Just before I popped these bad boys into the oven.  No, I didn’t eat all four.  I packed the rest away in my freezer, just waiting on me to pop in the oven on a rainy day.

 This is what happens when you’re a college girl.  You cook and cook and then cook some more.  Downside is, you have no one to share your creations with.  Oh well, thank goodness for freezers and the fact that I’ve become the awesome cooking college girl.

Here ya go.  Perfect shot of dinner and semi-cramming for finals this week.  I’m ready for this semester to be over with, I’m over it and ready to move on from this JV coding atmosphere.

One of the best pots of chili I’ve had in forever.  I took my usual recipe and just threw it in the pot to cook all night.  Turns out, this is even better than cooking in the stock pot, like I was raised to do.  Plus, if you turn it on low and leave it running all night all the flavors blend much better than they would normally.  Thinking I’ll be making this for Superbowl parties in the future.

A new recipe called Cream Cheese Chicken that I found online last week, it’s to die for and Gluten Free!  I’ll post the recipe under my Gluten Free section later on this week, but y’all will not be disappointed when making this.  I think it’s best compared to beef stroganoff, it has the “gravy” type texture and I’ve served it over rice AND pasta.  It’s very versatile and leaves you very filled.

I’m a pro at making some delicious goodies.  Some you wouldn’t have a clue they didn’t contain Gluten.  Just shows you how great of a cook I really am.

Any guesses what tasty thing I’m cooking up here?  I promise it’s going to be delicious actually I know it will be, the finished product is sitting in front of me and is nearly devoured.  This stuff is soooooo good.

Just another step after cooking rice.  Add a few cans of non-condensed cream of mushroom soup and a can of cream of chicken and you’ve got yourself somewhat of a meal.  Just have to chop some chicken to add to this creation and you’re all set for a hot and yummy meal.

Oma always has said charcoal is good for you.  So while cooking a delicious steak the other day I took her advice literally.  Well actually it wasn’t my intention of cooking my steak in an extra crispy sorta way, it just happened.  Pan frying steak is my way of cooking steak, especially when it’s just me.    So you can expect an extra crispy medium rare steak when you come to visit and want a pan fried steak.  Well, it’ll still be medium rare, but that’s the only way steaks are allowed to be cooked round these parts.

So Oma, thanks for teaching me that charcoal is a great thing for you & I didn’t need to give this one to the dogs!

I’m channeling Sponge Bob Square Pants and eating plenty of Salmon patties.  I {love} Salmon and it’s Gluten Free, so it’s the best of both worlds in my world.  Now if I could just find a decent recipe for a bun, then I’d be all set for a Salmon Burger and not just a patty.

*As of now I’m on the look out for a new bun recipe.

I’m such a fan of fried eggs…except they’ve gotta be loaded down with pepper and salt.  Goodness…I’m craving a few eggs right now, they’re quite addicting.

This is the best canned soup in existence and if you don’t believe me go out & try some yourself.  It even beats out Cambell’s hands down.  Fix it in a bowl or drink it out of a coffee mug.  The choice is yours.  I love cold mornings, pouring myself a cup of tomato soup and taking an MIS test that I forgot about.  Oooooops!

I swore off chicken broth after I drank a ton of it after my tonsillectomy a few years ago.  That is, until I get so sick the only thing that even remotely sounds good is chicken broth.  Which this weekend just so happened to be one of those weekends.  So sick you can barely move, so sick where you lay on the couch and watch TV all day.  I’m sure you get the idea.

This by far is the best chocolaty treat I’ve ever had.  Pour it over Bananas and it’s even more amazing.  Trust me on that.  My Dad taught me well.

Boiling.  Just before you pull it from the stove into bowls of sliced Bananas.  Soooo Good!

I did amazingly well on all of my finals.  I’ll have to update ya’ll on a project I made decide to do or one that my professor takes under her wing to spearhead.  Let’s just say I shocked the entire class and even her.  She said she had never seen a presentation done so well, much less one that actually meant something or could become a reality.  That made me feel great and it made me feel like I definitely exceeded every one’s expectations of my Business Proposal.

My finals wrapped up earlier this afternoon.  Out of 4 classes I was able to pull off 3 A’s and a B.  I was quite pleased with myself.  No, I have not gone out to celebrate my somewhat big victory.  I just might do that tomorrow afternoon with friends or wait and celebrate with MM when he has time.

I know Mom was a little worried with Motorcycle Man coming into the picture when I was supposed to be studying for finals and concentrating on the last leg of classes.  I told her the only thing she needed to worry about was that I was going to school.  So far, it’s shut her up completely about my dating life and hopefully it’ll last awhile longer.  I’ve already asked her how her parents felt when she got married, she was Roomie’s age when that happened.  She was my age when she was pregnant with me.  As far as I know, I’m not getting married anytime soon and I’ll be 26 shortly.  I’ve definitely surpassed the “normal” age to get married by miles on one side and I have a few years until I break the age on the other.  We’ll just have to see how it goes.  I could very possibly set the record on both sides as being the oldest to have not gotten married or had kids.

As for the bad luck part of my day.  I decided to use the ingredients in my fridge to make some homemade salsa.  I love salsa, actually I love anything hot and spicy.  I came up with my own recipe last summer and it’s turned into a big hit for those who like to eat something with a kick.  As I was slicing up the onions and keeping my fingers out of the way, just like Pops taught me to, I somehow took the knife right over my middle finger.  I’m not sure how I did it.  It happened too fast.  I felt like cursing, but oddly enough, I didn’t.  I immediately stuck my finger in my mouth and walked back to my bedroom for a Band Aid.  Just as soon as I pulled my finger out of my mouth the blood started to really trickle.  Actually, pour is more like it.  I applied pressure, held my hand above my head, and even stuck ice on it.  The blood really started to come out while I was trying to stop it.  It was flowing quite well and actually started to run from the source all the way down my arm and drip off my elbow.  This was a pretty serious gash, I’ve never had this much blood pour out from what looked like a paper cut.  The bleeding finally subsided, I stuck a Band Aid on my dear ole’ finger, finished chopping my ingredients and then went to bed.

…..so if you’re squeemish about blood, don’t look.  This is just before the blood really started to flow.

Hopefully tomorrow will be better.  I need it to be better.  No more household accidents please, this one is enough to last me awhile.  Although, surprisingly, waterworks were not involved during this adventure.

I absolutely love kids cereal.  I only get it if I’m on vacation.  I’m not a morning person, nor am I a breakfast person.  I get up, head to class, come home and then have lunch or I just have lunch if I wake up on days I don’t have class.  I do have my cereal addiction though.  Except instead of craving the healthy stuff, like Honey Nut Cheerios – it’s usually Reese’s or CoCo Puffs….but I love Cookie Crisp too.

It’s like eating dessert for breakfast or even ice cream for breakfast.  That’s something my grandparents used to let me do, eat ice cream for breakfast.  I was super spoiled by the time I made it back home and I’m not sure my parents ever understood why.

Don’t judge me.  I’m 25 and I still love kiddo cereal.  I may never grow up, I think I’ll just turn into Peter Pan.  Good thing MM likes Cookie Crisp too, he just hates Soy Milk.  I’ll have him changed over to what I drink in no time.

I did wake up and my dreams were suddenly a reality.  I didn’t start puking til’ somewhere are 2am.  Puke that started going through my nose not long after I started the porcelain ride.  It was the worst I’ve felt in awhile.  I wound up sending mom a text message around 2ish saying I didn’t think I was going to be able to make our big surprise.  (I was really looking forward to going too, had everything picked out, but now it’s pushed back til’ Tuesday.)  Mom actually replied to my messages around 2am and said there was a bug going around.  I finally put some cream on my arms to stop the porcelain ride around 3am or 4am.  It didn’t kick in til’ somewhere are 5am.

Mom came to check on me this morning.  I feel better than I did last night, but I have yet to eat anything.  I prefer not to test the waters just yet.  I’m currently sitting on the couch watching 3 dogs run around the living room acting crazy.  All while mom is enjoy herself at a place I’ll be on Tuesday.

There are plenty of new recipes I’ll be trying in this cooking adventure.  I’m determined to get myself out of this rut of cooking the same ole’, same ole’.

I even pulled off a smoothie, just don’t ask what the ingredients were because some of them I’m not sure I’d touch if they weren’t mixed in with something else (a lot of something green), it was a really good smoothie too.  Bananas, Fresh Strawberries, Frozen Blueberries, 2tbsp Flax Seed, Orange Juice, Fat Free Low Sugar Strawberry Yogurt & the Green Health Food Monster stuff.  I made another batch of smoothies and froze it so I’ll have something to eat tomorrow.  I’m really starting to love my blender and making smoothies.

My plan is to eat what we have out of the cabinets/freezer/fridge so we can work on dwindling some of this food down.  My hope is to create a stockpile of goodies to freeze this weekend.  School starts on Monday & as much as I wish I could sit out another semester, I’m going even if it kills me.  So, there’s the reason for the stockpile.  Hopefully I can come up with some tasty dishes I can pop in the microwave or oven when I get home from school & have a great healthy meal & no more fast food!  I’ll post what I create this weekend, so stay tuned!

After it was all said & done, this was the middle of the line.  Crazy I waited  as long as I did just to get PW’s autograph.  It was fantastic.  Although, I’m not quite sure I’d do it again….ahhh who am I kidding.  I’d do it all over again.  5 hour wait & all.

The Punks came out and the women I was around asked them if they’d sign their cookbooks.  The girls were super sweet and talkative and answered all the questions we bombarded them with.  It was great getting to see them and interact with them too.

Turns out our group started something.  These ladies saw the Punks signing our books and asked them if they’d sign theirs too.  The girls signed a few more books and then were rescued by their family.  After that signing, they never came back over to the long line that everyone was waiting in.  Poor Punks.

Oh My!  Look who it is, Marlboro Man!  The rest of the Punks were following in line.  They were on their way to get more cookbooks, since the Bookstore sold out.  Good thing too, cause I needed to buy another one to have signed.  I wound up getting one for Roomie just cause she couldn’t be there.

All the women in the crowd were whooping and hollering and I had no idea what was going on until this man walked by.  Marlboro Man came by helping the boys push the dolly full of books.  I’m starting to wonder if he realized exactly what he was doing or just wasn’t thinking about what he was doing.  Who knows, but at least I have the evidence to prove he was in the perfect photo op position!

Look who decided to join in the fun.  We tracked good ole’ MM down to sign a few books.  Any guesses what I asked him to sign?  I’ll just tell you…his butt.  Oh yes, it was a riot.  I thoroughly enjoy asking him to sign the last page of the cookbook. Tee hee.  We were really helping PW when we asked the boys to sign the cookbooks.  We were helping as in, helping the boys keep up with their penmanship lessons.  Yes, that was our objective….penmanship.

The light at the end of the tunnel.  I thought I was moments away from meeting PW.  Moments which quickly turned into being over a hour and a half!  It was worth the wait in the long run.  I’m glad I went and met the blogging legend.

People played on their iPhones, ate, played games.  They did all sorts of things to pass the time just so they could see PW.  Never thought everyone would be so calm just waiting on one woman.  I enjoyed waiting and talking to those around me.  I even killed my iPod Touch playing games, checking email, tweeting, facebooking, and of course playing Words With Friends.  I am completely in love with that game.

Conversing.  We did this back & forth awhile.  You know, the normal things like the fact my first time wearing a bra in months & months, getting out of the house and even the trouble I had driving to the city.  I never got lost, but I quickly found out I could not back my car up to save my life.  I relied heavily on my mirrors, probably more heavily than I should have.  Signing away.  I had put sticky notes in the books of both my name & Roomie’s name in them.  It was simple after that.  PW went on “auto pilot” for a minute, realized this and then changed her mind and wrote something sweet for both Roome & me.  She’s amazing.  I love what she wrote in both of our books, it’ll be something I cherish for a long time to come.  We did get into deep discussion about my bra.  It was one of those conversations that goes on forever and just doesn’t end.  Ha!  I really enjoyed talking with Ree, but not just about my bra.  She did finally go off “auto pilot” and sign something very very sweet for the Roomie.  Although, Roomie hasn’t said anything about her new cookbook, I’m sure she loooooves it.

]]> http://theokiecollegegirl.com/2009/12/erin-meets-the-pioneer-woman/feed/ 0 http://theokiecollegegirl.com/2008/12/ahhh-the-sounds-around-a-college-girls-house/ http://theokiecollegegirl.com/2008/12/ahhh-the-sounds-around-a-college-girls-house/#comments Wed, 31 Dec 2008 03:55:00 +0000 theOkieCollegeGirl http://theokiecollegegirl.com/?p=94 *Ellie is entertaining herself. {Papaw would be proud}

*Roomie & Jessica are text messaging back & forth. {annoying beeps are coming from her phone}

*John Tucker Must Die playing on my iPod.

I made a terrific pot of Chicken & Dumplings.  Seriously, they’re just that good.   It may be my new dish to take to Thaksgiving next year.   I have a year to perfect it and make it snazzy that will give rave reviews.   Yes, a 24 y/o will be able to accomplish that and then some.  For those keeping track.  I WILL be making a 3 layer Princess Cake to top off of my Thanksgiving dishes.

I’m also going to post a few new pictures of things around the house.  I’ve redone a coffee table Roomie bought, added some pictures of of Nicole’s kids to our walls & also added a few new storage contraptions to the garage.

Never knew all these household organizers & ordinary furniture would make me so happy.