Phoodos - For Casey

Pasta Carbonara
My friend Casey is a fabulous chef and has given us some fabulous recipes on her blog. This is my shout out to her. She posted a recipe for Pasta Carbonara and while mine is a little different, she was TOTALLY the inspiration for my experimentation with this dish.

Her recipe can be found here.

Here is mine (Lord help us - I threw a bunch of stuff in a pot that I wanted to get rid of before we leave for Christmas in Illinois.)

I used Bacon - LOTS OF YUMMY BACON - actually it was 6 slices of thick cut (and I baked it in the oven - 400 degrees until its crispy - because I vowed to never EVER fry bacon again!).

I used Penne pasta (cause that's how I wanted to roll that night and that's what was in the pantry). I boiled it and threw in some frozen peas during the last few minutes of boiling.

Sauce (my burner was on 6 or 7):
-melted 1/2 stick of butter in a skillet
-sauteed a container of sliced mushrooms and some garlic (don't ask me how much 'cause I just threw some in - add as much or a little as you want)
-added 1/2 onion, chopped, to skillet
-added about 1 1/2 cups of diced chicken (it was about half a package of the frozen diced chicken from Tyson)
-salt and pepper
-I added 1/2 package of cream cheese and let it begin to melt
-added a small container of half and half (oh, it's REAL healthy)
-added shredded parmesan (about 3/4 of a container from the store - I'm too lazy to grate it myself)
-Simmer
-add bacon, crumbled

Mix sauce with pasta/peas. Voila!

Veggie Lasagna

I also made Veggie Lasagna (last week - I'm late posting it). If you're interested, you can find the recipe here. We shared it with a couple from church - I have found it impossible to make a small amount of lasagna and soup/chili.

Beef with Broccoli

So, I love Pintrest. In fact, I may be slightly addicted. However, it does produce good things...just ask Precious. He enjoyed some delicious Beef with Broccoli all because of Pintrest! Here is what ours looked like. YUM, right? (Note: I omitted the Sherry - I didn't have any!)

All plated up like Food Network. (RIGHT!) 

Updates from Ohio

I have several things that I haven't shown you mostly because it's really just a few things because I'm pityful and can't remember to take stupid pictures. I didn't take one single picture at Thanksgiving. Bad Blogger. Bad Scrapbooker! Grrrr.

So we opened 2 more envelopes. Keep up people - it was a wedding present. A really awesome wedding present.

This was envelope #2 stop in Canton, OH.

This was envelope #3 stop in Fairlawn, OH.

and my "treats"

 

Yesterday I made cupcakes with butter cream icing - SO YUMMY!

For dinner I made Maple Glazed Salmon and Green Bean & Roasted Potatoes in a chive and butter sauce:

I'll try to do better. Not making promises, but I am going to try. Except tonight...I made Parmesan Chicken and was too lazy and hungry to get my camera out before dinner.

Pretend You're Excited!

So, today I went and signed papers for a new auto insurance policy, started our renter's insurance policy, cancelled my old auto policy, hung some shelves and the dry erase calendar in the office area:

I'm going to spend some time hanging stuff so, as I post pictures things may look a little different - that's a good thing.

Here's how the living room looked this afternoon:

But we hung our "Home Sweet Home" sign tonight, so over the door now looks like this:

This is a look from our balcony this afternoon (you can't tell from the picture, but the colors on that hillside are gorgeous!):

And finally - DINNER! Apple Meatloaf and Green Beans with Almonds. (and yes, Kate, plated like some Food Network blah blah blah)

Wild Animals Escaping

This week has been quite an interesting week in Ohio. Where do I even begin? There was the ghetto experience and the wild animals escaping (don't even get me started!). Please tell me you heard about this? And apparently there are so few regulations against it in Ohio that people could have a zoo in their house and no one would care - well, not until you let them loose.

Speaking of wild animals - this little guy came to visit this week:

It's been a good first week of marriage, though. Ronnie and I haven't killed each other. We even drove almost 10 hours in a car and we are both still alive. Things I've discovered or re-discovered this week about my husband: even though he likes things neat and organized (we'll talk about his closet organization later which will further prove this), he isn't bothered by the boxes AND he actually makes friend easier than I do. I'll just claim his friends as my own and then I won't have to make my own! ;-)

I shopped a lot this week - so much so that I didn't even want to leave the house yesterday. Who knew that I could get tired of shopping? I am working on getting things out of boxes and into their proper place. I have the kitchen straightened out and I went grocery shopping (painful when you don't even have staples like flour, sugar and bread - much less anything else!). I fixed the pantry with some wonderful OXO Pop Storage containers. Baskets took care of our DVD problem. The office area is coming together. It will get better this coming week because we now own an drill/driver and a level so I can hang shelves. YAY!

The bedroom is great (except for my side of the closet which still needs sweaters - I can't find the box!). It's cozy and DARK thanks to some lovely thermal curtains.

This week I plan to finish up the office area and hang some pictures. Hopefully I will find my sweaters and get some more stuff taken care of in the guest bedroom. I will try to post some pictures this week to show you a little bit of what I've been up to while hubby is at work.

Here's a little sneak peak of a couple meals (PHOODOS for Casey):

Apple Streusel Waffles
Thursday Morning

Tonight's Dinner
Chicken Mignon and Orzo with Roasted Veggies