A Chicken Marsala Disaster!

Yesterday I decided that I would make more time to cook some meals and try new recipe's. I went to allrecipes.com and was flipping through them. One of the recipe's was for chicken marsala. So, I set out to the grocery store and purchased all of the ingredients. I was very excited for Mike to come home and I could cook him a nice meal (he loves chicken marsala). Hopefully I didn't ruin it for him =)

I ran into a few speed bumps all the way. I was cooking the chicken and when I flipped it to the other side it was a perfectly light brown color. I was so pleased with myself and excited that I forgot to brown the other side of the chicken. So I continued on and poured in the mushrooms, cooking sherry, and marsala wine. A few minutes later it hit me, I forgot to cook the other side of the chicken!!!



I yelled for Mike to come help me, and he came to my rescue! We dumped all the mushrooms and juices out and started cooking the other side of the chicken.
When that was finally done I poured the marsala wine, the sherry and the mushrooms in and continued on like it had never happened.



After I let it simmer for 10 minutes like the directions said to, it still didn't look quite right and I let it simmer some more (I think our stove doesn't work the way it's supposed to). After another 10 minutes or so I decided that it should be done by then and served it up...






It looked nice and it looked like it would taste good. Oh how looks can be deceiving. It was a disaster! The wine taste wasn't cooked out all the way and the taste of wine was a little too overpowering. And for Mike and I who are not wine connoisseurs, we didn't care for it too much.

So that specific recipe is to be wiped out and I shall try a different one later on this week. I have about 5 more new recipes I copied from the internet and I'll be sure to blog about those.

Busy Days...

I haven't been very good about keeping up with this blog. I just haven't felt like anything in life has been blog-worthy. It's been busy with work, keeping up a household, and worrying about my brother. Life has been a little too busy to even cook. I get home from work and I'm so tired that I don't really want to cook, I just want to go to bed or spend time with Mike. We don't have a single day off together so the couple of hours in the evening before we go to bed is all we really get.

So really, that's about it. Nothing too exciting here. Just the same ol same ol.

T-Ball Games

Last night I was driving home from work like I do every week night. In order to get home I have to drive through the tiny town of St. Paul. Along the main road is the k-12 school. As I drove by, with my window down enjoying the sunshine, there was a little t-ball game going on. Parents everywhere, clapping, kids in the field running the wrong way on the bases and 3 little kids at the pitcher's mound. I stopped to watch it for a minute or two and it got me thinking.

I can't wait to have a kid out there running around in their little baseball pants and the bright colored shirts with hats that are too big they cover their eyes. I want to be one of those mom's that goes to every sporting event. The mom that sits their bundled up on a very early Saturday morning, coffee mug in hand and supportively cheering for my child.

I have always been one to say "I don't want kids. They poop, throw up, they're messy, etc..." But within the last year or two I have most certainly changed my mind. Watching my brothers with their kids, and my other brother about to become a father, has really made me want to have a son or daughter of my own.

I look forward to the days where I get to go to the sporting events on weekends, during the week take them to practice, watch them play in the backyard, go to their first day of school... Someday...

Well, those are my thoughts for the day. I'm excited for whatever may lie ahead on this little journey called life.

A Growing Appreciation

Something that I have learned quite a bit lately is how much I regret not saying "thank you" more often to my mother.

Over the last few months, having my own place (with Mike) has been quite an adventure. I never knew how much work it took to keep up a household. And I don't even have kids yet!!! When I was little and even to this day, my mom would always work an 8+ hour day, come home, vacuum, dust, pick up after 3 very busy and messy kids, take us to all of our sporting events, cook dinner, do the dishes, do the laundry, walk the dog, brush the dog, mow the yard, go to bed, wake up and do it all over again. And how many times do I remember giving her an extra hug or saying a simple "thank you" or offer to do the dishes one night?? Nothing comes to mind.

It wasn't until recently that I realized how much I appreciate my mom for all the things she did for me while growing up. After getting up at 5 AM every morning, leaving for work at 6:50 and not getting home til 6:00 or 7:00 if I'm working in Scappoose, the last thing that I want to do is come home and pick up and clean a house just for it to get messy again the next day. I just want to sit and relax. But having a messy house drives me INSANE so, I clean and do the dishes and cook (which I do enjoy) and do the laundry (which is the chore I despise the most) and by the time I am finished with that I am ready to go to sleep at 8:00 and do it all over again the next day. Weekends have turned into laundry days and deep cleaning days (cleaning the bathrooms, the closets and refridgerator) and its turning into my second full time job.

I now have a great appreciation for my mom and it continues to grow everyday as I struggle with keeping my sanity with always having to come home and clean.

Now, I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining, I'm not. There are somedays where I enjoy cleaning my home. There is something refreshing about having a nice clean home and it allows me to relax. I can't sit down and relax knowing that my house is a mess and there are things that need to be done. Once the house is cleaned and picked up, it's very refreshing and I enjoy that. The point of this blog is really to say:
Thank you, Mom for everything you did for Matt, Kyle and I. You really are the best. You worked hard and came home after a long day to put in another 8 hours of non-stop work. I love you!

Another day, another meal!

It's usually around 4:30 in the afternoon when Mike and I start talking about what we should make for dinner. Usually towards the end of the month it starts to get tough. Do we use what's left of the hamburger? Do we use the chicken? Well the other night we decided on the chicken. But what to go with it? We couldn't really think of anything so we headed down to good ole Fred Meyers.

No matter what we're going to the store for, whether it's one item or a big cart load full, we always start from one side of the store and go down every isle. So, we started our adventure. We ended up buying some penne and some other type of noodle and a cartful of other random items.

Once at home, we cut up our chicken into small thin slices, added a little pepper and put it in the frying pan. We ended up making a chicken penne alfredo, pasta salad (which was amazing) and some Texas Toast. The pasta salad had little noodles, peas, carrots, bacon bits, and was absolutely fabulous (Mike made it). Here's a picture of the entire meal:

It was absolutely fabulous. There were no big screw ups... except with the alfredo sauce I didn't whisk it until it boiled so it scorched the some of it. It still turned out great though.
I think this is a meal that we can even serve to guests.

Anway, there is another cooking adventure!!! I'm sure there will be more to follow. =)

My Newest Obsession

If anyone knows me, this is going to come as a huge shocker... I love, love, love to cook!!! I love coming home after work and cooking dinner, trying to make random things towards the end of the month because we've spent all our money on fun stuff or put it in a savings account where we can't touch it... it's just really fun!

I have finally found my morning routine that I like and I don't plan on changing it anytime soon. I wake up, taking Kelly outside to go potty, feed her, take a shower, go downstairs, turn the news on and do my make up while watching the news. I have recently become a major fan of KATU channel 2 news. Not really because of their news reporting (the morning show is alot more entertaining than the evening news) because as we all know, the news doesn't tell the WHOLE truth. Working in politics, I've come to realize that half the things they report are overly dramatic that it's no longer the truth, but rather a big fat lie. That's besides the point. I have become a fan of KATU morning news because they have fun giveaways and to win you have to be their friend on facebook so I have become their friend on facebook and sadly I will admit that I try to win their giveaways.

This week's giveaway was a Jamie Oliver Cookbook!! Now, I'm not sure who Jamie Oliver actually is but the cookbook sounded fun. So all week I've been getting up just a little bit earlier than normal to try and win the cookbook. The giveaway starts at 6:30 am every morning and that's usually when I'm upstairs finishing straightening my hair. So, I've been up and ready and trying really hard to win this cookbook. I came close this morning, but no such luck... I lost. Tomorrow is the last day to try and win and believe me, I am going to try!

So back to my cooking stories. Although I love to cook, I'm still not all that good and I'm working on trying to time everything just right so its all ready at the same time. Last night was pefect! I made my own beef stroganof, fried my corn (instead of following the instructions on the bag) and made some Texas toast. It all finished up at the same time and it turned out pretty well. I will admit that I made a couple mistakes. The main one being, I forgot to drain the fat from the hamburger after I had browned the meat (oops)! But it's one of those lessons where next time, I'll remember! Another mistake... Make sure you have ALL the ingredients before you start making it... Half way through, I realized we were out of milk which I needed for my stroganof.

All in all, it turned out really well and Mike loved it so that's the important part. =)

I love cooking for him! Sometimes he even helps me in the kitchen, which I love even more than cooking for him. Somehow we seem to have a lot of fun together in the kitchen coming up with new recipe's or trying to remember how to make certain dishes we saw on the food network. I also love when we set off the smoke detectors (it happens almost daily now). We can't figure out why they go off. It's not smokey in the house and nothing burns. Whenever we turn the oven on, they go off. I wonder if the neighbors think "poor mike"??

Anyway to wrap things up, I love cooking. I am really wanting to go buy a cookbook this week and just start at the beginning and cook all the recipe's in it. An expensive task at hand I'm sure but I am eager and ready to take it on!

A New Life, A New Beginning

Well, I guess I decided to start blogging again. It seems like it's the "thing" to do nowadays. I know most people who blog every day or once a week. I don't think my life will be interesting enough to blog that much. But here goes nothing...

The month of March was quite an eventful one. Mike bought his car, which just happens to be my dreamcar. It's a 2008 Mitsubishi Eclipse GTS. It's silver and one good looking vehicle. We both really enjoy it.


Also new this month, I quit my job at Wells Fargo!!! For those of you who don't know... I started working there August of 2009 after my job with the State Legislature ended. I had 6 weeks of training which was a blast! It mostly involved learning how banks work and bank policies and whatnot. I love learning so I thuroughly enjoyed training. Then, training ended and all hell broke loose. Now, I wasn't working at a Wells Fargo branch. I was working at a Wells Fargo call center. It was formerly known as Wachovia and I answered the phone as "Wachovia" but as most people know, Wachovia no longer exists and it is now Wells Fargo. Working at a call center I thought would be fun. Talking to new people everyday, hearing everyone's money stories, and I thought I would get to "help" people. Boy was I wrong!!! One call after another was the same old story. Someone spent too much money and they had fee's. But could I refund them their fee's? No. Which the end result was them yelling at me. So I quit!!

I am back to working full time for the Oregon State Legislature for State Senator Betsy Johnson and it feels great to be back! I love my job. I love the people who work in goverment and I love politics! I get to see and be apart of something so incredibly powerful. I see the inside workings and am constantly learning something new. This job really does make a difference.

So, with Mike getting his car and me quitting my job resulted in our budget being a little tight this month, which we will most definitely bounce back from on payday. We knew money would be tight with putting cash down on the car and we were prepared (or so we thought). We stopped eating out and gambling and have been getting a little "creative" for our meals. It's actually been quite fun!! I have become a little chef as well as Mike. With all of the shows we watch on the Food Network we should be creative! =) We've made a couple of different homemade pizza recipe's, some different Asian recipe's that involve chicken and vegetables and Mike's secret ingredients, and various different dishes. It's been very appetizing and fun!

Well, that's about all for now. There were some other fun things that happened in March and I'll be sure to write some more about it in a few days.