December Recipes 1 & 2

I did it! I tried two new recipes already since my last post - woot woot!  I had a glass of wine with my dinner this evening to celebrate.  Both recipes are from my edition of "The Woman's Day Everyday Cookbook"


Recipe 1:  Shrimp with Potatoes & Feta

We had some potatoes kicking around and up to no good.  I was able to use them up before they went bad and turn them into something tasty with this very easy recipe.

Recipe 2:  Shepherd's Pie

The shepherd's pie recipe was on the page next to the shrimp with potatoes & feta recipe.  I call that destiny.  That and the fact that we had almost all of the ingredients already made it a very easy experiment.

Honestly, I have always avoided shepherd's pie since it just looks like a mash up of different things.  Although I am still not a raving fan of this dish, it was pretty easy to compile and covered many essential food groups in one nice swoop.

My December recipes mark the completion of my 30/30 List Item to "Learn to cook 2 new recipes each month for one year."  An upcoming post will be a compilation of my efforts in the kitchen with some reviews from my loving Hubs.


Cheers to trying new things!

November Recipes 1 & 2

It's mid-December so I figured I better update you that I did in fact try 2 new recipes last month.

1.  Roasted Shrimp with Spaghetti Squash

Spaghetti squash was on display at the entrance of our grocery store so I figured - why not?  It was seasonal, easy, and healthy.

The shrimp recipe was kind of meh tasting overall.  I think I will serve spaghetti squash with marinara sauce and/or meatballs should I decide to make this in the future.

2.  Summer Squash Casserole

Recipe 2 hailed from a dish that Hubs first tried at work.  He brought the recipe home and asked if we could make it for Thanksgiving as a side dish.  I made it for both Thanksgiving dinners that we attended.  It was pretty yummy.

Unfortunately I didn't take any photos to remember this one.

Here are the cliff notes for my memory:  summer squash, cream of mushroom soup, cheese, carrots, and sour cream.

Since this recipe calls for summer squash, I think it would probably taste a little better when summer squash is in season as opposed to the summer squash that I was able to find in the grocery store in mid-November.

 So, uh, hi December 15th...Guess I better get crackin' on the December recipes!

Homemade LOL Cat Photo Calendar

Every year my siblings and I draw names for a Christmas gift exchange.  This year I wanted to do something special for my little sister.  My little sister is off to the Peace Corps in early 2014 and she loves cats.  I wanted to give her something that would be useful and light-hearted so I looked no further than my cat Wronny and my go-to online photo publisher, Shutterfly.

I had a lot of fun making this calendar.  Below is a step by step guide of how you too can create something fun with pictures from your pet.

Step 1:  Gather some existing pictures of your pet and organize them into categories that align with a calendar.  Do you have a Christmas-y picture?  Or a nice picture of your pet in the foliage?  These can be good anchor photos to get you started thinking of pictures for certain seasons of the year.  It is also helpful to incorporate some of your favorite photos of your pet.  You may decide that you will need to take some new pictures of your pet in both natural and posed settings.

Step 2:  Research LOL cat captions or come up with some of your own!  Be creative and let loose!  Get comfortable with poor grammar and spelling and turning your s's into z's.

Step 3: Find an online photo editor to use to modify your images, play with photo filters, and add your text captions.  I used fotoflexer.com.  I highly recommend this site.  It was very easy to use, offered several photo filters and numerous text font options.

Step 4:  Upload your final edited photos to Shutterfly, choose a calendar template, organize by month, and purchase!

Here is my final product.  Drumroll please...

January 2014

February 2014

March 2014

April 2014

May 2014

June 2014

July 2014

August 2014

September 2014

October 2014

November 2014

December 2014