There's Something About (Rose)mary!

One of my favorite herbs is rosemary. I love the aroma, the taste, the look. Everything! I was very fortunate the other day to find a rosemary plant for a whopping $2.50. This is not only half what the sales lady guessed it would be, but it was like 10 times less what I expected it to be. Here's what else is awesome: even if I end up killing the plant, I'll still end up with enough dried rosemary to cook for a long time! It was TOTALLY worth the money.

Since I bought the plant, I've been dying to make a baked pork chop with rosemary. It was super easy and beyond delicious. It was magnificent.

1 pork chop
1 sprig of fresh rosemary
House seasoning

1. Preheat oven to 350. Place your chop in a baking dish and season lightly on both sides with the House Seasoning I mentioned a few posts back.
2. Place the sprig of rosemary right on the middle of the pork chop and cook for about 30 minutes or until the pork chop is slightly brown on the outside and white throughout the inside.

SO simple and so tasty! I served mine with the garlic herb mashed potatoes I made a few posts back, some simple sauteed mushrooms and a wedged Roma tomato, just for fun.

Rosemary is good with pork chops, delightful with turkey and fabulous with a baked citrus chicken. Its my favorite!


Happy Cooking!

Amy

30 before 30...hmm

So this is so far off topic, but just hang on tight for a second. I was reading a blog I follow, acharmedwife.com and she talks about the 30 things she wants to do before she is 30. Interesting concept. I have 2.5-ish years. Why the hell shouldn't I give this a whirl. I have to come up with a list....can I put this blog on my list? I'm going to...there aren't real rules. Now...29 more things to go...hmm.

One of those tortillas is mine!

Tortilla soup. Two words that make my friends miss me and salivate...all at the same time. It's a recipe I got from my grandma and it's one of my favorites and a favorite of my friends. It's been requested, so I cut the recipe down as much as I could. Unfortunately, there are leftovers. Fortunately, this is even better the second day. I can honestly say this is one of the few things I eat the next day...no me gusta leftovers...


Alrighty, hang on to your hats. Here comes tortilla soup!!

1/2 lb hamburger meat
1 can ranch style beans
2/3 can of white hominy with some of the liquid
1/2 can original rotel tomatoes and green peppers
1/2 cup water
1 1/2 table spoons taco seasoning (half packet)
1 1/2 table spoons powdered ranch dressing (half packet)

1. Brown your hamburger. I used the stock pot I planned on using for the soup so I didn't have to dirty up an extra pan...and since I use the 93/7 hamburger, there's no need to drain it. BUT, if you're using a higher fat hamburger meat, you should probably drain it.
2. After the hamburger is cooked, put the beans, hominy, rotel, water and taco seasoning in your pot with the hamburger. Cook together for 30-45 minutes or so, on medium heat. You may need to add a little extra water if the soup starts to thicken and stick to the bottom of the pan.
3. In the last few minutes of cooking, add in the ranch dressing mix. Let it cook together for about 10 minutes.
4. Top with shredded cheese and a few crushed tortilla chips and you're golden!

Side note: Yes, I realize there are no actual tortillas involved in tortilla soup (Beyond the chip garnish). I don't know why there aren't tortillas, but I do recommend eating it with tortillas or tortilla chips. This is what I know, Grandma called it Tortilla Soup and because she said it is, that makes it so. The end.

Happy Cooking!

Amy

OH! PS. tried to make tortillas...it was awful. Anyone want to teach me how to make authentic flour or corn tortillas?

egg-celent breakfast

Has anyone else realized how versatile and wonderful eggs are? One of my favorite breakfasts is simple scrambled eggs and toast. Give me a little bit of salt and pepper and a mug of hot tea and I am set for an amazing breakfast.

I think this love for eggs is leading me to learn to make eggs florentine or eggs Benedict. Maybe this weekend...I need to learn more about hollandaise sauce before I get to it.

Happy cooking!

Amy

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Food + Bloopers=Foopers

I decided I needed to fess up and tell y'all about my minor cooking disasters from this week.

First, there was the sauce pan catastrophe. I was doing dishes and my larger sauce pan fell from the dish rack to the floor. I have these really cute red pots and pans that cook great and now my poor large sauce pan is shaped like I'm a boob and dropped it...because basically I did. Ugh.


Then, I thought I would make pancakes, sans bisquik. The internet failed me. Twice. I looked up a couple recipes and did the conversions (double checked my math, thanks!). The first recipe made the batter like super sweet horrible cookie dough batter stuff. The second was so thick and bland that they just made a pancake puck thing. Awful. So, when you google how to make pancakes from scratch, don't use the top two recipes. Ever.

Tonight...oh tonight. I thought I would make a stuffed bell pepper again, since it was so good last time. I popped my rice in the microwave and wasn't thinking that I would need to reduce the cooking time. I ended up with a dry, rubbery rice mess. Totally a Monday cooking mistake.

So, there you have it. These are my food bloopers. If you know me at all, you should expect many more to come because I have a tendency to do dumb things.

Happy Cooking!

Amy

Chicken and Dumplings

If I ever have to request a last meal as an involuntary resident of Huntsville, Texas, it will be this: Momma's Chicken and Dumplings. When growing up, this was the 2nd best thing about winter, besides Christmas break.

I don't like restaurant chicken and dumplings, because, well, this one is so good I'm basically spoiled. It's so simple and delicious.

Chicken and Dumplings

2-3 cups water
1/4-1/2 table spoon salt
dash marjoram
1 bay leaf
a dash or two of pepper
1 chicken breast
1 potato, cubed/cut
1/2 cup to 1 cup carrots
1 stalk of celery, cut
1/3 cup onions, cut in large chunks
3-4 canned biscuits
(The smallest can of biscuits I have found has 5 in it. I can't eat all five and I don't think they'll keep very well. If you want to bake them and save them, more power to you. I think I'm going to chunk them. I know its wasteful....the kids in ethiopia wouldn't get them before they went bad anyways...)

Ok...

1. Boil the water. Add the chicken breast, the marjoram, bay leaf, salt and pepper. Let this boil until the chicken is cooked.
2. Once the chicken is cooked, remove it from the stock and cut it into bite-sized pieces. Add it back to the stock and add your potatoes and carrots. Let this all cook together until the veggies start to become tender.
3. Add the celery and onions and boil until they start to get tender, too.
4. Add the raw biscuits and cover. Cook until the biscuits rise and have cooked. It'll take about 5 minutes or so. They'll still be kind of gooey, but definitely a good gooey!

Now, just as a warning. If you don't let it cool, you'll burn your face off. This has been boiling for like 45 minutes. Don't be a fool, let your food cool!

Happy Cooking!

Amy

Comfort Food at its Finest

The temperature dropped here again today and for me when that happens, I want comfort foods. Today, I needed (Yes, needed!) meatloaf, mashed potatoes and an apple crisp. Holy crap. IT WAS AWESOME!!
Just a note...I had left overs. I hate to admit it, but I did. Here's the thing, though, the meatloaf and mashed potatoes are so good you'll want to eat them for lunch the next day. Or you can invite a friend over to help you eat it!
Meatloaf. I think there are two schools of thought here...with gravy or tomato sauce. I am of the tomato sauce school of thought, sort of. I don't use tomato sauce, but instead I use ketchup. That's right, ketchup. Not catsup. This is Texas, it's ketchup. If I had enough, I would even use Whataburger ketchup, because everyone knows it is the best ketchup ever made. If you disagree, you're wrong, sorry!

OK, so here we go!

Meatloaf

2/3 lb hamburger
1/4 lb sage sausage (remember how we're dividing foods and freezing it? yeah, comes in handy now!)
2 tablespoons ketchup
1 tablespoon yellow mustard
2 tablespoons finely diced yellow onions
3 tablespoons canned corn (trust me on this one!)
1/3 cup seasoned bread crumbs
1 large egg

Preheat oven to 350.

1. Put all ingredients in a medium sized mixing bowl and combine thoroughly. *DON'T BE A SISSY!! DIG IN!! PUT YOUR HANDS IN THE BOWL!! GET MESSY!! It's gonna taste better, I promise!*
2. Put your meat concoction into a glass baking dish and shape into a loaf-like shape. USE YOUR HANDS!!
3. Bake for 45 minutes, but check at 30 minutes to see how it's doing. If there is a lot of fluid/fat in the pan, drain it off carefully into the sink. When the meatloaf is looking nice and dark brown and when it's not looking pink in the middle (don't use your hands to check...come on now, use a fork...) top with a little bit of extra ketchup, if you want. I don't usually do this because I forget, BUT I did it this time and it was pretty awesome. Bake it for about 15 minutes with the ketchup on it.

The mashed potatoes this time were way better than I think I've ever made. I don't like doing instant, because real mashed potatoes are pretty easy and way tastier.

1 large potato, cut
2-3 cups water
1 tablespoon kosher salt
4 tablespoons unsalted butter (I think this is what made the difference this time)
1/8-1/4 cup milk
fresh ground pepper to taste

1. Boil water and 1/2 of the salt and then add the potatoes. Cook till tender.
2. Drain potatoes, add butter, the rest of the salt, and the milk. Mash them up completely. Pepper and salt as you want.

I don't know if it was the regular butter instead of the regular tub margarine I usually use or the kosher salt (yes, I bought some after some investigation the other day). I don't know what the deal was but they turned out amazing.

Apple Crisp

1 granny smith apple, peeled and cored
1 red delicious apple, peeled and cored
1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup plus 2 table spoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
dash of nutmeg
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 the zest of one lemon

Preheat oven to 350.

1. Cut your apple slices into large chunks and place into a large ramican or small glass baking dish. Add the zest of half of one lemon and toss together.
2. In a small bowl, combine flour, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. After it's mixed, add your butter. I broke my butter into small pieces to make it easier to combine it all. Mix the butter and dry ingredients really well, until it clumps up. (I broke down and bought a cheap-o, 1 cup chopper at wally world and it has really come in handy. It only took like, a minute, pulsing on and off with the mixer to get just the right consistency. If you don't have a mixer, no worries, just use a fork!)
3. Once it's all mixed up, cover the apples with the flour mixture. Bake for about 30-35 minutes or until the crumbly stuff is starting to brown and the apple mixture is starting to bubble up.

Honestly, I wasn't sure this was going to turn out well. IT WAS AMAZING!! The lemon zest not only keeps the apples from turning brown while you're mixing the crumb topping, but it also adds just the perfect slight tang to compliment the sweetness of the apples and sugar. Holy mole. FABULOUS!

Like I said, I bought a little chopper at walmart, but I've used it enough times in this past week for it to have worked off the $10 it cost. You know I don't want to tell you to buy a ton of kitchen gadgets, but this has made cooking prep a little easier.

OK. Now, go buy ingredients to at least make the apple crisp. You'll thank me later.


Happy Cooking!

Amy

Stuffed Bell Pepper and Chocolate Cake

I've been pretty good lately as far as controlling my sweet tooth...but today I gave in. I was bad...but not TOO bad. That's the beauty of cooking for one; I made 2 small chocolate cakes that were delicious! To lead up to my dessert, I had stuffed bell peppers (that I happened to eat too quickly to take a picture...my bad).


Stuffed Bell Pepper

1 green bell pepper
2 tablespoons diced onions
1 teaspoon cooking oil
garlic salt
1/3 to 1/2 lb ground beef
1/4 cup tomato sauce
1/2 cup cooked rice (I just used minute rice...I'm not fancy!)

preheat oven to 350
1. Cut the stem of the bell pepper off and discard. Also cut about a half inch of the top of the bell pepper off but save this part. Remove the seeds and the white membrane stuff on the inside of the bell pepper (do both parts of the bell pepper).
2. In a small frying pan heat your oil. While the oil is heating, dice the little bit of bell pepper we saved from step one and add the bell pepper and the onion to your hot oil. As they start to cook, add your hamburger and garlic salt and cook together. You should cook it the hamburger has browned.
3. Add tomato sauce and cooked rice to hamburger mixture and remove from heat. Mix everything together really well...taste it and add salt and pepper as you need.
4.In a small oven-safe dish (I still vote pyrex here!), add enough water to cover the bottom of the pan about 1/8 of an inch. We don't want the pepper to stick to the pan.
5. Fill the bell pepper with our hamburger mixture and set the filled pepper in the pan. Cook for about 20 minutes or until the pepper is nice and tender and the mixture has heated all the way through (which should already have been hot-ish since we put it in when it was warm).
6. Let it sit for a few minutes before you eat it so you don't burn your face off and so the flavors mix all together.

The bell pepper was so good! My momma used to make them when I was little and I don't know if I would admit it then, but now, I love them!


CAKE!!! CHOCOLATE CAKE!!!

Ok I cheated, I didn't just magically figure out how to make a perfect chocolate cake. I borrowed the recipe from the website : http://www.joyofbaking.com/ChocolateCupcakes.html and used a conversion thingie to figure out the right amount of everything I would need to make about 1/4 the recipe.

Here's the deal!

2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/4 cup boiling water
1/3 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup sugar
3 table spoons eggs....see the instructions for this one...
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1. Put your cocoa powder in a small bowl and add boiling water to it. Mix completely to make a little chocolaty sauce. Set aside to let it cool.
2. Mix your remaining dry ingredients together and set aside.
3. In yet another bowl...i know! So many dishes to clean later!....mix together your butter and sugar until its nice and creamy. Then add the vanilla.
4. Now add your egg. Here's the thing...eggs don't come in quarters. I beat together one egg and then divided it. One egg was about 1/4 cup of fluid...so I divided that in half and it turned out the be about about 3 table spoons or 1/8 of a cup. ANYWAYS, add the egg to your sugar and mix it all up.
5. Now, take your dry ingredients and add them to the sugary goodness. Mix them together and add your chocolate sauce to the mixture. Mix well.
6. Now, you can make cupcakes or you can be cool like me and use small ramicans. I divided the cake batter into two ramicans and filled them about 2/3 of the way up....and then I licked the bowl. >:-)
7. Bake for about 15 minutes or until they have risen and are a little springy to the touch on top. When you stick a toothpick in, it should come out clean.

Let the cakes cool and while they're cooling, whip up a little bit of chocolate butter cream frosting.

I think this is what I did...I did it kind of to taste.

1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 table spoons-ish of cocoa powder (i did it to taste....)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
4 table spoons room temp or slightly softened butter

Mix everything together. Really. Add about half of the butter first, then add more as you need until you get the consistency you want. I think I used all 4 tablespoons.
Top your cakes with the frosting when they're cool and you're set!

The chocolate cakes were delicious! And now you don't have to worry about 18 of his friends sitting on the counter staring at you for a week....

Happy Cooking!

Amy

breakfast club sandwich

I modified the sandwich from the other day and made it just a little bit more delicious. I added a little bit of sliced turkey lunchmeat. It's awesome! Try it when you get a chance!

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fresh green beans...sorta

I know my mom will be so proud to read this: I love vegetables.

That's right. It's now officially in the blog-osphere. I love vegetables of all kinds. Broccoli, brussel sprouts, asparagus, peas, carrots, but not beets (sorry, Momma, I still don't like beets.) Vegetables are just tasty!

I really love fresh green beans and tonight I decided to make some as a side to the baked chicken with onions and mushrooms I was planning. Here's why I say they were sorta fresh green beans; green beans are grown in the summer. I don't know where my beans were grown, but obviously it wasn't anywhere local....since we've seen weather in the teens this week. So I guess, thank you southern hemisphere for my green beans.

Here's the green bean scoop.

10 green beans ...or however many you'll want to eat
1/2 cup water
1/8 teaspoon of salt
1 table spoon real bacon pieces
1 teaspoon butter

1. Bring water to a fast rolling boil and add salt.
2. Add green beans, Bacon and butter to boiling water. Cook for about 8 to 10 minutes.(food fail...I forgot to time the cooking of these.) You want them to be somewhat tender, but not mush. If the bacon pieces are starting to look gross, you've cooked the green beans too long :)

That's basically it. They aren't fancy, but darn it, they taste great...and they're mostly healthy...mostly.

Happy cooking!

Amy

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feta dip for one

Here's what my feta looked like. I use green olives, but using black is cool, too. Just enough for one person to enjoy!

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Feta Dip a la Humps

I really want there to be more fanfare for this...I made feta dip tonight that tastes exactly like the feta dip at one of my favorite Huntsville, Texas restaurants, Humphrey's. Humphrey's is a bar and grill in my college town. One of my favorite things to order there after a long week of music camps in the summer is this dip. We get several orders and share stories from the week. I'm gonna share with you all that is awesome. And, it is awesome.


Feta Dip a la Humps

1/3 cup feta cheese, crumbled
2 tsp greek yogurt
2-4 olives, chopped or sliced
diced tomatoes
oregano

Dipping Bread
olive oil
pre-made pizza crusts or pita bread
oregano

For the dip, combine feta and yogurt. Using a fork, mash them together EXTREMELY well. You want the texture to be pretty smooth. If you have a small food processor, you might use that, but I think the one I had was sacrificed to the gnomes of Hunts-vegas, so I just mixed...and mixed...and mixed. Sprinkle with a dash of oregano, tomatoes and olives.

For the vehicle to get the feta from bowl to mouth, the options offered at Humphrey's are pita bread and garlic bread. My personal favorite is the pita bread, but I do like the garlic bread, too. The pita bread is super simple...my HEB has herb pita bread things that are great, but at Wally World, I just grabbed a store brand pizza crust from the bakery section. Since the pizza crust is pretty big, I divided it into quarters and bagged the extra up for later. Here's what I did:

Preheat oven to 350. Drizzle the pizza crust/pita bread slices very lightly with olive oil. Sprinkle with oregano and bake for 5-10 minutes, or until the bread is slightly toasted.

Cover the pieces with GENEROUS amounts of feta and enjoy the gift from heaven.

Happy Cooking!!

Amy

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House Seasoning

If you don't know me well, here's a little tidbit for you: I wish Paula Deen would be my fairy godmother! I love her show and her food...and her sons...what?

Something of hers that I keep on hand is her House Seasoning. It's so simple and so tasty. You can find the recipe here:
www.food.com/recipe/paula-deens-house-seasoning-mix-57340

I just used table salt, since that's what I had on hand. Now, my other food idol is Alton Brown and at the website www.salt101.com you can learn all about the different kinds of salt (and he makes me look silly for using table salt instead of kosher like the recipe calls for).

Anyways, tonight, I sprinkled a little bit of the House Seasoning on my happy little pork chop and it made it ROCKIN! I recommend keeping it on hand...because all the cool kids do.


Happy Cooking!

Amy

Sammich!

I made an awesome sandwhich the other day...but I ate it before I could take a picture. It's nothing special, but it was delicious!!

Here goes nothin!

3 slices of bacon
1 egg
1 slice white american cheese
fresh ground pepper
salt
2 slices bread of your choice, toasted
2 tsp miracle whip


Okie dokie!
1. Cook your bacon to desired crispiness...I don't like mine too crunchy, but that's just me. After the bacon is cooked, set aside on a couple paper towels to drain the excess grease off.
2. Gently crack your egg into the pan with the hot bacon grease...and remember it's HOT! Be gentle so it doesn't splash on you! Duh!
3. Cook your egg until the white cooks, gently splashing a little bit of the grease onto the egg yolk. After a few minutes of cooking, flip the egg so the other side will cook. Again, be gentle. I don't like to break the yolk till I'm eating the sandwich :)
4. When egg is finished, set it aside on the paper towel with the bacon and blot gently with another paper towel...we're not trying to stop our hearts RIGHT NOW!
5. Toast your bread and then spread the miracle whip on one side of each piece. I just used enough to cover the bread lightly...again I don't want my heart to stop yet! I'm young!!
6. Fit the bacon onto one slice of bread and then top it with your cheese slice. Add the egg to the top of these. Salt and pepper as you like.
7. Slap the other piece of toast on there and you're golden!

It's a great little breakfast-esque sandwich. I loved it!

Happy Cooking!

Amy

Dinner: It's whats for dinner.

That's really not that clever, is it? Eh. Oh well :)

Dinner tonight turned out pretty awesome! I had a delightful hamburger patty under sauteed garlic and rosemary mushrooms. With this I had baked sweet potato fries and a small salad. It actually ended up being so much food that the dog got half of the hamburger! I wasn't about to share the mushrooms, though!


Sweet Potatoes
Preheat oven to 450.
1 small-ish sweet potato
Olive Oil for tossing
Cinnamon
Salt
Sugar

1. Using a good knife (not just a steak knife, but a BIG knife), slice the sweet potato in half. Cut the halves into pieces about 1/4 to 1/2" wide.
2. Put the pieces in a glass baking dish and toss with olive oil. You want them to be slightly covered, not saturated.
3. Sprinkle lightly with cinnamon and salt. Bake for 10 minutes at 450, then take them out and toss them around a little bit so they don't stick and they cook evenly.
4. Put them back in the oven for about 10 more minutes. They'll be done when you can put a fork in them pretty easily.
5. When they come out of the oven, sprinkle with sugar and toss. Then, sprinkle with salt and toss.
**I like to use a sea salt grinder for these so that you get a good, salty crunch.


The hamburger isn't rocket science...it's a burger. I took a little bit of garlic salt and mixed it into the 1/2 pound of meat and popped it into my pan. I like to use the lean meat, 93/7, so it's a bit healthier and less messy. Cook it over medium heat until it's cooked to your liking. (For me, I don't like the burger to 'moo' at me....a good rare steak is a completely different blog post!)


Mushrooms...these are AMAZING!!!! But, if you know me, you know I love mushrooms!

3 large button mushrooms
1 teaspoon butter
1/2 teaspoon veggie oil
1/4 teaspoon rosemary
garlic salt to taste
fresh ground pepper

1. Wash and dry the mushrooms, then slice them to about 1/4" thickness and set aside.
2. In your saute pan, over a medium heat, put the butter and oil together and let them mix together throughly.
3. When the butter mixture is nice and hot (starting to bubble up a little)add your mushrooms.
4. They'll start to absorb the butter...don't add more!! Instead, when they are starting to brown add your rosemary and a couple dashes of garlic salt and a bit of freshly ground pepper.
5. Cook this all together for about 4 or 5 minutes. You want the mushrooms to get pretty and brown colored.

Put the mushrooms over the burger and you're set!

You know, the funny thing is that I used to not be interested in sweet potatoes AT ALL! Now, I can't get enough! I guess that's a good thing since they're pretty healthy--even with a little bit of sugar on them!

Till next time, happy cooking!

Amy

Bacon...thank you Porky!

So I thought I'd try chicken for dinner...but I didn't want plain old chicken. I wanted something tasty! The menu at Cuisinier à la Maison, was bacon wrapped chicken, carrots and garlic-herb mashed potatoes. Turned out pretty good. The chicken was good but is missing something, I just can't figure out what.

Here we go!!


Bacon Wrapped Chicken
1 chicken breast
2 slices bacon

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Wrap thawed chicken breast in bacon and place in small baking dish. Bake for 30 minutes or until chicken is cook throughout and the bacon is cooked.

Super easy, pretty tasty....I'll try to figure out what's missing.

Mashed Potatoes

2 cups water
1/8 tsp salt
1 medium potato, cut into 1" cubes. (I didn't peel my potato, but if you want to, do it!)
1 table spoon butter
2-3 table spoons milk
2 wedges of Laughing Cow Herb and Garlic soft cheese

1. In a medium sauce pan, boil water with the salt in it. As it starts to boil, add the potato chunks.
2. Cook potato pieces for about 15 minutes, or until they are soft. They don't need to be instantly mushy, but there shouldn't be much resistance when you put your fork in.
3. Drain the water from the potatoes and put them back in their pan. Add the butter, milk and cheese wedges.
4. Mash everything together throughly. Taste as you go and add more milk or butter if you want.

Carrots

1/2 cup fresh carrots (About to pieces) (I cheat and used the precut carrots!)
1/3 cup water
1 table spoon butter
dash Marjoram

1. In a small sauce pan, put about half of your water and all of your butter.
2. As the butter melts, add your carrots. Give your marjoram shaker a good shake or two.
3. Cook, covered, for about 15 minutes, adding water as needed so the carrots don't scorch. The carrots will be done when they are somewhat tender. You want them to give a little resistance but don't want them to be mushy. Al dente is the goal.

(Don't hate on my photography skills....)


The carrots and potatoes were heavenly. Seriously. Try them tomorrow...try them later tonight.


Hope y'all enjoy! Happy Cooking!!

Amy

Breakfast....made delicious.

A while back, I saw a pro make a delicious little brunch treat on her show and I of course had to try it! I adapted it a bit to make it just for me...and its awesome.

Sausage Bake

2 table spoons finely diced onions
1/2 cup sage sausage (I used Jimmy Dean brand...it doesn't have to be fancy!)
2 whole mushrooms sliced
1 egg
shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
1. In a small saute pan, brown the sausage and the onions together. When the sausage is about half-way cooked, add the mushrooms. Cook the onions, sausage and mushrooms together until the sausage is pretty much cooked.
2. Pour the sausage mixture into a large ramican.
3. Crack one egg onto to top of the mixture. Place in the oven and bake for about 15 minutes. As long as the white of the egg has cooked, you're good! Top with the shredded cheese as you like.

It's super easy and tasty.

Hope you guys like it! Happy cooking!

Amy

My gadget goal...

One of the key points I wanted to keep in mind when I started this blog was to NOT have to buy or tell you to buy any super crazy-chopping-slicing-dicing-pneumatic-roasting and all-in-one gadget! Gadgets? We don't need no stinkin' gadgets!!

HOWEVER, I'm going to break that rule just this one time...hopefully. I found this handy little device when I was Christmas shopping with my mom and lo and behold! I got one!!

Ladies and Gentlemen, for a mere $5 you, too, can buy the Trudeau Flipper Measuring spoons. It doesn't slice and dice. It's not pneumatic. It flips. It's 4 measuring spoons in one, and it's cute, too.

You can find them all over, just google it!


I won't lie, I have another full set of measuring spoons, but I sort of feel like measuring spoons and dish towels are both something you can't really have enough of. It seems like I always throw one spoon in the sink just to turn around and need it again 2 seconds later. And if you saw how many dish towels I have, you'd think I'm preparing for the apocalypse (OK, not really...).

Anyways, this is handy and cute and inexpensive. Get one. Give one. Share the measuring spoon love.

Happy Cooking!

Amy

Woman v. Grocery Store

Let's all say this together: The grocery store is my friend. The grocery store is my friend.

Today we live in a world where you're supposed to buy in bulk so save thirty-five cents and have toilet paper for 3 years. Why? Where am I supposed to put 3 years worth of toilet paper in this one room closet...I mean apartment....

Here's the deal, folks. Don't do it! Break free from the buying in bulk!!!

It is perfectly fine to just buy a regular pack of chicken or toilet paper or whatever it is you need at the grocery store. Since I'm just cooking for me, I know I'm only going to need to cook 1 chicken breast or whatever. I buy my zippered freezer bags and a small pack of whatever and divide the package into portions I will cook. If I need to cook extra...I use two bags. This is ground-breaking, isn't it?!!

I know it gets a little trickier when you need to use canned products, but we can do it. The grocery store is our friend!!!