It's zinful

I'm finally done with finals and now all that's left to do is wait for the grades.. I am pretty sure I will get mostly A's but my nemesis, aka brief calculus, I'm not sure. I have a 79.56 for a grade in that class. Will it post as a C or a B?? Who knows? Oh yeah, the professor knows. Now I get to sit here and sweat while I wait for him to post the grades. Oh, Well .. There is nothing I can do about it now. To celebrate finishing my finals I am going to have a nice glass of wine, Zinfadel, my favorite. I am trying a label I have never tried before. It is called Zynthesis.

Upon first taste I did not like it. It was harsh and unyielding but ..after I let it breathe for a few minutes. aah ha!! It is a whole different wine. It was like a young flower blooming. The fruit flavors seemed to ripen. It has a sweet, richness to it. The more it breathes and opens up, the more I am starting to like it. When we have our dinner of ribs I believe this wine will complement the flavor of the barbeque sauce. After telling you all of this I must also disclose I am no wine expert but do enjoy an occassional glass of red. I like to try new kinds in search of finding some favorites that I can bring out at dinner. Have you had a good wine lately?

It's Monday

Well, today I had two finals in the morning. One went okay, the other not so okay. I am almost convinced I am not cut out for brief calculus. I just want to make it out of the class. Hopefully,  I did well enough to accomplish this. I do not want to take it again. When I left school this morning I was upset about my exam and needed to cheer myself up. I got a salad to go from one of my favorite lunch places, Paradise Bakery. Their fuji apple salad is so good. That helped a little to cheer me up but I thought what else would brighten my spirits? If you guessed something sweet you would be correct.:)

I decided to make cupcakes but they did not come out quite as well as I would have liked. They did not rise much and the flavor was a little off. Don't get me wrong they were delicious but the recipe needs to be tweaked a little so therefore I will share it when I feel I have the recipe right. I will however share the banana cream cheese frosting. I was inspired by a fellow blogger when I saw her banana cupcakes. It gave me an idea of what to do with my over ripe bananas. Banana Cream Cheese frosting. I think the banana gave it a little extra something.

Banana Cream Cheese Frosting
 Ingredients
1/2 banana
8 oz cream cheese
2 c powder sugar
1 stick of unsalted butter

Directions
Blend cream cheese until smooth, then add stick of butter and blend on medium speed until fluffy. Add the 1/2 of banana mashed. Add powerd sugar slowly until incorporated. Enjoy!

The banana flavor is so good in a frosting. I definitely will make it again!

The cupcake also worked. There is no point in dwelling over that final. Its over with and hopefully the grade will be posted soon and I won't have to think about again. I have one more final to go on wednesday and then I'm done for a few weeks. I will finally get to sleep in past 5:30 for a little while. Woo hoo! I hope everyone had a good day. If not make yourself a little happy. aka something sweet:)
Melissa

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to allow the moms out there. I hope you had a wonderful day and were treated like queens. I trust everyone has had a  great weekend. I know I did. I went to a banquet that my husband and in- laws attend annually. They sell raffle tickets to win prizes, have an auction for items, and also include dinner in the cost of the tickets. The money goes to the local community for schools and wildlife. This year I finally won what I think is one of their greatest prizes. I won 1/2 a brawley cow. I know.... can you believe it. It weighs 1200 lbs so 1/2 of that is mine. My husband says we will get about 250 or so of meat from it. I don't have to buy meat for a while. Woo hoo!! We also won a tent package worth about $900. We did pretty well this year. I am so happy:) Everyone who has tried the meat says it is very delicious. I cannot wait to try it. I will let you know. I have finals to finish studying for so I will post more later.
Melissa

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

I trust everyone has had a little bit of Mexican food today in honor of Mexico beating the French. Despite what a lot of people think this is not their independence day. I really think its just a reason for us to celebrate but that's okay with me. Who needs a reason to have enchiladas. I actually decided today I wanted to make them for dinner in honor of this day so I headed off to the store in search of decent shrimp which did not cost a fortune. I know that sounds not that hard but I  live in Arizona.

Seafood can some times be very expensive. I lucked out today. I went the seafood counter of the first grocery store and got scared when I saw a guy who obviously worked in that department sorting throught the shrimp in the case and was picking out the bad ones. Upon further inspection the shrimp had a pinkish hue to them and did not look very fresh. Dismayed, I turned around and walked right back out of the store. That's all I need to get a little bit of poisoning. I then when to a market that I knew had a good meat selection but is sometimes expensive and checked out their counter. I scored there! I was going to get the medium shrimp for $5.99/lb but the lady working the counter asked if I wanted the jumbo shrimp. I told her know because  I did not want to spend $11.99/lb. Yikes! It's not that special of occassion. It's no one's birthday or anniversary so I could not justify spending that much even though they looked delicious.:( Then, the angel asked me if I would buy them if she lowered the price to $5.99/lb. Uh, yeah. I didn't have to think twice about it. I asked her why she would do this. She just said they were getting more in and needed the space. She even let me smell and touch them so I could make sure they were rotting. I bought them of course and they were delicious. I almost felt guilty using them in enchiladas instead of shrimp cocktail or scampi in order to show how beautiful they were. I said almost. I still made enchiladas with them and they were good. The only thing I have to complain about is they kind of fell apart when I tried to pull them out of the baking dish. This made them not so pretty to look at but still taste good. I think this was due to me using flour tortillas and not corn. I also covered them in sauce and cheese. I know, I am a cheese freak!

Here is the recipe for the enchiladas. I made it up totally so some might say it isn't authentic but I say....Who cares:)

Shrimp Enchiladas

Ingredients
1 lb shrimp (at least medium size)
1/2 lb mushrooms
1 c black olives sliced
1 medium sized onion
1 T olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
2 tsp oregano
2 c cheese
4 cloves garlic
6 flour tortillas
1 can green chile enchilada sauce

Directions
preheat oven to 375. Spray a 11x14 cooking dish with cooking spray and set aside. Heat a medium sized pan on the stove and add the olive oil. Add diced onion and a little bit of salt and peper and saute until it starts to soften. Next add the mushrooms and garlic with a little more salt and pepper and cook until mushrooms start to brown. Add the shrimp, black olives and oregano and saute until the shrimp turn translucent. Do not overcook. You do not want rubbery shrimp. While you saute the shrimp heat up green chile sauce. Add a little bit of sauce to the bottom of the dish. Take a flour tortilla and add filling to the middle of the tortillas add some cheese inside of it. Roll it like a burrito but don't tuck the edges in and put it in the baking dish. Repeat with the rest of the tortillas and filling. Pour green chili sauce on top of enchiladas and add remaining cheese. Bake for 30 minutes or until bubbly.

Look at all that cheese!!!! Feel free to use as much or as little as you want.
I hope everyone is having a great day and please be safe if celebrating today.
Melissa

Get ribby with it

They finally got him. Can you believe it? Almost 10 years later we finally get justice for all the lives lost in a senseless violent attack. I am so happy we found him and now the world is free of one less terror. Enough about that. It's Wednesday and I had a great day.:) I got to hang out with one of my friends for a much needed girls day. We lunched, had a glass of wine,mmmm, indulged in a pedi complete with a flower and topped it off with some shopping. What more could you ask for? I'll tell you........some ribs. I made them using Tyler Florence's Pineapple Glaze recipe with just a few changes. I used molasses instead of rum, white wine vinegar instead of rice wine vinegar, and crushed pineapple instead of whole. I must say it turned out to be so delicious. I have never made a sauce like this nor ribs and both were better than I expected.

No complaints from the toughest critic, my hubby. I saved the sauce and will definitely use it in the future for something else. Hmmm.. let me think...ahh wings!!! I bet it will be outstanding on wings. I hope you will try this glaze too! It is a little sweet, salty ,and tangy all at once and it sticks nicely to the ribs.

Pineapple Glaze
adapted from Tyler Florence

Ingredients

2 T butter
1 14 oz can of crushed pineapple
1/2 c soy sauce
1/2 c molasses
1/4 c ketchup
3 T white wine vinegar
1/4 c brown sugar
3 cloves of garlic smashed
1/4 inch piece of ginger

Directions
In sauce pan melt butter and add the crushed pineapple and bring to a boil. Add soy sauce, molasses, ketchup, vinegar, brown sugar, garlic and ginger. Bring back to a boil then lower to a simmer and cook for about 20 minutes. It will thicken. Remove ginger and puree mixture in the blender. Enjoy on your favorite meat.

Doesn't that look yummy?
I bet you can't wait to try it. I hope you had as good of day as I had.
Melissa