Yummy weekend

Been tired since my surgery- then had all the deadlines at work exhausting me.  Thank God for Labor Day!  Long weekend to get caught up and to cook some goodies.

Sunday watched the Pioneer Woman Frontier Fiesta episode. Everything looked really yummy so went shopping for supper immediately and made everything in there except the virgin mango margaritas- and of course modified everything. 

Mango margaritas: Couldn't find mangos, so followed a suggestion in the comments and made them from pineapple- pretty pedestrian- will be looking for mangos and try again some other time.  Think my son has me spoiled for cocktails because his are so exotic.  Also just made half the recipe.

Mexican Rice Casserole: Didn't need 12 servings for 2 people, so made a quarter recipe- the only canned tomatoes that I used were my usual Del Monte Original Recipe Stewed Tomatoes.  Also didn't have cayenne pepper- so used smoked paprika instead.  It was super yummy comfort food.

Refried Black Beans: Used a large can of black beans instead of fresh because we didn't have time to soak 12 hours.  They were also super yummy comfort food.  Will definitely make these two recipes again.

Tequila Lime Chicken:  This didn't really go.  We love skin and bones on our meat, so used whole chicken breasts- did not have time to marinate properly and baked these instead of grilled them.  Did not really go with the meal and the flavor did not permeate the meat- will definitely try again- but didn't get it right this time.

While we were at the store getting what we needed for this meal- ran into a large beautiful bunch of collards with our name on it.  Rob decided that we needed to cook it with ham hocks, so we got those.  Madethem with Paula Deen's recipe- except we started with a pound of ham hocks and skipped the butter- Yummmmmeeee!  Added some baby potatoes to the collards the last 30 minutes and loved the flavor.  Served these with a turkey breast we had bought earlier.  Discovered something really cool- you can cook a turkey breast frozen- just takes longer- this is definitely something I'll try some week when I know I won't have a lot of time to cook and want some leftover meat for meals.

That's all for today.  Tonight I'm going to try this tomato sauce (cut to 1/3 size) to use up some of my regular basil which had lead it's life and needs to be harvested- will do this with Mario's eggplant recipe cut in half.

Until tomorrow!