// roasted rosemary/thyme chicken thighs //

If you want something fancy but don't have a lot of time to prep, this is one easy recipe. Just make sure you have 45 minutes to an hour to roast the chicken thighs. I basically winged this one because we had a lot of leftover fresh rosemary and thyme (not like the "Scarborough Fair" song). The key is to roast it at least for 45 minutes, but if you can leave it in a little longer...I like mine extra crispy!

Ingredients:

• chicken thighs (I used 6)
• fresh rosemary(about 2 long sprigs) - take off stem and chop up
• fresh thyme - I just left on the stem and placed one stem on top of each thigh
• Kosher salt
• ground pepper
• olive oil (about 1-2 tbs)
• one garlic clove for each thigh

Directions:

1.  Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees
2. Rinse and dry thighs. Place in baking pan
3. Drizzle olive oil over chicken thighs
4. Salt & pepper evenly
5. Sprinkle rosemary evenly
6. peel garlic clove and stuff into chicken (or place underneath)
7. bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour

// stove top stuffing //

I could eat stuffing with almost every meal. It's my favorite dish during Thanksgiving.  Plus there are tons of variations so you can accommodate to all kinds of tastes. This recipe was just one of the ones I found when I needed to make a stove top version since the oven was already fully occupied with my roast chicken. The only thing I left out were the olives (one of the few things I don't like food-wise) and I had to use chicken broth instead of turkey giblet stock.

// roasted whole chicken //

All trussed up and ready to go!    ;]

This was an incredibly easy recipe, guys. All you need is a whole chicken plus salt & pepper. Butter is in the recipe, but I actually forgot to add it and it was still good. Try it out soon, you'll be surprised how easy it is. Looks impressive, too if you're serving to guests! I made home-made stuffing + steamed squash for the sides.

// Nutella chocolate chip cookies //

Oh, wow. It's been a month since I've posted? Sorry, gang. I've had some camera/internet issues, therefore making it hard to blog. I'll try to catch up as much as possible! In the meantime, this is a simple recipe that only uses FOUR ingredients. 4!!!! Nutella, egg whites, flour + chocolate chips. Personally, it was super-rich and if I were to make it again, I'd downsize the chocolate chips to about 1 cup. You guys can eyeball it and adjust according to taste. Also, I had to bake mine a little bit longer than the 7 minutes she stated in the recipe. Just keep an eye on it while it's baking and poke until almost dry.

// grilled salmon w/nectarine salsa //

grilled salmon w/nectarine salsa

salmon - fresh off the grill

nectarine salsa

roasted sweet potato slices & salsa

Grilling season is almost over in most cities, but here in the ATL it's still wavering between cool days and scorchin' hot! We decided to take advantage of the weather by grilling out for Sunday supper. A couple of couply friends and I have been rotating Sundays for dinner. We usually try to make a one-pot meal or something that's easy for at least 6-8 people. I found this recipe while getting ready for work and sent the ingredients to my boyfriend (who is the also griller) to head to the grocery store for us. Only having about 1.5 hours after work to prepare the dinner, this was pretty doable. You just have to time the grill (I'm sure you can broil salmon inside, too if you don't have a grill) and the sides. I made sauteed zucchini/squash, roasted sweet potato slices and the salsa was a cinch to make. Sunday supper was a success!

// salted caramel brownies //

eat your heart out

blending the ingredients

only had a heart-shaped pan around, doesn't mean anything ;]

making the caramel topping

smearing the top w/the caramel topping

you can't have just one bite!

So, after a hiatus on eating foods that are bad for you, or eating at all (spent 3 days in the hospital on an IV w/no food or drink recently)...this should suffice for my first post back. ;]

Made this for a dinner party recently, and we kept passing it around the table during a game of Yahtzee. Everyone was trying to diet! It was "Get this away from me!", then two minutes later that same person is spooning another bite. We made up a rule to take a shot of Crown if someone got Yahtzee and this brownie was the perfect chaser.

Feel free to make this and share, or keep it around and spoon at your own pace. You can find the recipe here.

// pee-pee amuse-bouche //

chicken broth, lemon jello, apple juice, lemon ice

I'm baaaaack! After a short absence from here, I'd like to explain why it's been so long since I've posted. I mean I sort of have a doctor's note, really. To make a long story short, I had my appendix out when I was two years old and the scar tissue from that comes back around to cause trouble every now and then. This is basically what happened to me: http://www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/tc/bowel-obstruction-topic-overview. It's a type of bowel obstruction and I've had it 2-3x before - all times, severely painful! They put me on an IV and pumped morphine and Dilaudid (5x stronger than morphine - heard they use it on cancer patients) and I wasn't allowed to eat/drink anything for 3 days. They also put an NG tube down my nose/throat into my belly to suck out excess stuff like bile to relieve pressure on my tummy. THAT was probably the worst because it was in me for 1.5 days and I couldn't talk or swallow. The picture above was my 1st meal in the hospital. I remember them waking me up around 6:30am and I was really excited because I was finally going to get some food! Low and behold, it was chicken broth, apple juice, lemon jello and lemon ice. I think I just looked at it, rolled my eyes and went back to sleep for another 30 minutes before I poked and prodded my "food". The chicken broth and juice went down fine, but the other stuff...yuck. I remember I made my boyfriend try the lemon ice before I did and he faked an "mmmmmm" before the spoon even hit his mouth. Hahahha. Nice try! Anyway, I was in there last Sun.-Wed. and I'm grateful for my friends and family who came to visit and keep me company. Especially to my poor boyfriend, Luke, who had to endure sleeping in the chair-bed the whole time and was my personal secretary (taking my phone calls and talking for me) during my NG tube days. I'm feeling about 90% back to normal and am looking forward to eating my fave foods soon!