Fruit soak

So I've seen several pins over time about soaking fruit in the sink when you bring it home from the store to make sure it's clean and chemical-free- finally decided to try it the other night. It's basically just a cup of vinegar added to the water. It's supposed to help keep berries & such from spoiling as quickly.

before-waxy/shiny

 I decided to do it w/the black&rasp berries we had just bought too so they'd last longer. Here's a tip- if you do it with little berries such as those I recommend taking them OUT of their little containers and afterwards drying them off and putting them back in their respective boxes. This is because they come with that little pad in the bottom that's supposed to absorb the moisture in hopes of stopping them from molding (for awhile anyway). I was smart enough to stick the whole box in the water for the duration and the pad part was soaked too. Then I didn't dry the berries off when they were through so all that moisture is just hangin out suspiciously in their containers in the fridge. so now i'm a little worried how long they'll end up lasting. haha. oh well. now we all know better!

after-kinda dirty looking. mostly strawberry "seeds?"

after-not as shiny/not waxy

gross but really didn't look this bad in real life

after- the left side has the water in it. This really just tells me that we need to bleach those sink guard things!! ha




Also, be sure to read through all the instructions  unlike me, to find out that you're supposed to RINSE all the fruit in the end. I did not, but it's just vinegar so I haven't died yet!

Pulled pork bbq sandwiches

I was enticed by the fact that this recipe uses Dr. Pepper AND is as easy as the crock pot! I thought we were going to be going out of town for a few hours this [Good Friday] morning to pick up Matt so I prepared the marinade last night & just grabbed the inside of the crockpot out of the fridge this morning, set it on Low & left it going for about 5 hours then kept checking on it every 45 mins or so after that. I think i gave up at about 6 hours because it smelled so good & was making me hungry! I kept it going at least another 30 mins after I took some out for myself though. The only thing wrong w/it was that the BBq sauce we had was honey bbq & so I added some salt to my sandwich because I didn't really like the sweetness... Anyway not too bad for my first attempt going solo w/anything pork.

the only pic I got of the pork. This is after I sort of shredded it & put a little more sauce on it, & before I  put it in a hamburger bun with salt

The 2 weeks before Easter

Last week I made:

I can't get this picture to move ha. these are the deflated ch. chip cookies

• Ranch chicken strips (lost the recipe but i didn't really follow it much anyway. Just poured some actual Ranch salad dressing in a shallow dish and some bread crumbs- we happened to have store-bought Italian on hand- in another dish. Dipped the chicken tenders into the Ranch and then coated w/crumbs on both sides). Just google it if you want the oven temp & such. 
• chicken Parmesan casserole: This took me a long time due to lack of pre-planning. I thought we'd use some mozzerella cheese (block to be grated) that we already have, but at the last min it turned out to be somewhat moldy so I had to cut away all those pieces. The chicken was still somewhat frozen and took awhile to chop up & froze my fingers. I had forgotten the sauce but luckily we had some spaghetti sauce in the cabinet. etc etc plus I started it later than planned--- so we ordered from Steak Express (great burger place) & I finished making it so we could eat it at lunch the next day. It was worth it!
• "Enchillada" pizza out of a crescent roll sheet- no taco seasoning. 
• Throughout the week I was busy making cookies. Pb thumbprint with a Nutella center (did not do any w/a jam center as called for because they wouldn't have been as appreciated around here) just because they looked tasty (you'll probably want to keep these in the fridge as the Nutella tends to melt & stick to the bag or the other cookies), and some yummy chocolate chip cookies for my college roommate's bday (mailed some). The latter [w/c I added some milk chocolate chips to as well] have cornstarch in them so that they keep from spreading out so much and stay nice & fluffy. They came out of the oven looking pretty perfect (wish I had gotten a picture) & after awhile I went back to see if they were cooled enough to be removed from the tray. Sadly they deflated just as the green ones did for St Patty's wkend! I was so frustrated because I didn't know how they would travel in the mail in floppy, gooey fallen-apart pieces :/ Luckily I froze a bag of them & yesterday she called to say they had arrived at least mostly safe & still VERY tasty haha.

• Along in there somewhere I also froze some yogurt blueberries for mom to take to work as a snack. 

This week:

• a cake w/orange juice but certain people drank the last of the orange juice after I asked certain people not to- but luckily we still had Sunny D so I subbed that. I've never "zested" an orange before. Rachael Ray makes it look much easier than it is! and then I couldn't get the last of it out of the grater holes so I was banging it on the cutting board for awhile. It was pretty good & very moist but needed more sugar or some second flavor to it. When I had my second helping of it I added some white chocolate chips we happened to have & it was much tastier in my opinion :)
• i don't remember- i think this was actually last week, but who cares. Blueberry coffee cake: all I can say about this one is I halved it cause we didn't have that many blueberries left anymore. We switched to an 8*8 pan & then the cup of blueberries we did have left was TOO much for me. Also, it needed a LOT more cinnamon (I would recommend some inside the cake too). It was decent. 

crescent roll pizza w/meat only seasoned w/sprinkled garlic & onion powder

somehow I never did get a pic of the actual cooked casserole

these ridiculous rascals watched me cut all the chicken!

If you don't see a picture I didn't take one.

Recap1

I'm gonna do a quick re-cap of a few dishes I've made in the recent months (these were long before St Patty's day- back in February).

• Spaghetti INSIDE bread: this was a little more involved than I had anticipated. I had to roll out & constantly measure and reshape the dough- an area in w/c I've discovered I'm NOT gifted like my brother! but it was yummy for sure!

•  
• next came cheesy chicken foil packets: These were easy, fast & loaded w/flavor! Sadly we didn't get bacon and I forgot to add even bacon bits- but still yummy. really no glitches w/it. 
  
  
  
  

  

  also Leo thought he'd get one (but used a  lot of self-control  when there WAS actually one sitting  on the plate in front of him for several mins)

St. Patty's Day

(I'll post the links to the recipes for all 3 things next time I'm at my laptop) I made green "sugar" cookies w/white&milk chocolate chips that tasted decent but sadly deflated as they cooled. NONE of the 3 batches turned out right :/ (I''m not even gonna link this recipe cause I can't find it any more and it wasn't really worth making again/sharing). I was initially gonna make my "Grinch cookies" from Christmas again since they're green but I couldn't find the recipe in time. I also created a fruit rainbow w/marshmallow clouds! I had skittles out in a gold bowl (rainbow IN a pot of gold! haha). -This isn't about food but i also made this cute banner for decoration. I found the idea on Pinterest too of course- And then I told people to eat Lucky Charms for breakfast. For lunch that day I made a Shepherd's Pie recipe I got from Weight Watchers. We used roast meat in chunks instead of the ground turkey it called for and instant mashed potatoes instead of doing it ourself because that's what we had at the house-& even w/shortcuts and mom&Dad both helping (&me leaving church before it was fully over) it took FOREVER to get it all ready. But it was so tasty&we were all (the Brownes, Mike Heards-minus Jordan- and the 3 of my family) so hungry that the first dish of it that came out of the oven did not last long!