Menu for the week: 31 January - 6 February.

Sunday:

Teriyaki Salmon with Zucchini from Cooking Light

Rice

Steamed Broccoli

Monday:

KombatKween's Chicken Pot Pie

Tuesday:

Marlboro Man's Favorite Sandwich from The Pioneer Woman

Fries

Steamed Cauliflower

Wednesday:

Leftovers

Thursday:

Ryan's Shrimp Risotto from PW

The Best Spinach Salad. Ever. from PW

Friday:

Pizza

Saturday:

Polish Sausage

Sauteed Potatoes

Steamed Broccoli

Hay Alfredo.

Or would it be straw? I honestly have no knowledge of the color difference between hay and straw. Perhaps a farmer could help me out.

Recipe Link: Straw and Hay Alfredo with Roasted Asparagus from Cooking Light.

Modifications: The recipe calls for both whole wheat pasta and regular pasta, hence the 'straw and hay' theme. I used Barilla Plus spaghetti, which I find to be a happy medium between the two.

To start out, I put my flour, 1% milk, salt, and fat free cream cheese in the blender and processed until smooth.

(I would show you the photo of the ingredients in the blender, but white sauce + a white blender + a white wall behind it = a very boring picture.)

To finish off the sauce, melt the butter in a sauce pan and sauté the garlic.

Pour in your blender mixture, stirring constantly. My sauce thickened up instantly it seemed, but stirring is still important.

Stir in the parmesan cheese, cover, and take off the heat.

(I have no idea where the strange, crescent-moon shadow came from in these photos. Just go with it.)

Now, if you're like me, this is about where you stop taking pictures. The next step, if you're like me, would have been to bring water for your pasta to a boil, while the asparagus pieces roast in the oven for ten minutes or until tender crisp. Throw in the pasta once that water is a-boilin', and remove your asparagus to a plate... 

...but ONLY if you're like me.

Because if you are like me, you have a husband who would completely scoff at this recipe, had he known it was being cooked for him. 

Because he's a man.

And because he is the kind of man he is, when he sees a meal like this, the first thing I hear after

"Thank you for dinner, babe" 

is... 

"...does it have meat?". 

No, dearest dear heart,  it doesn't. Now pipe down and eat.

However, since he puts up with, and often enables, my new cooking endeavors, I feel it is only right to think of him while cooking dinners like this one.

So, if you're like me, toss your homemade mozzarella sticks/bites/paddles onto the cookie sheet your asparagus just came off of, and throw them in the oven while the pasta finishes cooking.

Healthy? Well, they aren't fried...but mostly, no. Man-pleasin'? Yes. My job is done.

Once everything has been sufficiently cooked, toss the pasta, sauce, and asparagus together. Add in a little bit of EVOO and lots of fresh ground black pepper.

You will have something that looks like this:

Of course, you may or may not garnish your plate with mozzarella bites, but I chose to.

This recipe would have been great...if I liked healthy food.

Follow me here:

I am a-okay with substituting healthier ingredients for their unhealthy counterparts in my normal recipes. To me, they still taste about the same. This recipe started out healthy, no substitutions were needed (except for the EVOO in lieu of truffle oil because, really, who has truffle oil?), but it tasted like healthy food. More - it tasted like what people who don't think they'll like any health foods, imagine healthy food to taste like. If I went for that sort of thing, this recipe would have been great, but I should have known that there is no real way to make alfredo sauce healthy and have it still be the alfredo sauce I know and love.

I ate maybe a half serving of the pasta and went for a slice of the veggie pizza you saw down below. 

The asparagus was good though, and very rarely do I get to work with asparagus. 

Silver lining and all that...

Good vs. Evil.

Very, very, 42 calorie per serving - good:

Versus pure, complete, blissful evil.

They even write their r's like me...see?

I actually wrote a post a few months ago about this very topic over at 'Life Moves Pretty Fast'.

The slow-cooker French Dips were a triumph. A huge thank you goes out to a lovely lady from the forum I frequent for posting the recipe.

Stay tuned for an adventure in blender Alfredo sauce.

Soup. I Burnt Soup.

This is what this blog was made for.

Okay, I didn't technically burn soup. I burnt the vegetables that go in the soup. The first part of the recipe calls for cooking cauliflower, carrots, and onions (I omit the celery) in a couple of tablespoons of butter/margarine/whatever you choose, for fifteen minutes, stirring occasionally.

Once in fifteen minutes does not equal 'occasionally'.

Now, I'm not new to cooking. I know that the vegetables needed to be stirred more than that. So I must have been doing something of great importance, right?

Wrong.

I was playing 'Farmville'.

Apparently, I care more about my virtual vegetables than those of the edible variety.

All was not lost, thankfully. The right ingredients can hide a myriad of screw-ups. The soup didn't look as delicious as it normally does, but it tasted more or less the same.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go plant some squash.

Menu for the week: 24 January - 30 January.

(When it comes to these menus, I will link the recipes that come off of other websites.)

Sunday (tonight):

Cauliflower Soup from The Pioneer Woman

(This might be my favorite soup of all time. I lighten it up a little, but it is still SO good.)

Monday:

Slow Cooker French Dips.

Fries.

Steamed Broccoli.

Tuesday:

Leftovers.

Wednesday:

Grilled Chicken Caesar Salads.

Veggie Pizza Bites.

Thursday:

Straw & Hay Alfredo with Roasted Asparagus from Cooking Light

Baked Mozzarella Bites.

Friday:

Ribeye Steaks with Mushroom Sauce.

Potato Bundles from PW (Lightened up a bit).

Roasted Asparagus.

Saturday:

Breakfast for Dinner:

Pancake Recipe from PW

Sausage Links.

Epic Shopping Milestone.

You heard me.

What I may not have mentioned on this blog is that the Commissary here is frequently out of even the most basic foods. It's enough to drive a normally patient person insane, and we all know I have never fallen under the 'patient' category.

I was absolutely dreading today because we had to shop for meals for two weeks. I was positive that half of the stuff on my list would have to be changed because of the Commissary's supply (or lack there of).

I walked out of there with everything I needed.

I had never been so surprised.

There is only one thing I'm missing, and it isn't because the store was out. It is because I didn't write it on my list.

You'll learn that is something that happens to me, more often than not.

It was sour cream, in case you were curious. I don't need it, but it would have been nice for the soup bowls tonight.

Maybe we'll try fat free cream cheese instead? We'll see. The soup is delicious on its own.

Meet the Chef!

...and I use that term loosely.

Not to mention, if you have made your way here you probably already know me on some level.

In case you forgot or have just found this place, here are the facts:

I'm Kristen. I'm 21 years old. I am currently living in Misawa (technically Oirase), Japan, with my husband, Chris, and our crazy dog, Guinness. We moved here in April 2009 from Anchorage, Alaska. In Anchorage I worked full time, and I loved (most) every minute of it. Here in Japan, I hang out at home and am a full time student with UMUC. It has been a change, and the biggest part of that change is my growing love for cooking. It started in Anchorage with a new recipe here and there, and only flourished here now that I have infinitely more time on my hands.

In an effort to share my cooking, my menus, my kitchen mishaps and musings with family and friends, and to keep myself organized, I have created this blog. If you are interested in more than just the cooking aspect of my life, my personal blog can be found here.

I'm sure I won't be documenting every recipe I make, but I am hoping to use this as the spot for all of my weekly menus. If you see anything on the menus, or remember any food I have mentioned previously, that you would like me to elaborate on, just shoot me a comment. I'll try to make it happen.

My goal for the first month of this blog is to detail at least one recipe per week. Assuming that goes well, I will add more.

That's all I've got for now, but I think it's a good start.

-Kristen