Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Pasta a la yummy

After a long weekend, I am back!!  Tonight we finally made a new recipe, to be honest I am excited to eat the leftovers tomorrow for lunch.  We made penne with vodka sauce, it was super easy to make and delicious.  Not many ingredients are needed for this at all, I can honestly say that I will be making this recipe again.  
  As far as house projects, they are coming along at a snails pace.  It is really ok because we got a lot done in the garden, that is considered a house project right??  Over the weekend we got our garden spot tilled up, Matt added random things to help the soil (peat moss and gypsum) it is pretty clay like right now.  That was all on Friday night, on Monday we got to planting.  We quickly realized that our large spot would not house all of our plants.  I probably had about 60 tomato plants and I was only allowed to plant 12, such a bummer.  I better get a large yield out of those plants!!  I will probably end up planting some at home....just in case!  We are still tending to some little plants, pretty much all the peppers.  So when they get a bit bigger we will have to figure out where we can plant them.  As long as the coons, squirrels and deer stay out of the garden, we will be saving a bunch of money on produce.  We put up some fence and bought some animal stopper spray, keep your fingers crossed that it works!!

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

An oldie but a bestie

Tonight we went with an old standby, and probably one of the best things EVER!!  We discovered this recipe quite awhile back and have yet to be sick of it.  It all started with a huge hunk of strip steak Matt got on sale, so we needed something to go along with it.  Steak with pepper cream sauce is the perfect thing!  This sauce is beyond anything you have ever tasted before.  I typically skip the last bite of steak and just slurp up the sauce.  I also add it to whatever side dish we might be having, tonight it was a topping to my baked potato.  Seriously AMAZING!!  It is also pretty dang simple to make, so if you have steak and not sure what to do with it.....make this recipe for sure!  We also got to use a new fun tool in this dish as well, a mortar and pestle.  It is a fun tool and it is a nice and cool decoration for a countertop.




Unfortunately no new housing projects to report, kind of at a stand still.  The garden however is growing away.  The plants are currently still in the flats we planted them in.  They are just about too big for them, and they are started to get eaten by the local squirrels.  We still have to till the area we want to plant the garden....that should probably be a weekend project.  I can't wait for fresh produce!



 

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Unda da Sea

Man I love the movie, The Little Mermaid.  I mean really Flounder is pretty hilarious, and Sebastian....how can you not like that guy.  I also like to eat all of these guys.  Yeah I know it sounds vulgar, but I am sure you are all agreeing with me right now.  I can't actually recall any mussels as main character in the movie, or in the movie at all, but that is what we ate tonight. 

Matt got them fresh from Waterfront after work.  We have had them only once before about a year and a half ago, I believe it was a creamy pasta type meal.  I recall it was delicious.  Tonight it was definitely good, more of a shell broth type meal.  We pretty much just cracked open the shell and used it like a little spoon and slurped it down.  This may not be the meal for everyone, and i totally understand that.  But if it sounds like something that might interest you, try it out,  The recipe is called Mojo Moulies,  don't worry they are not super fishy tasting.  They also pair very well with a nice glass of white wine!




On another note, Matt worked his butt off today while I was at work and I am soooo grateful for it!  He finished framing out the chimney that he tore down a few days ago.  Literally when he was tearing it apart he found pieces that said "Warning Combustible"  This was INSIDE our chimney.  The people that lived here before were idiots.  The picture I can provide won't look that great to you, it is covered by a tarp since it is supposed to rain and there is just a giant hole in the roof, but to me it is beautiful!!



And my last update of the night is the garden.



It is beautiful isn't it!!  This weekend we will try to start working on where the actual garden will be located.  It will be alot of work, but I believe all the soon to be veggies are worth it!!

 

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

An ode to fromage

Ohhhh cheese, how I love you.  Tonight we had Cheese Soup and it was soooo delicious.  So this recipe is a bit time consuming for a weeknight dinner, but it was worth it.  It is also a tad spendy, not the whole thing just the cheese.  It calls for Fontina cheese and believe me when I say it is worth it to be spendy on the cheese.  This isn't the first time we have made this recipe, but this was the first time we used Fontina.  Before when we made it we used something we probably had around the house or was on sale, I remember my teeth felt filmy when I was done and it left a layer on the spoon and bowl.  The Fontina makes it super creamy and non filmy.  It is pretty neat to see what this soup starts as...




Sometimes new recipes call for new hardware.  In this case we decided that an immersion blender was necessary, we tried pouring the soup into the blender once and it was tough and HOT.  So the immersion blender takes care of those problems.



And the then the soup turns into this...



I know it doesn't look like much, but you will have to trust me.  It is amazing!!

As far as the house project....Matt has been busy with non house things.  He has the next two days off, so I am hoping to see some major progress!!  I probably won't get my hopes too high....I tend to get let down...lets hope he doesn't read this :)

On another note, almost all of the little seedlings have sprouted.  That means we will probably need to get the actual garden started sometime soon!!  Can't wait to keep the updates coming!

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

El Cheapo

Typically I feel like when you are trying to pinch pennies you end up with a mish mosh of ingredients to make up a so so dinner.  Tonight was a complete different story.  Matt loves to buy a large amount of meat when it is on a good sale and freeze it in the food saver bags, so we had some thawed out pork chops in the fridge.  He found a food network recipe for the pork chops and it seemed like we had all the ingredients....holy cow I am glad he found it.  I feel a bit like I am cheating on Alton because it was a Paula Deen recipe, but dang that woman can do a mean pork chop!  So this sounds weird and honestly a little nasty but the recipe is called Chocolate Spiced Pork Chops and I urge each and every one of you to try it out.  Basically it is just a bunch of spices, that you probably have in your spice cabinet, on a pork chop, but the combination of the sweet and savory is perfect!  We combined it with yet another baked potato.  So in all honesty, out of all the recipes on this blog, this is probably my favorite and the easiest.  Mix spices, rub on meat, sear on both sides and throw in oven....POOF, amazing meal!!

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Productivity!!

Ah how I love Sundays, especially productive Sundays!  Today meals were cooked and the house was worked on, overall super exciting for me.  After a breakfast of bacon and eggs we got to work.  Me on "housewife" duties and Matt on the chimney.  After some surveying from the roof, he realized that the current chimney was worthless so he knocked it down.  He will now be rebuilding a much more sturdy one, of course something else to add to the checklist.  At least when we are working on these project we do them right and not half assed.  I feel safe knowing that right now the opening in the roof where the former chimney resided, is now covered with a trash bag duct tape and staples....lets pray for no rain!!  I was standing where the fireplace will someday be looking up at Matt working....interesting shot I must say!
 The meal tonight, I must say, was pretty dang good and for sure a make again meal.  We have been addicted to making baked potatoes, of course using an Alton recipe.  Salty crispy skinned potatoe with some sour cream and cheese....I mean come on, you can't beat that.  The main dish of dinner tonight was chicken kiev.  In all honesty, I probably would have never heard of chicken kiev if it wasn't for my bff, she loves them.  They were a little time consuming to make, they have to sit in the fridge for two hours to overnight, so it is more of a weekend dinner.  But I really think the end result is worth it, delicious.  Basically it is pounded out chicken rolled around an herbed butter, then breaded and fried.  When you cut into it the buttery mixture just oozes out.  It is for sure a meal to try, something new and different that you have probably never had before.  I think I forgot to mention that the baked potatoes were MASSIVE tonight!!
Now for the garden update....WE HAVE SEEDLINGS!!!  I am so insanely excited about this.  Gardens and fresh veggies make me really excited.  We currently have radish and kohlrabi seedlings.  We weren't sure we were even going to get anything to grow since these seeds were from last year.  Pretty soon we are going to have plants ready to plant, and no where to put them.  We should probably get the actual garden ready at some point!

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Gettin Down and Dirty

After a weekend away and a Monday night meal at Legends, we are back in business.  I would say that overall, tonight was spent overachieving at life!  Most of it can be contributed to a boyfriend who was home sick today and got a TON accomplished.  When I got home tonight Matt already had a pineapple upside down cake in the oven and dinner was about half done.  Dinner first started off with our Gooners as appetizers.  If you haven't been to the downtown farmers market and at Gooners....well you are missing out.  My coworker makes them and they are AMAZING.  Tonight we had some of his leftover sausage Gooners.  I must take credit for this recipe because I gave it to him!  Basically you have sausage, cream cheese and rotel in a wonton wrapper...makes my mouth water.  This is just one of many flavors....seriously try them!!
 Next course was finally an Alton recipe as promised.  We had turkey piccata and it was deliciousI am a big fan of turkey, white wine and lemon juice so there isn't much make me dislike this recipe.  The only thing I added to my dish was capers....but honestly I could eat them with anything.  I just thought it would give it an added flavor, I was right!
For dessert we tried the pineapple upside down cake.  I was pretty pumped to dive into this treat, but wasn't so stoked about it after the first bite.  Not going to lie, it wasn't really what I expected.  It was more like pineapple cornbread.  I am sure we will tough through and eat most of it....but totally not something we will be making again.

We even sorta kinda accomplished a house project.  We both have always talked about wanting to have a big garden but we don't have the yard to have one.  Last year we attempted to plant a ton of seeds and they ended up dying after a major family issue....so this year we are trying again.  This garden has 300 seeds planted as of tonight.  If we can keep them alive this year we will save some major dollars!!  Here is our beginning stages!!
I will for sure be keeping updates on the garden, it makes me super excited!!


Thursday, May 5, 2011

Still no Alton

I feel like I am not living up to my blog....still nothing gourmet, nothing by Alton and nothing about the house.  Oh and I also realized that I am still nameless in this blog....Hi I'm Angela, cool got that done.  Anyway tonight was an excellent recipe but not an Alton recipe.  I actually got this one from Fitness magazine I believe, I think it is called Chicken with green beans, tomato and feta or something.  Seriously the easiest recipe ever and sooo good.  

You just broil chicken breast with lemon slices and olive oil.  While that is cooking you bring a pot of water to a boil.  Meanwhile cut up a tomato and add to a bowl with some olive oil and feta, you can cut up an avocado and add that as well.  Boil the green beans for about 2 min and strain and add to the bowl.  When the chicken is done cut up and add to the bowl and voila!!  So delicious and pretty healthy!!

There hasn't been any house talk at all because frankly there has been no work done on the house in a few days.  The house takes alot of motivation, which we are currently lacking.  Our current project (or Matt's) is working on the fireplace.  We ripped out the old little gas fireplace and the whole corner where it was at, to replace it with a big wood burning fireplace!
The project is alot further along than this, but this is shows what is going on.  I am hoping to show much more progress in the upcoming weeks....lets hope the motivation starts flowing.  I would love to get my new floors installed!

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

This isn't a joke!

Well on our quest to become GREAT chefs, we have to have off nights.  Tonight just happened to be one of those, which would be super bad timing since this is supposed to be a semi food blog.  We have found that redoing a house is quite an expensive ordeal so we have to try to save every penny we can.  Last night we had a rather delicious meal of Welsh Rarebit that used rye bread so tonight......da da da daaaaa we had Reubens!!
In all honesty they were pretty delicious, Matt even took down two, but no so much gourmet.  I promise to have better recipes than this one.  I mean a reuben is pretty self explanatory, take a couple slices of rye, thousand island dressing, sauerkraut, swiss and some corned beef and poof a delicious sandwich.  I guess with all great things comes a few bad ones.....so here is one!  I bet you haven't had one in awhile, you should change that!!

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

So it begins...

Well here it is, my blog about the life of two young adults attempting to become gourmet cooks, while renovating a foreclosed house.  Matt and I (technically just Matt) bought our first home about two years ago and what an adventure it has been. 

 
Two years of new plumbing, electrical, furnace, basement flooding, sewage backing up in the basement, leaks, cracks....need I go on?!?  Well we have finally reached a point where we can start doing the fun stuff and make our house a home!!  During our attempt of making the house a home, we discovered our love for cooking, more specifically making Alton Brown (from food network) recipes. We have had some pretty amazing food during this time made by us!  
Hopefully you will enjoy the updates on the house and be inspired to make some delicious food!!