Super Simple Snack : Peaches and Cottage Cheese!

It's August, and I have posted before about the super awesome Colorado Peaches at BoB's Produce.  Love them, absolutely without a doubt.

I also really enjoy cottage cheese.

When I was growing up, my mom would have dinner, and would sometimes serve us up for dessert, peaches and cottage cheese.  I actually like it.  She used canned peaches, proabably because that was what she had on hand.  Well, I have fresh, ripe, super juicy Colorado Peaches! 

I ate this a couple of times for breakfast, and a couple of times as an afternoon snack waiting for the Boyfriend to come home.  He's been working until 6:30 lately, and, in order for me to not be starving and cranky, this was a nice mid afternoon snack for me.

Here we have it 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup of cottage cheese, and a cut up peach. SO yummy!!

Peach segments and cottage cheese.

Tonight I made beef kabobs on the grill.  Kabobs are so simple, a great summer time dinner.  Cut up peppers, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, potatoes if you would like, some meat if you are into that. Thread them on some skewers and pop on the grill. Turn every 5 or so until the meat is to your liking. 

I cut up some beef cubes the last night threw some soy sauce, wirshesher, garlic, red pepper flakes and ketchup.  Ahh.. yes, quite odd combination, no idea what I was doing, but thinking, they probably taste good on a piece of meat, right?

Turns out I was right, as per usual. (ha, ha.)

I tossed them in the marinate this morning, and again when I got home from work. Once I knew the Boyfriend was on his way home, I fired up the grill, and while it heated up I threaded the cut up veggies and meat on skewers, and threw them on.  Cooked the kabobs for about 15-20 minutes.  And viola!  Dinner.  I picked up some coleslaw and stuffed mushrooms(to throw on the grill) on my way home too, so we had a little mini feast!

Dinner!

I like my veggies charred.  If you aren't into that, turn the heat down.  It was all so yummy. 

Do you have a go-to marinade recipe to share?

Visitors and the Museum

The Boyfriend's car had some sort of serious issue this week.  I am not a mechanic, and quite frankly, not going to lie, I don't really care what the problem was.  His best friend and his son came over on Friday night and started to fix the issue.  Now, the Boyfriend's best friend's kid is like 9 or something. I have no idea really, old enough to the point where he should be able to control himself, or at least figure out how to be calm.  He doesn't.  The kid isn't a bad kid, just has a hard time being good.

On Friday the kid and I played Uno, and there was a little bit of cheating going on, so, I had to end that.  Otherwise the kid wanted to talk about his DS game.. not sure which one.. but he is very passionate about all the cool things it can do.  I asked him if he wanted to go find the park or something, but he replied he was more of an 'indoor kid'.  I asked what that was, he said I just like to be indoors, I asked why, he said because that's where all his video games are.  Well, that does make sense.  He said his grandma will sometimes tell him to go outside though.  I asked if he had ever been out of breath before, he asked what that was.  Slight problem there..

But anyways, the guys weren't done playing car mechanic on Friday night, the Boyfriend had to work on Saturday, so I knew the kid would be heading over with his dad, not a huge problem, but I have to figure out how we are going to be entertained together, I figured he was old enough to cook or something, so I hatched a plan.

When they came over, I heard some more about his video games and what not, and then I asked him if he liked to cook.  I am not saying everyone who is an indoor person has to like to cook (but what the heck are you doing inside all day if you aren't cooking?!).  But I figured if we worked on creating something, rather than being destructive, than it was okay in my book.  What is one of the simplest things to make?  Well, heck, Rice Krispies!  But, I didn't have any of those, what I did have though, were Peanut Butter Cheerio's that did not have a very strong peanut butter flavor.  So, let's make PB Cheerio Bars!

Behold, the magic of peanut butter!

It's basically the traditional Peanut Butter Rice Krispy Bar Recipe but made with Cheerios instead.  I had him measure out the marshmallows and the cheerios. And stir it all together.  You can see the full PB Cheerio Bar recipe here.

I had to put them in the freezer to get them to harden, because it didn't take the Boyfriend and his best friend to finish whatever it was that they were doing.  I was baking some boxed cupcakes to hopefully frost with the kid too, but he left before they were really ready.

I had made some Crock-Pot Chicken Taco meat earlier in the day, threw in some extra jalapenos to use to make Chicken Tostadas, I had some cilantro, and threw on some extra salsa and Queso Blanco for extra goodness.

Chicken Tostadas

I asked if anyone wanted any, no one did, it was 7pm, and I was starving, more for me then!  So I ate mine, it was SO filling!! You kind of eat it like a pizza.  When the Boyfriend ate some later on, he crushed up the tostadas, and poured everything on it, threw on some regular shredded cheese, added some sour cream, and ate it that way.

I also frosted those cupcakes once they were cooled.  I used my ultimate favorite Rainbow Chip Frosting by Betty Crocker, which is surprisingly hard to find where I live.  When I go down to Southern Minnesota, I stop in at a store in Bricelyn to pick some up.  And since I was there last weekend, it only made sense that I would come home with some.  But that means, I needed to use up an older container that I bought apparently in the Spring, since it was called Spring Chip, date was good, so let's slap it on some cupcakes.

Yellow Cupcake with Spring Chip Frosting

I ended up bringing the cupcakes with me to a picnic with my little sister and her son.  We went to the Children's Museum on Target's Free Sunday.  The Children's Museum was listed in Parent's Magazine 10 Best Children's Museum in 2011.  It was good entertainment for the Nephew (he's just over 2 now).  I will say this, I wish I could go when there were no kids there, then I could get everything to work like it should.. me and my adult sized brain can figure it out all on my own! 

After the museum we went back to the parking ramp, and ate sandwiches, veggies crackers and juice and my cupcakes.  Yes, we ate IN the parking ramp, in the corner on a blanket, next time I think I will suggest bringing outdoor chairs.  I sent her home with some extra PB Cheerio Bars to share with my dad.  I transported the cupcakes in upside down Tupperware.  You can sort of see it in the photo.  It worked out decently.

On a side note, my older sister had her 3rd kid on Wednesday. So now she has a 12 (girl), 6(boy) and newborn(boy).  That's really all there is to say about that.

Do you have a better way to transport goodies?  Do share!!

Birthday Party!

This past weekend was the Boyfriend's sister in law and good family friend's birthday celebration.  Their birthdays are 1 day apart, and they share a bunch of mutual friends (ha - and probably family members), so it really only makes sense to have a joint birthday party!

The birthday party was super fun, had a great time, and met a couple more of my Boyfriend's Southern MN friends.  Got to catch up with the Boyfriend's family, and play Corn Hole.  Which I ABSOLUTELY love.  I love lawn games.  I think there might have been some miss calculation of the score, so if you are playing, I definitely recommend having a score board of some sort.  Here is a site I found on how to make a few different score boards, and with drink holders no less!

Growing up, as a family, we rarely showed up with out anything to share.  I sent a text to the Boyfriend's sister in law, and she said bring a yummy dessert.  AWESOME!  I have been waiting for a reason to make Oreo Truffles.  I know they are extremely unhealthy, and make a ton of servings, so it would be best for me to have a reason to bring them somewhere before making them.  So that is exactly what I did!

Yummy Peanut Butter Oreo Truffle!

I couldn't decide what flavor of Oreo to use.  But it was a Birthday Party! So I made two different batches.  One batch was made with Birthday Cake Oreo Cookies, and the other was with Peanut Butter Oreo Cookies.  How AWESOME!

Basically you take a package of cookies, crush them into a fine powder, and mix in 8 oz. of cream cheese, form them into balls.

Oreo Cookie Truffle Base

Dip each ball into melted chocolate (I used Bakers White Chocolate), sprinkle something to make them prettier on top, and DEVOUR!   Wait, I mean package up so others can enjoy!

Dipping the Oreo Truffles in melted chocolate

I put sprinkles on the Birthday Cake Oreo Truffles, and mini semi sweet chocolate chips on the Peanut Butter Oreo Truffles, so that I could tell them apart from one another.  They were so good!  And were devoured pretty quickly at the party. 

I will say this, they were a little putzy, I found a rhythm once I started dipping, and you can certainly tell that I dipped the Birthday Cake Oreo Truffles first, but I would make again, for sure!  You can find more information about the Oreo Truffles and other recipes over on my Recipe Page too!

What a weekend!

Whew!  That was a lot for one weekend! 

On Friday night the Boyfriend took me out to the movies and we saw Snow White and the Huntsman.  I have this thing about movie theater popcorn (other than I LOVE it).  See, you get a large tub of popcorn, and they put the butter on top of it all, and then you add the popcorn salt. 

So you really only have butter and salt on say, maybe the top half of popcorn, leaving the rest to be less than super delicious. 

So, if it's not uber busy (and sometimes even when it is) I ask the clerk behind the counter to fill it half way, throw some delicious butter flavoring on it, and then top it off with more popcorn and butter!  The Boyfriend makes fun of me, but he is eating it up just as much as I am.   So I ask the kind clerk to do this for me, and not only is he happy to do it, he asks if I would like to put some of the popcorn salt on it before he adds in more popcorn.  WOULD I EVER!  So awesome! 

We grabbed our popcorn and sodas, and are walking away, and this other guy was like, you didn't do that for me.. ahaha.. I politely said you have to ask.  I am sure he was super jealous, I mean, if I were him, and he were me, I (beign him) would be jealous too!

The movie was okay - there was a lot of action in it, which was a little surprising.  The grand speech Snow White gives was a little bit of a let down, certainly not Brave Heart material. 

After the movie the Boyfriend brings me to Tuttle's near our house.  I like the place.  They have a nice bar, and the waitstaff is friendly.  And they always refill my beer in a reasonable time.  The new thing that they have been doing is live music.  When we first got there, I was quite iffy if I wanted to stay.  I have no idea what they were singing, but it wasn't good.  So the Boyfriend and I sat on the patio. 

But then a Blues Band came on.  They were really good! The name was Glass Houses: Modern Dance Rock.  I can't find them on this fancy interweb, so I can't link to them, but they were great!  Eventually the Boyfriend said we had to go, I still hadn't made my individual cheesecakes for the reunion, and it was around 11 o'clock.  So I reluctantly left.

Once we got home, I started making the cheesecakes.  You would like a picture huh?  Unfortunately due to not being completely sober, they didn't look the greatest.  They tasted just fine, but it was late, I was lazy.  Basically what I did, was I made the Jello brand no bake cheesecakes, and made them like cupcakes. 

Had I thought it out better, I probably would have made mini cupcake size.  Either way, I used a shot glass to pack in the graham crackers, and then spooned the stiff mixture on top.  Kind of mashed the filling in each cupcake wrapper, put them in the freezer, and called it night.

The next morning, I was moving kind of slow, just more of being tired I think than anything else.  We got our start for the 2.5 hour drive an hour later than I had wanted.  But we made it.

I put out the cheesecakes, and as I was waiting in the chow line, I over heard someone say, what are those things?  I didn't turn around, but another girl said, they are cheesecakes.

So, at least 1 out of 3 people knew what they were.

There were a ton of people!  My Aunt's kids showed up, she had 4 - they brought their kids, and my cousin from one of my uncles was there too.  So I knew about 15 people.  Everyone kind of stuck to themselves.  Which is fine I guess.  Pretty sure once the people my grandparent's age die off, no one will go to these things any more.

The Boyfriend and I stayed till around 9:30 or so, and then made the trek home.  All of the cousins that showed up were tenting out and spending the night, I was tired, and really just wanted to come home.

So we did.

We got home around midnight.  And woke up today in our own bed.  I do enjoy waking up knowing that I do not have to go anywhere.  Husky (my cat) was happy too, it gave him a comfy place to hang out while we watched Sunday Morning.  I really like that show, lots of different stories that they cover.  Look at my pretty kitty!



Husky on a lazy Sunday morning.

Husky is some sort of an abandoned mixed cat.  He is really pretty.  His life story - he was found with his brother in a snow fort in January (in Minnesota) with a dish of frozen milk.  So you know some parent didn't want these kittens, and the kids were trying to do whatever their little kid minds could come up with. 

I am glad someone grabbed them and they found their way to PurrsnicKitty Cat Rescue.  I found this guy on Petfinder.com the same week I had to put my GiZmO down.  Miss him still...  But either way..  I just found his adopted page - you can see him as a kitten here (his was previously known as Cema)!  I guess they have him down as a domesitc short hair-mitted siamese?  I am pretty sure he is a long haired cat though.

I should probably head out to go buy some groceries.  Our cupboards are starting to look like Old Mother Hubbard's. 

Have you adopted a pet before?  How long did you wait before getting a new pet to fill the space of one lost?

Well, Good Morning to Me!

Since July 4th fell in the middle of the week, I took the following Thursday and Friday off.  I asked the Boyfriend to do the same, but he said no.   His loss.

The Boyfriend and I spent July 4th doing nothing, and then eventually made our way to my Dad's/the neighbor boy's house.  The neighbor boy - is one of the Boyfriend's Best Friends, and the way we actually met.  The Boyfriend had to work, so he was drinking responsibly, I did not.  So yesterday I nursed my hangover by myself.

I eventually got myself together, and made it out the door to get my hair colored by my friend that I went to Beauty School with, and went back to my more natural dark hair - I love it! :)

When I woke up this morning with the boyfriend, (when I say wake up, I mean move to the couch and fall asleep again as I watch the different media/news channels) he was on his way out the door, and then he was taking forever.  I just blew it off, figured he forgot to tie his shoes or something, but then he came back upstairs, and gave me these:

How fantastic! Must have been all the complaining I did about not getting any flowers when we went to the Comedy Club. He didn't have to get me some now, but I do appreciate that he did!

The Boyfriend asked if he could take me out tonight, I said yes.  I don't even really care where we go.  We have my family reunion to go to tomorrow, so we probably won't stay out too late.  I have to go pick up the stuff to make individual cheesecakes to bring.  This family reunion is for my dad's mom's family.  I know no one there aside from my uncles and my cousin.  I wonder if my Aunt's family will show up.  This reunion only happens every other year.

Do you ever go to the reunions, even though you don't know anyone?  And do you then walk around introducing yourself?