my favorite fruit dip!

There's nothing I love more than strawberries. Ok, I'm lying...but I do love them! 

Besides nutella being the obvious best thing to dip strawberries in, my next favorite dip to savor the fruit in is one that my dear cousin shared with me. I have no idea how or where she got the recipe, but it seriously is THE best. I could sit down with a whole bowl of strawberries and eat them all by myself as long as I had this dip. I could eat them all day. 


It's yummy. It's sweet. It's delicious. It's awesomely good!

Ingredients:

Mix one package of cream cheese and one jar of marshmallow creme together...and voila!

easy vegetable soup

It was a normal Thursday evening and I needed to make dinner. I had a package of frozen mixed vegetables in the freezer so I quickly googled an easy recipe using the ingredients. I came across this recipe and decided to try it with a few changes and additions of my own. It was super easy, quick to make, and more importantly, my son enjoyed it. Here is the recipe from Allrecipes.com...


Ingredients:
1 (29 oz) can of tomato sauce
6 cups of water
2 cups frozen mixed vegetables
1 (8 oz) package of dry pasta - optional


Directions:
Place the spaghetti sauce and water in a large pot over medium high heat.
Bring just to a boil, reduce heat to medium low and add the mixed veggies.
Add the pasta, if desired, and let simmer until heated through or until pasta is done.

Instead of a can of tomato sauce, I used a 26.5 oz can of mushroom spaghetti sauce. Also, before adding any ingredients I browned some onions with olive oil. I wanted to add some seasonings so I added salt, pepper, garlic powder, and some basil...then topped it off with some parmesan cheese. Perfect to eat alone or with some bread. Yummy!

watching what we eat...

Rice is a staple food in my family. We eat it with everything. Soup, meat, fish, eggs, hot dogs, you name it. Just recently, my boyfriend and I decided to go on a "watch what we eat" diet. One of the things we're watching...our rice intake. Our usual Saturday morning breakfast consists of eggs, bacon, and rice. Thanks to Stone Soup, we've quickly changed our breakfast routine. Out with the rice, in with the spinach!

This is seriously one of the best things I've eaten. It's not too heavy and it's so delish! After adding this to our diet, my boyfriend had an idea to make a salad out of it. Spinach? Egg? Why not!

Our ingredients:
spinach
sunny-side up eggs {1 or 2}
mushrooms
grape tomatoes
salt and/or pepper


No dressing required! :)

spicy basil shrimp

I recently tried my aunt's spicy basil shrimp recipe and I made it for dinner last night. If you love shrimp and spicy foods, then you definitely should try this. She used thai chili, but I couldn't find any at the store so I substituted it with serrano chili.

Ingredients:

2 tsp. salt

2/3 cup olive oil

1 lb freshwater prawns or shrimp

1 tsp. ground pepper

12 cloves minced garlic

5-7 Thai chili chopped (or 5-7 serrano chili peppers, depending on your preference of spice level)

1 package fresh basil

Add garlic, chili, salt and pepper to shrimp and marinate for 10 minutes.

Heat up oil over medium heat.

Add shrimp and stir until cooked - approximately 5 minutes

Turn off heat, add basil leaves and stir.

Really easy and quick to make. Serve hot alone or with rice! Super yummy!

friday night cooking

Before I had my son, I was never a cook nor did I enjoy it. Now that I have my own family, cooking has been one of my newest crafts, which I'm still trying to perfect. I love looking for new recipes and love it even more when my son and boyfriend enjoy it. Tonight I made chicken with basil cream and garlic pasta. It was so delish! I got the recipe for the chicken with basil cream from an app called BigOven on my iPhone. So easy to make and it took less than 30 minutes. For dessert, I made oreo truffles. Again, another easy (but messy!) recipe. They're cooling in the fridge right now and I can't wait to try them.

I got the recipe for the oreo truffles from this video. Try it out! :)