New recipes?

So now that Jen and I are doing the grocery game (and trying to cut costs by eating out less), we are cooking more often. Since Jen works late, that usually means that I have to cook things, or she cooks on the weekend and we freeze it, then eat it later.

Sooo... since we are cooking more, we are trying out new recipes. I figured I would post some recipes, notes, and pictures... maybe its a recipe that you'd like to try.

Here goes #1: we had a package of chicken legs. Initially we were going to grill them, but because it was cold (and I didnt feel like taking the cover off of the grill), I searched for a baking recipe. There were many recipes that said to bake them at 350 for over an hour, but seeing as it was already 730pm, we wanted something faster. So I found this recipe:

BAKED CHICKEN LEGS
Serves 6
6 whole chicken legs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon butter
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs
1 teaspoon chopped garlic
1 teaspoon chopped shallots
1 teaspoon chopped parsley
1 teaspoon chopped basil
1 teaspoon chopped tarragon
1/2 cup white wine

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Sprinkle chicken with salt and pepper. Melt butter and oil in a baking dish. Place chicken legs in dish and turn over to coat with butter and oil. Bake in oven for 20 minutes. Combine bread crumbs, garlic, shallots and herbs. Turn chicken legs. Sprinkle with bread mixture. Bake 20 more minutes. Pour wine around chicken. Bake 5 more minutes before serving.


Being me, I added a LOT more garlic and didnt measure anything else... just threw it in as I saw fit. I didnt use white wine, either. Instead I used Jen's boxed blush wine.

Overall, it turned out great! The spices were good. I was concerned with adding a bunch of bread crumbs in there, then adding in the wine in the end, but it turns out that it created a stuffing that had a slight taste of wine. It wasnt bad. Might try it again!

Sorry, no picture this time. It wasnt pretty enough.

Navigating the Corn Maze

Today I went back to the animal shelter to do spays and neuters, which meant that I was home by early afternoon. Jon and I decided to make the most of the extra time and the good weather (cool, sunny, and very windy!) by visiting a corn maze. The Denver Botanical Gardens puts one on every year - this one has a bug theme to advertise a 2007 exhibit. The center of the maze is a huge spider, with its eight legs heading off in different directions through the corn. Jon and I got there about 30 minutes before it opened, so we walked around and saw the pumpkin patch. We were in the first group of people to enter the maze, equipped with 3x5 inch maps (our tickets). The maze was awesome with the wind gusting through the dried-out corn. There were two bridges raised above the corn so you could see the entire maze and get your bearings - it was fun to stand on a bridge and look down on everyone else navigating their way through the maze. Thanks to Jon's superb skills with our tiny map, we made it out of the maze in less than 40 minutes - we think we may have been the first group out! To celebrate, we split a huge roasted ear of corn from one of the vendors there. Yum! =)

Owls, raspberries, and a Camry

Hiya! We just finished up a fun weekend - (because of my work schedule, our weekends are now Sundays and Mondays.) Saturday evening we visited Chatfield Lake State park. It has a big reservoir, plus camp sites, paths, and even horse-back riding. We walked along the beach of the reservoir, watched the ducks and sailboats, and took pictures of the fall foliage (everything's so pretty and golden!). On our way back to the car, we looked up in a tree and saw an owl less than 20 feet from us! He just watched us, let us take our pictures, and then flew off to start his evening hunt.


Sunday we spent doing around-the-house stuff. We made our weekly pilgrimage to the grocery stores (yes that's plural -3 to be exact). We've been playing the Grocery Game for 9 weeks now. It's an online site that matches weekly grocery store sales to coupons to come up with "rock-bottom" prices. So we have been stockpiling stuff when it's rock-bottom. Which makes for some interesting combinations in the cart - like 4 boxes of crackers and 12 cans of veggies this week. I was especially excited to see raspberries on our list this week - my fave fruit! We found another couple playing the game at one of the stores - you can definitely tell - one person is comparing the printed out list to individual items, and the other is flipping through a stack of coupons. It's fun though, and we definitely won't run out of canned corn anytime soon. =)

Which brings us to Monday - our new car's birthday! Well, maybe not it's actual birthday, but the day it came home with us. We looked at cars a month ago, but we've been so busy with travel and work that we weren't able to get back over to the dealerships until yesterday. Toyota was my preference, so we went back there to re-test drive the Camry. I loved it! It's dark grey with light grey interior, a V6 (peppy!), and it's my first new car ever! =)

Woohoo!

We finally got around to creating a blog! Not that there will be anything too exciting written in here, you might find topics ranging from animals, home brewing, technology, sports, scrapbooking, and yes... even the grocery game (Jen will explain that later).

Sooo, check back from time to time to see what we're up to!

- Jon and Jen