Finally! A New Post!

Don't hate on me, y'all, I told you there would be minimal posts in the summer. This post will cover up until July 4th. Keep in mind, our summer is very busy, so we have been eating at parties and have been out of town. So if you notice there aren't as many meals as normal, spare us the nasty comments!

In addition, we just recently found out we are moving!!! So in perparation for our move, we are trying to not buy as much stuff to keep refrigerated/frozen and in our pantry so we don't have a ton of food to move. Seriously people, moving is bad enough (I've done it four times in four years). Doing it with perishable items is borderline insanity.

The week of May 27-June 2 was dubbed "crock pot week" at the Henesey's. Ryan was off all week, so he was able to check the pot often. And since I started a soccer league, Ryan needed leftovers every Monday, and the massive portions crock pots produce served as a perfect frozen leftover meal.

Monday as crock pot orange chicken, a recipe I found on pinterest. I can't remember exact ingredients, but I do know that there was a half can of frozen orange juice concentrate in it. It was really pretty tasty.

Tuesday was Turkey Quinoa meatballs. Ryan and I both thought these were really tasty. The quinoa acted as the breadcrumbs in regular meatballs, and made for a really good first experience with quinoa with me. 

Wednesday our friend from Clemson came in to see us, so we indulged in some Fuju Grill sushi. 

Thursday we had rigatoni and sausage. This was not as delicious as it sounded, although it was easy. Ryan and I both noted the noodles had an unusual texture, we presume it was from being cooked too long. They were almost slimy. I still ate it but it was not as carbohydrate-satisfying as the picture looks. 

Friday we made pork stew. This stew was good, but it was a little salty, which I like but other people may not. 

This is vomit a delicious meal that was prepared in a crock pot for hours. It really is enchillada casserole, but getting it out of the crock pot and looking presentable for a photo was about as easy as petting a wild bear. It wasn't really that good, but it was certainly better tasting than the picture makes it seem. 

Sunday was thai pork, which we made using yet another piece of pork from the 20-pounder Ryan bought. Good news; there's only one big ass piece of meat left. Ideas as to how to use it are welcome. And we've already though of dropping it out of a 20 story window, so that doesn't count. This was good also, but the recipe calls for adding the peas at the very end for only a couple minutes, but they were way too crunchy, so I would recommend leaving them in the pot to cook for a bit longer. 

All our crock pot recipes with the exception of the above mentioned pinterest recipe, were found in this recipe book, which was a wedding gift from our lovely friends Chris and Erin. There are a ton of recipes in it, and the price right now on Amazon is very good, so I would totally recommend getting your hands on one. 

Monday is soccer night for me, and Ryan is supposed to be eating the leftovers, but I can neither confirm nor deny this is indeed what he eats on Monday. On to Tuesday then, where we made our go to favorite pizza supreme. 

Wednesday we had barbeque shrimp. Pretty self explanatory here, we did not even use a recipe. This was all Ryan.  I have no idea what we ate Thursday. Seriously people. NO. IDEA. There is something crossed off in my day planner, but nothing written in above it. I think we may have gone over to Ryan's parents house? Maybe we have leftover pizza? Let's just call this a wash.

Friday we had turkey meatloaf again, and it was better than I originally remember. We paired it with roasted potatoes. and some corn. 

Saturday we did chicken and asparagus, another repeat recipe. And Sunday we went out with my parents and Ryan played golf. We put an offer in on a house today, but there was a great deal of competition and the sellers quickly accepted another offer. However, my Mom and I went to an open house before we knew about our offer situation, and I had a good feeling about this one. Stay tuned for more!

Monday Ryan was on his own once again, so on Tuesday we had salmon and citrus sauce, a recipe we repeated again that was originally from a Wegman's menu magazine. 

Wednesday we had no dinner because Ryan and I went to see the house my mom and I saw last Sunday. We saw a couple others too, but it didn't take much convincing on my part to show Ryan this was a good house. We put in an offer that night and we were just too nervous for dinner. We found out a couple days later they countered at just over what we offered, and we accepted. After inspection, appraisal, mortgage approval, and the like, our tentative move in date is August 12. The good news: the house is essentially in move-in condition. The bad news: the kitchen is pretty outdated, lacks counter space and has poor flow. I really want to update the kitchen, so we are trying to save some money away for kitchen improvements so I can continue to cook and post here for y'all to see. 

Thursday we had cheddar turkey burgers, but from all the excitement about the house I really can't remember how they tasted, or where the recipe came from. I am pretty sure it was from Real Simple, but I cannot definitively confirm that. 

Friday we had chicken, bacon and cheddar salad. Again, I cannot remember where this recipe came from. Face, meet palm. 

Saturday we had lemon pepper shrimp, and this was from Wegman's menu magazine. It was good, but messy since the shrimp were cooked in oil. I would also recommend making sure the shrimp are really dry before you coat them with the cornstarch because the breading pulled away from a lot of the shrimp and it took away from the taste. We will try it again and report back with an update on this recipe.

Sunday was Father's Day, and we hosted a small get-together. We made hot dogs, and my mom made BBQ hamburgers. It was essentially a picnic, complete with fruit, corn on the cob, and dessert to celebrate my Dad's Birthday. 

Tuesday was baked ziti casserole, which Ryan made all by himself! Please ignore the fact that the pasta is technically not ziti. In our house, any pasta shape suffices. Wednesday we had an awards ceremony that was catered by Ilio DiPalos. 

Thursday was another repeat Wegmans recipe, pan seared chicken with gravy. Oh man this is so good. The gravy is to die for. I probably could eat that gravy on anything. Friday I volunteered as a photographer for a local 5K race in Williamsville so we did not cook that night. Saturday was our big 38 mile bike ride. Ryan and I crossed the finish line together, holding hands. We did it in under 2 hours, 1:58 to be exact. I am so proud of myself for finishing, because I don't think there was any way I could have done that in March. Thank you to everyone who donated to the ride. Roswell Park raised almost 2 million dollars for cancer research. My goal is to ride every year until they find a cure for cancer. 

That night we participated in "Star Wars Night" at the baseball game, so we did not cook Saturday either. And Sunday was my family reunion, so instead of cooking we brought sushi. Essentially it was a non-cooking weekend. Plus, I felt like some post-apocalyptic survivor, and therefore ate literally anything that was put in front of my face, so I'm glad I was not home sitting around too long to be tempted by food. 

The following Tuesday we had chicken and noodles with peanut sauce. Again, I can't remember where this recipe came from, but it was really great, just the right amount of peanut butter, and the broccoli was amazing. Wednesday we used up leftovers and made another small ziti casserole. Thursday we had another party to attend that included dinner. Friday Ryan had a golf tournament, so I finished up the ziti for dinner. 

Saturday we had barbeque salmon, which was another one of "Ryan's recipes." In case you haven't already guessed, his secret ingredient is barbeque sauce. Sunday through Wednesday we had an assortment of dinner at parents, leftovers, and takeout. We left for Washington on July 4th, and had a blast. I will cover this trip in another post, but let's suffice to say we ate like total pigs. Here's an example of one of the places we ate. 

Ben's Chili Bowl

Apparently it was famously open during the race riots and served a crap load (no pun intended) of chili. Our good ol' President Barry O even ate there. He and Bill Cosby are the only people allowed to leave without paying. 

Insider's tip: don't ever go to this neighborhood at night.

Final picture. We went to the zoo in D.C and saw this cute little bugger. For those of you who don't know, we have a patient at work who has been requiring bandage changes weekly or twice weekly for the past 2-3 months, and I have become somewhat of an expert at leg bandaging. This critter was all hangin' out with his bandage on staring down the tourists. Man, I thought it was tough to bandage a dog's leg. Imagine doing it to a wombat!

In the coming posts, I'll cover our Washington trip, Atlanta wedding, and all the food in between. Enjoy this lovely summer weather!

Don't get your hopes up

So far this summer has been quite busy for us, so I apologize for not posting for such a long time. I would say that this won't happen again, but that would be a total lie. Our summer months are super busy and we have plans pretty much every weekend. So for the summer, don't expect more than one post a month from me. So, without further adieu, here are our meals from May 5th on!

Sunday we broke out the grill since it was such a nice day and grilled pork chops that we marinated in barbeque sauce. Ryan the grill master cooked them perfectly. Just look at that grill pattern. 

 Monday we did roast beef on weck sandwiches. For those of you not familiar with Buffalo, beef on weck is pretty famous here. Really it's just sliced roast beef on a kimelweck roll, but I really can't put into words how delicious they are. I personally think Andersons has the best ever beef on weck sandwiches, but everyone has their own opinions. Our version wasn't nearly as good, but it sure did hit the spot.

Tuesday we had buttermilk chicken and homemade sweet potato fries. I tried to make the chicken into nuggets like chick-fil-a, but you just can't duplicate the original. Plus this was a cooking light recipe, and I really don't think CFA is super concerned with healthy meals. 

 Wednesday Ryan got to try out his new toy, pictured below!

It's a pancake batter dispenser that he's had his eye on for some time, and since we had a gift card left over from our wedding, he bought it. He made some pretty mean pancakes, and it was a little easier to dispense than using a measuring cup in a big bowl. 

Thursday we made Ryan's favorite, goulash. Basically just a mixture of ground beef, sloppy joe sauce, and pasta. I have no idea why he loves it so much. 

Friday my parents took us to dinner, so skip to Saturday, when we made chicken divan. This could have been so good, but just wasn't. First of all, I can NEVER seem to stuff a chicken breast without poking through the other side or tearing it. This furthers my belief that I would be a terrible surgeon or doctor. Second, the chicken was not cooked all the way through, even though I followed the directions exactly. Actually, mine was cooked through, but Ryan's was not fully cooked where the broccoli was. If memory serves be correctly, he had a few good bites and then scarfed down the goulash when I wasn't looking. 

And the final reason why I did not like this recipe really needs no words. Check out this epic picture.

 So. Many. Dishes. And the sauce boiled over, which took FOREVER to clean off the stove. It totally wasn't worth it since it took me almost a full hour to clean the kitchen. Final verdict: not recommended.

Sunday we had Ryan's parents over for Mother's day. We were going to grill but the weather was terrible, so we just had hot dogs and italian sausage inside. As some of you may know, I enjoy cooking, but baking is really where I come into my own. I made a carrot cake for dinner, but I also found this idea on pinterest, the time waster of women nationwide. It's all fruit, but it's made to look like a cake. I thought it would be really difficult to make since I had no real instructions and was just going off a picture. It ended up being easier than I thought. I had to pretty much "carve" the watermelon, cutting off the rind as close as possible to the fruit, and then shape it into what resembled a cake. Then I used cookie cutters that a doctor from work generously lent me to make the flowers and leaves and used toothpicks to stick them into the melon. The top oranges and bottom apples and strawberries were just carefully arranged on the plate. I was shocked it turned out so good.

Here comes the week of shitty meals. Sorry to disappoint so early. The week started off Monday with carrot pancakes, since I had leftover shreeded carrots from the carrot cake. They were ok, but were super dense (made with cream cheese) and heavy. I like my pancakes light and fluffy, so if you like pancakes really heavy you may enjoy them, but Ryan and I were not fans. 

Tuesday was fine, just a repeat of a usual monthly meal, the croque monsieur sandwich, Henesey style. We made some more sweet potato fries but proceeded to burn the crap out of them. 

Wednesday I did not eat at all dinner was so awful. It was tuna noodle casserole, which I was warned might be bad, but I was confident that if I picked it out to make, it would be good. Not true. I took one bite and it was terrible. Yes it was creamy, but the tuna (the recipe called for simple canned tuna) was terrible; dry and tasteless. I tried to take another bite but I honestly could not do it. And since I told myself at the beginning of this project that I would eat all my creations or go to bed hungry, I chose the latter option. It was that bad. Ryan managed to force down his entire serving, and even said he liked it and would take some for lunch the ext day, but the leftovers sat in the refrigerator all week. Luckily, this was very inexpensive to make, so I did not feel bad throwing the rest of it away. 

Thursday we had another semi-failure. Pear and Prosciutto pizza. It was supposed to be topped with arugula but Wegmans did not have any, so we just used field mix. The prosciutto was good, but the pears, once baked in the oven, just got soggy, especially when the oil and vinegar went on it. I did eat this entire dinner, but it certainly won't become a favorite for us. 

Friday Ryan was out of town, so I was lazy and just made tomato soup and noodles. Saturday Ryan was still away, and I could not stand to not make dinner again. This is called Ravioli toss. Tomatoes, beans, and cheese over ravioli, in essence. It was simply ok, and again I don't think it will become a favorite. 

Sunday we went to my parents for dinner for a belated Mother's day and to celebrate my Grandmother's 97th(!!) Birthday. I hope I get her genes. Then on Monday we had leftover chicken casserole from the night before. Tuesday we had chicken cutlets with herb butter. Insanely easy to make and so tasty. 

Wednesday we had breaded fish sandwiches, a recipe from the newest Cooking Light magazine. They were just okay, not great. But maybe I was expecting a filet-o-fish and just got my hopes up. Thursday I was not feeling well so I just had cereal for dinner. Ryan cooked himself some barbeque chicken and had it over a salad. 

Friday we had Mahogany glazed pork. If I remember correctly, this was made in a crock pot. The snow peas were awful though, super undercooked, but the pork itself was pretty tasty. 

Saturday we had turkey tenderlion sandwiches, a recipe from the Taste of Home healthy eating section. These were super good, and will definitely be making a repeat appearance. 

Sunday we made strip steaks. Ryans exact words were "MMMM! That steak was good!" He reprised his role as grill master for these bad boys. We had our first corn on the cob of summer too. 

Here's a slight update on our healthy lifestyle too! We have been training for a 33 mile bike ride. Recently, we have been riding to do small errands at the drugstore or grocery store. We also have ridden to the gym once or twice, and have also ridden to the zoo. Our longest ride was almost 20 miles, down the entire lake. We are starting to really enjoy it, especially since map my ride tells us we burn about 600 calories per hour. I have to raise 150$ for this ride, or else I can't do it, and I have been working too hard to not participate. If you can, please please donate. All donations benefit cancer research. Click here to donate. Thank you!

I am also approaching 10 lbs lost since March. I keep losing a little every week, and although I get dejected when my numbers are small, I know that it could be worse. I could be gaining!

I will leave you with a picture of one of the two monsters that it always under my feet while I am cooking. This is Oliver, our six year old terrier. We call him the monkey. He tries to attack the UPS truck and school buses, but is super scared of thunder, the oven, and smoke detectors. He frequently samples some of our dinners. This may explain why he is so fat. 

Good bye from all the two and four legged Henesey's!

I bet y'all are sooo hungry

It's been a decent amount of time since I've posted about food, but I promise this post if full of meals. Let's get right to it.

Saturday night after seeing Jurassic Park we had flank steak marinated in Sriracha. Lucky for me it was not too spicy, and very tasty.

 Sunday we cut up that huge piece of pork and put it in the slow cooker. Ryan made a rub for it and cooked it. We're not sure if it was overcooked or we cooked the wrong piece of meat, but it was very hard to pull. Ryan instead chopped it and then out barbeque sauce over it. We had it on sandwiches, and it turned out just fine.

 Monday we finally finished off the lobster ravioli. Apparently it's a faux-pas to eat it with red sauce, but I thought it was just fine. Ryan had his with just some spray butter.

 Tuesday we had leftover pork. We made tacos out of them. It was easy and super cheap, since we already had the tortillas left over from the shrimp salad, we always have sour cream and cheese in the fridge, and just chopped up some romaine.

 Wednesday we had pork Banh Mih sandwiches again, a repeat from a couple weeks before, but Ryan really liked them, and they were pretty easy to make.

 Thursday we had a chicken BLT salad. The recipe called for homemade dressing made with buttermilk, but we just used low fat ranch. This is another easy to make dinner. All you really have to do is cook the chicken and bacon (we usually cook all our bacon on Sunday and just re-heat it for recipes throughout the week) and then chop the lettuce and tomatoes. Even as I'm writing this, it's making me hungry.

Friday we had Pizza supreme, our signature pizza. Saturday we went bowling and just had some leftovers from the week, and Sunday we went to dinner for my mom's birthday. The restaurant was pretty awesome because you could see Toronto from it. To put that in perspective, Toronto is a 2 hour drive from Buffalo. 

 Monday I made baked ziti with the leftover turkey sausage from the pizza on Friday. I proceeded to eat the leftovers for lunch every day that week.

 Tuesday I decided to change things up and went to food network for recipes. They have a healthy eating section, so I pulled a few recipes from their site. This is one of them. Coffee and molasses marinated pork chops. They were absolutely delicious. Ryan cooked them perfectly too.

 Wednesday was another food network recipe. Now if you have read this blog from the beginning you know my views on meat loaf. I couldn't bring myself to make this with ground beef, so I made turkey loaf. It had peppers and onions in it, so obviously I had heartburn for the next two days. The glaze was probably the best part of the meatloaf, it was mostly ketchup but had brown sugar and some other spices in it. It was really good.

 Thursday we had even more leftover chopped pork, so we had that again. To save calories, I had mine plain, but Ryan had his on a bun. I forgot to take a picture, but I promise it looked pretty much the same as the first picture of the pork sandwich. Friday we had a food network recipe for jambalaya. I made a mistake when reading the directions. It called for rice, so I just assumed the instant rice we had would work. It probably wasn't a good idea, but google told me that as long as I watched it and added some water or broth if it got dry, it would be fine. It was. I put the leftovers in a container and went to do some laundry, and came back and caught Ryan eating the entire container! He clearly liked it.

Saturday we had a friend's birthday party, so we had leftovers (meatloaf and ziti). Sunday we cooked another hunk of pork, this time in a smaller crock pot we ordered. Again, it would not pull! So now I am convinced we bought the wrong kind of pork. Oh well, it was still good and did pull, it was just very difficult to pull apart. My pork marinade it a complex combination: coke and ketchup. Ta da! I also baked some sweet potatoes cut into fry strips. They were very tasty. 

Monday and Tuesday I totally forgot to take pictures, and although I'm ok with missing Tuesday because we had pork tacos (pictured above) Monday Ryan made chicken souvlaki with tzatziki sauce and it was so good. So on to Wednesday, where we had spicy shrimp salad again. 

 Thursday we had mini pizzas. The dough was just an English muffin, and we had barbeque chicken pizza. Friday I forgot to take a picture AGAIN because we were in a hurry to get to wine night, but we had soy and honey marinated steak. Ryan hated it, but I ate it. Saturday night we went out to Eastern Pearl, a chinese restaurant. Ryan and I had bet dinner on our awards's season game, and since he lost, he bought me dinner there. Ugh it was so good, but probably so bad for me.

In the past four weeks, I have officially lost 5 pounds. Huzzah! Hopefully there is more to come, and my 5:30 am gym outings will pay off. 

My mom also wanted me to put in a disclaimer: she says she never told me baclava was broccoli. Although I remember her telling me this pretty clearly, she insists she never did. So I am eating my words for her. 

Finally, check out my guest post on the Reel Belle's blog. The link is right here. Feel free to read some of their other wonderful posts too. 

Until next time!