March 31. National Clams on the half shell day.

HAPPY EASTER!! Christ has risen! And also, I can eat rice again! (I gave up rice for Lent)

Well, we actually went to an Easter party today so we didn't have to cook dinner, lunch or anything. No one was going to eat clams at home so I didn't want to waste money on them. So I got myself a nice can of clams instead.

I'm not a fan of clams so all I did was saute' them.

IT.WAS.GROSS.

'nuff said.

I do want to share my beautiful family picture from today though. :)

Babygirl didn't look very happy, and she said "cheese" and smiled after the picture was taken, of course. I still love it though! Happy Easter everyone!! :)

March 30. National Turkey neck soup day.

Ohhh my goodness. Well we weren't planning on cooking turkey this year for Easter, and I didn't think to save the neck from when My husband cooked turkey on National Poultry day. So the best thing that I could do was to get this:

I looked at different stores and couldn't find it. I should've known. Fresh Market! Duh! 

All I did was cook ramen and used this instead of regular water.

Hey, whatever works, right?? 

I still did it though!

March 29. National Lemon Chiffon cake day

A Chiffon cake is a light and airy, moist cake. For this challenge I decided to make Lemon-raspberry chiffon cupcakes with a lemon-cream cheese frosting.

I just did regular lemon chiffon cupcakes and filled them with raspberry preserves, and made my regular cream cheese frosting with some freshly squeezed lemon juice.

Some of my peeps like the combination, and I do too, but I personally think it's good enough even without the cream cheese frosting. It will probably be good too with vanilla buttercream.

My son wanted to frost the ones for him and his sister. And of course it's perfect timing that I wanted to take their pictures right after she wrote on everything with their markers - including her face and arms.

They were very happy though. :)

March 28. National Black Forest cake day.

Black Forest cake is a German dessert consisting of layers of chocolate cake, whipped cream, and cherries
I know it says Black Forest CAKE day but I wanted to make something different. So I made black forest cookies instead! :)

I started by making my chocolate cookie batter. I found these in my baking pantry and used them instead of buying regular chocolate morsels. Yes I see it has red and green, but after you melt them all together, they all turn into a chocolate color.

See?

I then tossed in a whole bag of dried cherries and some more chocolate morsels.

They actually turned out pretty good! My Black Forest cookies!!

Of course they're better with a tall glass of milk!

Happy Black Forest day! :)

March 27. National Spanish Paella day.

Paella is a rice dish from Spain that has meat, seafood, and vegetables.

Seafood is expensive and we already had other dinner plans for tonight so I just got a frozen bag of Paella from the store. This was all I could find. They had other stuff in boxes but you would still have to add your meats and seafood in them so I thought this was perfect.

It came with the rice, the seasonings, chicken, sausage, veggies, and shrimp.

The last step in cooking this is adding the rice in the mixture. Well I gave up rice for Lent so I couldn't possibly try this myself. But I wanted to!! So what I did was, before adding the rice at the end, I took a teeny little thing of the broth out with some meats and veggies and made myself a thing of instant yakisoba noodles! I didn't add the teriyaki flavor that came with it of course, and I added the Paella stuff in it instead.

Ha! So I was still able to eat my Paella for Paella day! yay me!

This is what the real one with the rice looked like. My husband ate...some of it. It was spicy, and I love spicy, but my husband can only stand to eat a little spicy, not a whole gigantic bowl of it. hehehe

My noodles were good so i'm sure the one with rice was good too!

March 26. National Waffle day.

Oh this one was easy. I love making waffles and pancakes and all that, but we had some more eggo's in the freezer and my son loves that too, so soon as he asked for waffles or pancakes for breakfast, those waffles went right into the toaster! yay!

Babygirl did not eat hers. She wasn't hungry I guess.

This one inhaled his. 

Of course mine had some whipped cream and caramel sauce on top. hahaha!

Happy wafflle day!!

March 25. National Lobster Newburg day.

Lobster Newburg is a dish made from lobster, butter, cream, cognac, sherry, eggs, and spices. I must say I was very excited about this day 'cause I love lobster.. But unfortunately, I can't afford to get lobster or the stuff for it right now.

I went out with my girl friend for some window shopping and dinner tonight. We ended up at Bahama breeze, where we always go hehe.. So she had this idea, to just order the Lobster quesadillas hat they have on the menu. Yes! Why not??

Works for me! haha! It had lobster, and it was creamy. 

So I cheated a little bit, but I still got in done! - well kinda. hehe 

Happy Lobster Newburg day! Thanks for your help Tiffy! :)

March 24. National Chocolate covered raisins.

I HATE raisins. I don't like them in my salad, with meat, or by itself. The only way I would eat raisins is if they are covered in CHOCOLATE. I believe almost anything covered in chocolate would be good, don't you think so? hehehe...

Raisinets of course is the best kind there is. I could eat the whole box in one sitting. It's that one box of candy I always pick out whenever I get candy at the movie theater.

Speaking of movies, Ben actually got this box for me last night 'cause we went to go see a movie at a home movie theater, but I got so into the movie that I totally forgot I had them. He got me this and a big order of chicken wings of course! Me and my chicken wings... haha! That I ate before the movie while he was setting up the theater! So happy!

March 23. National Chip and dip day.

So I had this gigantic tub of sour cream that I was going to use for Bailey's party still sitting in the fridge. I thought I would make some onion dip to go with some potato chips.. But I found this thing of salsa con queso and some tortilla chips so I just decided to go with that instead.

This salsa con queso is just a mixture of a can of rotel and a pack of velveeta cheese. Yummy!

This cute little monkey right here enjoyed it with me. :)

March 20 and 21. National Ravioli day and French bread day.

We drove all day and night from the mountains yesterday. Vacay is over, but we had such an amazing time!! We did so much fun stuff! I'm so happy to be home thought I missed my babies so much! Anyways, like I was saying, we drove all day and night so I wasn't able to do my challenge yesterday. But since today is National french bread day, I just cooked the ravioli for dinner today and ate it with the french bread! All worked out perfectly! ha!

A Ravioli is a type of pasta that is usually filled with meat, veggies, or cheese. Lots of cheese. I got (yeah yeah I know, I didn't make my own..didn't have time!! next time! ;) ) grilled chicken and spinach raviolis.

Also got some freshly baked french bread.

Toasted of course.

Cooking my ravioli.

Tossed my ravioli in roasted garlic sauce and topped it with some Parmesan cheese, 

served with buttered french bread. 

Bon Appetit!

March 19. National Poultry day.

For National Poultry day, my husband prepared a Thanksgiving feast for our dinner here at the resort up in the mountains! Remember we're up here at the Smoky Mountains for our Anniversary vacay? yuup! So he cooked my challenge for today! Yay! Oh and Yum-mmyyyyyyyy!!!

Turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, and roasted potatoes!

And yes, we ate dinner very late. Been eating dinner after 10pm since we're always out touring and doing lot sof fun stuff! We come back late after places have closed and we got no more stuff to do.

 hehe.. we don't waste time!

no eating out..

we just cook and hangout and relax. :)

March 18. National Lacy Oatmeal cookie day.

Still out of town so I just tried to look for these cookies. Couldn't make em myself today so I just got these oatmeal cookies instead. I love these things. I like my cookies soft and chewy and these are crunchy but they're good!

March 16. National Artichoke heart day.

My husband and I are driving up to the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee tomorrow and will probably be on the road for most of the day so I did this a day in advance. I made some spinach and artichoke dip for my daughter's Birthday party and we still have some leftover so I just took some of that for a little snack tonight with some pita chips while I pack our stuff.

Easy enough. Happy artichoke day!

Now back to packing!

March 15. National Peanut lovers day.

Peanuts from the Philippines!! Pick your flavor! They're all good!

March 14. National Potato chip day.

My aunt just came back last week from Australia and the Philippines. One of her stops was Japan so she got these awesome chocolates and chocolate covered potato chips. We've had these before so I was very happy and very excited when she brought these home! Drooooooooooooool!!!

ROYCE!! Best thing ever!!

I tried very hard to not eat the whole box. I could easily eat both bags in one sitting.

Sooooooooooooooo gggggooooooooooooooood!!!!!!!!!!!

March 13. National Coconut torte day.

I'm not really a big fan of coconut but this cake was actually good. Very light and it just had the right amount of sweetness. Well it's pepperidge farm so I expected it to be good! haha :)

March 12. National Baked Scallops day.

Yummmmmmmmm... Scallops!! Scallops = LOVE!

I dried my scallops on a piece of paper towel and then seasoned them with salt and pepper.

Make sure you get your pan really hot before you put your scallops in to get a nice good sear on them.

I had some steak so I kinda did a little surf n turf dinner.

 Lemon cream pasta topped with slices of ribeye and seared scallops! Very yummy dindin!