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 :)

Change of focus?

Sometimes I think I should change this blog to one about cooking and recipes. Those are things I make time for every day. However, I read other food blogs every day, and I know I couldn't compete with them. Instead today, I will share with you the best new recipe I have tried lately. It is from Paula Deen and it is Apple Butter Pumpkin Pie: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/apple-butter-pumpkin-pie-recipe/index.html. Oh, it was so good! I made it during the holidays when my folks were here. I was lucky enough to have homemade apple butter from someone at my church. Mmmmm.