Clipart licensed from LetteringDelights.com
Alphabets licensed from LetteringDelights.com
I love recipes that are easy and quick to put together. Pair that with ones that I can make in the morning and throw in the oven when I get home (or have Adrienne throw it in when she gets home), and I'm a happy camper. This one just happens to be one of them.
The last few weeks I've been having some insomnia issues. I get up at 5:45am during the week to get Liam ready for school. I'm okay when I first get up but the days seem to drag for me and I'm exhausted! Exhausted that is until it hits about 7:30pm and then all of a sudden I'm awake. So awake that I can't usually fall asleep until after 1am. It's a vicious circle unfortunately.
That also means that things get put aside because I have no creative energy to spare - and unfortunately this blog has suffered the past couple weeks - I'm sorry! I've made a few things that were delicious, but once cooked, I have no interest in plating and photographing them, let alone sitting down at the computer and blogging them. Sigh.
Last night, though, I forced myself to go to bed at 8:30 and amazingly after reading for about 20 minutes fell asleep. Granted I woke up at 1:30am feeling like I'd slept for days, but was even able to go back to sleep after that. The tides hopefully are turning.
A couple weeks ago I was recipe hopping and came across this recipe from Rachael Ray for an In N Out burger and fries clone. Since I now live in Northeastern PA and the closest In N Out is in Texas, you can guess I don't get there that often. When we flew out to California last summer at 11pm on the way from the airport we met our friends at In N Out before going to their house. Are they really that good? Mhm.
Now their menu is simple enough - burgers and fries, drinks, shakes. That's it. But in the way you order can turn your whole world upside down. "Animal style" means them putting their "special sauce" on your burger, fries, whatever - and one of the best things they've done is "fried mustard". Yep, they spread the mustard on the patty before cooking. Delicious.
Here's the homemade version via Rachael Ray's recipe - the biggest difference I made is that she uses 8 oz of ground beef for each person (2 4 ounce patties) and I used 4 oz for each person (2 2 oz patties) - they were awesome and I can't wait to have one again!
If you're a regular reader of food blogs, I'm sure you've seen the Oreo stuffed chocolate chip cookie recipe making it's rounds for about a year now. I've never been one for trends (and when I do finally get around to it, I'm way behind so it's not so trendy anymore!), but this is one Adrienne and I decided would be something we had to try once we had an occasion.
Adrienne is very active with the library's anime clubs and attends meetings every week. I'm happy to encourage her spending as much time at the library as she wants - I can't think of many better places for teens to hang out. There's two libraries she goes to - one is every week, and one is once or twice a month. The one that meets less often everyone needs to bring something to and last week we decided that would be a perfect opportunity to try these cookies out.
This week has been one of those "It's only Wednesday?!?" kind. Work has been incredibly strange (I swear, I could write a book!), and today through Saturday will be even worse now that it's the first of the month. I've made a couple of life altering decisions that I need to see through (and share once I get my thoughts together), and to top it off my cooking (and crafting) have been basically non existent.
In order to not get in the habit of not posting, I'll share with you something I made last week that was so fabulous: Lemon Lavender Cupcakes.
Now, holy cow ... these were good. A little flowery, but I have come to find out I like that flowery taste in baked goods.
