Football Fanatic and Cheesy Potato Bites

So I was raised on football. It is in my blood, literally. The men in my family have always played. We even have a pro baller in the family tree. One of my favorite memories is spending Sundays with my Dad on the couch eating boiled peanuts and watching the game. That one is closely tied to our Monday night tradition. My bedtime in elementary school was always 8:30 but on Mondays I got to stay up until 9 just to listen to the Monday Night Football opening credit song (late 80s, early 90s version). I had this whole dance to go with it. Then it was off to bed for me but those 3 minutes were worth it and I remember them every time I hear that music.


Now I don’t watch much pro football. I am still a football fanatic, just for college ball. My Saturdays are spent at home watching the games. Well tonight is different. USF (University of South Florida), my alma mater is playing a Friday night game. And we have tickets. YAY! I am so excited, except for the fact that I know I won’t be getting home till 1am after the game and I have an 8am spin class at the gym. So since we won’t be having our usual arrangement of football food at home this weekend, I made some snacks last night for B.

These Parmesan Cheesy Potato Bites are easy to make and so yummy.

Parmesan Cheesy Potato Bites

6 large potatoes (choose your favorite-I use Sunlight since they are lower carb and still delicious)

¾ cups fresh grated parmesan cheese

Salt, to taste

Pepper, to taste

Cooking Spray

This is before they went in the oven.

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Chop the potatoes into medium size chunks. Throw in a large pot of water and set to boil. Drain the potatoes when you can easily pierce the potato with a fork. I like mine to still be firm.

3. Spray cooking spray on a baking sheet so it won’t stick and line up the potatoes, evenly spaced. Take a fork and gently smash the potato to an almost little cake like shape.

4. Generously sprinkle the parmesan cheese, salt, and pepper.

5. Bake in oven for 30-35 minutes.

6. When done, plate and serve.

These go great with sour cream and chive. I have recently seen other people make similar style side dishes. It must be football season. Here are the links to their recipes for a variation: The Pioneer Woman   and  Macaroni and Cheesecake .

Until next time……

Me

My So Called Life....

So before I hopefully tempt you all with my culinary skills, I figured I would give you some background. I have been known to randomly throw out obscure references (that only I usually get), so some background might help in sifting through my crazy thoughts. I am a southern girl living in Florida. And I don’t care what you say Florida is south of everyone else so my claim of being southern is true. And for all of you out there that think Florida is so great with the beaches and all, think again. Living with this humidity everyday is a killer on my hair and that is all that is important, right? So I married my high school sweetheart. How cliché is that? That is us below on our honeymoon. We went to Alaska. How cool is that? You might hear me call him the hubby, hubster, oh dear one, Brian, B, pain in the tush, and a lot of other names in my head when I am mad. But those might get me in trouble here as he is probably reading this right now. (Hi Hunny!) We officially met when we were 17. We knew of each other at 12 but that is a whole other story…. to make it short he listened to Marilyn Manson, I listened to Britney Spears, enough said. We went to college together and married one month after I got my degree. We will have been married three years next June. I then started my wonderful job. I mean it I truly love my job. (I’m not kidding.) What do I do you ask? I work in the psychological research field. I know some of you might be thinking she is the crazy one, she should be researching herself. But I am going to pretend to not hear that.

Okay, back to the oh so important info. We have two cats, Chloe and Pebbles. Yeah, Chloe is the queen of the United States and will let everyone know it. Pebbles is the cat who spends all day in the sink. I mean she is really there all day. Do any of you know how hard it is to get cat hair, and I mean clumps and clumps of cat hair out of the sink every day? But I regress, it was great for the two of them.

Until about a year ago, when I decided I wanted to expand the zoo I had created and we got a dog. He is Rocky and he is CRAZY. And he has made the cats hate us because they hate him. It is a dream of mine that one day I will live in a house of peace, but who am I kidding that is so not going to happen. (However if you know any good tricks on getting the cats and dog friendly, send them my way.) So those three animals are our kids. No real human babies yet and not seeing any in the near future much to the despair of both sets of prospective possible future grandparents.

One last big thing you should know is I am on a diet. Yeah, I know, I know diet=evil word. But remember that whole life change thing. Well my weight and body need to change. To put it simply, I am fat. Okay, wow that really hurts to say but it’s the truth and you know I only tell the truth (as I hold up my hand and look as innocent as a girl scout). So you can all know the numbers… I started out at 240 and I am currently at 225. I have lost 15 pounds so far. Only 75 more to go to hit my goal weight. So I will most likely be sporadically posting the weight loss updates and if you haven’t seen one in a while then harass me please. What better accountability is there than the harassment from complete strangers? So now you have the back story and can now say she is truly weird? But it’s okay I embrace it. Until next time……
Me


P.S. Sorry for the quality of some of the photos. They were taken with my old camera and I'm still figuring out photoshop. Hopefully this will encourage me to improve.

Shaking in my Flip Flops

Wow! So this is so exciting and scary at the same time. I have been reading other people’s blogs for years now and always thought I would never be that brave. I mean it takes a ton of courage to write a blog, the whole put yourself out there and the world can read and criticize (oh please don’t) your thoughts. But at the beginning of this year I decided I needed some life changes. I know I am young but there are so many things I could do to better myself. So at New Year’s I made a list of fears and goals, and ways to overcome the first and accomplish the second.

One of my fears is public speaking. Gasp!!! I know such an unoriginal fear, right? (Okay, I do have a few weird ones, like eating anything out of the sea but I will get to that later.) I figured if I could start and write a blog then I could start to overcome this fear. I mean my thoughts are out there, even if I am not standing in front of all ya’ll picturing you naked. Not saying that is a bad visual, just not one I want in my head. But then came the big questions, “What in the world do I talk about?” and “Will anyone care?”

Well this lead me to think about my other goals, because if I could incorporate two into one, then score one for me. So one of my goals was to focus more on me and get back into hobbies that make me happy. So I got back into cooking and baking for my oh so fabulous husband (more on him some other time). And then I got back into photography. Or should I say I am starting to get back into photography. So naturally, I thought of a cooking blog.

[Insert angels singing and rainbow shining]

It was meant to be. I mean ideas like that only come around once. So with a blog- I have a fear conquered and with cooking and photos- I have another goal accomplished. Am I smart or what?

But and this is a big but (not going to make the joke there, too easy), I didn’t want the blog to be just about cooking. That is the main reason for the blog, but I want you to hear about my life- as mundane and boring as it might be. So while this blog will be about cooking (I promise to have some recipes up in the next few days…. I am still a newbie at this whole blog site thing). I also want you to experience my crazy, wacky life. I mean I have really lived… you know the past 25 years and all. So now you get to hear about these new crazy experiences whether you want to or not. (Please say you want to!!!) And to be honest I’m not shaking anymore so that is a good sign. Until next time.....


Me


P.S. I said I would explain my really weird phobia. So here it is… I am prepared to be mocked. …. Drum roll, please! I won’t eat anything out the sea, water, etc. This means no shrimp, lobster, fish, etc. I know I’m weird, you can say it. But what makes it worse….. I live in Florida. I mean hello…. surrounded by water here. So unless the hubby requests some seafood, you won’t be seeing many posts on that.