A fridge full of food!

Dear lord but I was productive in the kitchen tonight. I got home around 7 from a game (in which I recorded a satisfying 2-0 shutout wooo) which, in retrospect, was a little late to tackle such lofty goals but hey. I haven't been getting to sleep until like 1 am this past week anyway (which I hate but that's another story).

I started out making Mom's Chicken Shells, which has always been a favorite of mine.


Here's what you need:

Also some jumbo pasta shells, not pictured. I threw this photo together after the fact anyway, and knew I'd forget something....

I made about a half recipe, but here is it in full.
1 box of jumbo pasta shells
6 chicken breast halfs
carrots and celery (maybe one each for each chicken breast half?? dunno. you judge.) throw some onion in there if you want
1 box stovetop stuffing
3/4 to 1 C Miracle Whip
2 cans cream of chicken soup
1-2 canfuls of broth (store bought or from cooking chicken)

Cook your shells and drain.

Throw the chicken in boiling water for 45-60 minutes. Add celery and carrots, chopped.

Cool and cube chicken.

Add stuffing to chicken/veggies. Moisten with miracle whip. Stuff into the shells.

Place shells in a single layer in a large pan. Combine broth and cream of chicken for sauce (more cream of chicken than broth--I did about 1:1 and it turned out too liquidy). Pour sauce over shells.

Cover with foil (I forgot this step--shells got a little hard). Bake at 350 for 35 minutes.

Eat!

You can also freeze the stuffed shells prior to oven-cooking, but mom suggests freezing shells and sauce separately--or make fresh sauce when you unfreeze.


While my chicken was cooking, I did the dishes and made the sausage balls you can see on the left here. Whew! But now I have lots of frozen meals, ready to pop in the oven after work someday. Yum yum yum yum yum!

Pumpkin "Cupcakes"

Found this recipe online and promptly lost it again. Luckily I'd written it down so when Michelle (of Burgh Baby fame) asked me for it--as I knew she would--I at least had it to type it up for her.



Pumpkin Cupcakes/Muffins
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Unless yours is gas like mine, in which case wait on that!
1 1/2 C flour
1 T pumpkin pie spice
3/4 t baking powder
3/4 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
1 1/2 C sugar
1/2 C canola oil
2 eggs
1 C pumpkin
2 T honey
1 t vanilla

Okay so the recipe actually called for 2 T maple syrup, not honey. I don't own maple syrup and don't like the taste on its own so I didn't run out and buy any just for this but ymmv. I DID run out and buy canola oil because I needed more oil and had never used it before.

Anyway. Mix your dry ingredients in a little bowl. Mix the sugar, oil, eggs. Blend them up together well. Then add pumpkin, honey, and vanilla. Add the flour mix into the wet ingredients. Shove in le oven, bake 22-27 minutes. Supposedly makes 12, but it really turned out to be enough for about 13/14.

The frosting
12.5 g cream cheese, room temp
1/2 C unsalted butter, toom temp
pinch salt
2 1/4 C powdered sugar
1 t pumpkin pie spice (KEY!)

Beat the first three on low. Add sugar a bit at a time. Increase mixer speed until light and fluffy. Add the spice and beat lightly, just to spread it through the icing. The original recipe said the spice was optional which would be a huge failure. It totally makes it. Also, keep an eye on how sweet you're making it. Mine ended up too sweet--though I wasn't measuring very carefully so I can't tell you what a good amount of sugar would be.

Put on cool cupcakes. Eat! Remember to take better photos than me!

My food blogging needs work BUT (3/30)

I've been lazy with cooking basically since I got back this fall. Last year, I made dinner most days and I almost always packed my lunch. This year...not so much. After being back with my mom's cooking all summer, it's been really tough to make myself do it! Plus, my schedule isn't consistent so I don't have a good rhythm for meals and don't do enough planning ahead.

Part of my problem is the distinct lack of space in my kitchen. Example:

Just not very inspiring. Plus it always takes like ten minutes to clear off the counter enough to make anything.

I have had a little more success with baking than cooking. I made pumpkin bread and pumpkin cookies, then my latest: pumpkin "cupcakes" but let's be honest, muffins.



With cream cheese icing:



Not a good picture but trust me when I say: delicious. I love muffins and I love pumpkin so this was a delicious marriage. First time I ever tried such ambitious icing too! It's a little sweeter than I would've liked.

So in terms of meals, I've been doing a lot of bagels and eggs and stuff that really takes no time at all. Here are two things I've done in the past week that took some energy.


I love making quesadillas and fajitas because I love eating them, but they sure so take a lot of cutting--and buying so many various ingredients. I do that often enough. Here was a twist--using nachos instead of a tortilla. YUMMY! Next time, I'll have to get some nacho cheese (like Campbell's cheese soup mebbe) to put on it, too.


Forgot to take a picture until I'd mostly eaten it. This is supposed to be scalloped potatoes and it needs some work, but it tastes yummy right now anyway. Got the idea to throw veggies in there from Burgh Baby at some point. Increases the delicious and nutritious!

Those are two of my favorite go-to meals when I feel like making them!

A great day with a great friend!

I really don't get out and enjoy Minnesota as much as I should/want to. There are so many pretty spots, and there are still tons of places I haven't been. Little hidden things that I wouldn't expect.

Today we went to Fort Snelling State Park.

View Fort Snelling State Park in a larger map

I would really like to visit Fort Snelling itself one day, but it's only open on Saturdays in Sept/Oct (and more in the summer) and I just haven't made it. The park, however, is open year round and would probably be excellent for skiing and stuff in winter. The park stretches to the south in the Minnesota river valley. There is an island called Pike Island which is where the blue marker is on the map and where we went today.


The Highway 5 bridge. I cross this thing all the time: airport, Mall of America, some ice rinks, etc etc. We walked right over it above a tunnel--you can't tell at all from the top that you're over a highway.


One of the buildings at Fort Snelling (where we started the day).


Totally need to go back when I can go in this stuff!


I believe this is the highway 55 bridge--from where you have an amazing view of both downtowns, St Paul and Minneapolis. I really want to walk across it someday but we went about four miles already today so it wasn't gonna be on this trip. Now I know how to get there!


Kara looking adorable, on the bridge to cross over to Pike Island.


~Historical marker~


We were walking through woods like these for a long time.


Then we came out along the Minnesota river, which we walked along for awhile.


Until we got to the spot where the Minnesota (right) and the mighty Mississippi (left) meet. Nice little confluence (zing!).


Looking back up the Minnesota.


And up the Mississippi.


We saw several deer on the island.

Then we went for dinner. We visited the Groveland Tap because they had....

Poutine!! Poutine is a Canadian food (Quebecois originally) which is fries with gravy and cheese curds. This poutine had beef and veggies on it--it was delicious even though I wasn't expecting the extra stuff. We also split a bacon cheeseburger which was amazing as well.

Then we traveled to this place called Shish on Grand--I will definitely go back someday for real food because they had a million delicious things listed.

We had this turtle cheesecake--the part with caramel was DELICIOUS but I wish the caramel had continued under the nuts :(

All in all, a great Minnesota Sunday. <3