Cream Cheese & Bacon Crescents

I was inspired to make these Cream Cheese & Bacon Crescents from this recipe. I kinda did mine a little differently.

Recipe

1 can of crescent rolls

1 pkg cream cheese (soft)

bacon (cooked and crumbled)

Mozz Cheese

2 Tbsp Milk

Pepper

I unrolled the crescent rolls. I cut each triangle in half so I had 2 small skinny triangles. I mixed the cream cheese, bacon, milk, pepper and cheese together. I put the filling in the rolls and then rolled them up. I baked for about 15 min. They are really good. I like them! They would be a good appetizer for when my hubby playing poker with the guys. :) I know I'll be making these again. :)

Banana Bread

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM! :P

Chicken Ziti

I took the leftover chicken from the whole chicken last night and decided to heat it up with some sauce and make ziti but with chicken. It was delish!! :)

You only need:

Chicken

Spaghetti Sauce

Italian seasoning

Pepper

Ziti noodles

New Things Monday

For new things Monday today I decided to feature the Pepperidge Farm Goldfish Grahams. I'd seen them advertised in my Family Circle Magazine and thought they would be a good snack to keep at work in my cubby. I tried one.......BLECH!!!!! They are disgusting!!! They are bland and just not good at all. I'm glad I tried them, but I know now I won't be trying them again.

Deep Covered Baker Dinner

I cooked a whole chicken in my pampered chef deep covered baker in 30 min. Here's how.....

I put a tiny bit of olive oil and pepper on the bottom of the baker. I rinsed the chicken and discarded the giblets then put in the baker. I put the lid on and stuck in the microwave and cooked for 30 minutes.

I cut up some potatoes and carrots and put them in a pot with water and boiled them. I added some unsalted butter, a dash of salt and pepper. I could have added them to the baker to cook with the chicken but my chicken took up the whole baker so I figured while the chicken cooked in the microwave, I could cook the veggies on the stove and everything would be done at the same time. And it was.....After 30 min I took out the baker. I checked the temp of the chicken to make sure it was above 165 degrees and it was 180 degrees. :) I let the chicken rest for 10 min before we ate. It was delicious. :)

Homemade Ice Cream

Many years ago my BFF, Kristen bought me an ice cream maker for my birthday. I'd always wanted one and finally got one but never used it till last night. I told Nate "Let's do something different and try to make ice cream". He was all for it and began planning out his recipe. I asked him what flavor of ice cream was he going to make and he said "Peach N' Pineapple". I thought it was weird, but figured that it actually might work together. Nate wanted to make it sort of like a top chef competition and wanted me to make a different kind. I decided to go with Peanut Butter Cup. Sounds good eh? :) We went to a late lunch at Firebirds, walked around World Market and then stopped off at bloom to pick up the ingredients we needed for our ice creams.

At bloom they had heavy cream and whole milk for 79 cents each b/c they expire in 3 days. We were excited to not pay full price. haha

As soon as we got home we made our ice cream. :)

Mixing the peanut butter and sugar.

Everything is mixed and I'm pouring it into the ice cream maker.

I bought the mini pb cups. Nate came up with the idea of unwrapping them and putting them on a plate and putting them in the freezer for a little while to make them hard.

Ready to go in the freezer. Nate's idea was perfect. Instead of getting mushy pb cups when chopped.....

The came out perfectly chopped. :) During the last 5 min of the mixing process you add in the candy. :)

I scooped out 2 perfect scoops and plated a masterpiece. haha (Even Nate thought my plating skills looked great)
How yummy does that look? :) And it taste great too. I didn't realize how easy making ice cream was. I can't wait to make more. I'm totally making blueberry and strawberry and I know this sounds really weird but I think I want to make asparagus one day too. :)

Nate choppin' his fruit. (Peaches N' Pineapples)

Nate mixing some juice in. :)
Nate pouring his mix into the ice cream maker.

Scoopin'!
MMMMMMMM The flavors together is amazing! Sooooo good! :)

Side by side....we both liked each one the same and thought we both won. We can't wait to make more. :)

In case you'd like to make some.......

Bonnie's Homemade Peanut Butter Cup recipe:

1 cup peanut butter

2/3 cup white sugar

1 cup, whole milk (well chilled)

2 cup heavy cream (well chilled)

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1 cup chopped pb cups

In a bowl, combine peanut butter and sugar until smooth. Add the milk and blend until smooth and sugar is dissolved. Stir in heavy cream and vanilla. Turn ice cream maker on, pour mixture into machine and let mix for 25-30 min. Add the chopped candy during the last min. The ice cream will have a soft, creamy texture. Put ice cream in an air tight container and freeze for about 2 hours. If you didn't have your ice cream machine bowl pre-frozen you will have to freeze your ice cream overnight. (yep...that's what I had to do...haha)

Nathan's Homemade Peach n' Pineapple Ice Cream recipe:

3/4 cup each of peaches n' pineapples (fresh, frozen or canned)

fruit juice (eyeball it)

1 cup white sugar

1 cup whole milk

2 cups heavy cream

2 tsp vanilla

Chop fruit, and then mix in a bowl with sugar till smooth. Mix the sugar in slowly...about 2 min. Then mix in milk and heavy cream and mix another 2 min. Then mix in vanilla and some fruit juices. Add to ice cream maker and let mix for 20-25 min. The ice cream will have a soft, creamy texture. Put ice cream in an air tight container and freeze for about 2 hours. If you didn't have your ice cream machine bowl pre-frozen you will have to freeze your ice cream overnight. (yep...we did it for this one too, but now we know for next time)

New Things Monday

Reese's Dessert Bar Mix.......I'd been wanting to try these and I was in luck at Kristen's. She had them and I figured it would be fun to try them.

They are pretty good and I believe they satisfy your sweet tooth. And the best part (besides the peanut butter)....if you're in a hurry and don't have time to bake.....this is a no bake treat. You simply follow the directions on the back and put in the fridge for 30 min and it's ready to dig into. :)

BFF Day

Yesterday, Kristen invited me down so we could have a BFF day. YEY!

The day started at Mojo's where we both got the Not yo' mama's BLT sammich. It's awesome! My sister, Ashley introduced this place to me and I knew Kristen would like it. :)

We then ran some other errands. Kristen wanted to go to a fabric store and check fabrics to see if there was anything there that she'd like to make new living room curtains out of.

We found this stamp fabric and we knew it would look awesome in the office. So, K got a sample, she took a picture and sent it to Dave and he loved it so she went ahead and got it so she could make the curtains. It's very cool and I know will just fit perfectly in the office.

Kristen also found this fabric and I found another one that was more out there. We both like this one the best. I think the colors all fit perfectly with her living room. We just need Dave to approve it. :)

We ran some other errands and then K said "we're going on a little road trip" We ended up at Gather. This was a unique (kinda preppy) store. Kirsten found out about it from my little sister. There was some really cute things and when you looked at the price you just kinda laughed at yourself. It was fun to check it out though.

I really love the truck in the front. I reminds me of a Chevy Truck my dad had when I was little.

After Gather we stopped off at Hobby Lobby. Kristen had a gift card burning a hole in it's gift card holder. haha I wasn't really planning on getting anything but I did manage to spend $9 there.

I got some fabric, brown ribbon and a blue table cloth. (I took the cupcake liners from Kristen's January Junk Jettison stash. :) I can't tell you what this is for right now but it's something I conquered up with with my K. :)

How cute is this fabric? I can't wait for this project. I have so many ideas running in my head for this that I even dreamed about it last night. :)

Oh we went to sur la table and I got my little bag I wanted. I originally wanted a black and white one but saw this one and knew I wanted this one instead. :) I also got a little grater I'd been wanting.

Back at K's house we wanted to both bake something. Kristen made Peanut Butter Blossom cookies.
I lost count on how many I ate. They are soooo good!

I made pb bars. :) More on those tomorrow for New things Monday. :)

Poker night with my Nate

The other day Nate printed his poker chip labels. Back in December for his birthday, Kristen and Dave got him poker chips that you can make your own design on. Nate LOVES these chips. He wants to get another set.

Chips in the case....
He put the picture (that I took) years ago at our townhouse. Aren't they awesome?

Chips....
This was a round that I beat Nate in. :) We had some pretty good rounds. I learned how to play Texas hold em', 5 card draw and 7 card blind. It was fun! At the end we put all our chips in and I lost, then asked if we could do one last round and then I won. haha :P

Quilts and Sheep

Nate and I have been off all week. We took a stay-cation and it's been a nice one. It's nice to not have any plans and to just keep everything on a whim. So far, we've been to Manassas two times and been antiquing. Nate managed to hit the jackpot today and found some interesting items. He bought a golf thing for his mom, a police baton, lazy dog bomblet, Chernobyl liquidators medal, Japanese yen, and a black jack mat. Yeah not really sure why he HAD to have some of these items, like the police baton. But he said "I will never find a police baton again". LOL

These last few days we've sat a lot on the couch playing bejeweled on facebook side by side (aww love) and well we are almost done watching the complete season 6 of Desperate Housewives. Yes, Nate likes this show. It's very witty and we both like it. :) We also managed to get new pillows for our bed. :)

Today, we also made it to Hobby Lobby so I could get a rod for one of my quilty wall hangings.

We don't have a lot in our room. By the windows we have a "Always kiss me goodnight" sign and that was the only thing hanging up until the quilty wall hangings.

Cute eh?

We put the smaller purple wall hanging over our bedside table. I think it looks cute.

:)

I also took advantage and asked Nate to hang my little sheepy picture in the sheepy room above the cedar chest.

Yey! :)

Sheepies! :)

Pasta e Fagioli

The other night I made Pasta e Fagioli. I love this soup at Olive Garden and I wanted to try to make it myself. So, I found a recipe online. View it here. I put a lot more pasta in mine than I probably should have but Nate and I both loved it a lot. :)