Recipe! Aunt Ruthie's Super Delish Stovetop Popcorn!!

Hello!! Time for another recipe. I actually have a ton of recipes I have to share but I keep being lazy about it. Lately The Hubs and I have been discussing vehicles. The Hubs has a Ford Ranger truck... which i'm not sure if you're familiar with but it only has two center-facing seats in the back of the "cab" that I barely fit in... The Hubs loves trucks, his truck is his baby. First REAL car he's owned. We call it Black Betty. He has been VERY into researching trucks though, excited about getting a new one. He bounced between a truck, SUV, and a cheap sedan with no car payment. I had to set limits on price because he was getting a little buck-wild. WELL... on a whim we decided to go test-drive vehicles just for the fun of it... WELL... we came home with this!:

LOVE IT! So does The Hubs. It's a 2006 Jeep Grand Cherokee - but it's like LUXURY! Leather interior, power windows/locks/seats, wood grain center console, 6-CD player, HEATED SEATS! Oh that was awesome. Must have been super expensive when it first came out - we got an awesome deal. Payments are cheaper than his crappy truck! But we got an extended warranty so it ended up being more. We got rid of our netflix and gym memberships - since I don't go and The Hubs can workout at work... We're very happy with our new vehicle!

Yeah, gym. I went to quit, for budget reasons and i'm lazy and don't workout anymore. Turns out I owe money because my new card was entered wrong (I lost it after I went for a walk - turns out it was in my pocket - woops!). So until I paid that, I couldn't quit... but they said they would give me 3 free months to get back into the gym! Sweet. And if I decide to stay they will lower my payments by $5... but it would still be $19.99 a month and Planet Fitness is only $10 a month... so I might just be a sleeze and workout the free three months then transfer over to Planet Fitness. Or I might just quit cause Planet Fitness is closer and I could walk there - making me like 95% more like to go. Hmm... decisions...

Here is your AWESOME recipe!! We decided to make homemade popcorn and The Hubs busted out with this recipe his Aunt Ruthie used to make when he was little! IT WAS SO GOOD!!

This recipe made a TON of popcorn! We each had a BIG bowl and there was 1/2 a pot leftover... so you may need to scale it.

You Need:
3-4 tbsp Canola Oil
1 Cup Popcorn Kernels
1/2 stick butter (I KNOW - so bad! But SO good! You can use less if you want)
3 tbsp Honey
Salt

Take a COLD pan - ours was like 8.5/9 in  x 4.5/9 in.
Pour in oil, tilt the pan so it's covered to the COLD pan.
Pour in the seeds to the COLD pan, shake it so they're all covered and sitting in puddle of oil... like this:

Salt it - just a tad. Now, you turn the heat to MEDIUM, and shake shake shake the popcorn back and forth until the first kernel pops:

Now you QUICKLY place the cover back on and keep shake shake shaking back and forth until it all pops. It will happen pretty quickly. Take it off the burner once the popping slows down and comes to a stop, or the pot overflows... which is what mine did.

SAUCE!!

Pour your popcorn into your assigned bowls (we still had 1/2 a pot leftover - you will probably need more sauce for the leftover popcorn - or you could spread it throughout the whole lot it will probably still be good if it's evenly spread throughout the whole popcorn)
Melt the butter in a pot and mix in the honey.
Pour it on top!!
ENJOY!!!

My Life via my iPhone

Well I finally got my iPhone pictures emailed to my phone. Here is what i've got. Most of them are of my furbabies and of food... but I saved the food ones so I can post the recipes with them. Here you go!

 Here is my new helmet! It's for The Hub's new motorcycle... can't decide if I like riding it or not..

 Gabi! BFF's new baby! She's wearing the crown and booties I made her for her newborn photoshoot! You can find the crochet patterns here and here.

These are the booties up-close. Don't make the bows with a 21 ch to start. I used 15 but I would have rather used 10.

 Fortune Cookie booties my mom made! May also be on the same website - they are knit though!

 Cuddling Beans

 Helping with the Laundry.

 Beans giving his sister Lucy a bath.

 Bean's favorite spot - The Hubs!

 Beans, pondering.

 Beans, making himself comfortable on my book... while i'm reading.

Pain.

 Beans, watching Animal Planet. He became very alert with the wolves.

 Lucy's first trip to the Beach! She loved it!

 Sniffing something with The Hubs.

 Enjoying the beach...

 Crazy girl... Beans is embarassed.

 Lucy loves the park! Drinking up some water.

 Looking out at the water.

 Pretty girl.

Resting on the early warm weather.

 Smiling puppy.

 Cuddlepup under the blankets.

 Wearing my new sun hat!! Farmer Lucy.

 Awesome collar i've wanted to get her since she was a puppy. Very expensive for a collar so I wanted to wait until she was full grown. You can find them here.

 Lucy with her new coat her my mom bought her! She loves it.

 Lucy with her favorite toy... her moustache. It's upside-down but it's still pretty funny! Lasted a lot longer than her tongue toy!



Recipe! Pizza Turnovers!

Made this tonight. It was delicious!

Serving: 2
Prep time: 12 min.
Total time: 27 min.

Ingredients:

• 1 can pillsbury refridgerate classic pizza crust (13.8 oz)
• Pizza sauce (I use prego - always)
• 1 tbsp parmesan cheese (they say use grated but I used shredded! Love shredded parmesan)
• 2 slices mozzarella cheese (I, again, used shredded cause I ran out of the good stuff yesterday)
• Pizza toppings! Anything you want. I used pepperoni & olive for one and peppers & onions for the second!

Directions:

• Heat oven to 400 degrees F.
• Roll pizza crust out (becareful when you pop it, mine ripped when I did that) onto a floured pan to make a 12 in" square.
• Cut in 1/2 down the middle. The original recipe says to cut into 4's and make 4 servings, and I guess you could do that but it would probably be the size of a hot pocket... definitely not enough for one person for dinner. Maybe a child. I just cut it into 1/2 and made 2 larger "turnovers". They looked like mini square calzones.
• Spread sauce onto one half of one of the dough squares, up to 1" from the edge.
• Place your toppings ontop of the sauce (peppers & onions, or pepperoni, etc.)
• Place your cheese on top. However much you think... I did a little fingerfull of each mozzarella and parmesan.
• Take your turnovers off the floured pan and rinse off the flour. They say a non-greased pan but I greased mine with cooking spray so it wouldn't burn and stick.
• Place the turnovers back onto the pan
• Cook for 12-15 min depending on the oven. I cooked mine for 12 min then another 2. The top was perfect but underneath (pan-side) was still doughy. I would perhaps cook it 10 min on the pan then flip it upside-down and cook the rest on the other side. I'm going to do that next time.
• When they look a little golden brown, take them out! Make sure they're cooked on both sides.

Eat and enjoy!

Recipe!

This is a recipe for my most favorite dish right now. It's a pasta dish, with brussel sprouts (give em' a chance), bacon, caramelized onions, and goat cheese. It is like a glorified macaroni & cheese and it is so phenomenal I promise you won't be disappointed.

I don't know how to write out recipes... that's what my sister is for. Her cooking blog is http://www.cookingisntprocrastinating.com/ You can actually find this recipe on there, with real directions! But i'm going to make you look for it though so you can see all the delicious things she makes.

Ingredients:

• 1 medium sweet onion
• 1 box linguini
• 15-20 brussel sprouts (I really don't know how much it ends up being different amounts every time)
• 1 8oz. tube of soft goat cheese (not feta)
• 5-6 slices of uncooked bacon... or I suppose you can use a whole box of microwave bacon

So these are the things you need to do:

• Caramelize onions. 1 medium sweet onion. If you don't know how to do it look here. Mine are never all-the-way caramelized... I just move on.
• Boil pasta. Linguini. To al dente. Perfect way to cook al dente pasta is to throw it in the water then set the timer for the lowest number on the box where it says the cooking time (Ex. if it's 9-11 min do 9) Works for me every time. Throw pasta in with the onions when the onions are done.
• Cook about 5/6 pieces of bacon. Chop/cut into the 1" pieces.
• Cook brussel sprouts. I take off the outer leaves (feed them to my dog), wash them, chop them in half. Then I throw them in a pan with 2 tbsp of olive oil. Then I sautee them for a few min then pour in like 1/4 cup of water and put a lid on to fully cook them/speed-up the cooking process. Then once they look done/can pierce them with a fork then I throw them into the pan with the onions.
• Goat cheese. Take the soft goat cheese and put it in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave for 30 seconds. Add 1/3 cup water. Microwave for 30 seconds, stir. Repeat until you get a thick sauce.
• Throw it all together!

Now, if you can manage to get all these to finish at the same time, kudos to you! I never can. Everything ends up finishing at different times. It's so delicious! I hope you enjoy :o)

Mmmmmm... delish!!

Hi to the Netherlands!!! Yes, someone from the Netherlands has read my blog!! So cool. So, hey!! That's all for today. Real post tomorrow.

Exercise

I've started to notice a little decent amount of pudge on my belly. I noticed it when we had that wonderful 80* weather and I tried on about 100 summer tops trying to find one that didn't make me look like I just had a kid. Gross. So while I was complaining that I had nothing to wear my husband (lovingly) pointed out "haven't you kind of stopped going to the gym?" probably meaning... you can't really complain if you aren't doing anything about it. So I went back today. And I do mean back. I worked out for years and years. I was always a solid 120 lbs. At 5'1 this is a good size for me... then I went on a medication that took me up to a soaring 149... WHILE WORKING OUT. Yes... while exercising the entire almost the whole time. It's awful to be out-of-control of your body. I finally got so fed-up I took some early wedding gift cash and hired a personal trainer at the gym for 3 months. I lost 6 lbs. in 3 weeks before the wedding. That was being so super strict I even took my own food to a deli restaurant once. The waitress didn't mind.... she laughed and said "you won't find anything healthy here". I did eat their awesome pickles though! Only 5 calories holler! I then took a month off for wedding prep/wedding/honemoon. I gained one lb. through that time (probably actually lost some muscle and gained some fat that went unshown). After I returned I had the rest of my 9 personal training weeks spread out over the next three months (took longer due to cancelled sessions). Overall I lost 21 lbs. and ended up being 1.4 lbs from my goal weight we created on my first PT meeting. GO ME!

Now let me tell you I hate despise loathe exercise. Words cannot even capture my dread for the activity, any exercise activity. Running (ESPECIALLY running), calisthenics, weight lifting, anything. Any type. Mostly because it takes up precious time I could spend relaxing, or with Hubs, or pup & kitty. Relaxing, on my couch, is my #1 top priority behind spending time with my Hubs & furbabies, and I usually like to do it together. So when something (exercise) (cleaning) (cooking) interferes with that, I usually am not a happy camper. Now dieting, I don't mind. While I was exercising I was on a 1200 calorie diet... now if I could just get by on just dieting alone i'd be all set.. but i'd probably have to eat so low calories i'd end up in the starvation mode... and then no pudge would be lost. But unfortunately, exercise must be endured.

Today, I went and was only up 1 lb, weighing in at 129.4. I, again, probably lost a couple lbs. of  muscle and gained a couple lbs. of fat but hey that's pretty good! Today I did 30 min on the crosstrainerellipticalcardiomachinething. Which is the cardio I used to do while I was losing weight. My usual Monday exercise schedule. Tomorrow, I was going to do my weights, which is my normal tuesday exercise schedule... but then I would be going from work, to gym, to dentist, to home, to shower, to dinner. Then Hubs' friends would be here and he'd be going out for the night leaving no fun/together time for us. Considering we only get 2 days a week to actually physically see eachother,  nevermind spend time with eachother, I am going to skip the gym tomorrow and spend time with him after school before the dentist. This leads to the guilt. The reason I hate getting on an exercise plan. When I don't work out I feel guilty, and wrong, and have a hard time enjoying myself when I know I am "supposed to be" working out. But time with Hubs > exercising in importance. I just have to keep telling myself that.