The Oscars Are Coming!

And so begins one of my favorite times of the year. Movie stars (and not movie stars) come out dressed in their finest attire (or not) to celebrate the best movies of the year. Seriously, people, this is like my own superbowl. And I've been trolling pinterest for some great appetizer recipes. I don't want to give away all my secrets but here and here are a couple of my ideas. It should be a lovely night filled with Jennifer Lawrence, Hugh Jackman, and those quick camera shots of George Clooney with some woman 20 years younger than him hanging on his arm.

Anyway, on to this past week of dinners. Monday we had mini turkey meat loaves. It's kind of a novel idea, where you make the meat loaf in muffin pans. This is especially appealing to me since the concept of a "meat loaf" absolutely disgusts me. Seriously, its a loaf of meat. The only thing that should come in a loaf is bread. Not meat. Ever. It's gross. Anyway, I like my ground meat in muffin form better. I tried this recipe first last year and it didn't get rave reviews, but I liked it. A little spicy, but otherwise it was good.

Tuesday we used leftover ham from my mom's on Friday and made pseudo-reubens. Essentially a ham and cheese sandwich dipped in egg and grilled. We also had leftover mashed potatoes. 

 Wednesday was the first day of Lent, so we had cornflake crusted halibut. We've also tried this recipe before and liked it, so if it ain't broke, dont fix it.

Thursday we had personal chicken pot pies. It was pretty easy but I wasn't a fan for two reasons. 1-I like my pot pie nice and soupy, and this one didn't have very much broth. 2- The crust was just pie crust that you cut in a circle and baked. I usually like my crust slightly more bread like and less crusty. Despite this, I ate the leftovers for lunch twice this week. 

 Here it is with the crust broken up.

 Friday we were meatless again. Ryan made shrimp scampi with some leftover pasta and some special seasoning. I call it special because I honestly have no idea what it is. But it was good.

Saturday we went out with Ryan's parents, and Sunday we went skiing and packed our own lunch since food there is expensive. We just had sandwiches. On to Monday. We are trying some recipes from the Wegmans Menu magazine. Here is teriyaki chicken with udon noodles. I HATE green beans but ate them for this recipe. And I took it for lunch too. Suck it, beans. 

Tuesday we really wanted to try this tortellini recipe from a magazine, but you had to make your own pasta and filling. We opted for the easy way out, especially since we don't have a pasta attachment for the stand mixer. We did make the sauce. It was our first time making homemade sauce and it was a big success. We have a ton left over so we need to make something italian next week. I just heard about an Italian pasta place near where I work called Gondola's and they have Ryan's favorite, lobster ravioli, so that might be in the cards for next week. 

 Wednesday we tried a new pork chop recipe. It looked good, but it wasn't excellent and there were a ton of dishes. We didn't like it because the pork did not cook all the way through and we had to put it in the oven to cook completely, and the sauce got really caramelized and hard, almost crunchy. it is were more liquid like it maybe would have been better.

That's all for this time. I can't wait to announce the winner of our Awards Season competition. SPOILER ALERT: Ryan is currently down by 18 points. 

And here's the crazy Southern transplant oxymoron of the week: We listened to country music while driving to go skiing. Crazy.