That’s right. I’m good at improv!

Tonight I tried something new: Rosemary-Garlic Chicken.

I looked up a few recipes, but I didn’t have all the ingredients for any of them. So I decided to wing it. And, surprisingly, it turned out really well!

These rosemary-garlic chicken tenders were delicious!

What you’ll need:

• 8 boneless, skinless chicken tenderloins
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder (I used this because I didn’t have fresh garlic. If you’re using fresh garlic, I would probably go with 2 or 3 cloves, finely chopped.)
• 1 tsp dried rosemary
• salt and black pepper to taste

What to do:

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees
• Place chicken on greased cookie sheet
• Drizzle oil over chicken
• Sprinkle with garlic, rosemary, salt, and pepper
• Cook in oven for 15-20 minutes (until chicken is cooked thoroughly)

I served the chicken with multi-grain toast (topped with butter, garlic and oregano) and mixed veggies. It all tasted so good! I was extremely proud of myself for my improvising.

So go try it and let me know what you think!

[UPDATE: If you plan to use fresh garlic, I’d stick with one clove or less. Any more might be overpowering.]

Pumpkin chili is perfect for Halloween.

I was almost positive that today would be super lame; I had plans to spend the day alone watching Halloween movies and reading Stephen King. Exciting, I know.

Thankfully, my sister rescued me from my boredom and gave me a reason to make things.

I had already planned on making pumpkin chili, but I really didn’t want to eat such an amazing dish alone. She didn’t get to try the chili last time I made it, so I was really excited to make it for her.

Since the chili takes two hours to simmer and we were both starving, I knew I would have to make something for us to snack on. I saw a cute snack in a Halloween recipe book last week, and I’ve been dying to make it since. So I whipped up some adorable vampire apple bites.

These apple and peanut butter snacks were almost too cute to eat.

To make these, I chopped the apple into small slices and put peanut butter between two pieces. Then I cut almond slices in half to make the fangs.

I got sick of making these after about two or three, so I ended up chopping up the rest of the apple to dip in caramel. Yum!

Apples dipped in caramel always makes me smile.

The chili finally finished, and I quickly cooked some green beans and some garlic toast (all in the spirit of Halloween, of course).

My sister loved the pumpkin chili, and the toast and green beans were delicious too.

When I made the pumpkin chili, I changed the recipe just a little. I didn’t use an entire medium onion (because I didn’t have one), so I used a little less diced onion and added some onion powder. Instead of kidney beans, I used chili beans. Also, I added some garlic powder; I’m a huge fan of garlic, if you haven’t noticed.

This pumpkin chili was fabulous!

If you’ve never tried pumpkin chili, you definitely should. My sister thought it would taste weird, but she was surprised when she liked it.

Later, we went to Target and picked up the makings for adorable witch hats. They’re really cute and taste good, but they’re really sweet. I’m hoping I can send some back to campus with my sister, just to get them out of my apartment. I’m sure she has plenty of friends who would be more than willing to eat these.

These yummy witch hats were made with mint chocolate-dipped Oreos, Kisses, and green icing.

Of course, it’s just not Halloween without candy corn. Luckily, I had some in my kitchen. I couldn’t eat more than a few pieces though. Between that and the chocolate witch hats, I’d had too much sweetness for the day.

Oh, sweet candy corn! How I love thee!

And now Ima go into a sugar coma.

Kthnxbai.

I’m stuffed!

This weekend, my roommate and I went to what I’ve been referring to as a food festival. It was called Taste of the Summit. Despite the fact it felt like a thousand degrees out there, we had a blast.

We got to try a lot of different restaurants from the area. I think the idea was to showcase a lot of the new restaurants. Most I had never tried before.

 

Zoes Kitchen was one of my favorites.

 

The first restaurant we tried was Zoes Kitchen. This was definitely one of my favorites. They served samples of chicken rollups with salsa and pita with hummus. I swear, that was some of the best hummus I have ever tasted! Amazing.

 

Village Tavern served chicken with penne.

 

Our next stop was Village Tavern. They served wood grilled chicken with penne, crispy pancetta, caramelized Bermuda onions and basil cream sauce. It was good, but too heavy for the hot weather.

 

Macaroni Grill served Pasta Milano.

 

Macaroni Grill gave us the option between two different pasta dishes: Pasta Milano and Penne Rustica. We chose Pasta Milano. It had mushrooms, which I love, so it was a no-brainer for me. I’m not really sure why my roommate chose it; she hates mushrooms.

 

Some people were baking cookies in an awesome sun oven.

 

We took a break from the heat after awhile. We bought some water and ventured into Old Navy for some shade. On our way there, we saw an awesome sun oven. Some people were baking cookies in it. It had reached about 250 degrees Fahrenheit by the time we got there. So. Cool.

 

Joe Muggs had incredible treats.

 

After our break, we hit up Joe Muggs. It was so good! It served Brie en Croute with Orange Marmalade; Onion Tartlet with Parmesan, Fontina, and Egg; and Pumpkin Spice Frappe. My roommate has been craving pumpkin-flavored things for about a month, so she was super excited.

 

Chuy's Mexican Food served some amazing nachos.

 

We had been checking out Chuy’s Mexican Restaurant the whole time we were at Taste of the Summit, so we were pretty stoked when there was a short line. The nachos were fabulous! They gave us a lot of chips for the nachos, so I split them with my roomie.

 

My roommate tried the fried pickles from Sweet Bones Alabama.

 

Sweet Bones Alabama served fried dill pickles. My roommate tried them, but she said they were too greasy and heavy for the 90+ degree weather. The menu said Sweet Bones Alabama also served Cajun shrimp and grits, but they were gone by the time we got to their tent.

 

Fleming's Steakhouse served some very tasty Seared Ahi Tuna (aka Tuna Mignon).

 

I was a little afraid to try what Fleming’s Steakhouse referred to as “Tuna Mignon.” I’m so glad I tried it! It was one of the most incredible things I’ve tried. I don’t think I can describe this any other way than wow. It was just amazing.

 

My roommate said this was the best burger she's ever tasted.

 

Flip Burger Boutique served–what else?–burgers. I don’t eat red meat, and that’s all they had on hand, so I didn’t try it. But my roommate said they were incredibly good.

 

This is how the burger was served.

 

We looked at the menu online and saw that they serve a variety of other burgers, including turkey, veggie, and tuna. It all sounds so good! We have plans to go sometime soon.

 

I had the strawberry yogurt; it was yummy!

 

Our final stop was 32 Degrees Yogurt Bar. I love frozen yogurt, so I was uber excited to try whatever they were serving. I had the strawberry yogurt. I swear it tasted like real strawberries!

 

My roommate tried the Tahitian Vanilla yogurt.

 

My roommate said the Tahitian Vanilla yogurt was really good. But, what can I say? We love, love, love frozen yogurt!

Sad Face.

 

I want to hold this to make the saddness/sleepyness disappear.

 

I had super-awesome-fantastic plans for tonight’s post. Let me tell you, it was gonna be great. However, it is now very late and I am very tired (plus, I have to get up for class tomorrow–gross!). Thus, the super-awesome-fantastic blog post will have to wait until tomorrow because I have to be awake for my morning class. So be expecting a nice, long, and enchanting post tomorrow. Forreals.

My roommate hates mushrooms

It’s been awhile since I’ve cooked my homemade spaghetti, so I figured tonight would be a good night for it.

Every time I make spaghetti, I change it up a little. I’m trying to perfect it. And I think it gets better each time.

Last time, I sauteed garlic, onion and mushroom. I did that again this time. I also decided to add sliced olives. I tried to rinse the saltiness out of them, but I’m convinced that is an impossible task. I also added lots of extra mushrooms (but don’t tell my roommate–she hates them).

It was all so delicious!

We each had a yummy salad as well. We went grocery shopping earlier this week, so we have lots of fresh veggies in our fridge. The cherry tomatoes tasted especially amazing.

We also had garlic toast. I normally put butter and garlic salt on the toast before putting it in the oven (a trick I learned from my granny). I’m not a huge fan of salt, so this time I tried garlic powder instead. I prefer the garlic powder; it was really good!

I’m thinking next time I’ll add a pinch of sugar to cut down on the acidity. That was the only thing I didn’t like about it this time.

When I asked my roommate if she had any suggestions for the next time I make spaghetti, she only asked for less mushrooms. I’ll change her mind eventually.

I love snow peas and hummus!

Tonight my roommate made the comment that Rachel Wilkerson pretty much feeds us. She was probably right. Because tonight we had another Rachel-inspired dinner.

We had “The Feast” again.

This Feast included snow peas, carrots, celery, cherry tomatoes, homemade ranch dressing, cheddar cheese cubes, grapes, strawberries, a plum, and pita chips with roasted red pepper hummus.

It all looked so good!

My roommate was pretty excited about it and kept talking about how delicious it was. I just hope all that talk wasn’t because she was starving.

I wasn’t very hungry, so this was mostly for my roommate (because I am an awesome roomie). I made myself a smaller version with just the snow peas, tomatoes, strawberries, and pita chips with hummus.

This was my first time trying both snow peas and hummus (but not together; that could be gross). I wasn’t too surprised that I liked the snow peas. I love peas anyway, and the ranch enhanced them. My roommate says the snow peas are a great vessel for the ranch.

The hummus was amazing. I was a little worried about it because it looks funny and I’ve heard lots of good and bad about it. I don’t know if it was because of the roasted red peppers or just because the hummus is good, but I loved it!

So that was our Feast for tonight. As always, I look forward to the next one.

P.S. My roommate said the s’mores brownies taste just like real s’mores now!

It’s like s’mores, only better.

I finally cooked again tonight. It was so wonderful, and I totally needed it.

My sister told me today that she has been craving some good, healthy food. Unfortunately, our school doesn’t really know what healthy is. So I told her I had plans to cook and she could come over.

I decided to make turkey brats with broccoli and toast. It was a simple but nice change from school food and eating out.

We were so hungry that I doubt it would have mattered how the food tasted. Needless to say, we inhaled dinner.

The best part of tonight was dessert–s’mores brownies! My roommate and I saw the recipe on Rachel Wilkerson’s blog a few nights ago, and we just couldn’t resist.

It took quite a bit of time, but my roommate finally baked the brownies.

The marshmallows burn too easily.

We were patiently waiting for the marshmallows to toast when we smelled something burning. It was the s’mores brownies! Our kitchen was filled with smoke. It wasn’t even that bad–just a little charred.

We peeled off the charred part.

Luckily the burned part peeled right off. And once the smoke cleared, it smelled wonderful.

The s'mores brownies were delicious!

It was so delicious and totally worth the wait (did I mention these took forever to make?).

I definitely recommend trying this.

Oh, Facebook….

I haven’t been able to access the old Facebook fan page, which means I couldn’t post updates. So I made a new Facebook fan page.

Now go like the new one and get your Facebook updates!

Foodless

I’m feeling very much under the weather today and have for the past 24 hours or so. That means I haven’t felt like eating, much less cooking.

Sad story, I know. But true.

Hopefully I’ll be feeling like myself again in a few days. Then I’ll actually have stories and pictures to post.

Until then, check out my Tumblr. I’ll try to reblog at least a few pictures from the other food blogs I follow.

Football and wings

Saturday was football day. My dad took my sister and me to Buffalo Wild Wings to eat lunch while we watched the game.

We arrived shortly after kickoff and had missed a touchdown, but it was okay. We got to watch most of the game.

We all ordered wings and a sandwich. I’m not a huge fan of anything spicy, so my wings were flavored with sweet barbecue sauce. My dad ordered honey barbecue wings, and my sister ordered medium heat wings.

My sweet barbecue wings were delicious!

For my sandwich, I ordered chicken tender slammers. They’re pretty much chicken tenders on toasted rolls. They were really good and super-filling. My dad ordered some sort of pulled pork sandwich, and my sister ordered hamburger slammers.

The chicken tender slammers were good too.

We had a lot of fun. We ate and watched football for a few hours. And our team won!

Did anyone else have food and football fun this weekend?