The great freezer cook down

I've gotten into the habit over the last year or so of really taking advantage of the freezer. Stocking up when things were on sale, chopping up my own fruits and veggies and having a great stash of chicken stock in there. Oh, and probably some kind of ice cream at all times. But that's unrelated to this :) We officially reached maximum capicity last weekend and began clearing the freezer out. You know, to make room for my next round of hoarding. We cooked and cooked all weekend (inspired by our recent trip to a cooking class!).

Scott had been stashing lobster and shrimp shells in there and have accumulated enough to make (a TON of) seafood stock. No picture of this since, well, its a big bowl of brown liquid. But it did stink the apartment up something fierce, I'll tell you that much.

Next step? Cooking the chicken I had stashed in there. See picture above. It was deeeeelicious. We made a quick herb butter to put under the skin and baked it in the oven (finished it off on our indoor grill - which had been used earlier for grilled corn, mmmm). The best part though? The potatoes! (see below) Want to make some seriously amazing potatoes? I know you do. I saw this trick on America's Test Kitchen and all I can say is YUM. See how're they're all brown and glistening? Yeah, that's because we cooked them on a tray with the chicken baking on a rack above it. So they cooked in the fat and juices coming off the chicken. Please do yourself a favor and try this! The flavor was seriously outrageous. Note I didn't say healthy. I said outrageous ;)



I was then able to make a big batch of chicken stock from the leftovers. I hate buying the boxed/canned stuff. There is no comparison. Plus making your own stock is beyond cheap and easy.

Next! The bag of previously fresh, now frozen blueberries I had. We made a blueberry buckle. I used this recipe:

http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/blueberry_buckle/

It's really just a blueberry coffee cake. Oh, it's so good...for breakfast, dessert, a midnight snack perhaps. Anytime!



I also grabbed a bag of homemade white beans, that combined with the chicken stock will become pasta e fagioli. One of my all time favorite soups (a favorite because Scott makes it, not me!). Also, a pound of ground beef and a bag homemade black beans that turned into beef tacos. MMMMMM. After was all was said and done, I had one tiny trip to the grocery store and an entire week of delicious food from one weekend of cooking. You really can't beat that. Sadly, this only put a tiny dent in the freezer and now that there is a ridiculous amount of stock in there now, we're pretty much back to maximum capacity again. Oh well!

Just for fun...I thought I'd end this with a super cute picture of the big brother to be (aka, marley dog!)

Oh no he didn't...

So I'm not sure if this story should be filed under "I should give him the benefit of the doubt, I'm sure he meant this in a nice way" or under "men are IDIOTS". I'll let you be the judge :)

I'm leaving work last week. It had been a VERY long day and I was specifically told to go home at 4:00 because I "looked tired". (sidenote, I know I'm being totally hormonal, but that alone took all the wind out of my sails. ugh. I'm working so hard, please don't call me out for being tired!) So I figure, who am I to say no and I take off. On my way out of the building, I run into a broker I work with. He stops me and asks how far along I am? I tell him 28 weeks. He says, no joke..."oh, you're BIG". He then asks, is this my first? I say yes. He repeats himself! "oh, you're definitely big". Oh, no you didn't just call a pregnant woman BIG! are you NUTS? A) yes, i'm "big", i'm pregnant, you jerk! and B) frankly, I would expect this from someone who say, didn't have a whole litter of kids at home. But he does! It took every shred of self control not to hit him. It really did. It truly amazes me the things people will say. I had another male coworker say "oh, no cankles yet!". Ugh, shoot me.

So, anyways, I figured this was a good time for another belly picture! This is 29 weeks along. See, how BIG I am? :) Of course, because that made me totally paranoid, my first question at the doctor the next day was "am i big?". So glad to say the answer was no! hehe.

I'm working up to a few other posts this week, I've been slacking pretty bad. I'm still trying to compose my thoughts on the Lost finale. We've also been cooking up a storm lately - doing a sort of cook through the freezer theme. So I have some delicious recipes to share! But first, thank you cards must be finished. Then I can get back to the fun stuff!

Baby Shower!!

I'm so behind in getting this post up. We got a new camera (YAY) and its taken me 2 weeks to load the software onto our computer so I could pull the pictures off. I must say, I am LOVING this camera. It's so much nicer! I am really looking forward to taking sweet baby pictures now :)

So, returning to the whole point of this post, I had my first baby shower a little over a week ago. My truly wonderful and thoughtful boss, Wendy, hosted a beautiful shower for me at work. All the C&W ladies...cupcakes...fruit salad...and LOTS of cute baby clothes! I can't resist posting pics of just a few of the items I received...



Are those just fantastic?!?



JJ will totally be a momma's boy :)

Ok...and just one more. Of the cute feeties!! Some of these aren't from the shower, but does it get cuter than all these feeties?



I also got hooked up with a ton of baby gear. I mean seriously hooked up. I have the best coworkers! If I thought anyone wanted to see a picture of my stroller, I would put one up. Because you know I have one. Granted, I have pictures of just about everything in my apartment right now because I have a new toy that is just crying out to be played with! Who doesn't need 30 different pictures of my dog and my big belly? :)

I'm officially in my third trimester now. How crazy is that? I can't even be in denial anymore. I've reached the point where there is no longer room for the baby AND all of my major organs to be sharing my body with any level of comfort. OWWWWWWW. Less than 3 months and we'll finally get to meet the little guy who spends all night kicking me and pushing on my ribs! I really can not wait!