Lasagna (Homemade)

I've always wanted to try and make my own lasagna from scratch just to see how much better (or worse) it is than buying my favorite store bought lasagna, Stouffer's. And I must say, my lasagna tastes so much better than Stouffer's (Sorry Stouffer's, I still like your lasagna but I like mine more. haha). I added spinach and used cottage cheese instead of the usual ricotta and it's oh-so-DELISH! My family even likes it more than my Italian Pastina which I previously made for them. I think I know what I'll be making for Christmas dinner at my parents this year. :)

Chocolate chip, walnut cookies

I love to bake. And one of my favorite desserts to bake are cookies. During my vacation back in good ol' San Diego, my siblings had asked if I could bake my chocolate chip, walnut cookies. And so I did. One batch of cookies equals to about 55-60 cookies, depending on how big I make them. If I make them a bit smaller, one batch equals to about 70-75 cookies. Anywho, I made big cookies this time around and by the third day the cookies were gone. Maybe next time I'll make oatmeal, chocolate chip cookies and hopefully it'll last a bit longer than three days.

Buon Appetito!

While on vacation in San Diego, my husband and I met up with our friends, C and E at an Italian restaurant called Buon Appetito in Little Italy. It's a very cute Italian restaurant where you know it's the real deal because the waiters/waitresses speak in Italian. I knew I should not have stopped learning Italian, I would have been able to speak with our wait staff. Oh well. Anywho, I ordered the Farfalle con Pollo Affumicato. Basically it's grilled chicken with mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, and eggplant in a white wine cream sauce with bow-tie pasta. It was very delicious! Hubby ordered the Linguini allo Scoglio. He says his dish was good. And it's not very often my hubby enjoys a dish because he can be a picky eater.

Cookies

I've been enjoying baking cookies as of late. Especially cookies that I want to eat such as chocolate chip walnut cookies, oatmeal chocolate chip and oatmeal walnut chocolate chip cookies. But my all time favorite cookies to buy are Pepperidge Farm's Apricot Raspberry Verona cookies. They are so delicious it's hard to share one bag with others. Lol.

Pad Baigapoa

Or in English, Spicy Basil Beef.

This was my attempt on making Pad Baigapoa (Spicy Basil Beef). It wasn't so much spicy due to the fact that we didn't have Thai chilies (very expensive where we live and very limited). Since there was lack of Thai chilies, I substituted cayenne pepper and well, there was a hint of heat but not so much as if I had Thai chilies. Oh well. Next time. The dish was still good nonetheless.

Chips

So my new favorite bag of chips are Baked! Lay's Parmesan and Tuscan Herb chips. If you haven't tried them you should go out to your nearest Target, because that's where I bought them and buy a bag or two. Just so you know you can't just eat a handful of these chips, they are so addicting and oh-so-delicious. That's why I recommend buying a second bag. :)

Shrimp Scallop Pasta

Tuesday night husband and I decided not to eat the Chicken Tender leftovers and instead I made Shrimp Scallop Pasta. MmmMM! :) Up until a year ago, I was not very fond of scallops. The only seafood I ate were fish, shrimp and crabs but now I can add scallops to that list.

Baked Chicken Tenders with Thai Fried Rice

Last night I made chicken tenders with (my version of) Thai fried rice. I have a tendency of making food for at least 5 people when it's just me and my husband and our dog Rocky, but he doesn't eat people food with the exception of bananas. So anyway, we have leftovers for the next few days.

La Casita Restaurant

Hubby and I ate lunch at a local Mexican restaurant here in Sierra Vista called La Casita Restaurant before watching a movie at the mall. Once again, I forgot to bring my camera to take pictures. I seriously need to get in the habit of bringing my camera or at least my husband's camera with me when we go out. I would bring my camera with me but it's one of those fancy-professional-type of a camera and I don't want to lug it around with me when I can just bring my husband's handy point-and-shoot camera in my purse. If only I can remember to bring it. Okay, moving on.. the restaurant was nice. I liked it. The food was great. I ordered the "4 Chimis" meal, in other words 4 chimichangas which were 2 beef and 2 chicken. It also came with beans and rice. A very hearty meal for a great price. My husband had the fish tacos meal and that too was good, although it wasn't very fulfilling. Wow, just talking about food is making my mouth water. I haven't eaten my breakfast yet. Lol. Anywho, I definitely want to come back and try some other dishes.

Mi Nidito Restaurant

Last Friday, my husband and I trekked our way to Tucson (we live in a small town an hour away from Tucson) for a matinee movie and lunch at a Mexican restaurant called Mi Nidito. My husband is very picky when it comes to food and there are limited places where he likes to eat and this Mexican restaurant just so happens to be on that list. Mi Nidito is a small but very popular restaurant. There is always a line outside the door to get in. The longest we're ever had to wait was about 45 minutes, but the food is so good, the wait is worth it. There are pictures of President Clinton and then first lady Hillary Clinton at the restaurant as well as the guy from Man vs. Food. I believe they filmed an episode at Mi Nidito last year, however I missed it on tv. I brought my camera with me to take pictures of the food that I ordered, however, I was engrossed by the smell of my food that I forgot about the camera in my purse. Whoops! Next time my husband and I eat there, and I'm sure there will be a next time, I'll take pictures of our food to show you the deliciousness from Mi Nidito. :)

Pad Sei Ew

Tonight's dish was another Asian/Thai dish, Pad Sei Ew, also known as Street Noodles in English. It was my first time making this dish and it was very scrumptious if I say so myself. My husband wanted fresh rice noodles, but living here in the desert with not many asian/oriental stores we were stuck with whatever they had. I'm actually getting the hang of cooking Thai food now. I love the spices and fresh vegetables that they use. I can't wait until my husband and I move to a city where there are a lot more asian/oriental stores that sell fresh seafood. There's only so much meat, chicken and frozen shrimp that one can eat over and over.

Gang Gai with Beef Jerky

After my Italian dish, there were a few days of eating left over chicken and pastina. And after eating pasta for almost a week I decided to go Asian for my next dish, Thai food to be exact. And so last night I made *Gang Gai (Red Curry Chicken) with homemade beef jerky (my in-laws made the beef jerky, I just fried it).

*Gang Gai isn't very red in the photo. I added 2 tbsp of red curry paste and it still wasn't bright red, however it was spicy, as it should be.

Italian Baked Chicken and Pastina

One of my favorite chefs to watch on tv and to get recipes from is Giada De Laurentiis. Italian food is one of my favorite foods to cook and eat and Giada's recipes are easy and oh-so-delicious! So last night I made Italian Baked Chicken and Pastina for the first time and might I add it turned out grreat! The pasta wasn't too cheesy or too saucy and it had the right amount of vegetables and chicken, just how I like it.

A New Beginning

Hello!

Day 1 of my new blog. It's always exciting on starting something new. However, this isn't my first blog. I've had my share of past blogs, but this is my very first blog where I focus on one thing. Okay mainly one thing and that is FOOD. I sound like a McFatty talking about it, but there is a reason why I decided to blog. 1) I love food. Meaning, I love to cook, bake, watch anything that has to do with food. I would say that 80% of the time the tv at home is set on either the Food Network channel or the Cooking channel (and my husband doesn't mind). 2) I would 'tweet' what I would cook each night at home but there is only so much you can type under 140 characters. Here, I can go on and on and even post a few pictures up of what I cooked/baked. And 3) I recently (yes, I'm very behind on catching up with new movies) watched Julie & Julia and I was very keen on how Julie, played by Amy Adams blogged about her cooking journey. I thought to myself, 'Hey, that's something I would like to do.' And so here I am starting my cooking blog/journal.

Hope you enjoy!