Cooking on a weeknight.... Woah woah woah!

Now let's not all get too excited here, it's a weeknight so therefore I should not be in the kitchen. Well, I don't think I should ever be but that's irrelevant ;). 

Even Jager (my doberman/rottie pup) was nervous to see me turn on the stove. Look at that face...

 

Buffalo chicken dip was of the only things I could cook prior to this blog, and now it's become one of our favorite party items. We've made it for a few house/work parties and the bowl/crockpot is always empty at the end of the night. I have a work function tomorrow and was asked to make it (funny how they think I can cook at work, HA), so here is my favorite way to make this dip, with a little kick. 

Buffalo Chicken Dip: Ba-Gok!

-2 (10oz) cans of chunk chicken

-2 (8 ounce) packages of cream cheese

-1/2 cup ranch dressing

-1/2 cup blue cheese dressing 

-1/2 cup Franks Red Hot Sauce (We get buffalo flavor, you can even do 3/4 cup if you want it spicier). I'm a spicy wimp so I can't put that sh*t on everything...

-2 cups shredded cheddar cheese (or blue cheese if you dare to be different)

-Whatever you want to dip: Tortilla chips, celery, carrots... (We like the scoops tortilla chips)

Put your cream cheese out ahead of time so it can soften! Start by heating the chicken and the franks sauce in a skillet on medium until it's hot, then slowly start to add one of the packages of cream cheese (I cut it up softened into about 6 piece and drop them in). Keep stirring and you can even turn up the heat a little to help it melt. Then I add the ranch and blue cheese dressing, and the rest of the cream cheese (same way, softened in chunks). Keep on stirring until those cream cheese chunks melt, then I add a cup of cheddar cheese and also stir until that's melted. If you are just serving it in a bowl, put in the rest of the shredded cheddar in and keep on stirring until ready to serve. I like to throw mine in a crock pot on low (or warming setting) and toss the rest of the cheddar cheese on top a little before the party starts.

YUM,  I would like to say this was easy and there were no issues... hooray! :)

Rootbeer pulled pork sunday!

Success!

Today I made crock pot pulled pork with a rootbeer base, and it was definitely yummy. I got an all around thumbs up from friends at the dinner table, so that made my morning spazout worth it... However, let's turn back to about 10AM and review my garlic issues.

I would like to personally thank the produce guy who told me buying garlic and mincing it myself is "wicked easy, so don't pay more for garlic already minced." Again, I need to learn so I'm thinking, hey "wicked easy" I can totally do. I literally almost tossed the garlic across my kitchen.
Things started off great, I put my can of root beer in the crock pot, measured all my spices (adding a little extra of some and less of others), cut my onion (the wrong way, which my husband so "sweetly" pointed out), added brown sugar, and put my pork in. I wasn't sure what "4 garlic cloves minced" really meant, so I had to google it. Yup! Even watched a video on mincing garlic. However I couldn't get the stupid film off the garlic to even start mincing it, so I used my lifeline and phoned a friend (my Mom, who by the way has her own catering business....Yup, you don't even need to say it...). My mom didn't answer, so I had no other option but to wake up my sleeping husband (who had just fallen asleep after working a night shift). I "accidentally" put the baby gate down which blocks our puppy from the upstairs bedrooms. And look at that, our puppy (8 months old and 65lbs) took a superman leap onto the bed and landed on my husband. Darn. "Awww sorry, well, since your awake, how do I...."
His answer to my garlic question was simply, "Why don't you just use the jar of minced garlic in the fridge."
UGH. What the ____!

After my garlic tantrum everything was fine (it was literally a tantrum), but again this is why I do not enjoy cooking. One stupid ingredient blows the whole process, which is why today it was tough to be a Moosh.

Today's Recipe (pulled from a few Pinterest recipes I found but mainly "The Tasty Fork" site/pin):

• 1 12 oz can rootbeer (I used A&W)
• 1 tbsp chili powder
• 1 tbsp cumin
• 1 tbsp paprika
• 2 heaping tbsps brown sugar (I love the taste so I added a touch more)
• 1 tbsp some type of grill seasoning (used a McCormick maple rub I had in my pantry)
• 1 tsp salt
• 4 garlic cloves minced *UGHH!
• 1 onion sliced (Originally all recipes said to not actually serve them with the pulled pork, but I did and it was a nice touch!)
• 3 lb boneless pork roast

Served on/with:

• BBQ sauce if you want to add some on your bun (We used sweet baby rays brown sugar BBQ)
• Sweet bulkie rolls
• Cheddar cheese (our favorite is Hoffmans cheddar)

Toss all ingredients into a crockpot (minus the BBQ sauce, bulkie rolls, and cheddar cheese... obviously, but not so obvious to me!) and cooked on low for 5-6 hours.Take out the pork and pull it (I recommend bear claws!), then put it back in the crock pot (with all juice/sauce) for another 20-30 minutes and it should be ready to go. 

We served the pork on a toasted sweet bulkie roll with brown sugar BBQ sauce & a slice of melted cheddar cheese. Mmmmm.
My husband made amazing smoked gouda, cheddar, and spicy keilbasa mac and cheese, which I definitely recommend as well. All I did was help pour the cheese into the pan, so I can't take credit for that.

Lessons learned today:

-If I can buy it to save some aggrivation (minced garlic), I'm doing it from now on.
-No more trusting the produce guy... Jerk.
-The rootbeer definitely made the pork fall apart. We have these awesome "bear claw" thingys to pull the pork, which was very helpful. I recommend buying these!

-After my garlic fit my husband decided to make the side dish, so I'm still not doing side dishes for a bit.

Intro and my first "meal" :)

Welcome. I hope this is at least entertaining?

Well, here goes nothing! To give you an idea of why I decided to start this blog, let me just describe the "norm" in my household (consisting of my husband and I, our two dogs, and my old granny cat). The deal around our house has been that I am the "cleaner," and my husband is the "cooker." Not typical I know, but he knew the mess he was getting himself into the day I attempted to make dinner and dumped the couscous spice pack into the hamburger helper. Yes, these are two boxed items and somehow I managed to screw it up. Not to mention the million other times I've gone to make something and cannot understand the simple cookbook jargon, or burnt the food into an unidentifiable object. I'm embarrassed to say just how terrible my cooking skills are, but hey, I might as well just put it all out there if I'm trying to show some progress.
After 5 years together and 2 years of marriage, my husband has announced he is getting "tired" of cooking. Ut oh. Well I'm not "tired" of cleaning, but I guess that's my cue to suck it up and get in the kitchen. He is a fireman and also cooks/plans meals at the firehouse, so OK I guess doing all the cooking can get a bit tiring.  I accept the "challenge" to learn, but I'm willing to bet his GI tract will feel differently after trying a few of my "meals."

I've managed to make some small things over the years, I even did a crock pot buffalo chicken dip for a work party recently (for me, this is HUGE even though the recipe is brainless). So every now and then I can bust out something edible, but it's not too often.

To start this transition of "cooking," I'm taking over the weekend cooking and my husband will still cook on weekdays. I despise grocery shopping, but took it upon myself to look up a few recipes and head to the grocery store. Again, another big step as he typically grocery shops (because I come home with 50 snacks and nothing for dinner). Well, an hour and 20 minutes later and circling the grocery store about 4 times, I left there minus a few items I simply just couldn't find. I had to ask multiple employees where items were, and when I got "You're kidding right?" from the produce guy, I knew it was time to end this outing and head home with whatever the heck was in my cart.

DAY 1: Turkey burger mishaps.

Today I started with black bean turkey burgers! We are trying to eat healthier and my husband and I like turkey burgers, so I decided to play it safe and chose something we like. Yikes. In the end they were edible, but my kitchen was filled with smoke and two of them were, uuumm, crispy? I found a few recipes on pinterest and used various ideas, using ground turkey, an egg, black beans, chopped onion (almost lost a finger there), black pepper, and chili powder.
*A.D.D. comment: Can I just say how disgusting it is to touch raw meat. I've always hated touching ground beef, chicken, etc. Gloves are definitely in favor next time... Gross.
Anyway, the freakin' burgers were supposed to take 10 minutes to cook, 18 minutes later I realized I made them way too fat and I don't like cooking on our new stainless steal pans (hence the smokey kitchen and a few burnt burgers). Let's be honest, I probably would have burnt them on any pan.

After cursing in the kitchen for about 25 minutes, lunch was served and was edible (I think). I served these on a toasted bulkie roll (chipotle mayo and some garnishes) with some pita chips on the side. Don't get too excited, you didn't think I could make a side dish did you? So, this completes my first Saturday attempt at making something edible.
Overall, day 1 = a win, and I didn't even set off a smoke detecter, which makes me think I should probably go check those...

Tomorrow is crockpot pulled pork using root beer and some other spices. Yes, I realize crockpot may scream "easy" to some people, but again let's look at my cooking history here. I already bought the wrong type of pork to put into the crockpot, so my husband will be picking up the correct cut of meet on his way home from work in the AM. Whoops! Hey, it's all a learning experience right?

Today I Learned: 

-I need to coat my stainless steal pans a bit more before cooking. That poor brillo pad...
-When my kitchen appears on fire, it helps to open windows and make a cross breeze through the house (shout out to my fireman husband on that one).
-I can make something edible and create my own recipes (...well kinda, thanks to those who posted on pinterest and I stole your ingredient ideas, ha).
-I made my burgers way too chubby and need to slim them down a bit for next time.
-Food network is going to be my new favorite channel.
-Side dishes can wait for now...