Easy Beef Stroganoff!

Growing up, beef stroganoff was one of my favorite meals. My Mom makes it the "right" way.

I cheated.

I starred this recipe from a blog I read months ago and just never got around to making it (like the million other recipes I have starred).

Anyway, it was very easy and very good. The best part? It makes a ton so we have enough for lunches tomorrow! It was also very quick to prepare, which is a MUST for me if I'm cooking after work.

We both really enjoyed it and we will definitely make it again. The only changes I made were using fat free sour cream and "no yolk" egg noodles (which are 99% fat free). All in all it was a pretty healthy meal!

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

First, I need a large rectangle serving platter.

Second, I should work on taking better pictures.

Third, this cake is fabulous. Make it.

I've never made a cake from scratch before and I was a little intimidated! However, this recipe was so easy and it didn't take very long. A better baker than me could have been done in probably half the time I took to do it. I don't multi-task well in the kitchen. Yet!

I found the recipe here: http://www.frontiercoop.com/store.php?Screen=recipe&recipe=967

I would make sure to use the FULL cup of pineapple juice (and maybe a little extra) in the cake batter. I was a smidgen under, so next time I'll use more. I will also butter the baking dish, even though it doesn't say to. I think it will help the brown sugar and butter mixture release easier.

I brought the cake in to work today and so far I've gotten rave reviews. I am anxious for my family to try it on Easter Sunday. I hope you enjoy it!

Macaroni & Cheese

Pat loves homemade macaroni and cheese. Me? Not so much. In fact, I eat mine with ketchup because I don't think it has much flavor. But I have been promising him one for a while and I finally made it last night. I'm debating in the future adding a different flavor of cheese and also including less macaroni to have it runnier. That's more my style.




I forgot to take a picture before we dug in.


The recipe is from the Cooking Down East, by Marjorie Standish, which is a Maine staple. Everyone in my family has one and some of our favorite recipes come from this book.

New table!

While we were on vacation, Pat's mother found a great deal on craigslist for us! We needed a new kitchen table since ours was tiny and only had two chairs! We finally got the kitchen cleaned out this weekend and moved the table in. We love it! It fits there perfectly and looks great! Thanks so much Mary!

French toast bake review

Not very good. The top pieces were too hard and the bottom pieces weren't done. I'm not giving up though. There are a hundred recipes out there with fabulous reviews so I must have messed up. Oh, and the fact that I didn't have brown sugar probably affected the taste as well.

Pat works the overnight tonight so I'll have some leftover pork from Tuesday night. Tomorrow night the plan is to make homemade macaroni and cheese. I've made this before with good success, so we'll see.

We ordered a table for our entry-way last night, it should arrive next week. We searched high and low locally but didn't find anything. Here's the one we ordered from target.com:
We'll be putting our pub mirror on the wall above it and I think that will look nice.

Last weekend while we were shopping we both had a good time because now when we're looking at things we can really envision them in our house, as opposed to a hypothetical house. Our next purchase will be a new living room set, but that won't be a for a few months.

The Verdict

The cranberry crock pot pork didn't meet my expectations. I had anticipated a nice, strong cranberry flavor and it fell short. It wasn't terrible...just not what I had hoped for. I made some brown rice, corn and crescent rolls to go with it.

The meat was VERY tender, so I will definitely be doing a pork loin in the crock pot again, but probably not with this recipe. It's such a bummer when you've been looking forward to cooking a recipe for months and it falls short.

Tonight was supposed to be salsa chicken in the crock pot. Who didn't buy chicken Monday night? Me. I poured the salsa in the crock and went to get the chicken out of the refrigerator only not to find any chicken. So frustrating.

So tonight I'm going to try and use up the zillion eggs we have and make a french toast bake. So if you have a relatively easy recipe, send me the link!

CPA Exam

It has been my goal for approaching 10 years now to pass the CPA exam. I haven't done it yet.

I took the old pencil & paper exam once to see what it was all about, without studying at all. I didn't do so well.

I've taken auditing on the new computer version once and I did alright, although I didn't get credit.

However, both times I took the exam I didn't put any effort into studying. Well anyone that knows anything about this exam knows it's something that requires hours and hours of studying. There are four sections and each section takes a minimum of 100 hours of really good studying. A bare minimum.

So this is what I'm going to be focusing on for the next year or so. I mean really focusing on it. I'm setting up one of the bedrooms in the house as just a CPA study room in hopes that I can shut myself in there away from the world to really concentrate.

The first section I'll be taking is FAR (Financial Accounting and Reporting). This section has the most material to learn for the exam, so my friends told me to get this one out of the way first.

For those of you that aren't accountants and think that this is something that should have been done right out of school, you're somewhat right. However, an accounting degree (which I have) doesn't prepare you for this exam. This exam is more comprehensive and detailed than any college class ever was. There are review classes I could take, but I'm not at that point yet because they are very expensive. I need to see if I can do it on my own first.

The other reason it has been 10 years for me is because they implemented a 150 hour rule. Essentially you graduate with your degree with 120 credit hours or so. That used to be what you needed to sit for the exam. Not anymore. They changed it so you needed 150 credit hours so I had to go back to school to earn the hours.

So if it has been a few weeks and you haven't seen a CPA post, ask me how I'm doing! I might need the kick in the butt to get back on track.