Autumn Chicken Chili

We sat down to a pretty little lunch and Anthony tried his soup. "What is it?" he asked. "Mmm, tastes like chili," he said. I replied,"It can be anything you want it to be!" We laughed. It did taste like autumn chicken chili.

Autumn Chicken Chili:

Leftover Vegetable Rice Pilaf (Brown Rice, Carrots, Potato)

Leftover Brown Gravy (Chicken Gravy + Sliced Onion)

Leftover Four Cheese Hunt's Tomato Sauce w/ Red Pepper Flakes & Oregano

Tasty Garnish:

Nonfat Plain Yogurt

Stale Tortilla Chips

Late Night Fall Snack

I crumbled up a couple pretzel sticks on top of a slice of pumpkin pie for some extra crunch and pizzazz. Anthony and I enjoyed it. We have fun.

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.