EKG Class...

I have been in class the past two days. What kind of class you ask. A class on identifying cardiac dysrhythmias for work. Have you have seen and EKG strip?

Here is one:

Try looking a 80 of them, counting the PR intervals and QRS on these tiny blocks inside the darker blocks. My eyes hurt. Then you try to decipher what the rhythm the strip is which at times can be complicated. I am done with the class part but I still have to take an exam (after I study of course). Anyways that is what I have been doing the past two days. Last night since I only had to work till 7 I was able to go to our community group (sadly due to work it is rare for me to be able to go)! I love our community group! It was a great night of food, fellowship, and bible study. We are so blessed to have found a church up here and made new friends. As for tonight I am looking forward to cooking dinner for Mr. Wonderful! Usually when I cook dinner we don't get to eat it together because of our work schedules. Tonight we are having Blue Cheese Stuffed Buffalo Chicken, from Cooking Light Magazine (I hope it is as good as the recipe looks). I love date nights at home!

Sunday Night with the McIntyres

We had a wonderful day today. It started with a wonderful morning of worship at New Covenant Fellowship followed by a great lunch. Tonight we had the McIntyre's over for dinner. I made buffalo chicken pizza and Pioneer Woman's chocolate sheet cake.

Josh and Jess loved the pizza, but nothing compares to the cake's amazingness (yes I know that is not a word but there is just not words to tell you how good this cake is). I love this sheet cake!

Pioneer Woman has a perfect recipe. I love recipes from scratch. You must try it. Be on the lookout for the recipe on my cooking blog this week! We had a great time of fellowship and Izzy was so excited to have friends to play with. She loves Josh and Jess!

It was a great night. I just love nights like tonight.

She is such a sweetheart!

Well it is bedtime for us! Night Y'all!

What's cooking?

I realized I post a lot about what I cook and so I started a blog devoted to the happenings in the Adam's kitchen. It will be fun as I share with you my love for cooking and joy of learning so check it out! Simply click on the above picture or go to http://theadamskitchen.blogspot.com
Love ya'll!!

Sweet Friends and Cheesecake Masterpiece

Today has been great!! Bob and I invited our sweet friends Josh, Jessica, Ashleigh, and Gene over for lunch today. So we decided what would be better than a cookout with hamburgers, hot dogs, fixin's, fries, and baked beans. Lunch was great. I only wish I had taken some pictures for the blog. They are the sweetest group of friends. I am so sad that they live across the triangle because that prevents us from seeing each other on a regular basis. Anyways since we were having our sweet friends over I had an itch to bake, in other words, the Kitchen Aid was calling. I really wanted to make these cute little cupcake/brownie burgers from Bakerella's Blog but since this was the night before my husband suggested I try it out before we have company in order to avoid another mishap (ex:cookie crumbles) So I debated and debated I could try cookies again but I really wanted wanted to try to make a cheesecake. So I unfortunately didn't have the Southern Living recipe so who do I turn to but of course Bakerella. I guess I am a bit addicted to her blog. So at about 1:15am, yes it was late, that I began pull out the stuff we would need and then the mix ingredients together.


I followed the recipe under my hubby's supervision, not that he knew anything about cheesecakes either, but he was sweet enough to read the recipe to me off the computer.

So we finished mixing and then baked it for 1 hour and 25 minutes. During which my husband stayed up with me and even did some laundry. He is simply wonderful!

The timer finally went off. The cheesecake came out beautifully, only a few minor cracks. Unfortunately I did not hear about baking it in a water bath to prevent cracks until after my beautiful cheesecake was cooking, oh well.

So after telling my husband no he can't try it tonight it need to go in the fridge we chilled it overnight and waited for the taste verdict. So after a yummy lunch with our sweet friends we cut the cheesecake! Guess what!! IT WAS DELICIOUS!!! Yes, success and my love for baking grows! I can not wait to try something else!

The Art of Making Bread...

O.K. so I posted a few nights ago that we had purchased a bread maker. Bob and I made bread the other night. It was fairly simple. You first set the bread maker.

We measured out the ingredients for the bread and in order placed them in the bread maker.

We made simple white bread. So we turned on the bread maker and then waited. Three and a half hours later we had two pounds of bread.

We tried it out and it was wonderful. Only problem is now we have a lot of bread left over!!

Kitchen Gadgets and Mishaps....

Hello All! So in trying to be the good housewife I have been experimenting in the kitchen a bit. I have discovered that baking from scratch is a lot harder than it looks. Also, it is a good thing I did not have high aspirations to be a gourmet baker over nursing! I really love to cook and love spending time in the kitchen. I love trying new recipes and ideas. I love to cook but I have never really baked. I can make a good pound cake and some pre-packaged cookies but really never really made anything from scratch. so I decided to try my hand at it. A major plus when you get married are the fabulous kitchen gadgets people get you off your registry and lovely gift cards to buy what you want that you didn't get. Well, it has been my dream to own a Kitchen Aid Artisan stand mixer. I mean it was the first thing I registered for at every store. Now granted it is over $300 so naturally I did not get one as a gift. However, those Belk gift cards began to add up especially after some returns of the duplicates we had received! Lo and behold I had money for my mixer. So I waited it went on sale for $299, then at the end of July Belk had a bridal completion sale, which was an additional 20% off, and on top of that Kitchen Aid has a $40 mail in rebate. So I capitalized on the great deal and purchased my new Kitchen Aid stand mixer. Deciding on a color was difficult but in the end we went with black because you never know when you will want to change you kitchen color scheme at some point.

Isn't it beautiful

I was overyjoyed with our purchase, now what do I make. I decided now was time to try my hand a baking from scratch. So I went to Bakerrella's blog (because she is AMAZING) and it just so happened she had a recipe for chocolate cookies in a recent post. So I bought the ingredients during our Wal-Mart run and began to make the dough. It seemed easy enough and tasted good too!

So I spray the cookies sheets and proceed to bake 2 dozen cookies.

Well, umm they came out interesting.
#1 They all squished together so it looked like I made a cookie cake
#2 They were VERY thin
#3 The fell apart into crumbles even when cool
#4 My husbands critique was "They taste like fried dough" but of course he ate the majority of the cookie crumbles
So alas my made from scratch cookie efforts were a bust, but I did love making them so I will try again. In addition to the newly acquired kitchen aid mixer we made a few other gift card purchases. This included a Cuisinart Convection Bread Maker. It is the size of our microwave and came with 80 different recipes for bread and it makes jam.
I have not given this a try but intend to try but intend to soon with my hubby so I will blog about when it is done and I hope it will be a better experience than the cookie crumbles. so keep your fingers crossed :)

A little update on me: My blood results were the same as last week a little low so i go back at the end of this week to recheck it. Other than that I am enjoying not being on bed rest and finally getting to know the area we live in. I can even get around a little without Maggie (our GPS). Through all of this God has been so faithful!! He deserves all honor and glory!!!

Weekend Fun...

Crazy how time flies! Today marks the 50th day Bob and I have been married! I love being married. It is fun and I can not complain for he is the most amazing man! I am still improving and enjoying not being stuck in bed or a chair 24/7. I must say I have enjoyed my weekend and I am excited about this week, especially since one of my best friends is visiting with us. Erica came up from Albany! It was so fun to pick her up from the airport Saturday. Yesterday, we made the best pizza ever!
Buffalo Chicken pizza, can you say yum! It tasted WONDERFUL!! Right now I am trying to introduce Erica to Harry Potter. I currently have movies 1-5 on DVD, tonight we are watching movies 1 and 2. Hopefully, before she leaves we will see number 6 in theaters! Well, I hope you have had a great weekend too! God has been so good. Be encourage no matter just what trust in Him.
"Wait for the LORD; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the LORD." Psalms 27:14

Sweet Reunion

Yesterday we had company over for the first time since we have moved into our apartment. It was so nice and I had anticipated this night all week. The honored guests were none other then our great friends, who are also newlyweds, Josh and Jessica. To prepare Friday night Bob cleaned the entire apartment, I really felt bad that I could not get up and help him but he did a great job. Josh and Jess arrived about 6:30 and Bob was still on his way home he had to run an errand after work. I truly enjoyed reuniting with such great friends that I call family.The boys then treated us girls to a night of no work in the kitchen, not that I could be much help. Jess brought over some homemade bread that was FANTASTIC! Now I definitely want to use a gift card to get a bread maker when I get well. Bob made a barb-a-Que glaze and baked chicken wings, as well as cooked green beans and baked potatoes. Josh made mac-n-cheese and dipping sauce for the bread. The meal was wonderful and so was the company. To top off a great evening we had cookies and creme pie...yummy! What a wonderful evening and I look forward to many more! Well update on me the pain still is not gone which stinks. I was prescribed a new pain medicine so hopefully it helps. The swelling has gone down some. So little by little I am improving. This has been very hard for me but the Lord is going to bring me through. I am again so lucky to have such a wonderful husband! He has been taking wonderful care of me and done things above and beyond what is needed. He has such a precious heart that God will use and I can not wait to see where or how. Nana is also doing ok she is at home recovering and hopeful will feel much better as the week progresses.