Natalie, Meet Meat

In the beginning I vowed that I was never going to cook meat because it grossed me out to touch it raw. This last week my body's been telling me that it is sick of all the processed fast-food that I've been feeding it and it really just needed a good home cooked meal. I broke down and bought some steak, mushrooms, and a variety of fruit. This is what I came up with (of course I had to call my dad and have him walk me through cooking a steak step-by-step). This dinner was amazing and I definitely needed it! I seasoned steak with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and Lawry's; then I sauteed the mushrooms in butter with minced garlic; and cut up watermelon, strawberries, kiwis, and a banana to make a fruit salad. Everything came out perfect with no hiccups! And I loved it so much, I made the left overs for dinner the next day :)

The fruit salad made way more than I had anticipated (I only used 4 kiwis, one banana, a quart of strawberries, and a quarter watermelon), so I've been eating that for breakfast the last couple of days. It feels great to have some fresh fruit. 

p.s. Sorry for the crappy photos, I did these with Instagram :)

Peanut Butter Kick

I have been on a peanut butter kick lately. I can not get enough of it!! So most mornings I toast a cinnamon raisin bagel, put a little butter on it, slice banana, then lots of peanut butter and make an amazing breakfast sandwich. There's just something about melty peanut butter that makes my little heart so happy. For snacks I've been doing Ants on a Log, minus the ants because I don't have any in the house. My other favorite thing is to do waffles with butter and peanut butter. I'm pretty sure that I could eat it all the time.

Slacking

Well, I've been really slacking with the whole cooking thing. I've been making stuff that I've already listed here like the vegetarian chili again. Plus, with the holidays I didn't really have to cook since there were so much leftovers. But I, like a bajillion other people, decided that I should loose some weight, so I guess that means I have to start cooking again. I suck at being on a diet, so I'm going to go with what the derby wife is doing and that's counting calories. I'm not great at math either, but since there's an app for everything there's also one for counting calories!!! Back to skinny me! And GO!

Nutella Cookies

Ingredients
1 cup Nutella
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 egg

Directions
Preheat oven to 350F. Blend all ingredients together well. Form into 1" balls. Place on cookie sheet. Press down firmly with bottom of a glass. Bake 7-8 minutes or until set. Cool.

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My Take
First off I didn't have all-purpose flour, so I knew the self-rising flour was going to make them fluffier than what the original picture showed. They didn't turn out too far from it. I should have not tried to use my beater to mix it though, that just made it crumbly so I ended up mixing it with my hands. Next time I'll use a fork or something else for sure. Other than that, I only had to bake them slightly longer than it originally called for. The last cookies of the batch are a tad bit grainy because that's when I was pressing the last little bits together and they weren't fully mixed, so they had some sugar that was in there, but the rest of the batch turned out just fine.

 

Original Recipe Here

No Bake Cheesecake

Ingredients
2 packages (20 sheets) graham crackers
11 tablespoons (1 3/8 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
2 tablespoons sugar
2 8-ounce packages cream cheese, room temperature
1 14-ounce can (1 1/4 cups) sweetened condensed milk
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions
Put graham crackers in a large resealable plastic bag, and crush them with a rolling pin until very fine crumbs form. Pour crumbs into a medium bowl; stir in sugar. Add butter, and stir until well combined. Press the crumb mixture into a 9-inch springform pan, spreading it 1 1/2 to 2 inches up the side; press flat. Chill crust in freezer at least 10 minutes. Meanwhile, make the filling: Using an electric mixer set at medium-high speed, beat the cream cheese in a large bowl until smooth. Beat in the condensed milk a little at a time, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary. Beat in the lemon juice and vanilla. Pour the filling into the crust; smooth the top with a rubber spatula. Cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until firm, 2 1/2 to 3 hours. Unclasp sides of pan, and remove cheesecake.

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My Take
So since I didn't get a chance to eat any of my last cheesecake and it's my favorite thing in the world (okay besides my dogs and photography), I decided to make another, just regular cheesecake. I found this recipe on Martha Stewart's website and since she's the queen of everything awesome I figured I couldn't go wrong. I don't have a springform pan thing, so I just used store bought crust and it worked just fine. I did find that I had extra of the filling and I didn't want to over flow it, so I just spread the left overs on some graham crackers and had that as a snack while I waited for the other one to set. YUM!!! I think I might make those for a party snack; have graham crackers with cheesecake spread on them and have little bowls full of toppings like caramel or cherry pie filling...om nom nom nom! Anywho, this cheesecake has more of a thick pudding consistency and I like those better than say a standard NY cheesecake, so I'm totally in love with it. I will definitely be making it again and trying different varieties of it. I think a strawberry cheesecake would be to die for!

Original Recipe Here

Frozen Peppermint Cheesecake...FAIL

Well I've officially had my first cooking fail...I did everything by the instructions, but there wasn't enough room in the freezer so we just put it in the fridge and nothing happened, so this recipe FOR SURE has to be frozen. I know, I know...that's what the instructions said, but if you've been reading you should all know by now that I don't follow instructions. So I'm going to take it home and put it in my freezer, cross my fingers and hope for the best lol.

UPDATE 11/14/11

My parents made room in their freezer for the little one and put it there for awhile and then tried it. They said that it was delicious, and it was more like peppermint ice cream. Now I'm really jealous because I totally want to try some of it made the right way!!!

Frozen Peppermint Cheesecake

Ingredients:
2 cups chocolate wafer cookie or sandwich cookie crumbs
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese, softened
1 (14 oz.) can Eagle Brand® Sweetened Condensed Milk
2 teaspoons peppermint extract
2 cups heavy cream, whipped
Red food coloring (optional)
Smucker's® Chocolate Fudge Spoonable Ice Cream Topping (optional)

Directions:

1. LINE 9-inch round cake or springform pan with foil.
2. COMBINE cookie crumbs and sugar in medium bowl. Add butter; mix well. Press 2 cups crumbs firmly onto bottom and partway up sides of prepared pan. Chill.
3. BEAT cream cheese until fluffy in large bowl. Gradually add sweetened condensed milk until smooth. Stir in peppermint extract and food coloring, if desired; mix well. Fold in whipped cream. Pour filling into pan.
4. COVER; freeze 6 hours or until firm. Garnish with fudge topping, if desired.

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My Take
I got to make this recipe at my dad's house since they've got all the utensils to do it. Carol thought she had peppermint extract and didn't so we just used vanilla instead and added extra pieces of the crushed peppermint candy to get the peppermint flavor. We also didn't make the crust like the recipe calls for, we just used the pre-made Oreo crust and we didn't put the ice cream topping on either. Currently it's sitting in the freezer setting...I don't want to wait, I want to try it out now!! lol. So besides having the cheesecake part everywhere, I had no idea that you could make whip cream with just one ingredient. Good thing Carol was there to tell me I had to whip it first because I would have just poured the heavy cream into the bowl and then it wouldn't have been so fluffy. Then she showed me how to fold it in and go from there. The only downfall is it became less pink after that, so I'd add more food coloring next time (I only added four drops today).

The other thing is this recipe makes WAY too much for just one cheesecake so we had to make another mini one. It probably would have made an second one, but we didn't have another Oreo crust.

Original Recipe Here