Try it: Halloumi Cheese

I think I've been poisoned.

Nope, not that kind.

I think I may have given myself food poisoning somehow.

I don't know what could have caused it though cause John and I ate pretty much the same things yesterday and he's fine.

Either that or I caught some kind of bug that woke me up last night at 4:30 am with the worst abdominal cramps I've ever experienced. At one point I thought I was having a heart attack and seriously contemplated waking John up to call 911 with me.

Then it obviously spiraled from there and I figured it had to be something more serious.

So far I'm still in tact though every so often my intestines feel like they're being wrung out.

From 4:30 until about 6:00 am I went back and forth from huddled in the bathroom to fetal position in bed.

When John woke up he got me a hot water bottle and some tums.

I managed to get back to sleep for little while and even get some fluids back into my body.

Last night I made dinner (not food poisoned, as John is feeling fine) and grilled that halloumi cheese I mentioned yesterday.

Halloumi has a cheese-curd-esque squeak to it when you eat it as is but when you grill it... it's incredible. Buy some and grill it. You will NOT regret it.

Halloumi is perfect to grill because it has such a high melting point. I may try breading and frying some halloumi later this evening.

For dinner, I made some penne in a rose sauce - pasta sauce with ricotta and goat cheese swirled in, as well as onions, garlic, and some Paula Deen spice mix that I got for my birthday.

Crumble a bit of the goat cheese on top of  warm pasta for extra flavour.

As I'm still not feeling 100% I'm really craving what every sick person craves:

Chicken Noodle Soup!

I looked up 2 recipes that I'm thinking about making.

1. Martha Stewart's Chicken Noodle Soup

(click on it for the recipe)

or

2. Paula Deen's Chicken Noodle Soup

That's it that's all for today!

I'm going to go reheat this water bottle and maybe get dressed.

Blue Cheese Pop-Overs

Yesterday marked 2 years of cohabitation between me and John.

It's crazy that we've been living together for that long already!

It's been a wonderful two years and if these two are any indication of how things are going to play out in the future, well....I think we're in for one heck of a fun ride.

Photo taken from pigeon-master.livejournal.com

Since we both kind of forgot that yesterday was our move-in anniversary (oops) we're making a nice chicken pasta with buffalo mozarella for dinner. And because pasta isn't enough carbs, I put another recipe from the Martha Stewart Hors d'eouvres Handbook to the test:

Blue Cheese Pop-Overs

Though mine didn't really get the nice pop-over look on the top, they are very light and airy AND even though I added a ton more blue cheese than the recipe called for (I had almost a full package to try and use up, left over from the Pommes Annette) the taste is subtle. I think even blue cheese-ophobes could be persuaded to give these at least one thumb up.

To make these pop-overs:

1. In a bowl, whisk together 2 eggs, 1 cup milk, 1 cup flour, 2 tbsp melted butter, 1 tsp salt, and 1 tbsp black pepper. Whisk until all of the lumps have smoothed out.

2. Add in 1 1/4 ounces of blue cheese (I used about 3/4 cup worth of cheese cut into very small cubes). Whisk again until smooth then put the batter in the refrigerator for a minimum of 2 hours and preferably overnight.

3. Once chilled for several hours, preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Spoon batter into well greased mini muffin tins. Bake the pop-overs for 15-18 minutes or until the tops begin to brown slightly.

4. Allow them to cool slightly, remove from the pans, and serve while still warm.

I'm off to go finish up this pasta so I will post again tomorrow :)

P.S. I got a denim shirt yesterday! It's glorious. I found it at H&M for a reasonable price and while there I also found an amazing cocktail ring with a big black stone that rotates! It's stylish and fun to play with.

Win-win.

Brie, Chicken, and Why I Love my Parents

I'm sorry I abandoned y'all for the better part of the week .... yikes. It was unintentional, I can promise you that. I had a busy weekend and then had school + work on both Monday and Tuesday. I am also sick (again) so I'm trying to take it easy and get myself healthy again.

Friday night I entertained some friends at the apartment so I scoured my fridge for hors d'ouevres and decided upon a baked brie. It's so good and all you need is tin foil (which is optional), some crackers, and the cheese.

Pop the sucker into a 350 degree oven for about 15 minutes-ish and then serve. I put my brie on tin foil only because I am lazy and don't like scrubbing pans. Plus it came in handy when I had to pop it back in the oven because my friends were running late. The cheese was already gooey so I wrapped it in the tin foil to keep it from leaking everywhere.

So we have here the brie before it went into the oven:

The brie after round 1 of baking:

The brie after round 2 of baking:

Mmmmmm even just looking at the pictures it enough to make me salivate.

As you can probably guess, my eat-well resolution hit some major roadblocks over the weekend. But fear not! It's back on track.

On that note, I'm trying to decide what to do with the chicken I'm making for dinner tonight. I was thinking of beer-can chicken but I don't think we have any beer in cans.... so back to the drawing board. I'll think of something. I've still got time. I know I'm making broccoli and sweet potatoes to go with it. John expressed his desire to eat more sweet potatoes last night as they are very good for you and - little tid bit of useless info for ya - are what helped Usain Bolt to break the 100 m running record. There's some motivation for you to incorporate more veggies into your diet :)

So lastly, here is why I love my parents:

• My mom and dad both explained the origins of the term "soldiers" (see last post) pretty quickly after I posted it
• My mom told me how cute I am for posting my mermaids and then reminded me of one I forgot to mention! (A Christmas tree ornament that is safely packed away for next year. The tree? Still right beside me. What?)
• My dad also bought me bacon on Tuesday night and his reasoning was "because you said you didn't have any on your blog."

The fact that my parents read my blog makes me happy and it also means that they make up 50% of my readers. :)

Gotta love 'em.

Off to decide what to do with that pesky poulet.