We have a range!

Hello all!

Our new range was installed on Friday and it is beautiful! I was cooking up a storm! I made Shepard's Pie for dinner and cupcakes for dessert Saturday night. I made this breakfast casserole (and added sliced scallions) for breakfast on Sunday. For the big game, I made some Touchdown Taco Dip and spicy wing dings. OMG, I'm still stuffed but it was all so good!

It was so nice to be able to be back in the kitchen again. I've got to get back to my meal planning and stick to it since we leaned a little much on dinners out and delivery for the past couple of weeks. The problem is now that I can make whatever I want, I can't think of what to make. Ugh!

What's on your menu this week?

Thanksgiving

I'm excited to host Thanksgiving again this year. We'll have a few more people this year, so that will be fun. I love to have a house full of people. I follow the Dinner Diva's and Flylady's holiday menu plan with just few tweaks. I trade the green beans for peas and skip the cranberry sauce since we like my Mum's and the old stand by of the canned jellied stuff. This plan serves 12 people so it will be just right for us and will leave us with a few leftovers. Mum will do the turkey and gravy since I am challenged in that area (and the fact that I have the world's smallest oven) so that is a relief. She's also bringing her homemade cranberry relish. S is bringing yummy spinach balls and her pearl onions. Mmmmm!

Since I followed this plan last year, I know how long it will take for the set up and food prep and more importantly the cleanup. I can't have the sink full of pots and pans before we even sit down to dinner. ;) The plan is also great because it puts you on autopilot to get all the tasks done without being a frazzled mess.

I'll add these pecan pie bars to the dessert table. My coworker makes them for our annual cookie swap in December and they are soooo good. I can't wait make some. I just hope there will be some left for Turkey Day, LOL.

Do you have any special recipes or traditions that you do for Thanksgiving?

Next Week's Menu Plan

Here is next week's menu plan. Originally we were supposed to have house guests next weekend, but plans changed. I'll still keep with my plan, but just buy a smaller roast for Friday.

Sunday - Steak and Potatoes. I'm not sure what kind of steak, but I'll see what looks good (and is on sale) at the market when I go.

Monday - Tacos
Tuesday - Homemade Mac n Cheese with ham and broccoli recipe
Wednesday - Fish and Chips
Thursday - Chicken Bake recipe
Friday - Bella's Italian Beef recipe We'll have subs Friday with peppers and onions.
Saturday - Pizza
Sunday - Left over Bella's beef with taters and veggies

What are you planning?

Thursday

Hello out there!


I went to the dentist last week and it turns out I had a gum infection. Nice, huh? Well, the dentist gave me some ammoxicillin and a mouth rinse and it is clearing up nicely. I have to go back next week for a followup. Hopefully I will be all healed.

Anyway....

Last week's menu plan went pretty well despite Michael's crazy shifts and my sickly gum.

This week's plan is working out too. Here's what we've had/are having:

Sunday - Chicken and Dumplings - recipe
Monday- Mexican Mac and Cheese
Tuesday - Meatball Stoup recipe
Wednesday - Leftovers (was supposed to be a chicken casserole, but I was too tired)
Thursday - Fish and Chips
Friday - Red Beans and Rice recipe
Saturday - Not Your Mama's Tuna Casserole recipe

I'm working on next week's menu and will post that later on.

So what are you having?

Pizza Night

I had to change up the menu plan a bit for the week since there was a ground beef recall. I decided to throw out the beef we had just to be on the safe side even though I don't think it was part of the recall. So, last night we had the Sunday dinner left overs and tonight I made our pizza.

I used a store bought refrigerated dough, sauce, cheese, mushrooms, red pepper rings, black olives, minced garlic and a few pepperoni. This came out so tasty!

Sunday Dinner

As promised, here is our Sunday dinner. We had teriyaki pork tenderloin based on this recipe. I omitted the sweet potatoes.

I roasted some separate sweet potatoes with red onions from the Thanksgiving menu at SavingDinner.com. (Somehow my red onions look blue in this picture, but I assure you they were normal color in real life, LOL)

And we also had some fresh baked bread, yum!

It was a yummy meal and really nice since we actually sat in the dining room, not just at the kitchen table. I hope we can do this more often.

So what did you have?

Menu Plan for this week

Hi folks,

Last night I made a yummy Sunday dinner for us. We had teriyaki pork tenderlion with roasted sweet potatoes and onions and fresh baked bread. I'll post more on this later.

Tonight I'm making meatloaf with roasted red potatoes and broccoli.

Tuesday, we'll have the pork leftovers.

Wednesday, we'll have Cheeseburger Chicken with mashed taters.

Thursday, a veggie pizza with some store bought dough for the crust.

Friday will be fish and chips.

I hope that by putting this out there I will actually stick to my menu plan this week. I have all of the ingredients so there are not excuses. ;)

So, what are you making this week?

Oh, P.S. I just realized that menu planning is the monthly focus for Flybabies for November. It looks like I'm off to the right start!

Spider Cookies

Halloween is approaching and so I made some of my Aunt H's spider cookies for Michael and his work buddies. They were having a topping off day so I put some green peanut M&Ms on the top to be the (co. name) hardhats, LOL.

These are so easy to make.

Ingredients:
1 12oz bag of semisweet chocolate chips
1 can of crunchy chow mein noodles
Small candies or nonpareils (I used the green M&Ms this time) - totally optional


Directions:
1. Melt your chocolate chips in the microwave according to the directions on the package.
2. Once the chips are melted, stir in the chow mein noodles to coat them in the chocolate.
3. Using 2 spoons, scoop out some of the noodles and place the "spiders" on wax paper to cool and set.
4. If putting decorations on, do this before the chocolate sets so that the candies stick.

These cookies also look like nests so you could make them at Easter and use jelly beans for eggs.

Beef Roast Recipe

With the chilly weather coming, the crockpot is back in action. Here's a yummy beef recipe that I made last week. I hope you like it!

Bella's Crock Pot Italian Beef

Ingredients
3-4 lbs beef roast
8 ounces tomato sauce
2 1/2 cups water
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon basil
1 teaspoon parsley flakes
1 teaspoon oregano
1 ounce Good Seasonings Italian salad dressing mix

Directions
1. Place beef roast in crock pot.
2. Combine other ingredients in a saucepan, and cook over medium-high heat until it comes to a full boil. Pour over roast.
3. Cover and cook on high 6-8 hours.
4. Shred beef with a fork, and cook 30 more minutes.

This made a ton of meat for just the two of us so we got several meals out of it.

The first night, T was over for dinner and we made beef subs. I sauteed some onions, green pepper and garlic in olive oil and we had the meat, veggies and some cheese on sub rolls. Yummy!

Another night, I heated up some of the shredded meat with a little more tomato sauce and we had it tossed with some bowtie pasta.

This would also be great with some mashed potatoes and salad.

Try it out and let me know what you think and how you served it.

A recipe for you

Hello all!

I've been slacking as usual with this blog. Now that summer is just about over, I think I'll be posting on here more.

Today I have a recipe to share that I made this weekend. It's based on a recipe I found in the Desperation Dinners cookbook by Beverly Mills and Alicia Ross. I tweaked it a bit and bulked up the veggies a bit more. Here's my version:

Quickie Turkey Chili
Serves 6

1 pound ground turkey
1 can black beans
1 can red kidney beans
1 small can sliced black olives
2 cans Mexican stewed tomatoes with green chiles
1 onion
4 stalks celery hearts
1 green pepper
1 carrot
1 clove garlic, minced
2T chili powder (I like it spicy so I did 3T)
1t cumin
1t garlic powder
Olive Oil

In a large soup pot, heat a couple turns of the pot of olive oil. Chop onion, carrot and celery and add to the pot as you chop. Saute those for a couple minutes then add the minced garlic. Then push the veggies to the side and add the turkey, breaking it up as you brown it. Meanwhile, chop the green pepper and add it to the pot. While the meat is starting to brown, drain and rinse the beans and olives. As the meat continues to brown add the beans, olives, chili powder, cumin and garlic powder. Mix that around and then add the two cans of tomatoes with juice.

Let that come up to a bubble and then simmer for 15 minutes or so. Serve with sour cream, cheese and tortilla chips.

We had this Saturday for supper and had the leftovers with some elbow pasta on Sunday. I had also made some ranch dip for the weekend snacking and it was quite tasty as a topper on this chili.

I hope you like it!

Monday

Hello all!

I can't believe I've neglected my blog for this long, Yikes!

We've been quite busy with our front landscaping project over the past month or so. There's still plenty to do, but I've come to like and actually be pretty good at gardening so I'm excited to keep puttering around.

Here are some pics from a few weeks ago:

These were my daffodils along our front fence. The came up quite nicely.







We also ripped out several old shrubs at the foundation, but it doesn't seem that I have a pic that actually shows that, doh! I'll get one tonight.

Now that the daffoldils are passing, my day lilies and hydrangeas are starting to green up and mask the dying foliage. It's almost like I planned it that way, ;).

We had a nice weekend. Our usual Thursday date night got moved to Friday last week, so Michael and I went out to Foley's for dinner. It was yummy. I strayed from my usual fish dish, since I made Garlic Talapia the night before, and got a pastrami sandwich. I was not disappointed.

Then Saturday, we did some yard saling. It was fun, but we really should have gotten out there earlier. Most of the ones we hit, mainly just had kids stuff left by the time we got there. Saturday afternoon we headed over to C and S's for some hot dogs and beer. S got C an early birthday present of a kegerator so we were all breaking it in. =)

Sunday, we just chilled. We had some of the pancakes I made Satuday for breakfast. (It was such a huge batch, I made them all up and put the leftovers in the freezer.) I used a recipe I found at The Pioneer Woman. They are to die for! Then I made meatloaf for Sunday dinner using a family friend's recipe that I had been meaning to try. It was also a winner! It too was a big one for just the two of us so I made up two loaves and froze one. It hope it will still be as good when I go to use it later on.

Grilled chicken, potato salad and corn on the cob for dinner tonight!

Well, I'm off to finish up some things before I head home. Have a great day!

My 100th Post!

Hello all!

I noticed that today is my 100th post. Pretty cool! I noticed that today is actually our 900 day wedding anniversary too!

Just checking in for a weekly update. Nothing too exciting going on lately. I've just been getting back into the swing of work and life after the holidays and it's been going well.

I've been working on a perpetual meal plan. I set one up for January and hope to rotate it in future months as I find new recipes to try. I've been finding some awesome ones at http://www.kevinandamanda.com/. Last night I made the "Real Juicy Bacon Cheeseburgers." They were awesome! Tonight we're trying Amanda's "Alfredo Tortellini." I can't wait. I've tried a few other recipes and have yet to be let down. Check out her site and try some too. It's such a cute site and she does a lot of scrapbooking so her blog designs are super cute.

We've been doing pretty well with our budget and were able to send off a nice chunk to our credit card. I just love seeing that balance come down. We plan to have everything, including the truck, paid off by the spring. (That doesn't include the house of course). I'm really motivated to get this done and it's nice that come July, we will be debt free (except for the house) and can enjoy a nice long weekend on the Cape for our anniversary knowing we've paid cash for it. Woo hoo!

On another site I frequent, a forum was set up about getting back to basics. We're sharing recipes, home and garden tips and the like. I'm really excited about it. I'm especially looking forward to the gardening tips as Michael and I would like to set up a veggie garden for the summer.

Aaahhh, summer. Can you tell that I'm hating this Arctic cold and snow we've got going on here and am dreaming of the beauty of summer?

Well, that's all for now. 'Til next time, have a great week!

Chili Recipe

Here's the recipe for the chili I made this weekend. It's based on one I found on Cookingcache.com.

Enjoy!
Crockpot Tex Mex Chili Recipe
1 pound ground beef or pork sausage (I used ground beef.)
2 cloves garlic -- minced
3 tsp. chili powder -- (I used about 3 tablespoons of chili powder, but it all depends how spicy you like it.)
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 (15 1/2 oz.) red kidney beans drained
1 cup chopped celery ( I used 4 stalks)
1 cup chopped onion (One onion or two dinky ones)
1/2 cup chopped green pepper (I use a whole pepper)
1 (16 oz.) can tomatoes -- cut up (I used petite diced)
1 can Rotel tomatoes and chilies
1 cup V8 juice or tomato juice (I used V8)
1 (6 oz.) can tomato paste
1/4 teaspoon salt
Shredded Cheddar cheese (for garnish)
Sour cream (for garnish)
Chopped Scallions (for garnish)

In skillet brown meat and garlic. Drain. Stir in chili powder and cumin; cook 2 minutes more. Meanwhile in 3 1/2-, 4, 5, 6- quart crockery cooker combine beans, celery, onions, green pepper. Add undrained tomatoes, tomatoes and chilies, vegetable juice, tomato paste and salt. Stir in cooked meat. Cover cook over low heat setting for 10-12 hours or on high 4-5 hours.

Ladle chili into soup bowls. Pass shredded cheese, sour cream and chopped scallions with chili. Serves 4 to 6.

Catching up

Hello all!



Yet again I've been a crappy blogger. I haven't had much to post about so that's why I've been absent.

Let's see, what have we been up to?

Michael and I had a nice time in Maine for our anniversary. We went to Portland. There are a lot of cute shops and restaurants so we had fun checking them out and eating a bunch. We had lunch one day at DiMilo's. It's a floating restaurant and had really cool views of the harbor. The food was yummy. I'd go back there again. Generally we found the folks we encountered while strolling around to be a bit odd. They like to stare. We'd be walking down the street and people would be staring at us. We were beginning to get a complex about it, then just chalked it up to wierd Maine people. I was a spazz and forgot my camera so unfortunately, I have to pictures to share.

Last weekend we went up to Mum and Dad's to get some day lillies. Mum has tons of them and needed to divide them so she said we could come up and take a few clumps for our yard. We took two huge plants and were able to divide them into nine plants. We planted them along the split rail fence in the front yard. They looked pretty pathetic and floppy, but they are starting to perk up a bit now that they've been planted to about a week. I hope we didn't kill them, but we won't know until next spring since the season has passed for them this year. Fingers crossed!

I was going to make some of those cabbage rolls I told you about in a previous post for dinner on Tuesday. Well, I had everything all ready to go and then my cabbage didn't look so good. I was nervous since the turkey was the only meat I had thawed and now didn't know what we were going to do for dinner. I pulled out my trusty Fix it and Forget it crock pot cookbook and found a spaghetti sauce recipe that I could make with only a few substitutions. Well, it came out great! I was going to serve it with pasta, but we decided to have it with the left over rice from Monday night so basically we had the cabbage rolls without the cabbage. There was a lot of the sauce left over so we made these quesadilla/pizza things Wednesday night with it and cooked them up in the toaster oven. Those were yummy too. I just love it when you can get multiple meals out of one batch of cooking.

In case you are interested, here's the recipe as I made it:

1 pound ground turkey
1 medium onion, chopped
2-3 t. minced jarred garlic
2 t oregano
2 t Italian seasoning
1-2 pinches of red pepper flakes
2 14.5 oz cans of diced tomatoes
1 8 oz can of tomato sauce
1 6 oz can of tomato paste

Brown the meat and onions with some olive oil in a skillet, transfer to your crock pot. Add in the other ingredients to the crock and give it a stir. Cook on low for 7-8 hours.

Michael is going to hang out with this buddy, C, tomorrow so I'm planning to check out some appliances in Sears. I think I've mentioned my crappy oven before, we are finally getting around to replacing it. We haven't really needed it over the summer but with fall approaching I want my oven back. I'd also like to get a new freezer for the basement. the one that the previous owners left us is kind of ancient - it works, but I don't think it's the most efficient since it's probably 25 years old. Massachusetts has a tax holiday coming up on the 16th so I'd like to get everything all picked out so that we can just go pay for it on that day to save the sales tax.

I'll be on vacation the week of the 18th and will be able to be home for the delivery of the oven and to have to plumber come and install it. I also want to have the electrician out to fix a plug that sizzled and died on us and also have him hang our chandelier in the dining room. I have my Nana and Papa's Waterford one that I've been dying to hang so this will be the prefect time to do all those sorts of things that are hard to do when we are both working full time.

My shipment from the Flyshop arrived Wednesday. I was so excited for my new ultimate duster, calendar and Flylady CD. Michael thought I was losing it when I was so happily opening the shipping box with a picture of the Flylady cartoon on it. Oh, well. It's the little things in life and if a feather duster and a CD with the FLY songs on it make me happy, so be it. =)

I guess that's all I have to say for now. I hope you all have a great weekend!

New Furniture, Good Recipes and FLYing!

Michael and I headed out to IKEA this past Saturday to find some things to furnish his "Man Room". We had great luck! We got a leather sofa, a chair and footstool, a set of nesting tables and a pair of lamps. Oh, we got a rug too! We decided to embrace the 1970's of the basement room for now and played it up with orange and green in the chair and other accents. I think it came our really cool. It has a hip retro-ness to it. Michael is a bit nervous that I like it too much and that he might lose his man room. LOL. He has deemed that my services as decorator are now complete and he will take it from here. I expect that there will be some Guinness posters and maybe one of those neon beer signs hanging down there in the near future. I think that will be really cool but I'm not saying anything since this is "his" room. =)

Sunday I went up to my parents house to see Dad and have a little birthday cake with them. It was a nice visit. Among other things, we were talking about the "K" family weekend down the Cape this summer and all the fun activities we can do. Michael and I, my parents and my brother and SIL and their 3 kids will be going. It should be a nice time and a nice way to end my "staycation" since I'll be off the week leading up to the family weekend.

I made the Garlic Chicken Farfalle I mentioned in my previous post. I did a half recipe of it though I made the full amount of chicken. It is soo good, but I found it a bit heavy on a hot June evening. We used the left over chicken for sandwiches. That Mesquite Lime marinade is awesome. I cooked the chicken in the crockpot Saturday and then we had the pasta dish for dinner on Sunday. If I was up earlier on Saturday and not rolling out of bed at the crack of noon, the chicken would have been ready at a more dinner like hour and we could have had the whole meal that night. Oh, well. Everyone needs one of those mornings once and a while. The end result was that we have a lovely Sunday dinner and yummy left overs for lunch on Monday. =)

Tonight's dinner will be Italian Pork Chops in the crockpot. I put them in this morning. It couldn't be easier. Place 2-4 pork chops in the crock, pour in about a bottle of Italian dressing (depending on how many chops) and cook on high 6-8 hours. I put mine on low for 10-12 since I'm at work all day. We'll have baked beans with pineapple with the chops.

I must say that I am doing well with my FLYing these past couple of weeks. I made myself a new control journal over the weekend to adapt my routines to the new house and my schedule with work and Michael's. I got my Home Blessing finished on Monday evening when I got home. Last night was a free night so I just picked up here and there to eliminate any brewing hot spots. I forgot to put the trash out last night though so I'm kinda peeved with myself. I don't think Michael would have caught it in time this morning because I think the trash man was early this morning as I saw him heading in the direction of our street on my way to the train and Michael was still sleeping. As least we have an extra empty barrel still so we should be OK until next week. Today is paperwork day so I'll be paying our bills and doing some filing. We're also in Zone 4 - the master bedroom this week. Today's mission is to dust the tops of the windows and door jambs. That sounds like something I can handle in a jiffy. =) I love easy missions!

That's all for now. I hope you all have a great rest of your Wednesday!

The weekend is almost here...

Hello all,

Yesterday was the rolling rally for the Celtics and it did in fact go by my office, despite the fact it didn't follow it's usual path. I got some good pictures, including some of Paul Pierce with the MVP trophy since his duck boat stopped for a good few minutes right in front of my building. I was right up front at the barricades since no one thought they were coming up as far as they did so I was able to get a prime spot before the crush of fans came up the street.

Well, it's finally Friday. This has been a weird week. I've been so messed up on the days so needless to say I was quite happy to realize it was Friday this morning. We don't have too many plans this weekend. We have some stuff to do around the house but nothing too crazy. I was hoping to get it done tomorrow, but tomorrow is supposed to be the better weather day so I don't know what we'll do when. All I know is that it will get done before bedtime Sunday.

I don't know if I mentioned that we got a croquet set and a bocce set last weekend. I set up the croquet set and Michael and I had fun trying to race around the course. He hadn't played before so I was able to kick his butt. ;) LOL, I love you baby! I hope we can try the bocce this weekend. We've got the perfect place in mind to set it up and I think we can have that area double as a horseshoe pit. Gotta love that. It's so nice to have a yard!

I made some cabbage rolls in the crockpot last weekend and the result was awesome! You can find the recipe here. We've never had cabbage rolls before, but the we liked all of the ingredients so I thought I'd give it a whirl. They came out yummy, but I didn't get the leftovers packed up before bed so I had to pitch them. =( Well at least I know that they are good and I will definitely make them again. I was going to serve them with some instant mashed potatoes but we ran out of milk so I didn't bother. Next time though - they'd be tasty with the juice/gravy in the crock.

I can't wait to try this recipe this weekend: Garlic Chicken Farfalle. I have most of the ingredients on hand so I'll just need to pick up a couple of things. It seems like it will make a mound of it so I think I might half the recipe this time around to make sure we like it. It will still be plenty for us.

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Toasty Tuesday

Hello all,

It is broiling yet again today. The weather folks are predicting 96 degrees today with a heat index of 104! Thankfully, this heat is supposed to break tomorrow. That is awesome since I will be working from home tomorrow since the security system is being installed. I must say, however, that our house has stayed relatively cool. We did get the AC in our bedroom hooked up but otherwise we've been running the ceiling fans in the dining room and kitchen and an oscillating fan in the living room. The big oak tree in the front yard is doing a great job in shading the front of the house. Last night was the first night we had to retreat into the bedroom for relief well before going to sleep.

Believe it or not, I made some soup on Sunday. I know you must think I'm crazy given the heat wave, but I made it in the crockpot and didn't have to stand over a stove and stir anything. It came our really good. It was a Taco Soup that I found on the blog I mentioned in my previous post, by the way I fixed that link. Anyway, you can find the recipe here. It came out really well. I also made up a little instant rice on the stove top and put that in the soup dishes with it and topped it with shredded Mexican cheese. Yummy!

I was pouring over my cookbooks and recipes last night to get some ideas for dinner. We've been in the burger and hot dog rut a lot lately or ordering out. Given that we are trying to eat better and save money, neither of these options are very good in the amount that we've been doing them. I think I'm going to do some of the chicken dump recipes that I have for marinades that a FF member posted a while back. Since Michael will be working the second shift again for a while, I thought I'd be better able to get a healthy dinner on the table. I love to cook so this will be a great thing to keep me busy until he gets home. I'll be doing my shopping tonight and can hopefully put together a bunch of freezer meals tonight and tomorrow while I'm home. That big freezer in the basement is calling my name. =)

If anyone has any ideas to get us out of the ho-hum dinner rut, I'd greatly appreciate the suggestions.

On a final note, I'd like to wish the Celtics a good game tonight. We'll be watching! Beat LA!

Friday - almost the weekend!

Hello all,

It's still grey and rainy here today. It's just as well since I am stuck at work. As I mentioned, this weekend is supposed to be boiling and mostly sunny so it should be good and I promise to take pics of the garden.

Well, last night we were total lazy bums. No ACs installed and no grocery shopping. I'm mad at myself for not getting the shopping done since I missed out on my week on "The List". Hurumph....oh, well, I can get cracking on it this weekend again and get my behind to the store.

I found this cool blog about crockpotting: A Year of Crockpotting. The woman who writes it made a New Year's Resolution to cook something in her crockpot everyday this year. There are some yummy sounding recipes and she's a hoot. I highly recommend checking it out. Hopefully, between "The List", using my crockpot for more meals and keeping up with my FLYing, I'll be able to save us some money and some time. I think all of the things combined will lead to a neater, healthier and happier home for us. Not that we aren't happy by any means, but I know I'd be little happier to come home to a straightened up house and a home cooked meal that takes little effort to prepare.

Our dear Red Sox won last night, but WTH happened?? We were playing the TB Devil Rays and there was a bench clearing brawl after Coco Crisp was hit by a pitch in the second inning. Then Manny and Youk were having words in the dugout. Dude, you're teammates, relax. Anyway, they did win, but tempers were running high on all fronts.

On a better note, our beloved Celtics have started off the NBA finals with a win against the Lakers! Woo, hoo! It's like the Garden in the 80's and awesome. I can't wait for Sunday! My brother is planning a get together so we'll go over there to watch the game. I'm so excited!

Well, that's all. It's lunch time and I'm off to get something to eat.

Have a great weekend! Go Celts!

Happy Wednesday!

Hello all,

Nothing too much to report today other than the recipe I want to share. Last night we had the yummiest dinner if I do say so myself. I found a recipe from the Leanne, the Dinner Diva, one of Flylady's friends, on savingdinner.com for Garlic Lime Chicken. I didn't have regular chicken breasts, but I did have cutlets so I used those. I served it with a deconstructed guacamole salad (meaning everything was in big chunks over romaine lettuce) and black beans seasoned with Adobo. OMG, it was to die for! Luckily, there was enough left over that I was able to bring some for lunch today. =) I'm a happy girl! I highly recommend it and think the chicken itself would be great with anything and would most definitely make a yummy sandwich too. Michael said this one is a definite keeper.

Oh, one more thing, I bought my June commuter rail pass this morning. I think I am a true convert to the rails. I was kinda slow getting out of the house this morning and still caught my usual train. I thought for sure I'd have to wait for the next one. The beauty of my line, I'm realizing, is that it is always on time and never early so I can count on it being there at 8:01am, not 7:55am or 8:10am. I'm used to riding the subway that runs more frequently, but I still felt like I was always running to catch those trains. It's just a different scene. It's so much more civilized, a smoother ride and none of the trains I've been on so far has been overly packed. I've always scored a seat in the morning and mostly get one on the way home. Very different than the subway. All and all I am very pleased. And, as I mentioned in an earlier post, saving money too! Can't beat that. =)

I hope you all have a great day!

Olive and Feta Spread

Michael made a yummy spread last night that I thought I 'd share. He didn't really measure so I'm just giving approximates.

Olive and Feta Spread

1 small can of sliced black olives

1/2 t. (or so) of minced garlic. (We used the jarred kind)

A splash of EVOO to make it come together

A handful or so of Feta crumbles.

He used our mini processor to whirl this all together. Once mixed, transfer to a serving bowl and serve with bread chunks. We got some fresh Sourdough when were in Maine that we used. OMG - This is so yummy!