Don't Forget the Baking Soda!

High Fiber Chocolate Cupcakes.  They're actually really good if you do it right!

I was all excited to make these with Heather and Brock last night.  We pureed the black beans (use that instead of butter so it makes it way healthier), added all the ingredients, and put them in the oven.  Haha, they didn't rise one bit and the texture was awful!  They tasted okay but they were kind of hard and, just not how cupcakes should feel.  So we were all eating them (Brock and Heath ate them reassuringly to be nice hahaha) and then Brock was like, "Did you put Baking Soda in these?  Because that's what makes them rise and gives them the good texture but it doesn't affect the taste."

Haha, Heather and I looked at him all weird because, um, he's the guy!  He shouldn't be the one knowing these things, we should!  So I checked the recipe and sure enough, I had forgotten the Baking Soda!  Oi.  No wonder they were so gross.  Hahaha, word to the wise.  The baking soda is more important than you think!

Chicken Burritos!

I was sitting in my kitchen pondering on what I could possibly make for dinner because I had not planned ahead and didn't want to drive to the grocery store.  So I decided to concoct my own recipe....  Chicken Burritos!

Boil chicken and then dice it.

Make Rice (if you want details on how to do it, see my previous blogpost entitled "How to Make the Perfect Rice") and make sure you include minced onions and salt.
Drain and heat up some black beans.
Mix some canned green peppers in with your cooked rice.
Heat up some Tortillas and put the above ingredients inside them.
Top with shredded cheese and heat up til the cheese melts.

It turned out delicious!  If I did it again, I would have added some lettuce and tomatoes, and put some cheese inside as well as on top.  Here's to inventing new recipes!  Hooray!

Chicken Enchiladas!

Last night's project.  Brock told me this is his very favorite thing that I make, so I feel comfortable bragging a little in saying I ROCK at making Chicken Enchiladas!!!

They are also super easy and they make delicious leftovers!  You've gotta try this recipe!


1 dozen Medium Flour Tortillas
2 cans Cream of Chicken Soup
1 pt Sour Cream

Mixture #1:
1 chicken (or about 5-6 breasts) boiled and diced
1 small can green chilies
3-4 cups shredded colby jack cheese (depending on how cheesy you want it!)

Divide Mixture #1 evenly into tortilla shells and roll up next to each other in a greased 9 x 13 pan.  Mix Sour Cream and Cream of Chicken and spread generously over the top of the tortillas.  Top with more cheese!  Cook 350° 30-40 minutes.  Ready to serve!

Secret time-saving tip:
Canned white chicken breast instead of boiling chicken is WAY faster and easier!  So if you're in a hurry, that's the way to go!

Enjoy!

Take n' Bake

Let me give you some pointers on Papa Murphy's Take n' Bake Pizza so that you don't end up making the same mistake I did.

First of all, if you live in a tiny apartment with a tiny kitchen and a tiny oven, don't try and cook things that don't fit in it.

We bought a delicious Heart-Shaped pizza to enjoy on Valentine's Day and were so excited!  However, it wouldn't quite fit in the oven...  but it was so close!  So I figured I could bend the sides up a bit and they'd just be touching the edges of the oven and be fine.  Bad. Idea.

Five minutes later, we were watching a movie on the couch and started to smell a terrible smell.  I jumped up and our oven was smoking!!!  My first thought was the fire extinguisher as Brock and I both looked at it at the same time.  I rushed to the oven, turned it off, and pulled out the pizza.  Thank goodness- no fire.  Just a lot of smoke and stinky-ness and burnt edges of the pizza.  And then the smoke alarm went off.  So we freaked out again and opened the doors and turned on the fans and were frantically airing out the room.  Then it turned off, and we both burst into laughter.  That's a Valentine's memory we won't soon forget!  It was so funny!

So we transferred the pizza to a cooking sheet.  Brilliant, right?  Haha and cut off the burnt edges, and the pizza was saved :)  And very delicious!  But take this as a word to the wise.  Don't let what you're cooking touch the edges of your tiny oven....  Especially if it's flammable like the paper pizza holder.  :)

How to make the Perfect Rice

Get out the frying pan and put it on the stove.

Chop some onions and sautee them in Corn Oil.

Add the rice and stir it around a bit, letting it fry until it's a light golden color.

Pour in warm water (careful- the steam will attack you!).  You don't need to measure it, just add it.

Cover it completely with a lid or a plastic grocery bag :)

When all the water is gone, test the rice.  If it is too crunchy, add more water and cover it again.

When the rice is the perfect texture (soft and chewy but not too gooey) add a bunch of salt.

Voila!  The perfect rice!

And if you want a real Nicaraguan meal, fry some red beans and add them to the rice.  Mix together...  and you have Gallo Pinto!  The famous meal that all Nicaraguans eat all day every day.  It is SO delicious.  Try it with some sour cream and some chips.  Mmmmm good!

Or, you can make ham fried rice!  Like I did last night!  Scramble some eggs, cut up some ham, add some peas, mix it all together with a bunch of Soy Sauce.  So easy and SO delicious.

Peanut Butter.

I love Peanut Butter so much.  A peanut butter sandwich can just make everything better!  And my favorite jam to go with it is currently Raspberry (Smucker's, of course).  It is so delicious!  However, I also love honey with my peanut butter sandwich.  But if I don't have honey or jam, I'll just eat it plain- peanut butter and bread.  Still delicious.

But sandwiches are not the only thing you can put peanut butter on!  If you want to love peanut butter like I do, try these:

On a Banana
On Apples
With Chocolate (melt it, mix it, freeze it)
On Celery
Mixed with honey for a fruit dip
On crackers (honestly, any kind of crackers!)
With oreos
With vanilla ice cream- blend it for a smoothie!
Have you heard of MUDDIE BUDDIES?
On waffles with maple syrup
On toast
With cheesecake
With Cheerios
Just plain with a spoon!

The possibilities are endless because it is just THAT good!  What is YOUR favorite way to eat peanut butter?

Yogurt.

I think that the "Fat Free" or "Sugar Free" or "Light" yogurt and pudding desserts are the most brilliant food invention ever.  Here's why:

1. Because they are simply delicious.
2. They totally satisfy my dessert cravings because they taste exactly like the desserts!
3. They are only 60 or 100 calories for the whole thing!
4. They're only 50 cents each.
5. You can try a ton of different flavors and so far they've all been delicious!

My favorite: Banana Cream Pie Yogurt.  My Second Favorite: Boston Cream Pie Pudding.

Heaven in a little low calorie cup.  :)

Super Bowl!

Baby Back Ribs, Pork Roast, Chips, Spinach Dip, Sour Patch Kids, Lemon Heads, Dove Chocolate, Rolls, Oreos, Pink Lemonade, Diet Mountain Dew, Friends, Family, Packers win = Best. Superbowl. Sunday. Ever.

Thank you, Katie Taylor, Heather Taylor, Cosy Folsom, Charlie Folsom, Millie Nigh, and Brock S. Taylor :)

I love you all!  Go Packers!!!

Navajo Tacos

I was sitting at home deciding what to make for dinner, and decided to pull out the cook book Martha (my mom-in-law) gave me for Christmas.  In it, I found Grandma's delicious recipe for scones!!!  I had never made them before, but I do remember their delicious taste.  So I decided I would make them, and then make Navajo Tacos!

I will give you the recipe but I have to warn you.  When you are frying the scones, do NOT use a spatula.  Hello!  If you give a girl a spatula while she is frying made-from-scratch scones...... she will splatter oil ALL over herself and her kitchen.  Tongs, people.  Use tongs.  :)

For the scones:

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. shortening (I used margarine)

1 C. milk

3 C. flour

1 Tbsp. yeast

1/4 C. warm water

Dissolve yeast in water.  Add shortening & salt.  Stir.  Add milk and sift in flour.  Mix well.  Let stand 15 minutes.  Knead & Roll 1/2" thick.  Cut and fry in oil.

I put chili, sour cream, and cheese on them.  They're also delicious with lettuce and tomatoes, but I didn't have any of that on hand and it was too cold to go to the store :)  So I just settled for what I had at home.

 

Brilliantly Delicious.

Fruit Juice

So, I went to Nicaragua over the holidays (for those of you who don't know- that's in Central America, not Africa hahaha). It was so amazing and I could write a novel about all the amazing experiences I had there.  But for this post, I just have to tell you- their fruit drinks are to die for!  I had probably 3 a day.  Fresh-squeezed, sugar-sweetened, fruit juice.  It was sooooo good!  I also got to drink out of a real coconut!  The hotel man chopped it down from the tree and chopped it open with a machete.  It was amazing!  And the coconut juice was also delicious :)

On our last day there, I decided this could not be the last time I experienced those beautiful delicious drinks.  But our store bought juices here just do not do them justice.  I had to find a way to do it myself.  So the first thing I bought when we got back home to Logan was....  can you guess?  A Juicer!!!

And I bought oranges.  And I juiced them in the juicer.  And I made orange juice!  And it was delicious!!!  It was not quite as good as the Nicaraguan drinks, but don't worry.  I'll keep practicing, and learn, and master the art of the perfect fruit drink.  Hooray!

This is a fork. This is a spoon.

Have you ever played that game? You sit in a circle, and pass the fork one way and the spoon another way. It goes: "This is a fork." "A what?" "A fork." Then to the next person: "This is a fork." "A what?" "A what? "A what?" "A fork." "A fork." "A fork." etc. The spoon goes the other direction and they keep passing it person to person. It's pretty funny and with lots of people it can get all confusing :)

Anyway, my point of this post is not for that game (even though I love that fabulous game). It is because sometimes, like you can be in that game, I am backwards with forks and spoons. Ask my old roommates, for example. They will tell you that I like to eat my ice cream with a fork. Yup. A fork. And my peanut butter. And occasionally my chocolate pudding (but that doesn't work as well because it's hard to scoop it out of the bottom).

So the other day, I wanted to eat my leftover Cafe Rio. But all the forks were dirty. So I pulled out a spoon. Yup. A spoon. And I ate my burrito with a spoon. And it was delicious! So there's two conclusions we can come to here: I could be crazy and backwards and seriously confused, or I could just really love my food so much that it doesn't matter what utensil I use as long as it gets the job done. Hahaha, I prefer the second option, but take your pick! Give me a fork, and I'll use it like a spoon :)

In the Beginning.

So if any of you knew me at all in my Teenage years, you know that I have a lot of fun in the kitchen. I love to cook, experiment, come up with new recipes, and most of all make lots of messes. Until I fulfilled it in my first year of marriage, I had been working very hard towards my goal to be able to make cookies without spilling all over the floor... Needless to say, it was not my parents' favorite thing when I decided to cook!

But I still did anyway! And I was not good at it at all. Brock will testify to that. He can tell you about my cooking when we first got married :) It was pretty funny. But I have gotten soooooooo much better since then. In fact, I would call myself a fantastic cook! It is one of my joys in life.

As my 2011 New Years Resolution, I set a goal to cook at least 2 good meals every week. Then it would pretty much add up to 4 good meals because there's only two of us at home so we'd have plenty of leftovers!

And I am proud to say that it is now February 1st, and I have kept my resolution so far! Yay! Some of the highlights I've made: Chipotle BBQ Chicken Wings, Ham Fried Rice, Crock Pot Lasagna, White Chicken Chili, and Honey BBQ Ribs. All were brilliant successes and so delicious!

So as I was going about this resolution, I realized that pretty much all of my Facebook Status Posts were about food! First I thought, "How incredibly embarrassing!" But then, I decided it was awesome. And I want to make a blog about food. Oh, and by the way, my name's Aubrey. And here is my blog... about what happens when you give a girl a spatula. ;) Enjoy!