Ma What's For Dinner?

This is a quick, delicious and nutritious side dish for you. Cooks up in minutes and will get you rave reveiws!

Serves: 6  Prep Time: 0 minutes  Cook time: 12 minutes

1 bunch asparagus, cleaned and trimmed

1 T olive oil

S&P

1 T parmesan cheese

1 T basil chiffonade

1 T toasted pine nuts

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Toss asparagus into a roasting pan.  Sprinkle with olive oil and S&P.  Mix well with your fingers to coat each asparagus stalk well.  Cook for 10 minutes on 400 degrees.   Remove from oven and sprinkle on cheese, basil and pine nuts.  Toss well and serve immediately.

So good…

Who doesn’t love a quick and go to side dish? These potatoes are always a hit, easy, fast and super delish!

Serves: 6  Prep time: 10 minutes  Cook time:  45 minutes

4 russet potatoes, cut into chunks

4 cloves garlic, peeled

8 ounces mushrooms, quartered

2 T olive oil

2 T cajun seasoning

S&P

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Combine all ingredients in a 13×9 baking dish.  Mix well.  Bake at 400 degrees for 45 minutes.  Serve piping hot as a side dish.  I served mine up with Sweet n Savory Pork Chops and some roasted asparagus.  I’ll post that recipe tomorrow.

I did it, I finally gave in.  After months and months of begging and hundreds of half hours of iCarly, I caved.  We made Spencer’s Spaghetti Tacos.  But at least I added lettuce and tomato to ours.

Is this show always on in your house too?  I’m pretty sure, at this point, I can recite every line from every episode.  I’ll be honest, as far as Nick shows go, iCarly is heads and shoulders over the rest of the lot.  That Big Time Rush show is enough to make me Big Time Rush to turn it off.  Incredibly annoying!  But there’s something about those iCarly kids.  They’re funny, sweet, and though they say stupid and butt WAY TO MUCH (are you listening Dan Schneider????) I’d rather the kids watch them than another annoying episode of Fanboy and Chum Chum, Spongebob, or Phineas and Ferb, and I really am glad they’re over the Wiggles.

So if you’re living under a rock, or God help you, your kids are still into the Wiggles or even worse, Teletubbies, then here is the low down.  Carly Shea lives with her big brother Spencer and with the help of her two best friends, Freddie and Sam, they  make the web show iCarly for all to adore.  Spencer, being the artist that he is, doesn’t like steamed halibut for dinner, it’s too boring…he likes to make Spaghetti Tacos for dinner.  For months my kids have been on my butt to make Spencer’s spaghetti tacos.  So finally I did.  And now we’re bringing them to you.  The kids loved them!  I couldn’t bring myself to eat them.  I’m going to give you the same recipe that they give you on the iCarly website.  Note, I did add some veggies to mine because the carbo load was making me twitch.  You’ll have to make the judgement call on that one.

“Okay, some might say my brother Spencer is a little DIFFERENT. He makes sculptures outta junk, he has a bright, sparkly sock collection, and he is obsessed with making our toilet water blue. But, sometimes he does things that are weird AND good — like make Spaghetti Tacos. Who else would put together crunchy taco shells with spaghetti and make it soooo delish!?!? So, I thought I’d share his awesome Spaghetti Tacos recipe with you all!

Here it is:
Get taco shells.
Get spaghetti (with meat sauce).
Get a BIG spoon.
Use the BIG spoon to put spaghetti into taco shells.
Eat.
Burp.”

Please note that this recipe and all pictures of iCarly are the property of Viacom.  Those pics of the other munchkins, they belong to me.

Oh and for the record, we will not be attempting iCarly’s “Chicken Soup in a Toilet.”  Thanks but no thanks….living with 4 boys the only thing that goes into that pot, is Lysol!  Ya know?

Now my cup truly runneth over!  Yours truly is the proud recipient of not one…

oh no…

but two, that’s right, I said it, count ‘em two blog awards in the past few days.

I’d like to thank the academy…oh wait, wrong prepared speech.  I’ve been working on that one for so long…

Honestly, I’m tickled, I’m thrilled, and I’m touched that my fellow bloggers took the time, not only to read my little piece of cyberspace over here, but felt compelled to pass it along to others.  So let me try my speech again.

Ahem, I’d like to thank Angela over at My Book Barn and Lazaro at Lazaro Cooks for this wonderful honor.  Angela has  a great little site over there and if you’re a fan of reading, like I am, I swear, when I have time, no I mean it…I can read!  Not to mention Lazaro, who is always cooking up something beautiful and delicious.  Please swing by and check out both of them.

So today, ladies and gentlemen of the academy?  Oh no wait, I did it again didn’t I?

Uh, members of the Hollywood Foreign Press?  Nah, that’s not it!

So today my dearest bloggie friends I will feature my girl Angela’s award (Lazaro’s will be featured next week)

Well, I’m honest and I’m scrappy.  And I love to scrapbook so that works too, huh?  The deal with this one is I need to list 10 honest facts about myself then pass this along to ten lucky fellow bloggers.

So away we go.

Ten Honest Things:

1. I am the proud proud Mother of three little boys, and yes I assume there will certainly be a place for me in heaven…

2. I love to cook…duh.

3. I am a card carrying member of the Jon Bon Jovi fan club…

4. I love sports, hockey, baseball, football…good thing too (see #1)…

5. I can recite the entire screenplay of any John Hughes film…go ahead test me.

6. I am truly thankful for all the wonderful online bloggie friends I have made over the past few months…

7. I’m a closet scrapbooker, though I haven’t had much time for it recently…

8. I love the smell of a fireplace in the rain…

9. I married my best friend…insert “awwww” here…

10. I’m afraid the end of the line is near from my old old bullmastiffs, 11 and 9 1/2 years old…sniff sniff

And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for, I will now pass this award on to some of my favorite blogs to hang out at, grab a cup of coffee and settle in for a good read.  And the Oscar goes to, I mean the lucky winners are…

Shell over at Things I Cant Say

Cheryl at Deckside Thoughts

Lacie at Creative Attempts

The Whispering Writer at The Whispering Writer

Becca at Drama for Mama

Vodka Logic at Vodka Logic

Cathy at Antsy Pants

Debbie at Suburb Sanity

Denise at Run DMT

and last but certainly not least…

Dumb Mom at Parenting by Dummies

So there you have it, some of my honest to goodness very favorite blog reads.  Please go and check out all of these hard working and amazing bloggers.  They have some great stories to tell.  And huge thanks again in Angela at My Book Barn for thinking of me.

Stay tuned for next week, when thanks to Lazaro at Lazaro Cooks who gave the this sweet award

I’ll be passing those along to my absolute favorite recipe/food blogs!  Have a great weekend.

Rib Eye part three…Yes it’s true, it’s the rib eye that won’t die. Whipped up some steak and cheese subs for lunch. Wait til you see what I do with the extra italian sausage I grilled along with the ribeye tomorrow!

Serves 4  Prep Time: 5 minutes  Cook Time:  10 minutes

4 hamburger buns, toasted (you could use sub rolls, but I only had hamburger buns in the house)

1 leftover rib eye steak, sliced thin

1 T olive oil

1 onion, sliced

8 0z mushrooms, sliced

S&P

4 slices provolone cheese

Leftover Jack Daniels glaze (see Rib Eye Recipe)

In a small skillet heat olive oil over medium high heat.  Add onions and mushrooms and saute until soft.  Season with S&P.  Remove from pan and pile up on bottom slice of your toasted hamburger bun.

Add steak to the hot pan.  Cook for about 3-4 minutes until mean has heated through.  Top with provolone cheese and allow cheese to melt for a minute.  Top the mushrooms and onions with steak and cheese.  Drizzle with Jack Daniels glaze (or ketchup if you’re like my kiddos) and top with bun.

Viola, meal 3 is served.