Lazy Saturday Morning

This is what happens when my boys don't want to wake up in the morning. I crawl back in bed and blind them with the camera until they wake up or until Tuck starts to bark insanely at the red light on my camera which then wakes up Casey and achieves the desired effect. Before you think I'm a harsh wife waking up her husband, it was noon. Come on people, I can only entertain myself so much in the morning. Well actually, I did entertain myself at least for an hour doing this.

My puppy is lazy and that's my arm he likes to sleep on in the morning, and that's my ratty VMI t-shirt that I'll never get rid of.

"Seriously mom? Is it hurting anyone for us to be sleeping in a little later?"

"Seeeeeeeeeeeeriously?"

I then opened the blinds in hopes of brightening the room even more and I received just a pure look of scorn.

Then he thought about it and came over to my side. Waking dad up won't be too bad of an idea.

"Dad, are you up?"

"Dad?"

"Oh well.. I'll just sleep on your face for a little bit until you wake up."

I lost him back to the dark side of the late sleeper inners.

::sigh:: I guess a few more minutes won't hurt...

Grandma's Hard Rolls

I recently went through a lot of my grandma's recipes and transferred them over to my own recipe box so that I wouldn't have to call everytime I wanted to make something of hers. I remember her making these rolls when I was little. They were little oval rolls of heaven. That might be a little dramatic, but I really do like these rolls. I feel like she used to always make these with italian dishes and they complimented really well. When I decided to make this recipe for the first time I decided that instead of making 24 rolls like the recipe called for, I would make a dozen and turn them into big fluffy rolls. We made these into meatball sandwiches and they were sooooo good.

The instructions aren't very specific because this recipe was passed down and I'm sure was written down from memory. I'm no expert roll maker, but I haven't made a mistake with these rolls yet so they seem pretty foolproof.


(Source: Grandma)
Servings: 24 rolls (or you can make 12 big ones like I made)

4 c. unbleached flour
2/3 tsp. salt
2/3 c. sugar
1 1/2 c. of warm water
2 pkgs of dry yeast
2 eggs
Vegetable oil

Add yeast to water and let set until you see the yeast start to work and then add the two eggs. Combine dry ingredients. Pour yeast mixture into dry ingredients and mix well. Knead dough. Coat bowl and ball of dough with vegetable oil. Cover bowl and let dough rise until it reaches the top of the bowl.

Divide dough in half by squeezing in the center to get two balls. Divide those two balls in half to get 4. Divide those 4 to get 8. Divide those 8 into 1/3 to get 24. Shape these into oval rolls and place on greased baking sheet to rise again. When dough has risen bake at 450 degrees until tops are brown.

Since I was slaving away at bread, I made meatballs the lazy way. I bought a bag of frozen meatballs and added a couple of jars of Prego. I topped the meatballs with provolone and banana peppers. These rolls aren't meant to be subs, so they're very messy to eat with meatballs, but it's worth it and I make them with meatballs everytime =)

Easy Cheesy Beer Bread

I've seen this recipe floating around and I've been looking for a good opportunity to make it. I recently got the chance to take it to dinner at a friend's house and everyone really enjoyed it! It was sooo easy to make and I know we'll make it again. I got this recipe from Katie over at Good Things Catered.

(Source: Good Things Catered)

2 c. all purpose flour
1 c. whole wheat flour
1/3 c. packed brown sugar
4 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp garlic powder
1 c. shredded sharp cheddar
12 oz. bottle of lager or stout (I used Sam Adams Oktoberfest)
2 Tbsp butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare loaf pan for baking.

In large bowl, combine flours, sugar, baking powder, salt, and garlic powder. Whisk to combine well. Add cheese and whisk to combine. Slowly add beer to dry ingredients and stir lightly until combined. Knead dough lightly until it just comes together.

Place into prepared loaf pan and pour melted butter over top. Place in oven to bake for 55-60 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into center of loaf comes out clean.

Jay's Jerk Chicken

I used Allrecipes.com to search for a jerk chicken recipe and Jay's Jerk Chicken got a lot of good reviews. I was kind of skeeved out at first by having to use a food processor to chop all of the liquid and vegetables together but it gave the meat a great flavor. I ended up marinating this over night so the flavor infused really well. I served it with pineapple and rice and the sweetness of the pineapple really balanced out the flavor nicely. I think we would definitely have this again.

(Source: Allrecipes)
Servings: 4

6 green onions, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced
3/4 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 1/2 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breast halves

In a food processor or blender, combine all of the above ingredients besides the chicken. Mix for around 15 seconds. Place chicken in medium bowl and cover with marinade. Refrigerate for 4-6 hours or overnight.

Preheat grill, grill pan, or broiler. Lightly oil grill grate. Grill chicken for 6 to 8 minutes or until juices run clear (I ended up grilling mine for longer than 8 minutes but I used a grill pan and my chicken was pretty thick).

Halloween and More Pictures

Scary, right? You mean a flaming 'X' and a goofy looking spider with one tooth doesn't scare you? It probably shouldn't, but behold, this year's pumpkin creations. I went with the spider and Casey started with a skull and cross bones until he realized that he was in over his head and decided to do the XBox 'X' and use some whittling skills he saw on the pumpkin challenge on Food Network. The more complex the better in his eyes. In the Almarez household around this time every year there's a pretty consistent theme. I can't find something that's cute and not scary and Casey can't find something that's complicated enough (we won't mention the pirate ship of 2005 that maybe got 1/120 of the way completed before Casey realized it wouldn't be finished in time for Christmas, let alone Halloween). Last year he did complete a pirate ship and it looked very nice. I decided to do a bat with huge eyeballs.

In 2006 we did baby pumpkins seeing as how we were still in college and usually pumpkins didn't make it very long outside. I did the one toothed monster and Casey did a little tribute to JMU.

This past weekend we watched movies and my best friend Kara and I made dinner on Saturday and we hung out with her and her husband. Sunday my father-in-law was nice enough to take some family pictures of us with Tuck. I'm kind of embarrassed of wanting more pictures when I haven't printed out a single wedding photo :-\ but I had my reasons. Tuck got his long coat cut off yesterday and I was feeling a little sentimental about losing his puppy fluff and asked him if he would do some pictures of us with him before we got it cut. We went to the Blue Ridge Parkway and stopped at an overlook and we really got some cute shots of him. Here are some of the ones he did of just Tuck.

He looks so proud =) my little man. This week is just another work week. We have Halloween coming up on Friday and I still need to put together a costume for work and figure out our plans for Friday night. Well, tomorrow is Thursday... maybe I should get on that...

TWD: Pumpkin Muffins

This Tuesday's recipe was chosen by Kelly over at Sounding My Barbaric Gulp!. I haven't participated in the last two recipes so I was due to bake and I was glad to see it was a seasonal recipe and one that I was looking forward to. I really enjoyed these muffins a lot. I had one for dessert tonight and the texture was really good and the pumpking flavor came through nicely. I ended up skipping the nuts, raisins, and sunflower seeds and just added chocolate chips. I have a lot of recipes in my reader that include pumpkin and chocolate but I've never tried it so I figured these muffins would be a good excuse to give it a go and the flavors actually go together really well.

I could definitely see myself making these again. Good choice Kelly! You can find the link for this recipe in Kelly's blog that I linked above.

Barbequed Pork Chops

I'm trying to expand my pork chop knowledge since I usually bounce back and forth between chicken and lean beef. I tried this Cooking Light recipe that I saw over on Erin's Eats and I really enjoyed and it's fairly healthy too. I was thinking if we wanted to make it more healthy we could try Splenda's brown sugar next time.

(Source: Erin's Eats)

Sauce:
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup of ketchup
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon low-sodium soy sauce

Remaining Ingredients:
6 (6 ounce) bone-in center cut pork chops about 1/2 inch thick (I used 4 boneless chops)
1 teaspoon dried thyme (I used rosemary)
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper
Cooking spray

Prepare grill or broiler (I used our cast iron grill pan).

To prepare sauce, combine the first 4 ingredients in a small bowl. Place 1/4 cup of sauce in a small bowl and set aside.

Trim fat from pork. Combine thyme, garlic salt, and ground red pepper and sprinkle over chops. Place pork on grill rack or broiler pan coated with cooking spray (I use olive oil on my grill pan). Cook 6 minutes on each side, basting with remaining sauce.

Serve porkchops with remaining 1/4 cup of sauce.

Erin's link has the nutritional information for this meal as well.