Wednesday 28 September 2011

trying to be domestic. . .

i used to think that once i got married i would
get magical powers that allowed me to cook, clean & craft like martha stewart.
false.

during my 4 years of college my "cooking" literally consisted of
cereal, easy mac, quesadillas & pb&j.
enter married world where i literally had no idea how to cook anything.
poor logan.

i thought i was ok at keeping things clean- however
my roomates britt & paige might beg to differ:)
the truth is-if you're not a domestic goddess before you get married, nothing
changes once you have that ring on your finger.
during the first few months of marriage logan & i basically ate the same
things every week because they were easy & we were at school
all day long!
i had never used a crockpot before i got married.
i knew they apparently did amazing things, but it took me a while to figure it out.
i would usually throw some chicken, potatoes & carrots in before we left
for school, or make some sort of taco soup in like 10 minuets when we got home.
logan never complained once-bless his little heart.

i am pleased to announce that i have been trying to be more
"domestic" & experiment with some recipes.
i don't know about you-but i am NOT good when it comes to
knowing what things go together & mixing it all up & calling it good.
if i don't have a recipe to follow, i am a lost soul in the kitchen.
here are a few things i have made in the past week or so.
i may or may not be really proud of myself.

peach chicken salad:
believe it or not i kinda sorta made this up.
i grilled some chicken on the george foreman & seasoned
it with salt and pepper.
we had about a billion peaches from my grandma's tree, so i
just cut up a bunch of those and mixed it with some spinach.
i threw some almonds in there and tossed it all together.
it was delish!

chicken fajitas:
these were sooooo easy.
i cut up some chicken and and mixed it with this seasoning:


the ingredients are super simple.
1 red bell pepper
1 green bell pepper
2 limes
cilantro
looks like christmas!



i started cooking the chicken & my house literally smelled
the best it has ever smelled.
ever.


after mixing in the veggies and letting them cook with the chicken
for about 10 minutes or so, the fajitas were almost ready!


i gave logan the assignment of heating some tortillas.
i decided he was the best man for the job since he
lived in mexico for 2 years serving a mission.


after squeezing some limes and sprinkling some
cilantro on our fajitas-they were ready to be devoured.


just look at that no tooth smile.
good food=happy logan.

stuffed peppers:
i was scared to try these for some reason, but after scoring some amazing
deals on fresh produce i had to try it.

4 bell peppers
1 cup cooked rice
1 pound ground beef
(i wanted to use ground turkey but the store didn't have any!)
2 large tomatoes
1 onion
8 oz. tomato sauce
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. basil

i chopped up the onion& tomatoes and started simmering
them along with the tomato sauce.


i got the peppers ready to go by chopping off the tops
& cleaning out the insides.
don't they look pretty?
i wanted to just eat them like this.


the rice was cooking in the rice cooker while i cooked the meat.
i added the salt, pepper & basil to the meat as it cooked.
when the rice and meat were done cooking, i combined them & then
i started stuffing:)



after the peppers were stuffed full of rice & meat, i added the
tomato/onion mixture on top.
then i baked it in the oven at 375 for about 25 minutes.
i made sure to put some water in the pyrex dish, & i also
covered it with foil.


when they were done baking the peppers were a darker green
color and the topping was bubbly and delicious!

these were a hit with logan as well.
i'm pretty sure he was shocked when he saw that i made them.

pumpkin chocolate chip cookies:
technically this recipe isn't a new one, but i made them for the
first time in a long time a week or so ago.
my roomies & i would make these all the time back in the day:)

1 bag chocolate chips
1 box spice cake mix
16 oz. pumpkin pie mix

just mix all the ingredients in a bowl, put dollops of batter on a
cookie sheet, & bake them in the oven at 350 for like 13-15 minutes!
they taste like fall.


in other domestic news, i decided to mix it up a little & sew some pillows
to go in our front room.
i couldn't have completed this project without the help of tanya & ashley.
ashley-thank you for literally helping me every step of the way.
tanya-thank you for doing all that hard "math" to get the measurements right:)


basically i'm slowly trying to expand my horizons by trying new things.
so far so good. . .

4 comments:

  1. I can't believe u made those pillows! Love the fabric. And the stuffed peppers look super tasty.

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  2. my married life still consists of cereal, easy mac, quesadillas, and pb&j's. oh well, i'll own up to it. those pillows still look incredible! glad you went with that fabric!!

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  3. Cute and delicious looking! I'm going to have to start calling you Martha (well, you do share the same first three letters!)

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  4. I am so super duper uber impressed. I tried cooking for like a week and then gave up. I admit that Chris does the majority of the cooking.... bad wife!!

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