Chili Pot Pie Bites!

Today we, The Carolina Panthers, are playing The Saints. This is a huge game for us and America's "Game of the Week". It's gonna be tough, but we're playing as I type this and 7 down but two and a half quarters to go.

With football, there is food.

So I made tasty things for people to eat while we watch the game and cheer the Panthers on. These are made of leftover chili and refrigerated pie crust. Not much more than that and cheese. Lots of cheese, a Mexican Blend and Pepper Jack. Woot!

I rarely buy something not on sale. The pie crusts were no exception, I got them a couple of weeks ago on sale at Harris Teeter with the intention of making empanadas. I adore them and have a neat little empanada squisher (hand pie maker) that crimps the edges perfectly! Alas I still have another pack of pie crusts to use and make them.

First I unrolled the pie crust and used a scalloped edge cookie cutter to cut out 14 circles per crust.

Next I put the cut circles in my greased mini-muffin pan, making sure to use a case knife to let the air that gets trapped underneath the crusts.

Then I filled the crusts with a heaping half tablespoon of my leftover chili with the shredded cheese added to it.

Now I cut my leftover pie crusts into little footballs for the decoration.

Then they got baked at 450 for about 13 minutes. And came out amazing!!!

I ate one so soon that I had to take a pic with one missing from the pan.

Tiny pies!!

Also, I used even extra leftover crust to make little hand pies. They are tasty but the crust to chili ratio was too high for me.

Hope you enjoy!!!

Lazy Baked Breakfast "Muffins"

Y'all, it's Sunday. I'm lazy on Sunday's. Like R E A L L Y lazy. This wouldn't be a problem except that I always WANT to be super productive! So today I want to make gnocchi, breakfast muffins (DONE!), wash the dog, wash some sheets, put up clean laundry (from last weekend), and exchange my Star Wars jammies for some that fit better. Combine all of the potential productivity with Carolina Panther football and a potential manicure... Ugh, I will never get it all done.

That and my friend just sent me 30 days of WoW play time.

Productivity is GONE.

Oh, by the way... I am a girl, I game and I like foot ball. I also bake like a maniac. I call it well rounded or something, I guess that's a good thing then, right?

So anyway, I made these "muffins" for the coming week since, once again, I'm lazy. They are tasty and taco-ey and delicious.

Here are the ingredients I used...

That salsa right there? It's my favorite in the WHOLE WORLD. I think y'all should try it if you can get to a Harris Teeter. 

Final product once cleaned up.

 This is the final, but let's start from the very beginning... a very good place to start... when you start in, well, I'm a musical theater fan, so I could keep going, but I won't.

Grease your muffin tin!!! I used an Olive Oil based spray because, lazy! Any it's olive oil vs canola or some other oil I don't want to use. 

I used about 2 cups of frozen spinach for the base. I cooked it for two minutes in the microwave so some of it was still cold, but that is okay since it's going to be baked. 

Then I used a teaspoon of my favorite salsa on top of that. My favorite in the world comes from Harris Teeter, it's their fresh salsa that is in the salad area. SO. GOOD! And fresh, and amazing. I love it and put it on everything!

Then I added about a tablespoon of mexican blend cheese to that. I'm on Weight Watchers so I try NOT to use a ton of cheese. This adds maybe a point to each bite and I can handle that since it has so much other healthy stuff in it that isn't adding any points.

Here's my dozen eggs with a generous grinding of black pepper on the left and a heavy sprinkle of taco seasoning on the right. 

Here are my eggys all beaten. I cheated. I used my immersion blender to beat them. I love that thing so much. I use it for blending soups, hummus, drinks, EVERYTHING! I adore it! So I used that here to cut down on time and effort. 

I really overfilled them. I didn't even use all the egg mixture when I did this either. I think I would say to use 9 eggs next time, based on how much other stuff I had in the muffin tins. 

Seriously... did you not believe me? It overflowed into the bottom of my oven too, but not too much and nothing caught on fire so I'm okay with this. Lessons learned and I STILL have breakfast for the whole week!

Final tasty bites! Yay! Easy breakfast!

Hope you try it and Enjoy! 

Dark Panther or Stormy Night? Manicure Time!

Hey Y'all! New post here and my first manicure!

I wanted to do this manicure with some new colors I recently discovered: Orly - Sinister Sea Witch and e.l.f. - Sea Escape. My original intention was something along the lines of a Carolina Panther's theme with a darker twist. It didn't quite turn out like I wanted but it is pretty in its own way. I will definitely use these colors again, just not together.

The almost final product, I hadn't cleaned the cuticle yet.

The mani originally looked like it was what I wanted, but in better lighting I realized the colors more closely resembled a dark and stormy night. Hmmmm, just how I like it. You will never sleep as good as I do when its showering with thunder rumbling in the background. I adore it SO much; the dogs... not so much. It makes them snuggle closer though so I'll take it!

All I did to create this was my secret base coat combination (Essie's protein base coat with ORLY's rubberized over top of it) and two coats of the Sinister Sea Witch. I let that dry almost completely before I used my damp make-up sponge to dab on the Sea Escape. I topped it all off with my OPI top coat! The mani is pretty, and these pictures more accurately show the blue sparkle in the French-ish tip.

Just the thumb, a macro to show the sparkle.

There we go! You can really see it in this one.

I really do love the Sea Escape, I think that with another top coat it would have been more sparkly. Without a top coat it was very textured and almost like a matte sand finish but the blue still glittered. I almost snapped a pic of that but I decided that wasn't the point here and to move forward. I'll do something with this polish again soon and post about it.

Sinister Sea Witch is so neat, it's this gray-ish/purple with the neatest metallic finish, I love it so much! I can't wait to play with it again, maybe work it into some sort of dark gradient or something. I'm planning a thunderstorm manicure in my head because of this shade. I hope y'all like it as much as I do!

Thanks for stopping by!

A welcome...

Here it is, my new blog. I have created other blogs in the past. Old ones from former me's that are no longer. So now, in my "adultierness" I have determined that I should be creating again and with new challenges before me what better time to start than now?

A little about me, other than my about me section.

I am getting married in April to my high school sweetheart and personal hero, Justin. He is the one I cook for and my partner in crime... I MEAN LIFE! My partner in life. ;-) The wedding is the main focus of my attention right now. Planning events has always been my passion but it is SO much different when it's your own!

Justin and I live in Greensboro where he is a paramedic and I am a billing specialist for a tolerable corporation. I didn't know such a thing existed until I started working there. We have two dogs; one old man that we've had for several years and a new-ish addition in the form of a Pit Bull who is turning four in May. He is my inspiration for opposing BSL (Breed Specific Legislation) and animal rescue and welfare activities. I adore my pibble SO much and he functions as an ESA (informally) for me. I need to get him registered so that if we move I don't have to fight to keep him.

Together, Justin and I enjoy camping, festivals, fire spinning, entertaining, football, and food. I cook, he eats. We attend festivals and love volunteering. I am chronically addicted to Pinterest and use it for most of our meals, my manicures, and my experiments with decorating and domestic design. I'm delightfully domestic with a dark twist for goth music and black make up. Oh, and heavy metal.

So there's a little bit about me! Hope you enjoy the blog, I'm gonna have food and manicures and other fun stuff!