 12oz of diet soda, I topped the cupcakes with non-fat coolwhip. They were yummy! We also had taco soup, corn bread and salad. I definitely want to try making the taco soup, maybe with some slight modifications. But it was healthy which I liked, so I would maybe only add a little cheese to it. When they left, I literally crashed into bed! William went down early after all the craziness of the day so that was nice! I had a really good time with my girlfriends and hope we can do it again soon! Well I don't know what today will bring, so we will see when it comes to dinner. I did get a good tip about twice baked potatoes that I do need to try at some point. Thank you Jenny for the tip! I was about to give up on the whole thing! Anyways, we may just eat leftover taco soup but I might try and see what modifications I can do to it...hmmm

More Pesto Please!

Everyone was running in different directions yesterday, so when William and I finally got home, Jacob was out running an errand. I put on one of William's favorite Baby Song videos and started dinner. I love pesto sauce so I was pretty excited to use it and after the pasta was done I practically poured the whole bottle in along with the chicken pieces and lots of cheese. It was delicious!! I also bought some french bread to go with it and dipped slices of bread in olive oil with balsamic vinegar. I love that, it makes me feel like I am in one of those Italian restaurants where they give you a plate with oil and vinegar to dip your fancy artisan bread in. Anyways, William and I ate before Jacob came home because we were starving, or at least I was! Jacob came home soon after and loved it too. So all in all it was a successful meal and no mishaps! Hooray! Tonight my girlfriends are coming over so all I am in charge of is dessert which will be 1 point chocolate cupcakes. I'll let you know how it turns out tomorrow.

Twice baked potatoes?

I'm thinking this blog is going to end up being more of a humorous series of stories of my attempts at cooking. For example, yesterday I decided to try making twice baked potatoes again and I even bought sour cream and a new potato masher this time so it would turn out better than the first time. Well I heard that if you put a slit in the potatoes before cooking they will cook faster so I did that and put them in the oven for an hour. After an hour, I took the pan out and because I had trouble scooping the potato stuff out last time without ripping the skins apart, I had Jacob try. Well he ended up ripping the skins all to pieces and by that time we were soo hungry we didn't care and put everything into a ceramic bowl skins and all plus cheese and sour cream. I also added lots of pepper and a little salt. We put the bowl in the oven for 20 minutes and just ate the mash as it was. It actually tasted super yummy. But I do feel like I should try again at some point and see how people are able to scoop out the potato stuff without ripping the skins to shreds. Should I let the potatoes cool for a certain amount of time? I do admit however that I was in a bit of a hurry because on Wednesdays there is a show I watch at 7 and I wanted to have dinner before then and also have William in bed. Major feat but I managed to accomplish that so it made up for my potato failure. Oh well, tonight I am going to make pasta, chicken with pesto sauce and some type of cheese. I don't think I can do anything too terrible to that but we will see, stay tuned...

Adventures in Cooking

So I am not sure what got into me one day, but I finally decided that I was tired of making the same thing for dinner every night, which usually ended up being not at all healthy and more often than not was some sort of fast food. Well I am on Facebook and one of my close friends posted that she made pesto chicken in her crockpot and said the recipe came from a woman who cooks gluten free and has published this wonderful cookbook with simple crockpot recipes. I went to the website and it all sounded really easy and delicious. That was my turning point or "Ah Ha" moment as Oprah says in regards to cooking. It was then and there while my 2 year old boy circled me telling me various things and I had once again no clue what to have for dinner, I realized I could put stuff together in a crockpot and we would actually have a meal to eat later! Amazing!!
I know many of my friends would probably just laugh and say "hello you are a mom and a housewife, you should know how to cook, right?" Well I think the reason why is I never really enjoyed all the work that went into it and lets face it, I was an only child and my family went out a lot, which I thoroughly enjoyed and still enjoy when I get the chance.
Anyways, I started by making the pesto chicken recipe which basically is just chicken pieces, mozzarella cheese on top then pesto sauce covering the whole thing. The recipe also called for cooking sweet potatoes with it and in order to do that, you needed to put a piece of aluminum foil over the chicken pesto, then put the sweet potatoes in the crockpot. My first attempt turned out ok, well actually it all over cooked and the pesto was burned and the chicken was a little dry. I guess cooking it for 7 hours will do that. So my second attempt turned out better because I only cooked it for 4 hours.
The next dish I tried from the cookbook was Orange Chicken, now this was reported to be like a Chinese dish, but I think I still need to work on this one, because the sauce didn't seem right and the chicken was really dry. Since this problem of drying out the chicken seemed to be continuous, I posted this on Facebook and received numerous responses. So I will try those suggestions next time. What I haven't mentioned yet is my husband loved both dishes immensely and actually likes dry chicken, so this was a bonus in his mind.
After three dinners at home, I was starting to feel more confident in myself and ready to tackle cooking another time. I decided to use my crockpot again and cook sort of a parmesean chicken dish, in case your wondering I have ALOT of frozen chicken in my freezer, anyways I put the chicken in and covered it with mozzarella cheese, marinara sauce, and grated parmesean cheese. Well in the end it tasted pretty good but the chicken pieces were too dry for my liking. I really have to figure out this dryness factor with the crockpot.
For my next dinner, I needed a break from the crockpot and made a chicken pasta cheese dish that I made up. I have issues with milk and my husband cannot eat macaroni and cheese because of a traumatic childhood experience. So I made up some rotini pasta, cooked some chicken in a pan then diced it up and seasoned with salt and pepper, then tossed all of it together with grated parm cheese, shredded mexican cheese blend and a little butter. This was super yummy and we both went back for seconds!
I actually didn't get a chance to cook for a few days because of Halloween and a dinner over at my cousin's house. My cousin and her brother both went to culinary school and are wonderful chefs, so when I went over to Annie's house, she was excited to hear I had started cooking and recommended I borrow her Quick Soups and Salads cookbook for more ideas. This got me excited and I decided that Sunday evening to try out one of the recipes for Potato Cheese soup. We ended up having our friends over for dinner that night, so I was excited to try it out on them, I figured someone else should get to be guinea pigs too besides just me and my husband. The recipe was pretty easy and I left out the onions because they give me horrible stomach aches and I substituted cheddar cheese for the blue cheese it called for. Wow, it tasted good! I guess you can't go wrong with potatoes and cheese. Which reminds me I forgot to mention I made twice baked potatoes before the soup experiment. Those were ok but Jacob, my husband, helped me and put in way too much butter because we didn't have any sour cream, need to make a note to try that again but with sour cream and less butter!
Ok so after the potato soup on Sunday night, Monday evening was just a repeat of my pasta chicken cheese dish because we had a sink clog from my potato peelings the night before and this required me to buy two sink plungers and help my poor husband unclog the drain. Totally disgusting by the way!
So that brings me to today, Tuesday evening in which I made another recipe from the soup cookbook because we were having Annie's brother (Dana) and his wife plus another couple from our Bible Study over for dinner. This recipe was called an Allspice Meatball Stew, which was basically Italian style meatballs (frozen in a 14oz package) 14 and half oz of beef broth, 3 cups of sliced green beans, 2 cups of carrots, 2 tsp of Worcestshire sauce, 1/2 tsp of Cinnamon, 3/4 tsp of Allspice, after cooking all of those ingredients in a Dutch oven for about 10 minutes (boil first then simmer for 10 minutes covered) you add 2 cans of stewed Tomatoes and bring back to a boil then simmer for 5 minutes or until the veggies are tender. Everyone loved it!! Except Jacob didn't like how sweet it was with all the spices and tomatoes. I think I might add pepper next time for a contrast. I still need to work on balancing out flavors but for right now I am just excited to put meals together!
I need to go to bed so I will end this blog post by saying, I think this is a turning point in my life and I can't wait to see what I come up with next. So watch out, more cooking adventures to come....