THE AMUSED LIFE BLOG

FIRST TIME RECIPE ATTEMPTS FOR THIS WEEK: Cheesy Spinach Pesto Flatbread   *****out of 5 Stars! Ina Garten's Baked Shrimp Scampi    *****out of 5 Stars! I've decided to make this more of an open format blog adventure and not feel like I have to "fail" anything per se. So instead I'll focus on the week of culinary adventures in my household. First of all, the two recipes I picked out to try were knock out of the ballpark AMAZING (links are above to the recipes). Seriously, they both were just sensational and the shrimp scampi was even better on day 2. However a word of, ahem...warning. Look, I'm just going to be real. I've been cooking A LOT lately. I've also discovered how much I use garlic in the meals I cook. I LOVE GARLIC. However...if you eat a LOT of garlic (as I have been doing)...your ahem, smelly bits may begin to smell like...GARLIC. Seriously, I was starting to worry that the garlic smell was just imbedded in the air, then I realized it was l...

FINDS I have to give mad-props to Aldi (once again I know), for having the best deal on family sized skinless and boneless chicken breasts (and let me tell you these chickens are quite ample birds). It's less than 10 dollars and I end up getting between 5-6 breasts in a package which equals 2 meals out of one package. You cannot complain about that at all. In fact this lead's me to the second FIND of the week foodie-wise. My second find is this recipe for  CREAMY TUSCAN CHICKEN  I found on the website www.delish.com! It was incredible, now sadly my sauce didn't yield a sumptuous vodka/tomato sauce coloring as you'll note in the video on the delish website; and I'm pretty sure it's because I had a lot of browning on the chicken and the butter browned a bit as well. However, it did not ruin this dish - just gave me more excitement for making it again and perfecting it next time. Plus, I will 100% agree with the need to have some crusty Italian bread on hand becaus...

FINDS Kroger's Flat Iron Steak is da bomb!  I am in desperate desire to try one of the local actual butcher shops but I'm seriously ballin' on the food budget game so while I have a deep want to become a customer of Willy's Butcher Shop or Hen Hoc in our fair and scruffy city of Knoxville, I'll have to make due for now with Kroger and Aldi my main choices for groceries these days. When I do the weekly menu planning I like to include a very diverse palate of meats for the week and I love to include steak once a week because it's a pure love of mine. I had planned to get a non-seasoned ribeye from Kroger's this week, but then remembered that they MAY have my all  time favorite cut that ranks just above the sumptuous ribeye....a   FLAT IRON   steak!?!? I would go on click list and see if it was an option, and blessed be it was! $12.00 later I was the proud owner of a beautiful steak and couldn't wait to cook it up. I followed the instructions that Alton Bro...

FINDS Take and Bake Bread is where it's at!  I swear you'd think I get a kick back from Aldi's but I don't. Not even a discount lol. But their take and bake french bread/baguette and their italian bread take and bake loaves will turn a regular meal into a night that feels truly home-made or akin to the night where you go out and they serve you fresh baked bread with your main meal. Seriously this stuff is good. Crusty on the outside, soft on the inside, it's a carb lover's dream. FAILS My Attempt at a Cauliflower Roasting Recipe was lackluster.  I tried this   recipe   for Ina Garten's Parmesan Roasted Cauliflower. It was good, but I think it could have been better. First my cauliflower didn't crisp up and brown as much as it should which I think would have made it more crispy delicious and second I don't feel that I truly seasoned it enough. While the end result was good and pretty great when you got a fork-full with the parmesan and gruyere melted ...

First thing, I'm a huge fan of the cosmos...the great beyond outside of our small bubble. Space, that final frontier as the Trek-fans so lovely call it. I love stars and as a child always told my Mom that when I grew up, I was going to have a dining room that was a planetarium complete with nothing but astroturf because EVERY night, if I wanted to have a picnic under the stars if I so desired. Ah the beauty and imagination of youth. <3 Well today I stumbled upon a friend's sharing of the following link: https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/what-did-hubble-see-on-your-birthday NASA's incredible Hubble Telescope is still taking gorgeous shots of our incredible expansive space far outside of our own universe. I jumped at the chance to see whatever Hubble captured on one of my birthdates and was blessed with this image: The description is as follows... On April 14 in 2006 Galaxy ESO 99-4 ESO 99-4 is a galaxy with a highly peculiar shape. It is probably the remnant of a merge...