Cilantro Lime night

Howdy!

Happy Thursday all! The best part about this Thursday is that there is no school tomorrow in honor of Good Friday! So I was able to enjoy some cooking without having to worry about school tomorrow. I don't know about you guys, but I like to carry over a few flavors into the different aspects of my food when I cook. Tonight those flavors were cilantro and lime. I had a whole bunch of cilantro that needed to be used and a failed crock-pot meal last night (that was accidentally left out overnight so def not eating it) that left me needing good creative food. Of course pintrest did it again for me, and I found these recipes. The chicken recipe was here and the quinoa I found here. 

I made half of the recipe, and of course tweaked it at the get to. I added a little sriracha and ginger. Also like usual I have a tendency to not read all the way and didn't make the marinade quite as it was supposed to be, but it worked out. I was going to put it in the George Forman, but after realizing I did the marinade wrong, I didn't think the large cilantro would bode well on the griddle.  I baked the chicken at 400* for about 25 minutes and broiled it for another 5minutes or so.

 Marinade with extras

 Before tonight I was not the hugest fan of quinoa, but cooking it with a bullion cube made all the difference. This right here is gold. 

 So there you have it. I had a nice, unintentionally green dinner. It was wonderful and I would make all of them again.

I hope you enjoyed enough to at least try and maybe even enough to follow. I could use some new faces :)

Happy eatings,
Smashley

Giant cookie!!!!!

Howdy Y'all!!!

This afternoon was one of those days were I wanted any excuse to not study for my test I have at nine tomorrow morning. I know that sounds awful, but its true. Thanks to Pintrest (the procrastinators  dream/nightmare) I found my distraction. What could be better than super chocolatey and gooey...nothing you say? False...add some caramel and sea salt and then it is truly heaven. I also made one for my roomie, needless to say she ate it without me having to twist her arm too much.

I got the recipe here and really didn't change the ingredients other than the addition of caramels and sea salt. The caramels made the dough larger and over all the cookie larger. YUM!

All in all the cookie ended up being larger than my hand. It was rich, moist, and wonderful. This is definitely a keeper recipe. Easy, no equipment other than bowls, a fork, and measuring utensils. Very wonderful. 

On the days when you are avoiding doing something, what do you do? 

Happy eatings,
Smashley

Craft time- spoon neckalces

Hello all!

So this is neither food nor yarn related, but I was really excited about how these turned out. I had seen somewhere a picture of necklaces made from spoons. So I decided to make my over twist.  I am finally seeing where my creative genes are hiding. My family is great at painting or drawing, but I not me. I guess my creative niche is more of making things not pictures :). I used a mini sledge hammer, ball pein hammer for texture, hack saw to cut off the handle of some, for those I used a drill press,  the others I just bent the handle to make a loop, and a grinder to make the edges of things smooth.  

I was so excited about these I just had to share:)

Hope I can inspire you to find your creative niche!

Happy crafting,
Smashley

For the love of pork!

Hello friends!

So I must apologize for being a horrible blogger. Not only has it been over 2 months since my last update, but I also missed the blog's birthday! I am horrible. But to make up for that I have a wonderful carnitas post. I am sure I have professed my love for all things pig before, but seriously I have a problem. Dating a Mexican hasn't helped either. He just had to go and introduce me to carnitas...real carnitas. Heaven! So when the local grocery store had pork butt on sale dirt cheep and my roomie got 6lbs worth, I decided I had to make carnitas. SOOO unbelievably easy.  

So what you need is about 3lb pork butt (I am sure should would work too), couple table spoons of black pepper, chili powder, oregano, a table spoon of cumin and garlic. the recipe I used didn't say to use and I just couldn't have that.

 Add all the ingredients to the pot and cover with water.

 Cover the pot and simmer for 3hours

 After the three hours are up, uncover and boil until the liquid is gone.

 Remove from the pot and I would recommend drain or pat with paper towel.

 

 Enjoy with cilantro and onion on tortilla (corn is better than flour, but all I had was flour) quac and frijoles are also good sides :)

I hope you enjoy!
Happy eatings,
Smashley

Chocolate covered candied tangerines

Bonjour!

This was another thing I made for the menfolk I mentioned in the last post. Unfortunatley I didn't make more, my mom has been stealing some of my dad's. She has even gone as far as saying that these might even rival Fanny Mae's or Albanese chocolate covered orange peels. They were my opa's favorite and are my mom's favorite chocolate treat. These might have to make a recurrence in March for my mom's birthday. They were a little time consuming at first, but totally worth it. If you think you might have too many tangerines, add a couple more Yes you will have tons of slices, but trust me you will want tons of these. 

 The ingredients and recipe couldn't be easy enough. Tangerines, and equal parts sugar and water.

 Slice the tangerines into thin segments.

 Bring the water and sugar to a boil and add the tangerines.

 Boil the tangerines for 30 minutes and then remove from heat for 10 minutes. Return to the stove and simmer until the slices are translucent.

 Remove the slices from the syrup and place on racks to dry. An oven can be used on low heat to speed the process.

 SAVE THE LIQUID!! It is super yummy.

 Then I placed all of the slices in a bad and tossed them in sugar and then dipped half of the slice in melted semi-sweet chocolate.

 I put the chocolate covered slices in the garage to help harden the chocolate.

These make great gifts or just a fab desert by themselves. I strongly recommend you make these.

Any special goodies you make for the holidays?

Happy eatings,

Smashley

Spiced Nuts

Hide-ho their neighborino,

I always have a hard time coming up with things to make for the male people in my life, such as my dad, my uncle Tim, my boyfriend's dad, and my aunt's boyfriends. I tend to hand make a lot of things right now due to my limited funds being in grad school and all, and the things I make tend to be a little girly. So You can never go wrong with nuts....unless someone is allergic then you are just being a jerk.  I had made one recipe before and it turned out fabulous. This was a different recipe that was really good, but I had to add some extra of the heat because it was lacking in spicy department. The recipe for the nuts can be found here.

.

 I was lucky to get a 1lb bag of mixed nuts at Meijer for cheap instead of the pecans alone. I have 4 lbs here. I did not use as much salt as they said because I did not realize the nuts were pre-salted.

 

I also could have taken the nuts out a little sooner than they said. Some of the nuts got a little burnt. surprisingly the hazelnuts tasted really good with the savory seasoning. 

I got great reviews from this. I will admit I did steal a few also. They were pretty yummy, but I think I liked the other recipe I made for father's day better. 

Do you have a go to nut recipe?

Happy eatings,
Smashley

Christmas presents for the hounds

Hello y'all,

Okay, so I know I said I was gonna post a whole bunch a while ago..and honestly I have no excuse. I got lazy and then had to leave to go back to school. Now I am back in the normal routine. I still have a few posts to do from all of my holiday cooking. This one was a definite hit with canine and human kind alike. Don't judge me, I had to try one...or a few. They are made with people food and taste like cheese-its. If you didn't tell anyone they were made for dogs you would think they were cheese crackers. I got the recipe here. 

 So the ingredients required were oats, cheddar cheese, Parmesan cheese, EVOO, unsweeted apple sauce, and water. I needed much more water that they said because mine was not forming a dough. I also used all purpose flour because there were some recipients who are basically allergic to everything under the sun.  Note my special little helper...don't let her looks food you...she is EVIL!

 

I mixed everything and rolled out the dough. Because of the holiday spirit I used a cute little snowflake cookie cutter.

 

 Baked for about 30mins and left in the oven while the oven cooled. Bagged and delivered. Quite a hit with the canines. They loved them (so I am told)

Do you make presents for your pets?

Happy eatings,
Smashley