Doing It All At Once!

Tonight I made a dessert, made dinner, started the dishes, made a soup for later, and had fun! It was a lot at once. It's probably more relaxing to make dinner, then make dessert later, a little less hectic.

I wanted to try a new pie crust recipe because mine just doesn't seem to quite be cutting it for me any more. No point in settling. So I googled "best pie crust recipe ever," and the first one that popped up was Arron Sanchez's pie crust recipe. And that is what I used for tonight's pie crust inspiration. Of course I didn't follow the recipe to a T. I didn't do any of the refrigerating or freezing. Ain't nobody got time for that lol. I also just used the flour I had on hand, self-rising, instead of regular like his recipe called for.

 
 

Selfie, taken with my Asus transformer tablet. My Mom was asking who usually takes the pics so I thought I'd show off a little, lol.

Mixing up the pie filling, table set, Anthony grading papers in the background.

I subbed regular milk for evaporated milk and used the pumpkin can for a measuring cup. I threw an extra egg into my pumpkin pie filling to make sure it thickened up enough since I didn't use evaporated milk.

I added red pepper flakes and oregano to my favorite brand of tomato sauce, Hunt's. Tonight I used their Four Cheese sauce variety.

 I love the way the table looks kind of artsy and fresh! Never seen salad served on a cutting board before, love it. Typically served in a bowl.

The romaine lettuce and caesar salad dressing complemented the shells and pasta sauce so nicely.

Clean plates! 

 I rinsed all my dinner and dessert dishes so I can load the dishwasher after I empty it later on.

 I combined tonight's leftover sauce with last night's brown gravy and rice pilaf to make a resourceful soup for later. I try not to waste.

The finished pie.

 Doesn't the pie and potholders combination look like a sunflower? 

The pumpkin pie filling turned out great! The crust was fluffy as I had imagined since I used self-rising flour. We had a good laugh over dessert over the fact that I had finished off the salt in the pie crust and threw away the container! Very savory pie.

Anthony's quote of the night: "My python producing (programming), pumpkin pie making, pasta producing wife."

Grilled Salmon Burgers & Homemade Cajun Steak Fries!

Today I made an amazing lunch from leftover salmon cakes, and a potato that needed to be eaten before it went bad.

The trick to great fries is to bake the potatoes in the microwave first, then cut them for shape, then fry 'em in oil. I learned this trial and error years ago. These are my first amazing homemade fries!

I buttered one side of each bread slice, but toasted both sides.

I seasoned my fries with:

Cayenne

Black Pepper

Salt

Onion Powder

Fryin' & Grill'n

The best steak fries ever!

Dipping Sauces.

Snack From Last Night

Anthony and I like fruit, yogurt, and granola sometimes as a healthy alternative dessert.

Python Programming 101 w/ The Grad Student Husband

Today UPS delivered to our apartment a BabyTrend Travel Jogger System.

My parents wanted to buy us a stroller for our little one on the way. Anthony's parents wanted to buy us an infant car seat. I ordered this combo off of Amazon to get both sets of parents the best bang for their bucks. I have briefed the parents on my findings, and the plan is they are going to split the price. Of course there are many ways they could split the price! The most obvious way would be to split the price evenly. I was curious though. I looked up what the items cost separately on Amazon.

I quickly jotted down by hand some figures and estimates as to what percentages the parents would be saving. Well, earlier this evening my husband had just taught me a little Python programming so we decided my curiosity would make great Python practice. So that is what we did.

Here is our code. You can try it out for yourself. Of course I did just note that the stroller was $139.00 not $139.99 so alas our numbers can still be more precise lol. But that will be for another day.

Fall Colorful Country Vegetable Plate

I must say that much of my inspiration for this dinner came from one of my favorite American country restaurants, Cracker Barrel. The first part of my inspiration came from the fact that I had a couple of carrots and a potato that were going bad on me. I made a colorful rice pilaf type thing from brown rice, carrots, and the potato. I guess it could be reminiscent of Cracker Barrel's hash brown casserole only healthier. I pretty much made a copycat brown gravy recipe using a sliced vidalia onion and a can of chicken gravy. Then I made my rendition of fried apples.

I used up the rest of our paula red apples. They turn into amazing fried apples. We don't really care for them for just regular eating because they are so soft and tart. I like either a crunchy tart apple or a sweet crunchy apple for regular snacking.

Fast Easy Healthy Salmon Cakes Dinner

Last time I went grocery shopping I arrived home with an item that I had paid for unbeknownst to me, that I had not picked out. The item was canned salmon! Oh my! I couldn't believe it. I'd arrived home on previous occasions, when to my deep dismay I would discover that I had left some items at the store,  which I had purchased. But not in my life had I ever purchased a random mystery item. I inspected the item at once to see if there was anything suspicious about it. The whole situation seemed rather fishy. I mentally noted that there was a salmon burgers recipe on the back of the can. That could prove helpful. My dilemma reminded me of a time when my Mom told me she made salmon patties for a nice cheap meal when she and my Dad were newlyweds, and my Dad was a grad student. My turn had come.

The recipe on the back of the can called for salmon, breadcrumbs, dijon mustard, lemon juice, egg whites, and green onions.

I smashed some croutons and crumbled a hot dog bun to use for my breadcrumbs.

I took the bones and skin off the salmon, then added worcestershire sauce instead of lemon juice. I didn't put any onions or garlic in my recipe. I added a little dijon mustard and a couple eggs. I used a couple whole eggs instead of the three egg whites the recipe called for. I couldn't think of a good reason to chuck the yolks or to save them for later. The recipe said it would make four burgers. I didn't want four big burgers. I made a bunch of cute little cakes so they would cook fast. 

Anthony and I both liked the salmon cakes. I plan to use the leftovers for sandwiches tomorrow.

Hearty Hunky Chunky Peanut Butter Cookies

I have seen some random monster cookie recipes on Pinterest with everything except the kitchen sink in them, including but not limited to everything from trail mix, chocolate, M&M's, peanut butter, pretzels, oats, and bananas. I asked Anthony if he wanted me to try making some cookies similar to Monster cookies or if he wanted classic chocolate chip. He said I should try the ones with everything in them. He did specify however to leave out the bananas. I raided the cupboards for cookie worthy goodies. And here is what I threw together, without a mixer, and without measuring spoons. Sometimes, those are just not my style. Okay, a lot of the time.

I used the recipe on the back of the chocolate chunks bag to gauge my wet to dry ratios for all of my customized ingredients. I also cut the ratios in half because we did not need too many cookies.

Instead of regular butter, I used peanut butter. Instead of brown and white sugar, I just used brown.

Instead of flour, baking soda, and salt, I used part instant oats and part self-rising flour. Instead of the typical pecans or walnuts, I used MauiWowi trail mix (macadamia nuts, dried cranberries, dried pineapples, etc.) and cocktail peanuts. I also threw in an extra egg for more protein, and so that the dough appeared to be more the right consistency.

Delicious. Anthony could hardly stop eating them!