Tea Time! Can't be Late for Tea Time!

So, I went shopping with my mother, randomly on this Friday night. And no, it wasn't because of the oh so "imminent" storm coming this weekend. I just felt like heading out to the grocery store to go shopping! =D I love le foods.

Anywho, we picked up many, many things, shrimp, barramundi, lamb chops (yes they had them this time!), raspberries, oh great things! One thing I had her pick up was a box of tea bags. Only because I found a great use for my coffee maker! And that's using it as my tea kettle since someone decided to heat up water in it whilst the tea bags are in the COLD water, then one time said person heated up milk in it, and ruined the inside even more. 

Nonetheless, started out like making any pot of coffee, poured the water into the machine. Then the twist, put the tea bags into the pot and let them sit for a little. Shortly after it heated up did the usual thing and added sugar to the mix. So, I now have a pot of tea sitting in my kitchen, will put it in a nice big pitcher with some ice, will be some delicious iced tea! =D

Even made myself a glass! Best part, t'was a glass of raspberry tea! Took a nice simple plastic cup and muddled a few raspberries in the bottom of it. Added the ice, then the tea and did the best part you could do to any flavored tea, shake it. It makes it foamy and delicious. Little bits of raspberry going up my straw with some tea, oh it was quite scrumptious. I must say that I had a great night to have such a wonderful glass of tea. You should definitely try it!

Playing Lambs

"It rubs the lotion on it's skin, or else it gets the house again!?" Probably one of the most renowned lines from an excellent movie and book. However, it has nothing to do with the meal I created last night.

So, I had this whole thing set in my mind, make a marinade, marinate some lamb chops and pan fry 'em to a delicious medium with some mashed potatoes and veggies. The first time I tried this last week, I had a lamb leg because I couldn't get chops, very disappointing indeed. I actually bought 2 just in case. The first time just was not worth mentioning so I didn't even bother.

The second time, however, I made the marinade and marinaded the leg for about 6 hours. It started with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Tossed in a good amount of herbs de Provence, pink Himalayan salt, pepper, a dash of paprika, chopped onion, and garlic powder. Really just wanted to get that flavor into the lamb. I really feel as though this would have worked out so much better with lamb chops than a boneless leg.

Nonetheless, after marinading it for the 6 hours, I popped it into the oven and just baked it for a good hour in a half. About half way into that I decided to start on the potatoes, took some good Golden Yukon and Russet potatoes. Washed and chopped them up with the skins on. Leaving the skins on your potatoes when you mash them helps you get the nutrients and what not hiding in the skins that we like to miss. The first batch with the first leg, I even took a leek and chopped up the white part of it and threw it in with the potatoes while they boiled. Really gave it an onion-y flavor it needed.

After the lamb was finished and the potatoes were mashed I let the lamb sit before carving it out, and then I sliced it as best I could with my not the best of all knives. Nonetheless, the lamb did turn out quite flavorful, it could have been a little less well done in my opinion, but I followed the cooking directions given for it so as to not under cook this time.

Autumnal Muffins!

I'm pretty certain you can guess where this night's post is going! That's right, muffiny muffins! =D I love them, they're almost always delicious creations.

Tonight's creation happened to be Pumpkin Muffins with a lite pumpkin cream filling. Really it's just your simple old muffin recipe; salt, flour, and baking powder in one bowl; sugar, milk, egg, vanilla in another. Add some melted butter to the wet ingredients as well as the pumpkin; how else would we get that delicious flavor! What I threw into the dry ingredients was some cinnamon and nutmeg, 2 things that go beautifully with pumpkin.

Before mixing the wet and dry ingredients I decided to make the cream filling, seeing as how it's one that needed to be baked with inside the muffins. So, we take some cream cheese, sugar, egg, and pumpkin. Mixed them together, not too much pumpkin because we didn't want it to be too strong. Made a little piping bag with a sandwich baggy and went on to mix the wet and dry ingredients of the muffins.

Finishing up the mixing, not mixing too much as muffin batter can't be mixed too much or else they can be ruined. I poured them into greased up muffin cups, and then piped the filling into each muffin. Right before putting them into the oven, I decided to drop some chopped walnuts on top of them. What could I say, scrumptious!!

So much muffin batter, I made 18 large at first, then did a batch of little ones, and was about to make about 12 more large muffins. So, I'm sure you can see how many muffins I managed to bake! Nonetheless, they turned out to be amazing, and as always, here's a picture of them! =D

Midnight Meals

So, last night I came home from work starving, as usual! Instead of picking up something from Wawa or fast food, I decided to cook something. Thus I did. ;)

Took out some pre-diced chicken, tuscan veggies, bacon, eggs, rice, and peas. Not to be used together, I know it sounds pretty ridiculous doesn't it? Anyway, I started out with cooking the rice, of course, as that boiled up I decided to make a thick little sauce to dredge the chicken and veggies in when I got them cooking. In the sauce I used apple cider vinegar, some Saké(to keep with the Asian theme going). Tossed in some paprika to give it a nice red color, some Cholula chili lime sauce after simmering all that for a bit, I decided to add some molasses for sweetness.

After I had gotten most of the ingredients into that sauce I decided to cook the bacon, cause ya know ya can't really eat bacon raw. Sadly I wanted to save dishes and decided to microwave the bacon, but I don't want to overcook it, and so  I accidentally under-cooked it. >< Nonetheless, it didn't destroy the whole meal. So, the rice had finished cooking, time to start the fried rice! Didn't see that coming did ya?

Started by heating up my wok, yes I do in fact have a nice large wok. =D Tossed in the eggs got them fried up, then the bacon hoping to cook it a tad more. Threw in some diced onions and finally the rice. As I did that I also had the chicken and veggies cooking. After the rice was thrown in, I added the soy sauce and some oil. Oh, and the pees went into the rice for the veggies it needed. As I mixed the rice, I decided to dredge my chicken and veggies into that nice thick sauce I made, which I thickened up with a water and cornstarch mix. Mixing both at the same time, I was excited to try them as I was finishing up.

The chicken and veggies were sweetly delicious, in my opinion. The fried rice definitely just needed the bacon to be cooked thoroughly and it would've been delicious. Nonetheless, I was satisfied with what I had gotten to eat last night, and look forward to making more midnight meals!