Weekly update

Tuesday, we did not end up making enchiladas. I just cut up the leftover chicken and reheated it with a can of pinto beans and we made burritos.

Wednesday, we made the spaghetti with ham and peas. I wasn't a huge fan but I ate it, Nick ate 5-7 bites and threw his in the garbage. Guess we won't be making that again, so I won't even bother posting the recipe.

Thursday we actually ended up making cowboy casserole (our verison of tatar tot casserole). We had the leftovers from this on Friday night.

Saturday night we ended up going out for dinner with a gift certificate that I bought off of Living Social. The gift certificate we purchased was for Carmela's Bistro and Wine Bar. It's a newer place in town, has maybe been around for a year and a half. This was the first chance we had to try the place.

We started out by ordering a Reisling wine flight for $11. We finished two of the glasses of wine but not the third. The wines we sampled were Ch. Ste Michelle (from Columbia Valley, WA), Dr. Loosen "Dr. L." (from Mosel, Germany) and Eroica (from Columbia Valley, WA). Our favorite was the Dr. Loosen it had a pretty sweet finish to it. The wine we liked the least was the Eroica, which is actually a collaboration between the two wineries that make the Ch. Ste Michelle and the Dr. Loosen. We felt that the Eroica had too much of a mineral tone to it for our liking.

Along with the wine flight we ordered their Havarti and Artichoke dip. It was described as being wilted spinach with artichokes, served with artisan bread. The bread was wonderful. It was toasted but the inside of the bread was still very soft. The dip was a little more runny than I am used to but had really good flavor.

After we finished the appetizer, our waiter brought out more bread. It was a sourdough based bread that had herbs added into it. I'm unsure if they make the bread there or if they have it delivered from one of the artisan bread companies around town. My guess would be the later.

For our entrees, Nick ordered a Bleu top. It was a ten ounce sirloin served topped with bacon and bleu cheese. It was served with whipped potatoes and a vegetable medley. I did not try his steak but he said it was very good and it looked like it was cooked to the medium he requested. The vegetable medley included zucchini, carrots, red peppers, and I think maybe some broccoli. For my entree, I ordered the Dinner Cakes. The meal came with 3 Carmela's cakes, which are crab and shrimp stuffed cakes with pesto, corn, and cheese with a side of Cajun aioli. The sides were risotto and green beans. The green beans had bacon and almonds in them and were cooked very well. They were still crisp but cooked all the way through. The risotto was creamy and buttery. It was a little more runny than most risottos I have had before but it was still very good.

The service was very good at Carmela's and the atmosphere was good also. We sat in the bar area at one of the high top tables. I have a feeling we will return to Carmela's at some point. We enjoyed it.

Whole Chicken in the crockpot

I had never cooked a whole chicken in a crockpot but searched for a recipe when I knew we would be short on time tonight.

Before I left for work I put the chicken in the crockpot that I had sprayed with cooking spray. I put some herbs de provance on it and set it to low for 7 hours. Easiest recipe I have ever made and the chicken fell apart when we took it out of the crockpot.

Nick and I also took the chicken off the bone and returned the bones and skin to the crockpot and covered them with water. We are leaving it on low overnight and this should create a great chicken broth that we can freeze and use later!

Busy Busy Bee

Life has been crazy busy lately. Therefore, I have been blogging very very infrequently. My last post was about coconut icebox cookies. I baked them and they turned out very well. Nick even liked them and he isn't a fan of coconut.

My work schedule has changed and I now have weekends off. Hopefully this will help my blogging and I will blog more often.

I am going to try to start updating the blog with our menu plan for the week and hopefully that will inspire me to blog recipes and updates of our life.

So here is our first menu plan:

Monday: Whole Chicken cooked in a crockpot
Tuesday: Enchiladas (made with the leftover crockpot chicken)
Wednesday: Spaghetti with ham and peas
Thursday: Crockpot Beef Stew
Friday: Leftover Stew
Saturday: Dinner out (Either Carmela's Bistro and Wine Bar or JTK Steakhouse)
Sunday: Beef Brisket

Coconut Icebox Cookies

I have never actually made these cookies but the recipe has been in my recipe box for a long time. I made the dough up the other week but have not gotten around to baking the cookies. All I have is a picture of the dough in a Ziploc bag. I am hoping to bake off the cookies within the next week. Once I bake them I will update about the taste and quality.

Icebox Cookies

Ingredients:

2 cups packed brown sugar

3/4 cup butter, softened

2 beaten eggs

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups coconut

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla.

Sift the flour with the cream of tartar and baking soda.

Alternately add the flour mixture and the shredded coconut to the creamed mixture.

Form dough into round log about 2 inches in diameter.

Tightly wrap dough and chill for several hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).

Remove dough form refrigerator and cut into 1/4 inch slices.

Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 10 minutes.

Fruit Bread

Life has not calmed down in the least! I have started making mason jars filled with cookies, cakes, and muffins. I am selling them on facebook. I hope it turns out to be a worthy endeavor.

My mom and I started our holiday baking last week and I have not had a chance to update my blog. The next few posts will be recipes that we make almost every year. Fruit bread is one of those recipes. This fruit bread is not the hard stuff you hear about. It is moist, sweet, and amazingly tasty. I remember my grandma making this bread, so it has been in the family for years.

We normally make small loaves of the bread. The only picture I took is of the loaf we made in a fall shaped pan that Nick and I received for a wedding gift. This loaf was only enjoyed by the dog. I ran downstairs to change laundry around and she hopped up on the counter and had a snack. I wish I had a picture of it after to show. Luckily, she did not get sick, even though there are chocolate chips in the bread.

Fruit Bread

This recipe makes 8 small loaves.

Ingredients:

1 cup butter, softened

2 cups sugar

6 bananas - Mashed

4 cups sifted flour

2 teaspoons flour

1/2 cup chopped nuts, optional (I never use nuts in this recipe)

3/4 cup chocolate chips

3/4 cup maraschino cherries

Directions:

Cream butter and sugar together. Add ingredients in order given. Bake in greased pans at 350 degrees for 1 hour or toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

Life

Life has been a tad bit crazy around here the past couple weeks. Nick's mothers birthday was a few weeks ago and mine was two weekends ago. I have been cooking and baking but have been bad at taking pictures and posting them. Hopefully soon I will get around to posting the recipes and few pictures I have taken. We are busy trying to get ready for out of town guests for the Thanksgiving. We are both very excited that Nick's friend from the Air Force, Josh, and his wife, Shannon, will be coming down from North Dakota with their two kids. It will be the last time we see them for a while since they will be moving to the east coast shortly after they leave Nebraska. We are already starting to think of when we can afford a trip out to visit them in Maine.

Roast Chicken and Acorn Squash

This post really doesn't require a recipe. It is pretty simple.

We took a whole chicken and seasoned it with butter and a turkey rub that I sell for Watkins. We also added a little salt. We place the seasoning under the skin of the chicken with some butter and also place the seasoning and butter all over the outside of the chicken. We roasted the chicken for about an hour and a half. The time depends on the size of the bird.

For the acorn squash, we cut them open and scooped out the seeds. Then placed them cut side down in a 9 x 13 inch pan with a little water in the bottom of them. These roasted for about an hour. After the hour, we flipped them over and added some butter to the hole in the middle of the squash as well as some brown sugar. They went back into the oven while we made some gravy for the chicken. This is my favorite fall vegetable!

For the gravy we just added some cornstarch mixed with some water. We also added a chicken bouillon cube and cooked it until the gravy had thickened.

It was a very easy meal that was very tasty.