After only two days I'm back in the swing of things. I spent time yesterday and today catching up on paperwork for Caleb's schooling. My laundry is in good order. My apartment is fairly clean (thanks to assistance from FlyLady!). I'm back to cooking on a regular basis after a week of eating cereal or eating out. I'm back to exercising in the mornings and will resume racquetball later this week. Tomorrow night I'll be back at the ladies' exercise class at church for the first time in a month. It's good to be back in the routine!

Idol Chatter
Most of the American Idol contestants were in top form tonight. Chris Daughtry started things off with "Wonderful World" - quite a change for the rocker. He was awesome! Paris Bennett followed him with an Ella Fitzgerald classic and performed really well. It made me like her more again. Taylor Hicks did well with "You Send Me". He even got good remarks from Simon. Elliot Yamin was great. He made me think of Harry Connick, Jr. (He should've been the one helping the contestants this week, but Rod Stewart did great, too. I'm looking forward to seeing him perform tomorrow night on the results show.) And then came Kellie Pickler. And the night went downhill. She was awful - very nasal and flat on many notes. She even admitted that she butchered the song. But thanks to the lovely folks at Vote for the Worst, she'll probably be around another few weeks... Ace Young followed her and did nothing to improve things. His look was awful - wearing a suit and his hair slicked back into a tight ponytail. Not a good look for him at all. His singing wasn't that great, either. He and Kellie are tied for the worst. Katharine McPhee brought things back up again with her performance. She's got a great voice, and this week's style was perfect for her.

My predictions for the bottom 3: Kellie Pickler, Ace Young, and Elliot Yamin. (I don't think Elliot belongs there, but I think that's where he'll show up.)
My prediction to leave this week: Ace Young. (My dream will come true if it's Kellie.)

On the Menu
It's been a while since I posted about food. I made Chile Rellenos Chicken a few weeks ago, and it was pretty good. Billy said it reminded him of Mexican Chicken Casserole; once he said that, I could definitely taste it. The best thing we had that night was the Spanish rice that Billy's mom sent me the recipe for. It's going to be a standard on my menu from now on whenever I serve Mexican food. I'll post the recipe before long.

Last night I made Applesauce Meatloaf (minus the applesauce because I didn't know we were out), Roasted Rosemary Potatoes, and Stewed Squash. Mmm-mmm good! I made enough meatloaf so we can have meatloaf sandwiches tomorrow night. There was barely a serving of the potatoes left. Caleb loved them, which surprised me. I wasn't sure he would like the herby taste, even though it was subtle. I'll definitely make the potatoes that way again. Here's how I did them:

3 baking potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks
olive oil
salt
pepper
fresh rosemary

(Don't ask me about measurements for the seasonings. I just sprinkled until it looked good.) Drizzle olive oil over potatoes and stir well to coat. Sprinkle with salt and pepper; chop fresh rosemary and sprinkle over potatoes. Mix well to evenly distribute seasonings and bake at 400 degrees for 45 minutes, stirring potatoes occasionally.

Tonight I made a veggie pizza - zucchini, onion, fresh spinach, fresh mushrooms, and marinated artichoke hearts with Colby Jack cheese (I didn't realize I was out of mozzarella.) on a crust brushed with olive oil, Italian seasoning, and fresh garlic. Billy and I ate every bit.

Here's what follows for the rest of the week:
Wednesday - leftovers or sandwiches
Thursday - omelets (so I can finish using my fresh mushrooms and green onions)
Friday - BLTs

Considering...
I'm seriously considering becoming a Pampered Chef consultant. There are several reasons: I love to cook, I love Pampered Chef products and recipes, and I'd like to do a little something to make some extra money. I'll be making my decision in the next few days...

I love to play Sudoku. It's become part of my morning routine: after exercising and Bible study, I check my email, peruse the news, read a few blogs, then get my daily fix of Sudoku Challenge. Several months ago, I beat my personal best solving time of 6:18. There have been times since then that I've finished in the late 5's, but yesterday I finished in 5:12. My new record. Then I beat it again this morning - 4:56. I know that's not going to happen too often, though. The last two days' puzzles were fairly easy. Easy or not, I love to work them every day.

Even Caleb has gotten in on the Sudoku craze. He's helped me a few times with working Sudoku puzzles in my book, as well as a few times on the computer. Once on one of our many Wal-Mart trips, when we made our usual stop in the toy section, Caleb found a children's Sudoku puzzle book. It's a Dora book with picture stickers to place on the correct spots on a 4x4 grid. He just had to have it. The next morning, I showed him how to work them, then he was off. He said he was only going to work one puzzle a day, but that quickly changed once he realized how much fun they are. That day he ended up working about 10 puzzles from his book. The next day he worked a few more. I showed him how to use pennies to cover up spaces on the more difficult ones. I had to put it out of Jacob's reach several days ago, and once it was out of Caleb's sight, it's been out of his mind. I'll have to get it back out for him so he can finish. I think he's only halfway done with it. Maybe he'll work on it this weekend and show Pops how he can play Sudoku, too.

What's Cooking?
And what's been cooking?

Jay and Allison came over Saturday night for dinner and a movie. Allison has gestational diabetes right now and is having to be extremely careful in what and how much she eats. Jay is on the Atkins' diet; he figured this would be a good time since Allison can't eat just anything. Allison was worried about me cooking to meet their dietary needs, but I told her it was no problem. She even offered to bring their own food, but I assured her that wasn't necessary. I had her tell me what she could eat and together we planned a really delicious meal for us. We had baked BBQ chicken topped with bacon, cheese, green onions, and diced tomatoes; baked potatoes; broccoli; green salad; and strawberries for dessert. That was the first time I had made chicken that way, but it wasn't hard at all - and you can get it at many restaurants. Here's what I did:

5 boneless chicken breasts, thawed and trimmed of excess fat
KC Masterpiece original BBQ sauce
8 strips bacon, fully cooked
shredded Colby-Jack cheese
thinly slice green onions
diced tomatoes

Brush chicken with BBQ sauce, then baked at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Turn chicken over, brush other side with sauce, and bake for 5-10 minutes, until chicken is fully cooked. Top each chicken breast with 1-2 bacon strips broken in half, cheese, green onions, and tomatoes. Bake for additional 5 minutes, or until cheese melts.

How easy is that?!? Billy really liked it (he's never ordered chicken that way from a restaurant) and said it's something he'd definitely like to have again. Yay! Another dish to add to my rotation, which I don't really rotate. I just cook what I want when I want it.

We also had Baked Potato Soup again this weekend. I made that Sunday afternoon, and Billy bought us a loaf of Asiago cheese bread from Panera Bread to go with it. It was so good! We've decided that getting a loaf of that scrumptious bread from Panera on occasion to go with soup, chili - or whatever! - is something we're definitely going to do more often.

I'm planning on making another omelette for supper tonight - and this time I have fresh mushrooms to add! Homemade veggie pizza is on the menu for Thursday night.

Last night's crab cakes were a bust. I couldn't taste the crab, but I sure could taste the ginger. A bit much, if you ask me. It reminded me of the Hawaiian meatballs I made several years ago that had too much ginger in them, too. They weren't bad, but I won't be making them again. At least I learned how to toast coconut in my microwave oven, though. That part turned out great!

As a side to our crab cakes, I cooked an Asian noodle box mix that Billy found at Wal-Mart. It looked good and smelled good, but we weren't impressed. We didn't like the texture of the noodles, and the taste wasn't as great as we had hoped. The boys ended up eating carrot sticks, ham, and crackers. Billy and I hit the Cinnamon Life cereal.

At least we still have about half of the crab meat left over. I'm looking forward to some crab salad sandwiches tonight!

Idol Chatter

The 12 girls performed last night, and I was blown away by three of them: Paris Bennett, Mandisa, and Lisa Tucker. They were awesome. Then Katharine McPhee, the last contestant of the night, really did a knock-out job as well. Most of the other performances were, in Simon's own words, "forgettable". I think Stevie Scott's performance was the worst of the night, and I'd be surprised to see her stick around after tomorrow night. I'd like to see Brenna Gethers get the boot, too.

The 12 guys perform tonight, and I'm really looking forward to watching them. I have high hopes for a few; some others I don't remember well from the auditions, so it'll be nice to finally see what they have to offer. Ones to watch: Chris Daughtry and Ace Young.

I did it! I made a real omelette. Not just ugly eggs - scrambled eggs with stuff thrown in. A true omelette.

I don't typically cook breakfast. It's usually just toasting a waffle or a bagel or toast, or something simple like opening a honey bun or granola bar package, or even fixing a bowl of cereal. Once in a while I'll cook up some muffins (like yesterday's chocolate chip ones). But we're all home this morning, trapped in the apartment for the day after last night's freezing rain iced the roads and our stairs. I decided this would be a good time to cook a hot meal to start us off on our cold day at home.

We had a few frozen biscuits left over, but Jacob won't eat biscuits. We had eggs, but Caleb won't eat eggs. I rummaged in the refrigerator looking for something to throw together. We just had pancakes last Sunday night, and I didn't want them again so soon. Plus, I need to ration what's left of our last gallon of milk since it'll be tomorrow (hopefully!) before we're able to get out again.

I remembered the green onions left over from the potato soup ingredients and decided that an omelette would be good to try. I had just bought a dozen eggs the other day so I knew we had plenty. (I didn't realize we still had 7 left in the other carton.) I found some ham and some sharp cheddar cheese and got to work.

I put the biscuits in the oven and got started on the eggs. Jacob likes plain scrambled eggs, so I got his two started first in the small cast iron skillet. Then I diced my ham and sliced my green onions. I cracked 5 eggs into a medium bowl and mixed them up, added the green onions (about 1/2 cup), and sprinkled in some Tony's (I have no idea how much - and I did it twice.). After the butter melted in my large non-stick skillet, I poured the egg mixture in and cooked it on medium high heat until the bottom was done. Then I lifted up one edge with my spatula and tilted the pan, letting the egg mixture on top run underneath. (I did that around the pan so the egg would cook evenly.) After the bottom was done again, I eased the egg up and flipped it over so the remaining mixture could cook. I put my diced ham on top, followed by the cheese, then rolled it up. It was fairly thick, but I managed to get it rolled without much mess or tearing.

It was great! It maybe could've used a little more Tony's, but it was still really good. Next time I'd like to add some fresh mushrooms, too. Billy loved it and asked if he could look forward to more of those in the future. And who knows what other things I'll find to toss in my omelette...

Ashley's Omelette
5 medium eggs
Tony Chachere's, to taste
1/2 c. thinly slice green onions*
3/4 c. diced ham*
1/2 c. shredded cheddar (or other) cheese*
1 Tbsp. margarine

*amounts estimated

I made the baked potato soup last night and it was great! It's another keeper. The recipe is from The Pampered Chef Main Dishes cookbook.

Baked Potato Soup
4 medium baking potatoes
2 bacon slices
1 can chicken broth
1 1/2 c. milk
1/2 c. chopped celery
1/2 c. sliced green onions
1 clove garlic, pressed
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
1 c. light sour cream
shredded cheddar cheese

*Use previously baked potatoes, or prepare potatoes and bake in microwave or oven. Remove skins and mash coarsely.
*Cook bacon until crisp in a 4-qt. pot. Remove bacon and crumble; reserve 1/2 tsp. of drippings. Add chicken broth, milk, potatoes, celery, green onions, garlic, salt, and pepper to bacon drippings. Bring to a boil; reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes.
*Stir in sour cream and bacon; serve.
*Top individual servings with shredded cheddar cheese.

I did a few things differently: I used 3 large potatoes instead of 4 medium ones, and I used 5 strips of precooked bacon - which gave me just a slight amount of drippings. I'll do a few other things differently next time: I'll leave some of the potato in chunks since it cooks down quite a bit. I'll also use Tony's instead of the salt and pepper. It just needed that extra little kick.

This soup was great with breadsticks - and perfect for such a cold day! Caleb didn't want to try any; Jacob tried it and didn't like it, which surprised me since he loves stuffed baked potatoes. Maybe it was the soup's texture that he didn't like.

Tonight - leftovers!

The Baked Parmesan Risotto was really good. Billy described it best: savory, not sweet like the packaged rice mixes. It was really easy to make, but it took longer to bake than the recipe suggested. Maybe that was because I was baking the chicken at the same time... Does baking two things at once have any effect on cooking time? Anyway, here's the recipe, taken from the Pampered Chef Stoneware Inspirations cookbook:

Baked Parmesan Risotto
1 c. long-grain instant rice
2 c. milk
1 can condensed cream of chicken soup
1/4 onion, chopped (I used about 1/2 c.)
1/2 c. freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. black pepper

*Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
*Mix all ingredients and pour into a greased 8-inch baking dish (stoneware mini baker).
*Bake for 35-40 minutes or until edges are bubbly and all liquid is gone.

I ended up having to cook mine for about 50-55 minutes, and it was still liquidy when I took it out. I let it stand for a few minutes and it "dried out" some.

Caleb was the only one who didn't like it that well; he prefers the Lipton/Knorr rice mixes. Jacob ate every bite of his, but he didn't ask for more. Billy and I both loved it. It's definitely a keeper.

I've got to make out my menu for the next week and a half since I'm heading out later today to do my grocery shopping. I wonder what new creation I'll try this go around...