What happens when friends are in town...

Remember the last post where I cooked that big ham the first weekend Mike's friend was in town? Well ever since then we really haven't done much cooking cause Mike's buddy wanted to go out to eat all the time and try all these places around Tampa Bay, which was cool and all, but really draining on the bank account and our home cooking time.Unfortunately, Mike's friend has finished his rotation and left town. He will be back again, but probably not till next year. Gives us time to save up some more money :)

One of my bosses at work transferred to a new clinic, so on her last day I made some low fat, cholesterol free chocolate cupcakes (with little powdered sugar butterflies):

 I think I got the recipe from my low fat, low cholesterol cookbook. Anyway, they were super moist and gone by the end of the day.

A few days later, on the 12th, I had Mike cook up some stir fir veggies that we picked up at Aldi's. I just wanted to share Mike's plating with you :

For being from a bag ( with no preservatives, additives, or fake sugars) it came out really good.

 As with every post, Mike craves pizza sometime during the course of the week, so he made some on the 16th:

I think it was olive and spinach pizza with basil. Now you may be asking were the spinach is? Well Mike mixed some of it in with the crust. It was good but I think he over did it on the fresh basil. We have a lot of basil growing in the garden and I just think he wanted to use as much as he could.

On one of my recent trips to Borders, I found this book in the bargain section for only $7.99:

I love her shows on Food Network and The Cooking Channel ( even though we don't have cable any more). Granted a lot of the meals in here are designed for holidays or entertaining there are some easy, 2 person week night meals. I got a deal on bone-in pork chops so I made her crispy pork chop recipe. She asks you to pound them thin before frying, so they are pretty much like pork cutlets:

Look how big that pork chop looks! And I paired it with sweet potato fries (per Mike's request) and the last of the corn on the cob. I know it's a really odd combination, but it worked. Even though the pork isn't that healthy (breaded and pan fried in peanut oil), it is homemade and it didn't cost us that much money :) And here is my wonderful mess :

I have a love/hate relationship with cooking with oil and so does my stove.

Until next time please enjoy this link (I know, a link, not a picture, crazy!).  I saw this in a catalog we got and I am totally going to make some thing like this when I have kids some day (and I mean some day way, way, way, in the future).

Slightly backed up....

I am still getting used to blogging on this new computer (my sweet old tablet sort of kicked the bucket). Plus Mike's buddy is in town for the month for one of his rotations at a local hospital, so we have been going out to eat a lot. Shame on us.

Traveling back to Saturday, June 26th. I worked the close shift again and Mike wanted to try out some new fish breading that we picked up at the store:

 He pan fried it and paired it with our favorite potato fries. It was okay. Maybe it was the breading because I know Mike knows how to cook fish. At least the fires were super!

 A few days later, on June 29th, I had a meeting after work so Mike made himself a pizza:

I think it was onion and olive. I didn't have any fresh pizza, but I had some the next day and it wasn't that bad. But Mike always makes wonderful crusts :)

The following night, I had the time and the energy to "cook" dinner:

Nothing fancy. Now why did I say "cook". Well I boiled the pasta, baked the turkey meatballs I picked up at Aldi's, made some of my easy sauce, and picked some fresh basil from the garden. Pretty easy. For some reason I felt the need to try and plate my food in an appeasing way. It appeased Mike.
I also picked up some angel food dessert shells from Aldi and "made" dessert:

Desserts shells filled with thawed strawberries, blueberries and raspberries, and topped with fat free whipped topping. So good. And not too heavy or calorie rich. I wish I was good at making angel food cake.

Mike's buddy was coming to stay with us for the weekend and I knew he was sort of on a diet, so I decided to try these cookies :

 They are just peanut butter ( the all natural kind of course, none of that added oil crap), sugar, egg ( I used one whole egg instead of 2 egg whites) and vanilla extract. They were sooooo yummy! You wouldn't even guess that they were made without butter or flour!

 Later that night, while we were waiting for Mike's buddy to show up. I decided to try out a recipe I found in the copy of Cooking Light I picked up at the airport. It was the spicy soba noodle bowl with chicken. The whole thing cooking:

Why would I pick something as obscure as soba noodles? Well we actually had some that we had bought back in Ohio at one of the Asian markets and they needed to be used up. This sounded simple enough. The finished bowl:

It was very nice. The sliced jalapeno gave it just the right amount of heat, and broth was excellent. I definitely need to try more recipes with soba noodles in them.

4th of July was my turn to make dinner for Mike's buddy (after going out to dinner a few times). I decided to make the 8lb honey baked ham that I bought at Aldi's about 2 months ago for $4 off (so it was like $7 for 8lbs!!!). With the ham we had, you guessed it, our wonderful potato fries, only this time I added some chili powder to see what it would do. And we also had salad with some fresh tomatoes from the garden and cucumber. We even used the fancy wooden salad set Mike's Mom sent us:

Boy, was that a lot of ham, but it was very good ham! It came pre-cooked, I just had to re-heat it and add the glaze. I made way too much because we had enough leftovers to feed a small army. I will also need to add more chili powder to the fries since I didn't get much of a kick from them.
Dessert that night was a special treat. I found this recipe while looking for something else. Look at what tofu can do:

Ta da! A berry tofu pudding pie. It was soooooo good for being tofu! I have made a chocolate tofu pie before that also turned out really well. The only thing I think I would change for next time would be to use a graham cracker crust. The plain pie crust tasted sort of out of place.

And finally, on to tonight. I bought corn on the cob last week at Aldi since they had some already. And when I saw this recipe I knew I had to go buy some feta cheese. And, to make it a very healthy meal, we also had turkey burgers with fresh tomatoes from the garden:

I never would have thought to mix feta cheese with butter and herbs and then spread it on corn (and a little on my burger). It was delicious! I made extra butter so I am going to try it on a lot of things in the coming week.

Until next time, please enjoy this photo of the new guardian of the tomato plants:

I don't know what kind of spider it is, but it was about 3 inches long and had huge fangs. Scared the crap out of me!

Pumpkin....my favortie flavor, even in summer

There is just something about pumpkin mixed with cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger that makes me go crazy. I can sit and eat a can of pumpkin puree if you just give me a little sugar and spice to mix into it. Mmmmmmm....

I forgot to take pictures of dinner tonight. It was nothing fancy. Aldi had a special on frozen turkey burgers, and in our effort to eat healthy and cook at home more, I grilled up some of those burgers and paired it with whole wheat buns, fresh tomatoes, and some pickles. Turkey burgers don't have the same savory flavor that beef burgers do, but they do the trick.

For dessert I was craving pumpkin. I found this recipe for pumpkin custard and, since I had everything it called for, I figured I would give it a shot. The mixer in action:

 Boy, I have not used the mixer in a long time. Anyway, it said to bake the custard in a roasting pan filled part of the way up with water:

I don't know what happened, but it was not set after 45 minutes like the recipe said it should be. I ended up cooking it for about 90 minutes before it was set enough for my liking. Maybe it had something to do with the skim milk I used. The recipe didn't say what kind of milk to use, and all I had was skim and soy milk. But I think in general I am just not that good with custards....practice makes perfect! The finished custard (sorry I took a piece out first):

It wasn't half bad. It was more like pumpkin pudding than custard and I think that has to do with the fact that the recipe only called for 2 eggs. The other 2 custards I have made called for quite a few more. The recipe also said to serve it with vanilla ice cream which I think would have been a great addition. Maybe I will try that tomorrow (once I get some ice cream!).

Last night I had to work late since Tuesday is meeting night. Mike decided to cook for himself and what did he make? Pizza! Of course! He made his version of my dough recipe and topped the pizza with homemade sauce, mozzarella, onions, tomato (from the garden!), and, after it was done cooking, basil:

I didn't get to try it fresh, but I had it today for lunch and it was very good. The onions had lost a little of their kick, but still good.


I am off again tomorrow and it's Mike and I's 9 year anniversary! Yay! Until next time please enjoy this photo of one of my younger brothers, Nicholas, as he was feeding my Aunt's goats back when they lived in NY:

My computer doesn't have the right info on when this photo was taken since it has traveled between so many computers, but I can guess sometime during or before 2005. Just FYI :)

The Summer Solstice

How did I spend the longest day of the year? Doing as little as possible. Well, not really. I was getting over a 24 hour bug I came down with yesterday, so this morning was spent watching FIFA World Cup soccer games and finishing the laundry I tired to start yesterday. Once I start watching a game, I get sucked in and can't do anything else until it is over. It will be this way on days I have off until the cup is over. Come on, it only happens once every 4 years :)

Before I share tonight's dinner, let me show you what Mike made for dinner last night (since I was sick):

I had thawed out the mackerel that he caught last month a few days before, so we had to cook it last night. I asked for him to cook it in the yummy garlic chili ginger sauce we have, like he has done many times before. He did, but he decided to coat the fish with corn meal mixed with brown sugar and then cooked them in canola oil and the yummy sauce I love so much. Since the sauce was Asian inspired, he paired it with soba noodles mixed with seaweed. The soba noodles were awesome, especially with the seaweed flavor. Seaweed, I feel, is an acquired taste. The fish wasn't half bad either. I have never had fish coated in corn meal before (even though it is a very common thing down south), so it was something new. Yet another way to cook fish.

Tonight's meal was designed to use up the last of the "puttanesca" sauce I made last week. I sauteed some boneless, skinless chicken breast with the left over sauce and some fresh basil. I then mixed in some cooked shells and topped it all with fresh basil:

It was wonderful and very fresh tasting even though the sauce was a few days old. I wanted to make this since I am trying to go on a diet again so I can slim down for my wedding next year. So you may been seeing lighter versions of dishes I used to make, but don't worry, I still indulge myself in decadent treats like cookies just so I don't go mad. I was actually thinking about making some on my day off this Wednesday.

Until next time, please enjoy this photo of a rare bark anole that I caught in the Florida Keys during a class back in 2008 (don't worry, the harness doesn't hurt him, it's just to keep him from running away):

A quick look in the garden

We are now in the beginning of the rainy months here, so before the rain started this morning, I ran outside and got a few quick (not good) pictures of the garden. Oh, did I mention that I finally have a full day off from work? Starting next week, I requested that I work longer days so I could have 3 days off a week. So maybe, just maybe, I will be able to re-organize my crafting closet and start sewing again! Okay, sorry, back to the garden. Things haven't turned out quite like we planned. The romaine lettuce that was growing like crazy has slowly shriveled away either from the excess moisture or the pesky bugs. The spinach and swiss chard never got a foothold, but we will try again with them in the cooler, drier months since that is when they grow best here. The bibb lettuce isn't doing that bad and we may be able to harvest some soon:

Moving down the line to the tomatoes. What a hard time we have had with them. The freaking caterpillars have been eating them like crazy. Mike has been using a natural insecticide, but we still are having problems. I don't know how they get up there so quickly. It's not like the plants are on the ground or even under a tree. We only have about 6 good ones still growing and only one of those is almost ripe:

You can even see in the picture all the leaves missing from the plant on the right. Boo....Since the basil I planted from seed was having a hard time with bugs too, Mike got some already started basil plants and paired them with some mint. Apparently mint is a bug deterrent for whatever it is next too. As you can see the new basil is doing really well:

But as soon as Mike did that, my old basil that I planted from seed also started to recover. Basil galore. The old basil, avocados, and blueberries all got moved to the ground for some reason:

The blueberries are doing good. We have harvested about 10-15 ripe blueberries already that have been used in oatmeal and smoothies. We have some new ones coming in too:

They were very sweet. More sweet than bitter which was a pleasant surprise. Lets see, what else is going on out there...Oh, the lemon tree has a lot of lemons (not ripe yet) growing on it :

Nothing has been interested in them yet and I am hoping it stays that way so I can make lots of fresh lemonade! The lime tree and the orange tree have new growth, but no fruit yet:

And finally the lavender I planted in the fall. It is supposed to be a dry weather plant, so Mike moved it under the over hang to try and shield it from the summer rains and it looks like it is doing much better:

It's flowering again! Yay! I am still dreaming of making lavender butter. It would be magical with homemade bread.

You are now caught up on the garden, on to dinner from Tuesday night. I still had a deep discounted rack of baby back ribs from Aldi. Instead of repeating the same sweet tea rub I did last time, I decided to make up a chili garlic sauce to roast them in:

This was ketchup based (yes, I know, it's sad, but it was quick and easy for me) with some spices and what not. The ribs were served with just steamed vegetables:

 I think the sauce could have used a little more spice, but it was nice non the less. Again, the meat wasn't fall off the bone, but it was still good. Ribs are not my best dish, but it's a nice change.

I work open to close the next two days in a row, so until next time, please enjoy this photo of a green frog I caught at one of the Metro Parks back in Ohio during a summer hike back in 2007:

The Wonderful Mr.Fox

My cousin, the wonderful Mr.Fox, kiddo of the infamous Aunts you always hear me talking about, has gone to heaven today. When my Aunt was still a NYC police officer, she found this poor little guy, abandoned, and wandering the cold, lonely streets. He was a bait dog for illegal pit bull fighting (poor pit bulls....I love my pit bull mix Pineapple!).  Due to the fighting, he was missing the upper part of his right lip, sometimes leading to the name Fang. A happy dog that always new what he wanted,  Fox lived out the rest of his life with my Aunts, moving from NY to retire in sunny Florida. We love you Mr.Fox and you will be in our memories forever.

Grouper with "puttanesca" sauce and orzo

I guess I should share what I made tonight after my last blog :)

Tonight's dinner was grouper with "puttanesca" sauce and orzo :

Why do I call it "puttanesca", well because it's not really puttanesca sauce the way it should be made. The recipe called for kalamata olives and capers. I do have olives at home (not kalamata olives though) but they are either canned or in a brine. Capers are not a food item I go out of my way to have, so, if you figured it out, the sauce was made without olives or capers. I also did not grill the grouper, I decided to pan fry them instead because I was lazy. It was really good! I haven't had orzo in a long while and I forgot how good it is. If you aren't a big fish fan outside of the fried and battered kind, I really suggest you try this recipe. You may start a love affair with fish.

That's all I have for the now. Until next time please enjoy this photo of a little tree frog on a screen at my Aunt's house in Sarasota that I took about 3 years ago:

An obession with pizza

It was pouring when I got home from work today and I decided not to make my camera brave the weather to take picture of the garden......maybe later this week.

Now to play catch up......back up to Thursday, June 3rd. I had planned on making this balsamic glazed pork chop recipe after work but, for some reason I don't recall now, Mike made it for me instead. He paired it with some rice (and his beer of choice for that day):

It was good, a little vinegar-y for my taste, but I wouldn't mind eating it again. I think next time we could cut down on both the balsamic vinegar and chicken broth and it would make more of a glaze then a sauce, but the rice was excellent at soaking it up.

Next, Friday, June 4th. I knew I wasn't going to be up to making dinner that night so I commissioned Mike to make pizza. I gave him my basic pizza dough recipe, but he decided to spruce it up a bit with some oregano, parsley, and some other spices. He also made it without sauce, just tomatoes and mozzarella:

The crust was divine! It tasted like italian bread sticks...yum! And the pizza was great even without the sauce. Wait...this pizza reminds me of something.....yes....a margherita pizza! Well it's not quite a margherita pizza....but read on :)

Monday June 7th was ground turkey day. I really haven't used ground turkey before in anything and frozen ground turkey at Aldi is pretty cheap and, I have heard, is very good for you. Since we still had a can of spinach (Popeye!), I decided on ground turkey with rice and spinach (sorry I forgot to take a picture before we ate):

It was decent but definitely could have used some more salt. The addition of dill weed pleasantly surprised me and it made it very bearable. Ground turkey is nothing exiting, it definitely needs to be spiced up.

That same day, before dinner, I was craving something pumpkin, but not pumpkin pie. I found this recipe for pumpkin dump cake. I made the mistake of telling Mike the name of it while I was making it and he said something along the lines of "I am not eating something with dump in the name". It was very easy to make, which is good for my now faster paced life :) Here is a shot after I ate the first piece so you could see the pumpkin layer on the bottom:

Delicious! I loved it (and so did Mike, of course). I still have some more canned pumpkin left....I know what I am making on my day off this week.

Onto Thursday the 10th. This was sort of a made up day. I had a packet of crab cake mix and canned crab from Grandma, so I was going to make crab cakes, but the little packet said "try the crab mix baked on top of fish fillets". Hey, that sounds like a good idea! I still have ton of fish fillets left. I didn't know what else to do with the jacks Mike caught, so I baked those with the crab cake stuff on top and paired it with sauteed scallops and some peas:

For being freezer burned, the scallops turned out pretty good. Now the fish on the other hand...the fish was moist, but the crab cake mix was way too salty. Oh well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Maybe next time I need more crab to spread the mix farther so it doesn't seem as salty.

And finally we are caught up to last night. Using Mikes wonderful variation on my dough recipe we made real margherita pizza with fresh basil from the garden:

It was fantastic! I am drooling just thinking about it now. I am definitely now obsessed with making pizza, which adds to my obsession of the combo of tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil.

You are now caught up and so am I (almost, just need to take the garden pictures!). Until next time, please enjoy this close up photo of my two gecko babies, Renji (girl on left) and Yomi (boy on right):