Roast Chicken

I got this recipe from the Pioneer Woman Cooks blog and it looked so yummy that I just had to try it out. It was all that I thought it would be and more.

Ingredients:
1 whole chicken
About a quarter cup of butter, softened
5 sprigs of rosemary
1 lemon
S&P

Look! They gave me a handicapped chicken! It only has one wing!

Steps:
Put foil in a glass pan big enough to hold the chicken and preheat oven to 400 degrees
Rinse chicken and place in baking dish (after you make it dance- I love raw whole chickens)
Chop 2 sprigs of rosemary really really fine
Add chopped rosemary to butter and zest lemon over the butter
Mash butter mixture until well blended

Spread butter mixture all over the chicken (not sure if this step is supposed to be difficult but I sure had a hard time doing this. Every time I went to spread the butter it just got in a big clump. Eventually I got it all evenly spread but it took patience and time)
Cut the lemon in half and stuff the bird with the halves and the other 3 sprigs of rosemary.

Throw some S&P (that’s salt and pepper) over the entire chicken
Bake for about 1hr and 20 min.

Ummmmmmmmm, my house was smelling soooooo good at this point.

When its done (I use a meat thermometer to check) take out and let it sit a few minutes. Then carve and serve!

I fried up some potatoes while I was baking the chicken.Just some more rosemary, S&P, butter and olive oil.

What a homey, delicious weeknight dinner!

My Birthday!!!

Every year for the past, oh probably, 15 years my sister takes me out on my birthday. I take the day off of work and we hang out all day. I never know what we’re going to do until we do it. She plans the full day.

This year we started off the day with a morning (late morning, because I also like to sleep in on my birthday) visit to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. I hadn’t been there in forever so we had lots to see and revisit.

We wanted to give this one to our mom and name it “Weeding”.....

And this one looks just like my brother-in-law!

After the MIA we headed to uptown for lunch, drinks and shopping. Lunch was at The Cafeteria, which I had never even heard of before we went. I had chicken and waffles. I never really understood what all the hype was around chicken and waffles--- but now I do! I was served a huge waffle with 2 pieces of the most moist crispy and moist chicken I’d ever eaten. All of this was sitting on top of home-style gravy. Ummmmmm. Oh, and I poured maple syrup over the entire plate too. I had to! Yum! My sister had a salad with shrimp, avocados, wantons and cashews in light vinaigrette. Because it was my birthday the waitress gave me cotton candy on a stick! How fun!

Then we went shopping and stopped at a rooftop restaurant for drinks. I had a white house made sangria. White wine with lemons, oranges and limes (not sure what else) – I definitely want to try to make this at home. We didn't have appetizers there because the waiter was lame  and didn't care it was my birthday. So we drank up, paid and left. (My sister used a different type of word for him, but I'll not use that here.)

Next stop was another cute restaurant - Cafe Barbette- where we each had fun bubbly drinks and a couple appetizers. We had oysters and portabella mushroom pave. (thats paaa-vey, not pave)

They were the BEST oysters we had ever eaten! I'm not sure why soe oysters are better than others but these were defniniately the best. They served them with a cup of some type of vinegar. Perfect addition. The pave (which I looked up while we were ordering and it means simply-- in the shape of a rectangle) was chilled grilled portabella mushrooms packed in a, you guessed it, rectangle and this was served with a pile of soba noodles topped with mango. Both were so good! I want to go back here for dinner some time. The menu looked de-lish!

It was getting late and I was also going out to dinner so we rushed out of the last place and headed back to the car. But first we stopped in Victoria Secret and covered ourselves with almost any type of body spray we could find and gave ourselves makeovers with the sample make up.

Dinner

For dinner my husband took be out for all you can eat prime rib at Running Aces. I never get more than the first slice but oh well. I love their prime rib!

Soooo good and a perfect ending to a perfect birthday. I was so dead after dinner. Eating, shopping, walking, drinking, eating --- I was beat.

Another 364 days til next birthday!

Banana Pudding Dessert

I made this to bring into work for my birthday last week.The recipe made it sound like it was supposed to be cut into squares but even after a full night in the fridge no simple little squares of it were going to happen. Still pretty tasty though. A good dessert for the summer and its so easy to make.

Ingredients:

• 40 or so Vanilla Wafers
• 1 small pkg instant pudding – the recipe called for vanilla but the grocery store was out so I used Banana Cream
• 3 cups milk
• 8 oz pkg cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup powered sugar
• 1 tub cool whip
• 3 bananas – sliced up
• About a quarter cup of melted butter

Steps:

1.      Crush up wafers really fine – I used my blended but you can do it by hand if you like
2.      Mix in melted butter and cover the bottom of a 9x13 pan

3.      Put in fridge until ready to use
4.      Mix cream cheese and powered sugar with blender until well blended
5.      Stir in a little less than half of the tub of cool whip
6.      Spread over crushed wafers in pan
7.      Top with sliced bananas – yes 3 bananas is enough so line them up real neat
8.      Mix pudding and milk, whisk for about 2 minutes
9.      Add pudding over bananas

10.   Top with the rest of  the cool whip (ok, nowhere is where I had trouble. I threw on a big glob of cool whip and then had issues spreading it evenly. Maybe I should have let the dish sit in the fridge a while before topping? Or put a few dollops of cool whip all around and then spread out. Not sure)
11.   Refrigerate for a few hours or overnight.


Yum!Like I said I brought this into work the day before my bday to share. I always take my bday off of work. I love my birthday and always have a fun day. More to post about that later.

Tostadas

After my Southwest Night post I was really craving tostadas so thats exactly what I had for dinner tonight.

Ingredients:
Tomatoes
Lettuce
Cheese
Sour Cream
Re-fried Beans
Shredded BBQ Pork (I cheated and bought the already prepared stuff. Still good, but thats the lazy way out)
Corn Tortillas

I sprayed the pan with cooking spray and placed two tortillas in the oven at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes. They probably could have used some more time but I was HUNGRY! While those were baking I heated up the pulled pork and chopped the tomatoes.

To assemble I first spread the re-fried beans, then the meat, then the cheese, then the order doesn't matter after that. I like to spread the beans first because otherwise it is too hard to spread them out. And I always put the cheese right on top of the meat whenever I make tacos, burritos, or tostadas-- then the cheese kind of melts. yummmmm.

Ahhhh. Perfect dinner.

Now I have to get outside and water my poor plants-- why won't it rain?!?!?!?!

Southwest Night - YUM!!!

A while back my foodie friend and I had a food night that we themed Southwest Night. When we get together we either like to try a new restaurant or make food ourselves. This was a night where we made our own delicious dinner.

She made tostadas and I prepared a Southwest salad. We ate guac, salsa and drank margaritas while we prepared the meal.

Pico de Gallo (fancy salsa):

- Roma tomatoes (4 or 5), chopped

- 1/2 green pepper, chopped

- 1/2 jalapeno pepper, minced

- 2 cloves garlic, minced

- 1/3 cup red onion, chopped

- 1 lime, juiced

- handful of cilantro, chopped

- salt and pepper

Guacamole:

- avocados (2-3), smashed

- garlic cloves (2), minced

- Roma tomatoes, chopped

- 1/4 cup red onion chopped

- 1/4 cup sour cream

- 1 lime, juiced

- handful of fresh cilantro, chopped

- salt and pepper

Southwest Cobb Salad:

Lettuce

Tomatoes

Corn (I used can corn but thawed frozen corn or fresh corn cooked on the cob will do too)

Black Beans (canned)

Avocado

Onion

Chicken
Green Pepper

Dressing: sour cream mixed with Chipotle Cheddar salad dressing (brand is Brianna’s, I love this dressing. I used it for a lot of dishes – sauce for fish tacos, dip for sweet potato fries- so good!!!)

Tostadas:

Pulled Pork

Chicken

Red Onion

Lettuce

Corn Tortillas

Re-fried Beans

Radishes

Cucumber

Sour Cream

Shredded Cheese

To make the tostadas place on baking sheet and bake at 350 until crispy. You can fry them in oil too but baking is a healthier option (and I think its easier too). Then top with the toppings you like and feast. I like to spread the re-fried beans on first, then top with everything else.

For the salad-- I like to section the salad because it looks pretty, but it can be hard to eat and get the ingredients you want.

I just got back from the grocery store and I'm making tostadas this weekend- yum!!!