Tuesday, February 14, 2012

My Kitchen or Yours, Happy Valentines Day!

This year we are spending Valentines Day at home. After Carter and I surprised Peter at work for lunch we headed home to cook. Carter fell asleep in the car,  after unloading  I donned my "M&M" apron and got to work because I had a limited time to get stuff done.

  
I decided to make a recipe that  I saw on Pioneer Woman called Spicy Stewed Beef with Creamy Cheddar Grits.  Click on the link to get the full recipe.  I really love following her blog, she has some hilarious stories and delicious food.   I had to tweak the recipe a bit because I have tried this one before and it was way too spicy for Carter and I.  

I am no food blogger but here are a few shots of the work in progress.

Ingredients assembled

Melt Butter.

Add the meat and cook for a minute.

Add everything else and let it cook for a couple hours.

Chopping veggies for the grits.


The result...... delicious!

I also did a dessert from scratch.  I found this recipe on Kraftfoods.com  for chocolate  cheesecakes for two.   I tweaked this recipe for the three of us and used some different chocolates.

Ingredients assembled.

I put Oreos into a baggie and got a little violent with them...... it was kind of fun.
  
I then added them to some melted butter for the crust.   I smushed the Oreo mixture into the bottom of cupcake liners.

Then I melted some chocolate and added in the cream cheese, sugar and Cool Whip.  I then loaded each cup with the fabulous fluff.

I put them outside on top of some snow to set.  It worked really well.  


I don't know about anyone else but I have a difficult time with cup cake liners always getting crinkly on me.  The cupcakes never come out nice and evenly cylindrical.   So my cheese cakes look nothing like the ones on the web site, but they tasted divine.




While everything else cooked and cooled, I made some mini-cupcakes for work tomorrow for our pot-luck lunch.  There is always amazing food at these.  Pot-lucks are the best.

 They look a little funny, but taste good.



Happy Valentine's Day to your and yours.
 
We had a great Valentines Day.  I hope everyone else did too.

Monday, February 13, 2012

Accident Prone

This weekend I fell down the stairs.  I'm OK.  Just a little sprain/strain/pulled muscles in my leg, I hobble around pretty well.  It will just take me a couple days to mend.  Kind of put a stop to walking on the treadmill for my diet, but I will get back on the proverbial horse when I'm better.

Those of you who know my back ground with horses may laugh now.

I am not sure when I became accident prone.  It may have been something that was passed down for generations in my family.  I learned early on that key + light socket = ouch (thank goodness the key had a rubber thing on the end) and putting your thumb into a can leads to unpleasant things.

I have been told of many broken bones, scrapes and bruises between my Dad and his siblings.  But honestly it also sounded like they enjoyed beating each other up, so it is hard to determine what was really an accident.  My Mom's side had their fair share of mishaps as well.  Most of their injuries were sports or work related, but a few were from being clumsy.   I remember at some point there being a joke that between my Grandmother, Mother and myself, I was the clumsiest out of the three of us.


I wouldn't say that all my injuries were sports related, but a fair share were. Between soccer, jumping on trampolines, and horseback riding I had a few mishaps.  (Those of you who know my back ground with horses are laughing again.)   A few black and blue spots were not surprising, sometimes I was not sure where they came from.  For the most part it was because I ran into something..... which lead to me being called "graceful".

Well if I am just accident prone or if it has been multiplied and handed down through the generations, it is just another reason to laugh at myself, because being able to laugh at yourself is important.