Breakfast for Supper: Western Skillet

This is my take on Smitty's western skillet. It's a great way to get rid of a few potatoes that are just a little past their prime. This "recipe" serves 2 people!

You'll need:
3 tbsp canola or olive oil
2-4 potatoes, diced with skin on
1/2 a pepper, diced
1 tomato, diced
1/2 a small onion, diced
3 tbsp real bacon bits
5-6 eggs
1/3 cup cheddar cheese, grated
a splash of milk

1 tbsp basil
1 tbsp chili powder
salt & pepper
salsa & sour cream

First, heat 2 tbsp of oil on medium in a large pan. When hot, add diced potatoes and continue to stir until browned. Sprinkle with chili powder. (This will take about 20 minutes & you may need to increase the heat to make them crispy.)

Then heat the remaining tbsp of oil in another pan on medium & add the onion & bacon. Simmer for 3 minutes. Add the pepper & tomato and fry for 5 minutes. Beat eggs and milk in a bowl and add to the pan, along with the basil. Stir the egg mixture to scramble. Salt & pepper to taste.

Once the potatoes are browned scoop onto plates. Add half of egg mixture on top of the potatoes. Top with cheese, salsa and sour cream.

Enjoy, enjoy & enjoy some more.

xo Janelle

Tasty "Thursdays": Peanut Butter Cups

Tasty Tuesdays is Thursday for today.... Two weeks ago I made these little delights for D as an Easter treat. I'm not a huge peanut butter cup fan myself even though I love chocolate and peanut butter separately, but because D is crazy about them I really wanted to give them a go. I used this recipe from All Recipes, but I did regular sized cups instead of mini ones, so I did end up having to use more chocolate than indicated. I've modified the recipe on this page for the larger cups, FYI.

Ingredients

• 2 pkgs milk chocolate chips
• 2 tablespoons shortening
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter
• 1 cup confectioners' sugar
• 2/3 cup graham cracker crumbs (I used storebought fine breadcrumbs and it was fine!)

Do it up

In 1-quart saucepan combine chocolate chips and shortening. Cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until melted and smooth (3 to 5 minutes).
*I used a double boiler as you can see in the photo. If you don't know what a double boiler is, it's when you put 1-2 inches in a pot, bring it to a boil, then reduce it. Then you put a metal bowl on top of the pot and melt your chocolate in it. It keeps the chocolate from cooling and hardening because you keep the water boiling at low heat. It makes working with chocolate so much easier & I highly recommend it!

With small paint brush or mini-spatula, coat inside top cup evenly with about 1 teaspoon melted chocolate to about 1/8-inch thickness, bringing coating to middle of cup. Repeat until all cups are coated; refrigerate or freeze cups. 

In 2-quart saucepan combine butter or margarine and peanut butter. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until melted (4 to 6 minutes). Stir in confectioners' sugar and graham cracker crumbs. Press about 1-1-1/2 tablespoon filling into each chocolate cup.
Spoon about 1 teaspoon melted chocolate on top of filling; spread to cover. Freeze until firm (about 2 hours) carefully peel off paper cups. Store refrigerated. 

 

The smooth top ones were made with Chip its brand chips.

This recipe is definitely worth trying. It takes a little while to line the cups but once you get used to it, you can breeze right through. Not to mention, they taste delicious and the texture of the PB filling is perfect. Let me know if you give these a shot!

Thanks for reading,
xo Janelle

Valentine's day is for shopping ❤

Happy Heart Day to everyone!
Seeing as how there is a grand total of 1 person who reads this blog (aka. me) I guess I just wished myself a happy valentine's day... Anyway, I'm getting off topic. I spent more money than I intended to today... I left the house hoping to run a few errands. I had to buy some flowers, some groceries and I was gonna poke around an Asian grocery store hoping to find some Okonomiyaki sauce.

So I headed out to the flower shop first, which was pretty busy with people buying daisies and roses to show their love. Delivery was too expensive so I decided to just get them today and deliver them tomorrow myself. So those set me back $17.

Then I headed over to the Asian grocery store and they didn't have the sauce but they did have these yummy Koala shaped cookies that the MASSIEs introduced me to this past summer, so I bought 2 packs of those ($2.67/ea).

I walked down Queen St to the Salvation Army and browsed in the furniture section and found an amazing wooden chair with metal legs. It's modern, yet has a vintage feel at the same time and it just has a few minor scratches on the seat that can easily be sanded off. It was $4.99!!! I quickly lifted it up to make sure I could carry it home without killing myself & it was literally as light as a feather. I could not believe my luck. I paid for it, the lady put a sold sign on it and I was off to get my groceries.

As I crossed the street, I saw another Asian grocery store. (PS- they're everywhere!) Inside I finally found okomiyaki sauce and even though it was $7.95, I really have been wanting it for a while and I know I'll use it. So I bought it.

I made it over to the Sobey's for my final purchases, some ingredients to make Darryl a Valentine's treat ($17) and then picked up the chair from the Sal, bought a T-shirt ($2) & went home. Which brings my outing spending to $54.28. Oops! Oh well, at least I'm not paying for dinner out tonight.... right, Darryl? Right???

Curious by design...

This whole unemployment/being a "house-girlfriend" thing has given me a lot of time to think about my future career... It doesn't appear that my Bachelor's degree is helping me get anywhere. It's not helping me get a job at a cafe, or restaurant, or hair salon or otherwise. Honestly, sometimes it feels like a big waste of money...

But on a brighter note, this recent job struggle has allowed me to do a lot of introspection and thinking about what I'd like to actually do as a career. Not surprisingly, to those who really know me, is that interior design keeps popping into my brain. I started collecting design inspired photos about a year ago and I've recently started taking pictures of things I see that I'd love to have in my little apartment or in my future dream home.

Halifax has several community colleges offering Design/Decorating programs so I've been doing my research and some thinking about how I'd make it happen financially... I'll keep you posted! In the meantime, I don't think I'll apply to the Masters of Counselling program. I'm not 100% sure counselling is my "thing" and before I go spending the money I'd like to have it all figured out... or at least some of it...

xo Janelle