Thanksgiving Dinner....

With all the fixins...

Jk...jk

Well I under-estimated the time it would take me to make Thanksgiving dinner. I remember saying I'd be done by 4:30 and I think I may have finished close to 5:30 or 6.

Zach's brother was home for the weekend so he was actually the reason I cooked for the 3 of them. :) 

I cooked a honey ham (they prefer ham over turkey), corn, homemade mashed potatoes, and croissant rolls. Well....gravy and cranberry sauce too!

They all liked it....I think. ;) all of the left overs were eaten except some of the ham and that's because there was just sooooo much of it!

I'm not sure when I'll cook for them again. :) We shall see. Until then...

Later Days. :)

Spaghetti Anyone?

Well, I'm sure you can guess what this post is about, right?


Cookies!

Just Kidding, of course.

Its been like 2 weeks since I made the food I'm talking about.... but I haven't been able to get on to my blog since then. Sorry, peeps. ^_^

I made classic spaghetti for Zach and his dad. I cheated and used a jar and then fixed it. It was all pretty basic. Once again they both loved it (or so I think) they finished all of the left overs again. :) Not much to say about that dinner. Later days :)

Wait...YOU can cook?

Haha just kidding. Anyone who knows me knows that I know at least the basics to cooking. :)
(You know I didn't attend culinary school or anything)
I say attend for a reason haha

So, I decided to make chili for my boyfriend (Zach) and his dad yesterday. Well, actually, I decided to make chili, cornbread, and brownies. BUT I'm here to tell you about my chili. :)

THIS is the original recipe I used. However, when I was finished, it was no longer the same recipe. :)

Insert Jerica's version: (haha)

Ingredients:

2 pounds ground beef
garlic powder (to taste)
2 16-oz can tomato sauce
1 8-oz can of tomato sauce
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground oregano
1 teaspoon salt
1 15-oz can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 15-oz can pinto beans, drained and rinsed
Shredded Cheddar, for serving
Sour Cream, for serving
Tortilla chips, for serving
Lime wedges, for serving

Directions:

Place the ground beef in a large pot. Cook over medium heat until browned. Drain off the excess fat, Season with garlic powder. Then, pour in the 2 16-oz cans of tomato sauce, chili powder, cumin, oregano, and salt. Stir together well, cover, and then reduce the heat to low. Simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. If the mixture becomes overly dry, add 1/2 cup water at a time as needed.

Add the 8 oz can of tomato sauce and/or water to get the chili to your preferred consistency. Add the beans and simmer for 10 minutes. Serve with shredded Cheddar, sour cream, tortilla chips and lime wedges.


I served mine a little bit differently. I enjoy eating mine with pasta. Zach and his dad thought that was weird haha.  But I didn't have tortilla chips or lime on the side. I kept it very simple. This recipe originally said to add cheyenne but the men I was making it for don't like anything spicy. I mean anything.  It came out really tasty. The nice thing about chili is that everyone can eat it exactly how they want it. I had mine with pasta, sour cream and shredded cheese. Zach ate his with some shredded cheese. His dad crumbled up his cornbread, added it, and had some shredded cheese in his too.

They both enjoyed it. His dad said, "Jerica this is really good! Thanks."
And Zach went back for seconds. Which goes without saying that he obviously liked it :)

I got lazy with the rest of my meal. haha. I know how to make cornbread but I didn't feel like it so I made the JIFFY corn muffins from a box. The brownies ended up getting thrown out because I did a couple of dumb things. 1. I forgot to grease my pan. 2. over cooked them and 3....well I guess those were pretty much it. I'm awesome at making baked things. But one thing after another and there is no saving those brownies. Next time. haha. :)

Welp.....Thats all for today. :) I need to check in more often. I forgot how much I love doing this, even if I don't have comments....someone somewhere is reading. Right?

Later Days. 

Whaaaa???

Noticed I haven't posted since my birthday.
Where the heck have I been?

Alright so since my birthday....

May- I went to my brothers college graduation.

June- I went to Colorado for a little over a week. I went with my boy friend, Zach, and his family. It was a lot of fun. :)

July- I spent the 4th with Zach :). At the end of the month I went to Minnesota for a wedding. It was beautiful...around the parts where I took my mom to the hospital for a busted lip.

Brings us to now, I still go square dancing every Tuesday. I pretty much spend every moment with Zach otherwise. :) Lizzies baby girl is expected at the beginning of next month. I'm so excited to get to see little Sophia!

Later Days. :)

New Start

I deserve one.....don't I? I haven't done anything "wrong" but I still believe everyone deserves a fresh start. That's what I think I needed.

As crazy as this might sound from the outside looking in, I have been happier in the past 2 weeks than I have felt in a long time. At the end of April I went to Cali. with my parents and best friend. I was there until May 3rd.   It was cold while we were there but it was still nice. I got to go to a Dodgers game....and if you were watching it was the game that Matt Kemp got a walk off home-run in the bottom of the 10th. :) I went to a Padres game as well and they won....I think? I didn't really pay a whole lot of attention to that game.... oops... I still had fun though. :) We went to Downtown Disney (not Disneyland) and I got myself a "Lots-O" pillow pet. He smells like strawberries.....Its pretty epic. We also went to the little shops outside of Knott's Berry Farm. We bought boysenberry syrup....that stuff is fantastic. :) We went to the beach one day and we also went and saw my parents old high schools and stuff like that. It was pretty cool.

Friday was my 21st birthday. I went to dinner with my family, my best friend and her boyfriend and my boyfriend. Yesterday, my boyfriend took me bowling and....not to toot my own horn...but ah....."toots magoots". I won 2 games AND I got the best score that I've ever gotten, 165. :)

Like I said, happier than I've been in a long time and....I deserve it, regardless of what other people may think.

Later Days.

New Blog...Again

The past is the past. Now, to look forward to the future. :)

I'm not even 100% sure what I'll be posting in this new blog. But I need to have a positive out look on things. Everything happens for a reason right? So things go a certain way, you have a Cause & Effect. Some thing caused (x) to happen and the effect was (x).

For those of you who have read my past blogs, I'm hoping this one will be different. I may not post every day, every week or even every month, but I will be posting. I haven't known what to do with out being able to write a blog for the past week. I got in the habit of doing it every day. I wanted to come home and type and tell you about my day but I didn't have anywhere to write.

So here it is. My new chapter. I don't know where it will lead me.....but it feels like it's going to be a good one.
Thanks for keeping with me. Love you all!

Later Days. :)