misszoot.com

We went to the concert Friday night in Birmingham and it was waaaay more fun than I predicted. I wish I had better pictures, but you just have to trust me when I tell you that NikkiZ? Totally a concert girl. She screamed and danced and was in general awe over the entire event. Since the first band came on about her normal bedtime, she did great even lasting through the whole show. During the slow songs she would be ready to go home, but as soon as Miley sang one we could dance to? She’d perk right back up. And she didn’t complain too much when her Mom belted out “The Climb” in her ear during Miley’s ovation performance. MrZ even enjoyed himself and was in awe as someone who used to be in a band on a stage that Miley obviously wasn’t lip-synching. I think he assumed she would since her shows have so much dancing and stuff. Nope. She’s the real deal, that Miley. And she now has a chunk of money out of our wallet to show for it. LilZ even had a great time and wore his concert t-shirt to school yesterday. We were all very close to passing out when we finally stumbled home shortly before midnight. I’m telling you all of this so you will be sufficiently impressed when I list out all of the things I cooked on Saturday.

• Red Velvet Cake Poppers (MrZ came up with “Poppers” instead of “Balls” so that we don’t have to giggle every time we say it.) I baked the red velvet cake from the box early Saturday morning but I didn’t finish them until after MrZ went to bed though so he wouldn’t see. I accepted they wouldn’t be as pretty but you know what? I think in terms of the difficulty of recipe/taste of product ratio? This may be my best discovery yet. It was really much easier than I thought it would be. While they didn’t turn out pretty, everyone who ate one had the same reaction: Eyes rolling back into the head. Seriously. SO GOOD. You must go try to make some right now. NOW!
• Buffalo Chicken Dip – Which I Adapted MYSELF from another recipe! Here’s my recipe:

  INGREDIENTS
  * 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
  * 1/2 cup blue cheese salad dressing
  * 1/2 cup Frank’s® RedHot® Buffalo Wing Sauce
  * 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
  * 2 cups of chicken shredded off a cut up fryer. (The original recipe said you could use 2 (9.75 ounce) cans of chicken but that stuff is often slimy so I opted to do the chicken off the bone since I am no longer scared of it.)

  DIRECTIONS
  1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. Spread cream cheese in a 9-inch deep dish pie plate with a fork or whisk until it’s smooth.
  3. In a separate bowl, mix dressing, buffalo sauce and chicken. Spread mixture on top of cream cheese layer.
  4. Sprinkle top with the shredded Mozerella
  5. Bake for 20 minutes or until the chicken mixture is hot and bubbly. Serve with Fritos scoops.

• Sugar Cookies out of the role and that the kids decorated. There were days in the past that this was enough of a kitchen challenge for ONE day. Now? It seems a little lame.
• Truly the Best Lasagna Ever. Now…this one was tricky because I bought the wrong kind of noodles. I didn’t know there were wrong noodles, but I realized when I was cooking that I had “Oven Ready” noodles. You don’t boil those…you just let them cook IN the lasagna. Which I found to be an oddly mysterious idea. I crossed my fingers and layered them in uncooked and then added 10 minutes on PDub’s cook time as the packaging of the noodles suggested cooking a lasagna 35 minutes. Since I didn’t want the noodles to be undercooked, I opted to extend the cook time to compensate. And you know what? It worked out fine. It tasted amazing and someone at MrZ’s office already asked for the recipe when MrZ shared his lunch yesterday. I think I’ll always use the oven ready noodles simply because it took out a step that was supposed to be done simultaneously as other steps which ALWAYS SCARES ME. Where I multi-task excellently in the rest of my life…in the kitchen? Not so much.

So…I did ALL of that. ON SATURDAY. After only getting 5 hours sleep Friday night. And you know what? I didn’t screw anything up beyond the point of repair! As a matter of fact, the dip was so good I made it again on Sunday and took it to the family dinner. Where it was also devoured. I think this weekend was a huge turning point for me. I spent almost every moment at home cooking. And no one died from a kitchen explosion or from poisoning!