It feels as if this week has just flown by! Yesterday at boot camp, it felt like I had just been there the day before, not two days ago...and I get to go back tomorrow! Yay!
Earlier this week, when I got back from boot camp, I decided to tame the furry lawn. Mind you, our grass is pretty non-existent. We have these weeds that sprout almost ten times faster than the grass we do have, so it's not really lawn mower worthy. So I decided to trim the yard by hand, using hand clippers and no gloves. I know, I know...stupid. I managed to fix the front yard, so it looked like people actually lived in the house, and then started on the back yard, within five minutes of working on the back yard, I stopped and looked at my hand, and noticed that I had broken a blister on my thumb. Great...so I stopped with the back yard. Really, my only want was to get the front yard to look more pleasing so no one would complain again. I don't care about the back yard as much, but I know our neighbor would most likely freak out, like he's done in the past.
The rest of my week has been spent cleaning, and editing photos for the website. I've been trying to go through my photo files to clear out bad ones, fix the good ones and store them in a place where I can re-upload them for my website overhaul. It's been a long process, and I will be happy when it's all finished! I still haven't touch the honeymoon pictures...and that's 5000 pictures in itself.
Cooking is hit and miss lately, because we had so much in leftovers last week, I didn't need to go crazy this week. I did make a couple of things and this next week will be back to normal, so to speak.
Mike and I usually split a steak, because it's healthier that way. Mike is the grilling king, so we split the dinner prep. He grilled the steak, and I made the asparagus.
Here's the recipe: Steak and Asparagus
Dry rub the steak with your choice of spices/herbs, we used salt and pepper this time. Grill until cooked to your taste.
For the asparagus: Wash and cut the ends. Cut stalks in half. In a large skillet, place a few tablespoons of butter, heat until melted. Place just enough asparagus stalks into the melted butter so they are not overlapping one another. Sprinkle garlic powder over the entire batch. Place lid over skillet. Every once in a while be sure to turn them over. Once they are dark green and are still firm with a fork but it slides off easily, then remove them. Repeat the process until all stalks are cooked. Should take only five minutes or so.
The next meal that we had, I made a quadruple batch, because of a few reasons...one: Mike needed leftovers for work, and two: He loves this meal so much, we usually blow through the leftovers within two days. Another reason I made so much was to use up the milk that I bought. Lately the milk we purchase either goes bad within a couple days, or we buy it, use what we need but have leftover and we never seem to use it up, and once we do need it, it's become lumpy and gross. So this time, I cut corners and used the entirety.
Here's the recipe: Cheese Soup
1 cup chopped carrots (I use as many as I want. This time, our carrots were bad)
1/4 cup chopped celery (I use as many as I want)
1/4 cup chopped onion (I used a whole onion)
1/4 cup chopped potatoes (I used as many as I wanted)
1 3/4 cup chicken broth (You can use bullion cubes and water. For a large cube the ratio is 1:2)
2 cups Milk
1/4 cup flour
paprika
1 cup cheese (American or cheddar) {The more cheese you use, the cheesier it is}
Place all vegetables in broth and bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer until all vegetables are tender. Combine milk, flour, paprika and add into broth. Stir until thickened. Add cheese and stir until melted. Serve hot.
*Note: Be sure to keep stirring when you add the cheese. The cheese tends to fall to the bottom, burn or it tends to clump together and it makes for an interesting texture
Last night, I decided to make some Pumpkin bread...I have a bread pan, but apparently, it's too small compared to the ones the Irish use... =)
I mixed the batter and put too much into my pan, and had to pull out my brownie pan to use up the remaining batter. When I went to check the bread in the oven after twenty minutes or so, the batter inside the bread pan was rising and it looked as if it was ready to boil over. So I placed a cookie sheet underneath the rack...it's a good thing I did too! When it was time for me to pull out the brownie pan batch, the bread pan had boiled over, down the side, onto the rack then falling onto the cookie sheet. As soon as the oven door opened, our fire alarms went off. The cats freaked out, of course, and we opened up windows. The alarms calmed down within a couple minutes, so it wasn't that bad...and there wasn't any smoke that I could see.
Here's the recipe: Pumpkin Bread
1 large can pumpkin (I didn't use Libby's because I couldn't find it, but I used organic pumpkin)
1 cup melted butter
3/4 cup water
4 eggs
2 teaspoons baking soda
3 1/2 cups flour
2 1/4 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup chopped walnuts (I did not use this!)
1 cup raisins (I did not use this!)
Mix together pumpkin, melted butter, water and eggs. Blend in baking soda, flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, walnuts and raisins. (I didn't blend with a mixer, I did this all by hand.) Place batter in a greased and floured loaf pan. Bake at 350* for 1 hour or until top is golden brown.
The bread is actually very moist and yummy! I'm not a huge fan of walnuts or raisins, and neither is Mike, hence why I didn't add them into the batter, but I am sure that it's just as good if you were to add them in.
The smoke in Colorado Springs is still pretty bad once in a while, which my allergies can attest to. I'm taking loratadine almost every day, and it's not really helping with the smoke. So I am praying for some rain!
Anyways, this is the first day Mike has off for a week, and we are working on Quicken, the spa, and more today, so with all of that said, I will write again soon.
Until next time!
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