So, we finally had a weekend where we didn’t have plans or had to head out of town. The best part of the weekend? The Pampered Chef stuff arrived! I wish I would have taken pictures of all the boxes. The shipment was six boxes, and three of them were so huge that I could barely carry them into the house.

I sorted everyone’s stuff, and Saturday, it was time to look over my stuff. I ordered a lot of crap, but my favorite things are my knives…

… and my stainless steel cookware…

After a nice Friday eating pizza with my brother and parents, I set about Saturday to make food so I could use my new stuff. I really just wanted to chop anything I could, haha.

I had been craving apple turnovers, so I found a quick recipe for apple pie filling and whipped up a basic pie dough recipe. Chopping apples with my new knives was a breeze and cooking them in my new skillet was awesome.

I cut out the pie dough using a round Pyrex bowl I had, filled it with some of the filling and then folded it over to create a half-moon shape and crimped the edges. Just a light egg wash and then they were in the oven.

Aren’t they beautiful? And they were so good! I made four, but still had dough and filling left over, so I made a mini-pie.

Dinner was sauted shrimp and twice baked potatoes.

I love twice-baked potatoes, and they really aren’t hard to make. I didn’t have any sour cream so I mixed cream cheese and cheddar cheese in with the potato pulp. I don’t have a recipe, because I kind of just mix stuff in until I like the taste! They turned out really well!

And then Sunday dinner was my take on my Dad’s chili.

And I made some whole-wheat rolls to go along with the chili.

I love chili. It’s so comforting. Neal asks for it all the time, and it is nice to let it simmer in the crock pot all day.

Neal and I also ran to our local nursery so I could do a little decorating. We got some corn shocks and pumpkins and a hay bale and set it up on our front porch.

I did have a small bunch of dried corn. But Sunday morning, I found it stripped off all the pretty kernels and dragged to the other end of the driveway.

Stupid squirrels!

They bothered the corn shocks all day, climbing up them and feeding on some of the dried corn still in the husks. It was total overload for the cats, who stared out the front screen door at the squirrels all day.

I also made a cute centerpiece on the serving/sofa table in our living room.

I love fall, I really, really do. Apples, leave, pumpkins, light jackets, jeans. Fall makes me think of all of that. I love it.

So it was a great weekend of cooking and relaxation. Neal and I watched Cloverfield Saturday night, and it was actually a really good movie! I recommend renting. It made me a little sick because of the hand-held camera effect, like The Blair Witch Project. I would never have been able to see it in the theater, but it was OK just on our TV.

I got a bunch of cute pics of the cats I’ll post later this week.