Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Salivating Salisbury!

Hey all! Hope you had a fantastic weekend, we definitely did! My man went fishing with a friend and my uncle on Saturday and caught five mackerel (yummm) and we cooked it on Sunday with some friends.


We also had bratwursts and chopped up onions and green peppers along with Sean's favorite, new potatoes! We got a little overzealous with the green pepper/onion/new potato mix and had a ton left over. It was super simple; throw it all in a baking dish, drizzle with olive oil, dump some spices on it and bake at 350* for about 30-40 minutes. Perfection!


In an effort to not let anything go to waste, we ate the veggies again last night. I decided to make some Salisbury steak to go along with it. The green peppers and onions tasted great in the gravy! Here is the recipe I came up with that was deelish!


One pound of ground beef
One egg (beaten)
Bread Crumbs
Worcestershire Sauce
One can of beef gravy

Notice I said you needed bread crumbs and I had croutons pictured? I thought I had bread crumbs at home, but it turns out that I didn't... Fail. Luckily, Sam's Club sells ginormous bags of croutons so I crunched some of those up. I did about 1/4 cup. Use whatchya got!


Once that was all crunched up, I beat the egg in a bowl, poured in three tablespoons of Worcestershire Sauce, threw in the "bread crumbs" and mixed in the meat. I mixed it with my hands and it felt gross, but I really think that's the best way to do it... Once all of the ingredients are evenly distributed throughout the meat, slap them into little patties.


I let mine sit in the fridge for a little while to let all of the flavors mesh together. After about a half hour, I fired up the stove to a medium high heat, poured in some olive oil and browned the patties on both sides.


After both sides are all browned up, take out the patties and drain the grease. Place the patties back in the pan and pour in the can of gravy and about two tablespoons of Worcestershire Sauce (the star of this recipe). Put the lid on the pan and bring to a boil; this only takes about two minutes.


Return it back to a low heat and let it simmer for about ten more minutes. After that, dinner is served! I rolled up some crescent rolls to have along with our meal. They also tasted great dipped in the gravy :)


The meat and gravy had wonderful flavor and I believe it had everything to do with the Worcestershire Sauce! I love that tang and spice that it has. We use it on our steaks all the time; it adds the perfect flavor to red meat.

That's all for now! I'm hoping to be back later this week with some updates that we did to the office, in the meantime, we'll be running irrigation to our lovely landscaping in the backyard!

-C Doc

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Tree Hugger



Rejoice! I am able to upload pictures! The Internet definitely has a sense of humor... especially when it comes to Firewall Protection.

I had a post all ready for Monday in honor of it being Earth Day, but good ol' Internet Explorer decided that it wanted to keep my tree pictures under wraps out of respect of the holiday. But I'm back with a vengeance.

I made a blueprint (which is totally laughable now) of what I thought Sean and I had envisioned for the backyard landscape project that we've been itching to do for a while now. We've discussed trees, shrubs, etc. and this was what I thought we had planned:


As you can see, we're landscaping the back corner of the yard. We talked about putting a Triple Foxtail palm in the back corner, Robellini palms on the two sides, shrubs placed around the trees, red fountain grass in the middle and flowers scattered throughout, or something like that...

What do you think of my skills in Microsoft Paint? That took some serious time... the OCD and ex-drafting student in me had a field day with that one.

Anyhoo, my wonderful husband is just that. wonderful. Will he ever throw me a surprise birthday party? probably not. Will he ever surprise me by getting me a really cool gift that I wasn't expecting? probably not. But, when it comes to this house and the projects we desire to do, he does them with a smile on his face the best of his ability. And most of the time, these wonderful things happen while I'm bored slaving away at work (ha!). Surprise!

As I drove home Tuesday afternoon jamming out to my main man, Eric Church, I expected to go home and find him (Sean, not Eric. bummer.) chilling in his garage with a friend and our two pups; I come home to this sight probably 3 out of the 5 days that I work. But as I turned on to my street, I found our two big gates open, our friend Ricky's truck pulled in with his lawn trailer and dirt everywhere. Hmm....

I walked in the backyard in search of the boys and found this!



I probably had one of these faces:


God only knows what I was so excited about in this particular picture, but I had the same overjoyed feeling when I saw all of the plants unloaded in our backyard. My boy had surprised me once again. A few months ago I came home to landscaping in the frontyard, a few weeks ago I came home to new grass in the back, and alas, the day had come for the backyard landscaping. Yay!

After I did a happy dance and said thank you a million times, the boys got to diggin' and I got to watchin', ha!


Here are the plants that were used:

Robellini
Croton
Viburnum

Pittosporum

Andonidia

Loropetalum


The plants used are pretty much completely different from what Sean and I had discussed but I love them so much more than what we planned for. Ricky said that when he and Sean went to the nursery, Sean was like a kid in a candy store picking out plants and shrubs. I can only imagine how goofy he looked...



Lately we've been watering fools. Both in an effort to water the plants (obviously) and to get our green grass back. Sean put the sod down and it turned a little yellow, we've been slackers when it comes to keeping a good amount of water on it, but we're definitely keeping up on it now!

All that's left to do is put some cute little flowers in front of the shrubs and put pine bark down as mulch! I, of course, wanted this done as soon as we could possibly do it, but Sean, being the smart boy that he is, said that it would be beneficial to run an irrigation system before doing that. I'll allow him to be smart every now and then... But I'm so excited to see it all done! We're also discussing landscape lighting (I'm currently doing that happy dance again)   :)

I'm so excited to be able to share this with you guys! With all of the pictures on this post, I'm definitley stickin' it to the Internet. Take that Firewall Protection! Hopefully I'll be able to post like normal again because I've got some fun stuff to show you guys! Till next time!

-C Doc

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Crap...

Hey guys! I worked on a post yesterday and I was hoping to work on one today, but unfortunately I can't upload any pictures to blogger (sad face!). I'm going to continue to try and resolve the issue, but I probably won't be able to upload new posts until late afternoon from now on... Bummer dude. Check in from time to time to see if there are any new posts; thanks for the support!

-C Doc

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Rasta Pasta and Flying Balls

This past weekend we had nothing going on, which is almost unheard of these days. So, in an effort to keep the fun going, we decided to have a get-together with our friends. Here’s how it all began…

While sitting with the guys watching the movie Kicking and Screaming with Will Ferrell on Saturday, the scene where he was involved in the tetherball game with his dad had us ROTFL (that’s rolling on the floor laughing, mom). It was hilarious and almost all of us had a funny tetherball story from when we were growing up. That’s when we got the bright idea that we should totally have a tetherball game in our backyard! Genius. Let’s do it. Off to Sports Authority we went.


After finding all of the tetherball equipment on one dinky little shelf in the massive store (apparently tetherball isn’t that popular anymore), we determined that the kit that comes with the ball, rope and pole was entirely too expensive. They wanted $70 for a ball and a crappy clip together pole that our friends were sure to destroy. But, right next to it sat the ball with the rope attached to it for only $17. Boom, purchased.

We then went to Home Depot to get a substantial pole that our friends couldn’t bend/break/mangle/destroy with just one hit. Behold, 1” galvanized steel EMT. We also got a carabiner that we later welded to the pole so the rope could easily be removed. All in all, the total project cost $30. Muuuch better than that measly $70 game that we saw.


Look at that sexy welding outfit... Ahem. Back to the game. Focus. 


We poured a bag of cement into the ground and made sure the pole was level. Regulations say that the pole is supposed to be 7’ tall so we made it just that.


Check out the county worker on the right... So typical. Standing there. "Supervising."

There she blows:


I can’t even begin to tell you how hilarious drunken tetherball is to watch. Ricky definitely had us peeing our pants when he hit it as hard as he could and it circled allll the way around and slapped him insanely hard in the back of the head. He screamed "ow!" like a little girl. I got six-pack abs from laughing that night . It was awesome.

We also cooked a bunch of food that evening. Everyone had to eat standing up because there was literally food laid out on every flat level surface of our house.  I made most of the sides for everyone, one of them being pasta salad! Here’s what I mixed in:

Rasta Pasta

1lb of cooked pasta
1 can of small olives
1 bunch of green scallions
1 big yellow pepper
1 package of cherry tomatoes
1 small block of fresh mozzarella
1 bag of salad style pepperoni
1 bottle of Italian Dressing

I cut the tomatoes in half and chopped the rest of the veggies really small using my slap chop. Like I said before, it’s a great tool! After everything was mixed together, I let it sit in the fridge for a little bit so all of the ingredients could meld together. It had great flavor! I did come up with some other things to add when I make it next time, though… pepperoncinis for some spice and feta (I freaking love feta!) for some tang. It’s definitely happening next time. Count on it folks.


As for plans this weekend, so far we have none… which only makes me wonder what sort of trouble we’ll get into :)

-C Doc

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Hmmm..... Pinteresting....


You bet your bottom it's on there! If you go back through some of the older posts, I've attached some lovely labels on some of the pictures; here are some examples:






In hopes of increasing traffic to my little slice of the Internet, I've attached links to the pictures on Pinterest that will direct people to the blog. I did this last week and I've actually noticed a little more traffic! I'd say about 4-5 more views per post, which amounts to about 330 more views since last week! Whoop whoop!

I'd like to take a second to thank all 2 of you (ok, maybe 3....) for reading this silly blog about my life, my cooking disasters concoctions and some DIY tragedies projects. I hope you continue to read my ramblings and find some sort of enjoyment from this, because I know I have. I truly love you, appreciate you and look forward to the future of Domestic Dockerty. For now, I shall kick up my heels, drink some wine, let the husband cook dinner (ha!) and write some invoices so our little Dockerty family can get paid! Ka-ching ka-ching!


-C Doc

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

The Finishing Touch

When I started the bedroom makeover, I thought I would incorporate some fun and bright colors to liven it up a bit. But, I was soon reminded that our goal for the bedroom was to have a nice grown-up space that we could lounge in and feel like, well, adults! 

I really like the direction that our room took. It's very relaxing and serene. It's mature. It fits in with the rest of the house, and, quite frankly, I love it. But, one thing needed to change... 

The rug.

I got a really good deal on the rug that was already in the bedroom; $15 is a steal even if the rug isn't the best quality. I liked it, and the dogs did too!

I love these faces :)
But it wasn't right for the space anymore... Luckily I had the perfect place to put it; the laundry room! It's perfect because it catches all of the dirt that comes in from the garage and side yard and it doesn't have a backing to it so when it gets dirty, we can just throw it in the washer! Fantastic.


The price of rugs is pretty absurd. I can't fathom spending $180 for a 5x7 rug. Especially since all you're going to do is rub your grubby feet all over it. So, I spent $35 on a simple, neutral and durable rug from Wal-Mart. Gotta love Wally World!


It fits in the room perfectly, has a nice texture and is a nice color that blends with everything else. Mission: Accomplished.




While it's got some settling to do, it laid out pretty nicely and finishes off the room perfectly. I love the smell of fresh new carpet :)  the dogs like it too, we had a little pow-wow on it last night before we went to bed which consisted of a lot of nose rubbing, rolling, back scratching and snuggling. The perfect ending to a manic Monday!

-C Doc


Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Inch-a-lotta

Every once in a blue moon, I get a good idea... and wouldn't you know it, I got one last night!

I left off yesterday saying that I was planning on making some more Cheesy Chicken Ranch Cups for us since I had some of the mixture left over. But, that little light bulb above my head lit up and I came up with the idea of making enchiladas with the leftovers!

Yum :)

As I always say, use whatcha got!

So, let's begin.


I started by soaking both sides of the tortilla in the enchilada sauce:


I then plopped some of the chicken mixture in the middle:


I rolled it and placed it in the pan with the fold on the bottom. I had already poured a layer of enchilada sauce on the bottom of the dish that I was baking them in. I had enough mixture (and a big enough pan) to make four. Perfect for the husband and I!


Next, I poured more enchilada sauce on top and threw on the remaining cheese that was left over from making the chicken mixture (a tad bit less than a cup).


I threw it in a 350* oven for about 30 minutes. While that was baking, I had some spicy yellow rice going on the stove. They both finished at about the same time (I love when that happens!); so, I fixed up a plate and plopped some sour cream and hot sauce (Cholula!) on my enchilada. Check it out!


Was it good?


I'll let you be the judge :)

-C Doc

Monday, April 1, 2013

Easter Feast

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter! After attending church with family and friends, we then went out to breakfast to fill our bellies, play football with sugar packets and build towers with creamers! Before the parties and gatherings that we attended yesterday afternoon, my time was spent in the kitchen. I was in charge of the appetizers for our Easter Feast so I decided to share what I made!

The first concoction is my favorite go-to hors d'oeuvre. Everybody loves them and they're pretty easy to make. Here are the ingredients for my Cheesy Ranch Chicken Cups:


Two packs of already cooked chicken (you can cook your own chicken, but if I'm able to buy hormone-free, gluten-free already prepared chicken for just a couple bucks, you better believe I'm going to!)
Cheese (Mexican or Colby Jack)
Sour Cream
Ranch
Hot Sauce (we looove Cholula!)
One Small onion
One Red Pepper
Won Ton Wrappers (Egg Roll wraps)

First thing first. You're going to need to chop the onion, red pepper and chicken into super small pieces. One of the best tools for this job is the slap chop; it'll probably save you an hour worth of work. This is how small it needs to be:


Best tool for the job!
Next, throw in about a half cup of sour cream, a quarter cup of ranch and pour in some hot sauce. I went a little mild this time (about a teaspoon). The consistency needs to be sticky, not wet. If it's able to clump together, then you're good to go!


Mix it all up and throw in my favorite ingredient: cheese! I threw in a little over a cup (8oz)


Mix that all up and set it aside. Next, we're going to bust out the won ton wrappers. Make sure you peel them all the way apart. They put flour on them so that they separate, but they still seem to stick together. They're pretty thin:


Place them in the cups of your mini muffin pan, like so:


Then, fill your cups with about a heaping tablespoon worth of filling! 


After that's all prepared, stick the pan in a 350* oven for 30 minutes and wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am, they're finished!


The shell is crunchy, the filling is cheesy and creamy and the taste is out of this world! You can top with some cool sour cream, or pour on hot sauce like the hubby always does :)

As the foil was taken off the pan, I heard a collective "ooooh!" and some "mmmmm's"; people love these things! This recipe makes more than 24 mini-cups, I just saved the rest of the mix for tonight's dinner :)

For the next appetizer, I made some Caprese Skewers! Soooo good and soooo easy!

Here are the four ingredients:


I started by pouring the Balsamic Vinaigrette in my serving dish:

I then washed the tomatoes and basil and chopped the mozzarella cheese into about 1" pieces, thick enough for the skewer to stand up on its own. I also tore the basil leaves into smaller pieces.


I then stuck the tomato on the toothpick, pierced a piece of basil and finished it off with a chunk of mozzarella and plopped it into the wonderful smelling Balsamic dressing:


After a bunch of poking and stabbing, the dish was full!



They were so good! The longer they sit in the dressing, the more the mozzarella soaks up the balsamic flavor. I'm a sucker for some fresh mozzarella. It's very tasty and adds a nice tang to the Caprese Skewer. My Italian in-laws ate these suckers up! But, that's no surprise... it doesn't get any more Italian than mozzarella, tomatoes and basil :)

After the appetizers were all gone, we moved to the beautifully set dining room table in Sean's grandparents gorgeous home and feasted on some vegetables, salad, baked potatoes and some scrumptious prime rib. We also had the most disturbing and hilariously awkward dinner conversation I've ever participated in... I'll leave it up to your imagination to decide what we talked about... just know that I'm scarred for life.

-C Doc