My first apple pie

My mom's birthday was on Thanksgiving, so I wanted to make her favorite as the dessert. So I ventured into my very first apple pie.

I found this recipe on Gillian's blog, and it was really great. I was a little bit nervous because it looked so ugly, but it came out great. It smelled so good as we drove to Grandma's house, I was very excited to eat it.

I used a premade crust, using the generic brand. It tasted fine, but it also played a role in the ugliness factor because there were lots of tears as I unrolled the crust.

Because we were traveling, I didn't get a chance to take a picture, so you'll just have to use your imagination, but it was a great and easy recipe!

For Messy Cooks (like me)

I have been on the lookout for a nice apron, because I am... well, a messy cook. My friend Kim *check her out here* posted about a contest to win a free apron. You can check out the contest, as well as the great aprons at Epicurean Style, and the contest is at epicureanstyle.typepad.com (scroll down to Up For Grabs)! I love the Molly style!

Italian Confetti Pasta Salad

I found this on allrecipes... you can see the recipe here.

We were going over to friends' for dinner, and were told they would be grilling. Pasta salad seemed a fitting side dish, so we went with it.

This was SO good; everyone loved it! YUM; BAJ even raved that this is a keeper for sure.
I made a few simple modifications... first, I used olive oil mayonnaise, because that's what I had on hand and I figured it would go well. A great choice. I used green bell pepper, instead of yellow, because they were much cheaper. I'm glad I didn't get red, because this added another dimension of color. I also added some red onion into the mix, which added a GREAT tang to the salad. Finally, I didn't have any black olives, so I didn't use em.

This was great, and is a keeper in our house for sure!

Italian Baked Chicken and Pastina

I saw this on Lauren's blog and made it. You can see the recipe here. I didn't read the recipe very carefully and mistook "Cubed chicken" for cooked chicken. So I used those Purdue short cuts thingies, and skipped the cooking it step. It worked pretty well, and surely cut down my prep time. I threw in some garlic for good measure.

This was pretty tasty, but a little bit on the bland side. The Boy ate the pasta and the tomatoes, but wouldn't touch the chicken...big surprise.

I don't know if I'll keep this one or not...

As a side, I had purchased some snow peas to throw into the salad I made. But I decided that wasn't a flavor I wanted in my salad, so I followed the recipe in the container to make basically a stir fry, which included red peppers, mushrooms, and snow peas. It was pretty good, although not a very good choice of side with an Italian pasta entree. Ha!

Turkey Roulade with Cider Apple Gravy.

I found this here. I figured this would be a great Sunday dinner, and in theory it was. It was easy, but very very time consuming. Way too much work, even for Sunday dinner. It was all good, but not so good to make the work levels worth it. The potatoes were very good, so that will be a keeper. BAJ didn't mind the cranberry relish, but I thought it was WAY too tangerine-y and couldn't taste the pear at all.

As you can see from the pics, the stuffing didn't hold together so well despite being tied up.

Chicken Tetrazinni

I got this from my Betty Crocker's Bridal Edition cookbook. I had leftover cooked chicken from the enchiladas, and was looking for a good way to use them. This was pretty tasty, and very easy to make. SCORE!

Free Amazon gift card

WOOO! Go check it out here!

Honey Lime Enchiladas with Tomato Chipotle Rice

I found these mentioned here on Good Eats n Sweet Treats. It looked so good that I had to try, and the combination with the rice sounded perfect. What a great choice! We both loved it, even though it was much too spicy, even with only one pepper. BAJ combined the rice with the enchilada and seemed to like it a lot that way.

I modified the recipe to make enough for two. I started with a store bought rotisserie chicken, and shredded one breast of it. I mixed in some of the marinade, but it started getting sort of gloppy--I kept adding more in the hopes of having leftover marinade as the recipe suggests. This made enough for three full sized tortilla shells, which was the perfect amount for both of us. I couldn't find green enchilada sauce, so used regular. The can was 10 oz, and when I added cream it almost filled the can with what was left after coating the bottom with it... so probably about 1/2 a cup.

As far as the rice, I also made a smaller amount of that too. I used half a small onion, and made enough for 2 servings of brown rice. I just realized that I didn't modify the amount of tomatoes, but that was just fine.

I wasn't sure what to do with the chipotle pepper, so I cut it into smaller pieces in the pan. I did, however, make sure that we didn't get any on our plates, fearing it would be way too spicy for us.

This was fantastic, and I'm so glad I found it!

Pictures coming soon!