pure envy

So I read other blogs. I find so many new things I want to do or try just from reading other peoples blog. One of my favorites is pioneerwoman.com. She is really fun, has great recipes and is an awesome photographer. And did I mention she has my life? Well my dream life....lives with her husband and kids on a working cattle ranch. Homeschools her kids and has this great blog/website. She will make an entry and get...are you ready for it....16,000 comments about it. 16,000!!! Holy tomatoes! If you have the time and are ready to smile I really suggest checking her site out. If only...*sigh*. Any "commenters" out there???

Paradise found...in the kitchen.

Well it seems that I post once a week always on Tuesdays. Don't know why that is...it just is. This weekend you ask? It was a great weekend. Did some scrapbooking at a friends house and met a new friend there also. We are all getting together this weekend as well. She has a great big table we can all gather around and a separate table for our gadgets. Not that I have any gadgets that need a separate table but I appreciate that we all share what we DO have. It's nice. CM invited a new girl for this weekend, so I look forward to meeting her and seeing how we all fit around this table.
I ALSO BAKED COOKIES! My world-rockin' sugar cookies and also oatmeal chocolate chip. Someday I'll have to remember to get raisins when I go to the grocery store so I can make oatmeal-chocolate chip-raisin cookies, my all time favorite. I made so many cookies! I've been giving them away. Really should start freezing some dough so that they are fresher.

But that was my weekend: scrapbooking and baking. Ahhhh, what a weekend!

Until paradise comes again-

Alicia

I <3 CC

What a weekend!

Had a really nice weekend- Valentines Day really isn't so bad when you're married. Infact it practically doesn't exsist anymore. We try to spread our date nights out and not concentrate on one day. But this was a nice weekend. The kid was up in Colorado with the youth group at church and returned last night. Went grocery shopping Saturday morning with dinner in mind and made a really nice pasta dinner. Hey it's red- that's Valentinsey isn't it? Used bow tie pasta to make it fun and got a bunch of fancy cheeses to mix in. Asiago has got to be one of the better cheeses. Or Gouda. But I used Asiago this time and made cheesey toast in the boiler. Left the other cheeses to mix in with the pasta. Mmmm carbs! lol Okay so we had salad too. Even had hard boiled eggs in it! Watch out- I'm gettin' healthy! We had Dions for lunch Saturday and then rented a couple movies to watch before dinner. I had been pushing to rent SATC since I'd only seen it once in the theater. We also got a testosterone filled movie with Cuba Gooding Jr in it. On Sunday we played hooky from church and hubby and I went to an outdoor show. They had the CUTEST little puppy up for adoption that I just knew Walter would love. But no. Hubby said home too small for 2 dogs. Then we went to the bookstore and got a cool book about camping sites around New Mexico. Found a lake that we'd like to camp at that isn't even on our other maps. Cool! We also went to Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch and stopped at Target for a few things. All in all it was a good quiet weekend with just the two of us.
Oops- before I forget, we had a GREAT time out with friends for drinks on Friday. It was great to spend time with friends on non-work time. Lets see, 9 of us: me and the hubby, AM, Boston & Wife, "scooter twins", Kellie and her hubby that we found out used to work with MY hubby a long time ago. Had a great time at a new place, I even ran into an old friend who is now managing the place. Really great time. Hope we get to do it again, soon.

Until I feel content again-

Alicia

I <3 CC

Good times, good friends, good rice!

Had a really nice weekend. Not too busy, not too lazy. Saturday afternoon was spent scrapbooking at a friends house. She wanted to get the new Slice machine so we took off for Hobby Lobby before getting started. It's a really great die cutting machine, I can't wait to get one for myself. Sorry CTMH but I'm so over with stamping right now. ("We are SOOO OVER!!" "Hmph, hehhhhhhh, FINE BY ME!!!" - Sorry had a Friends moment there)
Most exciting part was having AM over for dinner Saturday night! Yay! Clint cooked a pork loin, so great I can't even put it into words...And I decided I needed to upgrade the rice that I had planned on. Don't get me wrong, I love white rice. LOVE LOVE LOVE white rice. Little butter, little salt- I'm in heaven. Ooh or with soy sauce...mmmm. But with having the yummy pork loin and having AM over, I wanted something fun. Aka-different. Well...kinda gets hard when it's the few days before grocery shopping day. But I had broth! Yay for broth! After conferring with my sister in law who is an AMAZING cook. I used the broth for half of the water I would normally use. YUM! It was really tasty. And we had such a great evening with AM. After dinner we sat around the table, drinkin and talkin. Before we knew it she and I had finished off a 12 pack and it was 10:30. (Must of been all that pork, or Clint hid some but I wasn't feelin it.) I miss her so much at work and it was nice to be with her again.
So anyway- last night we had pork leftovers and I wanted rice again. Well Saturdays rice was good, just a hint of the chicken broth flavoring but I wanted to see if it would be even tastier with full broth. Okay, so I have a rice cooker. Yeah yeah, but it's awesome. This way I can put it all in there and then move on to the other foods I'm cooking. Or dessert, yeah I've made dessert while dinner is cooking. :) That's how I roll. So I put in the broth, the rice and move on. 20 minutes later I hear the click of the rice cooker and can't wait to dig in! Well? Not as great as I hoped for. It was much drier this time. And I don't really think it tasted more brothy. The kid liked it, but Clint and I left most of our portions on our plate to feed the trashcan. Oh well, live and learn- at least I got to try it out.

Until I roll again-

Alicia

I <3 CC

Super Over!

Well it's finally over, the big game. And whether you rooted for Pittsburgh or Arizona it was a good game. Especially the second half! We had great food and great friends at our house this year. I made Texas chili that we will be eating for a week since the recipe makes so much. And I made mini frittatas that were GREAT! Really easy to make too:

Makes 24 mini frittatas
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
1 egg
4 egg whites (bad part of this, I can't figure out what to do with all the left over yolks!)
1/4 cup chopped onion - I've also used dried onion flakes
1/2 cup spinach

Brown onion in skillet add spinach and cook til wilty and yummy looking.

Whip together the egg and egg white. Mix in spinach and onion mixture.

Spoon into non-stick sprayed mini muffin pans filling them 1/2 full.

Bake 15 minutes or until puffy and browned.

-I actually prefer these with ham instead of spinach. I use one of those white packages that you can get for a dollar at the supermarket. Did you know those are 1 serving per package? I had no idea! So, with the ham chopped up- that's when I use dried onion flakes and mix it all together without cooking anything before spooning it into the muffin pans.

*Side note: Okay so mine didn't come out to 24 frittatas. I was really bummed by this. I got 22 and 2 of those were really small. Eh, what can ya do right?


Until I frittata again-

Alicia

I <3>