We bought a house!

So Logan and I are going all out at this whole being an adult thing. In the past 4 months, Logan graduated, we moved to a new town about 5 hours away, we both got new jobs, and we bought a house! One of our friends recently asked us "So what do you plan on doing for an encore next year?" Not sure what next year will hold, but for now I am stoked to have a real house with a real yard and to not have a move out date in sight. 

The house we bought was built in 1983 and it has aged incredibly well. It has lots of character like archways from room to room and panned ceilings, but it also has the original carpet and kitchen from 30 years ago. Now if we were snobs on House Hunters, we wouldn't have even made it in the front door that first time. However, we're more like Property Brother's ideal client in that we're really good at seeing through what is on the surface and imagining what it can become. I'm actually really glad that they didn't do any updates because this allows me to spend my afternoon at Lowe's today in the Kitchen center designing a brand new kitchen that is exactly the colors and appliances that I we want :)

Coming up next: The "Before" pictures. Since I won't remember to take one before each project, I figured I should take/post them all now. Well tomorrow most likely. 

Roasted Italian Sausage & Potatoes

What I love about this meal is that there are just a handful of ingredients, they are really common, and it is  such a cinch to make! Some days I can do some pretty spectacular work but most of the time I get home from work and have pretty much zero motivation to cook real food. 

True story right here: When I was living by myself for the summer every day I had cereal for breakfast, a turkey sandwich for lunch, and a PB&J with some Oreo's on the side for supper. Not exciting, but I didn't starve to death so that was good.

My goal this semester is for a couple times a week (can't start out perfect or else you're almost guaranteed to fail) to eat a real dinner at the TABLE with Husbind. This means no TV and then if he doesn't have to get to homework right away, we'll take some time and he kicks my trash at Skip-Bo. I'm currently behind 175 points I think... That said - this was a perfect recipe to start out with because it is that easy!

For those who are like my mother and need to follow a recipe to the letter - here ya go!

Ingredients:

• 1 pound sweet and/or hot Italian sausage, cut crosswise into thirds (or if you want to be healthy and all, you can use turkey sausage)
• 1 pound small red potatoes, each cut in half
• 1 large onion, cut into 12 wedges
• 2 red and/or yellow peppers, cut lengthwise into 8 pieces
• 1 tablespoon olive oil

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 450° F.
2. In 15 1/2" by 10 1/2" jelly-roll pan, combine sausages, potatoes, onion, peppers , olive oil, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper; toss to coat.
3. Roast sausage mixture 30 to 35 minutes or until potatoes are fork-tender and sausages are lightly browned, stirring once halfway through roasting.

For those who are like my dad and myself this recipe is really easy to alter without screwing up. I added more potatoes, cut the bell peppers into more pieces, brushed with olive oil instead of tossing (because who wants extra dishes to wash?) and then sprinkled everything with Rosemary & Oregano. I cooked mine for the full 35 because I'm a little paranoid about meat being cooked all the way and Family Guy wasn't over yet. 

This recipe probably technically should serve 4 of those imaginary people that they design portions around, but in reality we got about 3 meals out of this. If I were having peeps over, I would probably double the recipe and bust out a roasting pan or something. 

I recommend Johnsonville Mild Italian Sausage if you're lost at the store. I've eaten quite a bit in my day, and Johnsonville is my go-to brand for Italian sausage. The Hot would be tasty too, but I think it would leak out way too much of the hot juice all over the place. 

Oh and don't forget to foil your jelly-roll pan. I would hate to be stuck scrubbing this bad boy...

Blogging on the go!

Here is my first dance with the Blogger app - let's see if it works!

Quite often I have stuff I would like to share, whether it be recipes, good books I've read, or a hilarious picture of my oh so adorable hellians. Also quite often, I forget about these things before I get to my computer and in the rare instance I do remember, I even moreso rarely have the time. So I think I shall give this a go.

So now it's up to you, my friends and familia, to follow along so that way maybe someday I can take the plunge and purge my life of facebook!

Today's picture is one I took a few weeks ago of my little Hellians trying to get at Husbind's Red-Hot dried Apple slices.

Hooked on Glee

It all started when we watched "I Am Number Four" last weekend. Husband mentioned that the main girl was from Glee and when she did a really good job acting in the movie, I was curious to see what she was like on the show. While watching Hulu, I noticed they had "The Glee Project" up for online streaming. I only got through about 20 minutes of it when I decided to check out the original show. Hulu has all the episodes for streaming if you have Hulu plus, which generally means Netflix has it on Instant. They did, I added, and now we watch a couple episodes every day. 


On another note, I'm starting up a book blog. Mostly because I read a ton and it would be a good way for me to keep a semblance of a reading log. Second because outside of my job, reading eats up the next biggest chunk of time. And third, maybe someone out there is stuck for a good book to read. I was until I found Katie's Book Blog. Now my library list has been growing significantly and not like it needs saying, but I'm totally jealous. Authors just send her their books to get reviews? Even before release dates? If I was any good at grammar I definitely should have become an editor...


And my blog!

Hi :)

I realized going through my Google reader that I have not posted in forever and 8 days. Today was an almost too productive Saturday. Work this morning (the devil got a wee bit chilly according to my boss), then eat, then got sidetracked playing Sims, then to Mom's to start laundry, then to Grandma's to go grocery shopping.
Hole-e-cow.
I can usually brave Saturday grocery stores, even Wal-Mart I do okay, but Albertson's was beyond terrible today. I think what it really was is that there isn't tons of space for lines, so it gets crowded a lot quicker. Plus I have the worst luck picking lines, so instead of getting a super friendly and speedy cashier, I got one of the managers who thought he was too good to be on checkout and was definitely not speedy. My grandma keeps defending him, but he could have been nicer for sure.
Then back to mom to move laundry and stash groceries (which I forgot half when I left tonight...) and then down to my Grandmas to do her monthly check writing and bank rec. I love my Grandma. Each time she says she's gonna let me be so I can focus, and then asks me 10 questions about what checks went through before I even have my pen in hand. But it's okay, I just remind her of my rule "Ask all the questions you want. When I'm done." That took a little longer than usual, so by then it was dinner time.
Meanwhile Logan had been working on stuff at home so luckily he was able to get over to supper in time. Delicious dinner followed by APPLE DUMPLINGS!!!!!
Then I went shoe shopping and got 4 pairs of shoes!!! Total success!!! Best part was that they were FREE but that was because they were just ones I had to leave behind in my old room during the moving process. 
Then there was this awesome house on House Hunters International. Total renovation project - farmhouse on 5 acres in Sicily. It was gorgeous, or would be once it was done. Luckily the Sixth Sense was on or else waiting for the dryer would have been unbearable. 
Now I just have clothes to put away, wash dishes, prepare a lesson for Sunday school, and sleep. Mmm.... maybe tomorrow....

Delicious or Disaster?

Well my apartment didn't smell quite like the apple-y-goodness I was expecting... It smelled almost like I forgot to turn the crockpot on and left the apples sitting out. This is what it looks like after I mashed it up with my potato masher.

I can't figure out if it is brown because the apples turned brown or if it is because I got a little cinnamon happy. Depending on which I'm thinking when I take a bite it tastes really good or really bad. I found a few light colored chunks of apples which makes me think that I just had way too much cinnamon. I guess the only way to really find out is to make it again without any cinnamon.  

Cooking Adventure: Mmm Mmm Applesauce!!!

When I was a little rugrat, we often went to my grandma's house just one state over and ate the most delicious home-cooked foods around. One of my particular favorites is applesauce and there is nothing quite like Grandma's applesauce warm off the stove and into the middle of a fresh baked roll. As a result, I'm pretty picky when it comes to the applesauce I eat. Mussleman's is pretty good but I learned this holiday season that the generic in a can is a definite no-go in the book of Lori. 


Fortunately my Mom-in-Law got me this cookbook for Christmas. 1400 Crockpot Recipes. Hole-E-Bovine.


Fortunately we got a Crockpot for our Wedding and it has been safely in storage for the past year.


So now I'm trying my hand at a favorite dish and seeing if it comes out edible. Hopefully it will be delicious and worth the hassle. Since I love looking at all the pictures Pioneer Woman puts on her blog when she cooks, I decided to do the same. 

Crockpot lids are handy for holding cookbooks open!

8 apples, 1/2 cup of water, Cinnamon, and 1/2 to 1 cup of sugar depending on how you roll.

Apple Peeler/Corer/Slicer $20 at Bed Bath & Beyond. Definitely a life saver for times like these.

Toaster not needed.

I mixed together the water, sugar & cinnamon first so that way the apples could be getting covered with some juiciness instead of turning brown.

The art of lining up the apple core perfectly. Makes the rest of the process super fast!

Just spin, spin, spin away. When the core starts going through is when it might start acting up, but then it gets back on track.

Presto chango - All the peel on the plate, the core still on the thing-a-muh-jig and a sliced apple ready to become...

A chopped apple!

In to the pot to keep them pretty.

Stir em up with a spatula so as not to scrape the stoneware,

set on low and go on with the rest of your day/night.

For me it was about 8PM when I started getting everything ready and 8:50PM when I took the last picture. Tomorrow I'll get to wake up to a house smelling like apple-y-goodness which will hopefully lead to a good day back at work :-)