Whew! The holidays are half over! Just one more night to go in this year. Plans for tonight? None, we are staying safely home. Too many weirdos out on this night around here. Plus the extra police eyes are out and that I think makes everyone even more nervous. Even those that are obeying the laws. So I was thinking the other night how wonderful it is that the simplest things can be really great for dinner. The other night I didn't feel like cooking. Not much in the cupboards anyways..so we made nachos. Mmmm! Usually it's heated up in the microwave or in the oven, but this time I put everything under the broiler for a couple minutes to get everything toasty brown. Hmmm, I like things toasty brown from the boiler don't I?! Mmm oohy goohy cheese... we were missing the refried beans this time, but like I said, sometimes the simplest things are so heartwarmingly perfect. So let me make a quick rundown of the last week.
Christmas Eve: Had second of two flute performaces at church, so now I'm done until Easter unless something comes up.
Christmas Day: Very nice spent a few hours with the family at my brothers house.
Birthday on 27th: Low key, spent a gift card from my Dad at Barnes & Noble and then spent a quiet evening at home.

Until next year-
Alicia

I<3 CC

Christmas Shopping Saga

What a fun weekend! All went perfectly as planned. Well not exactly I guess. AM and I started at the flea market but we went too early and the booth I needed wasn't open yet! So we headed off to Kmart and that went good, got all I needed. Then it was off to Hastings, AM had to get some gifts there and then to the dollar store for stocking stuffers. But after we left I realized that I forgot to look for books for my nephew...Hobby Lobby was next were I got a scrapbook album. This is great, it was 14.99 and I had a 40 percent off coupon- woo hoo!! I'm using that album for all the 2008 photos I've been working on. I'd like to have one for every year. And I have one that is for all old photos I've been hanging onto. The oldest being a photo of my grandma when she was a baby being held by her mom. I really love that photo. We made a second stop to Hastings next to HL for a forgotten item. Then it was off to lunch at Red Brick Pizza. We were tired, hungry and ready to sit. Well RBP is perfect for this situation! They have little flat screen tvs at all the tables! How absolutely great is that! So we zoned out for awhile eating pizza and watching Bruce Almighty. Just what we needed. After that we headed to Trader Joes to look around for awhile. Where I picked up some white cheddar pop corn and some fizzy pomegrante juice which I'm saving for my birthday this Saturday. I'm saving the juice not the popcorn already dug into that! Then I dropped AM off and went to Target for awhile. I really like Target, I don't go there very often but it seems to be theraputic when I can just go and stroll. I got some cute 5 dollar shirts, some Christmassy and some Valentines Day ones that were hiding in the back. I love these shirts. I have some for St Patricks day, Halloween and Thanksgiving. They hold up really well for just being 5 bucks! Then I headed home to wrap and relax. I also watched Bednobs and Broomsticks this weekend-yes!
Clint is came home early from his hunting weekend after they took down an elk yesterday. Jonethan is still with my folks. We'll get him back at the Christmas Eve service on Wednesday. I miss the kid! Oh and yesterday I went back to the flea market a little later in the morning and got what I needed there and made a quick stop at the dollar store and found cute little books for my 2 year old nephew. Yay for me!
I'd love to have a new recipe for readers but I hardly ate at home this weekend it seems, and when I did it was leftovers.
Until I shop again-
Alicia
I <3 CC

Rain rain go away and turn into snow- or ranch dressing!

It's raining! We need the rain but everyone keeps asking for snow. They want a snow day tomorrow. But tomorrow is our staff party @ Scarpas! Mmmmm Scarpas. GREAT Italian food and wood oven baked pizzas. I don't want a snow day. Just looked out the window and saw that the wind has picked up too. Gee, rain AND wind, what fun it must be to be outside! :P On Tuesday we had a pretty good snow storm and the kids got out of school for the day. I kept hearing how the storm was supposed to be continuing until Thursday. Well we had nothing past 11p on Tuesday. No rain, no snow. I just hope it all stops by Saturday to do my fabulous Christmas shopping!

I had made a pasta w/meat marinara dish two nights ago and we polished it off last night. It was so good, I wished we had a little more left than we actually did. I've really taken to using some white bakeware that I got last Christmas. I start out cooking the pasta on the stove then pour pasta, SOTN (sauce of the night) into the bakeware, mix in cheeses and sprinkle some really savory cheese on top and let it all bake together for a little while in the oven til the top gets browned. Usually @ 400 degrees. It just adds a little something to the regular old pasta and sauce off the stovetop. Plus I can just pop the plastic lid on the bakeware afterwards and put it in the fridge. It holds great for 2-3 days. Now I'm starving. I think it's Dions pizza today for lunch. One of my co-workers is prone to buying lunch for me and AM every once in awhile. And she's good about remembering the ranch dressing. Dions ranch is my second favorite dressing here in Albinoturkey. Red Robin has one that is even better, a little thinner and I think that's what makes it. Okay so I feel that I need to mention my top three, lol.
#1. Red Robin
#2. Dions
#3. Chilis
That's an awesome list....

Until I ranch dressing again-

Alicia
I<3 CC

Scrapbooking and excitement of weekend to come.

I realized just now that I haven't mentioned my scrapbooking yet! I'm not a full-fledged scrapbooker. Mostly it was as a place to put my photos instead of buying photo albums. Nothing too fancy, just fun and if I can manage I'll write something about the photo to go along with it. Well to my great delight, I got my second of 2 secret santa gifts today. I got scrapbook paper! Yeah baby! That is the one thing that I seem to be collecting a lot of right now. It seems that the more paper I have it's easier for me to come up with a page design. I'm so excited, I got a collection that is all flowers and beach themed. I've been looking around for paper for our trip to California this past June, and am totally going to use this! Now I've just got to get the photos printed from the disk they are on. Perhaps I'll TRY and get to Walgreens this weekend and put an order in. My weekend is going to be fabulous and bittersweet. Clint is heading out of town to do some snow hunting Friday thru Monday, and Jonethan is going to be at my folks all weekend. So I have the place to myself! AM and I are going to go SHOPPING! I've got tons of Christmas shopping to get done that I've been saving for this weekend. We are going to many great places I don't know what I'm most excited for. The flea market? Hobby Lobby? Kmart? Trader Joes?! (Gotta give credit to Kmart here, since Sears took over we have one Kmart that is...well...AWESOME. I love how clean this particular one is also.) I'm even going to see if I can sneak Target in also. Lunch someplace great and dinner is up in the air! I'm so excited! But on the other hand I'll miss having Jonethan around to help me shop, and with all the snow I'm kinda freaked out about the guys going driving off into the woods. And it's totally going to be hard to sleep in the house ALONE! Yikes! Perhaps I'll spend the weekend at AMs, gotta play with her new baby kitties anyway...
Until I bake again-
Alicia
I <3 CC

My Weekend

So I really started out with good intentions. Let me make that part clear. Honestly I had never used one of those frozen pre-formed pie crusts before, I've always made fresh crust from scratch. Well....basically and embarrassingly I didn't know that you had to BAKE the pie crust first if you were making a cold pie. I know I know, should've read the instructions. So off I went to make a chocolate cream pie. And was so proud to take it out of the fridge to dig in! And then realized the crust looked funny. Not ha ha funny, BAD funny. I guess it kinda looked "baked but frozen" when I got it from the store. But not so much after being in the fridge. And in my best effort of not wanting to make a bad situation worse and REALLY not wanting to waste all that chocolatey goodness. I scooped the filling out, got out three bowls and we proceeded to eat the filling. Mmmmm! And at least I have another frozen crust to bake next time....lol.
On the big plus side, my husband make these really great sloppy joes that weren't really sloppy joes but I made into an open faced sandwich and covered in cheese and stuck in the broiler for a few moments. THAT was good. Good job babe!
Until I forget to bake again-

Alicia
I <3 CC

Christmas Party

So today is one of two Christmas (excuse me HOLIDAY) parties at work. If you know me and what I do you'll understand. I'm looking forward to it. I remember the food was pretty good. And I miss certain people that aren't in the main building anymore. PLUS we get to go home afterwards instead of going back to work. So that's cool. AMs birthday party is tonight also and I'm looking forward to relaxing and having a good time. A&N are coming with Clint and myself. I hope... I hope this isn't a bunch of drunk folks and things getting outta hand. Not really sure what to expect. But I'm praying for the best.
And this weekend is the Christmas (Yes-Christmas) Program at church! And AM is coming with me to the Saturday service-yay! I think I'm about as ready as I can be to play flute with a song. The unnerving part is that they are putting a tiny little microphone on the end of the flute! Ack! So I just gotta play strong and I'll do okay. It's the Christmas Eve program that I'm a little unsure about the song.

I have no recipe to share today sorry, feeling a bit of a serious mood.
Alicia
I <3 CC

My first blog and peanut butter cookies!

Here I am world! Finally taking to my first blog! "Why NOT try this out?" I thought. I have adventures, thoughts, things to share and log for the future. So I'm gonna try this out-share my love of baking and what I'm learning as I go along, the adventures with my friends and family, my daily walk. My current quest is to try and be more adventurous in my baking. Try new things. I'm even trying to make some new recipes. My cookies are what I tinker with the most, and I'm proud to say that my "boys" at home aren't usually disappointed. By "my boys" I mean my husband Clint and son Jonethan. Infact just last weekend I made the most fantastic peanut butter cookies. The kind that are so delicate and rare that you have to eat them the same day, by day #2 they just aren't as good. I made a few small ones, but learned that making some the size of my palm was way better.

Here's my recipe:
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
**Yes at this point you CAN just ball them up and bake, but that's not all that fun is it? So I took a big ol chocolate bar (the kind you can get at Smiths for a buck sometimes) and chopped up half of it. I don't like using store-bought chocolate chips much, they seem impersonal when I can make them. So any time it calls for chips, I'll chop up a whole bar. A good rough chop nothing to uniform and size of the chunks is a personal preference. (plus this way you get MILK chocolate in your cookie)
So I have my chocolate chunks to mix in-
And 1/2 cup of oats. I love oats in cookies & just gives them a little texture with this amount.

Mixed all together and I'm ready to scoop! Yes more and other things can be added but for now the peanut butter and chocolate sounded so good. I wanted peanuts but had none at home
I have a little cookie scoop that I got a wallyworld for 5 bucks that I ADORE, and I'm certain it has prompted me to make cookies, more often. After I have my little cookie dough scooped, I roll the ball in sugar before putting it on the pan. I used a "well seasoned" non-stick pan and didn't have any problems removing them. The dough is pretty dry and if you're making the big ones, shape them and try and lay them tops and bottoms in the sugar before placing them on the pan.
This made 28 small cookie bites, they didn't spread at all so press them down a bit. And 2 large palm-size cookies. Less than 10 minutes to bake, ovens vary, so watch them- you don't want to burn their little sugar butts.

Hey what do you know? I've made my first blog! Wow! And not too bad, I'm sure this will morph into more as I learn more about how to do this whole thing. But for now I'm proud of it.
Until I bake again-
Alicia