Sorry for the delay!!!

I am sorry I haven't posted this week! I did cook some Abby/Betty recipes that were fairly successful. I also had a LOT going on this week, but more about that later! I didn't take any pictures of my food this week (like I said, a lot going on so I was distracted!) but I did take pictures of my new dinner table setup. Mom and Dad handed-me-down their Williams-Sonoma dining room table a while back, but until now we had mainly been using it as an extra desk due to the lack of real sit-down meals we cooked. So on a shopping trip with Mom, I bought some Williams-Sonoma placemats and napkins that match with our green Fiestaware and our red diner chairs! I'll also throw in a picture of a Houston sunset from our apartment.

Okay, now for last weekend's recipes:

1. Oven-fried chicken: For this recipe, I shook up drumsticks in a mixture of flour, salt, pepper, and paprika, kind of like Shake and Bake, then cooked them in the oven in a pan full of butter! This made for some pretty yummy chicken, but it was a little dry! I think I'm still a little afraid of undercooking the chicken, so I may have cooked it a little too long. Shane really liked this though, and we ate it again as leftovers, which is always a good sign!

2. Macaroni and cheese: This recipe was a little weird, because it had onions in it... I'm not sure how I feel about onions in my mac and cheese! And after this recipe, I'm still not sure about it. To make this, I cooked onions in a pan, then added flour, salt, and pepper, which kind of made it look like onion rings! Once that was all cooked, I added Velveeta cheese until it made a creamy sauce, added that to the cooked macaroni, and baked it. It turned out pretty well, but it was really rich! You just can't go into it expecting Kraft mac and cheese! This could be a meal in itself.

3. Broccoli: I LOVE broccoli. It's my favorite cooked vegetable! And between it turning olive green, being too firm or too mushy, and being seasoned strangely (spicy broccoli? yuck!), there are many ways to screw up cooked broccoli. I was proud of my broccoli! I cut it up and boiled it in salted water, then added Brummel and Brown while it was still hot and mixed it up. Even Shane, who eats veggies more as a matter of duty than as something he enjoys, liked this broccoli. Ah, the power of butter! (And butter-flavored yogurt or whatever Brummel and Brown is)

So, last week was pretty successful! Today I'm getting ready to go to the grocery store, and I still don't know what I'm going to make. I'm considering the Stuffed Jumbo Pasta Shells though, because I didn't know those existed and I found some last week at H-E-B. I'm intrigued!