Sauce Heaven

Apparently my New Year's Resolution to keep up this blog is failing miserably. I haven't even posted our wedding pictures on Facebook yet! To say I have an issue with remembering this thing is an understatement. But enough about my scattered brain.

You guys. This sauce. Rachel Schultz has a recipe for a sauce very similar and her blog was one of the first places I saw this delicious and delectable recipe. Mine is a little different, having taken it from Alyssa over at the Recipe Critic. The sauce with her recipe is from the parmesan chicken one. I made this a few weeks ago when my main squeeze had the flu and he just wanted a simple pasta with some sort of tomato sauce. I used her recipe, but omitted the chicken because he wasn't super hungry. Thus, the sauce has been used multiple times and with countless varieties of pasta. Our favorite is bow tie, but you can certainly use fettuccine or maybe even spaghetti! I want to experiment with this sauce like I did with the Alfredo sauce, so hopefully that will happen soon!

But anyways. This sauce you guys. It's a tomato cream sauce and it has such good flavor! The good thing is that it doesn't take much nor does it take very long to make (bonus!). It's so delicious that I could just top some garlic bread with it and be a happy camper. I don't stray from Alyssa's recipe much. I add a pinch of crushed red pepper for a tiny bit of heat and I add a little more cheese (we're cheese lovers around here). Oh. And I omit the onions, because duh. Onions. A little time on the stove and you have a great tomato cream sauce! Enjoy my friends.

I know it's not the best picture, but trust me. It's delicious!

Tomato Cream Sauce

1 tbsp olive oil

1 small onion, chopped (I omitted)

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 (15 ounce) can tomato sauce

½ cup heavy cream

¼ cup grated parmesan cheese (the canned stuff)

1 teaspoon McCormick Italian Seasoning Herb Grinder (I could not find this, so I just use regular Italian seasoning)

salt and pepper to taste

½ cup shredded parmesan cheese

How to make said perfect sauce:

-Add 1 tablespoon olive oil to a saucepan and add the onion and garlic. Sauté for a couple of minutes until tender. Add the tomato sauce, heavy cream, parmesan cheese, and Italian seasoning. Salt and pepper to taste.

-Bring to a simmer until thickened. Serve over pasta of choice.

Note: The shredded parmesan cheese is meant to top the chicken with in Alyssa's recipe. If I am not cooking chicken with this, I just add it in with the sauce. I use fresh parmesan cheese, not the pre-shredded stuff. It melts easier!

Kitchen Essentials

I'm telling ya, this blog stuff is harder to keep up with than I thought! My New Year's Resolution is to try and keep up with this a little more and post a lot more as well. We'll see how that goes!

I've thought about peppering in some posts about the multiple kitchen items that I use, why I love them and the uses I have for them. For some people, cooking is a brand new adventure to them. They don't know where to begin and all the gadgets and accessories and what not can probably be a little overwhelming when you're starting out. Whether you're newly married, out on your own for the first time due to going to college or moving out on your own, or you're simply tired of eating fast food or making simple box dinners, I wanted to share some of my favorites things I use in the kitchen to make meals for me and my main squeeze.

One of my favorite things (I'm probably going to say this about most things I use in the kitchen) is my Dutch oven. My dad got it for me one year for Christmas and I love this thing! It's so versatile. I use it at least once a week and honestly I could probably use it a lot more than that.

Things I use my Dutch oven for include:

-soups and stews
-one pot dishes
-pot roast
-frying things like boneless wings or pickles
-boiling pasta for dishes
-mashed potatoes
-pasta sauces like for lasagna
-making pretzels

Like yesterday and today for example. Yesterday I used it to make pretzels in the morning and fried boneless wings in it later that night. Tonight I made a one pot pasta dish. I love it! There's so many uses for it and it's oven safe. Mine is by Lodge and it's enameled cast iron so it's heavy. A good Dutch oven is essential to have in your kitchen arsenal! 

Good Ol' Virginny

Well, we are back in my home state! We've been here for a bit now, got here in July (whoops!) and I have been enjoying being back home for a little while. Most of our time here has consisted of getting things ready for the wedding (gah!) and spending time with my family. And exploring of course too! I am working in Midlothian at one of the Bon Secours Hospitals called St. Francis. It's going good, there's only one ICU there so I'm working on that unit. Anyways we've had some good adventures so far being here in Virginia! Here are just a few pictures of the fun things we've done so far!

Appomattox Courthouse National Park 

Appomattox Courthouse National Park

 

Appomattox Courthouse National Park

 

Yorktown 

 Jamestown Ferry

 Jamestown Ferry

 Natural Chimneys

Skyline Drive

Skyline Drive

 

Cyrus McCormick Farm

Cyrus McCormick Farm

Black Bears on the Skyline Drive

North Entrance (we drove the whole 105 miles!)

Cyrus McCormick Farm

Cyrus McCormick Farm

These are just a few of our travels so far, we definitely have more planned for the near future! As far as recipes go, well I'm still trying out new ones and finding some that I love! Hopefully soon I can get on the ball and post some. 

Until then my friends

Slacker

Geez. May! I absolutely SUCK at trying to keep up with this blog! I keep telling myself to post recipes, things my main squeeze and I have done and adventures we've been on but I plum just keep forgetting. Maybe one of these days I'll get into the habit and routine of keeping up with it. Anyways, my travel adventurs have brought my main squeeze and I to Springfield, Missouri. A lot of his family is from Seymour which is about 30-40 minutes away and I love being this close to his family. Sure I haven't met many of them yet or spent a lot of time with them but it's nice knowing that they're close and we can go do things with them. 

I was so happy this year because I got to spend Austin's birthday with him. Last year I was still home in Virginia and couldn't celebrate with him so I was happy as a clam to be here this year for it. He got a kindle and a cover for it (I was gonna get him Seinfeld as well but we'll save that for another time). 

We've had a few adventures since we've been here (not many as we haven't been here tooooo long). One place we wanted to go to was Silver Dollar City. Like Kings Dominion for me, my main squeeze grew up going to SDC every year and I was excited to finally check it out! They have some roller coasters and home girl here was a wee bit too large to fit into the seats (darn those childbearing hips!) I'm hoping to lose some weight so when we go back I can fit into the seats!

As far as the recipe world we've tried a bunch of new things since I've posted last (and even before then!) Hopefully I can get on the ball and post some here soon. I have one more night of work before I am off for 5 nights so we'll see!

Speaking of work I am working at Mercy Hospital in Springfield and I am in their ICU float pool. That means that I work on whichever ICU they need me in that night I'm working.

Peace and sunshine (well, moonshine at the present time since it's 0300) until next time!

Fluffy Pancakes

Merry Christmas everybody!

This Christmas is vastly different from any Christmas I have celebrated so far. 

This year I am in Oklahoma, away from my mom, dad and sister but oh so very thankful to be spending and celebrating it with my main squeeze.

Here he is trying out one of the gifts he got in his stocking. We had a very relaxed morning complete with coffee, presents, and these pancakes.

 

When I say "these" pancakes, I mean I used the boxed Hungry Jack mix. But, I have never made pancakes before in my life! I used some tips from Emily and wham! This pancake making newbie was successful in fixing Christmas brunch. Her recipe makes about ten servings (per her blog) and as much as my main squeeze loves pancakes, we could not eat anywhere near that much! Sure, I could have cut the recipe in half, but I wanted to use the box mix for the first time cooking them. Maybe someday when I have hungry kids in my house will I make my own batter.

I hope your Christmas has been merry and bright and that Jesus has been the center of your celebrations. I'm hoping next year my main squeeze and I can be home in Virginia with my family. 

On to New Year's!

Best Pork BBQ

"Holy shit"

These are the two first words my main squeeze uttered when he first tasted this BBQ. 

Followed by "this is damn good". 

This was my first attempt at cooking a pork BBQ. And this recipe, boys and girls, is an absolute keeper. When my main squeeze goes back for seconds, I know it's a great recipe. I thought about a crockpot recipe, but both of us like a dry rub, not cooked in BBQ sauce. 

OMG. Talk about delicious. And easy! This is most definitely the way I'm gonna fix BBQ from now on. I didn't take any pictures of the process; just the finished product. So I'm gonna send you over to Kevin and Amanda's website where I followed their recipe step by step. I even have a digital thermometer like she recommends and that thing is sweet! You can leave the oven door closed and not have to keep testing your pork. I love it! This is definitely the recipe I'm going to use from now on for BBQ. It's wonderful!

Changes...Part Two

Well boys and girls, it's a Monday and I have found myself in the middle of the U.S. in the Midwest. Oklahoma actually. Tulsa, to be exact. This plan has been in the making since the beginning of the year. My main squeeze and I have been looking forward to this since we first talked about it! I am finally doing what I have wanted to do since I found out about it, travel nursing. Those who know me know I can't sit still for long and travel nursing fits the bill perfectly. Plus, it's allowed me to come out here to be with my main squeeze! That's the best plus of them all. My first assignment is at Hillcrest Medical Center in downtown Tulsa on a burn ICU. That's going to be a huge learning curve for me! But I am looking forward to it and am excited to learn something new when it comes to my nursing skills. Enough of the boring stuff, it's picture time!

My mama drove out here with me (1,200 miles!) so I wouldn't have to make the trek alone. I'm glad she did! 1,200 miles is a lot to do without someone to talk to. Saturday my main squeeze took us around riding, out to Pawhuska and Ponca City and let me tell you. Absolute culture shock from what I am use to! I didn't think I would like the openness so much (us East Coast folks are use to A LOT of trees) but I actually really like it. Something super peaceful about it. But still, culture shock none the less.

 I mean, it's kinda growing on me. I enjoyed our drive very much!

Pretty babies. We were no doubt on someone's ranch (don't worry, we weren't trespassing!) but had no ideas whose. But we enjoyed seeing all the horses

And all the cows. They were walking everywhere and this baby here was like "Who are you and what in the world are you doing here?"

All the other babies didn't seem to pay us any mind. 

I mentioned earlier we didn't know whose ranch we stumbled upon.

We found our answer at the end coming back out on the main highway. I was so excited!! I had wanted to find her ranch but had no idea how, this just happened by chance!

My main squeeze and I. Stay tuned for more pictures and adventures!