Too long

Ok, so I suck at keeping up on this blog. It seems that even without a job I don't have time to get on here. Then again what do I really have to say? The last time I blogged on here was my birthday. January 10th. 

I guess nothing is new. We're still living with Dustin's parents. I'm still looking for a job. I've had a few interviews but nothing so far has come from it. I've filled out at least 100 applications. And that is truly no exaggeration. I had a great interview at Children's Hospital, but they too chose someone else. So I'm still working on it. 
I do help Bruce out once in a while with his business when he needs it. Which helps him, gives me something to do and a little extra money to help pay some bills. 

I'll have to come back later and see what else I can update. Hope all is well!

"Brownies with a Surprise" <~~~ Horrible!

 Yeah, the surprise in this is that after all this work and money you spend,...they aren't COOKED! Granted this was our first time making brownies  from scratch, but we followed this recipe to a T and they weren't cooked! I still can't believe it. We made them last night, and as you can see in the directions, it states that the center may still be "soft". So, after the 30 minuets of cooking we stick a tooth pick near the side of the brownie, since the center will be soft. It comes out clean. The directions also say it's best to wait over night before cutting into the brownies for best cutting. Well, Dustin comes home from work today around 3:30, I've been waiting all day to try these, we cut into them...and it's Brownie Batter!  I'm not even kidding. It's disgusting. I can't believe that we wasted so much money and time on these dumb things. I even left a review on the website! It was from foodnetwork.com. Obviously they needed cooked about 15 minutes longer. The recipe is below the pictures. The funny thing is, when I was taking these pictures last night I was saying how Jillian Michaels would kill me if she knew I was eating this and working out to her video lol. I guess she would have gotten her way! This would have been a GREAT brownie.

lol does that look like a lot of butter? Oh and that is a POUND of chocolate!

Have you ever seen so many eggs?!

Yummy

This is pretty much how they came out lol, with an extra layer of uncooked brownie batter on top

Looks cooked right? WRONG!

That runny looking stuff, is runny.

 

• 10 ounces unsalted butter (2 1/2 sticks)
• 1 pound good-quality semisweet chocolate (or bittersweet), chopped
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 8 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 16 chocolate-covered peanut butter cups

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Melt butter and chocolate together in a metal bowl over simmering water. Remove from over water and set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, eggs and vanilla. Whisk only to blend. Add chocolate mixture and whisk gently. Add flour and salt and use the whisk to stir in until blended. Grease a 12 by 12-inch square pan, and line the bottom with parchment. Pour a scant half of the brownie batter into pan and spread smooth. Place the 16 peanut butter cups upside-down onto the batter, spacing them evenly in 4 rows of 4 (the brownies will be cut into 16 squares, with a peanut butter cup in the center of each.) Push the cups down into the batter slightly. Top with the remaining batter and gently spread smooth. Bake 30 minutes. Center will still be soft. Remove from oven and let cool in pan on wire rack. Cool completely before cutting, or for best cutting results, chill several hours or overnight in refrigerator. Cut into 16 (3-inch) squares

Alfredo Chicken Lasagna

I got this recipe from http://www.tasteofhome.com/. We made this for our 6 month anniversary last night. It came out pretty good. It defiantly needed a little more seasoning. I'm not really sure what it was lacking though. I reheated some today and added a little salt and pepper and that made a good difference. We used fat free cottage cheese too. It was our first time to have and all white lasagna. We would make it again, and add some cut tomatoes and a little more seasoning. Otherwise it was pretty good. This was from the "Cooking For Two" section. It says it makes 3 servings, but we both had some, my MIL had some and I reheated a little this afternoon and there is still about a serving and a half left. If you were to eat this is the portion size it's suggesting you wouldn't be able to move lol. It was fun to make it together. Of course we took some pictures. 

This is backwards but I like the pic.

The chicken with all the alfredo sauce.

The cheese looks so yummy here, and it was!

• 6 ounces boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into bite-size pieces
• 1 cup sliced fresh mushrooms
• 2 tablespoons chopped onion
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 tablespoon Crisco® Pure Olive Oil
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1 cup Alfredo sauce
• 3/4 cup 2% cottage cheese
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons shredded Parmesan cheese, divided
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
• 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley flakes
• 4 lasagna noodles, cooked and drained
• 1-1/2 cups (6 ounces) shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese

Directions

• In a large skillet, saute the chicken, mushrooms, onion and garlic in oil until chicken is no longer pink. Stir in flour until blended; stir in Alfredo sauce. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for 5 minutes. In a small bowl, combine the cottage cheese, 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, egg, Italian seasoning and parsley.
• Spread 1/2 cup Alfredo mixture in an 8-in. x 4-in. loaf pan coated with cooking spray. Layer with two noodles (trimmed to fit pan), half of the cottage cheese mixture, 3/4 cup Alfredo mixture and 3/4 cup mozzarella cheese. Sprinkle with remaining Parmesan cheese. Repeat layers.
• Cover and bake at 350° for 30 minutes. Uncover; bake 10 minutes longer or until bubbly. Let stand for 10 minutes before cutting. Yield: 3 servings.

Nutritional Analysis: 1 piece equals 621 calories, 30 g fat (16 g saturated fat), 173 mg cholesterol, 1,014 mg sodium, 40 g carbohydrate, 2 g fiber, 48 g protein.

Tilapia Fajitas (dinner for 1/8/10)

I wanted to post this last night but didn't get around to it. While grocery shopping we saw a recipe for Tilapia Fajitas on the back of our tilapia back lol. They came out REALLY good.

This makes 4 servings. 

• 4 Tilapia fillets, cut into strips
• 3/4 cup diced fresh pineapple We just used canned pineapple, who has time to tear into a pineapple?
• 2 cups grated jack or mozzarella cheese. Just used the cheese in a bag lol
• 1/2 chopped fresh cilantro Again we went the easy and cheap way and just used the seasoning
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 1/2 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
• 1/2 green pepper, thinly sliced FIL and myself were the only ones that wanted pepper so we used an orange bell pepper and sauteed them. YUUUMMMY
• 1/2 onion, thinly sliced You might know now, when ever a recipe calls for onion we skip it
• 4 flour tortillas

Combine the fish and the pineapple in a bowl. Season with salt and pepper and marinate 30 mins. Heat oil in large skillet over high heat. Saute peppers and onions until soft, about 5 mins. Add fish mixture and saute until just cooked through, about 2 mins. From here dress it up how ever you like. Cheese, sour cream, lettuce. This was DELICIOUS!  Will defiantly make again!    

6 Month Anniversary!!

Today is our 6 months anniversary! I can't believe it's been that long already. Well, Dustin is just getting off work and we're going to make a nice dinner tonight to celebrate! I can't wait.
I love you Dustin!!!!

 

Happy Birthday Elvis

Mom this is for you! I blame my love for this guy on you ;-) 75 years! Hope he's enjoying that island!

Just a good song

Day # 2 ~ 30 D.S.

Well, I made it through another day of the shred. It feels like I've done it 10 days in a row...in reality I've only done it twice lol. Now, why is it I'm out here working my butt off (literally I hope) and my husband is still in bed sleeping? Some thing is wrong with this picture. I guess I should sleep in later haha.

Too sore!

Well no working out for me today. Yesterday was the first day back using the 30 Day Shred, and oh man am I sore. I took a break off working out today, I hope to do it again tomorrow. I also hope not to snack on so many M&m's and chips tomorrow.

White Chicken Chili ~ Crock pot

A friend asked me for the chili recipe I use yesterday and it made me want to make it tonight. That and hubby asking me to make it haha. I made enough for all four of us to have some. It must have been good because not much was left! At the end of this post I'll list the recipe and then what I changed about it. This is my third time making it and each time I've played around with it a little to decide what we really like in it. This was a great dinner for tonight since it's 2 degrees out! Oh, and the red cutting board wasn't a great idea for pics lol

Yellow and red bell peppers. One each.

Three medium sized tomatoes, chopped. This I added to the recipe.

lol, just a pretty picture of the peppers in the pot.

We used one jalapeno pepper and one little habanero pepper. Dustin and I like it hot but his parents don't. This make it just right for all of us. You have to take ALL the seeds out of both peppers. I chopped the habanero (orange) VERY small. Warning : it is a VERY good idea to use gloves while working with both of these peppers. Some day I'll use that advice. I cut these at 1:30 today...it's 9:28 and my fingers still have the oil on them.

 

 My wonderful husband helping me with the chicken cutting!

 Chop the chicken however thick you want. This time we used bigger pieces and it was perfect!!

 The recipe calls for 2 1/2 cups chopped chicken. This ended up being only 2 cups. We used 4 frozen chicken breasts. Should have used another one.

 Just some pics of it all coming together. As you might be able to see I also added tomato paste. 12 oz. 

We used two cans of pinto beans and one can of red kidney beans. We used white kidney beans once and they were so soft they broke apart in the chili and it was too mushy for me.

 Gently mix it all together. You don't want to ruin the beans. The last thing you should add is the Chicken Broth. Then mix gently again. This is little hard to do because the pot is SOOOO full!

  Pre-cooked

 The finished product! We like to add cheese and sour cream! 

•  3, 15 5o 15.5-ounce cans Great Northern pinto or Cannellini (white kidney) beans, rinsed and drained. Any beans you want to use are fine. As I said above the White Kidney beans don't do so well in this. They tend to get really mushy and mess up the chili. Red kidney beans are great however.
  
• 2 1/2 cups chopped chicken
  
• 1 cup chopped onion We don't like onion so we skip this part, but it still tastes great
  
• 1 1/2 cups chopped red, green and/or yellow sweet pepper (about two medium)
• 2 frech jalapeno chile peppers, seeded and chopped Depending on how hot you like it play with different peppers. Make sure to read the warning above, working with hot peppers! lol
  
• 2 cloves garlic, minced We just use the pre-minced bottle. SO much easier!!! 2 Teaspoons = one clove garlic
  
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano, crushed
• 3 1/2 cups chicken broth Since we add 12 oz of tomato paste and 3 chopped tomatoes we only use 2 1/2 cups of the chicken broth. Doing this makes the chili thicker.

Combine all of your ingredients leaving the chicken broth for last. Before adding the Chicken Broth gently mix every thing together. Be careful not to smash your beans up in there. Add the chicken broth and then stir again. Your crock pot is going to be REALLY full. Put the lid on and cook on low-heat for 8-10 hours, or high-heat 4-6 hours.

You can add sour cream, cheese, broken up tortilla chips, crackers or get really creative and carve out bread bowls to serve the chili in. Enjoy!

Skookie Cookies!

My mom bought Dustin and I a Skookie for our wedding shower. We finally used it last night and I love it! The set came with a cookie mix so that's what we made. I can't wait to try the other recipes it came with.

  The cast iron skillets (I don't know why this is coming out underlined....)

BIG cookies!!!

Tilapia Corn Chowder

Tonight seemed like a great night to eat some chowder! It's cold and snowing out, ugh. So I tried a recipe I found on the food network http://www.foodnetwork.com/ This was my first time making chowder but it was really pretty easy! I do think if I make it again I'll try a different seasoning than Thyme, also Dustin suggested adding scallops! Yum!

Ingredients

• 2 ounces bacon (about 2 slices)
• 1 teaspoon canola oil
• 1 stalk celery, diced
• 1 leek, white part only, halved lengthwise, rinsed and thinly sliced
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 4 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
• 8 ounces Yukon Gold potatoes, diced
• 2 cups fresh corn kernels (about 4 ears)
• 1 1/2 pounds tilapia fillets, cut into bite-size pieces
• 1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh thyme
• 1 cup half-and-half
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives (optional)

Directions

Chop bacon and cook in a large Dutch oven over medium heat until crispy, 3 to 4 minutes. Drain on paper towels.

Add oil to the pan. Add celery, leek, salt and pepper and cook until the vegetables just begin to soften, about 2 minutes. Add broth, potatoes and corn. Bring to a gentle simmer. Cook until the potatoes are just tender and the corn is cooked through, about 8 minutes. Stir in tilapia and thyme; return to a gentle simmer. Cook until the tilapia is cooked through, about 4 minutes more. Remove from the heat.

Stir in half-and-half, lemon juice and the reserved bacon. Garnish with chives, if using.

Working out and Uncle Lou!

Well, two days ago I finally started my work outs again. I hadn't worked out since a week before the wedding! Yikes! My body officially hates me right now, but I know that it'll get better. Right?

I'm doing a Jullian Michaels 30 Day Shred, which I did for the wedding, and I also just got a Warrior Yoga DVD. Both are kicking my butt! However, I'm happy that I'm finally past that "Oh I'm going to do it tomorrow" hump. All I needed was one day of exercise to remember how great it feels afterward.

I also signed up for the Pound for Pound Challenge http://www.pfpchallenge.com/. I pledged for 17 pounds! For every pound you pledge to lose they donate .14 to Feeding America. I think it's a great cause and your losing weight at the same time! Check out the link above to pledge for your state!

This isn't a New Years Resolution. I've been meaning to start working out for months now and I'm just now finally doing it. :-)

We just found out today that Dustin's uncle Lou no longer has cancer!!!! Shortly after our wedding he found out that he had Stage Four non hodgkin's lymphoma. The cancer had spread to all of his lymph nodes and it was looking pretty bad. He has had chemo treatments since then, one of which he was scheduled for today. Before they started the treatment the doctor did some blood work and a scan and found NO cancer!! This is just wonderful news and we're so happy for him! What a great way to start off the new year.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! We hope you all had a safe and fun new years eve.

Dustin and I had a great time last night. We met at our friend's house and rode up to On The Border in Loveland together. Jenny and Steve got us a gift certificate there and we used that baby up! It had been so long since we'd been there and it's one of our favorite restaurants. Dustin and I both got our traditional meal, fajitas! Yuuummmy. We used to live on those things, luckily for our health the one closest to us closed. haha.

After a wonderful meal we drove back down to the Bogucki's house and started a friendly game of Scene It; Seinfeld edition. We played guys against girls and well, they kicked our butts! We all had a blast though, and even with how much we have seen that show, we still were stumped quite a bit. We played a second round with the three couples against eachother, yeah, lost that one too lol.

We finished just in time to watch the ball drop. Dustin and I had our "First Married New Years Kiss", drank some champagne then headed off to bed. Steve's brother Chris and his wife Colleen were there to celebrate with us and we all had a really good time. I'll post some pics at the end of this post.

I'm really excited to see what 2010 has in store for us. Looking back over 2009 a lot has happend. The biggest thing for Dustin and I of course was getting married. That for me was the best thing about 2009. The only other big event for us was moving to Florida. Since we had to come back I'm not counting that as a huge achievement, instead I'm chalking it up as a learning experience, or as Dusitn likes to call it "Our Month Long Vacation" haha.  I just remembed we took some pretty amazing trips this year. We did make it to Taiwan which was awesome. As well as London and Rome! geeze, how could I forget about those??

My brother did get married this year, not to long after I did. Lynn is really sweet and we're very happy to have her as a part of our family. We're really sad that Ryan is being deployed this February. He is scheduled to be gone a year, which is far too long for him to be away, especially in Afghanistan. We'll be anxiously awaiting his safe return to us.

I'm going to try and keep up with this blog. I think it's a great way to keep in touch with everyone as well as have a record of how the year progresses. Had I had started this last year I'd remember a lot more of what has happened in 2009. Then again my life was pretty wrapped up in planning a wedding, so maybe this is a better time to start blogging.  We hope you all have a wonderful start to your new year and we'll be back soon!

 First Married Kiss!

lol, Izzy LOVED this beer

And Butkus really didn't like this

bff Jenny

All of us ringing in 2010!