Savory Sundays: Loaded Baked Potato Chowder

Hi everyone, and Happy New Year! Since it’s a new year, I’m going to share some fun facts about 2012!

Fun Facts!

• 2012 is the year of the Dragon — I don’t personally know anything about Chinese Astrology {other than I was born in the year of the Snake}, but I thought it was interesting!
• December 21, 2012 is supposed to be the “end of the world” according to the Mayan calendars — I don’t buy that for one second. My history professor last semester was talking about it when we were studying the Mayans and I have to agree with him. The Mayans had certain times on the calendars that were bad luck {or something like that, an omen or something}, and December 21, 2012 is one of those times. So yeah, something “bad” may happen {maybe something as bad as a whole bunch of people fail tests or trip simultaneously or something, I dunno} but I think we’ll all still be around to see Christmas and New Years. But maybe I’m just crazy??
• July 27 – August 12, 2012 are the Summer Olympics, hosted in London — I’m more of a Winter Olympics type of girl, but it’s cool to know that the Olympics are just around the corner!

So… I ran out of fun facts that I could easily find on the internet. Sad day… But, I s’pose that means I can tell you about my super fun/exciting way I spend New Years Eve?

And by “super fun/exciting” I really mean “really lame because I have no life”.

TJ and I stayed home, just the two of us. My Dad is still out in Texas until tomorrow, and I didn’t have any awesome parties to go to because my life is just that exciting at the elderly age of 22 apparently.

{*sarcasm* jealous yet?}

He made yummy Chicken Alfredo while I read Prodigal Son by Dean Koontz {the first in his Frankenstein series}. While we ate, we watched Storage Wars: Texas, because as I said, I’m a super LAME-O. Then we headed back to the office and continued to level our characters in Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Exciting, right?

Then, when it was midnight, TJ and I kissed. It would have been romantic except for the part when I started sobbing like a baby on his shoulder. I don’t even know where the sadness about my mom came from. It completely blind-sided me and turned me into a blabbering baby…

But that quickly passed and we returned to our game.

Hot Roast Beef Sandwiches

Have you ever woken up in the morning and realized you were having one hell of a strange dream? I have, in fact, I did this morning. I think my weird dream was partly due to how much Star Wars: The Old Republic I’ve been playing the past few days, and the rest is due to my vivid and wild imagination… lol Bear with me if you don’t know much about Star Wars.

So basically I was following TJ around in a dream as he was trying to find information about targets he had to kill {remember, he’s a Bounty Hunter in SWTOR, so he was having to hunt down people and kill them in the game}. So I followed him to this giant aquarium thing that was above ground. The aquarium thing had pretty much everything the ocean would have, but it was on land… and it was freaking huge. Like, seriously huge. He ended up going inside the tank, but we had to be very careful because there was a shark inside. But, not just any shark. This shark was 5x larger than a Blue Whale. Maybe even bigger. We had to swim around and look for what he was after, but quickly get up to the top of the water and onto some rocks before the shark came near us so we wouldn’t get eaten.

Bizarre, right? Sad thing is, that’s not even in the top 10 of my “weirdest dreams” I’ve ever had list. {no, I don’t really have a list lol}

To top of the strange slumber, I got to wake up and go to the dentist to get my permanent crown put on. So exciting!!!

Not.

It was quick and painless though. The only sucky thing is that my mouth has to adjust to this new foreign object in it. And my tongue won’t leave the crown alone because it’s all like “What’s this??? It’s all smooth and different and new and I must touch it constantly!!”. I swear, my tongue has a mind of it’s own.

Bella drinking some water and her sister Penny munching on some food pellets.

So last night, as TJ was feeding my guinea pigs for me, he saw Bella {the brown one drinking from the water bottle in the picture} being a lazy butt. I’ve never seen her drinking water while laying down but with her butt in the air!! It was too cute for me not to take a picture of it.

Bella again, drinking from a different water bottle this time.

Isn’t she so cute?!

For dinner last night we, once again, had Hot Roast Beef Sandwiches. Talk about some serious yumminess! Since I’ve showed you all a picture of it, I realized I should share the recipe.

This is a great way to use up any leftover beef, mashed potatoes, and gravy you may have, and it really is delicious!

I hope you all enjoy this simple recipe that I learned from my momma!

♥ and harp strings,
Kate

Have you had any strange dreams lately? Do you have any family recipes involving leftovers?

Christmas Vacation in Full Swing

My Christmas vacation is finally in full swing! The past two days I’ve spent exactly how I’ve been waiting all semester to spend… staying up late, sleeping in late, and lots and lots of gaming!

TJ is here until January 2nd, when he has a late evening flight back up to Northern Cali so he can get back to work on January 3rd. But until then, it’s just he and I and the animals at the house because my Dad left early this morning to visit my sister and her fam in Texas.

It’s so nice to be able to spend a lot of time with him, and it’s made me realize how much I miss waking up next to him in the mornings. Unfortunately, we’re both crammed into my twin-size bed… and he’s 6’2″!! Poor guy haha

Yesterday TJ and I managed to get to 27 {my toon} and 26 {for his toon}. I play a Twi’lek Sith Sorcerer {Corruption spec… aka I’m a healer!} and TJ plays a Chiss Powertech {Advanced Prototype spec… aka he does uber deeps!}.

This is my Sith Sorcerer, Anira. Sorry the picture quality sucks, I had to take a picture of my computer screen with my camera =3

Today we have finally finished up quests on Nar Shadaa {with the exception of the bonus quests} and just got to Tatooine, the lovely desert planet.

Once again, sorry for the picture quality... =3

If you play video games/Star Wars, I really recommend playing Star Wars: The Old Republic. This game really pulls you in with the interactive cinematic stories, and helps you build a connection with your character with the light or dark side choices you can make with the quests.

So, other than playing video games, TJ and I have been eating leftovers from Christmas dinner. I decided to turn them into yummy Hot Roast Beef Sandwiches, just like my mom used to do with leftover roast beef, mashed potatoes, and gravy.

Sorry I’m not posting any recipes yet, but I do have some stuff waiting to be posted, but I’m saving them for the weekend So you all will just have to be patient with me!

I hope you all are spending your Christmas/Winter breaks well!

♥ and harp strings,
Kate

How are you spending your Christmas/Winter break? What are you doing with your leftovers from Christmas dinner?

Savory Sundays: Cottage Pie

Welcome to my first every Savory Sundays post! This will be a great way for me to really force myself to try new things and you all will *hopefully* be benefiting from it!!

Speaking of benefiting, you are about to learn 2 things.

I’m a college student, so I do lots of learning at school, so I’d like to share some knowledge with you.

However, neither of these things were learned at school.

First, Cottage Pie is simply Shepard’s Pie, but with beef instead of lamb.

Did you know that? Because I didn’t before I stumbled across this entry about a super delicious Cottage Pie recipe over at Tasty Kitchen.

Now you’ve learned one thing. Time for the second thing.

Traditional Mashed Potatoes

I’m sure most of you already have your way of making the perfect mashed potatoes, but I wanted to share how I make mine! Yes, this is yet another recipe from AllRecipes. One night I was trying my hardest to remember what mom had put into her mashed potatoes to make them so yummy, but I couldn’t remember if it had been milk, or sour cream. And I certainly couldn’t remember how much of whatever it was she had added! I was looking for the easy way out, and thankfully I didn’t even have to get on my computer to get my answer (yay for smartphones!). After adding what the recipe said, I discovered that these were the creamiest, yummiest mashed potatoes I had ever had (sorry mom!).

This recipe is so versatile that you can substitute red potatoes for the russet, and probably just about any potato you’d want to make mashed (although I’d avoid using sweet potatoes in this recipe ). You can also leave the skins on the potatoes, or peel them. They taste great either way!

If your mashed potatoes don’t come out as creamy as you want, you can always double the milk and butter. Yeah… I know. It makes it terribly unhealthy, but I say to you, so what?! If it makes them taste better, then go for it!

So here they are for you now, please enjoy!!