For me, this has been a weekend of many firsts! First, I FINALLY got to pet a cow! For those of you who know me personally, you know this is huge. Its epic. Its life changing. I don't quite know where exactly this love of cows started but I see them and they just make me so freaking happy. When my husband was in basic training, I would always be sure to check the cow report on the way home to see if there was a letter from him. On the drive I passed three different cow pastures and if the cows were hanging out at the fence right by the road, it was a good cow report. The further away from the road made it a bad cow report. And strangely (and sadly) enough, the cow report was pretty accurate about whether or not there was a letter waiting in the mailbox. But anyway, the point is that I love cows. (I mean come on, the blog is called The Cow Apron for crying out loud!)
Another first was that I threw my husband an early birthday surprise party. Again, for those that know me, I am awful at keeping secrets about gifts and parties and all that. If I have something for someone, I want to give it to them right then. Forget this waiting crap! I'm in it for instant gratification! So the fact that I went almost two weeks without telling my husband I was throwing him a party was excruciating! And what is a birthday party without a birthday cake! I give you the pumpkin birthday cake:
I got the idea from Pintrest. You bake two cakes in a fluted bunt pan, flip one on top of the other, use an inverted ice cream cone as the stem and slap some frosting on it. For his, I used just M1-A1 spice cake mix from the box with cream cheese frosting. I had to get a little creative on the coloring though since I was out of red food coloring and didn't know it until I went to ice the cake. But I can assure you that in a pinch you can combine yellow with a bit of neon pink food coloring and it will come out orange!
The party was a success! We had awesome burgers on the grill and hot dogs, tortilla chips shaped like the hearts, diamonds, spades and clubs from playing cards, a little bit of a fire pit going. It was a good time!
So lets see...thats got us up to date to Sunday morning.
As a way to wind down from the craziness of the weekend, I decided to do a simple chicken stir-fry for dinner last night. It is easy. Really, really easy. This is perfect for tricking your spouse into thinking that you've spent an hour slaving away over a hot stove when really you've been hanging out in your kitchen looking at Pintrest on your phone, occasionally stirring the pan.
Chicken Stir-Fry:
chicken (or any meat of your choice, I've also used pork before)
peppers
onions (or in the freezer section of your local grocery store they should have a stir-fry mix)
stir-fry noodles (or rice)
stir-fry sauce
This was the first time that I used noodles in the stir-fry instead of serving it over rice. I think I'm still on the fence about it but the husband said he really like that a lot better than rice. But its your choice. I grabbed the noodles when I saw them new in the commissary the other day.
So slice up or dice up your chicken and cook until just about done in a nice big pan over medium high heat.
If you are using fresh peppers and onions, now would be a good time to slice those up to desired size. If you are using the frozen ones, you could probably take your time getting them out of the freezer. But once the meat is just about done, add the veggies and cook more until they are done or cooked to your desire.
Once the meat and veggies are done, add your sauce and let that set up for a few minutes in the pan. The noodles came with a teryaki sauce packet that it said to mix with some water. However, when I shook the packet it sounded like it was just a powdered mix and for some reason that just sketched me out a bit too much so I opted instead for pre-made, liquid, stir-fry sauce.
The husband was pretty happy with it and has definitely opted for the noodle option in the future. I think I might have added too much sauce but as I sit here typing this, we are eating the leftovers and I just got a "This is really good, baby." So maybe it wasn't too much.
For the rest of the day we are going to relax and hang out with some friends. Our first labor day with him in the military kind of makes it more personal and special. It will be his first birthday as a soldier and a milestone one at that. I'm really happy that all my scheming and plotting and baking came out as planned and that our friends were here to celebrate!
Thanks for stopping by! Hope you have a great Labor Day too!
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