Shady Acres Take Out

Living in the sticks like we do our restaurant selections is rather limited, just a handful in a 15 mile radius of the house. The majority of those would be supper clubs, you know steak, chicken, and Friday night fish. We live in a very much meat and potatoes area. And out of these handful of restaurants not one delivers to us. No movie night with delivery pizza. No lazy Sunday afternoons watching old movies with Chinese take out.

We had to get creative. One area we have been working on is pizza. Frozen Digiorno, meh, it's alright. But remember that Mr. B and I are trying to make more of our food from scratch. That way we have more of a say as to what goes in it. We are getting there with our pizza. Still room for improvement but defiantly yummy! We found this crust recipe. Simple, easy, delicious, and freezes well. We are still tweaking the sauce part but its getting there. When we have it down I promise to share.

When Mr. B was in high school he worked at a mom and pop's pizza place. We have that working to our advantage. This is one meal were he takes over the cooking, he can be a perfectionist some times. I guess I don't spread the sauce quite right. Oh well we all can't be perfect at everything.

Nugglies

I'm an adult and I deserve an adult glass!
But I still LOVE "little kid" food. I use the quotes because I don't think anyone truly grows out of their love of finger food. You can deny it all you want, but deep down everyone has that favorite food from their childhood. Mr. B has a soft spot for grilled cheese and SpaghettieOs. On a rough day mac and cheese and hot dogs will do it for me. And both of us are suckers for chicken nuggets and tater tots. 

Over past year I have shied away from buying allot of the processed premade food. We aren't overly healthy or completely organic by any means, but we are making an effort to be more conscientious about what we eat. By we I mean me and Mr. B goes along with it.

Last night we were planning the menu for the week and making out our grocery list. I was looking online for some inspiration. Mr. B was playing words with friends (supper addictive) and giving his two cents every so often. Anywho, awhile back I had pinned this recipe for homemade chicken nuggets, thinking that it would be great for our niece. Mr. B saw that and chicken nuggets it was. With tater tots. There was no going back.

The recipe was supper easy and delicious. Mr. B gave them a definite make again. While I did make the nuggets completely from scratch, we bought the tots. But hey one out of two isn't bad. Ok one out of three, we did douse everything in ranch. I have made our own ranch dressing before, AMAZING by the way. But I was feeling lazy. I should also start looking for a supper easy homemade tot recipe if this is going to be put in the regular rotation.

I think that you would be able to make a large batch of these and freeze some to pop in the oven later. That, in my book, is always a plus. I think I will make a double batch next time or when there is a great sale on chicken. That way we can be prepared for unexpected little people for dinner. (real little people or those still little at heart) 

Next on the list..SpaghettieOs!!

Dinner Disaster

It all started with me wanting to plant the asparagus last night, nasty vegetables but Mr. B loves it.  Well mother nature had something else in mind. Rain, ALOT of rain. Alright, we need the rain so I rolled with it. I had been planning on making meatloaf this week any way. What better on a cold rainy night than some nice comfort food. All afternoon I had been thinking about dreamy creamy mashed potatoes, heavenly meatloaf, and peas, frozen peas cooked to perfection still crisp with that wonderful pop not mushy like school lunch. A combination that, in my opinion, can make the angels sing. Afterwards Mr. B and I would snuggle in on the couch with Gus and watch War Horse. A perfect evening.

The meat loaf was coming along, vegetables were cooking and Mr. B was doing dishes. We were trying this recipe. It was going to be able to make not one not two but three meatloaves. Score!! I could freeze the extra two for latter meals. We were up to the step were every thing gets mixed together into one gooey lump of meat. However, Mr. B had pulled out a roast not burger from the deep freeze. CRAP!! Ok not to worry we will roll with it and just make something with that hunk of meat. We could finish the meat loaf the following night. Quick inventory of the fridge and stir fry it is. That did not turn out the way we had planned. For the first time in two years Mr. B told me that dinner was edible but not that great. The first time in TWO YEARS!! And he was right. To top it all off by the our just edible dinner was done it was to late to watch the movie and still make it to bed at a reasonable time, we have to be functional human beings rather early. 


It was a crappy night! But no crying over spilled milk. From the meat loaf disaster I learned two valuable lessons.

•  Always double check what you are grabbing from the deep freeze. Yes the basement can be rather creamy and you just want to get back upstairs, but read the label!
• Venison roast is horrible for a stir fry. Last night it had a horrible gamy flavor, more than I had ever had. Now I love venison and we use it in the place of beef for just about everything. Stir fry is not a good idea.