Love.

I feel as if lately I have realized people tend to take the small things in life for granted.

I know that at times I am guilty of doing the exact same thing.

It was pouring rain when I walked the dog today. As usual these gloomier days make

me rather introspective and appreciative, or perhaps thoughtful is a more apt way of describing it.

At first I was thinking of how the weather makes me tired and lazy.

Suddenly I realized how dismal my thoughts were becoming and I just stopped and I began

thinking of all those little things in life that bring me pure joy. 

It's the Little things:

- I love... the absolutely fresh smell of the rain.

- I love... when I get home and am greeted with the face of my puppy who is just 

shaking from pure happiness and love. 

- I love... Christmas, everything about it! I can't not smile during Christmas season

- I love... a really good laugh. Ya know, those cheeks sore and belly ache. 

- I love... when I bake something that people really enjoy, you can see it in their face!

- I love... reading a really good book, those that just pull you into it and your images become so vivid, that you can't remember if it was a book or a movie!

- I love... a really comfy bed!

- I love... cuddling on the couch with a fire and a really warm blankie!

- I love... laying outside looking up at a clear night sky with all those stars!

- I love... a big heaping plate of french fries or a great big steak!

- I love... cute old people / old couples! They are too adorable. (just try and deny it!)

There are so many more things. Those are just the ones I can think of at the moment. I swear I had about a billion when I was outside being all deep and thinking! Bummer, oh well... it's the thought that counts right?!

Oh Yeah!!!

Today is a lazy day people! 

It's pouring and dreary outside but in here bundled up on the couch in my oversized sweater, christmas socks, and knit hat cuddling with my furnace of a puppy!

Not gonna move, just gonna grub out and be a bum!

Oh yeah... Today is definitely a good day ladies and gentlemen!

Cute Overload!

I can't even describe how happy these make me! 

Oh, the simple joys in life :)

Happy Monday!

I hope everyone had an awesome weekend. I have to tell you this one for me was actually awesome, for no reason in particular. Perhaps it was talking to amazing people, spending lots of time cuddling with the animals or getting to hang out with Mama all week! It was fun.

It could also have been the fantastic baking spree all weekend. Mostly experimenting 

with the same exact recipe over and over because I am a horrible perfectionist! 

Anyway, I attempted this Raspberry Tassie recipe. By the way, I love the word tassie, I have somehow managed to interject it into conversations as many time as possible because it just rolls off the tongue so nicely, kind of like satchel. Anyway, before I get distracted again... Here is what they looked like. 

They are delicious little treats!

Raspberry Tassie

What you will need:

1 cup Unsalted Butter, room temp.

6 ounces Cream Cheese, room temp. 

2 cups All Purpose Flour

1/4 teaspoon Salt

Jar of favorite Preserve

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Then in a bowl beat together butter and cream cheese until smooth. Mix in dry ingredients.  (Pretty simple huh?!) 

Make sure to either butter or spray your pan because these babies easily stick. Roll your dough into balls, as you would with cookies, press into mini muffin tin with fingers or an object that has the same circumference as bottom of mold.

Add the Jam from the jar (I used Smuckers Raspberry Preserve, delicious!). Either pop them in the oven for the allotted 25 to 30 mins or you can add on the basic crumb pie topping.

Crumb Pie Topping

1 stick of Butter, room temperature

1 cup Flour

1 cup Brown Sugar (I use light)

Beat together all the ingredients until combined. It will be crumbly. Spread over the top of each tassie and then bake as you would do previously! 

Thats all there is too it! 

here are some more photos:

Slutty Brownies?!

That's right y'all. 

We have had a request by some friends up here to make some "slutty brownies"!

What an odd name, I guess it's because of all the canoodling that they are doing with the oreos and

chocolate chip cookies that these bars involve. 

I took a quick look around online and most of the recipes I found called for box made mixes. We don't do that type of thing here, I like giving myself a challenge so I am gonna attempt to make up

a new cookie and brownie recipe for this one. I will post that once I get it just right!

Here is the box recipes if you are in a bind for time or would like less of a mess! haha

(Picture & Recipe here)

1 box Chocolate chip cookie mix

1 box Brownie mix

2 packs of Oreo's (single sleeved)

2 Eggs

Oil for box mixes

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Pull out a deep baking pan, line with wax paper or coat with non-stick spray. Follow directions on box mixes. After line the bottom of the cookie sheet with your chocolate chip cookie mix. After spreading it evenly across the bottom place a whole layer of Oreos. On top of this finally scrap in the brownie mixture. 

Bake for 30 mins and wah lah! (?) Perfect comfort food in under an hour!

Happy Eating!

Spring Longings!

It was an absolutely fantastically beautiful day today. 60 degrees people, in NEW YORK! This is unheard of... well not really considering that it happened today, but whatever. I didn't do anything too exciting but I did take an extra long walk with my puppers. The ever loving "biggie smalls" aka Dexter, my little black bear!

(I am SUCH a fashion plate! Ow oww, I mean look at those chicken legs!)

(Creepy Garage Barn)

(Everyone needs some good tacky yard art)

(There's my little fella!)

(Spring time already?!?? I wish)

(Man, I really hate that brown color)

(Look at the sml. creepy Underground railroad window! eek )

(The lightening tree... cool isn't it?!)

(He was on a mission folks!)

(He's my little cuddle bunny!)

Well y'all there's a little piece of my world! 

I should probably get to sleep but I am just too hyper.

Dilemma!

Hello Caveman!

Recently I had the pleasure of talking to a handsome, engaging manly man who told me that he eats "Paleo". We will call him Caveman for purposes of this story haha. My first impression was that Caveman must have misspelled something, I mean cause what could that possibly mean? Obviously, my brain wasn't functioning at said moment because I would realize the connection to words like "Paleolithic", right?! Then the lightbulb went off and I  saw it was my mistake. Even then I was still in the dark, so I did a bit of research. 

"The idea behind the Paleo Diet is to take your eating habits back to how our ancestors ate. Back in the hunter-gatherer days, there weren’t Cheetos, deep-dish frozen pizzas or Doritos available.

Instead, humans ate foods that came straight from the ground or straight from the animal.

As a result, they weren’t consuming high levels of saturated fat, sugar, simple carbs, and additives, but instead were enriching their diets with fiber, lean proteins and healthy fats. This combination is what enabled them to keep steady blood-sugar levels, control their hunger and prevent the accumulation of unwanted body fat.

Healthy fats and the few carbohydrates they consumed from fresh fruits and vegetables kept them going throughout the day while the amino acids from lean meat replenished their muscle tissues and helped them add more lean muscle mass.

Contrast this to the diets of today, which bring about rapid blood-sugar spikes that lead to a flood of insulin in the body (which just encourages energy lows and body-fat accumulation).

By shunning the foods that cause this chain of events and focusing on all-natural foods instead, you can really turn the tables around as far as your health and body composition is concerned."

Read More 

After reading, I was intrigued so I decided to try out a recipe for myself. It was delicious!

Almond Crusted Cod

- 16 oz Cod Filets 

- 1 extra lrg. Egg

- 3 tbls. Almond milk

- 3/4 cup Almond meal

- 1 tsp. Garlic powder

- Salt & Pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degree F and line your cookie sheet with tin foil. 

Mix egg and almond milk in bowl and set aside. Take almond meal, garlic powder, salt and pepper and mix in separate container. Drench Cod filets in egg mixture then coat with almond meal mix. Place on cookie sheet and bake for 15 to 20 mins. 

Now, I don't know if I personally have the will power to go onto a diet of this magnitude. My will power kind of sucks the big one when it comes to food. I am definitely going to incorporate more of the paleo recipes that I have been finding into my repertoire though! They have some awesome looking ones. So excited, Thanks you studly Caveman you :)

Happy Cooking! 

La la ladida!

I think I spelt that wrong... oh well!

(Wow, my Iphone has crap quality pictures)

Look guys, my face is smaller! WOO

Lazy Meal Day

What you will need:

- Fresh Broccoli Chopped

- Penne Pasta  (Whole Wheat or regular)

- Fresh Shrimp

- 2 cups fresh basil leaves

- 4 cloves of garlic, minced

- 1/4 cup olive oil

- 2 ounce pine nuts

- 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

- salt and peper

- 1 pint light cream

For the sauce do the following:

In a food processor, combine the basil leaves and minced garlic. Process and pour olive oil in a thin stream at the same time. Mix until it is emulsified. Add the pine nuts and Parmesan to the mixture, blending it for another minute.

In a saucepan, on low heat, add the cream until it simmers. Pour 1/2 of the cream into the processor and pulse for 20 seconds. Pour whole mixture from processor into the remaining cream on stove and simmer until the mixture is thickened (around 5 minutes).

Cook the pasta as the box instructs.

In another saucepan throw some olive oil and minced garlic onto medium heat and cook shrimp. Half way threw cooking add in the broccoli. 

Finish it all off by combining in a large bowl and tossing!

Delish and Easy! 

Elegantly Inept

I swear this just hasn't really been my week folks! 

- Tripping UP the stairs, I swear that I have been walking up them perfectly for a good 18 years... at least! 

- Deciding that you just NEED to rock out to Queen while baking up a storm of Chocolate chip cookies only to attempt to break out the Michael Jackson spin (I mean you're home alone, What can possibly go wrong?!?) only to knock the whole container of flour onto the floor!

- Using the "other" shower for once but forget all your shampoo and soaps in your shower. So you have to slyly run across the house freezing cold, coming back to the other shower slipping on your wet feet marks and pulling the towel bar out of the wall! 

(Old me says BOO! oh and ignore my mom haha)

Oh man! Sweet right?! I am just great company, lemme tell ya! Totally not embarrassing. 

Luckily no one saw these mishaps. 

But on a Happy note:

- I ATE REAL FOOD TODAY!!!!! 

Like a WHOLE turkey sandwich.  Granted it was cut up in miniscule pieces 

and took me near an hour but Hey, I take what I can get. 

Next up: French Fries :)

Choco Chip Fix - Round 1

I am on a hunt... for the perfect chocolate chip cookie.

 Alas, I have been on this hunt for about a year now to no avail. Some have given me pause and caused me to think "AHA! I found it, Finally!!!" butttt.... then I keep trying it and somehow they don't seem as fantastic as the first time I made them. So here my search continues. I found this recipe and they aren't too bad...

What you will need:

1 1/2 Cups Butter - softened

1 1/4 cups Sugar

1 1/4 cups Brown sugar - firmly packed

2 Eggs

1 tbls Vanilla

4 1/4 Cups All-Pupose Flour

1 tea Baking Powder

1 tea Baking Soda

1 tea Salt

2 cups Chocolate Chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. 

Combine Flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and set aside

Combine butter, sugar, brown sugar, eggs and vanilla.

Beat at medium speed until creamy.

Slowly add flour and beat until well mixed.

Stir in the chocolate chips.

Drop dough in round tablespoon size, 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cooking sheet (normally I put tin foil, shiny side down on my cooking sheets). Bake for 10 to 12 minutes each. I normally have to undercook my cookies because the temperature in my oven is off and I like my cookies a little chewier. 

Personally for my chocolate chip's I use E. Guittard's chocolate disks. They are dark chocolate, where most recipes normally call for a semi-sweet. To each his own, I say. I just like the denser chocolate taste in my cookies. The disks are usually used to be melted for chocolate fountains and such, I will chop them in half so it is more like a chunk for smaller cookies and leave them whole to give big chocolate bites in my larger cookies.

Try it out and let me know what you think!

Southern Comfort

So I took a stab at making Paula Deen's Southern Fried Chicken. I had to tweak it a bit, because I wasn't actually going to deep fry it, I pan fried. I am going to give you my abridge version below and the basic pan gravy recipe with it.

Southern Fried Chicken:

House Seasoning:

- 1 cup salt

- 1/4 cup black pepper

- 1/2 cup garlic powder

Southern Fried Chicken:

- 6 eggs

- 1/2 cup water

- 1 1/2 cup hot red pepper sauce

- Paprika or Cayenne Pepper (depending on how hot you would like it)

- 3 cups flour

- 1 teaspoon pepper

- House Seasoning

- 2 packs chicken breast  (I find this easier then telling the pounds you will need.)

- 2 packs chicken pieces

- Peanut Oil for frying (can be any kind of oil)

Preheat oven to 400 Degrees F. 

House seasoning, mix all ingredients and set aside. 

Medium bowl, beat eggs with water and hot sauce. The mixture will become a bright orange color. In another bowl, mix flour and pepper. Season the chicken breast with sprinkles of Paprika, if you like really spicy then substitute with Cayenne. Dip the seasoned chicken in the egg mixture and coat well with the flour mixture. 

Heat your oil in a deep pot on the stove. (Paula Deen calls for 350 degrees F, if thats easier). Fill with enough oil to thoroughly cook the outside to a crisp. 

Fry the chicken until the skin is brown and crisp. Transfer to tin foiled sheet pan and put in the oven for 30 minutes or until the chicken juice runs clear when cut. 

Basic Pan Gravy

- Meat drippings from stove fried chicken (or whatever meat was cooked)

- 2 tablespoons all purpose flour

- 1 cup chicken broth (can use beef, water, meat juices, or a combo if you would like)

- Salt and pepper to taste

After meat is removed from pan, strain the oil and keep all meat leftovers. Return to the empty skillet and heat over medium low heat. Add the chicken broth and slowly stir in the flour. Keep stirring constantly until the mixture is thick and begins to bubble. 

Enjoy Lovelies! 

By the way, none of these pictures are mine. I forgot to take my own. If you know whose pictures they are I will GLADLY give credit. Just shoot me an email! :)

Holy Grail!

Umm My Chubby little face is all smiles right now because I have 

found the most perfect silky smooth life enriching addiction...

That's right y'all Vaseline lip chapstick stuff! It's AMAZING. These surgery lips have kind of been through hell lately, and just put a dab onto these bad boys and we are feeling perky and ready to take on the world! Okay... well maybe we aren't that far yet but it does feel pretty darn fantastic! 

Kudos Vaseline, I salute you!