Oh My, So Domestic!

Mike had an overtime job yesterday and spent the day at work. Literally. He worked a twelve hour shift, so I was left to my own devices. A good portion of my day was spent working on our finances, sorting out random mail, and fooling around online. In addition to the household stuff, I managed to spend some quality time in the kitchen.

I haven't been doing too much cooking since I started my new job, mainly because my schedule change has me coming home later in the evening, and what with all the new learnin' I have going on, I've been pretty much out for the count once I get home. So, yesterday I made both a loaf of bread and a yummy dinner.

I used my bread machine and a recipe I found on allrecipes.com. I decide to make the Light Oat Bread, mainly because I had all the ingredients on hand. I used steel cut oats instead of rolled oats, and I added about 1/4 more flour because when the machine was kneading the dough, it was pretty sticky.

All the ingredients - see my nice little pile of yeast in the middle?


The finished loaf!

We had some of the bread this morning with breakfast, and it turned out pretty yummy. It is pretty hearty and a bit on the doughy side - so I have to look into ways to make it a little less doughy and a little more fluffy.

The bread making was just the beginning of the kitchen goddess phenomenon that took place at this domicile yesterday. A couple of weeks ago Mike & I were flipping through the channels on TV when we landed on the Food Network. I had never seen Rachel Ray, but we ended up watching her prepare Buffalo Sloppy Joes. Needless to say, by the end of the episode both Mike and I were drooling. And the recipe looked so easy! So, yesterday I looked up the recipe online, jotted down the ingredients, and made a quick trip to the store. Within an hour of returning home I had dinner ready.

Here is the sloppy joe filling, in the pan and ready to be dished up!

The final product. I served the Joe with diced up dill pickles and bleu cheese crumbles!
A side of coleslaw compliments the Joe!

And just as I was preparing to eat dinner solo, Mike pulled up, home from a very long day at work and starving to death! To go with the Buffalo Joes, I made up some Coleslaw, using a recipe from a blog that I follow. You can get that recipe here. The sour buttermilk tang of the coleslaw was a wonderful compliment to the spiciness of the Joes.

Let's hear what Mike has to say about this meal:

(please ignore the suggestive tongue-licking at the beginning - he thought I was snapping a picture of the yumminess. I tried to edit it, but it wouldn't upload properly! Boo. I promise you my husband is not a creepy perv!)