I HAVE NOT COOKED IN WEEKS!

Real Vanilla

Shelly went to the Caribbean a couple weeks ago and I looked after her cats. For doing so she brought me a HUGE bottle of vanilla back. Now, I used it in the ever famous butterfinger dessert and it changed the taste of the recipe in a GOOD way.

Now I want to try it out in everything, convinced it'll make everything taste better. Of course now I'll be buying expensive vanilla for the rest of my life. ugh

Hot Stuff

Ok, so the curry was phenomenal. It was spicy without being stupidly hot. It warmed your mouth without burning, it tasted soooo good. Dean even liked it and he didn't mention it doing anything to his stomach, which can be sensitive to spicy foods so I'm pretty encouraged.

I was a little put out when I tried to buy stew meat at the grocery store for beef stroganoff because it was mostly crap and stupidly expensive.... but I bought some anyway. Dean has had a hankering for that stuff for a while and I rarely make it even though it's incredibly easy.

Other meals we've had this week, the mashed potato-topped turkey meatloaf which is just yummy. And boca burgers with mac and cheese and salad. Yeah, we eat boca burgers. They're not bad at all and I like that they're individually wrapped. If I make 4 hamburgers Dean eats three. If I unwrap two boca burgers.. Dean eats one and just has more mac and cheese and salad.

Mexican...

I need to have one of the girls at work here teach me how to make real Mexican food. Or... I need to move one of them in.

I have been eating so much Mexican food lately it's not even funny. One of our housekeepers has started to bring me in lunch every day and it is awesome. Well... most of the time anyway. I always have to make sure I ask what it is before getting into it.

Pepper salsa is awesome. I have to find out how to make this stuff.

Cous Cous

So Friday afternoon Dean and I went grocery shopping so that I'd have all the stuff I needed for the Thanksgiving stuff I had to take to his aunt's house on Saturday. Which, by the way, my turtle pie was about the only dessert to go. Everyone dug into my pie and the other desserts were barely touched. I love it when that happens. Next time I make it, I'm going to make the crust myself so I can do it up big time. I don't care how nice you make a pie look, if you make it with one of those premade crusts in the tin, it's just going to look chintzy.
Anyway, so we're in the grocery store and Dean grabs a box of cous cous from the shelf and I was like "really? cous cous?" But it's chicken flavored and apparently supposed to be good so I allow it. Let me tell you, it's going on my list of stuff to make when we need food fairly quick but not a huge meal.
Ok, so thanks to Ma I make ramen noodles once in a while like it's a gourmet dish or something. I drain the water, then add in the seasonings and a can of the tyson's chicken. It's actually reallly good that way. In fact, I didn't know ramen was supposed to be a soup until I hit college and actually looked at the directions. Go figure. So anyway, I went to make that last night and Dean had eaten it all so I pulled out the cous cous and did the same thing with that. It was really quite good... lots of flavor. So there you go.. we tried something new last night... and probably tonight too... as I'm making the curry.

Curry

So anyway, I usually like to plan something new at least once a month and this time it's going to be curry. Apparently curry is the most popular dish in the world and I've never had it sooo.. I'll try my recipe which I'm sure is highly americanized but I don't care.
I've found an amazingly rich pie recipe for Saturday thanksgiving. I'm also slowly trying to buy stuff for thanksgiving at my house for the other fruit side.
I tried a recipe for turkey meatloaf the other week that was actually incredibly good.

Nick did the cooking last night. He made steaks and asparagus. I was not so into the asparagus since the last time he made it I pretty much ate it all myself and I just can't stomach it again yet.

Tonight... no cooking for me... wedding food.

I made a pumpkin/cream cheese dip a couple of years ago that I made pie crust chips with. It was really good. Even if Nick's snot brothers turned their noses at it.