New Years Resolutions are for the birds...

Well I gave it a great deal of thought and nope not doing any New Years resolutions but am going to continue like I try to do everyday to keep making wise choices and not fall off the wagon so very often. I am a wagon faller offer now and again. Today for breakfast I had a scrambled egg with some diced ham, cheese, and tomato. I make these little bread crisps to get a nice toast effect for just a couple cals. Lunch is tasty as well with some chicken salad and I use romaine as the bread like little boats kinda. Dinner I am planning oven roasted tomatoes and grilled steaks...yum yum!

As I said Better Choices! And I am really good I will drink a protein shake too! I have a slight confession since this is my blog after all but I went to Hobby Lobby to just check it out and left with fake flowers and some crochet hook grips! Yikes! Naughty Naughty!

Easiest and Best Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge!

I made the best easiest fudge for a Christmas BBQ. Along with my Asian salad. You know the cabbage and ramen one... Both were a huge hit and gone ASAP. People kept raving about both. So on to the fudge!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge (microwave)

2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips (if you don't want to use PB add one extra cup of choc chips)
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 can sweetened condensed milk
4 TBS butter
1 TSP Vanilla (I always splash a bit more in for good measure)
1/4 TSP Salt
Walnuts (Optional)

Line an 8x8 pan with foil and spray with non stick cooking spray. Set aside. Place all the ingredients through the butter into a microwave safe bowl. Microwave on high for 1 min and stir. You want to use the heat from the glass bowl to melt the remaining chocolate. If it doesn't completely melt microwave an additional 30 seconds and stir again. Once all Melted add the remaining ingredients and then place into your 8x8 pan and refrigerate for 2.5-3 hours to firm up. Remove and cut into bite size squares.

It literally takes less than 5 min of work!

Tis the season for cookies!

My grandmother told me about making cookies from a box cake mix that my great aunt had told her about so I thought why not give it a try it's the Christmas season everybody loves cookies and I happen to have a box of sugar free chocolate devil's food cake mix sitting in my pantry!
I have to say these were the easiest simplest fastest cookies I've ever made.
And they came out beautifully I had to cook them a little longer than the 8 minutes that my grandmother said. Mine took about 10 to 12 but otherwise they fluffy and wonderful.

Boxed cake mix cookies

1 box chocolate cake mix  (I used sugar free )
2 eggs
1/3 c oil
Powdered sugar to roll balls in which is totally optional

Mix cake mix, eggs, and oil together. Then form one inch balls and if rolling in powdered sugar here is where you would do it. Then place balls on an ungreased  cookie sheet about an inch apart from each other.  Press down with a fork a bit and bake at 350 10 to 12 min

This is why my hubby married me. Well one reason.

Apparently according to my husband I have a knack for making up dishes from random bits of stuff in our fridge and cupboards. This afternoon I made up an Alfredo sauce with pasta, sundried tomatoes, roasted brussel sprouts, and Italian link sausage that we had left over and I re roasted them in the oven. It turned out crazy amazing and it was so easy and probably one of the best things I've made.
There is no recipe with measurements per say but I'll give some approximations and you can fiddle with it to your liking.

4 tbs butter
2 to 3 cloves garlic
1.5 cups shredded sharp cheddar
1/2 to 1 cup parmesan
Milk maybe 1/2 cup
Chicken stock maybe 1/2 cup
Heavy cream 1 cup
Crushed red pepper flakes
Mrs dash
Pepper
Left over sausage 2 links sliced into rounds
10 to 12 brussel sprouts, roasted
2 tbs sun dried tomatoes
Cooked pasta (I cooked a little over 1 cup dried elbow noodles)

Melt the butter and cook the garlic a bit in it adding spices to taste.  Add your cheese,  milk, cream, and stock. It will be thin and runny reduce and melt the cheeses together 5 or so min. Stir in the sun dried tomatoes. If the sauce is still to thin add a little Corn starch to thicken.
During the noodle sausage and brussel sprouts. Enjoy!

Oh the Romance! And Crock Pot Ham

My hubby is so romantic. We celebrated our anniversary and there was chocolate, roses everywhere, champagne, warm baths, shoes, and diamonds! Yep I have a major keeper. So blessed to have this wonderful man. Even if I didn't have all the gifty stuff just the thought and effort he puts into our life in general makes me so thankful. He takes care of me when I am sick (which is all the time), or just does things to love me like snuggling, or dancing, or filling up my car with gas. I pray I make him feel the same everyday.

We went on a marriage retreat last weekend and had a crazy good time. Can we say waterpark! We played in the water for hours. The only downside was I went down this slide on a foam thing on your tummy and my top slid down...But our friend held up my foam thing so I could fix my self. It was so embarrassing but funny looking back now. During the fun we did a class called the 5 love languages. It was actually a great class and confirmed a lot of what we thought or already did. Since I now know what his love language is for sure now (I knew before but the fun test confirmed it) I am going to speak it forever! EVERY DAY

I just feel so loved and happy I could burst. I know that the effort we put into our marriage everyday is so worth it.

We had Thanksgiving this year at a friends house. And had so much fun with them. We ate and ate, played games, drank some wine, and played with my nephew and niece. It was such a great time with lots of laughter. Each of us brought half the dinner and split the leftovers....mmm leftovers. We tried a new recipe for crockpot ham turned out fantastic! And was so easy...

Crock Pot Ham

1 spiral ham
2 cups brown sugar
pineapple slices

Place 1 cup of brown sugar on the bottom on crockpot, then place your ham, 1 cup brown sugar, and then the pineapple slices. I put the spiral cut side down. Let cook for 6-8 hrs on low. Pull the ham out and place in a dish and if your ham came with a  glaze packet (ours was honey) just put that on top and let sit for 5-10 min to soak in...Amazing! So easy!

My friend and I getting ready to get our wine on!

Birthday Dinner...

We celebrated my hubby's birthday yesterday and he chose to have me cook dinner and go out for dessert. He is crazy like that. I wanted to make him something special for his special day and what better than Paella! And I am going to just do it. Yep toot my own horn...TOOT TOOT! It was fantastic!!!

Moroccan Paella

3 large Italian sausages sliced into rounds
1 chicken leg quarter (chicken thigh and drum stick)
1 pound mixed seafood (I had a mixed blend of squid, cod, shrimp, scallops)
1.5 cups rice
1 can diced tomatoes
2 cans chicken broth
2 tablespoons knorr w/ tomato
1 teaspoon crushed chili flakes
2 tablespoons paprika
2 tablespoons dried cilantro
1 tablespoon garlic
1 tablespoon cumin
2-4 lemons, divided
salt and pepper
olive oil
water (if needed)

create a marinade with the chili flakes, paprika, cumin, cilantro, garlic, and juice of 1 lemon. Stick your chicken in and chill for 1-2 hrs.

place oil in bottom of large pot and cook your sausage and chicken making sure to place in all the marinade making sure to scrape off any tasty bits from the bottom.  take out the chicken and debone and toss back in. Pour in the rice and stir to coat everything. Then toss in everything else but the seafood and let simmer and reduce cooking the rice this took me about 30 min but I added a bit extra water. During the last 5 or so min of cooking toss in your seafood and place a lid on top to steam the seafood making it tender and wonderful.

Serve! (side note...next time I might put some veg like zucchini in for fun)

Leftover Glory!

I love to make stuff up. It often turns out to be some of the best food I ever make. Go figure right!
My hubby signed us up for a marriage retreat that his unit is going to. Should be excited and we leave this afternoon to head to the Great Wolf Lodge! I have never been to a GWL before but I hear that they are really cool. And I hear the retreats are pretty awesome as well so should be a great weekend. Anyway. The leftovers...We decided to pack a picnic and on the way stop for lunch somewhere scenic we see...I had no idea what to pack since he eats sandwiches all the time and this is a special fun weekend not to mention the 1/2 pound of ground turkey sitting in my fridge I didn't want to go to waste!
Being (or trying to be) the crafty resourceful wife I rummaged through the cupboards, fridge, and freezer to see what I could do with this meat...when it hit me. A meat hand pie! I had a pie crust in the fridge from the skillet pot pie the other day that I could use and some onion and shredded potatoes I had saved from going bad by tossing them in the freezer a while back...Perfect. A little of this and that and tah dah! These bad boys were made!

Hand Pie Recipe:

1 Pie crust
1/2 pound ground meat
1 large onion, diced
shredded potatoes, frozen or fresh. about 1.5 cups
Salt
Pepper
Worcestershire sauce, a few splashes
1 tablespoon minced garlic

sauté the onion and potato until golden and potato starts to crisp in some oil or butter. Don't forget to season to taste with some salt and pepper. Remove and set aside.

Cook your ground meat in the same pan with the garlic and Worcestershire sauce. Re add the potato and onion mix and stir to combine. Remove from heat.

Roll out your pie crust and make your pie circles as large as you would like your pie to turn out. I made about 4 pies with ours and had filling left over.

Fill one side of the crust with filling and fold over and crimp with a fork. Poke vent holes in the top for steam and bake at 350 for about 30-40 min until nice and golden.

The pups were happy for the left over filling mixed in their kibble this am and these will be so great for lunch even room temp! I know this because I ate one for breakfast haha!