I've got another confession to make.

Or two, or three. Actually, I'm not sure how much I'll be baring my soul today, but let's get started, shall we?

First, I'd like to acknowledge I have a thing for tablecloths:

Greek for dinner

I swear I've been cooking, I just haven't been here blogging, more is the pity. Between work and life over all, I just haven't stopped to write about any of the cooking I've been doing. Good news is the recipes have been really good and completely worth repeating.

Tuesday night was Greek night here. True, it was Fat Tuesday, and Greek isn't the first thing one thinks of on Fat Tuesday, but I've been craving it for about a week or so now. Unfortunately, my nearby options for Greek food are all Daphne's. Daphne's isn't bad, but it isn't great. I've never liked their tzatziki sauce all that much.

Rocket pesto

I've got a lot of thing to talk about, I'll jump back to Tuesday though. I took the day to get some housework done and some cooking done before working the next two days. I whipped up another batch of broccoli soup to take for lunches and froze half of it for some dinner in the likely near future.

Arugula, also known as Rocket!

I also pulled a bag of arugula out of the fridge. It needed to be eaten, but we had a ton of lettuce cut up for salads for the week already, so I poked around for another way to use it up.

The Dayquil, it does nothing.

I've got some..thing. Viral and cruddy. I made it through work yesterday, wasn't able to make it farther than the couch today. The Dayquil I've taken isn't doing much, but between that and Rupaul's Drag Race I think I will survive.
Especially since I still have a few sliders in the fridge.

Menage a trois.

This chicken seems to like things in threes I found. I used three different sources to sort of cobble this recipe together. One was a Weight Watchers recipe, one was a Cooking Light recipe and the last source was my sister. None of the printed recipes remotely resemble my final product, so no links today, but I will thank my sister for the idea of using cornmeal for the crust on this oven baked chicken. It was one of those things I thought wouldn't work for some reason. I just figured the cornmeal wouldn't really cook all that well and stay too firm to be enjoyable.

Boy was I wrong about that.

Insert title here, which I forgot to do.

Hey, look at this onion that is not greens.

I haven't had to buy vegetables at the store for day to day use in weeks. Occasionally I grab onions, and other odd things I may need for a recipe and such, but our sides for dinner have almost all been from our CSA box. This is great! I love the veggies I am getting and we are eating so much more variety.

The only thing that gets me at times are all the greens we get. I tend to have a bunch or two of something like chard, kale or even dandelion greens. I've started to find the easiest thing to make with them is to make a pot of soup and dump them in.

I have been remiss in my pizza blogging.

I really thought I had posted this recipe before. I even came to my blog yesterday to pull it up. I was surprised I didn't have it posted, shocked even. It is likely I've made this dozens of times now.

Late night dinner.

I know this won't seem like the kind of dinner you'll want to make when coming home late, but after my last two shifts at work, some tasty, comforting food was truly in order.

So in the last hour of my work shift last night, I was checking Facebook. I am friends with Smitten Kitchen and there was her most recent update, Dijon Chicken. It sounded like exactly what my husband and I both needed for dinner. Trouble was, I only had frozen solid chicken. A trip to the store would be in order.

I booked it out of work and hit the Trader Joe's very near by for some chicken. I intended on skipping the butchering of my own whole chicken tonight, however, the price of the whole chicken wooed me in. Saving money beat my laziness out.

Purchases made, I headed home. I de-worked myself, got my comfy pants and slippers on, and got to it.

Oven preheated and potatoes go in.

Something a little different.

We like Chinese food. Chinese food however isn't often the best choice for healthy eating, at least if you go to say, Panda Express. I have nothing against the Panda, in fact I'd kill for their orange chicken. But, in the interest of continuing our pattern of healthier eating, I will skip killing someone and try some Chinese meatballs.

I like to think I am better than Rachael Ray.

Periodically, when I sit down to write up a blog, I truly have little to no idea of what to say about it. Not even a title, which sometimes is the hardest part.

This is one of those nights.

I too, have kitchen fails.

Hello Miso.

When I planned out our meals for this week, I found a recipe that got me excited. It read like a take on fried rice with miso as a main ingredient. Awesome, I love fried  rice and I love miso. Use it as a chicken marinade? Why not!

I picked up miso paste (why I hadn't before now I don't know) and eagerly looked forward to Thursday when I'd be whipping this up for dinner.

Picture Wednesday.

Breakfast: Oatmeal, diced apple, cinnamon, small squeeze of agave and a *splash* of half and half. Nothing wrong with a little fat.

Lamb dinner for 2.

Need a special meal for a special someone? Would you like to not feel like a blimp afterwards? Me too.

Good thing I found this recipe.

Days of Christmas: Christmas Dinner

So, this will be a shockingly picture free post...for now. My big Christmas present from my husband this year was a Canon 10D digital SLR camera. The body is an older one, but the kit that came was way worth the price he was able to get it for and I finally have what I call my big girl camera. Yay!

Tis the season for broccoli.

I am sure the holiday season doesn't make you think of broccoli at all, but it is fully in season, and I pulled my first two crowns of broccoli out of my garden yesterday. Add to that the small, tender baby crowns of broccoli I had in my CSA box this week and I was ready for stir fry.

I love, love, love broccoli beef stir fry. I almost always get it when we eat Chinese food.  Stir frying is just so good for broccoli. It cooks it fast and keeps it crisp, nothing worse than soggy veggies.

Eating and Sleeping.

My husband and I are home again after spending a weekend visiting his family out in the Vegas area. The occasion was his Grandmother's 85th birthday and we spent our extended weekend doing a whole lot of eating and a whole lot of sleeping in. It was glorious. I had pancakes for breakfast 3 out of 4 days, went on a chocolate factory tour and we went out to the Hoover Dam and took the Dam tour. Our last night in town we went out for a fabulous steak dinner.

I got to the point I felt like eating the rest of the week seemed out of the question. Brown sugar banana pancakes will do that to you.

Go forth, conquer, and bring back a great story to share with friends.

I've been doing a lot of thinking, reminiscing, and some crying today. A dear friend lost her very short battle against stomach cancer on Friday night. To say I was shocked would be an understatement; Oyana was young, strong and full of fight. In our few years of friendship, she taught me many things, and the biggest message I take away is to go, conquer, and bring back the stories to share. She was an excellent story teller, and she let nothing hold her back. She wore a hat like no other woman. She told a story like no other. She had even gone back to school and had just finished her first year of law school when she received her diagnosis. Law school! In her mid-thirties! Not many people make the huge decision to go back for a new degree after the first time around, and I bet even fewer go back for something as heavy as a law degree.

Succotash doesn't have to suck.

Ok, so I know that when I say succotash, most people say ew. Especially if you go to that Wikipedia link and see the picture of succotash made with kidney beans. It doesn't look too tasty.

But stay with me, I promise this is good. And colorful.

Grilling In November.

After having a summer full of clouds and cooler weather, summer finally arrived. It took until October/November, but the sun is out and the temps are up.

We grilled on Thursday night, the hottest day of the heat wave. Our house stays pretty cool, but once the temp inside gets up there, it takes along time to cool back down. There was to be no cooking inside, at all, that day. And I have a grill with a side burner for throwing together side dishes as well, so my stove didn't get turned on at all.

There is only one problem with grilling in November: Sunset comes far earlier compared to July. I was grilling in the dark at 6 pm. Well mostly dark, there was still a tiny bit of fading sunlight, but pretty much dark. I am happy to report the weather is cooling back down and rain is on it's way back, which makes much more sense in November. It will make my garden happier too.

Vegetables for breakfast for dinner.

There is no doubt that my favorite meal of the day is breakfast. I will always choose breakfast given the option, whether it is lunch or dinner time.

One of my favorite local restaurants has a breakfast menu I adore, and now they offer it pretty much all the time. I went for lunch just a couple of weeks ago and had french toast while my Mom and Grandmother had an actual lunch.

A few night later, breakfast was in order again at dinner time
Despite the Santa Ana weather here pushing my local temps up into the 90's and 100's, the rest of the country has acknowledged fall is here and seasonal veggies are popping up all over.

I got beets and turnips in my CSA box two weeks (maybe three?) ago when I made this recipe, and I will be completely honest, I'd never cooked with either before.Never ever. I've tried canned beets, and didn't really like the taste. Turnips, when I've had them, likely were overcooked and under seasoned, because I wasn't a big fan of them either.