I cannot believe over a month has passed since I've posted on here! The holiday season has been in full swing and I've been busier than ever! I'll have to split the month into two and hopefully I can get them both up today and tomorrow before I get even more to blog about! lol Where I left off was the weekend of New Moon, which was FABULOUS in every way. I made one of my favorite meals before going to the theater..greek tilapia! So simple and YUMMMY. You saute some garlic and onion, then add a can of diced tomatoes and about a tablespoon of dried oregano.
Stir together and bring to a simmer. Top with tilapia fillets and cover the fillets with the mixture.
Cover and let simmer until fish is done, about 6 minutes. Top with crumbled feta (I use Reduced Fat) and viola!
The cheese adds such a tangy velvetiness. It's just amazing. Seriously, my FAVORITE fish meal. The next week went by relatively smoothly until Thanksgiving. The night before Thanksgiving, I made rolls. These rolls were sooo laborious. (I love the look, feel and taste of bread dough...hmmm!)
They were pretty good but good enough to take 6 hours of my time? Nope. (Yes, you read that right - I was up until 1 am!) They do look pretty though :)
We got to meet my mother's new kittens...they're adorable! They're names are Luke and Leia and they're very playful! :)
The day after Thanksgiving we normally get up at 5 am and run all over town shopping. I love it. But this year, we weren't even planning on going at all so we slept in. We woke up around 9 or 10 and then decided to see if anything was left. Apparently no one in Athens cares about Black Friday. Everything was still there. In Gwinnett, if you're there 30 minutes late, everything even remotely good is gone. But out here, Best Buy had practically every movie advertised...they even had Wiis left! And then at Wal-Mart there were TVs, Blu-Ray players, you name it. It was definitely a weird experience. We got a BUNCH of new movies! That's how we supplement our movie collection. Every Black Friday we go and get the $2 or $5 movies...
All 13 of these movies were like 60 bucks total. :) We also got our Christmas tree!
And I got some shelves for my extra food (since I have no pantry)...George liked them :)
And now, they have even more food than that on them. lol I've been trying to curb my food budget all month to make room for all of the baking ingredients I've had to buy this month so it's been a bunch of boring, meat/starch/veggie meals. Nothin fancy. I did have the chance to make Buckeye Delights for a friend's birthday. These scared me at first but they were DELICIOUS!! And super easy! I made a few adjustments just for what I had on hand...
Buckeye Delights
Prize Winning 2008 Recipe from Betty Crocker's Christmas Cookie book
- Cookie Base
- 1 pouch Betty Crocker sugar cookie dough mix
- 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I used shaved baking chocolate)
- 1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
- 1 egg
- Filling
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
- 1/2 cup smooth peanut butter (I used crunchy and you couldn't tell)
- 2 Tablespoons butter or margarine, softened
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/4 tsp salt
- Topping (I used a can of frosting mixed with extra melted chocolate for frosting)
- 1/2 cup whipping cream
- 1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 1 Tb smooth peanut butter (again I used crunchy)
*I used regular liners and in regular muffin cups (only made 12).
In small bowl, mix filling ingredients until well blended. Press about 1 teaspoon mixture on top of each cooled cookie.
In 1-quart saucepan, heat whipping cream just to boiling over low heat, stirring occasionally; remove from heat. Stir in 1 cup of the chocolate chips. Refrigerate about 30 minutes or until cooled. Spread about 2 teaspoons chocolate mixture over each cookie cup.
Place remaining 2 tablespoons chocolate chips and 1 tablespoon peanut butter in resealable food-storage plastic bag; seal bag. Microwave on High 30 to 60 seconds or until softened; knead to mix. Cut off small tip from one corner of bag. Squeeze bag to drizzle chocolate mixture over each cookie cup. Refrigerate about 30 minutes or until set. Store covered in refrigerator.
These scared me since they were so hard. I guess I saw the cupcake shape and expected cakeiness. Well, they're not cakey but I wouldn't change a thing! When I finally got the nerve to try one, they were great!! It's a cookie base so the outside is hard but the inside is just perfect :)
According to my picture folder, I didn't bake anything else until the next weekend when I made my apple cake. Yes, my apple cake because it is completely and totally my recipe! I created a recipe to enter into Publix's At Season's Peak contest and tried it out on friends. Sorry, I can't give you the recipe until I'm notified if I won or not but you can salivate at the pictures :)
It's pretty good, if I do say so myself. :) That same weekend, my husband took me to my mall. :) I've missed Gwinnett every day that I live in Athens. Athens has it's perks...they include a great night life and football. But for someone who doesn't really care about going downtown every weekend, it's not that much. But we do really, really, really love our apartment. It's a great place to live. However, I was missing a real mall because I'm the crazy person that thrives on the busyness of the holidays at the mall so DH took me for the day. I had finished my Christmas shopping practically the week of Thanksgiving (the vast majority was done online) so this was just fun. I got a sweater and some earrings and DH got a new shirt and some pjs. We went to Petco, since Athens doesn't believe in pet superstores, to get little George some toys for Christmas. Then for the main event, since both of us hadn't even like anything all day, we had plenty of calories left for the one and only O'Charley's. :) They have this new 2 for $14.99 menu that we'd been dying to try out. I got the fish and chips...
Not my healthiest choice, but one of the BEST! The fish was perfect beyond belief. Plus, we both ate with drinks (water for him, spiked strawberry lemonade for me hahaha) for 20 bucks! That has never happened for us in the history of O'Charley's! So maybe it's a good thing that we live in Athens...otherwise we'd be broke and fat! ;) It was "supposed to snow" that day but it didn't...just wet, cold rain. :( I was upset by this so I just added snow...
While we were at the mall, we got this year's ornament. Of course it's centered around the addition to our family this year :)
It's a sardine can with a picture frame in it! Adorable, non? :) Lastly, here's a fabulous cookie recipe that is a Christmas staple in our family, all centered around this one ingredient that seems to be near impossible to find! Seriously, our family scours the store every year for these and buys soo many bags it's ridiculous! :)
Chocolate-Mint Snowtops
- 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 cup sugar
- 6 Tb butter, softened
- 2 eggs
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 - 10 oz bag of Hershey's Mint Chocolate Chips, divided
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
- confectioner's sugar
Cream sugar and butter together until light and fluffy.
Combine all the dry ingredients in a bowl: flour, salt and baking powder.
Pour the melted chocolate into the the sugar mixture and combine. (Use a scraper to get all that yummy chocolate out!)
Slowly add the flour mixture. And I mean slooooowy - to avoid a big mess!
Add vanilla and fold in the rest of the chocolate chips.
After it's mixed together, roll out some plastic wrap and dump the dough onto it. This is the part my husband calls the "pile of poo"...which may gross you out if it weren't for the wondrous smell that you will be experiencing at this point. Roll into a tight log and refrigerate at least 20 minutes. The longer the better. My mom even freezes it for days sometimes. The firmer the dough is, the easier the next step will be.
Pour some confectioner's sugar into a shallow bowl. Take the dough out of the refrigerator and unwrap. Take off portions of the dough with a spoon and roll into 1" balls. Roll them in confectioner's sugar and place on a prepared cookie sheet. Do not tap off excess sugar! Every year I forget and the first batch isn't as pretty as the rest because of it.
Bake at 350 F for 12-13 minutes. YUMMM.
And I leave with hopes that I'll blog the rest tomorrow while at work. And, of course, a picture of my adorable cat. :)
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