New Meals & A New Idea

This week, I made a classic recipe from my mom, macaroni soup.  It is so hearty and delicious and I haven't had it in so long, that it really brought back memories from my childhood for me.  It is fairly easy to make, and so worth the effort it on a cold night.  Tom and I had it on one of the cold rainy nights this weekend, and it was delicious!

Macaroni Soup
Chicken (my mom always used a whole chicken cut-up, but since it was just Tom and I eating it, I used a few chicken breasts)
Soup macaroni (small pasta, like orzo)
2 onions
carrots
Salt
Pepper
Parsley
1 can of tomato sauce
Celery (optional)

Throw in all of the ingredients, except for the macaroni. Bring a big pot of water to a boil, then allow everything to cook for an hour on simmer.  Make sure that the chicken is cooked and that the vegetables are tender.  Cook the macaroni as directed on the box.  Cut up the carrots, celery, and onion on a cutting board and shred the chicken into little pieces.  Then, as you serve it, put a serving of macaroni in each bowl.  Mix in some of the broth, chicken, and vegetables and you are ready to eat!

I also made a super easy salad with a leafy green bagged salad and spinach mix.  I topped it with cherry tomatoes, chunks of fresh mozzarella, and drizzled balsamic dressing on top.  So easy, but so good!



I also made two Pioneer Woman recipes tonight.  I tried her Salisbury steak and garlic mashed potatoes.  The steak tasted like a combination of meatloaf and hamburgers, but Tom seemed to really enjoy the flavors.  The mash potatoes were so creamy and delicious and I loved using my dutch oven from stove top to oven!

For dessert tonight, Tom and I will be having chocolate chip cookie bars.  This is a classic dessert of my mom's and again I haven't had it in a while.  Can't wait to dig into one tonight!



Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

2 1/4 cups of flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup of softened butter
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
2 cups of chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Spray a 13 by 9 pan with non stick cooking spray.  In small bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt.  In a  large bowl, combine the butter, sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla.  Beat in the eggs.  Gradually, add the flour mixture and mix well (I used my Kitchen-aid mixer for this step, but my mom used to mix by hand).  Sir in the chocolate chips.  Bake at 375 degree for 20-25 minutes.

In North Fork news, Tom and I had lunch at the Jamesport Country Kitchen this weekend.  We both got fried fluke sandwiches and they were so good!  They tasted so fresh and the restaurant was set in a cute little yellow house, filled with cute little waitresses in yellow sweaters!  Definitely check it out, here's their website!

Jamesport Country Kitchen

Lastly, my blog readers, I have two questions for you!  Most of you know about the annual crochet sale we host to raise money to honor my mom and a portion of the proceeds are donated to the American Cancer Society.  This year, Stevi and I discussed including other crafts in addition to our crochet goods to offer more variety at our "Crochet for a Cure" event.  Today, I was thinking that I would love to sell a "Cookbook for a Cure" at this year's event.  My school did a cookbook fundraiser a few years ago and it was a lot of fun.  My thought is I could create a cookbook with classic recipes of mine and my mom's and also ask for submissions from family and friends.  I requested a get started kit from the cookbook company and am really excited by this idea.  The cookbooks would cost $10 each and I would give a portion of the proceeds to the American Cancer Society, just like we do with the crochet items.  The only issue is, I would need to place an minimum order of 100 cookbooks.  I hope they would sell because they are fairly inexpensive and I think people would enjoy them (especially people who submit a recipe), but I don't want to wind up with 90 of them left over.  So my blog reading friends, can you answer the following on my Face book page?

1) Would you consider buying one of these $10 cookbooks if I decided to have them made?
2) Would you be interested in sending me a family favorite recipe of yours? (I am thinking of including  a recipe request with our housewarming party invites, but more info to follow on that).

I would really appreciate your feedback on my "new idea!"  Thanks for reading!

My 28th Birthday

I can't believe I turned 28 this past week!  Tom really did a great job making me feel special and I loved every moment of my birthday weekend.  I woke up to a balloon and flowers from Tom, then headed off to school.  I had a nice day at school, filled with so much Kindergarten love.  The kids made me enough birthday cards to wallpaper our whole new house with and all day they kept hugging me and wishing me a happy birthday.  My grade level partner and classroom aide made cupcakes for the two kindergarten classes and they gave me an kitchen herb garden and a pretty indoor plant of yellow daisies.  My dad surprised me and stopped by school with a a pretty little purple planter filled with purple flowers.  But the best part was letting the kids meet him.  I asked if they had any guesses who my special guest was.  The first student I called on excitedly said, "Mr. Stidd!", which I replied "No, he's a lot younger" but my next student guessed, "Your father!"  They introduced themselves and I think it was really cool for them to see I am a real person with a real family and I think it was fun for my dad to see the 19 five year-olds that I spend my weekdays with.  Another funny moment from my birthday is one of my students must have told her mother it was my birthday.  So she proudly handed me a gift bag from Victoria's Secret.  It was only filled with a perfume set, but it was still an awkward thing to open with a group of kindergartners.  On top of that, she kept insisting I pull the gift cards out of the bag.  Apparently they had earned rewards money for their purchase and had included them in my bag, but these "cards" were covered with women advertising what we all know you typically buy at Victoria's Secrets.  Most five year-olds don't want to feel like they are missing out on anything, so they were all yelling at me once that they "didn't get a chance to see" the gift cards, that I quickly shoved back in the bag upon realizing the images on the outside.  Overall though, it was a great birthday in kindergarten.


After school, I tutored two students and then it was time for my dinner with Tom.  When we first pulled up, we appeared to be in a less than desirable section of Riverhead.  However, buried in this industrial area was a little country farm house.  "Farm Country Kitchen" is a little restaurant on the Peconic River from the 1800's.  The whole restaurant was filled with pretty fireplaces and candlelit dinner tables.  We sat in the section of the house that overlooked the river and it was so pretty to find this little gem in what initially looked like nothing special. I unfortunately was fighting off a sore throat and a cold (another gift from my kindergartners), but Tom and I both enjoyed two gigantic salads, followed by filet mignon and garlic mashed potatoes.  It was all delicious!  For those of you who like the wineries, I would suggest this place for sure!  You can either bring your own wine and dine inside or outside, or purchase some of their box lunches to go to take with you to the wineries.  Here is the website for further info: Farm Country Kitchen.

After dinner, we headed back to our new house for cake and presents (the house with Tom is really my greatest gift of all).  He made all of my "Pioneer Woman" dreams come true, complete with a dutch oven (a cast-iron pot that can be used on top of or inside the stove) and it is bright blue just like the one she uses!  He also got me some clothes, an Easter table runner, tickets to "Stars on Ice", and a beautiful glass cake stand.  We ended the night with rainbow cookie cake, my absolute favorite!













                                                      

The next day we celebrated with my family (I consider Stevi's clan my family, they are honorary Stidd's at our functions).  We went to JR's Steakhouse for dinner (prime rib=deliciousness) and then came back to our house for presents and cake.  Everyone was so kind and generous!  I loved all my presents which included a gift card for I-tunes, Ann Taylor, and Bed Bath and Beyond, a crepe maker, baking sheet liners, crochet stitch markers, and a Michael Kors bag (I've never owned such a fancy bag, I filled it right away!)  We had another delicious chocolate cake, this time from Junda's Pastry Crust & Crumbs from Jamesport.  Tom and I loved showing our guests the new painting we've done so far and the new carpet up in the loft.  The best part of all though was spending time with everyone!  Not to mention my four favorite little ones were with me to celebrate the whole night, my two nephews and Stevi & Joe's kids Leo and Juliet.  Notice Juliet's crocheted cupcake dress (so glad she wore one of my creations for my special day!)























Overall, I couldn't have asked for a better birthday weekend.  A few additional things about the weekend included:

1) I made these egg in a holes like I saw the Pioneer Woman make on TV.  I had actually made these before as a kid when I took a cooking class at one of the high schools a long time ago.  I am glad she reminded me about these, Tom and I both really enjoyed them!



2)  We tried out a local movie theater in Mattituck. It is an old fashioned theater, no stadium seating, but so cute and local!  We saw "Divergent" and what we thought would be a "teen-flick" we actually found to be quite good!  We also tried the pizza place "Michelangelo's" which was a great spot that we are going to remember when we want to grab a quick bite before a show.  They also have a whole restaurant in the back that we want to try sometime.

3)  Today we went to Erik's Breakfast & Lunch in Southhold.  You order at the counter and then you can pick where to sit in their little screen room (which luckily it was heated today, but I bet it's just beautiful in the summer).  I had chicken salad on raisin almond bread, it was really tasty!  Here's the link for that too Erik's







I am sad that my birthday weekend is coming to a close but I am enjoying our new house and hometown so much!  I can't wait to continue with our house projects.  This weekend we got a new clock for the loft (pictures of the loft to come soon once it's furnished), my dad helped put our regular fish tank and the fish up in the loft, we got a TV for the loft, a fire pit for the back yard, and two cabinets for the garage to hold some of my additional appliances and larger kitchen gadgets.  This place is really shaping up!  Thanks for everyone who celebrated with me, wished me a happy birthday in person, on the phone, on Facebook, or for just reading about my fun now!