Cooking Time: Lousiana Style

I've been all about cooking lately. I bought two new cookbooks with a Barnes and Nobles gift card from my bday.  We all know how much I love cookbooks. I read them while watching TV, I'm weird like that. 

Anyway, one of the cookbooks I purchased, from America's Test Kitchen Simple Weeknight Favorites there was a recipe for Lousiana style skillet chicken and rice and beans.  Since I'm missing being on vacation, I decided to cook up some of that. It was super easy, quick and delicious.  I used to absolutely loath spicy foods, but lately I think my tastes are changing.  I bought the hot sausage for the rice and beans, and I really loved it.

Here's a pic of the chicken simmering on the stove:

And the finished product!

Smash up Birthday Part 2

I always feel bad throwing out cards, especially the sentimental cards from my parents.  Unfortunately, I always do end up throwing them out because after they've been on the bulletin board for a few months, there's really not much else to do.  This year, however, with this smash book documenting my 2012 year, I was able to combine the cards that I got into a two page spread.  It makes me feel happy looking at it too. 

I'm sort of debating what to do about my Louisiana trip with the smashbook. I want to make a separate album for New Orleans but I don't want to omit it from my year. I might choose a few group shots and paste them in. We'll see.

Back from my Extended break...

Hello!  I've been gone for quite a bit celebrating my birthday, petsitting my parent's dog and vacationing in New Orleans! I've been also really out of creative mode. Part of me is a little over scrapbooking as well. I wasn't even excited to bring home brochures and different souvineers. I'm probably just in a funk...but not a bad funk obviously, I've been celebrating my birthday for three weeks. 

I do have a bunch of smashbook pages in the works.  I do want to do a New Orleans mini album but that is a project for next month. I need to get the creative flow going.

First smashbook page of the (short) week is my birthday! So many pictures, so little space

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Cooking Time Again! Potatoes mmm

Man I am FULL!! I did a bit more cooking tonight, this time making cheesy potato skins. The recipe was actually more twice baked potatoes rather than potato skins, but either way delicious.  I love potatoes so much. For such a huge meat eater though, I'm not a big fan of bacon, so I left that out of the recipe.  I'm sure there's tons of stuff you can add into the potato skins but I just went with cheese, butter, milk and sour cream--a dairy delight.

Just like yesterday, I used a bit too much milk so I had to drain the filling a bit..but otherwise they were super yummy.

Cooking Time! A little Quiche?

I feel like I haven't cooked in a while. I mean, I've been cooking for myself, girl's gotta eat but mostly quick foods - pasta, chili, stirfry. I haven't followed a recipe in a while.

I decided to make this artichoke and feta quiche tonight. A lot of people are afraid to cook anything big because they don't want to mess it up..but cooking is about experimenting. Not everything you cook is going to taste good. It won't look like the cookbook picture and it won't always be perfect. That was the case with this meal. It tasted good but I know if I make it again, it will be better.  I should've followed my instinct and added an extra egg so that the pie set firmer. It was a little too milky, so it ended up falling apart a bit when I cut it. I also hate when a recipe tells you it takes 45 minutes to cook, and 60 minutes later I'm still waiting for the top to brown. Another tip I've learned as I cook more is that anytime a recipe says 350 degrees, always up it by 25 degrees. I didn't do that this time and I should've.

Anyway, here's a little picture of my meal.  Another smashbook post to come a little later in the week (maybe tomorrow, we'll see!).

Monday Smashup: Edamame and Vday!

Three day weekends are awesome. I wish every weekend was 3 days (let's be honest, I wish I didn't have to work but we can't have everything).  I've been really stressed out at work and in life.  When I get stressed I relax by keeping myself constantly busy so I don't think about what is stressing me out.  Therapists would probably say that is the wrong approach but ti works for me, and my apartment gets really clean so. 

I did two pages in my smash book tonight. I'm seriously loving this project. It's relaxing, it's imperfect and I love looking back through the book.  At the end of the year I can look through it and be like wow, this is what was going on in my head in 2012. That's cool.

The first page is from a night out last weekend with a few of my friends.  We went to a bar downtown, ordered edamame and nachos, met some good people. It was a lot of fun.  This project is also giving me a chance to use a lot of stickers I normally would never put in my scrapbook pages. Stuff that came in grab bags or leftover from a previous project.

The second page is just very simple. My friend handcrafted a Valentine for me. I love it and it was the only Valentine I received this year so it's particularly special to me.

Smash Book Update: Stuff I like and Want

My third smash update this week is just a page of cutouts from magazines of things that I really like (and wish I had!) .  I'm really loving this tape by Smash (k&company/EK successs).  It really completes this kind of page.