Birds in a Hole

Saturday morning breakfast. Homemade bread and a fried egg in the morning - yum!

Take a slice of bread and cut a hole in it with a biscuit cutter or the rim of a glass.

Melt a tablespoon of butter in a skillet over medium-low heat.

Place the bread in the skillet and let it get toasty. Then crack an egg in the hole, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and cook for about a minute. Very carefully flip the bread and egg to cook the other side.

I then poured some syrup around the edges of the bread. Sooooo tasty!!!

Supporting the Local Establishment

I had a great time out with some friends last night! We decided to support our local establishment in Southwood: Coach's. Good times were had by all - plenty of drinking, talking, laughing, and a little bit of craziness ("Hey Herpes!" LOL You had to be there). At one point we decided to migrate to Tantra and met up with Justin. Good times had by all. Here are a few photos:



Catherine, me, Jeremy, and Terry:


Rebekah and Catherine:


Nancy and Dustin:


The girls: Nancy, me, Rebekah, and Catherine:


Geof, Justin, and Terry:

Sweet and Sour Chicken

Ok, after the failed waffle attempt I was somewhat disheartened. Would I ever become the chef I want to be? ;-) Anyway, my next dish was Sweet and Sour Chicken. I was halfway in the process of making this when I realized it had to cook for an hour - ONE HOUR! That's after you've done a bunch of other stuff. Now to "I make everything from scratch" lady, a one hour meal is probably like a walk in the park. But to me, that is approximately 30 minutes longer than I like to spend on dinner! But I was already invested in this meal so I kept up the march. And thank goodness I did. It was the most delicious sweet and sour chicken I have ever tasted! Nothing like that breaded mess you get from a Chinese restaurant. You know what I'm talking about. Where you take a bite and can't even find the chicken amongst the pounds of breading? Yah, that stuff. Well this was just chicken. And it was delicious. Well worth the extra time it takes to make it. In fact, I have made it several times since!



By the way, if anyone is interested in these recipes please let me know (via comment or email). I will try to remember to post the recipes in the future as well.

Pumpkin Waffles

Ok, I began taking photos of meals I made so I could post about my experiences making them. Well, I built up quite a collection before I started this blog and then I took even longer to download them. So I am trying to go back and remember each dish.

I had seen this awesome sounding recipe on another food blog for pumpkin waffles. I thought "hey! I can do that!" But the woman whose recipe I stole made everything from scratch. Me being as practical as I am said "Why do I need to do that when I have a box of Hungry Jack in the pantry??" WHAT?!? It IS practical! I mean, who has time to make everything from scratch?? In this day and age, a box with "Just Add Water" comes in quite handy! Anyway, moving on. So I figured I would just make my waffle recipe according to my Hungry Jack box and then add in the pumpkin mixture... and maybe a little of the spices the other recipe called for.

So all is going great. Here is my batter (sorry for the bad photos):














Looks tasty. So I started to make my waffles. And you know how most waffles are somewhat crispy coming off the waffle iron? Well, mine did not have that crispy texture. They were, well..... limp. Yes, I had limp waffles. The horror! On the plus side, they still tasted very good.














So this was a bombed experiment. And I'm sure the girl whose recipe I took would be laughing at me and saying "And THIS is why we make things from scratch!"

Random Stir Fry Pic

I know you all have waiting patiently for the photo of the icky stir fry. Well unfortunately folks, the pictures are not all that amusing. The photos actually make the dish LOOK good! But you all know the truth.

This is as I'm preparing the veggies in the wok ...



And here is the final outcome .....



Well, at least the photos turned out good! Now don't you wish you could eat that?!?

Random Stir Fry

One of the reasons I initially wanted to set up a blog is because I have been cooking a lot more lately and wanted to be able to post thoughts and photos of some of my dishes. Well, I have several stored up on my camera, but have yet to get motivated to copy them onto the computer. Don't get your panties in a wad - I will shortly and then you will soon have the pleasure of viewing my culinary expertise. Or lack thereof.

Anyway, last night I realized I had several veggies that were about to go bad so I thought "I'll make stir fry." Bad idea... horrible... As I'm cutting up my veggies I realize that this will be a very unconventional stir fry. Normally in stir fry you see broccoli, peppers, chicken, some snow peas, maybe some water chestnuts. Well the only thing I had out of the normal repertoire was the snow peas. Instead, my stir fry consisted of snow peas, squash, zucchini, and asparagus! Like I said: random! I still thought this might turn out tasty. Boy was I mistaken.

Earlier in the day I had looked up a few stir fry recipes to see about sauces. I found one that sounded descent and tried it. The ingredients are as follows: soy sauce, Hoisin sauce, cornstarch, ginger, sesame oil, and water. Mix that altogether and put in your wok and let it thicken. Then re-add your veggies. Or so the directions say. Anyway, I had sauteed my veggies in some EVOO first, then removed them and added this sauce. I let it thicken like the directions said (which it miracuously did!) and then added the veggies again and stirred. Then I put this mixture over a bed of rice. Wha-la?

In the words of a friend: OH.MY.GOD! It tasted horrible! Let's just ignore the icky sauce for a moment.... I didn't even cook the snow peas long enough. This shows my culinary genius - I placed all the veggies in the wok at the same time. Ding, ding, ding.... yah, snow peas need longer than the other veggies to become even semi-soft. So here we are crunching our way through our stir-fry - with the icky sauce - and barely being able to hear the TV because the snow peas are making so much noise! I had precisely 3 bites of my meal and decided I was not wasting another calorie on it. Jeremy on the other hand - God love him - suffered through his entire bowl! Now THAT is a good husband! I proceeded to then make myself the most delicious grilled cheese ever! So maybe I have some culinary genius after all.....

Photo of the inedible stir fry to come shortly. I know you are very excited!

"I get knocked down"

So last May I made a deal with myself - I was going to sign up for a race! Yes, me - the person who only runs when being chased ... or trying to fit into a wedding dress. I decided that the Turkey Trot would be a fun little jont to aspire to. It gave me plenty of time to train (or so I thought) and it was located in Southwood - my little slice of heaven - which meant I wouldn't have to wake up as early. Hey, I treasure my sleep! Anyway, I was very excited about my new challenge and found a great website to help me "train." Unfortunately, life happened.... ok, maybe more like sleep happened ... and I kept falling behind on my training. Now, I am officially T-minus 9 days away from said race and STILL cannot run a full 5K. Please, no laughing. But I am still determined to do the race - whether I have to run or walk or crawl my way to the finish line. My motto: slow and steady wins the race! And I am such a good persuader that I have convinced my mom and loving husband to join me! Now....for a team name......?

Ok, so moving on to this morning. I am doing my morning workout and crossed a milestone: I ran 2 miles straight! "Hallelujah!" I'm feeling good about myself. I [gasp] almost find myself enjoying running. And then I start to get dressed for work. And find that multiple pieces in my wardrobe have somehow been altered!!!!!! Yes, it appears that somehow Cinderella's pet mice have invaded my closet and tailored them to fit someone with a flat chest and no hips. WTH???? I have been so disciplined and worked so hard (sometimes) and there is no change. In fact, a few pieces have gotten tighter - especially across the chest. How does this happen?? So sad and depressed, I trudge to work. And proceed to eat a bagel for breakfast. OH, maybe THAT'S how it happened..............

My First Blog!

So I have joined the dark side and entered the world of blogging. I owe the name of this blog to my ingenius husband who put up with my whining about "how I wanted to start a blog" but had no clue what I would write about. Hence, it's a smorgasbord of ideas and thoughts - all for your viewing pleasure. Or maybe just mine.