Garden Growth-My First Tomato!!!

I was very excited to pick my first homegrown tomato. Considering I grew it in a pot on my balcony with very little sun, I was very happy with the results.

Me looking like a dork with my tomato:

Me picking the tomato:

The beginning:

Mexican Style Pasta Salad

Not the best picture....but it was not very "pretty" to begin with =).



I wanted a mexican style pasta salad and here is what I came up with.

4 color spiral pasta
Canned black beans, drained and rinsed
Shredded mexican style cheese
Chorizo (deli sliced then cut up)
Green olives
Peppercorn ranch dressing
Picante sauce

Overall it was pretty good. I feel like it is missing something....but I am not sure what....possibly something with more salt.

Banana Cake with Cream Cheese Peanut Butter Frosting

I had two good sized bananas that I needed to use up and thought some type of banana baked good would be the perfect way to use them up. I found the recipe on another food blog.

Banana Bars a la Ashleigh

1/2c. Butter, softened
1 1/2 c. white sugar
2 eggs
1 c. sour cream
1 t. vanilla extract
2 c. all-purpose flour
1 t. baking soda
1/4 t. salt
1 c. ripe mashed bananas
1 container cream cheese frosting
peanut butter (I added this to the original recipe)

Preheat oven to 350.

Grease a 10x15 jelly roll pan (I used a 9X13 glass baking dish). In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then stir in the sour cream and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt; stir into the batter. Finally, mix in mashed bananas. Spread evenly into the prepared pan. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Note: I used a different size pan so they took a little longer to cook. Allow bars to cool completely before frosting. Mix together the cream cheese frosting and peanut butter and frost.

These were great and I will probably make them again if I have left-over bananas sitting around.
Source: http://delilahscorner.blogspot.com/2007/06/banana-bliss.html

No Pudge Brownies

No Pudge Brownies are a boxed mix that offers you FAT FREE brownies. I recently made the Fudge version and they were great!! All you do is add yogurt (I used fat free french vanilla) to the mix and bake. I also added some caramel chocolate swirl chips to the mix. Even without the chips these brownies still would of been wonderful! Try them today!! Here is their website: http://www.nopudge.com/

"Jason Eggs"

This post will feature some of Jason's cooking! When Jason was growing up his Mom would make him and his sister thier own special eggs and name the eggs after each child. Jason has continued to make these eggs, and he now makes them for me too =).

Sage Infused Rice with Mozzarella

I had a ton of fresh sage in my herb garden I wanted to use so I decided to make a rice dish. This is dish was really tasty and I can not wait to make it again. Here is what I used:

1 cup uncooked long grain white rice

2 cups water

chicken bullion

garlic powder

pepper

fresh sage leaves (about 4 large leaves hand torn)

freshly shredded mozzarella cheese

I cooked the rice in the water, chicken bullion, garlic powder, pepper and fresh sage. When it was done cooking I added in the mozzarella. And, that's it!