Cook dinner at least once a week

The new stove is great. I’ve already been cooking more! Roast, family dinner, homemade cake, salmon. The weekends are a great time for cooking something new or an old favorite!

I made these to go with X-mas dinner this year and they were yummy! I found that if you use turkey bacon instead of pork, the finished puffs look much more appetizing (more browned and crispy) and were delicious! However, my boyfriend slightly preferred the taste of the pork, I assume because it is more greasy and the flavor soaked through a bit more. Anyway here’s (EASY!!) the recipe, I think these would also be great for breakfast!

Bacon puffs are made with bread and bacon and cheese,

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:
12 slices Bacon, about 8 ounces (you’ll want to get the longer slices)
8 slices thin-sliced bread
2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
toothpicks

Preparation:
Cut crusts from bread then cut each slice in half. For each puff, place 2 bread halves, end to end, on a strip of bacon. Sprinkle with 3 tablespoons shredded cheese. Roll up and fasten with picks. Stand rolls on edge on a rack in a shallow baking pan. Bake at 400° 20 minutes, or until lightly browned. Serve hot.
Makes 12 appetizer puffs.

My husband and I are actually doing pretty well on this. We haven’t stretched ourselves too far, but it’s actually averaging out to about twice a week, sometimes more.

One really great thing this is doing for us – we’re using up our processed foods and not replacing them. We’re both great cooks and we know it doesn’t take much more effort to cook fresh!

Since cooking my own meals often, not eating Ramen noodles like twice a day and WAY less take out, I feel soooo much healthier. And I’m enjoying learning to create EDIBLE things. This has been such a great goal.
Two years ago when I took this on, I never knew I would enjoy it so much.

Tonight I made an awesome fake chicken + spinach salad with dried cranberries, avocado, radishes etc, etc. Amazing. I even made my own dressing with extra virgin olive oil, lemon + cranberry juices, and red wine vinegar. Sweet and sour and spicy, I loved it.

I had to do all sorts of stuff I’ve never done before, sauté onions, use cooking sherry, it was awesome. And tasted so good! It made a massive amount though, and I’ve been eating it for several days despite giving plenty away. It’s a good thing it freezes well. Have I mentioned how much I love vegweb.com? I’m like it’s biggest cheerleader when it comes to dinner.

spent too much money on it, and it’s been really encouraging me to keep up with this goal! I’m even cooking dinner MORE than once a week (crazy, I know!)

I’ve even moved into cooking lunch, and breakfast sometimes too!

Thursday Sean made meatloaf and I made vegetarian meatloaf, and feeling especially chef-like, we made our own mashed potatoes. Only hit one stumbling block in the process when we realized we don’t actually own a potato masher, but were able to improvise with a ladle and the bottom of a cup.

I think I’m improving in my cooking abilities and that’s really exciting.

This will be really hard since I have the cooking skills of a baby panda, but I’ll try. Also, I hate washing the dishes afterwards. Besides, everything I cook tastes like crap. I bought three Jamie Oliver books, but I only cook some of his recipes when I want to impress friends… and it happened only once actually. I also have one fancy book about recipes in the roaring 20’s, but they’re also very elaborated.

Why can’t I marry Jamie Oliver? I only date assholes who complain that the beer is not cold enough!

Yum… and it was so pretty!

Today I made cabbage and noodles from a recipe I got from my grandmother. It was pretty good, but I used a little (waaaaaay) too much pepper. It’s still edible, though, so I can’t really complain. >.>

I didn’t make anything last week because my dad brought over a bunch of leftovers (YAY) from my parent’s house, BUT I did finally get to make something today! :D

I made chicken with garlic and shallots from an Alton Brown cookbook I got from my boyfriend for Christmas (I couldn’t find the recipe online, or I’d link to it). So, this was pretty much the most amazingly delicious thing I have ever made, and it requires a lot less work than most of the dishes I made in the past. By the time everything is done, the chicken is so tender that it falls apart, and the shallots and garlic are actually spreadable. Anyway, the point is that this was amazing. I made it with steamed broccoli (which could have been steamed a little longer, but I was too impatient and wanted to eat), pomegranate green tea, and homemade dark chocolate brownies!

I love grocery day! XD

P.S.
Don’t mind my Mrs. Tea in the background >.> heh