Just another made up holiday ;)

Hey everyone!! It is so gorgeous out today my goodness, cant believe it was raining a few days ago. 

I hope everyone one else is experiencing this great weather other places too . 

So I know I am a little late on posting this but I realllllly wanted to get it up , this past valentines day my husband and I stayed in . Since we both had to work and were too tired to go out after work . 

I decided since I got home before him that I would make us dinner. Better that than spending a couple hundred out at some fancy restaurant . 

Now here we go ... Welcome to Restaurant A La Thomas haha!! 

  I took some cilantro and shaved off the leaves with my knife into the bowl . 

 Took some sun dried tomatoes that were already cut added it to the cilantro ( time saver )

Rinsed the asparagus and cut into about 2" lengths 

I heated up a pan to med-high heat with some extra virgin olive oil , pan fried them real quick to bring out that green color . I didn't cook these fully left them with a little bite. 

Then I set them aside on a plate . ( if you leave them in the pan they will continue to cook )

Threw on a pot of water seasoned a little with kosher salt. cooked till just al dente .

While the pasta was cooking I took the mozzarella and sliced them up. (saving the marinade) Then I also slice up a small roma tomato and added it to the bowl with the cilantro . 

Once the pasta was cooked I threw the drained pasta over top of all the waiting ingredients in the bowl (what ever you do,  do NOT rinse the pasta !! big no no . )

Next I tossed everything around , cooked up some bacon in the microwave and crumpled it up in to the mix.  

Then this is where that marinade I saved comes in , pour that into the bowl and another toss.

  There you have it !!

Whats dinner without something sweet after  ?!?

So for our something sweet I made us Pannacotta.

took some cream and milk brought them to a simmer. 

Chopped up some chocolate

bloomed some gelatine

1 cup of nutella 

 Took the simmered milk and cream added vanila , chopped chocolate and nutella

I was too impatient to wait for it to cool to room temp on its own , so I gave it a ice bath. 

poured the mix into wine glassed let them chill for a few hrs tilted 

chopped up some chocolate covered pomagranate seeds and sprinkled them on top. 

<3 <3 LoVe too CoOk

Get in my belly ! !

So some of what is going to be below are some of the dinners I have made for my husband and I (with some friends on one night)

Below isn't so much dinner but a few things that I picked up at the asian market while I was there getting some things for dinner . I enjoyed these thing when I was little , yes they are all asian related obviously coming from an asian market hah. but for those of you who don't know,  I am half vietnamese also. 

 So moving on hah .  For almost a week I was craving egg rolls and wanted to make them again from scratch , but this time with the right wrappers (dont use the ones from the grocery store too thick! ). So my husband and I ventured to the asian market one sunday afternoon. 

After a little chopping and sauteing and more chopping and sauteing . . . the filling was ready to go after cooling down . 

 


So each package of egg roll wrappers come in a pack of 25 , so I planted myself at our dining room table and camped out and watched some tv. after rolling and rolling ... i was finally done !

My 2nd most favorite kitchen gadget ..... The deep fryer!

Load them up!! 

bubble bubble bubble . . . 

tada !! all nice and crunch !!

Then a few nights later we both had worked late and wanted it to be an easy night for dinner . Nothing crazy with a whole lotta prep. So I went and picked up some tots a can of chili , sour cream , cheese and green onions . prepared the tots in the oven , warmed up the chili on the stove . Threw it all together and PRESTO !! dinner is served haha 

Then moving on to something with a little more work 

Two nights ago I wanted to try something new that I came across , so off to the store I sent my husband =)

We learned that we didn't need to do exactly what the recipe had said to do and use 2 puff pastry sheets for a chicken breast . 1 is PLENTY . 

 FINALLY broke out one of our wedding gift !!

marble rolling pin had been in its box since august. hah

Since the chicken breasts we got were too small to stuff we put two together with the filling (cream cheese, bacon, diced onions, salt pepper and parsley) in the middle 

salt and peppered the top chicken breast

folded one side over

 then folded the other side over ( trim a little bit of the excess dough to avoid soggy dough if you're using 2 sheets )

flip the whole thing over like so

made an egg wash 

and brushes the whole thing with the wash

we baked them for about 45 min at 350 

so nice and golden !! 

And there you have it cut into it and see the yummy juices run out. 

Served with a little mash potato , sprinkle of parsley and a dollop of sour cream =)

Happy eating ! <3

Lazy sunday

Hey everyone! Hope you all have had a WONDERFULLLLL weekend! 

Mine wasn't too shabby , normally I spend my weekends catching up on house cleaning and laundry . During the week I work about 50+ hours between both my jobs and have no desire to do any house work once I get  home and cook dinner. BUT this weekend most of the house work I would have wanted to get done went right out the window on saturday haha. I was the biggest bum I have EVER been . For those who know me that is not me . Im always cleaning something or sorting something . So to waste an entire day away watching tv and cuddling with my kitties was nice for once . I told myself veg out today and save the cleaning for sunday . pfff wasn't gonna argue that haha

A day of being a bum all the shows I  watched it some how flew by a little too fast for my liking . Next thing I knew Sunday (today) was here already and I needed to get my butt into gear and do something to this apartment or else it was going to drive me nuts all week long till next weekend. So I finally dragged my butt out of bed and fed the kitties plugged my phone into the dock and blasted Glee ( dont judge me monkey! ) haha and got to cleaning. 

After all that my husband and I went to the in laws and did some family time to then later come home to give my self a mani =)

Last week my husband came home with handful of polishes that were on clearance. So now my polish collection between xmas and now has grown quite a bit and I have not had a chance to use them all .

 Sally Hansen nail art pens

 O.P.I Justin Bieber collection 

 Some randoms (sally, mayballine..)

 Milani nail art skinny brush tips

So once I decided on how I wanted to paint my nails this is what came of it. 

I LOVE how they turned out !! =D

Happy sunday have a good week ! <3 

Cheeseeeyy goodness

So its been one heck of a weekend for me having to do a couple over nighters at one of my jobs I spent my entire saturday in the hospital in waiting rooms and beinging poked and prodded at .... as soon as I left the hospital I had to go to the 2nd over nighter wake up and go to my 2nd job .

By the time I FINALLLLY got to go home I felt like it was forever since I had been home and get to sleep in my own bed with my husband and kitties . So I wanted to keep dinner simple so that I didn't have a big mess to clean up after . 

I found this on a search for dinners to plan out our week menu and came across a recipe for 

Bloomin Onion Bread . I'll try to find it and link it for you guys. So here we go !

We didn't end up doing anything with the meat and potatoes we decided to save that for another night. 

 I sliced the sour dough bread length wise w/out cutting all the was thru then turned it and went the other way 

took slices of montery jack cheese and stuffed that bread silly 

used some kitchen scissors and snipped some green onions

melted some butter then combined them with some poppy seeds 

 placed the bread on some foil drizzled the butter and onion mixture 

covered and baked 

 look at the hills of yummyness hahah 

now THATS some cheeesy goodness ! 

<3 <3 LoVe To CoOk !

Recent haul

So I just want to start off by saying HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!

Can you believe its a whole new year?? what happened to 2011 ??

Only good things to come right ? fresh new start clean slate !

Anywho.. I just wanted to share some new things I have gotten over the last few weeks and recent haul at Bed Bath & Beyond and Target . 

So I did a mini spa day at the house this past weekend ... Nice hot bubble bath newly painted toes w/a little sparkle and a green tea mask . Made it so hard to think I was going to have to peel myself out of bed and go to work before the sun came up . . .  I haven't had a chance to use all that I got this weekend so im going to have to save it for another day away from workin both my jobs . 

So here we have Playin' footsie it comes with a few things inside to help you out with your pedi .

Theres a inflatable foot tub , feet soak , nail file , clippers, toe seperaters , wood sticks

then to the right some cuticle sofener/remover

and to the left we have peppermint feet salt . 

last but not least from bed bath we have some fruit peel off masks 

-Crushed raspberry & mango 

- Pulped Pomegranate 

Cant wait to put some use to all this awesome stuff. 

So thats my mini haul from Bed Bath & Beyond then next I went to Target  and got a couple things 

1st is the Elf classic shadow palette normally $10 and is on clearance 

Then I also got some new brushes a large powder brush and a smudge brush both by Sonia Kashuk.

I had seen these in Target before but didn't know much about them so I didn't want to buy them . I wanted to get a new set of brushes because the ones the I started out with now have seen their days and I think its time to invest in some great brushes. I REALLYY want to try out Sigma brushes . But those are a bit pricey buuuut from all the reviews I have read and watched they are worth the investment . 

I was watching a youtube video one day by DulceCandy87 who also has a fashion blog, website and twitter . In one of her videos she had mentioned these brushes (along with the elf palette) and thought maybe ill give them a try . I love all the other things she has mentioned in her video hauls. 

heres is the lnk to her site if you want to check her out

http://dulcecandy.com

annnywho I have to scidaddle so I hope you all have a great day and new year . 

<3

Ill try to do another post on the palette and brushes when I use them =)