Delicious Baked Oatmeal

I wish I had a picture of this recipe, but with the current state of our home I haven't been cooking lately! I have been wanting to share this recipe for quite sometime, as it is one of my favorites. I found the original recipe over at My Sisters Cucina sometime last year, but I wasn't entirely happy with the outcome. So I have been tweaking it everytime I make it, and I am finally THRILLED with the way it has turned out. P and I devour this every time I make it. Really, we could both eat it for our three meals a day, but J prefers a little variety (though he did rate this pretty high on the 1-10 scale). And the best part is that it can last in the fridge for about a week so you don't have to eat it quickly if you aren't as obsessed as I am. Have I convinced you how delicious this dish is yet? Have you totally skipped this narrative to get to the recipe yet? If not, I haven't given a sufficient description of it. Ok, on to the recipe:

Baked Oatmeal
adapted from My Sisters Cucina

3 cups oatmeal (rolled or quick works)
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup unsweetened applesauce (maybe slightly less than a cup)
1 cup milk
2 beaten eggs
1/2 TBSP baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp cinnamon (maybe more, I just usually eyeball this)

Mix it all up, pour into a greased 8x8 dish (double the recipe for 9x13) and bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Serve this warm, with fresh fruit (strawberries and blueberries are my favorites) and a splash of milk.

Have you gone to your pantry to check pull out the ingredients yet? Well, hurry! You must try this soon. Ok, maybe I am overselling this.....or maybe I'm not :)

Tri Color Pepper Steak

Tri-Color Pepper Steak on Pg.

This recipe gave me my first opportunity to buy REAL wine. SHOCK, GASP, condescending shake of the head. OK got it all out of you.... alright, I really believe that the wine makes this dish, and yes it gets cooked down so there is no alcohol in it. I went to the wine aisle and stared into the array of bottles, closed my eyes pointed and picked that bottle. Actually I chose the one that was on sale, but the other way would have worked too for as much as I know about wine.

Anyway back to the recipe....

Wait one more thing on the wine, DO get a wine bottle opener or swiss army knife that has a cork screw on it. Or else you won't be able to get the cork out, mine looked like a mangled mess before I finally called my neighbor and asked for a bottle opener. Which you might think would be setting a bad example, but he actually just laughed because I had never used one and knew that we didn't drink.

Alright now on to the recipe.

Pretty easy and straight forward. I bought good meat, top sirloin and that made a difference. No fun eating tough meat. This meal probably cost me $15 dollars to make (excluding the bottle of wine). So depending on the meat, that will determine the price of this meal. A little expensive but if you can find meat on sale then not so bad. Still you can't beat a $4 dollar meal.

On to the color of the peppers. If you want your peppers to be a more vibrant color, after you cook the peppers to the desired doneness take them out and put the meat in and just cook the meat in the sauce. Once the sauce has thickened put the peppers in. This will ensure that they don't cook too much and retain their color.

Other than that, I'd say it was a hit.

Spicy egg and avocado wrap

So here is the first post!!!

We had "spicy egg and avocado wrap" on pg. 31.

It was delish!

Everyone really liked it, I was a little skeptical but was really hoping that I would like it.

Reasons why I was skeptical:
1. I'm not a huge fan of cooked eggs
2. Would Chili sauce be enough for the dressing?
3. Didn't seem like it would be enough to fill me

Reasons Why I really liked it:
1. The chili sauce made it!
2. The combo of eggs, avocado, tomato, cucumber and lettuce were awesome.
3. I felt really healthy eating it and it was filling.

I must say I was SO skeptical about it really filling us up for dinner that I made rice to go along with the meal. I also cooked up some bacon because my Chandler man doesn't believe a meal is complete without meat! After eating it I don't think it needed anything more, I didn't even eat the rice and had a couple pieces of bacon. (just cause I couldn't help myself)

End note, I liked it for dinner but think it would be best for lunch. Really quick and easy if you kept hard boiled eggs in the fridge, it would come together in minutes. It is great for a summer meal where you wanted a cool meal. Also James ate it and really liked it!