OH! I Almost Forgot!

HAAAAAAAPPY STACHETASTIC STACHE-QUERADE NEW YEAR!!

From Me

From Me and BF




And From Our Dessert




:)

I Just Can’t Get Enough

Let me start by saying this:

I know I haven’t posted in a while. I’ve had a tough semester. As it neared to an end it only got worse. I was unbelievably stressed and it showed in my blog posting, taking pictures, and sleeping. Between finals, the stress of my final semester as a college student, and moving part of my life crumbled. Please understand that with this new part of my life/year/decade I vow to be a better blogger.

And learn how to cook.

And it all started with this chicken.

BF wanted to make a nice dinner so I looked up something easy, fairly cheap, and something we would both enjoy.

You can never go wrong with anything The Pioneer Woman makes, so we tried to be almost as awesome as she is.

I think we succeeded with this chicken.

The Pioneer Woman’s Spicy Roasted Chicken Legs

Ingredients

• 24 whole Chicken Legs
• 2 sticks Butter
• 1 Tablespoon Hot Salt (or You Favorite Seasonings)
• ½ cups Lemon Juice (or To Taste)

Preparation Instructions

Melt 2 sticks of butter in a saucepan. Pour ½ cup of lemon juice (fresh or bottled). Now add your seasonings. In this case, 1 tablespoon of Morton’s Hot Salt. You can use whatever seasonings makes your skirt fly up, be it minced garlic, salt and Cayenne pepper … let your imagination run wild. Stir it together until combined.

Rinse and pat your chicken legs dry. With metal tongs, transfer them one by one into the butter mixture and place on a baking sheet. Once all of the chicken legs are coated and on the baking rack, take a pastry brush and give them one last coating of the butter mixture. Sprinkle them with some more of your seasonings.

Place them into a 400-degree oven for 30 minutes. If they need a bit more color, turn on the broiler for a couple minutes and watch them closely. Remove them when they are nice and golden brown.

Let me just say that the first time we made this chicken was in November. We haven’t stopped making it since.

Try it. You’ll LOVE it.

:)

I Wait All Year For Pumpkin Flavored Everything

Pumpkin and tacos have been my absolute favorite things lately.

No way will i ever put them on the same plate but separately they are my two new obsessions.

I recently bought two cans of pumpkin. And I would’ve bought more if Target had more. For some reason two just didn’t seem like enough (at the time).

Judging by how many pumpkin everythings I’ve been making lately, two is too many.

It all started with it being Fall. I love Fall. I love the colors, I love the leaves in piles getting in everyone’s way, I love pumpkin, I love Halloween, I however do not love riding my bike on a blustery day and I do not love soup.

I also love pumpkin chocolate chip cookies from a local bakery. Being on such a tight budget does not allow me to go out and buy them though.

BUT!

I have found the next best thing.

(And because I’m a poor college kid I only had pumpkin pie spice on hand so that is what I used instead of all the fancy schmance spices)

Streaming Gourmet’s Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies
Makes about 36 cookies

Ingredients

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 brown sugar
3/4 granulated sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 egg, beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
pinch freshly ground nutmeg
pinch mace
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350˚F.

2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Add pumpkin and beat well. Then add eggs and beat well. Finally add vanilla and beat well.

3. Mix together dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Add dry ingredients to pumpkin mixture, about 1/3 at a time and mix well after each addition. Fold in the chocolate chips with a spoon or spatula.

4. Spoon batter onto cookie sheets that have been sprayed with non-stick cooking spray or lightly buttered. Bake for 15 minutes or until lightly golden brown. Let sit for one minute after removing from oven. Then cool on wire racks.

 

 

The only thing I advise is to smoosh them down. They are incredibly light, fluffy, and cakey so they don’t spread. Smooshing just helps them to look like they’re spreading.

 

This amazing recipe made just about 40 cookies and they all managed to get gobbled up. Mostly by me. But I shared! I swear!

 

:)

The Prettiest Taco That Anyone Can Have

Sometimes you just want tacos. For some reason this happens to me a lot. I've been on a huge taco kick. So BF and I rented a scary movie and set out to have a taco night. I had the meat, the seasonings, the lettuce, the black beans, tomatoes, and the cheese. These are all my favorite taco toppings.
Lucky for me, BF likes refried beans, sour cream, and green chilies on his tacos so we had to go to the grocery store.
When we got back we both tackled cooking the meat and setting up the toppings on my counter.
I made the prettiest taco.
EVER.
So pretty in fact that I was compelled to whip out the camera and take some quick shots of my taco in all its glory.




After a few minutes of taking pictures, we sat down, popped in the movie, and bit into our tacos. Then we realized we were missing one key element for a great taco night: margaritas.
Off the store we went. Again.
Finally we returned and after a fast whirring in the brand new blender, we had margaritas (which were not the prettiest margaritas that anyone can have but they tasted fantastic). With tacos, margaritas, and a scary movie we settled down, realizing we were on our way to having a great Friday night.





:)

I’m Still Alive. Really.

I am a starving student. The things I eat aren’t pretty. My food budget is nonexistent.

My food blog is slightly lacking in content because of my inability to buy food to make fun things (although I just snagged the last two cans of pumpkin from Target so expect a dessert featuring pumpkin really soon).

My latest post was going to be about the most beautiful taco there ever was.

Then midterms week happened. This is my last semester (hopefully. as long as i pass all my classes) and I’m taking 7 classes. I’m probably going to lose my mind.

Then my ex roommate who couldn’t get someone to take over his lease before he moved out a month ago went nuts and wanted a creep to move in then thought he could take me and another roommate to court because he didn’t want to pay his rent. And that is how you lose a couple friends in less than an hours time.

My life for the past couple weeks has been nothing short of terribly horribly aggravatingly frustrating and involved a few break downs. (if you follow me, @smashedpotatoe, on twitter and shoved support in my direction thank you and i’m sorry you had to witness that but i very greatly appreciate it)

So that is my story and I’m totally going to get on posting regularly and more randomness will ensue!

 

:)

I Wanted, I Needed, I Had to Have It…

For the past oh… several months or so all I’ve wanted was a s’more.

I have yearned and craved and pined.

So I fiiiiiiinally broke down and bought grahams, and marshmallows (because for some reason I had a bar of chocolate in my freezer already).

I carefully assembled my s’more on a plate before I gently placed it in the toaster oven.

Halfway to perfection.

I waited. And waited. I waited about 30 seconds and then…This is what I got.

I had to take it out of the toaster before the top completely charred.

I had to manually toast the marshmallow by sticking it on a fork and cranking up the heat.

Only half of my chocolate got melty.

I tried…

:)

The Breakfast That Almost Wasn’t

Breakfast is my favorite. Pancakes make breakfast. Without pancakes, breakfast wouldn’t exist without pancakes.

Although I do enjoy a good waffle or some french toast.

BUT!

When I wanted breakfast last week, I wanted pancakes. I wanted butter. Gosh darn it I wanted syrup!

I also was being quite lazy.

I whipped out the Bisquick and eggs and whatnot and I whisked myself up some pancakes. And then I saw it. I spied out of the corner of my little eye something that said orange extract. I grabbed my poppy seeds and I grabbed the orange extract and I poured both into my pancake batter. Three pours and flips later and I had myself a fine looking stack of pancakes. Syrup topped off my lovely concoction. “Wait a second! (I said to myself) What compliments orange? Chocolate!” So a sprinkle of cocoa was all it took.

I had an awesome breakfast.

The only thing is.. I forgot to take a picture of its awesomeness before I started eating.

:)