Dinner Last Night

Ok, I'm sorry about the lack of pictures, but I have to tell y'all about our dinner last night. Let me give you a hint as to its success rate in our house: MY TWO YEAR OLD ATE BEEF. That's right. You read it. That was maybe the third time in his life he has voluntarily eaten beef. He loved this meal. Well, the beef part anyway.

We had:
Mini Meatloaves from allrecipes.com and
Southwest Pasta Salad from Our Best Bites (I LOVE this site. They just published a cookbook that I'm dying to get my hands on)

AMAZING.
Ok, here's what I did differently:
For the Mini Meatloaves, I grated up a medium yellow crookneck squash and added it in, then decreased the amount of cheese (I used sharp cheddar) to 2/3 cup. I have to get veggies in somehow for my boys. You really couldn't even tell, but I think I'll do a zucchini next time instead. I also, instead of just forming them into mini loaves and putting them in a 9x13 pan, put them in a muffin tin I'd sprayed with Pam. I was able to get 12 mini meatloaves, but I did have to put the muffin pan on top of a cookie sheet to keep the sauce from getting all in the bottom of my oven. I also added about 1/2 tsp onion powder. I was too lazy to actually cut up an onion to add. True story. Oh, and the sauce needed a little more mustard, in my opinion.

For the Pasta Salad, I used Monterey Jack cheese, but I don't think I'll use any cheese at all next time. It doesn't need it. I also used macaroni instead  of bow ties because that's what I had. Not that that makes any difference at all. I think the recipe needs double the corn (I didn't thaw the corn, it thaws on its own while the salad chills) and double the green onion. I used cherry tomatoes that I halved and red pepper. It was DELICIOUS. My hubby informed me that I should just throw away all my other pasta salad recipes and just make that one from now on. That's big, people. And please, PLEASE use actual lime zest. Like, from real limes. So stinkin' good.

Chocolate Candies

My husband absolutely loves marzipan in chocolates, but it is really hard to find them. Especially with milk chocolate (usually they are dark). So, for Valentine's Day, I decided to make him some chocolates.

What you need:
Melting Chocolate
Molds (to shape the chocolates. Can be found at craft stores, usually about $1-$3)
Whatever you want to put in the candies (oreo cookie bits, coconut flakes, marzipan)
Some type of container to use to pour the chocolate into the molds (I used a Microwave melting bottle, cost $1-$2 at craft stores)

It's really simple. Melt the chocolates, pour into the molds, filling them half way. Put your desired object for the middle of chocolates into the molds. I made coconut chocolates, cookies and cream chocolates (with white chocolate and oreos), and the marzipan chocolates. Then fill the rest of the mold with chocolate. Tap the mold a few times to get the bubbles out, and then refrigerate for a few minutes. Turn the mold upside down and tap to get the chocolates out (they should come out fairly easily).

While the picture is of molds with sucker sticks, you don't have to make suckers. If you do make lollipops, the sticks are easy to find at a craft store as well.

That's it! You have your own custom chocolates.