van.nurse@gmail.com – Page 57 – The Adventures of a Calamari Queen

Twice Baked Potatoes

I made these twiced baked potatoes this week,and this is one easy and great recipe. Although this recipe is a keeper, I still want to try other twice baked potato recipes (like Paula Dean’s).

Ingredients (foodnetwork.com)

4 large russet potatoes, each about 3/4 pound each, scrubbed and dried
2 to 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/3 cup sour cream
1 scallion, finely chopped
Freshly grated nutmeg, optional
1/2 cup shredded sharp cheddar
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Place the potatoes directly on the rack in the center of the oven and bake for 30 minutes. Pierce each potato in a couple spots with a fork and continue to bake until tender, about 30 minutes more. Remove potatoes from the oven, and turn the heat down to 375 degrees F.

Hold the potato with an oven-mit or towel, trim off the top of the potatoes to make a canoe-like shape. Reserve the tops. Carefully scoop out most of the potato into a bowl. Take care to leave enough potato in the skin so the shells stay together. Mash the potato lightly with fork along with 2 to 3 tablespoons of the butter and sour cream. Stir in the scallion, nutmeg, and season with salt and pepper, to taste. Season the skins with salt and pepper. Refill the shells with the potato mixture mounding it slightly. Sprinkle the cheese on top of the potato filling. Brush the reserved top with the remaining butter and season with salt and pepper.

Set the potatoes and lids on a baking sheet, and bake until heated through, about 20 minutes. Serve immediately.

Savings and Organized Stockpile/Pantry!!

I shopped at Walgreens and Fred Meyer this week. I had a couple of RR from wags that I wanted to use because they’re about to expire. I really didn’t want anything from Walgreens this week so I got something that I can use in the future, thus I got packaging tape. I plan to send something to my family in the Phillipines before the year ends and I will be using lots of packaging tape.

For my Fred Meyer Trip (Kroger affiliate) I took advantage of their mix and match promo this week. My husband’s favorite cereal was included in the promo so I got 5 boxes (he’s been asking me since 2 weeks ago when can I get him Life cereal, but I told him to just wait another week and they’ll be on sale soon:-). They also have a good deal on their milk this week ($1 for half gallon,normally they’re $1.85). I also splurged on the Organic Chanterelle mushrooms because I wanted to try a recipe I saw online that need this kind of mushroom. I organized our pantry this week and realized that we only had 1 ketchup and FM had ketchup on sale this week too, so I got 2.

I paid $44(after their mix and match promo and sale)

Part of my “summer bucket list” is to clean and organize our house, one room at a time! This week I started with our pantry and laundry room.

This use to be our “I don’t want to deal with it right now room” hehe..boxes,coats,old shoes.

I’m a big coffee drinker so I always try to stock up with coffee and Kcups (they’re kinda expensive)

In our laundry room, we do have another pantry(smaller) where we put our opened boxes of pasta,cereals,and more condiments and candies.

Alimango with sotanghon (crabs with rice vermicelli noodles)

I love crabs! It’s one of my fave seafoods to eat and I don’t mind the cracking part (honestly, I do enjoy it!! I know crazy, right?). So when I saw this dish in my fave food blog (Original Recipe) I knew right away that this was a must dish to make in the future. We are so lucky here in Pacific Northwest because we do have a great seafood selection (from salmon to crabs to shrimps). I got the crabs from our local fish market, it was kinda expensive but the crab meat was so worth it. Sweet and meaty:) Hubby requested to have it cleaned,but I did clean it again (scrub) before cooking just to make sure:) This is a VERY simple dish. Once I cleaned and chopped the crabs(it was cooked already when we bought it, you can steam it if it’s still “live”), I then sautéed Garlic, Onion, and Ginger with olive oil. I then added chicken broth and the crabs, let it boil and then put in the pre-soaked noodles. Then salt and pepper to taste, if you want you can add soy sauce to add that deep color. Garnish with chives or whatever herbs you have. I used parsley because I happened to have some right in front of me. You have to eat it right away because these kind of noodles tend to dry out so fast. Serve with rice if you want:-) I will be making this again in the future (maybe next week!!)

Weekend Fun!!

This week was great, with lots of sunshine and I can honestly say summer is “officially” here in the PNW! I’ve been enjoying my time in our yard and loving the feeling of “harvesting” the herbs we planted, and putting them to use is just great thing for me. This weekend, Hubby and my Dad In law set up our summer table so I’m looking forward to eating outside more often in the comfort of our yard, and relaxing and loving the sunshine! We also “babysat” Lexy yesterday afternoon while my In laws went biking, Riley had a great time. They are so funny together (so competitive yet so gently with each other) makes me laugh! We finally saw the Amazing Spiderman movie and we really liked it a lot! Hubby even said that he liked this movie more than the previous spiderman movies:) Here are the bazillions of pics I took this weekend (still using the iPad, I can’t wait to get a normal camera!!)

lunch at our Fave Thai resto, scallop salad!

akong Bana ng salad,ako full meal!hahaha

lunch with MIL Kathy,after we took the dogs in the lake/park! Riley so cute (the only one looking at the camera)

Lexy Lou,so behaved while we had lunch at Panera Bread

Friday night dinner at home;crab cakes and jumbo shrimp (from Gemini market)

cuddle time with Riley,waiting for Lexy so they can play together!

Lexy showing Riley some girl power by hiding his orange ball!LOL

naptime,I promised I’ll give them a treat if they behave!

and the’re back wrestling one another again!

thyme,I will use this for my herb butter

herb butter,this will be perfect for grill/roast veggies

parsley, I love parsley but Zach is not a big fan!

I made Crab and vermicelli noodles for dinner last night, I original wanted to put chives for garnish but the Parsley was in front of me and I got lazy to get out to the yard to get chives!hehe

free movie tickets because of my couponing!hehehe

yummy margarita and pizza after the movie!

Les Miserables

I LOVED the musical production of Les Miserables in Seattle last night! I really enjoyed the music, especially the famous “On my Own” (so when Eponine was singing I can’t help but think of Joey Potter and that famous Dawsons creek scene!!). Anyways, it was a great show and great time with my Hubs. If given a chance I would like to see it again. The line that sticks in my mind is: to love another person,is to see the face of God (cheesy cheesy line).

4th of July attire (I love red and blue)

Hello sunshine and rare moment in seattle (no traffic)

awkward pic coz Zach doesn’t want to take a pic..hahaha

we are still using the iPad for pictures,so quality of pics are not the greatest

The moon and firework somewhere in Bellevue(on our way home)

Happy 4th of July!

Happy Birthday America! I’m so grateful that I’m living here in U.S.A:-) We are just staying here at home for the day, cleaned the yard, had yummy drinks and later tonight we will watch Les Miserable in Seattle! Have a safe 4th of July celebration!!

Weekend Fun!!

We had a great weekend celebrating our Riley’s 2nd birthday. We had a simple dinner with my In laws here at our house (my Dad In Law prepared pulled pork) and Hubby took care of side dishes. Aside from that, it was a really relaxing weekend here at home. We watched a couple of movies, Church, arranged my stockpile,watched the U.S Olympics trials like they’re paying us:-)..our weekend in pics:-)

Chucks donuts (hubby’s fave donuts since highschool!)

Ina Garten guacamole (the best guac recipe for us)

Happy Birthday Riley!!

Today (June 30th) is our Riley Puss’s 2nd birthday! My In laws will be coming over for dinner to celebrate our love’s birthday with us. Riley is our mini schnauzer who is such a blessing in our family. We got him when he was only 10 weeks old, and now he’s 2! Time just flies so fast, I do miss how tiny he was when we got him. I still remember when Zach could carry him in his palm. Happy Birthday Riley Puss Bates, you are so loved! Some of my favorite pics of our birthday boy:

playing with Phil and his first toy Mr. Blue

1 057 — Christmas 2010,our first with you!

1 234 — you love our fireplace and new toys!

your birthday last year! we had lunch at Panera Bread!

you love hanging out with Auntie Till and sharing a cookie

he loves paw massages,I think I will just give him massages for a bday gift!HAHA!

Savings!!

I shopped at 4 different stores this week,because I had a Safeway catalina that expired this week and I wanted to use it. Target is in the same area as our Safeway and I had some target coupons I wanted to use. My Target trip was “sort of free” because I used a gift card (from a rebate) so no Out of Pocket from me. Target had lots of clearance items in their coffee section,so I got 2 coffees. Then this morning, I shopped at Walgreens because I wanted to get free Suave products (I’m surprised that they are well stocked in this). After Walgreens I checked out Fred Meyer (kroger affiliate) because the two stores are just in the same area. Fred Meyer had a sale on their milk this week, $1 for their 1/2 galloon, original price is $1.85, I got 6 and I didn’t take pictures because I put them in the refrigerator right away.

Safeway trip: I paid $2.80 (after sale,coupon and catalina)

Target trip: $55 (after sales,coupons) I used a gift card so no OOP for me!

Target trip: I paid $28,after sales and coupons

Part of the $28 target trip (no space in the kitchen counter)

Walgreens trip: I paid $5.28 after RR and coupons (I did 2 transactions)

Tandoori Fire Bar and Grill

We had dinner at Tandoori Fire Bar and Grill restaurant in Redmond last Saturday night because Hubby has been kinda craving Indian food lately. I’m not a big Indian food fan but I can take it. The spices are kinda strong for my taste, so I tend to just eat the same thing(I always order chicken tikka masala). That’s the main reason why we rarely eat Indian dishes/cuisine, but Zach really likes Indian food. It’s been a while now since we had Indian food, so I suggested to Zach that we check this place at Redmond. The food was really good! I liked all the dishes we ordered and the Mango Lassi was the best I’ve had. So good that we had to create one at home because I can’t stop talking about it to my Hubs! The food was great but the service was awful, they only had two people working on a busy Saturday night and we had to wait for our food for a while and it took our check 30 minutes to arrive or something. Anyways, it was still a great night with my Junlaboo!