Skirt Steak and Cheddar Mashed potatoes

This is so far, the BEST meal I've made since beginning the blog. It was so quick to make (I had left over mashed potatoes from the other day, so that made it quick) and the taste was unbelievable. I'm still working on presentation for my pictures. I think I need to take a class in food presentation. haha!

Overall rating:

Dave: perfect, don't change a thing

Jeanine: delicious, best meal so far

Fall is in the air!

I love fall! It's my favorite season. I love budling up in sweaters, watching the leaves change, pumpkin picking, the smell of apple pies baking, celebrating my wedding anniversary! I never really decorated for fall, just a few Halloween pictures on the windows and that's it. With this being our first fall in the new house, I figured I'd decorate a little more towards the fall theme. I love the scarecrows in front of the fireplace, they were a gift from my mother in law. I also love the fall floral arrangement on the coffee table, and it has an element of Halloween as well.

Chicken Risotto

Prepared risotto
chicken breasts - skinless & boneless
balsamic vinegar
thyme
zucchini
asparagus
shredded parmesan
Olive oil
2 tablespoons butter

Prepare risotto as per directions.
Sprinkle chicken with balasmic vinegar to coat and sprinkle a little thyme on each side of the chicken.
Cook in olive oil in a skillet over medium heat until cooked through.
Slice Zucchini and cut up asparagus and toss together in an oven safe dish with butter and parmesan cheese. Bake in over at 350 for about 20 minutes, then broil on high for about 7 minutes stirring occasionaly so as not to burn.
When chicken is done cooking, cut into strips. When risotto is finished cooking, place the chicken strips on top of the risotto and serve with the veggies.

Shrimp Pasta Primavera

Pasta
1/2 red pepper - sliced
1/2 yellow pepper - sliced
1 zucchini - cubed & unpeeled
8 oz shrimp - peeled & deveined
1 tablespoon chopped garlic - I used about 2 cloves
about 4 or 5 tablespoons olive oil
Shredded parmesan - this is up to you if you want to add it.

Make pasta as directed. With about 2 minutes left on the cooking time of the pasta, throw in the veggies.
While pasta is cooking, heat olive oil in skillet and toss in shrimp. After about 3 minutes, mix garlic in with shrimp.
Drain pasta and toss shrimp, garlic and olive oil in with pasta to coat and serve.

It's Friday a.k.a. Recipe Day

So I decided to dedicate one day to post all the recipes from the week. I'll attach labels as well to make it easier to search.

Shadow Box

I have been doing little decoration projects around the house and have decided to do a memory box for our wedding. I had purchased a shadow box (on sale a Michael’s for 50% off yay!) and brought it home to ponder how I would get everything to stick to back of the box. It came with velcro, but I knew velcro would not be holding up our cake topper or bell. I asked around at my favorite website, The Nest, and was informed straight pins would do the trick. After running out to purchase straight pins (used my 40% off coupon at AC Moore, go me!) I was able to finally sit down and work on my little project.
Now, I must admit, the Polish side of me comes out often, and since I've gotten married, I always feel compelled to tell everyone about my heritage to explain for the things I do. See, I was so excited about putting together our wedding memory box, and went right ahead sticking pins through the invitation and bending pins to hold the cake topper, that it wasn't until I held it up to show Dave my finished project that I had attached everything upside down. The back of the box has holders to hang it up and I never thought to look to see where they were. (Big sigh!) Soooo, I undid all my pins, turned my board right side up, and re-pinned everything.....again!
Here is the finished project. It's nothing too crazy or that artistic, but it holds the memories of a day that is so special to me and Dave.

It's finally an eat in kitchen

So, one of my favorite things about our home is that we have an eat in kitchen and a dining room. When we first moved in, I had visions of only eating in the dining room for when we had company or for special occasions (birthday, anniversary, etc.). Well, it didn't quite work out that way. Dave and I have been eating in the dining room every night since we never got around to purchasing a kitchen table. That all changed tonight. We had purchased a small bistro set for our yard for when we eat dinner "al fresco" during the summer. With the cold winter coming, we have since brought in the bistro set and were storing it in the garage. Well, this morning, I had a brainstorm. Why don't we use the bistro set as our kitchen table?! I ran this idea by Dave and he was all for it. I wasted no time at all thinking of where I could buy a table cloth and if I should get chair cushions or not.

At lunch today, after roaming around Wal-Mart for a good half hour, I stumbled upon their fabric department. Ah-ha! Why don't I get creative and make my own table cloth? I chose my fabric and after purchasing 2 yards (wayyyy too much fabric) I was all set to get domestice diva-fied! After dinner tonight (our last dinner in the dining room) I dragged the bistro set into the kitchen and got work on trimming down my fabric.

For my shower, someone gave me a sewing box that was in my wishing well, that came with the magic hem stuff, that I used to hem the jagged edges of the fabric. I think it came out pretty good. My goal is to one day learn how to sew so that I won't have to keep using the cheaters way out. Here is the finished product, along with a view of my hem.

Chicken Risotto

For tonight I was planning on following a recipe for Grilled Chicken Risotto. I was looking forward to this all week because I was planning on making Mushroom Risotto, which I had an old recipe for. I was also looking forward to trying my hand at grilling since I never really had much luck when it came to barbecueing. Well, after a long day at work, and Dave & I being unable to find the brand of risotto we like, I decided to mix it up and be a little creative. (scary!)

I still used chicken, but the risotto was a prepared mix Dave was able to find today (nothing like last minute!) I tossed together my own veggie mix of zucchini and white aspargus (tastes the same as green). It took about 40 minutes total in the kitchen from cutting veggies to tossing the chicken into the risotto, but it was worth it.

Overall rating:

Jeanine - pretty good. Veggies were crisp and shredded parmesan added a nice flavor.

Dave - very good. Veggies were a bit under cooked. Should have been in over for longer.

Well, now I know for next time, veggies apparently have to cook for longer than 20 minutes in the oven.

Shrimp Pasta Primavera

So tonight's meal went over well. The total time in the kithen was about 30 minutes. While I was waiting for the water to boil, I was able to cut up my veggies. I was able to clean the utensils used while the pasta was cooking. The only thing I noticed was that I needed to add more than the 2 tablespoons of olive oil it called for.

Overall rating:

Jeanine - thumbs up - liked it - felt it could have been better with sauce

Dave - liked it - added fresh shredded parmesan cheese for a bit more taste

I think next time I'll add some white wine and lemon juice for a sauce instead of just olive oil. I may even top the dish off with some parmasan since Dave seemed to enjoy it.

Food Shopping

Food shopping also made me a bit anxious because I had no idea what we needed as far as food went. When it came to buying cleaning supplies or health/beauty products, I knew what we needed. With my new meal each night for a month, I felt so organized when we went food shopping this weekend. I had my list of all the ingredients I needed for the week. Walking through the store with my list and crossing things off I finally felt like a grown up. Yes, I know that's sad, but it's the truth.
Although, all it took was one woman to stroll past me with her shopping cart packed high to make me feel inadequate with my cart only being filled just under halfway. I picked up my spirits reminding myself that it's only me & Dave that we're shopping for. We both work during the day, and we're not exactly big eaters, so we don't need a shopping cart piled with food. Plus, I just started to get the hang of food shopping, it's baby steps for me right now.

The dinner experiment

Dave is the one in our house that cooks dinner during the week since he's home before me. It's an unusual occurance if I cook during the week and it's mostely Saturday nights are usually my time to cook with Dave suggesting the menu. So, I have decided to be a good wife and cook dinner every night for a month. And not only will I be cooking, but I will be trying a different meal each night for a month. It's not as adventerous as it sounds. I'm not thinking up new meals or trying to become the next Julia Childs, Martha Stewart (I do idolize her, except for the whole jail thing) or Barfoot Contessa. I have simply looked through the many magazines in my posession and pulled out reciepes that sounded fun or interesting.
Since I have decided to be the new cook in our house, I thought I'd start a blog to track the meals made, if we liked them or not, and along the way hope to include changes to our home and decoration projects.
The meal for tonight is Pasta Primavera with Shrimp (told you, not that adventerous). I'll be posting tomorrow mine & Dave's likes and dislikes about the meal.