my sweet aunt lee's strawberry delight

i spent the weekend in nachitoches, louisiana (where my family is from, roughly) with my aunts, cousins, sister, mother - well, my girls. my sweet lee makes this amazing strawberry delight and i only get it about once a year at our family reunion. WELL - she let out the recipe! well - not really -sort of what is in it and i snuck some photos while it was being put together.

she mixed a softened block of cream cheese with a small can of sweetened condensed milk. and then made whip cream from some heavy whipping cream with a little bit of sugar. the cake is chopped, store bought angel food cake. then, she chopped up a bunch of strawberries before hand and set in a bowl. sneaky photos to follow:

my sister and my aunts love it - as you can tell. slap that baby in the fridge, and it is so light and airy but it satisfies your sweet tooth. LOVE LOVE LOVE it!

easter!

i cant wait until easter! i'm not religious in any form or function - BUT i love my family and i love food! and mom is cooking! woo! easter means Schwann's ham. i get it twice a year. its glorious!

you've got to be kidding me...

my first grilling experience!

 so, i got an old smokey. my sweet little porch at the new apartment was perfect for it. i was talking about wanting to cook on it to my friend kate the other day and she asked if i knew what i was doing. i'm assuming i took too long to answer because the next thing i knew, we were planning what to cook on it and she was going to show me what to do. ha!

here is my tiny beauty in all it's glory!

 nick was in charge of keeping an eye on it. you know when something is brand new you think its going to explode or something? nick was quality control.

 kate brought some shrimp. i've never cooked shrimp from raw. remember when i did the seafood? yeah, i got sicked out and got the already cooked kind. kate has no fear.

that's kate by the way.

 see? this is why i dont cook them. they have tiny wieners.

this is what consisted of our kabobs:

shrimp
chicken
red and green bell peppers
pineapple
onion
mushroom

i washed them and simply sliced them all into large chunks. the chicken, i marinated overnight in a ziplock, cut up, in some italian dressing. simple. easy.

kate showed me how to properly slice a pineapple. nick doesnt eat pineapple (which makes sense why you'll see some skewers filled with just chicken - far away from shrimp and pineapple).

nick, still monitoring the grill.

so, if you notice, there is a method to my madness. now, i'm not real sure if it means anything - but when i put the ingredients on the stick, i thought of what i would want to meld into the other. kinda to have a good veggie, bad veggie ratio. pineapple MUST be on the chicken, not on the mushroom. (sick) does that mean anything? am i just making shit up? chicken and shrimp, far far away from anything like the veggies. aside from being sicked out of goo touching goodness - its unsanitary.

OH! also, soak the skewers in water for a good 30 minutes before hand. this keeps it from burning when its on the grill.

 so - now to the grilling. nick's duty has been halted and he is now playing guitar and drinking a beer. check.

you dont want to grill anything until all the coals turn white. thanks, dad. there was something he told me about how to tell what temperature you have. something about if you hold your hand over the grill and you can sit for 6 seconds, its low heat. and so on a so forth. i was on my second glass of chardonnay - so i really didnt do that. whatever.

 slap those babies on the grill. shrimp, last - they dont take very long. just enough to where they look pink and well - like a shrimp you would eat. the veggies, you want to make sure they're still firm so you get nutrition from it, but by the time the chicken is done, the veggies are done. poke the shit out of the chicken until it looks cooked and then flip it to the other side.

yeah, uh, dont spin it. its on a skewer. those babies will spin. pick it up, flip it over the opposite end - and lay it back down. i'm a moron, i know.

almost done!

 little Penelope was so sad that she couldn't come out and sniff around. she'd think she was licking a shrimp (or "skrimp" as kate called them all night. ugh, lol) and she'd lick a damn flame. sorry, p.










anyway - i had a successful night grilling. too much wine was consumed. we ended up playing a game of donkey kong jenga with our full bellies and our tipsy heads. didnt work very well. but we were all richer for the experience. HA! okay, i have no idea what i'm saying. i'm just trying to make up for the fact that i didn't take a photo of the finished product. i was tipsy and i ate it. so what?

i'm guessing that was a mini hiatus?

 or stroke? like, blog stroke? ha.

i have been mia on this blog for a while. that move was a royal pain in my ass and i gave up with cooking after the dump rice. that was an all time low for me, im not going to lie.

but i'm back now! i have a new, bigger, kitchen and we're moved in and ready to go!

OH! OH! since we live on the first floor now, we got a grill! i've never learned how to do anything on one of those damn things because we've always lived on the third floor or higher and we weren't allowed to have one on our balcony. well, technically, we're not supposed to have one still - BUT we'll drag that flippin' thing to the court yard. and when i say grill, i mean this little guy:

 

don't judge. anyway, woo! now off to research how to use the dang thing.

let me introduce you to dump rice.

first round in cleaning out the pantry. i found some tequila in the bottom of the pantry, so i took a swig (ugh, mistake, im not as hardcore as my father) and thought of making a margarita chicken with some spanish rice. because, well, i had two boxes of instant rice and my cook book told me to.

as for the chicken,


INGREDIENTS:
chicken (i had the precut tenders, breasts work fine)
1/2 cup lime juice (i only used half a lime that was for some reason in a little baggy in the cheese drawer. i only realized it was for nick when we was digging around for it so he could put it in his corona. oops.)
2 tblsp olive oil
2 tblsp cilantro (i used the dried kind)
a few sprinkles of sugar
salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp paprika
1.5 oz tequila (the other .5 went in my belly)



DIRECTIONS:

in a bowl, pour lime juice, olive oil, tequila, and spices until well blended. marinate the breasts at least 30 minutes, but no longer than 24 hours. cook them on a skillet over medium heat on each side until juices run clear. done!

and wait!
guess what!

it wasn't dry ass chicken! woo!











then, i made some spanish rice. now, betty crocker had a great recipe. easy, painless. but uh, i didnt have much of anything to work with. because i also haven't gone to the grocery store for anything. we dont even have sliced cheese. what! im cleaning out the food!

so i followed the next recipe as best as i could.


INGREDIENTS:

1

cup uncooked regular rice (i totally used one of those bag o' rice things)

1

medium onion, chopped (1/2 cup)

2

tablespoons olive oil

cup water

1

can (14 ounces) diced tomatoes (woo! i have like four cans of that crap!)

1

small green bell pepper, chopped (nope, didnt have that.)

1 1/2

teaspoons salt

1tblsp chili powder 1 clove garlic, minced


DIRECTIONS:

in a large skillet, cook chopped onion and garlic until tender. okay, side note. i have one of those choppers that keeps everything so contained and neat. and i hate it. i cant put a damn layer of onion in there and chop it up without it sucking them up in the blade and getting stuck. so here i am, beating the shit out of the dang thing while nick is giving me the stink eye because he is engulfed in his Harry Potter book.

ugh, i hate it.

/rant

once the onion and garlic is cooked, add the chili powder. you'll know when you've put enough in there because you'll want to gouge your eyes out from pain. let that cook for about a minute. then add the rest of the ingredients. (water, salt, tomatoes, rice, etc) bring everything to a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer and cook, covered, for 20 minutes.

this is when i go digging in the pantry. "im sure there's some more crap i can throw in this rice to get rid of it." the only thing i found was corn. nick gave me a weird look when i took out a can of black eye peas i cant seem to get rid of.

so here is meal one. margarita lime chicken with dump rice. haha. nick loved it, he went back for seconds on the rice. but then again, spicy something with corn. everyone loves that.

cleaning out my pantry dinner series.

we're moving. when are we moving? oh you know, april 1st.

we have been waiting for the floor plan we love for a couple of months now. and guess what! it's available! but here's the catch - you have two weeks to move. uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh.

so here will follow my series of meals that i bullshit my way through getting rid of everything in my pantry so i dont have to move it.

 

apparently i thought i was going to have a party that involved 6 bags of tortilla chips. some of this crap in here has been in here forever. still good though. what is that up top? oh you know, my swarovski crystal wine glasses i got from my wedding that i have used once. they scare the crap out of me. ha.

anyway, there is a box of cous cous and some cream of wheat. i hope i dont drink too much wine and try to combine that with a hamburger bun.

cheers!