Monday, February 22, 2010

I *heart* food blogs

I follow a lot of blogs. A lot. Like 125 or so. Some of them are related to my job. Several of them are coupon/money-saving sites. I follow a few celebrities and TV show wrap-ups. But a majority of the blogs have to do with food, cooking, restaurants, eating, etc. I love to see the photos, read the recipes, investigate techniques. If I had more time and planned meals more ahead of time, I too would love to maintain a food blog. My mom often calls to borrow recipes. I am actually thinking about starting a separate blog to digitally record my recipes. Tonight would have been a great night to record my cooking and recipes - I think I made the most creative use of leftovers that I ever have. Here's the background:

We had a small party for the girls on Saturday to celebrate their birthdays (Kelsey on the 15th and Kaitlyn on the 28th). I got a meat and cheese tray from the store. When I ordered it, I saw you could also buy a condiment tray. For only $10 it came with pickles, olives, shredded lettuce, onions, sliced tomatoes and multicolored peppers. It was actually really pretty - I should have taken a picture. We had some chips and different dips too - including Kaitlyn's favorite taco dip. We all ate well but there were lots of leftovers. Yesterday, I had to babysit for some friends. I knew I wanted to do something with chicken for supper so I put some in the crockpot to cook while all 4 kids played. Since there was still lots of good stock still in the crockpot, I decided to cook more chicken for the week. I went ahead and made chicken divan for dinner last night.

Tonight for dinner, I knew I would make schezwan chicken for Dave with some of the extra chicken I cooked last night. I didn't want any and I knew the girls wouldn't eat it either. So, I asked if they wanted tacos. I dismantled the leftover taco dip to make some yummy, meaty, melted cheesy tacos for them. I went ahead and just ate the taco dip along with my margarita. It is National Margarita Day after all! Even after making Dave's dinner, I still had leftover chicken. We are all busy this week with basketball, church, 4H and birthdays so I knew I needed to do something with it. Then I saw the condiment tray still in the fridge. Guess what I made to put in the freezer? Chicken fajitas! To the chicken I added the peppers, onions and tomatoes along with some taco seasoning. When I go to make them, I will add some salsa as the liquid. Genius, if I do say so myself :)

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Monkey Muffin Recipe

Monkey Muffins

1 1/2 cups All-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3 bananas, very ripe

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg, lightly beaten

1/3 cup butter, melted

1/2 cup chocolate chips


  1. Pre-heat oven to 375. Grease up muffin tin (recipe yields 9 muffins although we made them mini).
  2. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
  3. In a seperate bowl, mash up bananas with a fork. Mix in sugar, egg, butter and vanilla. Mix to combine.
  4. Now have wet ingredients meet dry ingredients. Slowing start adding in the dry ingredients, mixing as you go until just combined. Last, toss in chocolate chips. Fold mixture over to distribute the chipsthroughout the muffin mix.
  5. Fill muffin tins almost to the top, and bake at 375 for 18-22 minutes.

These muffins are super moist and yummy still warm from the oven.
I found this quote when I was cleaning tonight: "Thank you. You've given me an image of myself toward which I can aspire." Love it!