Father's Day

Although, Joe and I are not parents yet we decided to celebrate our future parenthood this year. On Mother's Day, Joe made me an amazing breakfast for dinner. And boy was it good. However, I was feeling a bit under the weather on Father's Day so we postponed our celebration. The week after Father's Day, I was finally able to make Joe his amazing gift. BACON ROSES! Sounds amazing right?! Well they are, however, they kind of are a pain in the butt trying to make them and keep them standing up on a tray. Also, if you are going to try and make BACON ROSES I suggest to not put three slices of bacon together... the bacon does not cook all the way through with that thick of a rose. Another suggestion, find a fake flower bouquet that had many flowers so you can have more BACON ROSES than I did. Anyway, here is the pictures of the final project.

How yummy do these look?! Also, now you understand when I say
get a bigger bouquet. I should have been more creative with this
But they don't look too bad. Right?

Joe was so excited to eat these. Probably the best flowers he has ever gotten. ;)  

Zucchini Meals!

Pinterest has been a great source for coming up with new and exciting recipes that have been great additions to the family cookbook. A few of these additions are....

Stuffed Zucchini
recipe found here...
http://www.kayotic.nl/blog/stuffed-zucchini
Although it is good with out meat, it is especially good with ground beef or bacon in it. However, eating the uncooked leftover stuffing is not as good. Not terrible but not as good.

Then there is Zucchini Pizza. I based my recipe off of this recipe...
http://prouditaliancook.blogspot.com/2010/05/tiny-tomatoes-big-taste.html
However, my Zucchini Pizzas are far less healthy. I spread a mixture of minced garlic, olive oil, salt, and pepper inside the hollowed out zucchini. Then I created a mixture of mini pepperoni slices, shredded mozzarella cheese, and pizza seasonings. Then I stuffed the zucchini boats with the mixture places them in a buttered dish. The zucchini pizzas were bake at 350 for 30 minutes sprinkled with Parmesan cheese and thoroughly enjoyed.

*Note: One zucchini feeds one person, unless using them as a side dish.

Not a five star meal.

So I have been trying out new recipes recently. Some have been great additions to our family cookbook while other were not good enough. Like...

The Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole was not only frustratingly long to prep, but did not taste as good the next day. Additionally, I think that my dislike for ham did not help in me wanting to make this dish ever again. Also I found out that Joe is not a fan of swiss cheese. So all around, the meal was not really a hit.

The next recipe was Broccoli Quiche and it proved to be extremely yummy. However, I didn't really have a pie pan to bake it in and my pie crust barely stretched enough to fit my Pampered Chef pizza stone. Although this was good I don't think that I will make it very often. Especially if I had to make the crust out of scratch. However, here is the link to the website where I found the recipe....  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/easy-broccoli-quiche/

Redemption!!!

My last cooking experience (Sweet Potato Burgers) was an utter failure. However, since then I have made two awesome dinners that are super yummy and fairly healthy. The first, Lemony Asparagus Pasta, was delightfully tasty and a meal I assure will be eaten again and again by my family, especially because Joe's favorite veggie is asparagus. 

So this week I found another recipe on eatingwell.com called Beef & Bean Chile Verde. Even after the unfortunate event of leaving a bag of spices that I specifically needed for this recipe at Albertson's, dinner tasted dang good!!! And here is a picture of my finished product...

With more dinners like this I should be a great cook in no time! :) Yay!

Two Best Friends :)

So this past Saturday, Melissa (my best friend) and I decided to try our hand at decorating cakes. After picking out a cake decorating beginners book, Melissa and I got started on making a mess... I mean decorating cakes. ;)

Melissa and her beautiful cake. :D

Me and my awesome cake with heath bar crunch in the middle! :)

After several hours of mixing, baking, and having a blast, the end product turned out quit nicely... for the first time. However, I will need to work on the icing because my yellow "dots" looked more like runny mustard. HAHA! :) There is always next time right?

So my new life goal is to become an awesome cake decorator and pastry maker along side my best friend. Open a hole in the wall shop (like the guys from Ace of Cakes) with my husband running all of the business aspects. I have even come up with a name for our shop... Two Best Friends! On top of hand crafted cakes, Melissa would make her Molten Lava Cakes, I would make my Cake Mix Cookies, and we might even have ice cream. How perfect would that be?! But before we can open a shop we do need to have more experience under our belt. Therefore, if you feel so inclined to want a cake made by amateurs looking to better perfect their skills we would love to help. :) Oh by the way Melissa does not know I just signed her up for this but it is okay because she loves me. :)

This is exciting!!! Yay for life's fun moments!!

Sweet Potato Burgers

This whole... 'adventure' started because I am at the stage in life where I am a new wife who is trying to hone her cooking skills, but also trying to get healthy/ lose weight. I have to say that I am not doing to bad in both of these areas, however no one is perfect.
This leads me to my Sweet Potato Burger story. So while wasting away my life on Pinterest, the other day, I came across a recipe for Sweet Potato Burgers. Pinterest is a website that shows you a bunch of pictures (from various websites and blogs) that people post with a comment underneath. So while browsing the pins of the people I follow I came across this awesome picture of a Sweet Potato Burger. I am serious this picture made this burger look so good. Being the health conscious person that I am trying to become I repin the post and tell Joe that I want to try this recipe. And here it is... well here are the ingredients on how to completely fail at making Sweet Potato Burgers:

• 1 hour of extra cook time because you didn't know that sweet potatoes take an hour to bake
• leave out 2 tbsp of Tahini because after searching all over you have come to the conclusion that it doesn't exist
• do not form patties because your mixture sticks to your hands when you try, instead drop globs of your mixture into a frying pan
• Use so much oil that it is all over but still doesn't cook the burgers
• Cook on the highest setting possible filling your house with smoke because the burgers are STILL not cooking
• Give up in the middle of cooking because your spatula will no longer flip the burgers and you are frustrated as all get out

Luckily I had the bright idea to make ranch carrots as a side. After taking one bite of the burgers I had slaved over, I almost couldn't keep it down. Somehow Joe liked the burgers, but we decided to throw away all my hard work because it was just not worth it. I am sad to say that this was not a successful endeavor, however I am happy to say that I am absolutely 100% positive that I will never become a vegan. They put way too much effort into making something that tastes like crap. 

So class, let's review what we've learned today. Sweet Potato Burgers are a terrible idea!