Where Did November Go?

Blogger has certainly been making me angry. I had a great post all set up for Thanksgiving where I was going to share my very secret and yummy recipe for sweet potatoes that I just made up this year, and now the post is gone. I didn't even realize it disappeared until I got on here to post something else. Add on top of Blogger hating me (or just deciding that sweet potatoes were too yummy to share), I just got a phone call from my cousin telling me that someone stole all of her kids' Christmas presents from the trunk of her car. Being a thief is bad enough, but to steal from little kids is just evil.

I feel physically sick about the whoel situation and didn't know where else to go to vent about it. Several years ago, I had a purse stolen. Luckily there was no money and I cancelled my bank card and one credit card, but I still felt beyond violated and hurt. Now I just feel downright angry. How does someone do that? Paul is five and adores Toy Story as well as his baby brother. Taylor just turned four on Saturday and likes to feed her baby dolls the same way she sees Mommy feed her baby brother. Ben is three months old and has the most charming little baby smile. It breaks my heart that those kids are going to wake up on Christmas morning wondering why Santa didn't visit them. It doesn't help that I feel guilty for calling Santa on Saturday in order to get them to help clean their rooms (the threat of no visit from Santa certainly helped them buck up real quick). Now it's going to look like even though they helped clean the house, it wasn't enough.

I truly just needed to vent where I knew no one would judge me for being so emotional over something like this. Thanks for listening (if you made it this far). I'll bring you something yummy later this week after the craziness of having dinner guests has passed.

Happy Autumn!

This is the best time of year to live in Oklahoma. The mornings and evenings are crisp, just a slight chill to the air. The afternoons are arm enough to shed the light jacket you may have donned upon your departure in the morning. The leaves that haven't made their way to the ground just yet are bursting out in gorgeous hues of red and orange and gold. Some evenings, you may even be lucky enough to catch the lingering scent of someones fireplace, roaring with fire inside their home. It's the perfect time of year to sit out on your front porch with a mug of hot chai tea and chat with an elderly neighbor on a Saturday morning. Or you can have an iced chai after spending the afternoon raking leaves and watching little kids jump into the piles, scattering those reds and golds to the wind.

I've got an obsession with chai tea, and when I found out that I could make my own concentrate and suit to my own tastes, I was nigh on ecstatic. It's been my go to drink any time I've found myself at a Starschmucks, but I just hated how expensive it was and how sweet and mild it always seemed. Chai shouldn't be mild, and it certainly shouldn't taste like syrup. Don't get me wrong, I love a sweet chai, but I don't want to feel like I just drank the equivalent of a pound of sugar. Gross.

What I love most about this recipe (another I found via Pinterest) is it's easy to customize to your own tastes. It does take a little work to get everything together, and the ingredients can get pricey if you don't already have most on hand already. I was lucky and only needed to buy one of the ingredients since I generally try to keep a well stocked spice cabinet (yes, I have one cabinet saved just for spices; don't judge me). And since this was my third time making this particular recipe, I've been able to really fine-tune it to my own tastes (that one ingredient I bought, anise, has been the biggest waste of my money since I absolutely loath black licorice). Feel free to play around with it if you give it a try. I tend to make mine a little spicier with only a touch of sweetness to balance it out.

Chai Tea Concentrate
Recipe by A Wooden Nest, adapted by me

4 1/2 cups water

2 stick cinnamon

1 3-inch piece of fresh ginger, chopped (unfortunately, I had to use ground ginger; it's fine, just not as strong)

15 whole cardamom pods

1 whole star anise pods

20 whole cloves

1/2 Tbl freshly ground black pepper

1/2 tsp freshly ground nutmeg

Orange zest from a medium sized orange

10 bags of black tea (I love a good English afternoon tea, but feel free to use your favorite black tea)

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tablespoon honey

1 tablespoon vanilla

1. Pull out all of the spices and tea, and set aside. Bring the water to a boil, and remove from heat. Add the spices and the tea bags, and allow the mixture to steep for 15 minutes.
2. Strain the mixture into a 4-cup glass measuring cup or large bowl using a fine mesh sieve or cheesecloth, discarding the spices. Add the sugar, honey and the vanilla, and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Pour the mixture into a jar and store in the refrigerator (this should keep for about 2 weeks).
3. To serve, mix 2 parts concentrate with 1 part milk. Enjoy hot or cold (either heat the mixture on the stove top in a pot or place your mug with the mixture in the microwave and heat until steaming hot).

It's Cold...Let's Have Ice Cream!

You're never going to believe this recipe. It's two simple ingredients most people have in their homes at any given time, especially with the holidays coming up. What makes it even better is how insanely easy it is to customize it to your own tastes.

I'm not crazy. Not like stalker/slasher/scary crazy. But I love ice cream when it's cold outside. I really love ice cream that doesn't require me to babysit an ice cream machine. I'm even more enamored with an ice cream that is so ridiculously easy that there really are no excuses to not make it. You can have several different flavors of ice cream hanging out in your freezer right now just waiting for any unannounced guests stopping by for dinner. You could have one huge batch of your favorite flavor stashed away for those midnight cravings that hit when the insomnia is kicking in and all those infomercials are showing all the tasty things you can cook in those tiny little ovens.

I found this recipe via Pinterest forever ago (and if you've never heard of Pinterest, it's time you go and find your new addiction). I have no idea where the recipe originated or who to give the proper credit to, but there seem to be so many variations on this one that I'm not going to any more time trying to find the original one (if you do know who came up with it, please link to them in the comments and I'll be glad to give credit where credit is due). I've made so many variations of this simple recipe: Nutella with chocolate chips, cookies n' cream, chocolate chip, mint chocolate chip, straight up vanilla. I'm giving you the base recipe as well as the variations I've already tried (this weekend, I'll be experimenting with a flavor that's been stuck in my head for a few months now).

Two Ingredient Ice Cream Base

2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 can (12 oz) sweetened condensed milk

1. Whip heavy cream to stiff peaks. Fold in the sweetened condensed milk. Place a freezer-safe bowl with a lid and freeze until solid. Enjoy

Nutella with Chocolate Chips
1/2 cup Nutella (or to taste; feel free to try peanut butter, almond butter, or any other kind of spread with a similar consistency)
1 Tbl butter, melted
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips (this is just a rough guess; use more or less depending on taste).

1. Add Nutella and butter to the sweetened condensed milk. Fold into the whipped cream. Add chocolate chips. Follow above directions on freezing.

Cookies n ' Cream
7-10 Oreo cookies, crushed (give or take based on your preference)

1. Fold the crushed cookies into the whipped cream and sweetened condensed milk mixture. Follow above directions on freezing.

Chocolate Chip/Mint Chocolate Chip
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
1 tsp mint extract

1. Fold the mini chocolate chips and mint extract, if using, into the whipped cream and sweetened condensed milk mixture. Follow above directions on freezing.

It's Been Too Long

Want to see what I was baking?

I never realized how much I would miss blogging until today. Nothing really happened that would cause me to feel this way. It just sort of clicked. I missed trying out new recipes to share with you all and reading your silly comments back and forth that sometimes had to do with the food but more often then not were just gentle ribbings to get me to post more. I do have a few explanations as to why I wasn't blogging, but please don't see these as excuses. They aren't.

Last time we talked, I was pregnant. Morning sickness and fatigue were dragging me down. Something had to give. For my own sanity, I dropped the ball on the blog. You weren't missing anything anyway. The sight of raw meat made me gag. I couldn't even eat cooked chicken if I had had the misfortune of seeing it before it hit the pan. The hubby and I ate a lot of fast food during those last few months. Then the baby came. And with a face like his, who could blame me for not wanting to sit a computer in the evenings to review a recipe? We also moved from our apartment to a house, but that's beside the point for now.

He is the most amazing thing I've ever "cooked" up. And the recipe is easy, assuming you have the time and energy to put into it. My sister lovingly calls him "The Poopsmith". It fits so well. He's almost nine months old and can crawl so he might be considered fast food, but I think good ol' Jamie Oliver would approve of this.

Poopsmith

Recipe by Me

1 daddy

1 mommy

Lots of Patience

Even more Love

Mix all ingredients together. Wait nine months. Serve with a side of laughter and tears.

I promise the next recipe will be a real one and will hopefully be up by tomorrow (assuming I can figure otu something tasty with the ground beef that's defrosting).

It'sa Lemon Butter Chicken, Mes Amichis

UPDATE: Got the pictures to work! Hallelujah!

Sorry, this was supposed to have posted overnight, but Blogger didn't want to cooperate. And apparently the pictures have disappeared. I'm in the process of trying to reload them, so bare with me please.

When the hubby and I first got engaged, we had planned this great trip to Italy for our honeymoon. Then the military called and we had to change our plans. We ended up marrying a year early and taking a much smaller honeymoon to Washington D.C. (its was absolutely gorgeous in October; if you ever have the chance to visit in the fall, definitely do it). As great as it was in D.C., it was still a bit of a letdown to not be able to feast on all of the great dishes that come from the beautiful country.

I wish I had known about this Lemon Butter Chicken Pasta four years ago. We would have been eating it at least once a week for dinner and a couple of times the following days as leftovers. It's oh so bad for you with the bacon and lemon-cream-butter sauce, but as long as you don't actually eat it once a week, you'll be fine.

This one got quite a few changes to it to suit my picky tastes. Obviously, you can still follow the original, and I'm sure you'll have just as good of results as we did. One thing though, if you do follow the original, still add the tomatoes like we did. It truly enhances the tartness of the lemon juice in the sauce and turns it a pretty shade of pink (very appropriate for Breast Cancer Awareness Month).

Lemon Butter Chicken with Pasta
Recipe from All Recipes, adapted by me

Lemon Butter Sauce:

1/4 cup white wine (I used chicken broth, but that's only because the smell of wine makes me sick right now)

5 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (feel free to use the stuff int he little yellow bottle; I've tried it both ways and didn't notice the difference either time)

5 tablespoons heavy cream

1 cup butter, chilled

salt and pepper to taste

Chicken and Pasta:

1/2 pound dry farfalle (bow tie) pasta

4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - pounded to 1/4 inch thickness

1 tablespoon olive oil

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

salt and pepper to taste

4 ounces bacon

6 ounces mushrooms, sliced (I left this and the artichoke hearts out)

6 ounces artichoke hearts, drained and halved (substituted in a can of diced tomatoes, but you can also use a fresh one)

2 teaspoons capers, drained (forgot about these completely this time around, and I'm glad I did; they make it a bit too salty)

chopped fresh parsley for garnish

1. To make the sauce, pour the wine and lemon juice into a saucepan over medium heat. Cook at a low boil until the liquid is reduced by 1/3. Stir in cream, and simmer until it thickens. Gradually add the butter 1 tablespoon at a time to the sauce, stirring until completely incorporated. Season with salt and pepper. Turn down the heat, and keep warm (I do this step closer to the end simply because I had it curdle on me the first time I made it when I did it first; still tasted good, just not as pretty).
2. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to boil. Add pasta, and cook until al dente, about 8 to 10 minutes. Drain, and set aside.
3. While boiling the pasta, make the chicken by heating oil in a large skillet over medium heat. In a bowl, stir together flour, salt, and pepper. Lightly coat chicken with flour mixture. Without crowding, carefully place chicken in hot oil. (If necessary, cook in batches.) Fry until cooked through and golden brown on both sides. Remove the chicken to paper towels. Stir the bacon, mushrooms, artichokes, and capers into the oil; cook until the mushrooms are soft.
4. Cut the chicken breasts into bite-size strips, and return them to the skillet. Stir half of the lemon butter sauce into the chicken mixture.
5. To serve, place pasta in a large bowl. Stir the chicken mixture into the pasta. Taste, and adjust seasonings. Stir in additional lemon butter sauce as desired. Toss well, and garnish with parsley.