HAPPY VALENTINES!

For our first velntines as the Reeses we stayed in and had a romantic dinner. We also lucked out and found Zoe's favorite lost mouse! So she had a great valentines as well!

We had a pot roast with vegetables and strawberry shortcakes for dessert. Recipes below!

Easy Crock Pot Roast

Salt and Pepper

1 1/2 pound pot roast

6 small red potatoes- quartered

15-20 baby carrots

1 sweet onion- sliced, big chunks

2/3 cups water

Put the veggies into the crockpot. Season the roast with Salt and pepper. Go ahead and shake some salt and pepper on the veggies too. Fresh ground pepper is always best 8)

Next, pour the water into the crockpot. Turn on Low and cook for 6 hours. I would recommend opening the crockpot at about 4 hours and spoon some of the liquid over the meat to keep it tender.

Strawberry Shortcakes- also super easy.

Shortcake shells- availble in your local grocery store

Fresh strawberries

Sugar

Coolwhip- we got chocolate flavored

Slice up the strawberries, put them in a bowl and sprinkle them with sugar. Toss them and put in the refrigerator for a few hours.

About an hour before dessert time, spoon the berries onto the shortcakes. hold off on the cool whip until you are ready to serve! YUMMY!

Sewing Class

I'm signing up for a sewing class next week! I'm SUPER excited. I believe we're making an apron- which is the one thing I want to make the MOST! I am pumped to learn how to use my sewing machine! I might go craft-wild in the soon future 8) Wait and see!

This weekend I'm painting some shelves so we can hang them up. Our walls are SO bare. I'd like to start working on a painting, but there is alot to do and only a few short days of the weekend! However, I am off work Monday- President's Day. So Maybe I could work on it then!

Happy Early Valentines day to everyone, hope you have a LOVEly weekend 8)

Personalize Your Wine!

I just found this great website where you can order personalized bottles of wine in small quantities. I'm sure there are lots of companies that do this, but I thought it was a fun idea!

http://www.personalwine.com/catalog/site_affiliate_index_label.php?name=eviteparty

Breakfasts

Reese-McMuffin (Bryan's Favorite)
Wheat English Muffin
Thick sliced ham
Colby Jack Cheese Slice
1 egg
Cooking Spray

We have an individual egg poacher, so that is what we use for cooking the egg. You could fry it.
Spray a small frying pan, cook ham on both sides until browned.
Toast the english muffin. Lay the ham on bottom half of english muffin, cover with cheese slice. Place egg on top of cheese and put top of english muffin on the stack!


Orange French Toast
Sliced french bread
1 egg
Cooking Spray
About 1/4 cup Orange Juice
Cinnamon Sugar
Syrup

Whisk egg and orange juice together in a bowl. Spray frying pan with cooking spray. Drench french bread in egg mixture and put in frying pan. Flip oncec bottom is thoroughly cooked. After both sides are cooked, place on a plate and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar, drop in a few raspberries and drench with syrup!

Pork Chops with Caramelized Onions and Mashed Potatoes and Gravy

This dish was SO good. The Maple flavored sausage really makes it!

The recipe is from the Southern Living Cook-off Cookbook, 2004.

My favorite cookbook of all times. Enjoy!

1/4 cup olive oil, divided

2 med size sweet onions, thinly sliced- not chopped

3 tbsp margarine, divided

1 tsp brown sugar

salt

pepper

4 boneless pork loin chops (about 1 1/4" thick)

6 oz. maple-flavored ground pork sausage1 cup chicken broth

1/2 cup half and half 2 tbsp all purpose flour

Refrigerated/frozen mashed potatoes, or make from a box..

Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a large skillet over med. heat. add onions, cover and cook 10 minutes or until soft- stirring occasionally. Add 1 tbsp butter and brown sugar; cook, uncovered for about 20 minutes or until onions are caramelized- stirring occasionally.

Here we have the onions caramelizing! OOOOhlala

Meanwhile, Sprinkle pork chops evenly with 1/4 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper- I just cracked some pepper and salt over the chops, I'm not a big measurer! Heat 2 tbsp oil in a large skillet over med heat. Add pork chops and cook 8-10 minutes on each side; varies by thickness. Remove chops, let stand about 5 minutes. Reserve 2 tbsp pan dripping from skillet; set aside. Discard remaining drippings.

Prepare mashed potatoes however you like.

Add sausage to skillet that chops just came out of, and cook over med- high heat, stirring until it crumbles and is no longer pink. Reduce heat to med. Add 2 tbsp reserved pan drippings, 2 tbsp butter, and chicken broth; bring to a simmer.

Whisk together 1/4 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper, 1/2 cup half and half, and flour until smooth. Add flour mixture to sausage mixture, whisking until blended. Simmer, stirring often, 4-5 minutes or until thickened.

Spoon mashed potatoes on individual serving plates. Top each pile with 1 pork chop, onions and gravy.

Cooking Light

This is one of my favorite magazines, but I haven't been seeing it lately... so I'm a little worried. However I do have the Cooking Light "Best of" cookbook. Check out their website- http://www.cookinglight.com/

Most recipes include nutrition facts, which I think is nice!

Also, I just found these create-your-own-cookbooks. You can choose which recipes go in and even come up with your own clever title!

http://www.tastebook.com/shop_tastebooks/view_all?partner_id=4-MyRecipes

Barbeque Shrimp

Tonight, we had Barbeque Shrimp and it was DELISH! The recipe is out of the Cooking Light cookbook- What luck!

Barbecue Shrimp
1/2 Cup Fat-free Caesar Dressing
1/3 Cup Worcestershire
1 Tbsp Margarine
1 Tbsp Dried Oregano
1 Tbsp Paprika
1 Tbsp Dried Rosemary
1Tbsp Dried Thyme
1 1/2 Tsp Black Pepper
1 Tsp Hot Sauce- Tabasco around here
5 Bay leaves
3 Garlic Gloves, Minced
1 Pound Large Shrimp
1/3 Cup Dry White Wine
Lemon Wedges
French Bread Baguette

Combine first 11 ingredients in a large non-stick skillet, and bring to a boil. Add the Shrimp, cook for 7 minutes- Stirring occasionally. Add the wine, cook for 1 minute or until the shrimp are done. Serve with lots of bread and lemon wedges.

Tips- we wished we'd peeled the shrimp before cooking them, although the recipe calls for shrimp with the peels left on. The sauce was SO good we felt like it was wasted on the shell pieces we had to throw out!

Super Bowl Party

We had a few friends over for the Super Bowl last night and made a pretty good spread- if I must say so myself! It was a great excuse for us to clean up the apartment- THANK GOD! and do some cooking! We had buffalo chicken quesadillas, homemade salsa and chips, sundried tomato dip, summer sausage with cheese and spicy mustard, and triple chocolate chunk brownies!

Buffalo Chicken Quesadillas

4 Flour Tortillas

Buffalo Wing Sauce

Chunky Blue Cheese Dressing (Lite)

Shredded Pepper Jack Cheese

1 Rotissere Chicken- Ours was "Southwestern" Flavored in support of the Cardinals

Tear up the chicken meat and put it in a bowl. Pour Buffalo sauce over it and toss until all of the chicken is coated. Lay out one tortilla, cover half with the Buffalo-coated chicken, sprinkle with pepper jack (GENEROUSLY!), and then drizzle the blue cheese dressing over it. Fold over tortilla.

Heat a frying pan on Medium heat. Spray with non-stick cooking spray. Lay in Quesadilla. Flip once bottom side turns golden brown. Quesadilla is ready when cheese is melted and both sides are golden brown.

Serve with extra buffalo sauce and chunky blue cheese.

Katherine Brown's Sundried Tomato Dip

1/4 Cup Sun Dried Tomatoes in oil, Drained & chopped

8 oz. Cream Cheese (fat free) @ room temp.

1/2 Cup Sour Cream

1/2 Cup "Good Mayo"

10 Dashes of Tabasco- K. Brown says this is what MAKES it!

1 Tsp. Kosher Salt

3/4 Tsp. Fresh Ground Black Pepper

2 Scallions- Thinly Sliced.

Puree all ingredients except for scallions in food processor. After these ingredients are creamy add scallions and pulse twice.

Serve with pita chips! Yummy!