Chocolate Frozen Yogurt

I pulled out one of my Christmas presents, my ice cream maker, the other day and made some yummy frozen yogurt!

I think I need to tweak the amount of chocolate in the recipe as the final product is rather rich. Not that rich is bad, but when I say rich I really mean abundantly wealthy :)

The process for making it is quite simple, and pictures of the process are below. Eric has been quite pleased with it and is fully behind me making more frozen yogurt whenever I feel like it. I'm trying to decide on my next flavor- any suggestions?!

The chocolate concoction boiling

The drained yogurt waiting to mix with the chocolate goodness.

the combined chocolate goodness cooling before it goes into the ice cream machine.

churning, churning, churning

He was hoping with all hope that I would drop something and let him lick it up.
Don't worry he's gotten to have some yogurt :)

I Cooked Dinner!

By now it should be abundantly clear that I don't cook unless it's out of complete necessity. Well, I'm attempting to change that by cooking one meal each week. 

Last week I tried an Indian dish- chicken tikka masala. It's basically chicken in a spiced cream sauce over yellow basmati rice with naan (Indian flat bread). Overall, Eric deemed it edible. However, for as many spices as I put in the sauce I thought it'd be more flavorful. It was somewhat bland. I told Eric it was like an Indian version of chicken paprikash over rice rather than spaetzel. 

Prep!

Chicken marinating in a yogurt and masala mix

 

The naan dough before it's grilled

Making the yellow rice

Final Product

Nonetheless it was edible and we had leftovers for a few days, and the flavor did improve over the next few days. So I think I'm off to a decent start. I'll keep you updated as I continue to try my hand in the kitchen!

Random Amazing Dinner

While our friends CJ, Holly and Seth were visiting and we were all staying in Breckenridge we went to the restaurant, Briar Rose. It's a Chop House in Breck and the food was amazing! The side dishes were done family style so we could all share. Two of the sides we ordered were Balsamic Glazed Asparagus (yes, mom I eat asparagus!) and Goat Cheese (my only way to deal with the lactose issue!) and herbed Risotto. Not the cheapest dinner ever, but definitely worth the money.

Well, we had everything at home tonight for Eric to duplicate our steak dinner with those exact sides! It was amazing! It was like eating at Briar Rose all over again. The steaks were Filets from Omaha Steaks and their meat is always fantastic. All Eric did was season it with salt and pepper.

I love that I get these kinds of dinner in the middle of the week!!

Doesn't it look yummy?!

The Big Snow!

Yes, we got snow. The national weather reports got that part right. The astronomical amounts that they quoted however, not so much. We got about 20" total-not four feet. Although if we had four feet, yes, that would stink, but at the same time THIS IS COLORADO!!! People should realize we're a mountain state and we will get snow. If you can't accept that or adapt to that, please feel free to leave because you are probably the schmoe driving 25 mph in a 40 zone who's really making me crazy.

ANYWAY! As a result of the snow Eric did end up a bit delirious after about 30 hours in a plow truck. As it snowed, I worked from home on Friday and on Saturday, while it kept snowing, I cleaned the house. Thankfully, I was able to be productive. When Eric got home on Saturday he decided to play in the snow with Indy, which they both enjoyed. I took pictures of play time and the overall snow. They are below. 

I got ambitious and did go out and shovel since Eric was exhausted from plowing and shoveling everyone else's sidewalks, driveways and parking lots. It took about 2 hours to get our stretch of sidewalk done. In front of the house isn't bad, it's the stretch down Dartmouth that takes forever. I told Eric whenever we buy a house a snow blower is a must. I'm a Coloradan, but one that's smart enough to know when the shovel is a joke of a tool :)