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Dash is a big boy now and is munching on solids and drinking out of cups and water bottles.  Not saying we're perfect, but he impresses me with his skills sometimes.  When he gets excited, he sometimes sucks in to make noises.  Why he decided this accurately portrayed his enthusiasm  I'm not sure.  Here he is getting excited about some chicken and rice.

Salads: Speciality de Blauser

Bryce and I have been going on brisk walks and eating lots of spinach salads.  They're delicious.  We used up our fried chicken and have moved onto grilled chicken and swapped out the ranch for a delicious Italian dressing.  We cut up green peppers and add a sprinkling of cheese, some real bacon bits, and the occasional egg.  Here's one of the early prototypes.  The picture doesn't make it look as tasty.  This is an evolving dinner for us.  maybe we'll add nuts down the line.  What do you put in your salads?

Well, at least they didn't put me in charge of the turkey...

Last night (really only about 7 hours ago) I finished my worst night of cooking probably.  Not that I cook a lot, but I've made a few pumpkin pies and none have been so ridiculous as this.  I'm actually writing this at 3:00 in the morning because I've startled myself awake 5 times since 10:00 with nightmares of burning my house down....stupid pies! You'll understand how these are connected.  It is worth noting here that I am this wide awake because Bryce is waiting for the Android tablets to go on sale online through Best Buy.  It's such a good deal that it's worth refreshing the page between spats of Battlefield 3.  I know you're interested so I'll tell you - that yes, the price has changed, but they're still not available for purchase...hence the waiting.  continue.

First, I thought I'd make a dinner with some sauted greens, pasta, and garbanzo beans.  While we were at Wal-Mart for tomorrow's (today's) rolls we grabbed some garlic bread to accompany.  The pan we spread it out on had small holes - ok it's some sort of pizza pan Bryce had from his Bachelor days for his frozen pizzas, so it's not like we didn't know the holes were there. Some of the garlic juices managed to drip on the bottom of my oven and as I'm finishing up the pasta I see smoke rolling out the top of my oven.  We open it up and it rolls out filling our house. 

Bryce took his station waving the broom under the smoke detector so it didn't go off and we opened windows and doors and turned on the fan. (totally brings back memories of this broiling experience)

I threw salt and on it and we continued on in a slighty more smokey atmosphere.

After dinner was cleaned up I jumped right into my pies.  Everything was going fine - the filling smelled declicious! - until I started pouring the filling into the crusts.  I probably went wrong with the store-bought crusts, but I just wasn't in the mood for making the crusts after slaving over dinner. :)  and at this point it's too late anyway.

One seemed a bit more lopsided than the other and I attributed it to the pan balancing on my oven funny.  No, the cookiesheet was warped and my crust defective...

I put the pies in the oven again, smoke started appearing again and I opened my oven - face right in the door for all the smoke to sting - to find the said defective crust disinteigrating.  It was just melting off in a systematic way like it was supposed to do that.  I don't know how many pumpkin pie's you've made in your life folks, but I'd say I've make at least close to 10, and this is not supposed to happen. Is bad. 

I decide to beat the crust at its own game and took a spatulat to stick in my 450 degree oven (seriously it's only been in the oven for like 5 minutes out of the 10 at this degree to set the crust.  We're not even at the real baking yet!) to knock of any more of it that wanted to go and pushed it down a hole at the bottom of my oven. I was not feeding it something else to burn. 

As the cooking time moved along the pan was not enough to catch the drips, so I put in some aluminum foil to catch anything else before it hit the bottom.  Idea previously utilized with the dripping garlic bread.

That makes me, what, 0-2.  Losing to food on Thanksgiving.  What is wrong with this picture?

Now, usually I put aluminum foil on the edges of the crust after the initial 10 minute crisping session so that they DON'T look so bar-b-qued as they do in the picture.  However, my  time was being spent on drip and melting crust control and I said, "Forget it Pie.  Bring it - I don't care if your crust is burnt and I'm still going to share if you're ugly.  Guess what, I don't want to deal with the hassle of putting aluminun foil on your crust.  You don't deserve to be a pretty pie.  Take that, Pie."  I think this pie learned its lesson - next pie will behave much better.

So, my short nightmares are due to these dripping-causing-serious-smoke experiences.

To the pie in the background - I'm sorry you had to suffer extra crispy crust because of your fellow pie's actions and decision to not cooperate. 

**You bet Pie is going to be delicious -just cut off the most outter crust and feed the birds.**

Happy Thanksgiving.  I'm thankful they didn't put me in the charge of the turkey.

Treat yourself

This is how Bryce and I treat ourselves.  It's healthy right?!  Look at all that natural peanut butter in there!

mmm...

2 chopsticks up!

I realize that  where I live in th country outskirts of Atlanta isn't the most happening place and it's actually far from a lot of stores and restaurants others may take for granted - and I love and miss.  One example is P.F. Chang's. Now, I don't want you to start making incorrect assumptions - if I did live reasonably close to a P.F. Chang's I would not be eating there with any kind of regularity because we're cheap and I don't remember seeing any coupons to eat there. 

What I'm saying is when you're pulled out of civilization and all you have is a Wal-Mart and you have a hankering for some good - but cheap - chinese cuisine.  You're saved.  Wal-mart sells P.F. Chang's Home Menu frozen dinners for 2!

How perfect.  And how delicious.

These have become our go to for a 'reward' dinner. We usually have at least 4 in our freezer.  They are so easy (non-stick skillet and lid and 12-15 minutes) and we like the flavor.

Now, as far as telling you if they taste like what you get at P.F. Chang's actual restaurant I don't know.  Send me a gift card and then I can tell you. :)  Remember.  I don't live in civilization.

This is the Shangi Beef and I love the greenbeans!  This one must've been Bryce's plate because it has a few less greenbeans - I hog some of them when I dish out...shhh don't tell him I'm sure he'd be really upset about missing out on greenbeans. :)

 I haven't looked at the health information on the bag - and I don't plan to anytime soon.  So just get your own bag and after you eat it decide if you want to ruin a good thing by reading what's printed in that white box on the side of said bag.

"So go ahead and let P.F. Chang's Home Menu conquer your craving for distinctly bold Asian cuisine at home."

Saturday Mornings

Saturday morning when we sleep in as long as we want and then eat a tasty breakfast - are my favorite.  It's quite the occasion because I actually cook.

I wish I'd taken some good pictures but Bryce was mocking as usual so I quit and this is what I was left with that wasn't blurry or crooked. :)

I made Bryce some delicious (and beautiful) scrambled eggs with green chilies and wrapped with slices of bacon inside the tomato and basil tortilla.  He said very confidently that it was "really good."

I made myself some French Toast - with a twist.  I used Cinnamon Raisin bread.  Yeah, now you're jealous.

MMmm mm.

Dragon Fruit

Bryce buys these every once in a while from the Super H Mart by his work. Asian food and imported foreign things.  He told me he found the best way to eat it: cut it in quarters and then peel the skin back.  He says, "like a banana."  I think more like an orange. :)  Textures is kind of like a pear or kiwi - it has the little seed textures in it so I go more with the Kiwi.  If you get one that's sweet they're pretty good - but otherwise just kind of bland... 

But they look really cool!

Dear Burger King

Dear Burger King,

My lunch would've been ruined without today.  I didn't even have enough jam to cover half my slice of bread.  I would've gone hungry and been starving enough to sneak some Cheez-Itz from the girl at work when she's not looking.  :)  Without you I would've had a PB&J without the J.  There would've been no sweetness to tango with my rough, stick your mouth peanut butter and his sidekick wheat bread.  Where would I have been then?  Left with the two bites I could must of the Cinnamon Roll flavored yogurt, old wilting baby carrots, and my bag of Sun Chips. Without you there would've been no lunch.  I am forever grateful and will remember you in the future.  Are jam packets free?

Sincerely,
Always in a Jam

I have to post this or I will appear ungrateful - which I'm not.  My lunch has now been saved twice by fast food jam.  Thank you McDonald's (the first shining knight in armor) and Burger King .

I love my Peanut Butter.  I enjoya good PB & J sandwich on occassion at work but what do you do when you forget your jam on the counter at home?  Or when you do remember it, but don't have as much as you thought in the bottom of your jar?  You hope someone bought themselves some delicious, fattening breakfast at MickiD's or Burger King and they leave the left over jams laying around - because you know they're never going to use the 10 packets they put in your bag for one biscuit sandwich.

Baby, It's Cold Outside

Ok, so we actually warmed up to 60 today (finally my toes could thaw out from the last week of 30s), but with Christmas only 2 days away I wanted to pretend.

If you are somewhere where it's miserably cold outside - and I hate it for ya - start a sweat with Blair's Death Rain potato chips or Dave's Gourmet hot sauces!  With names like Satan Blood and Da' Bomb you can't go wrong.

WWW.HOTSAUCE.COM

Bryce ordered a couple different things and gave it as gifts to his lunch buddies, who have numerous stories of sweating and crying from coating things in hot sauce.  Of course they loved it :)  And I loved it because I got to taste what was left.  I got some laughs in between tears and heavy breathing (I'll admit to scraping my tongue after the hot sauce).

What I was really impressed with was the flavor of everything.  The flavor was exsistent and enjoyable so it wasn't just hot to be hot...there was a point to eating it still. :) I don't appreciate the Ghost Pepper hot sauce flavor so that's a never again on that flavor.

My favorites?  The Chipotle potato chips (Medium hotness and given 2 flames on the hot scale) and my runner up was Habanero potato chips. (4 flames on the hot scale and labeled as XXX HOT)

My favorite and my least favorite waiting to eaten.

In last place were the Buffalo and Cheddar was just a step better. (Both have 2 flames on the hot scale)

Smokin' Buns...well burgers in this case

I decided to do something better for dinner since I'm tired of the ol' rice and chicken or noodles and chicken dinner so we did Hamburgers tonight with all the fixins including bacon. I didn't have a tomato so the Ketchup made up for it. And we don't have a grill so I broiled them. The exciting part of the night was the smoke dector blaring in our house. They made the smoke detector go off so we had a couple doors open and fans on, and Bryce had a broom waving it around the smoke dector so it'd quit beeping. That was sort of comical - definitely moreso for me than for Bryce. Pretty exciting. I've never broiled anything so maybe next time there will be less smoke :) They tasted pretty decent though. They were moist and not dry and not too flat. We mixed garlic powder, salt, pepper, and one egg in with the meat. If you have any good burger recipes, hand them over!