Home-made mac and cheese

ok first I must say I'm proud of myself for trying something like this - free of fear.  I  love macaroni and cheese from the box! lol  but never  thought of making it on my own...as easy as it  appears to be.
It just happened that I ahd some cheeses in the fridge that needed to be used and there was a super sale on boxes of pasta.

This is a new brand from Ronzoni - cooks faster.  Anything that limits my kitchen time is great in my book! lol

Ok so I googled a recipe online and printed 2 and actually combined them.  Since mac n cheese is fairly simple in my book I took chances changing some ingredient amounts.

I didnt want to buy new cheese...so I used: Gruyere and Asiago and Parmesan.  I know random but thats what I had and wasnt wasting more money.

So I cut up the cheese, cooked the pasta, made the cheese sauce with milk, flour and butter and added to the pasta.

I baked it for only like 10 minutes and everything was good

So overall I was pleased with this.  I ate it  and enjoyed it but I'm not sure if others would!! lol

That's a big issue with me - how do you know others will like it?!!!
How do you all handle that??

The cheeses are fairly strong  but i like them.lol

Another problem I had was it was very cheesy!  Not a bad thing for me but how do I correct that and make it more loke your kraft stuff??? add more milk??

So overall It was a success!!!

Cupcake Review Featured!!!

I wrote a review for my favorite blog of the moment Disney Food Blog!!!
Head over there now to read up on the White Chocolate Elephant Cupcake....its an incredible treat from Disney.

Thanks AJ for  letting me write a review!

and The Disney Food Blog was featured on another awesome blog - Cupcakes take the Cake

Behind the Blog: Interview with Gina

Tell us about yourself.

I'm Gina. I am a 25 year old [unemployed] attorney, and a blogger. Like Sarah I am obsessed with Disney and I was also married in Disney World in 2009. When I am not in Disney World I wish I was and unfortunately I don't get there nearly as much as I wish I could but I have to admit I do go there more often than most people I know. I have two adorable kitties, Shooter Kitty and Deuce who I spoil and a wonderful husband named Steve who spoils me.


What are your hobbies?
ha! I don't do much. Hobbies were pretty much non-existent during law school (I had no time!) and now that I am out of law school I find myself with ample time and nothing to do! I spend most of my time looking for a job (yes, I passed the Bar exam but all those comments about how bad the economy is right now are true folks.) I love blogging and I love to read. I like all types of books. Lately my favorite author is Jodi Picoult but she can be depressing at times so I am on to lighter things in between her titles.

What scares you most about the kitchen?
EVERYTHING. OMG. I hate grocery shopping, as you've heard. I hate meal planning and I stink at it. I cannot even tell you how many BURNS I have from attempting to cook. The kitchen is the Devil!

I read a recipe and I just freak out. I look at it on the paper and say "nope, too much". Or WTF is it about recipes sometimes. Like I have a chicken salad recipe that starts with "8 oz. of cooked chicken", well tell me, how was I supposed to cook it. Grill? Fry? Bake? Why doesn't it TELL me!?

What can you cook?
Ha!! Microwavable entrees & pre-mixed cookies? Honestly, not much. I can make a decent burger and I have one interesting chicken sandwich, but as a far as homemade items go, that's about it.

What was your biggest "kitchen catastrophe"?
I actually severely burned myself in high school while baking cookies. I was on the phone with my husband (he wasn't my husband or even boyfriend then LOL) and I went to pull the cookies out of the oven. I felt the cookie sheet slipping and just out of instinct attempted to catch it. I have a MASSIVE horizontal line shaped scar on my left arm as an eternal reminder of that.

More recently I tried to make chicken cattatorie in the crock pot. Did I get a recipe? Nope. I winged it. It was so disgusting it tasted like plastic. IDK what I did wrong. I threw that into the garbage and got a Tendercrisp.

What are your favorite foods?
Chicken Parm, Filet Mignon, Lobster (YUMMM), I love spicy hot Thai food, I love all Mexican Food, cheesecake, red velvet cake (with creamcheese frosting), buffalo anything if it's super hot, anything cheesy anything fried anything hot.

What is your biggest kitchen confessions?

I buy lots of food, especially veggies and fruits and let them sit in my fridge and go bad. I have great intentions of using them but never do. I waste far too much food on a weekly basis.

<---- Sarah's answer and mine as well. I couldn't have said it better myself.

Behind the Blog: Interview with Sarah

Tell us about yourself.

Im Sarah a 28 year old, blogger, designer, owner of Daydream Ink, photographer, artist, Disney obsessed, internet junkie.  That's a mouth full but pretty much describes me.  I got married in Disney World in 2006.  We have two furbabies, two adorable yorkies names Lilo and Stitch.  We spend way too much time traveling to Disney World, and most of our family and friends think we are nuts.

What are your hobbies?
Other than blogging (which is a fairly new hobby), I enjoy planning disney trips, using photoshop, painting, photographing, and playing with my dogs.

What scares you most about the kitchen?
What doesn't scare me about it?  No really there are  4 main things that really scare me  about cooking.
1. Shopping and meal planning.....I panic when I enter a store and get lost in the aisles for  hours.

2. Side dishes - i admit it....i dont make sides only the main meal

3. My knife set -I have no clue what all those knives are for!

4. Cookbooks - i have a stash of cookbooks that I never open  because they overwhelm me.

What can you cook?
Ok I guess its not  fair to say I can't cook.  I think I would say that I don't enjoy to cook and am not graceful in the kitchen.  I can cook some things really well...only after  many practices. 
I can cook: meatloaf, home made pasta sauce, eggplant parm (only recently), fried rice, cheedar cheese soup, and a turkey.
There are a few other items that are my go-to meals and I plan on sharing those with you  as we go along

What was your biggest "kitchen catastrophe"?
Geeze this is a tough one.  Recently I have ruined:
 a cornish hen (i cooked it for  hours and it tasted terrible)
 a pasta dish with veggies..followed a recipe and all and it was a mess.  I threw it right into trash
Penne ala vodka -followed rachael ray's recipe and that was one epic fail for sure

What are your favorite foods?
Pizza, chicken parm, french toast and ALL desserts. I mean all.
Does coffee count as a food? lol

What is your biggest kitchen confessions?
I  buy lots of food, especially veggies and fruits and let them sit in my fridge and go bad.  I have great intentions of using them but never do.  I waste far too much food on a weekly basis.
I love to microwave everything!

I Might Hate Grocery Shopping More than Cooking

It's true. Grocery shopping and I do not get along. I honestly have insane anxiety just thinking about grocery shopping. I cannot find a grocery store nearby that isn't disgusting. My nearest Whole Foods is 30 minutes away, and Big Y (a local chain) is 20 minutes away and those are the only two I can tolerate. However, sometimes I just do not feel like going that far out of my way, especially if the weather is not very nice.

There is a Stop and Shop and Aldi literally one minute from my house. Now let's be honest, Aldi is a train wreck. That store is so horrible I went in twice and never went back. Stop and Shop fares no better in my book. The one near me is so poorly managed it's not even funny. The produce department is disgusting, rotten, yes rotten fruits and veggies are really all there is to choose from. I might be better off shopping for produce in the dumpster behind the Italian restaurant down the hill than I am at my local Stop and Shop. Not only that but they NEVER have the shelves stocked. No matter when I go the store is destroyed, ravaged and empty. And it doesn't end there, oh no!

The staff is horrible. Honestly when I am checking out I do not want to hear some loser 19 year old cashier talk about all of the b*tches he b@nged last night". No exaggeration, that is the conversation I have overheard one particular employee having with the bagger on numerous occasions. I have also had the pleasure to hear cashiers talk about the drunken fight they were involved in over the weekend and heard them discuss how they cannot believe they made it home that night given their level of intoxication behind the wheel. Yes, classy group of employees at the Stop and Shop.

Not only that but the idea of planning meals for the week makes me crazy. I don't know what I want to eat on Friday when it's only Monday. It's happened so many times that I have planned meals and then never made what I planned because I wasn't in the mood to eat it.

Also, the thought of how much money I waste weekly on groceries makes me want to puke. I throw out so much stuff it is honestly terrible and makes me feel so guilty.

So here's what happened today. I went on Stop and Shop's website and I browsed the weekly circular and made a list of things I wanted to purchase. I grabbed my "green" bags and headed down the hill. I fought the massive crowds (and it was 3:30 pm) and finally found a parking space...

I entered Stop and Shop and went to grab a cart. First try was a fail, the cart would no budge! It was stuck to the one in front of it. Alright, breathe, go to the next row of carts. I grab one, SAME THING. Recently Stop and Shop switched from metal carts to plastic and these things are CRAP. The part that rises up to make room to store another cart consistently gets caught in making it near impossible to get a cart. Finally I found a cart that was solo so I grabbed it and went over to the produce section. BIG MISTAKE.

I surveyed the area and looked for items on my list. I zeroed in on tomatoes and tried to find adequate ones to purchase. Lo and behold the tomatoes were, of course, rotten. Disgusting, soft and inedible. I freaked out. I took my green bags from my empty carriage and hauled ass out of the store. I did not purchase a single thing.

On the way home I got a Tender Crisp Meal from Burger King, which only makes me feel worse about what happened. Not only can I not cook, I can't buy fresh groceries and I eat like a pig.

Overall not a good day here. This is not something that hasn't happened before. I have done this so many times my husband thinks I need psychological help. I have driven 20 minutes to a grocery store got almost through with grocery shopping, looked into the cart and realized all I had was snacks and random ingredients that didn't go together, had a panic attack and left the full cart in the middle of the store and drove home with nothing.

So you see this is a huge problem for me. Something that I can write in a humorous way but something serious and frustrating and something that needs to change.

Confession: I can't cook. No, really.

Hello everyone! My name is Gina and I have a confession: I can't cook. I really can't cook. I love to eat but cooking is just something I cannot do. Sarah and I are going to change this though. We're on a mission. We want to learn how to, well, feed ourselves. I am sick of letting grocery shopping, cooking and deciding what to eat stress me out. I enjoy blogging (proof) and so does Sarah so we thought that maybe if we combine cooking with blogging that cooking will become something we also enjoy.

Now honestly cooking is a problem for me. I get so stressed out just thinking about what to eat for the week. Grocery shopping makes me MAD. Like actually mad. When I think about having to go to the grocery store I just get in the worst mood ever. And each week it's the same. I buy a bunch of things with no rhyme or reason then at the end of the week I throw out all the things that went bad (mostly everything I bought) and do it all over again. Week after week I will buy veggies for salad and at weeks end there they lie, untouched and spoiled. What a waste!! I don't want to be wasteful like that and things need to change.

I hope you'll join Sarah and I on our little adventure. While we won't be making fancy 5 star meals or embarking on a Julie & Julia type feat we will be trying to be better cooks, healthier (maybe?) eaters and savvy shoppers. We want to be able to go shopping with a plan, to waste nothing (or next to nothing) at week's end and to find peace in preparing meals. It can be done and we're excited to do it.

Stay tuned for more!!

All Ears.net

Gina and I are both big Disney fans and one thing true Disney fans know is their Disney food. For many of us, Disney World is not simply about the rides and attractions but the incredible food. Form snacks to full 5 course meals, they have some of the tastiest food around.

Often, when I return from Disney I find myself wanting to make the same dishes I have in my favorite restaurants....a little bit of magic at home. :)
AllEars.Net is the go to place for those wanting to recreate their favorite Disney dishes or those just wanting something new on their menu. I highly recommend checking out their website when you get a chance.

I have personally tried 2 of the recipes on here and my friends have raved over them. The recipes seem absolutely accurate.

I have made:
1. Le Cellier Cheddar Cheese Soup from Disney's Canada
I noticed an updated version was added as well and will have to see the difference

Some tell me mine is even better than the real deal - so try it out yourself
*I will be making this soon and will be sure to document the process

By far my favorite of their recipes was a dessert
2. OHana's Bread Pudding from Disney's Polynesian - the perfect blend of bananas, caramel and ice cream
This recipe was super easy to follow and I have a confession........................

I didn't flambe the sauce because I am afraid of the kitchen in that respect. BUT good news is it came out perfect and there was no need to.


While I did not try this recipe my friend has made is many times since our trips and it is exactly as it is in the restaurant.
Ohana's Honey Lime Dressing
the perfect dressing with a tang to it and a sweetness. Great for summer meals I think.