Alphabet Week 19: SSS

Hello lovelies!



First Word that Pops into My Head:
Snake...I think this is due to the fact that seeing the "sss" made me think of snakes. (And Harry Potter...)

People I Know:
Sarah - lots of Sarah's, including my cousin!
Sam - Both boys and girls!
Samantha (see above)
Samuel (see above)
Scott - Are "s" names just really popular?
Sandy - My small group leader for women's bible study in WA
Shane -  Again...a few!

Colors:
Saffron
Sandy Brown
Sand
Sangria
Sapphire
Scarlet
Sea Green
Shamrock Green
Silver
Sky Blue
Slate Grey
Steel Blue

Favorites:
Swimming
Swings
Singing
Skies
Skillets
Skeins - Of yarn! =)

Dictionary Word I didn't Know:
Sabliere - Sand pit

Food:
Salad
Shrimp - If any one of you ever wants to buy me shrimp...let's just say I will eat it all as fast as possible (while still trying to look lady-like) and be exceedingly happy! Cold with cocktail sauce or in a pasta is best. I could probably write a whole post on shrimp, but I will spare you.
Seafood - Yum
Salmon - Also yum
Sandwiches
Salami
Sausage
Soup!

I hope this puts a Smile on your face! I wish you a smiling and sunny weekend!

Be blessed.
<3

Spicy Shrimp Linguini

Now that we are safely in Florida, my desire to cook has skyrocketed! And for some weird reason, my desire to eat pasta is hitting an all-time high as well. Thus, this fabulous recipe was born!

And tested over a game of Settlers of Catan (best game E.V.E.R...or pretty close anyways) and a glass of cranberry juice mixed with seltzer water.


I LOVED it, and I think my hubby did as well!

Look at that succulent shrimp!
{I don't really think succulent is the right word, but it is an awesome word, and shrimp is awesomely delicious = perfect fit, right!}
Ingredients:
1 medium handfull of Linguin Noodles
1 cup Shrimp (cooked is easier, but I used uncooked...it was cheaper!)
2 cloves Garlic
2 tablespoons Flour
1/2 cup Milk
1/3 cup Water
Olive Oil
Cayenne Pepper
Black Pepper
Parmesan Cheese


Instructions {for the noodles}:
1. Sprinkle a dash of salt into your pot of water to help it boil faster.


2. Once the water is fully boiling, break your noodles in half and place them in the pot.


3. Immediately add a teaspoon or two of olive oil to the pot and stir. This will keep the noodles from sticking together.


4. Once the noodles are soft, drain and fill your bowls.


Instructions {for the shrimp}:
1. Pour 2 teaspoons of olive oil in the bottom of a small frying pan and turn on to medium high heat.


2. Press the two cloves of garlic into the pan with the olive oil and add the shrimp.
(Note: Shrimp should be defrosted - if your shrimp is precooked, the shrimp will not stay in the pan very long AT ALL! If your shrimp is uncooked, sauté until the shrimp are lightly pink. Be careful, it is easy to over cook the shrimp.)
3. While sautéing the shrimp, add black pepper and cayenne pepper to taste.
(Note: I added approximately 1 tsp of cayenne pepper...and boy, were my sinus's clear!)


4. Once the shrimp are cooked, remove them from the frying pan and place them in the bowls on the noodles. Try to leave as much sauce as possible in the pan.


Instructions {for the sauce}:
1. Start with the sauce from cooking the shrimp, add 1/2 tablespoon of butter to the pan and let it melt.
(Note: Turn the temperature of the stove down to medium)


2. Add approximately 2 tablespoons of flour to the sauce/butter mixture and whisk vigorously.


3. When the flour and sauce are well mixed and bubbling, pour approximately 1/2 cup of milk into the pan. Stir until the mixture becomes thick.
(Note: You may need to turn the stove temperature back up.)


4. Once thick, add approximately 1/3 cup of warm water. This will thin out the white sauce a bit and make it not quite so heavy.


5. Pour the sauce generously over the noodles and shrimp. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese.


ENJOY!

{For a sweeter version of this same pasta, cut the cayenne pepper down to 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon and add 1 teaspoon of paprika.}

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Although this dish is spicy, I love, love, loved it! Yummy. Now, after typing this, I want to go make it again!


I hope you enjoy it. If you do go try it, I'd love to hear what you thought! Let me know in the comments below. Your comments make my day! <3


Be blessed.
<3

Healthy Apple Pie Minis

Healthy Apple Pie? Well...if you don't count all the butter I put into the crust... Haha!

Remember this sugar fast I'm doing?
Well, I can still have fruit and honey, and I've hit this point where I am ready to embrace the challenge but not give up on my sweet tooth.
So I figured, honey is sweet, why not make sweets with honey as my sweetener instead of sugar?

These were fabulous hot out of the oven! They would be even better with whipped cream or ice cream!
But hey, I'm not complaining! =)

APPLE PIE FILLING:

Ingredients:

2 Diced Apples (small cubes)

1/4 to 1/3 Cup Honey

1/2 - 1 tsp Vanilla

Nutmeg, Cinnamon, and Cloves to taste

A Pinch of Pumpkin Pie Spice

Instructions:

Combine and stir well. Let the mixture sit while you make the crust so that the flavors combine.

CRUST

Ingredients:

2 Cups Flour

1/2 tsp Salt

1 Cube of Butter

1/2 Cube of Margarine

1 Cup of Ice Water

Instructions:

Sift flour and salt together.  Cut in the butter and margarine.  Pour in the ice water until the dough sticks together. Chill for an hour.

THEN...

FINALLY...

{Note: Edges should be turning brown very slightly}

I baked the first batch in my regular oven on a pizza stone and the second batch (pictured above) in my toaster oven. I think the toaster oven dried them out a bit, so I would definitely recommend doing it in the oven.

Enjoy!

Be blessed.

<3

Saying Goodbye to Sugar...

...for 6 months. Yep...that's right. I'm on a SIX MONTH sugar fast.

YIKES

I started last Sunday...and by some miracle have made it one week already. Whoohoo!

So today, at a cousin's birthday party, I posted this to instagram...



What I am NOT eating...

Sigh...it looked so good.

So here are the details. My sister Abigail and I are doing this together so here are all the details:

Duration: 6 months
Allowed Foods: Natural sugars including fruit, honey, agave, etc.
Banned Foods: Sugar
Specified "Cheat Days": Once per week for one small serving of sugar (ie. a cookie or flavored latte)
Once per month full splurge day...as much sugar as I want! (Note: the week I use my full splurge day, I DO NOT get an additional day for a small amount of sugar)
Start Date: July 15, 2012
End Date: ....6 months from now??? We really need to figure that out exactly.

Have you ever done a sugar fast or cut out another food like this? What was it like? How did you keep yourself motivated?

Be blessed.
<3

Guest Post: Light Brownie Cheescake Bars

Hello everyone, I am really excited to be guest posting for Alesha today. Please allow me to introduce myself

My name is Shirley and I blog at Motivated Mommy of Two. I am a mom to the two most wonderful kids and a wife to the most loving and understanding husband.
I love to write about what motivates me to keep going with my weight loss journey, the awesome times I spend with my family. And of course all of the different projects I like to work around the house.
Today I wanted to share with you a recipe I shared with my readers a couple of months ago.
I love brownies and who does not like cheesecake?? So when I saw this on Pinterest I needed to try it out.

{Source: Becky Bakes}

One day after work I stopped at the grocery store and bought my ingredients:

I decided to try and make a light version of the desert.

Ingredients

• Two boxes brownie mix, prepared according to package
• 3 (8oz) 1/3 Less Fat Cream Cheese, softened
• 1 cup Sugar (I used a little less than a cup)
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp. Vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup Light Sour Cream

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees 
• Grease a 9x13 baking pan 
• Using a mixer, beat together the cream cheese and sugar

• Add eggs one at a time, beating after each one 
• Mix in vanilla and sour cream. Set aside

• Prepare brownie mixes according to package directions

• Pour and spread a little more than half of the mixture into the greased pan.

• Spread the cream cheese mixture over the brownie batter

• Spread the remaining batter evenly over the pan. 
• Bake for 40-50 minutes or until cheesecake appears set when jiggled. (Mine baked for about 45 minutes) 
• Allow it to cool, chill for several hours or overnight. (I left it overnight)

And in the morning the desert looked like this


I cannot begin to tell you how delicious this desert was, I could not stop eating it. I cut it into bite size pieces and when I was done I ended up with 38 of them.
I used My Fitness Pal to calculate the calories and it ended up being 153 calories per brownie. WHAT?!! No way??, yes way!!!, I was so glad when I saw that number because it made me feel a little less guilty.
Since I could not stop eating them. I took more than half to work and decided to share it with my co-workers. Placed the dish in the kitchen and I do not lie when I say that before lunch time desert was gone.
Please stop by and let me know if you guys tried the recipe. Alesha, Thank You for having me over.



This looks amazing! Thanks so much Shirley.
Be blessed!
<3

White Chicken Pasta

I made this delicious dinner a few weeks ago and then promptly forgot to share it with you all.  =(

But here it is now!

(Sorry for the blurry photo)

For lack of a better name...

White Chicken Pasta

Ingredients for Chicken:

1-2 Defrosted chicken breast sliced into 1/2 inch strips

Olive Oil

Fresh Garlic

Cayenne Pepper

Directions:

1. Saute the strips of chicken in olive oil.  Cook on medium heat until partially cooked

2.  Add one to two cloves of freshly pressed garlic

3.  Add a 1/4-1/2 teaspoon Cayenne Pepper

4.  Continue sautéing chicken until cooked through

Ingredient for Asparagus:

Olive Oil

Garlic Cloves to Taste

Salt 

Pepper

2 tbs. water

Directions:

1. On medium low, saute the asparagus in the olive oil, fresh pressed garlic, salt, and pepper (to taste).

2. After 10 minutes of gentle sautéing, add the water and cover.

3.  Let the asparagus gently steam, stirring occasionally.  Add more water if necessary.

(I didn't stir mine enough because I wasn't paying attention was too busy taking pictures so they burned.)

Ingredients for White Sauce:

2 tbs butter

2 tbs flour

(or equal parts of the two)

milk

onion powder

garlic powder

fresh ground pepper

Directions:

1. Melt the butter in your sauce pan on medium heat

2.  Whisk in the flour

3. Add about a 1/4 cup milk

4.  Whisk in the milk until it begins to thicken.

6.  Add onion powder, garlic powder, and pepper to taste. Whisk.

5. Continue to add milk until you have the desired consistency.

6.  Add a little water (because it will continue to thicken as it cools).

7.  Take it off heat.

NOW...serve it all up and enjoy! 

Delicious!

Let me know if you try it.  I LOVE this meal!

Be blessed!

Fun Snack

I have a dear friend who is allergic to yeast.  It sounds like no big deal, right?  Think again...no pizza, no sandwiches, no toast, bread french bread...and yeast is found in an amazing number of other food products (like certain brands of refried beans????).

So she made me lunch one time and we had crackers with cream cheese and lunch meat.

YUM!

I loved it!  So last week I made this for Travis and I as a light lunch...Cracker Sandwiches!

Layer:

Cracker

Cream Cheese

Sliced Ham

Sliced Cheddar Cheese (Tillamook only for me! =P )

Slice of Cucumber

And you have a delicious lunch.

 I like eating this as a lunch while working on something else because I can make one or two, eat them quickly while working, and then pause and make a few more.  Enjoy and let me know if you come up with any other delicious toppings!

Be blessed.

P.S.  Our retreat with the HS group was really good!  More to come on that.  =)

Valentines Day

It sounds like many of you had a nice Valentine's Day. I did a well, I woke up to 3 red roses on my nightstand and another dozen in the kitchen! (My 1st dozen red roses ever!) My sneaky husband waited until I was asleep Monday night to head to the store and by me roses. I woke up when he got back in bed with me but didn't suspect a thing and didn't even see the roses until he pointed the out the next morning! =) Aren't they beautiful?

For dinner I made Monterey Chicken and salad with leftover French bread from the night before. I got the chicken recipe from Pinterest, but I forgot to take a picture! =,( Sad day! Oh well, we both thoroughly enjoyed it!

I spent most of the day working on this for my hubby:

   

When he got home that was waiting for him. Unfortunately:

1. I didn't finish all 52 in time, so some are still waiting to be hidden and I have 10 left to make (I'll be doing that this afternoon).
2. And it had been a stressful day at work for him so he didn't get excited about it until later (after the stress had worn off and we had eaten some delicious food).
But that's okay, because he still hasn't finished finding all the ones I have hidden so far.

I think he is enjoying finding them all. I also got him a subscription to this Internet service that he has been wanting for awhile in our pursuit of going paperless. Yes, we are nerdy. Anywho, we had a calm evening with much needed opportunities to talk through life. Hope your Valentine's was blessed.

Oh, btw...check out this ADORABLE Valentine we got from my 7-year-old brother, Adam. He made his Valentine's all by himself and with no prompting from my mom! =)

How to Store Meat

I saw this on Pinterest the other day and has to try it! So when I bought a bunch of sausage and hamburger meat this week, so I had the perfect opportunity!

Top photo is Pinterest, bottom photo is mine!

It was so easy! And I can buy large quantities which saves money. =D Double win!

While I am at it, I thought I'd share another money saving/meat storing trick with you. A week ago (or so), I bought a whole cooked ham, bone on. It was a fraction of the cost of the small boneless hams I normally buy. When I got home I spent about and hour slicing it into lunch meat cunning it for salads, and leaving large oddly shaped chunks (use is to be determined). I got three quart baggies of lunch meat, a quart baggie of cubed pieces, and still had the whole bone section with quite a lot of meat left on it!
I froze all the meat and can pull it out to eat in small chunks!

Linking Up Here!

Well, hope some of you found this helpful!  Have a blessed day!