I feel accomplished!

Aaron woke me up this morning and politely ask me to make him an omelet. I have been struggling to make an omelet right since I started trying to make them. I got a lot of advice from my Uncle Allen and some other people and felt prepared to make one right this time! I heated up the frying pan, melted some butter, cracked 3 eggs in a bowl, whipped the eggs, and poured the eggs in the frying pan. I let the eggs cook in the pan until they looked cooked and not runny and cut up some ham and pepper jack cheese and put that stuff on half of the eggs.  I folded the eggs in half and flipped them. Aaron walked into the kitchen and told me that THAT LOOKS LIKE AN OMELET!

Christmas is over...now back to real life

As you know, Christmas was a couple days ago. I had a great day! Started at Aarons sisters house with his family and then I spent the afternoon with my family. I got a lot of awesome things. Aaron gave me a Wii, his Mom gave me a coat and I got a bunch of stuff from my family.
I think the bread I made went over well. There are a couple things I would do differently next time. The recipe for each type of bread was suppose to make 1 loaf.  I multiplied the ingredients by four so that I could make 4 loafs of each. The cranberry bread could have made 5 loafs with the ingredients for 4. I will take that into account next time I make it!
This morning, I tried once again to make an omelet for Aaron. My Nana sent me back with a lot of holiday left overs and in that was some pepper jack cheese. I used that in Aarons omelet. Aarons brother in law had told us about boy scout omelets that were made by putting the omelet stuff in a freezer back and then putting the bag in a pot of boiling water. I tried this method and failed miserably. Aaron is currently eating a pile of cooked eggs and mushy cheese once again, but no complaining. I gotta figure out how to make an omelet.

Merry Christmas Eve! (don't read yet if you are going to see me tommorow)

I am listening to Christmas music on Air1 (www.air1.com) and baking some bread! I have decided that I am super poor this year and am giving everyone some home made baked goods. I decided on cranberry orange bread and banana walnut bread. I will be able to make 4 loafs of each and all of the ingredients only costs me 20 bucks! I can't think of a better way to make giving 8 people Christmas presents more inexpensive :-) I am using a couple recipes I found online for the breads. I am adding walnuts to the banana bread :-)

Cranberry Orange Bread

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups fresh cranberries
• 1/4 cup margarine, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup orange juice

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9x5 inch loaf pan. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir in cranberries. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together margarine, sugar, and egg until smooth. Stir in orange juice. Beat in flour mixture until just moistened. Pour into prepared pan.
3. Bake for 1 hour in the preheated oven, or until the bread springs back when lightly touched. Let stand 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool. Wrap in plastic when completely cool.
   
   
   

   Banana Bread Recipe

   Ingredients

   • 3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
   • 1/3 cup melted butter
   • 1 cup sugar (can easily reduce to 3/4 cup)
   • 1 egg, beaten
   • 1 teaspoon vanilla
   • 1 teaspoon baking soda
   • Pinch of salt
   • 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

   Method

   
   

   No need for a mixer for this recipe. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pour mixture into a buttered 4x8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.
    
   
   

   Here is a picture of the Cranberry Orange Bread in the over 

   
   
   
   
   

    
   
   you can turn a bowl of bananas.....

   
   

   

   
   into yummy banana bread :-)
   

   

   
   

   and in case your wondering, yes...the oven in my apartment is green :-)

   

this cooking thing isn't to hard!

The crock pot chicken thing I did the other day didn't turn out to bad. I don't think I will use that recipe again though. I don't think Aaron liked it very much, but once again he ate it anyways.
Today I made mashed potatoes from scratch and had steak too! I found a couple elaborate mashed potato recipes, but they all seemed really involved. I just cup up four potatoes, cup them into cubes, boiled them, drained them, mashed them, added half a stick of butter and some onion powder and had some great potatoes. We found some super cheap steaks when we went shopping the other day and through them in the freezer when we got home. I didn't think about dinner ahead of time and found my self with a bunch of frozen steaks when it came to bed dinner time. We don't have a microwave yet, so I could thaw them that way. I stuck them under some hot water and hoped for the best. When they seemed squishy, I cooked them in a frying pan with some butter.
We decided to be festive this evening and both Aaron and I are enjoying a cup of hot coco (mine has the addition of some Baily's). I made it from scratch!
Awesome Hot Coco
1/3 cup Water
1/2 cup Sugar
1/4 cup Hershey's Coco Powder
4 cups Milk

Combine the water, sugar and coco powder in a sauce pan and place over high heat. Boil the mixture while stirring it. Add the milk and lower the heat. Cook until the hot coco is hot :-)

Aaron drinking some delicious hot coco :-)

Aaron has been really excited about Christmas for the last couple of days. He has been really persistent to give me one of my gifts early. I wanted to wait until Christmas, but I gave in today. We each exchanged one of the gifts we got each other. I gave Aaron a fleece pull over. I am super glad he likes it. He gave me a BEAUTIFUL necklace! I am so excited!

My pretty new necklace from Aaron!

Happy Holidays!

a cooking adventure

Aaron woke me up this morning to tell me he had to head out to work soon. I decided that I would make him something to eat....breakfast is the most important meal of the day you know.  I asked him if he was hungry and offered to make him an omelet.
I have never made an omelet. I don't like eggs. I had no idea what I was doing...but I did try my hardest. I had seen omelets being made at USM every morning when I went to breakfast with Daniella. It didn't look to hard. Crack some eggs, through on some cheese....cook it for a while and voila!  It didn't turn out that well. It looked like a pile of cooked eggs and mushy cheese. Aaron was a trooper and ate it. He said it even tasted good. What a great guy.
I think I am going to make something in the crock pot for dinner tonight. He is working until like 2 and I got into work at 6 so dinner in a crock pot will be done before I have to leave. We have most of the ingrediants to make Italian Chicken Recipe with Potatoes. Lets see how this goes.

Hears the recipie:

 

Italian seasoned chicken with potatoes, cooked in the slow cooker.

Cook Time: 7 hours

Total Time: 7 hours

Ingredients:

• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
• 1/2 cup Italian salad dressing
• 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning (or mix basil, oregano, crushed red pepper, and garlic powder to equal same)
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan or Romano cheese
• 4 to 6 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into wedges or thick slices

Preparation:

Place chicken in bottom of Crock Pot. Sprinkle with half of the Italian dressing, spices, and the grated cheese. Put the potatoes on top or around the chicken. Sprinkle with the rest of the dressing, spices, and cheese.

Will be a wife someday!

I am creating this blog to keep track of my experiences in becoming more domestic. My wonderful boyfriend proposed to me in November. I am going to try hard to become the women that I can be and be a good wife for him. 
Aaron is a wonderful man and he deserves a wonderful wife. He deserves a wife that can cook, clean and rear children (when that time comes). I am going to try my hand at all of these things between now and the wedding!
We are currently working on saving money. We were living in a house with a couple other people, but have moved into to our own apartment. We have also decided that we spend WAY TO MUCH money eating out and will be only buying groceries for most meals from here out.
We figured that we spend about 30-50 dollars a day when we are eating on the go. We work 3 towns over from where we are living, so we had been hitting the drive through for lunch and dinner for the sake of time. We spent a good hour in the grocery store this evening and spend 97 dollars. We bought enough food for a good week. That will be a savings of at least 180 dollars this week. What shall we do with that savings? Pay down some debt? Get him a car? Maybe!