Creamy (And Very Pretty) Sausage and Tomato Pasta

I know I just posted a recipe this morning, but to be honest I made that meal on Saturday night.  I just cleaned up the kitchen after making tonight's dinner and boy was it delicious.  As I'm sure you can tell by now, the recipes I like to use aren't very fancy or complex but I'm a fairly simple girl so that's how I like it. 

This is the first time I made this recipe and it was a hit!  I really wish I could say I whipped up the idea on my own, but that's rarely the case (maybe someday.)  This meal comes from a food blog by the name of thegirlwhoateeverything.blogspot.com. 

Here's what you'll need:

-1 lb spicy pork sausage (found in the lunch meat/bacon section of the grocery store)
-1 cup chopped onion
-3 cloves garlic, minced
-1 (16 ounce) can Italian style diced tomatoes
-1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
-1 cup heavy cream
-5-6 big leaves of fresh basil, chopped
-12 ounces penne pasta (get a 16 ounce box and use 3/4 of it)
grated Parmesan for topping

 1.  Chop onion and basil and mince garlic.  Put a pot of water on the high heat and bring to a boil. 

2.  While water comes to a boil, brown the sausage. 

3.  Stop to take a picture of your dog yelling at your husband.

4. Add the onions and garlic to the sausage and saute for about 5 minutes. 

5.  Pour in the entire can of diced tomatoes and the tomato sauce and heat through. Water should be boiling now and this is a good point to throw in the pasta.  Cook al dente according to package instructions.

6. Pour in the cream and heat through.  The longer you cook the sauce the thicker it will get so simmer it for a while.  (About 5-8 minutes)

7.  Add the fresh basil and let it simmer for a few more minutes

Isn't this such an awesome color?

8. Strain your pasta and return to pot. 

9.  Finally, pour sausage and sauce over the pasta and mix. 

Sprinkle some Parmesan cheese on top and serve with garlic bread (comes in handy when it comes to soaking up the sauce at the end).   A nice glass of red wine can only make things EVEN better :) This meal is a winner. I hope you enjoy as much as we did.  

Slow Cooker Pot Roast & Creamy Mashed Potatoes.

I don't know about you Californians, but for those of us living in Georgia, today is a great day to post a slow cooker recipe.  It's cloudy and rainy with a high of 68 degrees.  I got this pot roast recipe from allrecipes.com and the mashed potatoes come from thepioneerwoman.com. 

Allow 8-9 hours for the pot roast if you plan on cooking it on low heat (which I like to do) or 3-4 hours if you cook on high. 

Here are the ingredients you will need:

• 2 (10.75 ounce) cans condensed cream of mushroom soup
• 1 (1 ounce) package dry onion soup mix
• 1 1/4 cups water
• About 1 cup baby carrots (this wasn't even the original recipe but i'm really glad i added them)
• 5 1/2 pounds pot roast  (i bought one that only weighed just over 3lbs because there is only two of us, plus i'd rather have a lot of gravy so i didn't adjust the other ingredients

 

1. Place pot roast in slow cooker.

2.  Mix soup, dry onion mix and water together. 

 3. Pour mixture over roast, add carrots and cover.  Stir every few hours (the soup eventually bubbles and i flipped the roast a few times). 

this is before it is cooked at all.

Now, you wait.  When you have about 45 minutes left on the roast, start your mashed potatoes. 

You will need:

• 5 pounds Russet Or Yukon Gold Potatoes
• 3/4 cups Butter
• 1 package (8 Oz.) Cream Cheese, Softened
• 1/2 cup (to 3/4 Cups) Half-and-Half (I used 2% milk)
• 1/2 teaspoon (to 1 Teaspoon) Lawry's Seasoned Salt
• 1/2 teaspoon (to 1 Teaspoon) Black Pepper (No thank you.)

 Again, I didn't use these exact amounts because there is only two of us.  I used about 3 lbs of potatoes and adjusted the other ingredients accordingly.   


1.  Bring a large pot of water to boiling.  Cut potatoes into quarters and add to boiling water.  Cook about 30 minutes or until tender (when poked with a fork, potatoes should nearly fall apart).

2.  Drain the potatoes in a large colander. When the potatoes have finished draining, place them back into the dry pot and put the pot on the stove. Mash the potatoes over low heat, allowing all the steam to escape, before adding in all the other ingredients.

 

 3.  At this point, I turned off the stove and removed the pot to the counter top (don't forget to put down a hot plate).  Add remaining ingredients.  Start with half the suggested milk and add as you go.  I used a handheld mixer to make the potatoes more fluffy than lumpy. 

Now that that is done,  spoon a generous helping of potatoes on your plate and top with pot roast.  The pot roast should fall apart.  Don't forget to spoon on lots of gravy and carrots. 

Yes please! 

easy wrapping and pumpkin seeds

here's a few quick and easy do it yourself projects.

i saw this idea on pinterest and thought it was so cute!  just cut up a paper grocery bag and use it as wrapping paper.  tie it up with some twine and add some flare to make it your own such as a cute tag or scrapbooking items.  very easy with a vintage look!

the next thing is a super simple fall treat.  roasted pumpkin seeds. i'm sure there are tons of fancy ways to do this, but i like mine plain and simple.  with butter and salt! here's what you'll need:

-1 1/2-2 cups pumpkin seeds
-2 tablespoons melted butter
-salt

1. First I set the oven to 300 degrees.  Then I removed as much pumpkin from the seeds as possible and rinsed them off in a strainer

2. Melt butter and toss seeds in it to coat.  Spread evenly in a single layer on a cookie sheet

3.  Sprinkle salt over all the seeds. If you are like me, you will sprinkle LOTS of salt
4.  Bake for 40 minutes, stirring and flipping them a few times throughout (and adding more salt, woops.)

perfection! i've eaten half of these in about 20 minutes. dangit.

our little cupcake!

today is an exciting day.  actually, it's just thursday and my husband is working all day and i spent my morning in a waiting room with all old people waiting to get an echocardiogram.  and if you are me last week and don't know what that is, its an ultrasound of your heart. 

but why today is exciting to ME is because it marks 20 weeks in my pregnancy.  that means i am halfway there! you know how people let you believe that pregnancy lasts 9 months? well that's a mean lie.  it's really 10 months.  40 weeks. granted, when you find out you are pregnant you are already 4-5 weeks along, but still. 

anyway! i thought i'd recap last weekend since it was such a memorable one for us. 

friday was the big day.  the anatomy scan we have been looking forward to for months.  our plan all along had been to go to the appointment in the morning and then leave shortly after that for Savannah, where we spent the weekend celebrating our first anniversary.  well, things didn't really go according to plan.  it was the last day of the quarter for jon which means he could be really busy.  last minute he got a call to work on thursday about 3 hours away.  he was supposed to finish the job that day and make it home in time to go to the appointment friday but that's not what happened.  the part they were waiting on kept getting delayed and i found out thursday evening that he wasn't gonna be back in time for the appointment. there were lots of tears on my end and i could tell jon was really bummed too. 

so the next morning i got up and headed to the appointment.  when i got in the room, the ultrasound tech started doing her job and immediately we both notice how nonstop the baby was.  it took her forever to get the right measurements because our little squirmer would not sit still.  the tech even mentioned that this may be the most active baby she's seen. oh great. i hope that's not foreshadowing of what its gonna be like once he/she is born! i made sure she knew that i didn't want to know the gender.  i had her tell me when to turn away so she could find out on her own and then write it down and seal it in an envelope.  she said she may not even be able to tell what it is because of how much the baby was moving but said she saw.  so she left and the doctor came in.  he went over everything himself and pointed out all the parts.  it was the most amazing thing i've ever seen.  he knew every inch of the baby and showed me the kidneys, heart valves, every finger and every toe.  when he got to the feet he showed me that the baby's second toe is longer than its big toe. i laughed because mine is the same way, but only on one foot.  i told him this so he goes to the other foot and sure enough, normal! sorry baby, you got mommy's weird feet.  he also pointed out the facial featured and told us that our baby is probably gonna be born with chubster cheeks.  i couldn't believe it!  he/she had such a round and (apparently) full face for so early in the pregnancy.  haha i'm dying to see this baby! he figured out the gender without even having me look away and when he was done, the tech came back with my envelope containing the results.  AHHHHH! i was so relieved that everything about our sweet baby looked normal and healthy but now is when the real anticipation set it.

profile.  legs are scrunched up to the chest.

i drove straight from there to the cupcake shop and called jon on the way to tell him all the details.  the lady at the cupcake place was happy to work with me and agreed to fill a cupcake with a colored filling according to the gender.  i headed home and waited for jon to get back so we could leave to savannah.

we finally hit the road around 3:15pm and arrived in savannah at 7:30pm. 

thanks to my mom and dad, we stayed at the westin hotel right on the riverfront.  the back of our hotel faced downtown savannah, right across the river. it was beautiful!

 

 

our room

beautiful view. downtown savannah right across the river

we dropped our stuff off at the room and changed real quick.  by this time it was 8pm and not only were we hungry but we were dying to know what our baby was!!  we went to a yummy sushi place about 20 minutes away and had a great, romantic dinner. 

that tiny little box held our baby's fate!

and then it was time.  jon cut the seal of the box and i started squealing in excitement.  we weren't able to tell by the frosting so we knew we had to cut into it to get our answer.  the pictures tell the story...

it's a girl!!!!!

happy parents :)

needless to say, we were overjoyed!!  i've just "known" since very early in the pregnancy that this baby was a girl and so it was amazing to confirm my gut.  my mommy intuition is in working order woo hoo!!  my favorite part about the whole night was watching jon glow and listening to him talk about his daughter.  that little girl already has him completely wrapped around her tiny little fingers.  he is going to be the most amazing daddy in the whole world and i know she will look at him as a super hero. 

also, we got to start calling her by her name, which is makena rylie smith. makena is a town in maui that jon and i visited and loved. plus we just love the name and the hawaiian reference since such a huge part of our relationship centered around hawaii. 

the rest of the weekend was a dream.  we slept in, laid by the pool, visited tybee island and walked around downtown savannah.  jon also surprised me with tickets to see wicked this weekend! it was the perfect way to celebrate not only our baby girl news, but also the first year of marriage that jon and i have experienced together.  and as most of you know, it has been quite a year.  i am so blessed to be married to such a wonderful man and i am so proud to have him be the father of my children.  i love you so much jonathan smith. 

i'll leave you with a few more pictures from our perfect weekend.

tybee island

october 3, 2011. one year anniversary. starting a photo tradition of holding the picture of the year before :)

Sausage and Potato Skillet

the gender reveal story is coming, but until then i think i'll hook you up with another recipe.  this is one of those typical meat and potato meals.  i found it in a healthy cookbook, but of course i have come up with ways to alter the recipe and make it a little less healthy.  aka way more delicious.  

here's what you'll need:

-1 pound of sausage (I use spicy pork sausage, found in the lunch meat/bacon section of the grocery store; I really think a spicy sausage adds a lot of flavor)
-1 onion, chopped

-2 lbs red potatoes (about 12 medium, unpeeled, very thinly sliced)

-1 1/2 cups chicken broth

-1/2 tsp salt

-1/2 tsp paprika

-Garlic salt and Flavor Booster (generously)

-1/8 tsp pepper

 

  

      1.   Start by chopping your onions and slicing your potatoes very thin

2.     Heat large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add sausage.  Cook 4-5 minutes, stirring frequently, under no longer pink.  Transfer sausage to a plate and set aside for now.    

3.   Add onions, cook over medium heat about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Gently stirring, cook sausage and remaining ingredients.   

remember to be generous on the seasonings.  i added about this much garlic salt/flavor booster now and also a few minutes before it was done cooking.

4.   Heat to boiling.  Reduce heat to medium-low (for me, medium because my stove doesn't get as hot as most), cover tightly and cook for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are tender.  Remove from heat, gently stir mixture.  Let stand covered 10 minutes to allow flavors to blend and light sauce to form. 

 

and there you have it!  this meal is man-approved, especially if you use the spicy sausage cause it gives the whole dish a nice kick.  when it comes to serving sizes, i don't go by your standard servings.  this recipe said it makes 4-6 servings, but when you have a hungry husband and a tasty dish like this, you get 2 servings plus one large leftover meal.  i'd say this feeds 3 men or 4 women :)

enjoy!

 

uncle paul's pickles.

and so i bring to you, the recipe portion of this blog! sorry if pickles aren't your thing but they definitely are mine.  and uncle paul sure knows how to pickle a cucumber.  i got this recipe from my mom, who got it from her brother paul. i assume he made it up considering they are called uncle paul's pickles.  or you can call them kristen's pickles if you want :) ok i'm done. enjoy!

Before you start, you will need the following things:

-White vinegar

-Non-iodized salt

-Alum (found in the spice aisle in grocery store usually in a small container, it took me 3 stores to find but kroger sells it!)

-Sugar

-Grape leaves (i got mine at whole foods)  They come in a jar.  Or, if you know anyone with vines, you can always go steal some!

-Fresh dill 

-Fresh garlic

-Large container or jar to stand the pickles up in, in layers.  If you have a left-over large jar from Costco from previous pickles, that would work well.

-Small pickling cucumbers washed clean

Brine

-1 ½ cup water

-½ cup white vinegar

-2 T non-iodized salt

-1 T sugar

Depending on the size of your container and how many pickles you will be doing, you will need to adjust the above recipe for the brine.  When I made mine, I had to quadruple the above ingredients.

Mix above ingredients together in saucepan and heat over med to med-high heat to dissolve salt and sugar, but it does not need to boil.  Let cool a little.

In the bottom of your jar or container, layer grape leaves, fresh dill and garlic cloves (skins removed). Over the first layer, add layer of cucumbers standing up until they can all support each other.  Now sprinkle about 1 tsp. of alum over all that first layer.  Continue layering everything until you fill the jar, ending with grape leaves, garlic and more alum.  

 

When brine is cooled a bit but can still be on the warm (not cold) side, pour over everything in jar.  You may need to make more if you cannot fill jar with brine.  Put plastic wrap over the top and then put lid on loosely.  (Not sure why about this, but that’s what the recipe says)  Set out at room temp for one day.  Tighten jar lid and refrigerate for at the very least 2 weeks before eating.  Better to wait a month.  The longer it sits, the better it flavors.