stripes and polka dots

In case you didn't know, one of my greatest passions is painting (and all things home-improvement. Yes, there are other things I do besides cook). LOL
Anyways, this past weekend I painted a bedroom for a soon-to-be 13 year old as an early birthday gift. Her request: 3 different solid colored walls (aqua, purple and green), and one white wall with lots of different colored polka dots.
And since I did her sister's bedroom in similar colors (but with stripes) 2 years ago for her 13th birthday, I couldn't say no. (plus, remember, I love painting!).
Anyways, I think the pictures say enough, so without further ado, here are both bedrooms, before and after. My apologies though for the poor quality. Camera was dead so I took them all with my phone.

Stripes (August 2010)
before: Pink

after: light aqua, lime green, and lots of stripes!

 

Polka dots (November 2012)
before: blue

 after: colors and dots!



Ok, that's it.
Now back to the food!
:)

Quick bread donuts.

It's Sunday, I gained an hour thanks to daylight savings, and I feel like experimenting in the kitchen. After spending a little time thinking about what to do, I decided I wanted to use my fryer, and the box of pumpkin bread mix that's been sitting in my cabinet. So I thought I would try to make some pumpkin quick bread donuts. Let's begin...

I began by preparing the mix according to the instructions on the box (although I did add about a cup of sifted flour to make it a little thicker), and I heated up the oil in the fryer to 325* (if you don't have a fryer, you can use a deep skillet that can hold a couple inches of oil). Then I proceeded to make the donuts. Er, donut holes. Er, donut blobs. Whatever...

You see, the mix was far too thin to roll into donuts or donut holes (trust me, I tried and failed- see below), so I decided to just drop scoops of it into the fryer to see what happened. And that seemed to work pretty well.

 

 

Once they were all nice and toasty brown, I pulled them out and dusted them with some cinnamon sugar. Definitely do this as soon as they come out so that the sugar sticks.

 

 

 

That's it! So easy! And so delicious!!!





See you soon!
<3

Ribs... interrupted

First of all, how the heck have I gone almost a month without a post?!?! Yikes!
Sorry!

Anyways, last week I was inspired to make braised short ribs. For 2 reasons.
One- my friend Rob from work kept talking about them, and how amazing they (and his) are.
Two- I went to dinner with my friend Sue and she ordered them, which of course I tried a bite of, and I fell in love. Completely.
So the decision was made. I will make some!
And, with Hurricane Sandy on her way, I figured it would be a nice food to eat during the storm.
So I began....

Ribs, chopped onions, diced carrots (no, scratch the carrots, I forgot to buy them), red wine, beef broth, thyme, salt, pepper, Olive Oil (or bacon fat if you are smart enough to have some like I do).

Step one: Coat the ribs with salt, pepper & thyme, then sear the beef in the bottom of a nice dutch oven (in either bacon fat or oil) until is it crispy and brown. Take your time with this step! It may take 10-15 minutes. And don't over crowd the meat- do it in a couple batches if you need to (I did).
Once the meat is browned, remove it from the pan and set aside on a plate.

Step two: add the onions and carrots (if you have them) to the pan so that they soak up all the yummy stuff that the beef left at the bottom of the pan.

Once they are cooked a bit, add a cup or two of red wine (depending on your taste, and the size of your pot) and about 6-8 cups of beef broth (again, depending on the size of your pot).

 

After all that is happy, it's time to add the beef back to the mix (I guess this would be step 4. I lost count). Add them to the pot with the rib-down if you can, then cover and pop into a 325* oven for about 3 1/2 hours. If your lid isn't oven safe, or if you don't have one, just cover the pot tightly with foil.

 When they are done, you will have some amazingly tender, fall-off-the-bone pieces of meat that will be simply heavenly.
And (as suggested by my friend Rob) if you want to take things to another level, you can reduce the sauce (I will definitely be doing that next time!!!!)

That's all for now, hope you enjoyed this one (I know I did!).
Oh, and I should note that when the ribs had an hour left to cook I lost power thanks to Hurricane Sandy, so I packed the pot into a hot foods bag and took them to my parents house to finish (hence the title of this post).
Luckilymy mom had some yummy veggies and rice cooking, so we had a nice feast during the storm. :)

 

 

 



Stuffed

When god gives you peppers, stuff them. That's what I always say. Er, at least, that's what I say now.
You see, I had a ton of peppers from the garden and I had no idea what to do with them, so I decided to stuff them.
Although, that was not my initial plan.

My initial plan was to make some sauce with all the tomatoes I had.

 

 

Then I thought, hey, I have a small package of hamburg in the freezer. I should brown that and add it to the sauce. So I did.

Then I thought, oh, I have a little bit of rice in the cabinet. Why not cook that too, then stuff all the peppers with everything I just cooked? So that's what I did next. I cooked some rice.



Then I thought, well, while I am trying to use stuff up, I might as well add in the summer squash and eggplant that I have too. So, I did.

Then, I remembered I had some smoked mozzarella, so I decided to chop that up and add it to the peppers as well.

Once everything was chopped, I mixed it all together (with a little salt & pepper too of course).

Next, I prepped the peppers. To do this, simply cut around the stems and pull the top off. This way you get all the seeds.

Oh, and if the bottom of the pepper isn't totally flat, carefully slice a little off, but make sure not to cut a hole in the bottom of the pepper.

Next up, stuff and bake. I like to hit them with some serious heat so the peppers roast, so I put them ion a 425 oven for about 25 minutes.

That's it! Next step is enjoy!

See you soon!

xoxo