A Very Merry Christmas

I LOVE CHRISTMAS.

The entire season is my absolute favorite time of year.  I love the decorations, the lights, the Christmas cheer.  I always decorate our place right after Thanksgiving.  I think Ryan thinks it's a little crazy, but what can I say...I love it!

What's For Dinner? SWISS VEGETABLE CASSEROLE

Tonight for dinner we're having one of our tried & true meals.  This casserole goes great with basically any entree, or can also be served alone.  Tonight Ryan BBQ'd some chicken breasts to go with it (for him).  And I had soy chicken nuggets with mine (haha, I know weird concept, but they are my FAVORITE!).

Enjoy!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Lightly butter a 1-quart casserole dish

(you can use basically any shaped dish for this).

What you need:

16 oz. frozen broccoli-carrot-cauliflower mix (usually called "California Mix"), thawed & drained

1 can of cream of mushroom soup

1 1/4 cup of shredded Swiss cheese (save 1/4 for topping)

1/3 cup of sour cream

1/4 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper

2.8 oz. can of Durkee French-Fried Onions (save some for topping)

Mix all ingredients, pour into casserole dish, and bake for 30 minutes.

Sprinkle on toppings (reserved swiss cheese & Durkee onions) and bake for another 5 minutes.

Allow casserole to rest 5-10 minutes before serving.

Yum!  This recipe can also easily be doubled if you're serving a crowd.  We usually have it as a side dish during Thanksgiving :)

Our Trip to CABO

Ryan and I just got back from spending 4 days in sunny San Jose del Cabo.  It was absolutely gorgeous.  Perfect weather.  Gorgeous Beaches.  Amazing vacation.

We stayed at the Hilton Los Cabos Beach & Golf Resort.  We got margaritas at check-in :)

We swam in the ocean...

  

We spent most of the time laying on the beach in the sunshine.

The weather was perfect!

We can't wait to go back.

Price of Gas

Shockingly we went from this:

to this:

WOW.  Wonder what took so long - haha.

Haircut for Alvin...

For the first time ever, I cut Alvin's hair myself...well technically just his face hair and a little trim on his ears; but I still considered that a feat since he is extremely squirmy and has long hair! He did not enjoy it one bit, but I think I did a good job! He is such a cutie :)

"Dinner is Ready!" (Cookbook)

I always love to try new recipes and different ways of doing things.  While browsing at Barnes & Noble, I found this cookbook called "Dinner is Ready!" by Deanna Buxton.  You can find it on Amazon.com (which is where I ended up ordering it from).  I figured I'd give it a try, after reading almost everything on their website.  The concept is that you can make 30 meals in ONE DAY!  Crazy, I know.  I don't have a freezer big enough, so that's probably not gonna happen anytime soon - hehe.  Plus, I hate when the freezer is completely full.  I like when it's 1/2-full...that way I can find things and see what's in it!

Tonight I made 3 of the recipes (in fact 2 of them are cooking while I'm writing this right now...very convenient).  Some of the recipes are a little weird-sounding, but like any other cookbook, you have to filter out for your own personal taste and also I tend to always tweak recipes.  I don't think I ever make something from a recipe, "by-the-book."  I always add a little of this and a dash of that to get it to the taste that I (or Ryan) wants.  Tonight, the ground beef stroganoff (with my twist) was taken mostly from the book.  The other 2 things I made (specifically to freeze for later) were: Spicy Sausage Spaghetti Sauce & Chicken Tortellini Soup.

They smell delicious simmering away on the stove right now, side-by-side.  It's great because as they simmer, I can do a bunch of other stuff.  Then I just let them cool; package them for the freezer, tag them, and it's all set to go!  I highly recommend doing meals this way if you're busy, even if you don't use this book.  I can say for a fact, I wouldn't use all these recipes, because some just sound  a little too strange.  However, by making your own meals and freezing them, you can eliminate wondering what the mystery words are on the frozen-food box ingredients :)  Just a thought...

What's For Dinner? [Easy] BEEF STROGANOFF

Tonight you're getting a 2 for 1 special!  Haha.  I made regular ground beef stroganoff for Ryan and soy "ground beef" stroganoff for me.  Recipe is basically the same.  It's quick, it's easy, and best of all you can package the extra sauce portions and freeze them.  Then they're ready to thaw and add to hot pasta when you don't feel like cooking :)

Beef Stroganoff

2 cups of sliced mushrooms

2 tablespoons butter

1 pound lean ground beef

1 cup chopped onion (this is about 1/2 a large yellow onion)

1 (10 1/2 - 10 3/4 ounce) can of cream of mushroom soup

1/8 teaspoon pepper

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1/8 teaspoon garlic powder

1 1/4 cup sour cream (for the soy version, use MORE sour cream)

Linguine (or whichever other noodles you prefer/have available)

Directions:

Saute the mushrooms in butter for about 5 minutes (I did it longer because I cooked the mushrooms for both recipes at once...meaning 4 cups instead of just the 2).  Remove from heat.

Brown the onion and ground beef together in a separate pot/pan.  Add garlic powder.  Remove from heat when done.

  

vs.

Add the mushrooms to the meat/onion mixture.  [Off the heat] Gently stir in the cream of mushroom soup, pepper, salt, sugar, and sour cream.  Allow to cool slightly.

Since I knew we wouldn't finish all this stroganoff tonight, I had my freezer tags (2"x4" labels) and baggies ready to go.  In quart size freezer bags (I only use the Zip-Lock Freezer bags b/c the Glad ones suck!), I portioned out 1-cup servings into individual baggies.  The labels say what day the sauce was made/frozen and how to re-heat it (hint: thaw, and then add a little milk to thin it if it's too thick when re-heating).  Now you have dinner for the evening and a bunch more portions for whenever you need them!

Yum.  Yum.  Yum.