Cooking for One

It's time for another food post!  With Marshall switching back to 12 hour shifts on nights, I have to once again sharpen my creative cooking skills and learn how to cook for one (and a half if you count Jill, hee hee).  Tonight was the kickoff of my culinary sharpening, with me running around peeking in the cupboards to see what I can scrounge up.  Tonight ended up being a slight revamping of a recipe I made up a couple months /\or so ago.  It's my very own pasta dish, tonight with whole wheat penne, chicken breast, and bell peppers in a fettuncine inspired sauce.

While the penne pasta was cooking, I cubed a chicken breast and placed in a skillet with olive oil over medium heat.  I used pepper to season the chicken, and browned it in the skillet.  Then, I added in half each of a red, green, and yellow bell pepper, when the chicken was 3/4 done.  Cook until chicken is finished and peppers are crisp tender.  I added in around a half teaspoon of prepared chopped garlic, and sauteed for just long enough for the garlic to turn clear.  Set aside.

Strain the pasta.  Using the same saucepan the pasta cooked in, and over medium heat, I added in 1/2 an 8 oz. tub of regular cream cheese, a just about equal amount of sour cream (I just added a couple heaping scoops with one of my large silverwear spoon), and 1 cup of milk.  This ended up making way too much sauce for what I needed, and would definately be enough for a regular 4 servings of pasta.  (This means I got to keep some extra for later!)  I added in a pinch of red pepper flakes, some pepper, a Tablespoon of dried basil leaves, and a teaspoon of garlic.  After the ingredients combines, I added in 1/3 cup of shredded parmesean, and stirred until completely mixed.  Lastly, and the most deliciously, I added in the zest and juice from one lemon.

Let the sauce cook, stirring frequently, until slightly bubbly.  Add in the chicken and peppers and the pasta, then stir.  Voiila! 

Quick, easy, and delicious.  The picture definately doesn't do the dish justice!  The lemon really brought the sauce up a notch.  The great thing with this, too, is that you can sub in other veggies if you'd like.  I really liked the sour cream in here also, it really made the sauce creamy.  And I accidently made enough to have leftovers for a midnight snack tonight.  Yummy!

Baby shower and Band Gig

It's been a busy couple of weeks here at the Ackley house.  We've been working hard on getting Jillian's room together.  It's funny to be getting someone "settled in" who's not quite here yet.  The more we work on her room, the more excited we become.

Last Sunday, the 7th, I had my baby shower.  It was a two-parter, with a shower being thrown here for me by a friend (thanks, Nikki, you rock!), and one being thrown for me simultaneously by my mom and sister back in Ohio (you guys rock, too!).  We used Skype to webcam the shower so everyone could see me open the gifts, which arrived by mail a few weeks ago.  It was a great time.  I felt very pampered and spoiled by all the attention, and I loved seeing Jilly get spoiled by everyone else.  I never realized how much fun it is as a mom to see other people love on your child and celebrate her life. 

I only took a few pictures, and I'm still waiting on some from the stateside party and the party here (hint, hint).  Here's a couple of the food and decorations.  Nikki made me a diaper cake that was absolutely adorable, and made a great centerpiece for the party.

Jillian got so many great things at her party.  Thanks to everyone for all the lovely gifts!  I can't wait to be able to use those gifts for her.  Only 11 more weeks or so until I'll be bringing her home.  She's a very lucky girl to have so many people who care for her and love her already. 

Last night Marshall and I had a gig with our band, Six Demon Bag.  I was super nervous, since it was our first gig as a band and my first gig pregnant.  It was a blast, and went great!  We got a lot of positive feedback from people, and everyone seemed to enjoy rocking out to our music.  I did wake up this morning and felt like I got hit by a train from all the dancing around yesterday.  I wouldn't change a thing.  Here's a couple candid pics of us rocking out.  Jilly seemed to enjoy herself, too.  She added little kicks and nudges throughout the night, and I'd like to think that was her way of encouraging me on. 

I'm definately taking it easy this evening.  In fact, I'll probably take it easy most of the rest of the week!  We'll see what this weekend has in store for us, but it sure won't be as eventful as last.  We'll probably start cleaning and preparing for my mom's upcoming visit in two weeks.  Can't wait to see her!

Halloween

Halloween was last night, and to celebrate we had some friends over for dinner on Saturday (Marshall had to work last night).  It was a great time.  I chose another Kraft foods healthy living recipe.  Can you tell I'm partial to their website?  I forgot to take a picture this time since I was busy doing other things, but you can check it out for yourself.  I made bruschetta and cheese stuffed chicken breasts.  They're really easy to make, and look really fancy when their done.  Soooo yummy!  To go with it, I threw together some organic spaghetti noodles, fire roasted tomatoes, some olive oil, fresh chopped basil, and a couple pinches of red pepper flakes.  I wasn't a huge fan of the noodles, but it was alright, and tasted good if eaten with a bite of chicken.  Of course, no Italian inspired dish would be complete without a loaf of mozzarella garlic bread.

We carved pumpkins this year, too.  This is our third Halloween as a married couple (although Marshall was in tech school in Texas for the first one), and our fourth Halloween living together, and we've never carved a pumpkin together before.  Marshall did the carving while I took pictures, since I think pumpkins are disgusting inside and am a baby about getting dirty (ask me again next year when I have a little one I'm chasing after!).  Here's what he carved.

Our friends each carved their own pumpkin also.  Here's Caitlin's:

And Alan's:

Their daughter Scarlet enjoyed the carvings also (in Jillian's high chair, it got a test run!):

And we convinced Marshall he should probably hold a baby before Jillybean gets here.  What a natural!

Our pumpkin carvings were a success.  We lit them up out on the balcony, and they looked very nice!

It was a good night.  Unfortunately, both Marshall and I had to work on Halloween, so we didn't get to pass out candy to the trick or treaters.  I did get home from work right about the middle of the timeframe for it.  Our neighbors were all decked out, and the husband was jumping out of a bush with one of those fake chainsaw things dressed as Mike Meyers and scaring the bejeesus out of the kids.  There was lots of high pitched squealing filtering in the house.  We've only got one Halloween left here in Germany before we move on to our next base, wherever that may be.  We enjoyed our last Halloween with just the two of us, and are excited that next year there will be three of us!