Holy Carrot!

We've always givin Molly and Ellie steamed carrots with there dinner, so I knew they liked them. Tonight I had a small ziploc bag of carrots I was munching on, and every time I took a bite Molly would come running! It was crazy she could be anywhere in the apartment or outside {our apartment and patio are small} and she would hear that bit.

They were just going absolutly nuts over the carrots tonight!

I would throw a carrot for them to chase and whoever got to it first would grab it and run like it was the last thing they were ever going to eat!
Ashley told me that her dogs go crazy over the meat from Natural Balance. I'm hoping to get some tomorrow and am curious to see how Molly and Ellie react over it ha.

We got ourselves some crazy crazy dogs :]

This is why you're fat!

Ever wonder why so many American's are obese? Check out this site This is why you're fat. I was eating an apple while I was looking at all this stuff and some how the apple was even making me sick!

Looking through that site made me glad I don't eat meat. uhhh I just can't believe the things people will eat. I will admit though, I would try the first one. The cupcake kebabs :) i'm pretty sure I would only be able to stomach one or two bites at the most though.

I heard of this site this morning on the Today Show. They had a few things for Kathie Lee and Hoda to try, I opted not to watch ha. I was listening to them and some of the things they were pretty grossed out by.

Seriously who would spend there time coming up with these... death foods!?

umm umm good

I've never been a fan of winter, so moving to southern California was something I was excited about. So far i'm liking fall/winter for like... the first time ever! Even though it's not that cold I still like to do fall things, like making soup. Curling up with a nice bowl of soup {we still have no table :( } is comforting in a way. Maybe it's just me!?

I saw these potatoes on For the love of cooking a little while ago and have been dieing to try them! I love potatoes but hardley ever make them, so these were something I was looking forward to. What I love is that these are full of flavor.. good flavor not just covered in johnny's.

With the potatoes I decided to make the bean and bacon soup from For the love of cooking, but of course I didn't add in bacon. I try to add meat in for Frank if possible, but i'm really glad I didn't with this soup. The flavor alone in it was amazing. I did however, add in a little oregano and basil for a little extra something.

I'm not too sure if Frank even liked the soup because he only tasted it last night {he had to help our friend.. read below} and apparently didn't eat anything last night at work. Normally he tells me if he doesn't like something.. so i'm curious ha You can go here for the Hasselback Potatoes, and here for the bean and bacon soup.

Last week our friend Mikey was out and about when the battery in her husbands truck died. It wouldn't be much of a problem but her husband has been underway latley and she only has 2 people to call.. me being one of them. Thankfully for us Frank is home sleeping during the days, so we headed her way to help out if possible. Frank had asked a few questions about what happened so he knew what to bring {he brought his whole towl box ha}. She told him that there lights turn off automatically when you turn the truck off, so he decided to take the battery out of the truck. So to make a long story short, yesterday mikey and her husband went to get a new battery at autozone and the.. not so smart... employee tried to tell them it wasn't dead. I don't know much, or anything about cars but I knew there battery was dead! So last night in the dark frank changed out a few car battery's.. that's his kinda fun!
I just realized that whole story was probably pointless and boring ha.



OHHH I almost forgot to do a Nick update!
Monday's are his weigh in days, and yesterday he lost another 2.2 pounds.

He has 36.8 pounds to go till he gets to his goal weight...

And has lost 143 pounds since April 13!!

WAY TO GO NICK!! KEEP UP THE HARD WORK : )

Back and Healthy

It feels like ages since I last blogged! Last week I was fighting off a cold that thankfully, was not too horrible. It did however leave me with no energy to do much.. my house got the worst of it :( One thing I did make sure to do was make dinner, I needed a good meal at the end of the day.

I guess i'll just jump into everything you've missed out on....

Pumpkin Butter! I heard about this on a different blog and thought I could manage it. The recipe is from all recipes, and what I love about it is that you can change the quantity. I should have done that cause I can't go threw it all.. it's about to make it's way to my garbage! It was so yummy with toast and butter. I'd like to try apple butter but so far the only one i've found has to be done in a crock pot which I don't have. One day.

YUMM!!!

I had already planned on making Chicken noodle soup, it just seemed to work out perfect that I was feeling under the weather. My friend Mikey has the flu pretty bad right now, so I took her some since her husband has been underway the last few weeks. The soup turned out good, I was just disapointed that I over cooked it and the potatoes turned into there own soup and made it really thick. I also thought I shredded the chicken big enough so I could pick it out of my bowl.. not so much, I had a hard time making sure I wasn't eating any meat. This of course came from one of my fave blogs for the love of cooking!

Friday was my friend Ashley's 23rd birthday, so at her request I made her the double decker pumpkin pie. Since we have no money to get her a card I tried writing "Happy Birthday" on the pie ha

I'd say she likes it :]

After we dropped off Ashley's birthday pie we headed up to Huntington Beach to meet up with our friend Haysel. They're friends of ours from Virginia, they are stationed in Texas right now but Haysel and the kids our back home in Cali for a few months. Haysel is staying with her mom who lives in Palmdale so we decided to meet half way. It was so good to see them [[well minus Erik he had to go back to Texas before we could see him]]!!

While we were waiting for Haysel and the kids we got some Del Taco and got some grilled chicken for the dogs. I love this picture of Ellie ha!

I guess now that Leiian is in school Julyssa has been really needy, I didn't mind :]

Frank is like a big kid when he's with them ha

Walking Ellie. The dogs did so good, we were so suprised and happy.

Last week I found these fall recipes at for the love of cooking, and thought they seemed worthy of trying. The first one we tried was maple and brown sugar acorn squash. It wasn't too bad! It was one of those things that I don't know if i'll make again, but we eat alot of it because it was okay.

The second one I made was baked butternut squash. Mine looks burnt, but it's because I accidently put on WAY too much cinnamon. I was pretty excited about this one because it smelled so good cooking, but for some reason it wasn't fully cooked when it was done. I could have kept cooking it but with the way it already looked because of the cinnamon I was afraid of actually buring it. I would like to try this one again.

Last night for dinner I made campanelle with roasted vegetables and marinara. OHHH it was so good! I thought I had asparagus so I can't wait to make this again but with all the ingredients!

I don't know why but last night before cooking dinner I decided I wanted to make banana bread since i'm always looking for a good recipe. This one was pretty tasty, but since I only have one loaf pan and it was being used for the apple pumpkin bread {keep reading!} I thought it would be okay to cook it in a small pan. It did work okay, but the middle didn't get cooked fully. So I just cut around the gooey parts and sent the rest to work with Frank.

Along with the banana bread I made Apple Pumpkin Bread since I had some pumkin mix to use up. Again I should have used two loaf pans but instead made one HUGE loaf. And again the middle didn't cook. This one got me upset because I checked to see if it was done and the knife came out clean. Well when I turned it to put it on the cooling rack this huge glob of dough fell out and the middle started to invert. This is one I really want to try again cause the few pieces I was able to salvage were so good! I loved the chunks of apple in it.

Halloween night after I posted the double decker pumpkin pie I went and made Apple Butter Pumpkin Pie, since it wasn't leaving a few hours after I made it like it normally does... I ended up eating just about half of it :( At least it was good ha.

Have you ever had the Baked Ziti from Olive Garden? I love it but can only ever eat such a small portion that it's pointless to order it. I thought i'd give it a try on my own the other day. I found this one at cooks.com. It wasn't bad, but it was still too heavy for me to stomach so i'm not too sure if i'll make it again. But it was worth trying!

PUMPKIN COOKIES!! oh these were so moist and yummy... hummm I got these at Seasonal Recipes and would love to make some more right now!

So good....

Blah

There really has been nothing going on this last week for us... it's kinda sad. Every day I think of things to blog about, but nada!

I have started getting ready for my mom's visit since she is on Weight Watchers. She can eat anything in moderation if she wants, however she hasn't eaten sugar [[unless it comes from a fruit]] in a few years. I really just want to make sure she has lots to eat that she likes! ha I've been thinking of all the places we can take her, and that she wants to go.. she hasn't been to San Diego in like 30 years ha.

That ours excitment♥

Pumpkin Pie

WARNING! If you are on a diet skip over this... it will KILL your healthy eating :]

The other day I made this AMAZING pumkpin pie. It's a Double Decker Pumpkin Pie I found at Seasonal Recipes. I can't even begin to explain how good this was... you MUST try it for yourself. Like always I had Frank take it to work after we shared a piece. The next morning when he came home he said that 2 people asked if they could buy it and another person asked for there own!! I couldn't believe it, it made me feel so special ha. I so badly want to make another one but i'm saving the ingredients to make it for Ashley's birthday next week.

We don't have a pie spatula so my piece looks like it was butchered ha, which it pretty much was while trying to take it out of the pie plate.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!!!

Hope you all have a safe fun night doing whatever it is you plan on doing tonight. Frank has watch so I am spending my Halloween at home with the dogs and the TV. I'm thinking about baking something to pass the time... and eat :] hehe Tomorrow is the start of the holiday season.. to some, so have fun shopping and getting ready for the holiday's to come! I'm very excited for my mom to come visit and all the places we're going to take her!

Los Penasquitos Canyon

Last weekend Frank's cousin Ricky came down from Pendelton for the night. He was bringing some stuff to store at our place while he's in Afghanistan for 6 months. Sunday it was 87 at our place so I knew I didn't want to spend the day roasting inside.
Instead we headed up to Torrey Pines State Reserve, but when we got there we found out it's $10 to park {NOT HAPPENING!} and no dogs aloud anywhere at the park. I was pretty upset about this since the site I found all the trails on never said anything about no pets. Thankfully I brought along the note pad that has all the trails I want to check out. Los Penasquitos to the rescue!
We hadn't plan to be out/walking for a long period of time, just enough to get the dogs excerise as well as us. So when we got to Los Penasquitos and started walking... we weren't completly prepaired. I had the camelbak full so we had enough water, but we didn't plan for food.
Once we started walking this couple asked if we knew how far the waterfall was. Of course we didn't but we wanted to see it. 3 miles later...
We finally made it! It wasn't much of anything but the dogs LOVED walking around in the water to cool off. The hardest part of the whole thing was the walk back. We all started getting hungry, but it of course hit me the hardest. 3 miles of walking when hungry=NOT GOOD! I had to hold onto Frank the whole way back so I wouldn't slow down and fall over.
Once we got to the last mile we were all ready to just go as fast as possible to get it over ha.
All in all it was a great day and I can't wait to do it again!!{with food of course}.

Tonight for dinner... a VERY late dinner... I made Chicken, Mushroom, Broccoli and Rice Casserole, minus the chicken since I didn't have any left for Frank. Now that Frank is on mid-check i'm trying to get used to moving my own schedule around so I don't wake him during the day while he's sleeping. So when he woke up at 4:00 I made him chicken and pasta for  "breakfast" ha. I ate some of the pasta and wasn't hungry till around 7:00, then I realized WOOPS! forgot about dinner. Thankfully the casserole was easy to make... when you do it right. Even though I dried it out, it was still pretty good :]
I didn't take a picture since by the time it was done it was 8:00 and I was extrememly tired and my feet were killing me. Which ment....
Time to sit on the couch for the rest of the night!!!

Oh My New Favs!!!

This morning for breakfast we made Banana-Cinnamon Pancakes! The recipe was originally for waffles, but our waffle iron is horrible and the waffles turned out like crap. So I wanted to try again with pancakes. They were so unbelievably good : ) These are for sure my new favorite pancakes.

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/4 cup buckwheat flour {I used wheat germ since I don't have buckwheat}

1/4 cup ground flaxseed

2 tablespoons sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cup fat-free milk {or in my case soy milk}

3 tablespoons butter, melted

2 large eggs {I used egg beaters instead of egg whites, and it was still good}

1 large ripe banana, mashed

cooking spray

Directions

Lightly spoon flours into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flours, flaxseed, and next 4 ingredients (through salt) in a medium bowl, stirring with a whisk. Combine milk, butter, and eggs, stirring with a whisk; add milk mixture to flour mixture, stirring until blended. Fold in mashed bananas. Preheat waffle iron {or in are case the griddle} coat with cooking spray. Cook however you're making them. You will totally enjoy them!

Last night for dinner I tried a new dish, I made baked potato soup {even though it was 85 yesterday ha}. OH MY OH MY I'M IN LOVE!! It was so fantasic I can't wait to have more of it for lunch. My picture isn't as good as the one from For the Love of cooking, but it was still so good. Oh and if you pair it with buttered potato bread it tastes just like a mashed potato sandwhich. Have any of you ever done that during Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner? That was like the highlight of my holiday dinners ha. I never was a fan of gravy so i'd put my mashed potatoes in the middle of my roll and devour it.. yum : ) You seriously have to check out this baked potato soup recipe.