Color!

Inaugural dinner

Tonight was the first of our weekly dinners at my new place and it was amazing! I made fajitas (meaning I grilled onions with pre-done chicken shortcuts, heated the tortillas over an open flame and bought toppings) and my counter as never seen so many things on it at once. Despite all of the dishes and the single pan that I used, it was totally worth it and the three of us had a great time... Two weeks to figure out the next menu!

Happy Easter!

I haven't had fun dip in ages, and I particularly liked that it wished me a happy Easter. The watermelon flavor was a bit much, but I just can't say no to a stick of sugar dipped in more sugar!

My job for Easter brunch was to bake and bring biscuits to my parents. Carter even told me which kind to get from the freezer section, so this seemed like a fool-proof plan. WRONG. I got up to bake them this morning (by bake, I just mean put them on a tray and throw them in the oven) and the directions told me to preheat the oven BETWEEN 350 and 400 degrees. WHAT?! Directions are not supposed to give me a range! Just tell me exactly what temperature to preheat the oven to! I don't know if my oven runs hot... I just know it cooks things when I tell it the temperature on the box. I finally settled on 375 and thought I had made it through the tough part. WRONG AGAIN. The cooking time: 15 to 20 minutes. SERIOUSLY?! Clearly whoever wrote these directions has never met someone with my level of cooking incompetency and they should find a more suitable career path, perhaps writing horoscopes or messages in fortune cookies. Directions are supposed to make things easy, not make your brain do a major workout before 9 am! In the end they turned out ok and I wasn't fired from biscuit duty for the rest of my life, so we will count it as a success. And next time I will choose my biscuits more wisely based on which ones have better directions!

An attempt at eating healthy

Its not cheese pizza, but I guess it was edible enough.

Grilled Cheesus

I made a grilled cheese for dinner and it was nothing short of amazing. In fact, it was so delicious that I went back downstairs two hours later and made another.

Captive Audience

I was at the grocery store and decided that baked potatoes couldn't possibly be THAT hard to make, so I decided to buy them in preparation for my weekly dinner with Megan. As I blankly stared at all of the potato options at Harris Teeter, this is what was going through my head: sweet potatoes (gross), microwavable sweet potatoes (still gross but intrigued by the microwavable part), MICROWAVABLE RUSSET POTATOES (bingo!).

I was thrilled by this discovery and that they were individually wrapped so I didn't have to buy a metric ton of them when I only wanted two. Anyway, the next morning I was very excited when I announced my great discovery to Carter, to which she replied, "Um, Cec, all potatoes are microwavable."

I mean, this potato is pre-washed AND freshness verified! Megan appreciated where I was coming from and understood my confusion that regular potatoes could be microwaved (non pre-washed and without verified freshness, of course). It not only provided a tasty dinner but also a good amount of entertainment. On top of that, this is the longest 365 post this year. You're welcome.

365, Baking Binge 2k11

This morning I got up and made some sticky buns from Gitsy and Poppa, chocolate chip cookies to take to Megan's potluck, and some sugar cookies for Megan to take to the KG folks that have to work tomorrow. It almost sounds impressive that I did all this before noon, but a handful of my friends ran the Army 10-miler this morning, so its pretty hard to top that!

The Cooking Continues?!

I made chicken salad tonight! I have to give my brother, Alex, most of the credit for walking me through how to make it (and understanding just how clueless I am), but I actually did it! If you know me, you understand the magnitude of this victory-- remember, I just learned how to cook chicken last night.

I put the chicken salad on a tortilla and added some lettuce, and it was quite tasty. I had an interesting realization tonight in the lettuce department- a head of lettuce has surprisingly more character than lettuce in a bag. Maybe its not surprising since it is clearly more fresh, but it definitely made me stop for a moment. Also, a head of lettuce is cheaper and stays fresh longer... Why have I been buying bagged salad all these years?! (and by "all these years," I probably just mean the last few months... eh, details...)

Spaghetti Pie

In my baking and cooking ventures, I have become pretty good at making spaghetti pie... Fear not, it is from a kids cookbook and is, well, designed to be made by kids. Needless to say, it's right within my comfort zone :-)

I've made it a handful of times over the last few months and have even started to modify the recipe (gasp!) and eye-ball measurements. This was the first time I mixed whole-grain and regular noodles, and I'm happy to report I can't taste a difference. I misjudged the amount of noodles (common eye-ball measuring mistake), so the pie ended up being MUCH bigger than expected. I was quite concerned I messed up the recipe, but I had it for lunch and dinner today and it tasted delicious both times... I guess I inadvertently tested just how kid friendly the recipe was, and it passed with flying colors!