Ninjabread Men in the house!

Are you ready to see some of the most awesome gingerbread cookies ever? Yes? Behold, Ninjabread Men!

Aren’t they great? And of course for our first use we had to make gingerbread cookies. We even tried to decorate them, but most of them found their way into our stomachs before they really got decked out in frosting.

But never fear, one cookie was caught hanging out before getting eaten, and as you will be able to see our decorating skills need some help.

Yeah, a girl ninja! The photo quality is almost as awesome as the decorating job! But that’s not the fault of the totally fun cookie cutters! You can get your own at ThinkGeek. Next time I am going to try making sugar cookies, or even brownies! There will be so many different kinds of ninja running around our house (until they are eaten of course).

Fall is for baking!

Something about fall makes me want to bake. Especially pumpkin, and even more so thanks to my Pinterest addiction. I haven’t been baking lately (I’ve been sick with a cold, and my hubby has been on a very restricted diet to help heal his ulcers). However, that doesn’t mean I haven’t been filing away great ideas for fall baking. Here are some of my favorites:

S’mores cookies from Martha Stewart.

Funfetti Fudge. Confession: I love Funfetti cake mix, and my favorite thing to do with it is to make cake mix cookies. I really want to try this fudge.

Jalapeno cream cheese crescents. These sound really tasty.

Bacon and egg cups. This would make a perfect weekend breakfast. Oh how I love breakfast foods.

Does fall put you in the mood to bake too?

Tech loving cooks, rejoice! Chef Sleeves are here!

If you love to cook, and have an iPad, then you are really going to love the Chef Sleeve!

One thing that I have always loved about having an iPad was being able to use it all over the house, and of course, being able to look up recipes.

However, I was always worried about bringing it into the actual kitchen, and because of that I would end up running back and forth between wiping off my hands to look at my recipe in the other room. The Chef Sleeve solves that problem!

Simply cover your iPad with a sleeve, and get cooking! The sleeve protects the iPad while keeping functionality intact. Truly so much nicer and sturdier than the “Ziplock” method you may have heard of. Plus, with the Chef Sleeve you can still easily scroll and swipe the screen, without worry of getting your cooking mess on your iPad!

The box comes with 25 sleeves, which while they are meant to be disposable (you can recycle them), can be used many times before you need to use a new one. Depending on how messy of a cook you are of course!

Designed for iPad, and iPad 2, but it can also work with a Galaxy Tab 10.1 and similarly sized tablets.

I loved the box they came in too, with a funny “nutritional fact” section on the back it was just as fun to get the Chef Sleeve as it was to actually use them. And, they even built the box so you could use it as a stand for your tablet! They would make a wonderful gift for the iPad owning cook in your life!

*While I was provided with the product for this review, as always, my opinions are my own, regardless of compensation.*

“Spaghetti” with veggies.

Behold what has to be the biggest spaghetti squash I have ever seen!

This tasty monster didn’t come from our garden, but I think that next year we will plant some to go along with our giant pumpkins!

I got it so I could make a “spaghetti” with some Italian style veggies. I had already made the chicken, and was getting ready to open this bad boy up when my husband came home. Good thing he came when he did too because it took both of us to get it open!

He says it was harder to open than a coconut, and by the looks of it, and the effort we both put into getting it open, I say he is right!

So, onto the “spaghetti! After finally cutting it in half, cooking it was easy. Just lay the squash cut side down in a glass baking dish (13×9), add 3/4 cup water (I used more because of the size of this squash) and then cover the baking dish with plastic wrap. Pop it in the microwave for 10-15 mins (again, I did mine longer because of size, about 20 mins), then when it is all done flip it over and use a fork to get out the “spaghetti”!

I was amazed at how easy it was to get out the squash with the fork. And boy did this big squash give us a ton of spaghetti too! Thank goodness we only used one half (planning to use the other half again soon though).

While the squash was cooking I sauteed some sliced red onion, zucchini, and diced tomatoes in a little EVOO. They were nice and ready to go on top of spaghetti! The finished product was very yummy, especially when topped with Parmesan cheese. In fact, once the cheese was on top, it really did taste a lot like traditional spaghetti! Crazy!

Sorry for the low light photos, we were hungry and I used my cell phone! Have you ever noticed that when you are trying a new recipe it always take so much longer?

We will try it again, maybe with some more veggies and a spaghetti sauce on top. I’m sure there are lots of ways to use this squash.

Have you cooked with it before? What kinds of things have you made with spaghetti squash?