A Taste of Life

Basement Update

2011-04-03T17:46:00.008-04:00

Our winter break project was to replace the carpet in our finished basement. We decided to replace the main living space, half bath, and laundry room with laminate. Our garage door is off of our basement so a lot of dirt/grass gets tracked in. I really wanted a solid surface for ease of cleaning. We want to use this as another living space or potentially a future playroom. It looks kind of blank right now except for cat stuff and exercise equipment, but we'll get there!

I kind of forgot to take before pictures until after we had started ripping out carpet so a lot of these are more like 'during' pictures. We changed out a few lights, replaced smoke detectors, updated the electrical outlets and switches, and painted too.

I did find this picture from a friend's album that showed her dog on our treadmill haha. You can see the blue carpet under the treadmill. Nothing exciting.

More 'during' pictures. You can see the laminate and Quiet Walk in the corner, ready to get put down! We'd also started edging at this point. We painted the main room, hall, and half bath a greige color (Revere Pewter - Benjamin Moore). We wanted to keep things pretty neutral.

Here are some after shots. I took pictures at a bad time of the day so the brightness from the windows was hard to work around. We purchased our laminate from Lumber Liquidators and the color was a light mahogany.

Well at least this shows the color of the floor!

This is the half bath off of the hallway. We need to update the pull string light at some point. We left everything else. The mirror, toilet, and pedestal were in good shape.

For some odd reason this was the way the builders decided to utilize the storage under the stairs. Weird.

After!

In the before pictures you could see exposed pipes that were tacked to the baseboard. I think this bathroom was added at a later point. We found some white moulding that fit over top of the piping. That way it will still be pretty easy to access if we ever need to get to the pipes.

I got my mother-in-law to sew some curtains for behind the toilet. I found this martini fabric on Etsy and they do a good job of concealing the gigantic hole behind the toilet.

Here's another before looking down the hallway. The half bath is on the door to the left and straight forward is my laundry room.

Here was our before of our laundry room. I had started to call to get quotes to see if we could get drywall put up over the concrete walls and to conceal all of the piping. This room is a pretty tight space and our washer and dryer just fit. I was afraid that adding drywall was going to make the room too small. I also realized this was going to be more money than I felt like putting into a laundry room by hiring a contractor.

After. I figured this was a good place to let a little color show :) That's a dog proof litterbox on the rug in case you were wondering what that box was haha.

I decided to put some $9.99 curtains from Target up with a tension rod to hide all of the piping. I added a decal and painted the exposed concrete walls. We've never had water issues so our local Lowes recommended we used DryLok Fast Plug to fill any large holes and we primed with a concrete filler/primer. I think it was Olympic brand. The paint color was Jalapeno Jelly (Valspar).

Looking back down the hallway. My dog is being a photobomber around the corner.

My husband thought this would be a good accessory to slap every time we walked down to the basement :) You can see the color difference in this picture too.

I also decided to replace our lights beside the door today. This is the only picture I could find of the outside of our home. This was our "We just bought a house!" picture.

Here are the new lights and you can also see our new screen door that we added last Fall as well. Another shih tzu photo bomb for ya.

Thanks for looking!

Grilled Pizza

2010-07-01T21:07:00.009-04:00

This has become one of our favorite meals and we've slowly perfected it to where we can at least get a square pizza now. This takes a little more skill then just popping it in the oven but the grilled taste is so worth it. I've heard other bloggers say this before, but this is the only way I prefer homemade pizza to a restaurant. I took pictures of the steps tonight while we were cooking so that I could relay back our experience in case anyone is interested in trying this out.

I usually make veggie pizzas so while I'm stretching out the dough I get Casey to carmelize onions and peppers in a grill pan on the grill. I use a few turns of olive oil and grill whatever veggies we're using on high until they have good marks and have softened up a little bit.

Brush olive oil on the pizza before placing it on the grill. I like to add a little flavor so I make a spicy garlic oil. This is super simple. Mince 2-3 cloves of garlic and throw it in a saucepan with about 1/3 c. of extra virgin olive oil. Add a few shakes of crushed red pepper if you like it and turn the heat up to medium. Once the garlic starts sizzling, cook for about 1 minute and then remove from the heat.

Use enough dough for one pizza. I use Annie's recipe over at Annie's Eats which makes two pizzas. You can make this recipe and freeze half of the dough for later which is what we had done. If you're freezing the other half just wrap it in plastic wrap and put it in a freezer bag. Place it in the refrigerator the morning you plan to use it and it will be ready by dinner time. Divide your dough (half of Annie's recipe) into two balls. It's much easier to work with small circles on the grill.

Stretch out the dough to form a circle (use a little bit of flour to keep the dough from sticking) and brush the top with the olive oil/garlic mixture. It's definitely easier if you make your individual circles smaller but I got a little carried away with a big circle and it might be why I end up with square pizzas.

Now you'll want to grill the side of the pizza with your oil on it so that it won't stick to the grates. We keep the grill on medium high to high during this process. How you want to get the dough from the counter top to the grill is a personal choice. I've figured out that I like to make my dough on a pizza peel and carry it out to the grill and flip it over with my hands stretching the dough across the grates. You can use tongs, spatulas, etc. Whatever makes things easier. It probably won't look pretty, but that's ok!

Now brush the top with the garlic oil while it's on the grill.

This cooks really quickly (within a few minutes) so keep an eye on the bottom of your pizza. Once it starts to cook on the bottom it's easier to shift it around so that you can keep spots from burning. Once the bottom is cooked, use your tongs and place the pizza on a pizza peel or cutting board with the oil side down and the cooked side up.

Use whatever toppings make you happy and load up your pizza. I use marinara (I love Muir Glen's Cabernet Marinara), grilled veggies, and grated mozzarella.

Once your pizza is ready to go, take it back out to the grill and slide it on so that we can cook the bottom. The pizza is much easier to work with once you've grilled one side.

Grill on high for a few minutes to get the bottom crispy and then move the pizza to the other side of the grill which I put on medium low. Shut the lid for around 4-5 minutes to melt the cheese. You can start the process for the second pizza whenever you have the time. I start stretching out the second one while I'm waiting on the cheese to melt on the first one.

Yum!

It sounds complicated but after you've done it once it seems much easier. The transfer of the dough to the grill is the hardest part b/c the dough is so soft but once you have that part down you're good to go. My biggest advice is to work with small circles and keep an eye on your crust! Enjoy!

**I'm also aware I haven't blogged in 3 months. I figure by now that if you people still read my blog you know I'm kind of like that friend that you see every now and then and you don't really expect to contact you every week. I'm glad we understand our relationship with each other.

Completed Bathroom!

2010-03-13T12:01:00.007-05:00

Just in case you forgot what we were working with here. This honestly all started b/c the toilet needed replacing. I casually mentioned that while we had the toilet up maybe we should replace the lovely blue linoleum. Well, and while we had to rip everything out maybe we should just replace the vanity and so on. You know, when you give a mouse a cookie.

Here's the picture of the other wall again. I was a little too excited to pull the medicine cabinet out of the wall so I don't have any before pictures of it.

Here's the after!

Here is a close up of the pictures of Tuck above the toilet. I got inspired by these shih tzu bath pictures and gave Casey the job of photographer during one of Tuck's baths.

Here's a better look at the sink area. No hole in the wall anymore!

This is one of my favorite parts of the bathroom. We had a faucet like this at our hotel in Maui on our honeymoon and I think of that every time I see it. We ended up purchasing the sink and vanity set separate b/c there were no combos that looked that great in this room. It's kind of hard to see but our tile has reddish tones to it and there's a little bit of that reddish tone in the granite.

New working toilet! This toilet has actual given us trouble from the get go as far as the installation but I think it's finally ok now. I think we'll definitely be replacing the toilet downstairs in the powder room with the one we have in our master bath b/c we've been really happy with that one so far and the installation went much smoother.

There were fixtures that matched the bamboo faucet but they were really more than I wanted to pay. I just could not fathom paying $50 for a toilet paper holder. I found these at Home Depot and the edges actually resemble the bamboo fixtures that we originally wanted but the price was much better.

We're lucky to have linen closets in the guest bath and in our master. I keep all of the towels in here and we have cleaning supplies and medicine cabinet items in our linen closet.

Here's a close up of the floor and our new floor register.

One last shot just because!

The hardest part of this whole project was all of the patch work on the walls. Getting rid of the sexy vanity bulb strip and smoothing the wall to move down to a smaller vanity and mirror was very tedious. Patching the medicine cabinet hole was also tedious b/c there was a lot of applying joint compound, sanding, waiting, and repeating. I purchased a little DeWalt electric sander halfway through this project and I wish I would've had it from the get go. We've already used it again to sand down the doors to accommodate the new floor level. I was worried about going from a 47" vanity to a 30" but I think it gives the room more space and it's just not as overwhelming.

The tile was the easiest part ironically enough b/c that's what we were the most nervous about. Measuring to make sure the tiles were even and cutting was the hardest part of tiling but it was a relatively quick process once we got started.

This was our first big DIY renovating project and it went pretty well. We learned a lot and we got our hands wet in a little bit of plumbing, a lot of tiling, and a little bit of drywall work. Everything always seems much more daunting when you're trying something new but I'm glad we've attempted some of the things we have since we've lived here. It's allowed us to save money and it's given us confidence when it comes to doing other projects.

This has also become a hobby that we really enjoy doing together. Sometimes there are some tense "..but HONEY, I don't think you have the clamp down hard enough", "Well, HONEY if you think you can fit your hand in this space then maybe you should do it" hahaha, but we worked in a tiny space together for weeks and we worked well together.

Thanks for looking!

Oh Dear

2010-02-25T21:22:00.005-05:00

First we had this which was a little out of date. Nice blue flowered linoleum, old sink, broken toilet, 90's bulbs and builder grade mirror.

There was also a medicine cabinet randomly in the side of the wall. They are in both full baths and both of the full baths have vanities and linen closets so the medicine cabinet seemed a little overkill so we jerked it out of the wall. In case you were wondering, Sookie definitely inhabited this room before we started on this project. We want to move her stuff to the basement when it gets warmer.

Then this happened and we noticed there was no junction box where our light was. That sounded safe! But look, the medicine cabinet hole is gone!

I remedied the junction box issue and we put up a new light.

Oh hey, this is what I look like when I'm working on the bathroom or when I'm going out the door to my niece's birthday party when Casey is taking pictures.

Tuck appreciates the sink hole in the wall.

Now the toilet is gone, the linoleum is ripped up, the tiling is done, the painting is done, and the grouting is finished. We need to caulk and put up baseboards and of course the new toilet and vanity. This is a guest bath that we don't use so we're really taking our time and working on it when we can so that we don't get burnt out from the project. I'll show plenty of pics when we're done, don't worry :)

Lil's Birthday

2010-02-23T21:28:00.009-05:00

We helped Lillian celebrate her 2nd birthday a few weeks ago and it's so amazing to see how much she has grown since last year.

I love this little girl.

My sister and Lil
I made her cake this year and I'm not a skilled decorator so don't judge me :) She had a farm animal theme so I decorated farm animal sugar cookies w/ royal icing and stacked them around the cake with coconut grass. The cake was a three layer Hershey's perfectly chocolate cake and the middle layers were white chocolate buttercream and the outer layer was just plain ol' vanilla buttercream. It turned out really well and I got a couple of requests for cakes with those particular flavors again so, yay!

Before Casey wrote on the cookies.

Duck sugar cookie favors.

Waiting so patiently for her cake.

Present time!

One of the outfits we got for her. I might kind of want it in my size.

Her baby Stella doll and carrier. This is such a cuuuuute doll if you need a gift for a little girl. She has a little magnetic pacifer and she's so soft.

This picture cracks me up b/c I feel like Tuck is plotting how to take her down in the background. He wants to be a princess for the day too.

We also got to babysit her for the first time this past week. My sister left her here while she was sleeping so she kind of freaked out when she woke up but we made up for it and played with jewelry, jumped on the bed, and made sugar cookies.

Casey and Lil playing with sugar cookie dough (and eating some of it).

Telling Tuck Tuck that it was all gone. She has always been able to say Tuck Tuck really easily but she has trouble with Sookie. She was "Cookie" or "Wookie", but close enough.

We topped off the night with some Wall-E snuggled up on the couch. We're so lucky to have her in our lives :)

Out with the old...

2010-01-19T20:33:00.004-05:00

... and in with the new!

We got our door hardware that we ordered for all 17 of our doors today and we installed all of the ones on the first floor and it's a huge improvement and the handles are really smooth. I'm pricing hinges but that will be our next project.

Quick Healthy Chicken Noodle Soup

2010-01-11T22:40:00.003-05:00

This was from my most recent Cooking Light magazine and it really took no time to put together. This is a great weeknight meal that I'm going to add to our rotation.

Servings: 6
(Source: Cooking Light)

2 cups of water
1 (32 oz) carton fat-free, less sodium chicken broth (I used a little more than called for)
1 tbsp. olive oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1 medium carrot, chopped
6 oz. fusilli pasta (I used mini fusilli)
2 1/2 c. shredded skinless, boneless rotisserie chicken breast
2 tbsp. chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Combine 2 cups of water and chicken broth and heat on medium until hot. While broth mixture heats, heat a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add oil to pan; swirl to coat. Add onion, celery, salt, pepper, and carrot, saute 3 minutes or until almost tender, stirring frequently.

Add vegetables and pasta to hot broth mixture and bring to a boil. Cook 7 minutes or until pasta is almost al dente. Stir in chicken; cook 1 minute or until thoroughly heated. Stir in parsley.

Calories: 237
Fat: 4.8g
Protein: 22.9g
Carb: 23.9g
Fiber: 1.7g
Chol: 50mg
Iron 1.8mg
Sodium: 589mg
Calc: 28mg

Small Update

2010-01-11T22:34:00.002-05:00

This was the most recent picture of our fireplace from Christmas. We can't add tile surround b/c it will be too close to the entertainment center and we intend to replace the black tile when we replace the flooring so I just did a quick update to get rid of the brass and the wooden handles.

Much better!

Merry Christmas/Happy New Year!

2010-01-03T20:59:00.006-05:00

I thought I would start with a few Christmas pictures that I managed to take.

Case and Tuck on Christmas morning at my parent's house. We stay there Christmas Eve and then get up to head to Casey's parent's house first thing that morning and then we head back to my house. We go back and forth a little but we're lucky that they're only about 5 minutes apart.

All of us in our pjs and ready to go.

Casey and Tuck at his parent's house. Tuck does like us despite his poses in these pictures.

My mother-in-law and father-in-law on Christmas morning :)

Then we headed back to my house to open presents with my family. That's my mom, dad, Casey, my sister, and my brother-in-law and Lil is in the middle somewhere.

I managed to get this picture as Casey was opening his blu-ray player. I told him we weren't getting one for awhile.. and I lied :)

Miss Lillian who was more interested in bubble wrap and opening other people's presents. We got her the turtleneck and little wool skirt she is wearing. She did have a better understanding of things this year so that was fun to experience and we even got to do a craft with her on Christmas Eve. It's actually the same one that Heather posted about a few days ago but we didn't get any pictures b/c we were all covered in paint.

For New Years we ended up having people over at the last minute and ordering pizza for a pajama party... what better way to ring in the New Year!

All of the girls rocking our pjs. Our husbands/significant others were there but I realized I didn't get any pictures of them or me and Casey. Hm.

But I did manage to get a picture of me with one of the boys, of course.

I took a look at my blog to see what I was doing this time last year and what my resolutions were. I thought I wrote a big list of resolutions but it turns out it was just to make bigger progress on an issue that tends to sneak up on my life. I'm proud to say that I only ever make progress on said issue so I can say that I kicked that resolution in the face BAH BAH.

I also saw irony in the form of garlic knots. I haven't made them in awhile and it turns out that the last time I made them was around this time last year and what do you know, we had garlic knots tonight. That wasn't really relevant to anything, but there it is.

It's weird to look back and see that I was really curious about what 2009 was going to bring b/c 2008 was such a hectic year. We didn't really have a hectic year honestly. We purchased our first home together and that will be the biggest and fondest memory that I have of this year but otherwise it was just a year of working on our home and honestly just enjoying being married and hanging out with each other and our family and friends. It really was a calm and content year.

Sooo... resolutions for this year.

1. Continue enjoying this content feeling that I have with my life, my marriage, and our home.

2. Continue to make this home our own by making a dent in some of the home improvement projects that we have on our list.

3. Travel more! We didn't do any traveling at all in 2008. We didn't have much time off from the wedding and then it was into save mode for the home and then afterwards for all of the fun little stuff that pops up when you have a home (like a snow shovel when there's 18 inches of snow outside).

I think all of these are obtainable goals and I really do try to set 'resolutions' that can be met. Weight loss is never on there but I do always kick myself around the first to get back into shape. It's not that I let myself go over the course of the year, it's that I let myself go during the months of November/December. I have carrots and cauliflower pre-packaged for snacks this week and Cooking Light oatmeal in tupperware for breakfast every morning. No more of the binging on fun food for weeks at a time. It's back to just the weekends for that.

I should make a resolution to blog more but I know how sporadic I am and I know that if I don't have a lot going on then I don't blog so we'll see how interesting my life is. The hoseband and I are attending a tiling class next Saturday to attempt redoing our guest bathroom so I'm sure there will be posts once we get started on that.

I hope everyone had a great holiday and a good New Year!

Oh! Oh! Oh!

I forgot to introduce you to someone.

She's real pretty isn't she. She's just something special. My husband thought I needed one for Christmas after asking for the past 2 years and he was right! I made the above mentioned garlic knots with her today and I've also made chocolate chip cookies and a birthday cake so far.

Ok, that's all now.

Why Hello Again

2009-12-20T11:17:00.010-05:00

I'm embarrassed that the last time I posted was Halloween and now Christmas is less than a week away. I guess you must know by now that I go in spurts. Sometimes I get a wild hair in my butt and blog frequently for weeks at a time and sometimes you'll see me blog about Halloween and then Valentine's Day. If you stick around you must be used to this so that at least comforts me.

I'm doing a ton of baking and more activities that I could blog about, so I really have no excuse. This past week we had dinner for Casey's Birthday on Wednesday with his parents and we had sleepover guests (my family) on his actual birthday on Thursday. I'm doing a lot of baking/cooking for Holiday parties and pot lucks and I'm about to gear up for my annual Holiday baking. I don't know if I'll actually get around to blogging these recipes but I'll link the recipes which is kind of close.

Sea Salt Truffles
Gingerbread Cookies
Peanut butter Blossoms
and Fudge (I use the recipe on the back of the marshmallow fluff I think)

I actually made Heather's Santa Surprise cookies last night b/c I was snowed in and I have a ton of baking supplies right now. I don't know if there's much I need to catch you up on. We've been preparing for the holidays, going to plays, parades, looking at Christmas lights, watching Christmas movies, shopping, wrapping, decorating... and we're having such a good time doing it in our first home.

In case you're not from this area, we do have a ton of snow outside right now! We've been home-bound since noon on Friday so I guess I have no excuse to not put up a catch-up blog post. Casey and I are surely spending a lot of quality time together right now if anything else haha! I made crack dip that I was going to make for a party on Friday night and we munched off of that and leftover food from his birthday party and played the new Mario game for Wii which is so much fun if you don't have it! If you're like me and have an Xbox or PS3 husband you'll appreciate a game that you can both play together. Yesterday I became acquainted with my new BFF the huge shopvac we got on Black Friday and literally went around and sucked up everything I could find in the house. We did laundry, cleaned a little bit, put a ham in the crockpot, watched Christmas movies and rented Four Christmases.

Here's some snow pictures. This was Friday night right when it started. I loved the way our LED lights looked underneath the snow.

This was our neighborhood last night. There was a lot of snow, but even more fell over night.

I don't think we'l be able to see our lights now. This was Saturday morning.

I opened the sliding door and Sookie and Tuck both took a big leap into a snow drift and disappeared. I dug him out and her (she's not even supposed to go outside and has never tried before then). She figured out she could walk on top of it if she ran really fast. You can see that when she's walking on top of it she's almost in line with the seat of our patio chairs.

Casey digging Tuck a potty circle. That's our gigantic holly tree in the background.

Here's our deck again. Check out the mountains in the background.

Yes, Sookie is still here. She even made it into our Christmas card picture this year. This might be her last appearance seeing as how she wanted to pretend to be a dead corpse in the pictures. Nothing says Merry Christmas like a dead cat!

Tuck does love here though, so we keep her around :) I seriously don't remember kittens being this hard to control. Maybe Tuck was easier b/c he was short and was never a chewer. I didn't have trouble keeping him out of things (and I still don't). I do have to watch out for her jumping on things as she currently swings from my roman blinds. I swear her water bottle gets refilled twice a day.

She makes me do crazy things like sling all of my sheers over the top of the curtain rods (in the background). Mom asked me if that was a style I was going for. Yes, if the style involves keeping her from swinging like Tarzan from sheer to sheer.

Merry Christmas!

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-30T22:42:00.005-04:00

In case you don't remember, we take pumpkin carving pretty serious around here. This year we actually had a stoop to put pumpkins on so we decided to fill it out. The other side didn't turn out as well in pictures but Casey carved another pumpkin on the other side and I painted a white pumpkin with our house # (not very well, but it got painted). I might try to take a picture tomorrow during the day if I remember. I'm sure you can probably tell who did the face and who did the transformers pumpkin, but just in case you can't, I did the face. We're pretty excited about our first year in our house at Halloween and getting to hand out candy. We would get a handful of trick or treaters at the apartment but nothing overly exciting. Our neighbors have already warned us to come prepared with lots of candy. We live in a pretty family friendly cul de sac and there are a ton of kids in the surrounding neighborhoods, so I'm pretty excited.

I wanted to add these two pictures that I took with my phone. They're shots I snapped on my lunch break behind our house (that's our driveway in the picture). We have a gorgeous shelf of mountains behind our home that provide a great view from our deck. I was so excited to see the colors change and you can kind of see it in these pictures.

I can't wait until they're covered in snow, but I won't get ahead of myself. Everyone have a safe and Happy Halloween!

Dining Room

2009-10-24T11:39:00.004-04:00

I've hesitated posting my dining room as finished b/c I have two sets of blinds on backorder for one set of the windows. I know, I know.. I have issues.

Anyway, we didn't have to do much to this room at all. It got the outlet overhaul and we didn't mind the light fixture so it was just a matter of paint, window treatments, and furniture.

Here's a picture from the listing

Here's afterwards

Bamboo Blinds - JCP

Sheers - Bed Bath and Beyond

Black wooden curtain rod - Lowes

Dining room furniture - Havertys

Runner - Etsy

Paint - SW Humble Gold

It was really important when we were looking at houses to have a dining room. We've lived in apartments for a long time that have always had an open concept and not really a designated place for a table. Having a space like this is one thing that actually makes me feel like I have a home, if that makes sense. It's good for entertaining or when we have family over and we actually have a space to lay stuff out now if it's needed.

I'm getting close to calling my closet finished as well but we still have to patch and paint the ceiling so that will be coming up soon!

Hello Kitty.

2009-10-20T22:38:00.005-04:00

Hello Kitty.

We had no intentions of keeping you.

But then you found a friend.

And now you're almost inseparable.

Even though you fight sometimes.

You're a part of our family.

Meet Pineapple/Sookie. My sister found her outside of her hom and she was *tiny* (She was 1 lb and 5 ounces at the vet last Wednesday). She was going to take her to the SPCA, but I told her to give me a week and I would keep her and try to find her a home and then she could take her to the SPCA. That week has passed and she's still here and we think she's here to stay. Tuck is entertained by her and she's already figured out how to outsmart him at the ripe age of 7 weeks. We weren't really looking for a cat and still had our hands full with Tuck but I think you can kind of tell when something has found you.

My niece named her Pineapple (although I think she calls everything a 'pooabble') but we never call her that. It's almost always Kitty, but we're trying Sookie on for size and that seems to fit her more. Tuck scratches the door to her bathroom (where she stays at night and during the day) every day when we get home to see her and he plays well with her but his 'playing' sometimes can be a little rough, but she seems to hold her own. She can certainly serve it as well and it's funny to see her hop sideways down the stairs and do crazy martial arts moves in front of him and then take off with a ball in her mouth. There will be a day where she's his size and he will get what's coming to him. Hah. I forgot how funny cats were...

Simple Sesame Noodles

2009-10-13T18:36:00.004-04:00

P-dub came through with another win. We really like any kind of pasta with sauce and we love anything asian so I knew we would like these. You could easily add shrimp or chicken in for some protein!

I also apologize for the horrible lighting. Casey and I eat pretty late and my lighting is starting to suffer with the change of season. I'm really starting to long for a DSLR and a lightbox but we've got other financial focuses right now, sooo maybe one day.

Simple Sesame Noodles

(Source: Pioneer Woman)

12 ounces thin noodles, cooked and drained (angel hair, thin spaghetti, or Asian style)
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons sugar
3 to 4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 to 3 tablespoons pure sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon hot chile oil (more to taste)
4 to 5 tablespoons canola oil
2 tablespoons hot water
3 to 4 green onions, sliced thin

Whisk all ingredients (except noodles and green onions) together in a bowl. Taste and adjust ingredients as needed. Pour sauce over warm noodles and toss to coat. Sprinkle with green onions and toss. Serve in a bowl with chopsticks. Yummy!

Chicken Gyros

2009-10-12T21:59:00.003-04:00

This recipes has been floating around in my Googlereader on a ton of blogs so I figured it was worth checking out and we both really enjoyed it. I really debate on whether to post recipes that I kind of like so I always stick to recipes that I intend to make again so I'm not a liar when I tell you guys I enjoy everything that I post :) This recipe is actually healthy too so it's a win/win and I ended up using the leftover chicken the next day on pitas with salsa and sour cream and it worked pretty good with both but the tzatziki sauce definitely gives it a little something different!

Chicken Gyros
(Source: Ella Says Opa!)
Servings: 4

1.25 lbs. chicken pieces (I used breasts)
4 cloves garlic, smashed
juice of 1 lemon
2 tsp. red wine vinegar
2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
2 heaping Tbsp. plain yogurt
1 Tbsp. dried oregano
salt and pepper
1/2 batch of tzatziki
sliced tomatoes
sliced onions
4 (pocketless) pitas

Whisk together the garlic, lemon juice, vinegar, oil, yogurt, and oregano in a bowl. Add the chicken and rub the marinade in. Cover and refrigerate for about an hour.

Preheat the broiler (we used the grill). Sprinkle the chicken with salt and pepper on both sides, and then broil until cooked through, about 5 minutes per side, depending what size/type chicken you are using. Allow the chicken to rest for a few minutes before slicing into strips.

Meanwhile, heat your pitas. We just heated up a skillet on medium-high and heated the pitas on both sides to soften them up a little bit. Top the pita with the chicken, tzatziki, tomatoes, onions. Roll up and enjoy.

Tzatziki - I copied these instructions straight from Ella Says Opa since she seems to know the ways of tzatziki :) 1/2 of this recipe is pretty sufficient and I think we only did 1/4 and it was good for us.

1 32oz. container of plain yogurt (I used Greek yogurt which you don't have to strain)
1 hothouse cucumber or 2 regular cucumbers, seeded
3-5 cloves garlic–depending how garlicky you like it, crushed
1-2 tsp white wine vinegar
salt and a little pepper
squeeze of fresh lemon juice (optional)
drizzle of extra virgin olive oil

Strain yogurt using a cheesecloth over a bowl (if you don’t have that, a strainer lined with a coffee filter will work) for several hours or overnight to get out as much moisture as possible.

Peel and seed the cucumber. Shred the cucumbers and then squeeze the life out of them to get rid of as much excess moisture as possible. I use a towel to do this, and you will get a lot of liquid so don’t skip this step! Yes, there is a lot of straining and squeezing–and it’s all important! You don’t want a runny tzatziki

Mix together the strained yogurt, shredded cucumbers, garlic, vinegar and lemon juice (if desired). Salt to taste. It’s best to refrigerate for 30 minutes or more before serving, so flavors can meld.

Drizzle a little olive oil over the top.

Meet My Nemesis

2009-09-29T14:40:00.009-04:00

The stinkbug. Hideous little wench isn't it? They're hard and crunchy and huge and apparently they don't know how to fly b/c they always erratically dive into me causing me to freak out.

Stinkbug, I've tried to kill you many ways but you pushed me over the edge when I saw you on my curtain which caused me to chuck my dog's treats (my dog's expensive, organic, delicate, blueberry treats) at you and the entire bag crumbled, yet you stayed alive you little tank.

These little suckers have been invading the outside of our house and now they've taken to coming inside for a little bit. I swear I just thought I got rid of spiders and then I discover these.

New nemesis...

...meet old nemesis

This bothered me enough to call the Orkin man last month. Our house is not conducive to being bug free. We have an attic, we have a basement that's attached to a garage, we don't have a storm door to seal the front door and our house set vacant for many moons before we moved in. I used to *never* see bugs in my apartment with only one entrance and few windows. Now I feel like I've stepped into a safari (I'm probably being dramatic, but it happens).

Anyway, so I called Orkin and I really just couldn't justify the price seeing as how we aren't facing scary things like roaches or termites. Someone suggested Terminix had better prices so I had a nice conversation with the Terminix Man (TM) on my lunch break today:

Terminix man gives me the rundown on the way the business run, yeah yeah, heard this all with Orkin.

Then he breaks down the service prices, which still seem expensive but are certainly better.

TM: ...so this is the way our service operates on a quarterly basis, unless you have termites. Do you have termites?

Me: I don't think so, should I see wood falling down or something like that?

TM: ... you would probably know if you had termites. What kind of bugs are you dealing with?

Me: Well first off, spiders, but they kind of tapered off and now I'm seeing stinkbugs.

TM: Your spiders didn't taper off, they're hiding in your home probably preparing to hibernate. I'm sure the stinkbugs are also not fun, and that's certainly not a pleasant smell.

Me: For some reason mine don't smell. I think they're defective.

TM: Right, so do you think, this is a service you'll be interested in?

Me: I really don't know.. the price is still high and we don't really have detrimental bugs, just annoying ones...

TM: Do you want to know what the stinkbugs are doing in your home?

Me: No, but I have a feeling you're going to tell me.

TM: They're laying eggs, and for every one you see in your home there will a hundred more to that one bug. Thanks for calling and let me know if you change your mind, have a nice day!

Now that sir, is effective salesmanship.

That is also why I'll probably get an annual membership set up. I'm a pansy and I really don't like bugs and I don't want them in my house. I know they were here first and that's awesome for them and everything but they have trees, land, jungles, mountains, and woods to live in, do they really need to live in my home to? Don't you think that's just a little selfish and a little creepy that they're trying to invade my home?

I sat down the other night and talked to Casey about this and I told him that I feel like it was something that we should set up until we can get a storm door and possibly an energy audit to see where the cracks are in our home. He seemed to agree and said the spiders didn't really bother him. I told him it was enough to make me not want to go in the basement more or less the garage. He agreed and said he didn't like going in the garage either because he had a fear of opening the door and seeing a 10 foot spider just staring at him.

.

.

.

.

I don't really know what to say about that, but hopefully Terminix covers those too.

Baking Gals

2009-09-27T19:52:00.005-04:00

I saw that two of the lady bloggers that I follow (Beantown Baker and Heather Drive) were heading up a team for this round so I read up to see what was involved and signed up.

Baking gals was started as a way to help give soldiers overseas a little taste of home that they can share with their buddies and hopefully it lets them know that there are people over here thinking about them. I'll be baking as much as I can to fill up a large flat rate box and I'll be shipping it over to Afghanistan between Oct 1st and Oct 12th. If you're interested in joining a team or you just want information, take a look at the Baking Gals website and check it out.

I actually did a little baking today and tried out Bakerella's recipe for pumpkin pecan chocolate chunk cookies. The batter tasted amazing! I'm a firm believer in firm dough and this was definitely a softer dough so I'm going to let the batter rest overnight and try the cookies again tomorrow. My first batch was definitely cakey (which is normal when you use pumpkin in a cookie recipe) but they were still too crumbly for my liking so I'm hoping if I firm them up and let them bake a little longer that it'll iron my problems out. I also made a batch of crockpot chili today too. I just threw Fall into our faces today in the form of chili and pumpkin. The weather was perfect and we were able to get some yardwork done that we've been putting off because of rain.

We didn't do a whole lot on Friday or Saturday. The weather was kind of blah so we used Saturday to do some shopping and I *finally* found a pair of red flats. You would think that it would be a simple request but I could never find exactly what I was looking for. They have a cute point to the toe and I know you can't tell from the picture but the red is kind of splotchy which gives them a different look. I'm totally a ballet flats person. I can swoon over heels all day long but if we're honest I don't really wear them that often. I only wear them when I go out which is a small portion of mylife. The time I spend going out to dinner, working, or running errands on the weekend far outweighs the time that I would actually wear pumps, so flats it is! Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Cajun Chicken Pasta

2009-09-24T20:12:00.005-04:00

This was a recipe that I had saved in my recipe box for awhile and I just got around to making it. It's a heavier dish but I used half and half to cut down a little on the fat and it was great. This recipe only serves 2 so keep that in mind if you're making this for a larger crowd. Although, there was plenty for me to have a serving, Casey to have a serving, and leftovers for him to take to work the next day. I took this picture on my new dining room table! I'm close to having that room finished so I can do before and afters, but that's another post :)

(Source: Allrecipes.com)

Servings: 2

4 ounces linguine pasta (I used wheat)

2 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves

2 teaspoons Cajun seasoning

2 tablespoons butter

1 red bell pepper, sliced

1 green bell pepper, sliced

4 fresh mushrooms, sliced (I omitted since we don't like mushrooms)

1 green onion, sliced

1 cup heavy cream (I used half and half)

1/4 teaspoon dried basil

1/4 teaspoon lemon pepper

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon garlic powder

1/8 teaspoon ground pepper

1/4 cup grated parmesan

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain.

Place the chicken and the Cajun seasoning in a plastic bag. Shake to coat. In a large skillet over medium heat, saute the chicken in butter or margarine until almost tender (5 to 7 minutes).

Add the red bell pepper, green bell pepper, mushrooms and green onion. Saute and stir for 2 to 3 minutes. Reduce heat.

Add the cream, basil, lemon pepper, salt, garlic powder and ground black pepper. I added a little bit of a water/cornstarch mixture to thicken the half and half and simmered for about 5 minutes until thick. Heat through.

Add the cooked linguine, toss and heat through. Sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese and serve.

Light Progress

2009-09-21T20:29:00.006-04:00

We decided to change out our two hallway lights this afternoon.

Pretty huh?

One down...

Fluffy puppy gets bored with home improvements. He protests by sitting in the middle of everything.

I do just as much as Casey. Don't be fooled. After he installed the first light and had to redo it I told him that behind every man with a tool is a woman with instructions.

Both of them up and going. Much better!

I also came home to my candle exchange gift! I joined an online Fall exchange and we decided to do candles this year. I just mailed mine off today so I hope my receiver likes the ones I picked out. I got a great deal on soy candles that were being discontinued. My sender gave me a spiced cider candle and a harvest spice cake candle. They smell great and make me excited for the coming of Fall which is tomorrow ahhhhh....

Just one last picture from the Tech game on Saturday as we were leaving. We tailgated early and had a great time and we're heading back for the Boston College game in a couple of weeks. Most people know I'm not a big football fan, but I do like the socializing aspect of games ;)

After the game we came home and crashed. We were dogsitting this past weekend so we just let the dogs play while we napped on and off. I managed to get motivated to put a roast on Sunday and I'm sure we'll have that again sometime this week. We just finished up an easy dinner (taco night) and I'm blogging inbetween the premiere of House tonight. Oh how I've missed you Fall tv.

New Layout and Playing Catchup!

2009-09-16T19:13:00.007-04:00

In case you have noticed I've had Mrs. LauraJean over at LJKC Design take a shot at helping my sad little blog become a little more personalized and I love it! She even worked around some quirky issues with my blog so I really appreciate all of the work that she put into it. If your blog needs a face lift, follow the link above to get more info about her pricing and to check out some more layouts she's done!

I decided to do a running list of some of the things that we've done since we moved in since it's been such a long time since I last blogged. Some of these things are very small or seemed very small but certainly took a good amount of our time. We're really having a good time making this house our home and we look forward to future projects and DIY work b/c I think we're both really enjoying learning how to do some of these things together. It definitely doesn't hurt your marriage to take on a new task together or to learn to do something. The sense of accomplishment you feel together is pretty awesome! Anyway, back to my list:

First thing before we even moved in was changing out the hideous appliances. We got a new Samsung refrigerator and a Whirpool Gold oven and dishwasher.

Before (listing pic):

After:

If you look at the before we had a white hood over the range and we wanted to try to maximize our counterspace until we can add cabinets so we had a custom cabinet company contract on the side to pop our cabinet out of the wall and cut about 6 inches off of it. The guy did really great work and you can't even tell the doors or the cabinet had been cut. He also stayed around and installed the microwave in about 30 minutes. You can tell he does a lot of those.

We've definitely been enjoying our deck that extends along the entire backside of the house. The previous owners left a white patio set that had a round table with 8 chairs and a side table. We wanted to take advantage of all of the pieces so we decided to give it a good cleaning and replace the cushions. I found a great deal at Plow & Hearth for replacement Sunbrella cushions. We intended to paint it black to update the set a bit but the white started to grow on us after we replaced the cushions so we'll see how we feel next year.

Before (another listing pic):

After:

Here's a shot from the other side of the deck and Tuck all up in the middle of the shot.

One of the first things we did was replace the locks on our doors so we just decided to replace the doorknobs and update the wonderful brass with nickel.

Before:

Here's the after that I just took so you can see my Fall wreath too :)

This next project was one that took the most 'learning'. We are not electricians and we haven't even replaced a light. When we moved in, our 3 bedrooms and living room had no light fixtures. We got a family friend to help us wire ceiling fans in our bedroom and the guest bedroom and a light fixture in the 3rd bedroom. It inspired me to learn more about it and tackle our lovely beige faceplates on our outlets and switches.

At first I honestly thought it was just all a faceplate and we could replace them for $.50 a piece. No problem. I realized that the actual switch and actual outlet would remain almond so we would have to figure out how to do some of the wiring. I did some reading online and it seemed easy. Black to Brass, White to Silver, Ground wire to the green screw. I figured we could handle three wires until we took out an outlet armed with our new supplies, Lowes knowledge, and wiring book and saw seven wires. We have so many due to our outlets being attached to light switches (and we actually know how to undo this in the bedrooms now that we don't need to have lamps anymore!).

It only took one call to the electrician at first and then we got into a rhythm, working a room at at a time. We've finished the entire downstairs (we even did a dimmer and a GFI) and now we have the upstairs to tackle.

Here's the old face plate compared to the new white ones. I know it's not a big thing but I've read that it's the little things like outlets and brass to nickel that can make your home seem newer and actual help your return out when you're trying to sell. These are the things that aren't that expensive to do so if it will help us out one day when it's time to sell then it's definitely worth looking into.

This is the new dimmer switch (beside an old switchplate just to show the difference) that Casey installed. The dimmer slides along the side and then you can just flip the switch on and off and adjust the side to your preference.

Tuck loves his new home. Loves it. Our landing that leads to the upstairs has a window right at the landing level so he can just sit there all day and watch the activity in the cul de sac :) I usually attach him to a bush when I'm outside weeding and he's content to just lay outside. He also loves sitting on the back deck and watching the horses. There's much more activity here than watching the cars go by on our deck at the apartment haha

This first picture actually shows our new mulch. My wondeful mother in law actually helped me harness back some of the weeds and flowers that had overgrown while the house was vacant and I've tried to do pretty good with the upkeep. It looked like it had been awhile since all of the different beds had been mulched so 18 (eighteen!) bags of mulch later we (meaning casey) finished the front, the side, and even had extra to do a little landscaping around our mailbox. I'll take a picture of that in a separate blog post.

I've only had one casualty due to putting his tie out around the bushes in the front yard. I guess we didn't need that plant anyway

I feel accomplished now that I've shown you guys some of the things that we've been working on. We have a couple of small projects we want to tackle before the end of this year which are:

Finishing switching the outlets out

Installing a wall organization system in our garage

Replacing hopefully at least 2 of the toliets

Switching all of the brass knobs and hinges to new nickel levers like the ones below

I'll keep you guys updated on our progress and you'll hopefully see me blogging more actively now that I have a spring in my step from my new layout and now that we're feeling much more 'settled' than we were in July. I've got some rooms to reveal as they get closer to being finished and more home projects and recipes coming up so hopefully I won't be at a loss of things to write about.

Have a great weekend!

Bedroom Makeover

2009-07-18T11:07:00.008-04:00

I have definitely been MIA for awhile, but I figured my whole house buying post might explain a lot of the absence. We've definitely been busy the past couple of weeks, but it's a good kind of busy. Casey and I really enjoy doing stuff around the house and we're getting more and more settled. As I complete rooms I'll post pictures and so far the first completed room is our bedroom.

A lot of these pictures were taken in awful lighting, but hopefully you can get the idea. These are the before pictures of the room. You can see the swatches on the wall. I've always wanted a dark gray room, but dark colors can be a slippery slope so we definitely took our time in the painting department and ironically enough didn't use any of those colors.

Another before picture facing the windows.

An after picture. We had no lighting at all upstairs so we had to get lighting/ceilling fans wired in all of the bedrooms. We ended up going with Benjamin Moore's Timberwolf for the wall color and we finally upgraded our falling apart full bedroom suit to this one.

This is facing the windows. We hung shelves up with a couple of black and white frames on the wall to the right and we ordered thermal white panels to go on the windows.

Facing the left wall. We hung an anniversary print to the left and to the right is a seaside print that I ordered from Etsy.

This is facing the back of the room. Our close is to the right and our bathroom is to the left.

I have before and afters of our closet as well. Apparently when this house was built boards were nailed to the drywall and these shelves were mounted to them and then painted over. We didn't feel like these shelves were utilizing the closet space very well so we ripped them out. Ripping out boards attached to the wall led to a bunch of holes in our wall, which led to a bunch of patching. Once we patched, we had to paint... When you give a mouse a cookie.

This is the closet painted and with the Rubbermaid shelving system that we installed.

This is the closet with our clothes and shoe racks inside.

We still are going to install a couple of shelves above the nook where our clothes hamper is to the left.

Thanks for looking :)

Happy Anniversary to Us

2009-06-07T21:58:00.003-04:00

At this time one year ago I was dancing with my husband and wrapping up the night at our reception. Some days it feels like it was just yesterday and some days it feels like it was forever ago.

I think we've had a lot of things pop up that have made this year interesting :) but we've made it through it and we're also going on our 8th year together. I'm thankful to have such a patient, loving person to spend the rest of my life with.

I'm cautiously saying...

2009-05-23T11:21:00.005-04:00

That we're going to be homeowners! and it's all moved along incredibly quick I might add. We were really wanting to wait until July/August to buy but we were still looking in case anything popped up that we loved and we saw this home once and made an offer.

It almost didn't work out for us. I called our realtor to accept the seller's counteroffer (which we were very happy with) and the seller's realtor beeped in to say that another offer had just come in on the home. Apparently the home was priced very well to begin with but they decided to drop the price of the home $5k to move along the process. When they dropped the price it fell into our search criteria and people started showing a lot of interest in the home (including us).

We formally put in an offer on Tuesday night and we had to wait until Wednesday to find out if the seller's accepted our offer or the other offer. We got the call at one o'clock on Wednesday telling us that we got the home! We're both so excited but we know that we still have a few hoops to jump through. We have the inspection on Tuesday and we'll feel a lot better after we get that over with.

There are a few things we'd like to do, but the home is relatively new so it's definitely move in ready. We've had a really positive experience so far with the sellers, our realtor, and lender so I hope it continues to go well. I told Casey this all feels surprisingly non-stressful haha. We're set to close on June 30th but I know that's subject to change. Here are some pictures I was able to pull from the listing.

Things I Love

2009-04-08T17:13:00.014-04:00

I love when people can vouch for beauty products. I know everyone is different, but I'm more likely to try something if someone else has had luck with it. So I'm going to go through a list of products that I really like and maybe some things that I'm still searching for. So maybe that's where you guys can help out!

Speak of helping out, why oh why are my blogger columns all wonky? Any ideas, anyone, anyone??

Anyway, on to the fun stuff.

Face Wash- I've been using Philosphy's Purity Made Simple for the past year and I really like it and my face has only gotten better since I've used it. I know the price tag at $32 can be a little scary, but I bought an 8 oz container (for $20) last April and I just went to see how much I have left and I've only used 1/3 of the bottle since then and I wash my face every night. It may not last you that long, but it surely goes a long way and I think it's b/c the wash isn't thick in consistency.

Moisturizer- Another Philosophy product here and it's Hope in a Jar. They now have Hope in a Jar with SPF 20 which I plan to get next, but I put this on day and night and it makes my skin so smooth and it has a nice clean smell.

Spot Treatment: I have tried everything to clear my face up. I've been on antibiotics, prescription face cream, Proactiv, etc.. You name it, I've tried it. A couple of years ago I just happened to switch my foundation and add a spot gel at night and miraculously my face has been clear since then. The spot gel that I still love and use is Neutrogena Rapid Clear Acne Defense Lotion and I've had a lot of luck with this in the past and I still use it as needed.

Foundation- Bare Minerals. I know there are a lot of people that don't have luck with Bare Escentuals, but I don't think I could ever go back to liquid now that I've gotten used to the light feeling of this makeup. As I said earlier, I really attribute my face clearing up to the switch over to the mineral makeup and I really encourage people to try it. I do wear a little bit of liquid concealer underneath if I feel like I need it in a specific area so I feel like I have plenty of coverage. Don't let the $25 price tag scare you away. I would think that for good liquid foundation you may pay the same amount, except that this large jar can last me almost a year and I use a decent amount each day.

Concealer- The concealer that I use underneath the powder if I feel too naked or if I just have a day where I need a little more coverage is Almay's Clear Complexion Concealer. It has a little bit of salicyclic acid in it as well which helps combat your face breaking out so that you don't feel so heavy from the liquid aspect. If I don't use this then I use Bare Mineral's Well Rested powder to tone down anything that I need to. It says that it's for eyes, but it's great for blemishes or redness as well.

Blush- I'm not entirely sold on any blush right now. I love a Stila blush that I have that is in a ready made pallette but I have no clue what the actual color is. I also have a MAC blush (Plum Foolery) that gives me good color, but not the shimmer that the Stila blush has.

Eyeshadow- I like MAC's colors. Grand Entrance, Flip, and 100 Strokes are all great together or you can wear Grand Entrance or Flip on their own. I do love Bareminerals (although the loose powder takes longer to apply), Stila's colors, and Smashbox (especially the trios). I don't have a must have color, but I would love any recommendations that people are drawn to. Eyeshadows are one of my most favorite things to play with.

Eyeliner- This is a cheap one. I've always loved Cover Girl's Perfect Point eyeliner. I have tried more expensive brands and I still come back to this one. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Mascara- This is another one that I'm not entirely sold on. I'm using MAC's Zoom Lash right now in combination with Maybeline's Lash Discovery (Love it!). I like this mascara ok, but I still feel a little clumpy.

Lipgloss: I love love love Poof by Bare Escentuals. You can put a dot in the middle of your lips and it makes your lips looks so much bigger or you can just wear it as a regular gloss the way I do, but I think it's the perfect color.

Eyelash Curler- I have a cheap one that is insanely gross and needs replacing, anyone have suggestions?

I may add some more products that I like in another post or add some colors as I find things that work but maybe some of you guys will be encouraged to try some of this stuff if you were on the fence. I also hope you'll have some suggestions for me. I'm truly a girly girl at heart. I love this stuff.

Bananas + Chocolate = Yum!

2009-04-05T19:32:00.004-04:00

Jenny posted a recipe for Roasted Banana Brownie bites over on Picky Palate the other day and I've just been eyeing a bunch of bananas that I've had waiting for them to ripen. They finally seemed good to go on Friday so I took off to Bed Bath and Beyond and got some mini muffin tins. If you've never used a mini muffin tin, they are so stinkin cute that I want to make everything into mini versions now.

Anyway back to the actual recipe. These are absolutely amazing. I had plans to give these away and they've been very well received and gobbled down =) Go make these!

Roasted Banana Bread Brownie Bites
(Source: Picky Palate)

3 large ripe bananas, sliced into 1/2 inch slices
3 Tablespoons cold butter, cut into pieces
3 Tablespoons packed light brown sugar

1 brownie mix, 9x13 inch size
1/4 Cup water
3 eggs

1/2 Cup chocolate chips
2-3 Tablespoons heavy cream

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Place sliced bananas into a baking dish. Place butter evenly over bananas and sprinkle brown sugar on top. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden and bubbly. Remove and let cool for 10 minutes.

2. Reduce oven to 350 degrees F. Place brownie mix, water, eggs and bananas into a large mixing bowl. Mix until just combined. Scoop mixture into mini cupcake pan or mini cheesecake pan about 3/4 way full. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean from center.

3. Melt chocolate chips into a microwave safe bowl. Stir to smooth then add heavy cream until glossy and smooth. Dip brownie bites into chocolate and place an M&M in the center. Serve warm or room temperature.

Puppy Love

2009-03-28T18:20:00.007-04:00

This is what I see when I'm laying in the floor and I look up onto the couch above me. This makes me smile.

I really love this dog.

I'm so sorry if you're tired of pictures of my dog, but this is what I do on the weekends. I blog about what I do. I apologize I'm not more interesting.

On another note we did decide to redo the wall behind our couch. We've had these shelves up since we moved in, but I wanted to do something a little more updated.

I framed one of my FIL's photographs and ordered some sconces from Etsy to frame the outside. I love the way this turned out and I love the mix of the modern against the colonial look of the sconces. What do you guys think? My only worry is that the picture is too small for the wall. We'll have color on the wall when we get a home so I'm hoping that it won't make everything feel so blank and wide open.

I hope you're all having a good weekend. I took off on Monday, which gives me a nice 3 day weekend w/ Case =) I think as long as we're saving for a home we probably won't be able to go on a vacation this summer, so I think we'll have a lot of long weekends or weekend trips in our future this summer. In a way it'll be nice to take some time off here and there instead of using it all up at once. Vacations can be stressful when you're trying to finish everything up before you leave and the days coming back are not pleasant. Thinking about checking my e-mail after 2.5 weeks off for my wedding makes me break it out hives. Not FUN.

Hope you're all having a good weekend =)

Sesame Chicken

2009-03-25T22:15:00.004-04:00

Um, YUM! I automatically added this to my recipe rotation. I served it over brown rice and had every intention of adding some sliced peppers and onions, but I ran out of time and got very flustered in the kitchen (that NEVER happens, hah). This isn't one of my light recipes by any means, but it was worth it.

I got this recipe from clstar over at Cook Like a Champion.

Sesame Chicken

(Source: Cook Like a Champion)

1 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. toasted sesame seeds, divided
1 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. Chinese five-spice powder
1.5 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 package chicken breast strips, cut into chunks
8 tbsp. teriyaki sauce
6 tbsp. honey

oil for frying

In a large Ziplock bag, combine flour, 1/4 c. sesame seeds, black pepper, red pepper and Chinese spice. Place chicken in bag and shake to coat.

Heat oil in large skillet or wok over medium-high heat. Place chicken into skillet and brown on both sides, about 5 minutes per side. Remove chicken from skillet and empty excess oil from pan.

Reduce heat to low and return chicken to skillet. Mix in teriyaki sauce, honey and 1/4 c. sesame seeds, and stir until sauce thickens. Serve over rice.

Grilled Ham Slices

2009-03-19T21:38:00.003-04:00

I found this recipe on Allrecipes and it's quick to make and it doesn't involve many ingredients at all. I used ham steaks, but you can use whatever pieces of ham you would like. I also usually halve the sauce and it's more than enough. I threw together some twiced baked potatoes as a side and it was a great meal. I also used my grill pan due to the lack of our outdoor space. Soon we will have our outdoor space. Soon!

Grilled Ham Slices
(Source: Allrecipes)

1 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/3 cup prepared horseradish
2 slices ham

Preheat grill and lightly oil grate or grill pan.

In a small bowl, mix together the brown sugar, lemon juice, and horseradish

Heat the brown sugar mixture in the microwave on high heat 1 minute, or until warm.

Score both sides of the ham. Place on prepared grill and baste continuously with brown sugar mixture while grilling. Grill each side for around 6 minutes per side or until desired doneness.

Baked Oatmeal

2009-03-15T16:13:00.004-04:00

I found this recipe on Chelle's blog over on Brown Eyed Baker. She got the recipe originally from Cooking Light. I subscribed to Cooking Light last week b/c I'm really trying to incorporate more light recipes into my rotation. My biggest challenge is finding something that I can take to work that will fill me up that is somewhat good for me. Casey and I both usually grab something processed, whether it be granola bars, pop tarts, or breakfast bars. I saw that Chelle would use this oatmeal throughout the week for breakfast every morning.

Once this is finished cooling, I'm going to portion it out into enough little containers to last Casey and I for the week and all we'll have to do when we get to work is reheat the oatmeal. I already snuck a taste and it was really good! I think the oats will do a good job of keeping me full and you should see more light recipes on my blog in the future and I'll start tagging these recipes as light so that it will be easier to find. I hope I get a lot of new recipe ideas when my magazine starts to come.

Baked Oatmeal
(Source: Cooking Light)

2 cups uncooked oats
½ cup packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup raisins (or dried fruit of your choice)
1 tablespoon chopped walnuts (or nut of your choice, I used pecans)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1½ cups milk
½ cup applesauce
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1 large egg, beaten
Cooking spray

1. Preheat oven to 375°.

2. Combine the first 5 ingredients in a large bowl. Combine the milk, applesauce, butter, and egg in a separate bowl. Add milk mixture to oat mixture; stir well. Pour oat mixture into an 8-inch square baking dish coated with cooking spray. Bake for 20 minutes. Serve warm.

He Loves Me

2009-03-12T16:39:00.006-04:00

I know this b/c I came home today to a box of Lush bath supplies for no apparent reason other than he loves me =)

I had never heard of or been to a Lush store until I was in Hawaii for our honeymoon. The smell of all of the bath products wafted out on to the strip in Maui and I went in and spent a long time smelling everything I could get my hands on. I've bought several things since then and I'm a big fan.

All of their products are handmade and natural. The packaging is very minimal and it's mostly recycled paper or the products come 'naked' if they're bars.

In my package today I had..

a Vanilla Fountain Bath Bomb (the Honey bee one is awesome too)

a Milk chocolate/toffee Bubble Bar

and a Lavendar Chamomile Dreamtime Bath Melt

The great thing about Lush is that they'll throw in a few small samples of other products to try out. It's a good way to advertise b/c I had the Honey I Washed the Kids Soap in my package today and I would definitely buy it now...

I love products where I feel like people really use their money to put into quality instead of the packaging. I also love the fact that everytime I get a whiff inside a box it makes me think of Hawaii.

It's these little acts of kindness that just make your day =)

Spring Forward

2009-03-08T21:18:00.006-04:00

Why didn't anyone tell me that the time changed this weekend? I woke up this morning (and obviously missed church) and could not figure out why my computer and cell phone had a different time than everything else. It was ironic that the weekend we spring forward, we have the most beautiful weather. It's more like Spring trickery, b/c I think it's calling for freezing rain next weekend. I have snow boots beside my flip flops at the front door. I'm so confused!

Either way I thoroughly enjoyed the warm weather while it was around. My old college roommate, Maggie, came down Friday night and it was really good to see her. I think it's been since last Fall that we've seen each other. We actually didn't meet in college, in fact I think we've known each other for about 10 years.

We met Kara at the park on Saturday and we took the dogs out to let them run, but I think they were in shock from the warm weather. It was actually really hot weather and they were both panting and not being very active so we didn't stay long. We went downtown for dinner and Maggie left after dinner to head back home. Casey and I just watched movies and I let myself fall asleep entirely too early.

In case you didn't know haha, a nickname for our town is "The Star City" and someone erected a ginormous star up on one of the mountains in the area in 1949. It's actually the world's largest freestanding man-made illuminated star. That's an interesting claim to fame right there. It's cool to see at night, but there's an outlook that makes it worth viewing during the day. It overviews our downtown area and we drove up there today with Tuck.

After that we rode over to PetSmart and let Tuck pick out a toy and I made him an appointment to get his haircut on Friday. We also drove by another house on the way home. I mentioned in a previous post about a home that we really liked and we listed the drive to and from work as a negative factor. We never put an offer in, but technically we still could if the bank is still holding the previous offer that was made by another couple. Let me list some pros and cons of the homes to give you an idea of what our concerns are.

First Home:

Pros: Good area and school system, low taxes, open floor plan, nice backyard, private area, big basement, big garage, nice parking area, low price (went into foreclosure)

Cons: Further from work, would use interstate A LOT to get to most places, would need a ton of cosmetic work (bathrooms, kitchen, appliances, floors, walls torn down)

Current Home (that we're going to see tomorrow):

Pros: Open floor plan, good area and school system, nice parking area, close to work and convenient area in general, very private wooded lot at the end of a cul-de-sac, nice deck, nice rec room on lower level, work needed would be minimal (flooring and bathrooms need updating), lower price (not as low as the first, but still a foreclosure)

Cons: On a steep hill, wooded lot doesn't allow for much yard even though there is over an acre of land, higher taxes than first home, smaller than the first home, kitchen and all bedrooms are on the upper-level

I know most of you don't care about our housing concerns, but it helps me to lay everything out. It doesn't really help to say this house has more pros than the other b/c some of those pros/cons are very important. We're not going to make an offer on the first home, but I compared the two b/c of all of the homes we've looked at, we've liked that one the most. We're really interested in foreclosures, nice areas, and homes that we can do some type of work to b/c I want good resale value. I don't know that we'll be in this home for 5-7 years, so I would prefer to be able to build some value into it so that if we did have to sell sooner, we would be in a good position.

So that's our situation right now. We're seriously looking, but being pretty picky. Work needing to be done to a home doesn't scare me at all (in fact I can't wait to make things the way I would want them), but we are picky about things related to the resale. I guess I think that's financially a smart way to be picky though. The reason there aren't tons of houses that we like is b/c we've narrowed down where we want to live to 2 or 3 really good areas so things don't pop up extremely often, but I know we'll find the home we're meant to.

Sorry about the house rambling, but it is a big part of our time and concentration right now so you'll probably be seeing a lot of it in my posts =

On another note, earlier today I was making pico de gallo, and listening to music with the deck door open and I could hear birds just singing their hearts out on the porch. It seems like everyone, even the birds, were just absolutely loving this weather today. Now I'm going to have a ridiculously hard time going to bed tonight with this time change and all of the sweet tea I've consumed. Ah well, it's worth it.

Potato Soup

2009-03-02T18:45:00.004-05:00

I feel like I'm bombarding you guys with posts tonight, but I have the time to catch up on this stuff and I have my new computer finally! I'm actually currently eating the recipe that I'm about to post, so that's up to date blogging at it's finest.

I have no clue where I got this recipe from, but I've used it for a long time and it's really easy to make. The soup always turns out the right consistency which was what I had a hard time with when looking for a potato soup recipe.

Potato Soup

6 medium potatoes diced (I used 4 and it was plenty)
2 carrots diced
3 celery sticks diced (I usually omit the celery)
2 qts of water
1 onion chopped
6 tablespoons margarine (I used butter b/c I was out and I also just bought butter in bulk from Sam's, I'm embarrassed that I just admitted that.. anyway)
6 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 1/2 c. milk

In large kettle, cook potatoes, carrots, and celery until tender (around 20 minutes). Drain and reserve liquid and set vegetables aside. In same kettle, saute onion in butter until soft. Stir in flour, salt, and pepper.

Gradually add milk, stirring constantly, until thick. Gently stir in cooked vegetables. Add 1 cup or more (I added around 2 cups) of reserved liquid until soup is desired consistency. Add additional salt and pepper as needed.

Carrot Cake

2009-03-02T18:28:00.005-05:00

This surely satisfied my craving for carrot cake on Sunday. I used Pioneer Woman's recipe, check out her post for the recipe and definitely make it if you're on the fence. The pecan cream cheese icing was verrrry good.

As far as notes about this recipe, I didn't change a thing. I did bake mine in a bundt pan instead of a 9x13 so my baking time was closer to the 50 minutes

Also, please excuse the TV in the background. I'm contemplating getting a light box to help with the photography, but I'm still looking around. If you see any great deals on them, let me know b/c I'm still justifying the expense to myself.

Tagged

2009-03-02T17:59:00.006-05:00

I was tagged by Mrs. Laker over on Sweet Country Lovin' and the rules are:

Open the 6th picture folder on your computer, open the 6th photo and blog it. Write something about it. Then tag 6 more people to do the same.

This photo would be a typical night at college. It was taken during the Spring of our first year (we transferred in as Juniors). I don't have anything more to say about it, but it does make me think of college and how much fun we had.

I may do this randomly b/c I love looking at old photos. I'll probably use the random number generator to help me pick which folder I should look in.

Now I'm supposed to tag 6 more people, but it looks like most everyone has been tagged that I was going to tag. If you haven't been tagged and you would like to do this, then let's just say I tagged you =)

Snow Day

2009-03-02T16:45:00.006-05:00

We finally, finally got some snow this winter! We got about 5 inches of snow and a nice layer of ice which was enough to make driving impossible. We weren't able to get our cars out until about 4:00 today so needless to say I worked from home today and Casey took a day of PTO.

This was Tuck's first snow so I followed along outside to take some pictures.

I also took a video, but it didn't go quite as well as I had hoped. I ended up throwing my camera all over the place which allowed a nice shot of my monkey pajamas. It was incredibly windy when we were outside so I don't think that helped anything.

I don't get to work from home often so it's always nice when I get to. I stayed curled up in my pajamas and worked from Casey's computer most of the day. Tuck thoroughly enjoyed us being here and he took his spot on the armrest while I was on my laptop.

I'm making potato soup tonight and I'll post the recipe if I manage to get a picture. I also made Beer Bread to go along with it. Yum, there's not much else in life that makes me more content than soup on a snow day. I also have a carrot cake recipe I'll post later too. Happy Monday =)

Interesting

2009-02-23T09:52:00.004-05:00

I was reading Pioneer Woman's blog and I was looking at her cooking section earlier today. She actually had Southern Living over to the lodge at her ranch to feature some of her food and to photograph it for an article. You should really check out this post if you like food, photography, or have an interest in the way magazines operate.

I'm completely fascinated by the work of the 'food stylist'. Pioneer Woman says that would be her dream job and I just think I found mine too. You would get to go to different locations and style food and make it look pretty. I love making things look pretty. Also the food can't talk back to you when you style it, unlike other models.

I don't feel like I made any blogworthy meals last week (that haven't already been posted). I made another attempt at homemade pasta sauce with meatballs. Last time the meatballs were pretty good, but the sauce was not and this time the sauce was great but the meatballs were bland. I think if I just tweak the first meatball recipe a little bit and use the second sauce then I'll have a winner. Tonight I'm making this roast for dinner. In fact I turned the crockpot on when I left the house and all I have to do when I get home is add some vegetables. If you haven't made this roast I suggest you make it soon b/c it's goooood.

Our weekend was pretty standard. We had pizza night Friday, hung out with some friends and played games Saturday, and had a lazy day on Sunday. We actually looked at two houses on Friday night, but I forgot to post about that. We really really really love the first house that we looked at. It would need a lot of work, but we're looking past that at the potential. The only issue is location. It's actually in an awesome location, the re-sale would be great. It's just a bit further away from work than I would like and it would make going home at lunch really hard. Tuck is ok some days left alone, but I don't know that I would be willing to say that I would be ok with me never being able to go home at lunch 5 days a week, all year round. If the location was a little closer, we would hands down put down an offer and it actually just got foreclosed on so the price is dropping even lower, making it even more tempting...

I'll keep you updated. It probably didn't help to go get a bunch of kitchen design and home improvement magazines and look through them yesterday and decide how we wanted to re-do it :-\ It may just not be meant for us, but it's something we're definitely thinking about. This isn't unusual though, we've fallen in love with homes before but there's always been 'something' that holds us back. I don't know if we're being to picky or if we just haven't found the right home yet. A home is a big decision and we're not taking it lightly and that would probably explain why we've worked with our realtor for a year now (and 2 months). She's patient with us though and she never pressures us. I don't know how I went from college and having to make decisions about a class schedule to getting married and making huge choices like buying a home. Time has gone by rather quickly.

I hope everyone is havin a good Monday!

Chocolate Mascarpone Brownies

2009-02-16T21:35:00.004-05:00

I wanted something rich and chocolatey for Valentine's day... and these definitely fit the bill. I found these over on Bakerella's website and the original recipe is from RecipeZaar. I would suggest that you cut these into tiny squares b/c with the rich chocolate brownie AND the ganache, they are definitely better eaten in smaller portions. It's worth it though, and they're so good.

RecipeZaar mentions using good quality chocolate for this recipe. I ended up using Ghiradellli, but all I had for cocoa powder was Hersheys. I still thought they were great. I've also never even heard up mascarpone cheese before, or cooked with it for that matter. It's almost like cream cheese but it has less of of a sour taste to it. I can see why it would be used for baking and I'd like to try it in some other recipes. The only drawback is that it's a little more expensive.

Chocolate Mascarpone Brownies
(Source: RecipeZaar)

Brownies
1 cup unsalted butter
3 ounces best-quality semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup mascarpone cheese, softened
3 large eggs, at room-temperature
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

Ganache
6 ounces best-quality semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
6 tablespoons whipping cream
3 tablespoons unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 325°F; have ready a buttered 8-inch square glass cake pan.

In a small saucepan, melt the butter and bring it to just below a boil; have the chopped chocolate in a mixing bowl--pour the hot butter over the chocolate and let stand for 30 seconds.

Stir until chocolate is completely melted.

Sift in the sugar and cocoa powder (I do this through a sieve, not with a sifter).

With a wooden spoon, beat in the mascarpone, eggs (30 minutes on the counter brings them to room temperature) and vanilla, mixing until smooth.

Gently fold the flour and salt into the batter.

Pour batter into prepared pan and spread evenly--this is important since, if the batter isn't spread evenly, it won't bake evenly.

Place into preheated oven and bake for 45 to 50 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean (45 minutes did it for me).

Place pan on a cooling rack and let brownies cool for 10-15 minutes, while you now make the ganache.

Place chopped chocolate in a mixing bowl; in a small saucepan, bring the cream and the butter to just below the boiling point, over medium heat.

Pour this hot cream-butter mixture over the chocolate and let stand for 30 seconds, then stir until smooth; ganache is now ready to use and can be spread over the brownies.

Should you wish to wait a bit, make sure the ganache is warm when you spread over the brownies, as it does firm up which makes spreading hard to do.

Don't cut into the brownies until ganache has firmed up; I find it best to put the brownies into the fridge to speed this along; once the ganache is firm the brownies do not need to be kept in the fridge, though.

Valentine's Day continued...

2009-02-16T19:07:00.007-05:00

Lilies are such a nice Valentine's Day gift but from now on I will be cutting the stamen/pollen whatever it's called out of the middle of it. I turned around to find Tuck's face completely dusted on Saturday.

::sigh::

I tried using a wet cloth to wipe it off, but making it wet just seemed to turn it into a homemade dye. We ended up breaking down and giving him a bath. Our Valentine's Day was off to a good start.

We had Lillian here with us for part of the morning.

She tried to make Tuck feel better about his yellow face and spent some time with him in his crate.

The bath seemed to make it better. Here's a picture of him sitting at my feet while I blog. You can barely see the yellow on his nose now. He just looks like he got some lovely yellow highlights

Aside from the stamen incident we had a really good Valentine's Day. After we gave him a bath we got ready and went to dinner. I got a steak with a demi glace sauce and Casey got a bleu cheese steak over top of garlic smashed potatoes. We grabbed some coffee and then came back to the house and watched some movies. I also made some mascarpone cheese brownies (YUM and I'm going to post the recipe after this post).

All in all it was a good Valentine's Day. We don't normally do anything over the top. We just usually go grab some dinner. I gave Casey a giftcard to Dick's and he gave me some bath stuff along with my lilies. We both had the day off today and we went to a movie and relaxed for most of the day. We went and looked at a house that we really really like that is a foreclosure (I'm pretty sure). We've been looking at it for the past week and we sent an e-mail to our realtor requesting that we see it. I hope that we end up liking the inside and I'll keep you posted if we decide to make an offer.

There's one more thing I have to add... I placed an order for one of these last night in bronze =)

My computer lasted me well through college but a couple of incidents have made it kind of a pain to use lately, mainly that it won't run off of battery at all. They shipped a free printer with it too and I think that ships out tomorrow. I ordered the laptop off of the HP site to save some money, but that means that it won't ship out until the 24th since they have to build it to my specifications. I still can't wait to have a new computer!

Happy Valentine's Day!

2009-02-14T10:15:00.004-05:00

Most people hate this holiday and think that you don't need one special day to show someone that you love them. I'm a big goob and I see absolutely nothing wrong with sitting a day aside for this, b/c unfortunately we get so caught up in life and rushing around that we may not always make the time for each other that we should. If this is one day that people decide to go out or sit at home and have dinner together and just enjoy each others company then I'm all for it =)

My parents intended to go out to dinner for their Valentine's Day dinner last night, but somehow Lillian came along for the ride so we went with them to help with her so that they could enjoy dinner. It was nice to see my parents and it was interesting to try to occupy a baby in a restaurant. At one point mom was laughing at Casey trying to hold her while I tried to get lasagna in her mouth without losing the lasagna and stabbing her with the fork. We have a long way to go with figuring out babies :-\

I also had a little surprise at work yesterday. Every year I tell Casey not to get flowers and every year he sends them anyway and I always enjoy them =) This year I tried to point out that we would be at home together all day so sending flowers would be pointless and to save his money. He took it upon himself to send them to work on Friday and it definitely caught me off guard but it was a really nice gesture. Sorry for the crappy cell phone pick but here they are on my desk at work.

I'm not much of a roses girl, but I absolutely love lilies =) Casey is still asleep, but I'm going to make breakfast whenever he gets up and then we're just going to hang out until dinner tonight. He made reservations earlier this week (he's really on the ball this year!) and we'll head out to dinner and possibly go see a movie. He told me we could see the Shopaholic movie if I wanted to, but I don't know if I'll submit him to that or not haha.

I'm actually going to make mascarpone brownies with ganache today too and I'll post the recipe later. I really wanted a more 'gourmet' recipe for today and I've never worked with mascarpone cheese before so we'll see how it goes! I'll post pictures later.

Everyone enjoy their day and just enjoy being married/in love/engaged/dating/smitten with someone for today =)

Beef Vegetable Soup

2009-02-14T09:55:00.004-05:00

This recipe is kind of a comination of the way my mom makes vegetable soup and a couple of suggestions from the What's Cooking board. If you were one of the ones who helped me out with this recipe, let me know so I can give you some credit!

Beef Vegetable Soup
(Source: Mom & What's Cooking)

1 lb. beef stew meat
1/2 onion
1 can of corn
Large can of tomato juice
1 can diced tomatoes
1 c. fresh celery chopped
1 c. fresh carrot chopped
2 c. chopped diced potatoes
1 c. elbow macaroni

Brown stew meat for a couple of minutes in stock pot and then pour in enough water to cover beef and cook until meat is cooked through. Add in onion, corn, tomato juice, diced tomatoes, celery, carrot, potatoes, and macaroni. Cook until vegetables are tender and macaroni is done. Add salt and pepper to taste.

I accidently almost passed out from the heat in the bath tub on Thursday night so I may have accidently let my soup cook for too long b/c my macaroni was waaaaaaaaay past al dente. Just don't pass out in the bath tub and your soup should be fine. Otherwise this was exactly what I was looking for!

30 Things

2009-02-12T17:08:00.005-05:00

So, I'm sure we've all seen the '25 Random Things' note that has been floating around Facebook. I didn't know if I had 25 random thing that I could even think of, but it turns out I'm a very random person. I actually posted 30 because I wanted to be a non-conformist!

1. I'm a huge animal lover and am very passionate about that. I really want to get involved into fostering (dogs or cats) when Casey and I move into a house.

2. I'm very passive and I have a hard time standing up for myself. I try to let more assertive people rub off on me, but it doesn't work.

3. I don't claim to be a huge technology person, but I am extremely attached to my DVR, my tv, and my laptop.

4. The most relaxed I've ever been in my life was probably watching the sun set in Hawaii on our honeymoon.

5. I only crave sweet things for breakfast. I can't eat eggs, bacon, etc. until I've been awake for a very long time (usually around 11 or 12).

6. I've only had one car in my life. I realize how much I've grown up now that I could care less about having a nice or 'cool' car. I'm just so thankful that neither of us have car payments!

7. I'm an organizing nut and I love my labelmaker. I've already started to organize my pantry w/ tupperware and labels.

8. I think my grandma played an important part in helping me develop my love for cooking. I can distinctly remember her cracking open eggs and using her thumb to get all of the egg out of the shell b/c her mama taught her never to waste anything.

9. I love my dog more than a normal person should. I run late every morning b/c I love to crawl back into bed with him and snuggle.

10. Following along with #9, it's physically impossible for me to get up on time in the morning. You would be embarrassed to know what time I get up in relation to when I have to be at work. Luckily during college I mastered being able to shower, blowdry, get dressed, and put on makeup in like 10-15 minutes.

11. Tuck always thinks his butt is after him. For example if there is a loud sound he'll bite his butt like that's where the noise came from. I call him butt 90% of the time. Casey calls him face but I have no clue why. He probably has identity issues.

12. I dated my husband for 6.5 years before we got married. I haven't dated many people in my life b/c I've been with him since I was 16 and that's perfectly fine with me.

13. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be ready to be a mother. I'm pretty selfish with my time right now (I'm also only 23). I honestly think in my head when people tell me they're pregnant, "Did they just wake up one morning and decide they didn't want to sleep in for the rest of their life?!". Dramatic? Yes, but welcome to the way my brain works.

14. Casey and I carpool to work and when I take the car to lunch I forget where I parked 60% of the time. If we ever get a divorce it'll be over me forgetting where I parked the car.

15. I love my Uggs and don't care how ugly people think they are. Don't judge me until you've placed your bare foot into the soft innards of one of those boots.

16. If my dog doesn't like you for some reason, it makes me think twice b/c I think animals are a good judge of people.

17. I'm slightly claustrophobic. I'm currently searching for an endodontist that will knock me out to get my root canal b/c I freak out when I think about being held down in a chair for that long. I could care less about the drills or needles.

18. I take a bath almost every single day after work and read for awhile to unwind.

19. I am NOT a morning person. I do NOT like being talked to in the morning. Casey usually apologizes when he has to ask me a question in the morning b/c he knows how grouchy I am. I'm getting better though. We actually had a conversation this morning.

20. I can't wait to buy a home but I'll kind of miss being in our apartment. I took Tuck out yesterday and watched him run up to our neighbor and get his belly rubbed and then he ran up the steps and we ran into another neighbor and he was commenting on how he had learned to run up the steps (he used to not be able to do it). These people have kind of watched him grow up and that's cool to me.

21. I'm very close to my family and usually always talk to my mom or my sister every day.

22. I really want our next dog to be a pitbull and I can't stand the stigma people attach to that breed. I'm probably going to do an education post about them soon b/c they're so misunderstood and that makes me sad.

23. I guess along with #22, I really get irritated by people who have such strong opinions on things that they're uneducated about. It's ok to claim ignorance every now and then. I know I do.

24. I'm embarrassed to admit that I have a really hard time with God's plan for me. It amazes me that I can have so much faith in one week and in the same week completely have a breakdown about where my life is supposed to be going. I'm trying to work on this!

25. I'm such a lucky girl and I'm learning to know and appreciate this. I really couldn't ask for a better husband, family, and position in life (this is one of those weeks where my faith is good).

26. I really love hippos and I have a collection of stuffed hippos in my closet. Casey trys to show me the animal planet specials on how violent they are. That's one thing I like to claim ignorance on and I just change the channel.

27. I'm actually trying to gain a few pounds for the first time in my life. I don't think I'm thin by any means, but I've had to buy a couple of pairs of new pants that fit and I don't want to buy all new pants. I don't lose weight the healthy way. I'm a total stress weight loser and was down 13 lbs. in December. I'm unstressed and gaining it back now! I would much rather be my normal size and unstressed than a more ideal weight for the wrong reasons.

28. I despise change, but I'm fine once I get used to it. I've recently had some changes at work and at first I was a spaz about it, but I'm finally calming down and realizing that change can be good. In fact I spazzed the night before we left for our honeymoon b/c I didn't want to take the time off from work and get out of my routine to go to Hawaii! Weirdo alert!

29. I fall asleep to Friends almost every single night and Casey and I constantly quote it back and forth to each other.

30. I've grown to recognize certain homeless people downtown and some people in my building know them by name. The joys of working downtown.

There's my 30 random things. Love me or leave me =)

Barbeque Chicken

2009-02-11T21:23:00.004-05:00

This is my grandma's recipe and my mom used to make it all the time. It's so good and the chicken turns out very tender and just falls apart (as evidenced below in the picture). This is definitely a more tangy sauce and the onions really create a great flavor.

Barbeque Chicken

(Source: Grandma!)

1/2 c. water

1/4 c. vinegar

2 tbsp. brown sugar

1 tbsp. mustard

1 1/2 tsp. salt

3/4 tsp. pepper

1 onion sliced

1/4 c. butter

around 1.5 lbs of chicken (you can use breasts, legs, thighs, or a mixture)

1/2 c. ketchup

2 tbsp. worcestershire sauce

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In stock pot mix together water, vinegar, brown sugar, mustard, salt, pepper, onion, and butter. Bring to a boil and let boil for around 10 minutes. Then add ketchup and worcestershire sauce and mix together. Add pieces of chicken and try to cover the chicken w/ the sauce as much as possible (it won't be completely submerged).

Place stock pot in oven and cook for an hour checking chicken halfway through to turn and recoat with sauce.

Lillian's First Birthday

2009-02-10T21:41:00.005-05:00

I'll admit I went through a brief period this past week where I thought about stopping the whole blog thing. I was afraid I was going to run out of ideas, recipes, etc. and that people would just get bored with it. Casey encouraged me to keep up with it and I realized I could always post what we do that week/weekend even if it's not that exciting and it'll still be a document of our life. I'm always trying new recipes as well. I just need to get better about taking pictures before we devour it. You don't have to have an extraordinary exciting life to have a blog, because I certainly don't!

This past Saturday Casey, Kara, and I went home for my niece's first birthday. She's growing into such a little person. Sometimes I look at her and think that she's actually growing into a person that I'll be able to sit and have a conversation with one day. I'm blessed to have her in my life and I hope she's had a great first year of life. I hope that she knows that she'll always have her aunt and uncle to lean on for support and that if she gets mad at mom and dad, she can come stay with us =)

Casey, me and my mom waiting for people to arrive

The birthday girl with her mom and dad. My grandma made her #1 onesie.

Kara and Lillian

Little man keeping an eye on the scene

Opening her glow doll

More presents!

Her bath toys that my mom got her

and more...

Opening her Sophie the Giraffe from me and Casey

About to devour her piece of chocolate cake. I made her the cake from the Hershey website with their icing. She didn't really get any in her mouth, but she had fun playing in it. I enjoyed it at least! Casey also got a video of her playing in it that I'll have to post sometime this week.

We love you Lillian, Happy Birthday!

Superbowl Treats

2009-02-10T17:30:00.005-05:00

I made Dorie's blonde brownies and chocolatey football bites for the Superbowl and they were both so easy and good!

Chewy, Chunky Blondies

(Source: Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan)

2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 1/2 cups (packed) light brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

6 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate , chopped into chips (or 1 cup store bought chocolate chips) I used 1 cup of store-bought chips

1 cup butterscotch chips or Heath Toffee Bits I omitted these and added an extra 1/2 cup of store-bought chips

1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts I used pecans

1 cup sweetened shredded coconut I omitted this b/c Casey hates coconut =)

Center rack in the oven and preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter (I use Pillsbury flour baking spray) a 9x13 inch baking pan and put it on a baking sheet.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Beat butter on medium speed until smooth and creamy. Add both sugars and beat for another 3 minutes, or until well incorporated. Add the eggs one by one, beating for 1 minute after each addition, then beat in the vanilla. Reduce mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients, mixing just until they disappear into the batter. Using a rubber spatula, stir in the chips, nuts and coconut. Scrape batter into prepared pan and even out the top the best you can.

Bake for 40 minutes or until knife inserted into the center comes out clean. The blondies should pull away from the sides of the pan a little and the top should be a nice honey brown Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for about 15 minutes before turning the blondies out onto another rack. Invert onto a rack and cool the blondies to room temperature right side up.

Chocolatey Football Bites

(Source: Kraft)

6 squares Baker's semi-sweet chocolate

1/2 cup light corn syrup

1 tbsp. butter or margarine

1/2 tsp. vanilla

4 cups cocoa sweetened rice cereal

white decorating gel

Microwave chocolate, corn syrup, and butter in large microwaveable bowl on high 2 1/2 minutes, stirring after 1 1/2 minutes. Stir in vanilla.

Add cereal; mix well. Cool 10 minutes. Shape into 18 (3-inch long) footballs with moistened hands. Place on large sheet of wax paper and cool completely.

Use decorating gel to add laces. Let stand until gel is firm.

Happy Inauguration Day!

2009-01-20T19:53:00.006-05:00

I hope that however you voted, you can realize the historical importance of this day. I'm not a very eloquent writer, so it's hard for me to put into words what it feels like to have such an overwhelming pride for this country that just tugs on my heart. I got to feel that today and it's sad how little that happens now. It's like a stirring inside that reminds you what an awesome country we have and how far we have all come.

I think our new president has quite a job under his belt, but he's going to need all of our support. I haven't always liked past presidents but they are MY president and to turn on the leader of our country is a little counter productive when we're so concerned with moving ahead and growing.

I hope we can all get behind our new president and realize It IS a new day =) It feels good to have hope.

Garlic Knots

2009-01-09T20:33:00.004-05:00

Do you like the new layout? I'm trying out something new and I think I like it. I also need a blog header and since Casey has decided that he wants to learn Photoshop better, I'm giving him the task of designing my blog header. I get a header and he learns something new, we all win!

Now back to the recipe. I tried my hand at homemade pasta sauce and meatballs this week and it was interesting. It was good, but when you make pasta sauce out of whole tomatoes and crushed tomatoes your sauce tastes surprisingly tomatoey (weird huh?). I didn't like the sauce as a spaghetti sauce, but I think it would make a very good pizza sauce. When I find a pasta sauce that I really love I'll be sure to post the recipe. I did need a side for the spaghetti and meatballs so I took a chance at making garlic knots. They were so good! Casey absolutely loved them and he is actually eating a leftover one on the couch right now. They make a great side to any italian dish.

(Source: Amber's Delectable Delights adapted from King Arthur Flour)
Servings: 8 large rolls

Dough
3 cups bread flour
1/4 cup milk
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons instant yeast
1-1/4 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup + 2 tablespoons lukewarm water
Glaze
2-4 cloves peeled, garlic
2 tablespoons melted butter
1/4 teaspoon Pizza Seasoning or Italian seasoning, optional

1. For the dough - In the bowl of a stand mixer combine the dry ingredients together then add the olive oil, milk and water. Using the paddle attachment or dough hook, mix and knead to form smooth, elastic dough, adding additional water or flour as needed. Transfer the dough to a lightly greased bowl, cover it, and allow it to rise for about 1 hour, until it’s doubled in bulk.

2. Divide the dough into 8 pieces, and roll each into a rope about 10 inches long; tie each rope into a knot (if you click on Amber's link above, she has great pictures to show you how to tie the dough into knots). Place the knots on a lightly greased or parchment lined baking sheet, cover, and let rise for 45 minutes to about an hour, until very puffy looking.

3. To make glaze - Unpeel garlic cloves. Chop the garlic in a food processor (or you can use a garlic press), with the melted butter.

4. To bake - Bake the knots in a preheated 350°F oven for 15 to 18 minutes. They should be set, but only very lightly browned. Remove the knots from the oven, and brush or drizzle them with the seasoned butter. (You can reheat the butter briefly in the microwave, if it’s solidified).

Clean Cut

2009-01-09T20:00:00.005-05:00

This is the after picture of Tuck's haircut, he looks all cleaned up and they scooped out his eyes so that he can actually see what's going on in life.

I will address something else in this picture. We had a great idea last Wednesday during the beginning of our four day weekend to pull the mattress off of the bed in the spare bedroom and put it in the living room floor for the night to watch movies. This 'temporary' arrangement is currently where I'm blogging from right now. This bed has officially been in the living room for over a week. I like to pretend that Casey is the reason it's in the floor, but I am a fan. It's comfortable to watch tv on, I can bring my laptop down here, eat down here etc. Tuck loves it b/c he can hop on and off of it with ease and lay on my legs as evidenced belows. You can also see in the upper right hand corner where our tree was. We pushed our coffee table back there in order to keep things organized. We really have no excuse for our actions, we're just weird and we don't have many guests obviously.

Just in case you don't believe me, here's another picture of it. It rests right up against our couch almost like an extension of the couch. What grown people put a bed in their living room? My sister and her husband have a bed in their laundry room (and the sleep there every night) so maybe it runs in the family.

Here's another quick picture of us all dressed up before going to a wedding last weekend. We obviously spend so much of our time on a mattress in the floor that I have to show you pictures of us showered and all dressed up to prove that we're somewhat active members of society.

As far as other stuff going on in our life, we just signed another 6 month lease at our apartment. I'm actually a big fan of our complex. We know the people so well, we've had no problems here, it's well kept and fairly new, and it's convenient to our work. We've been getting e-mails from our realtor of extremely low interest rates being offered by a couple of local banks so we may start looking again. We planned to look in the Spring and our current lender said that she feels that rates will stay low through the first quarter of this year so I hope that she's right. We're keeping our eyes open now, but we definitely want to be a little more financially cushioned before we take that kind of leap. Our plans from last Fall were to hopefully be in a home by this Summer but if we see an awesome deal we might jump on it before then. I'll post any updates, but you can expect us to probably be here for the full remainder of our lease.

I also finished wedding photobooks! It only took 7 months! I'm quick, what can I say. We ordered two photobooks from MyPublisher and we'll give them both to each of our parents. We're going to make our own at some point. We have absolutely no proof of a wedding in this house. It's kind of sad. My FIL did give us a beautiful wedding picture of us printed out on canvas that I love, so there's one picture!

It's Friday night and I'm blogging, what a dork =) Friday has kind of established itself as our break night. Sometimes we order pizza or some other kind of food and rent movies and just hang out (on the mattress). It's something I look forward to by the end of the week. Having to be at work at 6:45 *really* takes a toll on you by Friday. I'm going to post a recipe I made earlier this week and then I'm going to relax for the night, have a good weekend!

Happy New Year! (a day late)

2009-01-02T11:00:00.004-05:00

I hope you all had a good New Year. We ended up going over to a friend's house and watching the ball drop. I'm glad we didn't go too far from home b/c it was entirely too cold!

I can't complain about 2008, it was actually a great year for us. We got married, we got to go to Hawaii, we got Tuck, my niece was born, and we both were lucky enough to have jobs and keep them during a sucky economy. I can't wait to see what 2009 brings us. I can probably assume it's going to be much calmer than 2008, but I may be proven wrong. As far as resolutions... I've made a couple of personal ones and I really hope I'm able to follow through with those. I know my life as a whole would greatly improve if I can accomplish my goals. I won't really mention my resolution, but just pray that I can conquer some personal issues and I'll be glad to share my progress once I get started with my 'attack plan'. I probaly sound really suspiscious right now haha.

Casey and I both got a 4 day weekend so I'm pretty excited about that. We took our tree down yesterday and exchanged ornaments with another couple (Kara & Brandon) and Mason (their dog) and Tuck exchanged presents. We decided to exchange ornaments just as another way to save money and I kind of like the tradition. I love adding ornaments to our collection and I love the one they got us! It's a JMU boy and girl snowman. Aren't they cute?

I made an appointment for shaggy dog to get groomed at 12:30. We plan to go see Marley and Me and maybe do a little shopping while we're waiting on him. I really hope it doesn't take them long to groom Tuck b/c he developed a little anxiety about being left after we got him neutered. I've tried taking him in the car to a lot of fun places lately so that he won't always associate the car with taking him to bad places. I feel like he's just now getting used to it and now we're dropping him off to do something that I know he hates. Why do the things that are good for your dog (personal hygiene and the vet) have to be such traumatic experiences for dog and owner? I think with a dog you can't really say "Hey, I'm taking you to get groomed, but you're starting to get matted and you'll be so much cooler with your hair trimmed and you'll be able to see really good." Oh well, I was hoping that by doing it today, he would forgive me b/c we have a four day weekend with him and he still has the rest of today and the weekend with us to make up for it =) He's laying in the spot where our Christmas tree used to be chewing on his toy that Mason got him right now.

I'll post later to let you know how the movie was if we go and also to post pictures of my clean cut little buddy. I can tell he's ready to get a hair cut when he's little paws get long and his feet start to look like the Grinchs' haha. I guess I should go take a shower or something seeing as how it's almost noon and we have to leave at noon. Hope everyone had a great New Year and good luck with those resolutions if you made them!

Christmas- Come and Gone!

2008-12-29T20:04:00.007-05:00

I hope everyone had a good Christmas! We had a really good Christmas this year and I didn't feel hardly any Christmas stress. I finished my shopping early and I took the day before Christmas Eve off to do all of my baking. I had the rest of the week off with Casey and we ended up staying with my parents until Saturday. Casey's family is only 5 minutes away and we're really lucky to have both of our families so close. It's so easy to go back and forth and we don't have to make a decision about who we see for Christmas due to traveling, we have everyone in one nice compact little town, literally =) We do have to travel in, but our 45 minute drive is nothing compared to the traveling so many people do around the holidays.

Tuck had a greeeat time. Going from being in an apartment and his thrill being watching the cars from our balcony, he was more than happy to have free run on all of my parents land and the option to chase THREE cats and to watch horses and ducks and get visits from his cousin Maddy (my sister's dog).

He was ready to square off with a cat on Christmas early. He loved getting up early and my dad usually got up with him and would let him run around for a little bit outside. Casey thoroughly enjoyed not having to get up at 6 or 7am in the morning to let him out. Thanks Dad =)

Poor Olivia... She could find solitude in the Christmas tree for the most part until Tuck would spot her.

Sporting his new rain coat from grandma and grandpa. We will get use out of this!

Lillian wide eyed on Christmas morning =)

Opening her Mozart Cube from Casey and me. We also got her the cute outfit she's wearing and a couple of others and a Busy Ball Popper (I may have had just a little bit more fun with that than she did). I wasn't really sure how to shop for a baby, but it was pretty fun to read reviews and see what other moms thought and of course testing out the product.

I think I realized half way through the day that she was more interested in bows than the actual presents. That's ok.

Meet Black Betty. She was my present from Casey and I love her. He's a good husband (for that and soo many other reasons). He also got me Animal Crossing for Wii (go ahead, call me a 5 year old, but that game is fun!), a couple of DVDs, some kitchen stuff, and giftcards. I would say that we were both very blessed this year.

I'm so thankful to have families that we are both able to visit on a holidays, and for the first time this year, a husband too =) Granted this was our 8th Christmas, but it was still nice to do one as husband and wife.

I'm slacking on the cooking stuff lately. I think I baked and cooked myself out over Christmas. I didn't even begin to capture everything in my blog, but needless to say I might be slacking on the cooking related posts. Although I did make chicken casserole tonight (mix 1 lb. of shredded chicken, a can of cream of celery and cream of chicken soup together, top with stove top and moisten the stove top with chicken broth. Bake at 350 degrees until warm). There's a recipe to tide you over! Hah. It's easy and Casey loves it... that works for me.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Oreo Truffles

2008-12-23T23:26:00.004-05:00

I've seen this recipe floating around and it seems like almost everyone has either made these or at least tried them, except me. I don't really need anymore holiday candy (I have peanutbutter blossoms and two huge pans of fudge in the kitchen) but I was curious. These are GOOD. They are also very rich, so I think the 1/4 of one I had will sustain me for the next week. I've seen variations of this recipe, but I ended up using Vicki's recipe over at Vicki's Healthy Eats and Sinful Treats.

1 lb of Oreos

8 oz. of cream cheese, room temperature

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 lb of milk chocolate (I used chocolate bark)

1/2 lb of white chocolate (I used white chocolate bark)

Grind cookies to a fine powder in food processor.

Blend cream cheese, cookie powder, and vanilla together with a mixer.

Roll into small balls and place on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper. Insert a toothpick into the middle of each ball and freeze until firm.

Dip balls into melted chocolate and remove toothpicks. Drizzle with white chocolate and decorate while still soft. Refrigerate until hardened.

Bacon Rounds

2008-12-23T23:10:00.003-05:00

I made these for a holiday lunch at work and they were all gone by the end of the day. These are in no way healthy, but they are amazing. If you need to bring something around the holidays and are looking for a good appetizer. Try these!

I got the recipe from Jaime over at Good Eats 'n Sweet Treats, and it's actually a Kraft recipe. The original recipe calls for these to be crescents but I used the instructions in Jaime's blog to create pinwheels and I think they look cuter if anything else.

(Source: Kraftfood.com)

1 pkg. (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened
8 slices bacon, crisply cooked, crumbled
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
2 Tbsp. chopped fresh parsley (I used 2 tsp. dried parsley flakes)
1 Tbsp. milk
2 cans (8 oz. each) refrigerated crescent dinner rolls

Preheat oven to 375°F. Mix cream cheese, bacon, Parmesan cheese, onions, parsley, and milk until well blended; set aside.

Separate each can of dough into four rectangles; firmly press perforations together to seal. Separate mixture evenly onto each rectangle and spread evenly across dough. Cut each rectangle lengthwise into 3 strips which should give you 12 pinwheels per can for a total of 24. Roll up strips to form pinwheels, and place on greased baking sheet.

Bake 12-15 minutes.

Simply Delicious Strawberry Cake

2008-12-23T22:37:00.005-05:00

I let Casey pick which cake recipe he wanted for his birthday (it was on the 17th) and he glanced through my Google Reader and found this recipe for Paula Deen's strawberry cake. I got this recipe from Celeste over at Sugar and Spice. It's a pretty easy recipe (it actually uses a box cake mix) and it's verryyy good. I hope he enjoyed it!

(Source: Paula Deen)

1 (18.25-ounce) box white cake mix
1 (3-ounce) box strawberry flavored instant gelatin
1 (10-ounce) package frozen strawberries in syrup, thawed and pureed
4 large eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup water
Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting (recipe follows)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease and flour 2 round 9-inch cake pans.

In a large bowl, combine cake mix and gelatin. Add pureed strawberries, eggs, oil, and water; beat at medium speed with an electric mixer until smooth. Pour into prepared pans, and bake for 20 minutes, or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Let cool in pans, and cool completely on wire racks.

Spread Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting in between layers and on top and sides of cake.

Garnish with sliced fresh strawberries, if desired.

Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting:
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1 (10-ounce) package frozen strawberries in syrup, thawed and pureed
1/2 teaspoon strawberry extract (I used vanilla extract instead)
7 cups confectioner's sugar

Puppy Chow

2008-12-23T22:21:00.003-05:00

...or trash, reindeer poop, muddy buddies, whatever else you would like to call it =) I've been doing a lot of baking lately and I need to clean off of my camera so tonight seemed like a good night to post some recipes! Casey and I both had today off (and the rest of the week) so we've really just spent the day relaxing and enjoying a day of doing nothing before we have to pack up and travel tomorrow to see some family for Christmas. I think it will feel much more like Christmas once we actually are in our hometown, but I think it's important that we make it feel like Christmas at our own place too. We opened our stockings today and we exchanged one present (I got a wusthof knife sharpener, woot!) and have been watching Christmas movies all day. It's been a good day and it would be a good tradition for us to have the day before Christmas Eve as 'our' day to hang out and enjoy some time together. Plus, it's our first married Christmas so that makes this year kind of special. Now that I'm done rambling and saying the word Christmas 500 times, I'll post the recipe.

I got this recipe from the Chex website.

(Source: Chex)
Servings: 18 half a cup portions

9 cups of Chex cereal (I used Rice Chex and I would actually cut back on this amount for future references so that the cereal can be coated better. I would think that 7 cups would be sufficient)
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup margarine or butter (I used butter)
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar

Into large bowl, measure cereal; set aside.

In 1-quart microwavable bowl, microwave chocolate chips, peanut butter and butter uncovered on High 1 minute; stir. Microwave about 30 seconds longer or until mixture can be stirred smooth. I chose to melt this on low in a saucepan just b/c I try to avoid the microwave at all costs, but I'm sure that way is quicker. Stir in vanilla. Pour mixture over cereal, stirring until evenly coated. Pour into 2-gallon resealable food-storage plastic bag.

Add powdered sugar. Seal bag; shake until well coated. Spread on waxed paper to cool. Store in airtight container in refrigerator.

My Day at Work

2008-12-12T21:33:00.008-05:00

It was door decorating day at work and the theme this year was your favorite Christmas movie. Another co-worker and I teamed up and picked the movie Elf (one of the best Christmas movies ever made). Anyway the idea of our door went with three scenes that we printed out: Buddy making his breakfast, Buddy singing, and the snowball fight.

This was the snowball scene in the lower left hand and we decorated the outside with cotton balls and snowflakes.

Here's a picture of Buddy with the words "The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear!". I printed out some music notes that are going to go in that blank space underneath the word Santa which just makes me think of the scene in Gimbles where he yells "SANTAAAAAA!".

This one is a little blurry but this is the scene w/ buddy eating breakfast and dumping chocolate and syrup all over everything. We decorated the outside with peppermints and that's a bottle of maple syrup in the top corner. I made the felt hats to the right and Laura glued jelly beans and pixy stix sporadically throughout the door.

I may not have gotten many financial analyses done today, but I did do Buddy great justice.

(These were taken on my cell phone so the quality isn't that great)

So this is Christmas

2008-12-11T17:03:00.014-05:00

A little follow through of our holiday preparations.

Usually starts with a husband untangling lights.

Which ended up with a very nicely decorated deck.

One family all bundled up and ready to go on a Christmas tree search.

Which leads to a tree tied to the top of our car which said husband must then drag up the steps

But it ends with a very nicely decorated tree.

On Nov 15th of every year we exchange ornaments. It's the day we started dating and even though we're married it's still a tradition we like to follow. It was 7 years last month, holy crap.

Casey got me a little black and white dog with an '08 around his neck to symbolize the year I got Tuck. Very thoughtful ;)

I got him some shirtless elf ESPN fans.

Stockings are hung and ready to go...

Christmas cookies are made and already being devoured. I got the recipe from Katie at Good Things Catered if you want an awesome sugar cookie recipe. I also made peanut butter blossoms but they didn't make it in our house long enough to be photographed.

My Secret Santa gift is out and I've already received mine (Thanks Danielle by the way!)

One Christmas wedding attended which resulted in a good time =)

And last but not least, one very unhappy shih tzu in an elf costume.

Can't think of anything missing so far =) Shopping is almost done. I would say by this weekend it should be finished and that will leave me 2 weeks to relax and enjoy the holiday season.

Enjoy it while it's here =)

Getting on my soapbox...

2008-12-09T21:39:00.006-05:00

I think everyone has their cause and this is something that I feel really strongly about. This is not an opinion that I have that you can argue against. These are facts that can't be disputed. First let me tell you something so that I don't sound like a hypocrite. My dog is from a breeder. Never ever would I buy from a breeder again. There are entirely too many dogs that die in shelters (purebreds as well, in fact 25% of shelter dogs are purebreds) every year due to back yard breeders and puppy mills. There is such a thing as a good breeder, but they are very hard to find. I would like to think in my head that Tuck came from a good breeder b/c her life was showing dogs and that's usually one sign of a good breeder. I didn't check to see if she did any genetic testing or any of the millions of other checks that should be done before you buy from a breeder. Here is a list to show the few differences from a backyard breeder and a reputable breeder. Basically a reputable breeder has a love for a certain breed and works to improve that breed by doing extensive genetic testing and breeding in a responsible manner (one dog should only have one litter, usually *always* has a waiting list and would never breed without knowing the pups had homes in advance, neuter contracts, etc.). You can read more about what to expect from a reputable breeder from the above link.

Back yard breeders are killing dogs in shelters regardless of what you think. If you have a cute little maltese and so does your friend and you would just love to breed them to create another cute little maltese. You ARE a back yard breeder and you are responsible for the deaths of these shelter animals. Your pets that you breed are no better than all of the purebreds that are lying in shelters across America. I beg you PLEASE, do not contribute to this problem. I'm sure you think that one little litter is no big deal, but if that litter has 6 puppies, and those 6 puppies have puppies, you can see how easily our country has become overpopulated with dogs.

Here's a clip from a special that Oprah did not too long ago. It's not pleasant to watch but if it makes it more real to someone than it's worth it.

7 million dogs die a year in a shelter.

99% of dogs that are in pet stores ARE from a puppy mill. If you buy from a petstore you are contributing so much to these problems. I beg you to search the web for some pictures of the horrendous conditions that these dogs live in at a puppy mill. These dogs are forced to have litter after litter in inhumane conditions. These dogs usually have severe health problems and they're put in a petstore at an unreasonable price. I don't even buy toys or set foot in a pet store anymore.

I love my dog, don't get me wrong, but there are tons of shih tzus that are in shelters. If I really wanted to go through a breeder, I know I could've done a lot more research than what I did. I really want to spend my life educating people about the mistakes I've made and that other people make all the time. Some people are just simply uneducated about this, just like I was before I started doing some research.

One more paragraph that I feel I need to add. There is no such thing as a "cockapoo" or a "maltipoo". These are mutts at incredibly jacked up prices and NO responsible, reputable, breeder would ever breed these dogs. If you want a cockerspaniel poodle mix (it is insulting to call these dogs by their 'designer breed' name), check petfinder online and rescue one. They are out there and they need homes. There is no such thing as a 'teacup' chihuahua or a 'minature' shih tzu. A bad breeder is taking the runt of these litters (they usually have health problems due to being small) and breeding them with other runts to create these so called minature dogs and then they add $1k to the price. Why would you pay more for that and support that, why?

I truly didn't write this post in order to get on a high horse. I wrote this post to educate people b/c I remember how little I knew before I started my own research. This is a serious problem and I really hope we can all do our part and rescue, support reputable breeders, and shut these pet stores/puppy mills down. These babies don't deserve it, and get your puppy spayed or neutered!

*Someone* was neutered today and is doing awesome =) All it takes is for me to look at him and imagine him cramped into a cage at a puppy mill, or sitting by himself at the shelter waiting for a home and it's enough to break my heart.

I can't remember where I found this poem, but I really like it.

I Rescued a Human Today

I rescued a human today.

Her eyes met mine as she walked down the corridor peering apprehensively into the kennels.

I felt her need instantly and knew I had to help her. I wagged my tail, not too exuberantly, so she wouldn't be afraid.

As she stopped at my kennel I blocked her view from a little accident I had in the back of my cage. I didn't want her to know that I hadn't been walked today. Sometimes the shelter keepers get too busy and I didn't want her to think poorly of them.

As she read my kennel card I hoped that she wouldn't feel sad about my past. I only have the future to look forward to and want to make a difference in someone's life. She got down on her knees and made little kissy sounds at me. I shoved my shoulder and side of myhead up against the bars to comfort her.

Gentle fingertips caressed my neck; she was desperate for companionship. A tear fell down her cheek and I raised my paw to assure her that all would be well.

Soon my kennel door opened and her smile was so bright that I instantly jumped into her arms. I would promise to keep her safe. I would promise to always be by her side. I would promise to do everything I could to see that radiant smile and sparkle in her eyes.

I was so fortunate that she came down my corridor. So many more are out there who haven't walked the corridors. So many more to be saved. At least I could save one.

I rescued a human today.

-Author Unknown

Thankful

2008-11-29T09:49:00.004-05:00

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving! Sorry for the lack of blog updates. The holidays are slowly sneaking up on me and we've been busy this week preparing for Thanksgiving. I decided to undertake the bird this year for some reason, and it actually turned out pretty good. Word to the wise, almost every single turkey that is frozen is already pre-basted even though it won't say so on the turkey anywhere. Pre-basted turkeys are not supposed to be brined. I brined mine for a shorter amount of time. It turned out juicy, but the whole time I had this huge fear that this big 23 lb salty bird was going to give everyone high blood pressure as an early Christmas present. I also made deviled eggs, pumpkin rolls, sweet potato casserole, and mashed potatoes. I enjoy cooking obviously, so I didn't mind at all. The food was good and I have a ton of leftovers leering at me from my refrigerator. I actually just had a piece of pumpkin roll for breakfast and I feel no shame.

I think that everyone, regardless of what you have going on this time of the year, should really think about what you're thankful for. I know I tend to think about all the things in my life that could be better, or that need working on, or if only I didn't have this to deal with etc.. You realize what a good position you are in life when you think about all of the positives. I have a huge list of things in my life that I couldn't begin to be thankful enough for. I have a savior that loves me unconditionally regardless of my mistakes. I have a loving husband that I'm thankful for every single day that I get out of bed. I have a family that I enjoy seeing and that I look forward to seeing on the holidays. I feel sorry for those people that dread the holidays b/c of their family. I don't consider myself unlucky that I was horribly homesick when I went away to college. I consider myself lucky that I have a familiy that I'm lucky enough to miss instead of the people who were glad to be getting away from home. I have an awesome puppy that loves me and shakes because he is so happy to see me everyday when I get home =) I'm thankful that I *do* have a job right now in this awful economy. I'm thankful that I have a home to go to everyday and that Casey and I never have to go without. There are so many things that I listed above that sooo many people don't have. It's nice to look at what you do have instead of constantly looking at what the person beside you has that you don't.

Well that ended up being a little more long-winded than I expected. I guess I could post some pictures from my holiday. I didn't take as many as I would've liked, but I tried to remember to take them when I could!

In attendance of our family dinner was: me, casey, mom, dad, my sister, her husband, my aunt and uncle, my grandma, my sister's lab (Maddy), Tuck, 3 cats, and Lillian.

This is my mom with her brother and his wife

My sister and her family

Miss Lillian

My turkey!

The inside

It's kind of blurry, but you can see Tuck, Maddy, and one of the cats swarming the dinner table

Me and Casey

These aren't from Thanksgiving but they were on my camera

I was on the phone one day after work and Casey decided to throw all of the baskets of laundry on top of me. This is why things don't get accomplished in my house if I'm not supervising ;)

My Dog Has More Friends Than I Do

2008-11-09T21:45:00.005-05:00

I was looking at pictures from this weekend and I realized as I was going through them that on Friday Tuck went to go see his buddies Sox and CatDog and then he had a date with Mason at the park on Saturday and we just brought him back from seeing Coal a couple of hours ago. Dude, how does he have more of a social life than I do? Well, since I apparently didn't do as much as he did this weekend, I'll post some pictures of his exciting weekend.

This is from his trip to visit CatDog and Sox on Friday evening. He was still sniffing out the parameters at this point.

It didn't take him long before he started sprinting around the yard with Sox. Sox would be the black blur in front of him. My dog is a sprinter, definitely not an endurance runner. Sox has somehow nailed down sprinting and endurance.

The ears! They shoot up in the air when he runs and it makes him look like Mickey Mouse.

CatDog didn't get in on the fun very much, but she kept an eye on her little brother. That would be Adrienne, my co-worker, holding her.

They played until it got dark and then they just hung out like old homies.

Switching over to Saturday... this is from our day at the park with Mase-diggy and Kara

Tuck doesn't really know a lot about tennis balls, but he knows to run after Mason when he chases them until he's tired. It works for him.

The Mickey Mouse ears kills me

Mason with his pointer tail being kind of crooked =)

Both of them checking out this man in the background

This is Kara. I kind of love her. She keeps me sane and she loves me back, what more could I ask for?

I feel like I've managed to photograph my whole weekend. I also realize that people might think I'm a big loser once they realize what I do on the weekends but that's ok with me. Friday we actually did go to dinner with a couple of friends after my dog's playdate, and we did go see a movie and do some shopping on Saturday. We went to see The Changeling and I would recommend it to you if you were thinking about going to see it. It's different. I think it's different in a good way though. The movie does a good job of placing you in the time period that exists in the movie and Angelina Jolie does an amazing job as Christine Collins, a woman who rebels against the LAPD when they try to return a child to her that isn't her son when he goes missing (holy run on sentence). It's a true story and an interesting one. It's also a little liberating to see what one woman accomplished by refusing to by quiet. So women, just remember that ;)

Today we had my family over for some of Pioneer Woman's lasagna. We have a few slices left over so hopefully I can get some pictures of that to blog about. I was supposed to blog about my last TWD recipe which was rugelach but I deleted the picture of the cookies and gave the cookies away. Dumb.

This morning at church we also made the decision to become a member at the church we've been going to off and on since January. It just felt right this morning and we're really happy with our decision and have really enjoyed our time there. So that's a step in the right direction!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Lazy Saturday Morning

2008-11-09T21:13:00.006-05:00

This is what happens when my boys don't want to wake up in the morning. I crawl back in bed and blind them with the camera until they wake up or until Tuck starts to bark insanely at the red light on my camera which then wakes up Casey and achieves the desired effect. Before you think I'm a harsh wife waking up her husband, it was noon. Come on people, I can only entertain myself so much in the morning. Well actually, I did entertain myself at least for an hour doing this.

My puppy is lazy and that's my arm he likes to sleep on in the morning, and that's my ratty VMI t-shirt that I'll never get rid of.

"Seriously mom? Is it hurting anyone for us to be sleeping in a little later?"

"Seeeeeeeeeeeeriously?"

I then opened the blinds in hopes of brightening the room even more and I received just a pure look of scorn.

Then he thought about it and came over to my side. Waking dad up won't be too bad of an idea.

"Dad, are you up?"

"Dad?"

"Oh well.. I'll just sleep on your face for a little bit until you wake up."

I lost him back to the dark side of the late sleeper inners.

::sigh:: I guess a few more minutes won't hurt...

Grandma's Hard Rolls

2008-11-02T21:16:00.003-05:00

I recently went through a lot of my grandma's recipes and transferred them over to my own recipe box so that I wouldn't have to call everytime I wanted to make something of hers. I remember her making these rolls when I was little. They were little oval rolls of heaven. That might be a little dramatic, but I really do like these rolls. I feel like she used to always make these with italian dishes and they complimented really well. When I decided to make this recipe for the first time I decided that instead of making 24 rolls like the recipe called for, I would make a dozen and turn them into big fluffy rolls. We made these into meatball sandwiches and they were sooooo good.

The instructions aren't very specific because this recipe was passed down and I'm sure was written down from memory. I'm no expert roll maker, but I haven't made a mistake with these rolls yet so they seem pretty foolproof.

(Source: Grandma)
Servings: 24 rolls (or you can make 12 big ones like I made)

4 c. unbleached flour
2/3 tsp. salt
2/3 c. sugar
1 1/2 c. of warm water
2 pkgs of dry yeast
2 eggs
Vegetable oil

Add yeast to water and let set until you see the yeast start to work and then add the two eggs. Combine dry ingredients. Pour yeast mixture into dry ingredients and mix well. Knead dough. Coat bowl and ball of dough with vegetable oil. Cover bowl and let dough rise until it reaches the top of the bowl.

Divide dough in half by squeezing in the center to get two balls. Divide those two balls in half to get 4. Divide those 4 to get 8. Divide those 8 into 1/3 to get 24. Shape these into oval rolls and place on greased baking sheet to rise again. When dough has risen bake at 450 degrees until tops are brown.

Since I was slaving away at bread, I made meatballs the lazy way. I bought a bag of frozen meatballs and added a couple of jars of Prego. I topped the meatballs with provolone and banana peppers. These rolls aren't meant to be subs, so they're very messy to eat with meatballs, but it's worth it and I make them with meatballs everytime =)

Easy Cheesy Beer Bread

2008-11-02T21:09:00.005-05:00

I've seen this recipe floating around and I've been looking for a good opportunity to make it. I recently got the chance to take it to dinner at a friend's house and everyone really enjoyed it! It was sooo easy to make and I know we'll make it again. I got this recipe from Katie over at Good Things Catered.

(Source: Good Things Catered)

2 c. all purpose flour
1 c. whole wheat flour
1/3 c. packed brown sugar
4 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp garlic powder
1 c. shredded sharp cheddar
12 oz. bottle of lager or stout (I used Sam Adams Oktoberfest)
2 Tbsp butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare loaf pan for baking.

In large bowl, combine flours, sugar, baking powder, salt, and garlic powder. Whisk to combine well. Add cheese and whisk to combine. Slowly add beer to dry ingredients and stir lightly until combined. Knead dough lightly until it just comes together.

Place into prepared loaf pan and pour melted butter over top. Place in oven to bake for 55-60 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into center of loaf comes out clean.

Jay's Jerk Chicken

2008-11-02T20:35:00.003-05:00

I used Allrecipes.com to search for a jerk chicken recipe and Jay's Jerk Chicken got a lot of good reviews. I was kind of skeeved out at first by having to use a food processor to chop all of the liquid and vegetables together but it gave the meat a great flavor. I ended up marinating this over night so the flavor infused really well. I served it with pineapple and rice and the sweetness of the pineapple really balanced out the flavor nicely. I think we would definitely have this again.

(Source: Allrecipes)
Servings: 4

6 green onions, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced
3/4 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 1/2 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breast halves

In a food processor or blender, combine all of the above ingredients besides the chicken. Mix for around 15 seconds. Place chicken in medium bowl and cover with marinade. Refrigerate for 4-6 hours or overnight.

Preheat grill, grill pan, or broiler. Lightly oil grill grate. Grill chicken for 6 to 8 minutes or until juices run clear (I ended up grilling mine for longer than 8 minutes but I used a grill pan and my chicken was pretty thick).

Halloween and More Pictures

2008-10-29T13:27:00.006-04:00

Scary, right? You mean a flaming 'X' and a goofy looking spider with one tooth doesn't scare you? It probably shouldn't, but behold, this year's pumpkin creations. I went with the spider and Casey started with a skull and cross bones until he realized that he was in over his head and decided to do the XBox 'X' and use some whittling skills he saw on the pumpkin challenge on Food Network. The more complex the better in his eyes. In the Almarez household around this time every year there's a pretty consistent theme. I can't find something that's cute and not scary and Casey can't find something that's complicated enough (we won't mention the pirate ship of 2005 that maybe got 1/120 of the way completed before Casey realized it wouldn't be finished in time for Christmas, let alone Halloween). Last year he did complete a pirate ship and it looked very nice. I decided to do a bat with huge eyeballs.

In 2006 we did baby pumpkins seeing as how we were still in college and usually pumpkins didn't make it very long outside. I did the one toothed monster and Casey did a little tribute to JMU.

This past weekend we watched movies and my best friend Kara and I made dinner on Saturday and we hung out with her and her husband. Sunday my father-in-law was nice enough to take some family pictures of us with Tuck. I'm kind of embarrassed of wanting more pictures when I haven't printed out a single wedding photo :-\ but I had my reasons. Tuck got his long coat cut off yesterday and I was feeling a little sentimental about losing his puppy fluff and asked him if he would do some pictures of us with him before we got it cut. We went to the Blue Ridge Parkway and stopped at an overlook and we really got some cute shots of him. Here are some of the ones he did of just Tuck.

He looks so proud =) my little man. This week is just another work week. We have Halloween coming up on Friday and I still need to put together a costume for work and figure out our plans for Friday night. Well, tomorrow is Thursday... maybe I should get on that...

TWD: Pumpkin Muffins

2008-10-21T21:07:00.003-04:00

This Tuesday's recipe was chosen by Kelly over at Sounding My Barbaric Gulp!. I haven't participated in the last two recipes so I was due to bake and I was glad to see it was a seasonal recipe and one that I was looking forward to. I really enjoyed these muffins a lot. I had one for dessert tonight and the texture was really good and the pumpking flavor came through nicely. I ended up skipping the nuts, raisins, and sunflower seeds and just added chocolate chips. I have a lot of recipes in my reader that include pumpkin and chocolate but I've never tried it so I figured these muffins would be a good excuse to give it a go and the flavors actually go together really well.

I could definitely see myself making these again. Good choice Kelly! You can find the link for this recipe in Kelly's blog that I linked above.

Barbequed Pork Chops

2008-10-19T14:31:00.003-04:00

I'm trying to expand my pork chop knowledge since I usually bounce back and forth between chicken and lean beef. I tried this Cooking Light recipe that I saw over on Erin's Eats and I really enjoyed and it's fairly healthy too. I was thinking if we wanted to make it more healthy we could try Splenda's brown sugar next time.

(Source: Erin's Eats)

Sauce:
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup of ketchup
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon low-sodium soy sauce

Remaining Ingredients:
6 (6 ounce) bone-in center cut pork chops about 1/2 inch thick (I used 4 boneless chops)
1 teaspoon dried thyme (I used rosemary)
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper
Cooking spray

Prepare grill or broiler (I used our cast iron grill pan).

To prepare sauce, combine the first 4 ingredients in a small bowl. Place 1/4 cup of sauce in a small bowl and set aside.

Trim fat from pork. Combine thyme, garlic salt, and ground red pepper and sprinkle over chops. Place pork on grill rack or broiler pan coated with cooking spray (I use olive oil on my grill pan). Cook 6 minutes on each side, basting with remaining sauce.

Serve porkchops with remaining 1/4 cup of sauce.

Erin's link has the nutritional information for this meal as well.

Shoot a Mother-Humpin Moose Eight Days of the Week

2008-10-19T14:30:00.001-04:00

What have I been up to?

2008-10-19T13:52:00.006-04:00

NOT updating my blog for one. I haven't been incredibly busy. I've just been a slacker. I'm taking some pictures off of my digital camera so I can post some different things we've done these past couple of weeks.

Two weekends ago we went to a VT football game with a couple of our friends and we had such a good time. I'm not a big football fan, but I'm always up for tailgating and socializing.

Last weekend one of my friends came in for the night and brought her boxer. I got to have a girl's night and Tuck got to have his first sleepover. She thought he made a good pillow.

Speaking of my little buddy =)

Last week we also got to go to a wine tour/tasting and lunch for a work celebration. Our budget season is finally over (hallelujah). The drive was about an hour and a half away but we got to take a scenic route through the Blue Ridge Parkway to get there and it made the ride worth it. I was trying to take quick pictures during the tour but it doesn't really do the place any justice. This was the inside where we were herded to begin our tour. It's a dark picture but you can kind of see some of the detail. All of this wood is recycled and it was absolutely gorgeous.

I took this one when we were leaving just because I love when the leaves start to change and it reminds me why I love living in the mountains.

Just in case you're not tired of pictures of my dog. Here's another one. In my lasagna dish. That was a wedding gift. I promise if you come to my house for lasagna I'll wash it first. Also if anyone has a recommendation for a dog bed that's similar to a lasagna dish I would appreciate it.

This weekend we went to our hometown for our second Fall Festival and stayed at my parent's house on Saturday night. It was good to spend some time with my family and to see how much my niece has grown. She's crawling now and she refuses to let me hold her like a baby anymore. Independent little woman.

Now that you're caught up on my life I feel at peace and I'm going to take a nap.

Apple Turnovers

2008-09-30T21:37:00.003-04:00

Holy amazing these were good, but extremely rich. They are composed of butter, bread, sugar, and moutain dew (and of course apples) which explains the richness. I barely got a picture b/c I wanted one as soon as it was out and while they were still hot. I gave them away, don't worry. I still had one to satisfy my craving though. It was worth it.

Check out Pioneer Woman's blog for the recipe and browse through her other recipes.. they're all amazing! She's not afraid of butter though, just as a reminder.

TWD: Snickery Squares

2008-09-30T21:16:00.003-04:00

This week the recipe chosen was creme brulee but you were allowed to sub an already completed recipe if you weren't comfortable with creme brulee. I would be more comfortable with creme brulee if I had a torch. I think all the fun of creme brulee is being able to torch something and since someone doesn't think I need a torch for the kitchen, I decided to make Snickery Squares.

These don't really taste like Snickers bars but the flavors are great together. I only have a picture of the top of the squares right now because they're still cooling. I tasted a corner out of the side and these were really good and I'm sure they'll be even better when they've firmed up.

To view the complete recipe, visit Erin's blog at Dinner and Dessert. She chose this recipe back in March and it was a good choice. There are a lot of past recipes that really looked good and the ones that are chosen for this coming October look amazing. I usually just bake every other week so that I'm not overloaded with sweets (or so that Casey's co-workers aren't overloaded with sweets), but I might have to break that this coming month.

He learns (kind of)

2008-09-24T18:56:00.005-04:00

This is the progress of my daily training sessions with Tuck. It might not seem like a lot, but getting a 5 month old puppy to stay is big stuff to me. Just watch out Greatest American Dog, once we get these tricks laid out we're moving on to the big stuff. I taught him these few things on my own but I'm reading Victoria Stilwell's (Greatest American Dog judge) book right now so hopefully I can learn to teach him some more things.

A couple of things:

1. Excuse my misshapen claw in the beginning. I have treats in my hand and my dog is not smart enough to work for something else besides food right now. We're working on it.

2. Excuse the high pitched voice that I talk in. It's training talk and he likes it.

3. He has way more interest in the treats then paying attention to me, but we're working on that too.

4. The way to teach your dog to lay down is to drag a treat across the ground which forces your dog to lay down to get to it. This doesn't apply to dog's who have 2 inch legs and can just lower their head to get to the treat. Where's the training for the stumpy dogs, Vickie?!?

Last Wedding Weekend

2008-09-24T18:25:00.004-04:00

We have another wedding in December, but this is our last one until then. I love the couple very much and I know they're going to enjoy being married =) The wedding was partially outside, and it was a gorgeous Fall day. Technically it was 2 days before the first day of fall, but there was a coolness in the air and the sun was setting and it looked absolutely gorgeous.

We ended up going in and staying with my family on Friday night so that we would already be in for the wedding. Our first night away from home w/ Tuck. Things went good. He loves being at my house mainly for the hardwoods and the air vents (two things we seriously consider when looking at home just for the pro-Tuck factor). Somehow Tuck has somehow evolved into Tucker Duck, Ducker, Duck, and now we just call him The Duck. I bet people think our phone conversations are weird when I call Casey at work and they hear, "I left the Duck out today, he's being a big boy" or "The Duck pooped at lunch". Whatever, there are many other things that are weird about our conversations beside what we call our dog.

We went to the wedding on Saturday and ended up just driving back home at midnight just b/c I think all 3 of us wanted to sleep in our own beds. We both love going home and seeing our family, but we're definitely routine driven and we don't sleep as well away from home. It was fun though and we got to catch up with some people that we haven't seen in awhile, which is always good.

Nothing new is going on in our household, we're pretty standard =) I think I'm going to sign up for the Wilton cake decorating class next month. I'm slowly becoming Suzie Homemaker, but that's ok with me. I'm going to try some Bourbon Pumpkin Bars tonight and hopefully I can get them made before work tomorrow so that I can send them with Casey. We're also about to head out for a friend's birthday once Casey's softball game is over. Guess where we're going?

Mexican.

We're not predictable.

Don't look at me like that.

Here's some pictures from our weekend. This is the view going up the mountain for the wedding. I was raised here (well not on this mountain), but anyway, isn't it gorgeous?

Casey and I posing before the wedding and in case you can't tell, I dyed my hair red. I feel like a fall leaf. I lurve it.

This is our view from the ceremony. I tried to get the mountains in the background but I was just holding my hand in the air and snapping pictures, so this is what we got.

These are my hairs. They are red now. I also cut my wedding hair off. It was pretty gross and in need of it.

The Duck got a haircut too, you can see his eyes. Hi eyes!

TWD: Chocolate Chunkers

2008-09-17T21:54:00.005-04:00

This was my first Tuesday's with Dorie and I'm actually posting this on a Wednesday since I was gone all day yesterday. I'll be posting these on a Tuesday from now on, which is the whole point of TWD. There is a recipe picked every week and you must bake 2 out of every 4 recipes. It's a pretty cool way for me to try to improve baking. I don't think I'm a bad baker, I just know how many more variables go into baking and it's a bit more temperamental than cooking dinner for example.

This week was Chocolate Chunkers and they were really good. I probably wouldn't have made them if I was picking out a recipe on my own (which is another reason I'm doing this), but they turned out really well. Just like with the rest of my baking, I gave these away. Casey's co-workers are looking fordward to my TWD and for the record the entire bag of cookies was gone by the end of the day.

Chocolate Chunkers
(Source: Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan)

1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 3 pieces
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coursely chopped (I did 4 oz and then 2 of milk choc)
1 ounce unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped
2 large eggs, at room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup store-bought semi-sweet chocolate chunks
1 cup store-bought milk chocolate chunks
1 1/2 cup coarsely chopped nuts (I used pecans)
1 cup moist, plum raisins (I omitted these)

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray baking sheets with Baker's Joy.

Sift together the flour, cocoa, salt and baking powder.

Set a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Add butter, bittersweet chocolate and unsweetened chocolate and heat, stirring occasionally, just until melted (chocolate should be smooth and shiny). Remove bowl from heat and set on counter to cool.

Mix eggs and sugar in a large bowl on medium-high speed for about 2 minutes, until pale and foamy. Beat in vanilla and scrape down bowl. Reduce mixer to low and add melted chocolate mixture and mix just until incorporated. Scrape down bowl and then on low speed add dry ingredients and mix just until dry ingredients disappear into the dough. Your dough should be thick and shiny. Scrape down bowl and mix in semi-sweet and milk chocolate chunks and raisins.

Drop dough by generous heaping tablespoonfuls onto baking sheets with about an inch between mounds of dough.

Bake cookies one sheet at a time for 10-12 minutes. The cookies will look dry but the interiors should be soft (mine were like gooey brownies on the inside, so good!). Using a spatula lift the cookies onto a cooling rack to cool to room temperature. My cookies were more mound like because I froze my dough. I always freeze cookie dough b/c I like for my cookies to be thicker and chewier as opposed to thinner. These were great!

Butter Cake with Cocount Cream Cheese Icing

2008-09-14T21:28:00.003-04:00

This is the cake I baked for my sister's birthday. I got the butter cake recipe from the Joy of Baking and the icing recipe from Epicurious. The butter cake is not a cake that rises a lot (and the recipe warns you of that) but it had a really good flavor and the cake was really moist. I definitely plan on using this cake recipe again. The icing I used was meant to spread on top of a sheet cake so it probably wasn't the best idea to use for a layer cake and also the coconut flavor wasn't as prominent as I was expecting. I ended up increasing the powdered sugar in the recipe and adding more cream of coconut but I never got the coconut flavor I was looking for. The icing was good, don't get me wrong, just not really what I was expecting and I probably should've used a thicker icing in order to layer. It just ended up tasting more like cream cheese icing which was still good.

In the recipe it tells you to smooth out the cake batter to be even and I kind of semi-spread the cake like I usually do and it settles in the oven. This batter is so much thicker that it's very important to have the batter even when it goes into the oven. I also let the eggs, butter, and milk set out until room temperature. The modifications I made to the icing were that I added an additional 1/3 cup of powdered sugar and 1 tbsp. of cream of coconut. I tripled the recipe.

Yellow Butter Cake
(Source: Joy of Baking)

6 large egg yolks
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
3 cups sifted cake flour
1 1/2 cups granulated white sugar
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature and cut into pieces

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray two 9-inch cake pans with Bakers Joy, line bottoms with parchment paper, then spray again with Bakers Joy. Set aside.

In a medium bowl lightly combine the egg yolks, milk, and vanilla extract.

With hand or stand mixer, combine the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder and salt) and mix on low speed for about 30 seconds or until blended. Add the butter and remaining 3/4 cup milk. Mix on low speed until the dry ingredients are moistened. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat for about 2 minutes to aerate and develop the cake's structure. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Gradually add the egg mixture, in 3 additions, beating about 30 seconds after each addition to incorporate the egg.

Divide the batter and pour into the prepared pans, smoothing the surface with an offset spatula. (Pans will be about half full.) Bake 25 to 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean and the cake springs back when pressed lightly in center.

Place the cakes on a wire rack to cool, in their pans, for about 10 minutes. Then invert the cakes onto a greased rack. To prevent splitting, reinvert cakes so that tops are right side up. Cool completely before frosting.

Coconut Frosting
(Source: Epicurious)

3 oz cream cheese, softened
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1/3 cup confectioners sugar I added an additional 1/3 cup to increase thickness
3 tablespoons well-stirred canned cream of coconut (not coconut milk) I added an additional tablespoon
1 teaspoon dark rum (optional) I used vanilla extract instead
1/3 cup sweetened flaked coconut

Beat together cream cheese and butter in a bowl using cleaned beaters at medium speed until smooth. Reduce speed to low, then add confectioners sugar, cream of coconut, and rum (if using) and mix until combined. Increase speed to high and beat until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Frost cake and sprinkle with flaked coconut.

Birthday Weekend

2008-09-14T20:13:00.007-04:00

Well not mine, but we went in last weekend on Sunday to celebrate my sister's birthday a couple of days early and I took some pictures while we were there. It's been chaos the past few times we've been in with my niece and the two dogs. He loves to chase Maddy (my sister's lab) around. She's about 80 lbs and when he tries to play with her she takes off sprinting through the house and hops in the air and lets out these yelping barks and the baby is laughing during the middle of all of this. It's pretty entertaining to watch but when there are two dogs, a baby, and 7 people in the house it can get hectic.

It was fun though. I made a cake and ended up getting a back-up ice cream cake when I realized my sister didn't like cream cheese frosting (whoops). We got to play badminton and volleyball outside and it was a gorgeous day. Tuck's doing well on the car rides in but we haven't stayed away from our home since we got him just b/c I don't know how he'd do through the night. We'll find out next weekend when we go in for a wedding.

Lillian and Casey watching football

Do you want to know...

2008-09-06T11:06:00.005-04:00

...why I don't mind cooking? It's because I never have to do the dishes. That would be a job for the boys and they do it so well.

I also want to share with you two small things that have made my life easier this week. Number one would be my lid holder as shown below.

Since we've decided to halt our house hunting, I've been looking for ways to make everything more organized. Really, my only complaint about being in an apartment is the lack of kitchen storage. We have storage out the hoohah everywhere else in the apartment. Our closets are huge, we have a big bedroom, a big laundry room, a big second bedroom, a huge outside storage building etc. The kitchen, not so much. I decided moving my lids out of the cabinet where I keep my pots would keep my sanity and I found this lid holder on Amazon for like 7 bucks. I stuck it in the pantry b/c I didn't want to drill holes in the cabinet and it works really well.

The second thing is the Green Machine.

If you have a dog you'll especially appreciate this. It's a handheld carpet cleaner. You can even leave the cleaning fluid in it and just pick it up and plug it in when you want to use it. I think I got it for like $70 off of Amazon and it's come in handy so far. We haven't had to use it on accidents yet (go Tuck!) but I used it on a couple of spots that I knew he caused when he was younger. I have a tendency to be the spiller in the house anyway so I think we'll get our money's worth. Plus you can use it for your car, which isn't a bad idea.

I just realized I got excited over a carpet cleaner and a lid rack. Oh well. I'm waiting for my cake to come out of the oven and I felt like blogging. I'm making a butter cake with coconut frosting for my sister's birthday so I'll blog about that when I'm finished.

I hope everyone's having a good weekend!

Lemon Cake

2008-09-03T20:41:00.008-04:00

Another dessert.. I promise we don't eat desserts all the time. I just haven't updated in awhile =) I pulled this one from Erin's Eats as well and I think I'll definitely be making it again. This cake has a strong lemon flavor from the glaze which I really thought balanced out the subtle flavor in the cake from the lemon zest. I served this with strawberries and whipped cream for Labor Day and it was really good. I made this cake on Saturday so by Monday the flavor was so good.

(Source: Erin's Eats)

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

8 ounces sour cream

1 1/3 cups sugar, dividied

3 large eggs

2 teaspoons grated lemon zest (approximately 1 1/2-2 lemons)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup vegatable oil

1/3 cup freshley squeezed lemon juice (approximately 2 large lemons)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Grease a loaf pan and line the bottom with parchment paper. In a small bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and salt. In a medium bowl, mix together 1 cup of sugar, sour cream, eggs, lemon zest and vanilla.

Slowly mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. With a rubber spatula, fold the vegetable oil into the batter, making sure it is mixed together well.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 50-60 minutes, or until a toothpick placed in the center of the loaf comes out clean.

While the cake is cooking in the oven, cook 1/3 cup lemon juice and the remaining 1/3 cup sugar in a small pan until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is clear. Set aside.

When the cake is done, allow it to cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Cover a baking rack with wax paper and carefully place the loaf on the rack. While the cake is still warm, pour the lemon-sugar mixture over the cake and allow for it to soak in.

Ribs and Crash Hot Potatoes

2008-09-03T19:24:00.003-04:00

It was Casey's night to choose dinner in case you couldn't tell. I've been wanting to try Pioneer Woman's crash hot potatoes anyway so ribs were a good excuse to do this. For my ribs recipe I tried a rub from Epicurious that I found at Erin's Eats and then used some barbeque sauce (Sweet Baby Rays) towards the end.

BBQ Baby Back Ribs

(Source: Epicurious)

1 rack of pork baby back ribs (I think mine was around 2 1/2 lbs)

BBQ sauce to taste (I used Sweet Baby Rays)

Dry rub:

4 tablespoons brown sugar

1 tablespoon kosher salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1 tablespoon garlic powder

1 tablespoon oregano (I think I used 1/2 tablespoon)

1/2 tablespoon or less of cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon chili powder

First remove the membrane off of the back of your ribs. You might not be able to see it but it's a thin strip that can be pulled off with a paper towel if you tug a little bit. Be careful not to remove the layer underneath the membrane that holds the ribs together. Mix together your dry rub and then pat the rub all over your ribs on the bottom and top. Wrap the ribs in aluminum foil and refrigerate until you're ready to cook.

Preheat your oven to 250 degrees. Make sure your ribs are wrapped securely in aluminum foil and then place on a cookie sheet (some juices will probably escape). Cook for 2 1/2 hours.

Unwrap your ribs and brush BBQ sauce all over and place them back in the oven with the aluminum foil open at 350 degrees for another 30 minutes.

Crash Hot Potatoes

(Source: Pioneer Woman)

New potatoes

Olive oil

Kosher Salt

Black Pepper

Rosemary or other desired herb (I used parsley)

Preheat oven 450 degrees. Bring salted pot of water to a boil. Boil potatoes until fork tender. Drizzle olive oil on baking sheet and place boiled potatoes on the cookie sheet. Take potato and press down until potato slightly mashes. Rotatoe potato masher 90 degrees and press down again. Brush each potato with olive oil and sprinkly kosher salt, pepper, and herbs on top. Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown. Skins should be crispy.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

2008-09-03T18:56:00.008-04:00

I borrowed this recipe from Brooke over at ...and a cookie for dessert and Casey and I really enjoyed it. My bananas were getting to that point where I had to make a decision to bake or throw them away and I decided on muffins. This definitely isn't the healthiest recipe, but we got to eat a few and then I sent the rest to work with Case. There's a way to bake and stay healthy, it's called taking a bite and giving the rest away.

(Source: ...and a cookie for dessert)

1 1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup chocolate chips

Mix sugar, banana, oil and eggs in a large bowl. Stir in remaining ingredients. Pour into a greased loaf pan or prepared muffin tin. Bake at 325 degrees until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

Mmmmm.. right out of the oven.

Between Casey and I taking bites, we started to run out of our muffin model.

Sausage Gravy

2008-08-25T20:53:00.004-04:00

We were starving by the time church was over but I had the issue of my first fantasy football draft that was supposed to start as soon as we got home. I guess if you know me, you know that I'm not a big sports follower. So I decided to make sausage gravy during the draft. Which consisted of me cooking in the kitchen and Casey yelling in the other room that my draft time was about to run out and I would run back to my laptop in the living room. This has nothing to do with sausage gravy, so I'll go ahead and post the recipe.

Servings: 4-5

1/4 cup flour
2 1/4 cup milk
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
12 oz. of sausage

Cook sausage on medium heat and drain. Sprinkle flour over sausage and stir to blend. Very gradually add milik and stir until thick. Add salt and pepper. Serve over biscuits.

Pico de Gallo

2008-08-25T20:28:00.004-04:00

I was looking for a way to fix my craving of Mexican that happens on a daily basis. I blame this on the fact that I can smell a Mexican restaurant on the way to and from work. Well ok, I can't really smell it, but I can see it which is close enough. I decided to settle for pico de gallo, because I'm feeling lazy and hungry today and that usually doesn't get me far on days like this. I decided to try Pioneer Woman's recipe and it was a really good mix. I left out most of the membrane and seed in my jalapeno peppers because I'm a big ol baby and it still had just the right amount of kick to it.

(Source: Pioneer Woman)

Servings: A bunch

5 roma tomatoes

1/2 large onion or 1 small onion

3 jalapeno peppers

cilantro

lime juice

salt

Dice jalapenos, tomatoes, and onion and mix together. Chop cilantro and add to mix based on taste. Squeeze half of a lime into mixture and add salt. Serve with tortilla chips.

Some Observations..

2008-08-19T12:06:00.006-04:00

Observation #1:

On the way home from work there are 2 signs that say:

"LOST: Lil Black Palm"

I'm very tempted to draw this on the ad.

...but it might confuse the masses and the poor dog would have even worse luck of being returned to his interesting owners.

Observation #2:

Rihanna's new song is titled "Disturbia", not "Scurvy Love". Hypothetically, if I was the one that had been roaming around the house singing Scurvy Love all week, it would be a good thing that I had a husband who only let it go on for a week before he told me the right words.

Hypothetically.

Meet Tuck

2008-08-16T22:03:00.022-04:00

I think people underestimate (or don't talk about) how much a puppy really does change your routine. We've read tons of books and we've tried to be as prepared for getting a puppy as we possibly could be but I guess just like having a baby, you don't really know until you take the leap. We love him though. He's been so much fun to watch and to get to know. I just didn't want to write this post and talk about how cute he was and how cuddly he was without being honest that it is a huge change in routine and it was rough at first getting used to it.

The biggest change we've noticed is not sleeping in on the weekends. Poor Casey has taken the morning shift. He said he has an easier time going back to bed than I do (which is true) so he decided he wouldn't mind getting up and then going back to bed until we realized that there's no going back to bed once Tuck is up. We're going to try putting him in our room tomorrow morning after we take him to the bathroom and seeing if he'll go back to sleep. This should calm him since not being able to see us is what upsets him when we try to put him back in. He's crated in the living room where we can hear him if he barks but not hear every snuffle and drink of the water bottle. He's never crated when we're here and does a good job, so we'll see how he does uncrated while we're sleeping. I'll let you know how that goes...

Let me also say that he's an awesome puppy, we are really really lucky. He picked up on going to the bathroom outside really quick. Luckily for us, shih tzus aren't much on being outside so getting to go back in is a reward because he hates just standing outside. He won't use the bathroom in his crate and he's in it for 8 hours at night and then 9 hours during the day while we're at work (I come let him out at lunch). He won't bark in his crate at night and he also won't really get into anything or chew on too many things. He chews a little, but he's teething so it's expected. All these things added up, equal a really good puppy so we've lucked out on him and we're so happy to have a new addition to our family. It's teaching us responsibility and having to put something before our own needs which is a really good thing to learn as a couple.

I suppose I'll post some pictures of the little guy today =) We had Kara there to capture the moment Casey got to the apartment with him so it's kind of cool that we have those pictures to look at.

This is right after Casey got home and got him out of the car, we're a big corny family haha

Tucker Ducker himself

We got the chance to take him out today to our dog run. Our apartment complex has this huge fenced in piece of land where you can just set your dogs loose so that they can run around. There aren't usually dogs in there at the same time so it's not a big issue having them unleashed. It's also really shady because there are weeping willows surrounding the outside so Tuck doesn't overheat himself (which happens easily).

So this is our little buddy. He causes us to lose sleep but we guess he's worth it =)

Wedding Video is here!

2008-08-16T21:31:00.005-04:00

We weren't expecting it anytime soon but we actually got our copies on Friday. We were fortunate that our videographers were in the area on Friday and we just waited downtown a little bit after work and met them instead of having to wait for them to arrive in the mail. We are very pleased with our video! I was telling Casey earlier that the video really brings back the emotion of the day unlike pictures. I love our pictures, but I would recommend any bride get a videographer. There are things that pictures just can't capture. One picture I was upset that I didn't get was Casey's face as I was coming down the aisle, but it got caught on video. We also got a highlight reel that is apart of our video. We actually got this clip earlier in the week and it's awesome because the 3 minutes of the reel really does capture our entire day.

This weekend has been really relaxing so far. Friday night we got Mexican with Kara and Brandon. One of our favorite couples! If you haven't noticed we go out to Mexican a lot. It's what we do. We especially go a lot now that this awesome place has opened up downtown with a salsa bar. After we met them for dinner we came back and rented The Other Boelyn Girl, which I didn't finish until this morning. We haven't been going out a lot since Tuck has came into our lives but that'll be a whole separate blog post =)

One of our friends is actually staying over tonight as well. We met him in college and he was also the DJ at our wedding. The reason he's in the area is to DJ my day of coordinator's daughter's wedding. Apparently she was impressed with him at my wedding and hired him on the spot. We thought he did an awesome job as well so we're glad he got to come over for another wedding. Plus it's nice to seem him every now and then as long as it's not too frequent.... haha just kidding

Tomorrow looks like there's going to be some thank you note writing going on. We really planned on having these out by last week but Tuck kind of turned our week upside down, so hopefully we can finish them tomorrow. We also want to finish sorting through our photos tomorrow so that we can begin to order photo books. Dress still needs to be preserved as well... does this wedding stuff have an end?

Birthday Weekend!

2008-08-07T22:05:00.016-04:00

So.. my birthday was this past weekend and I really had a great weekend. It's funny how your birthdays change when you get older, but change is good! Friday we got to go out with some of our close friends for mexican and it was good times. On Saturday we were going to head straight home for the weekend but we decided to go to the Safari Park on the way in. If you've never been, it involves driving through wildlife and feeding animals through your window. I know it may not sound exciting, but it's actually pretty fun especially for an animal lover such as I. We ended up meeting my sister, her husband, and my niece after we drove through and we walked around with them to see some of the animals that were in cages.

The animals literally just hang out in the road while you're driving through. They know cars mean buckets, and buckets mean food.

This would be a watusi in the road. A rather large horned animal that makes it difficult to get by.

Us feeding some animals...

I eat yo buckets fo' breakfast

Me and my niece hanging out in the atrium.

Lillian and uncle Case checking out a bird.

After that we went in to stay with my parents Saturday night and went to visit Casey's parents for awhile. We ended up coming back our way on Sunday for dinner and just hanging out the rest of the day on my actual birthday. Overall it was a pretty good weekend. Casey and my sister must've been listening to me when I was telling them about the bath and body store Lush that I visited in Hawaii, b/c they both ordered me some Lush stuff which I love. Casey's mom got me a Joy of Cooking book which I can't wait to sit down and look at =) These people must know me well or something. My parents, Casey's parents, and Casey also contributed towards getting my puppy. Mr. Tuck comes home tomorrow with Casey. I'm so excited! Casey is taking half a day tomorrow to go to NC to get him. I hope we're prepared for a puppy. Guess I'll find out this time tomorrow night. Here's a picture of Tuck, he's 12 weeks old and looks adorable. Can't wait to meet him tomorrow.

Honey Chicken Kabobs

2008-07-30T21:32:00.005-04:00

This is such an easy meal that has become one of Casey's favorites for me to make, which is fine by me. We have a simple division of chores in our house. I love to cook and I cook every night and Casey cleans up the kitchen. I get out rather easy on nights that we have frozen pizza or simple kabobs.

I pulled this recipe from Allrecipes when I was searching for a marinade that I could make with a limited amount of ingredients on hand. It involves soy sauce, vegetable oil, and honey which I usually always have. I keep an economy sized jar of soy sauce on hand and my brother-in-law makes his own honey which we usually have (but now we're out of, by the way Keith). The ingredient measurements will look weird, because the original serving was 12 and I cut it in half. I used a green bell pepper instead of a red, but use whatever pepper you have on hand! I also threaded all of my onions on one skewer, chicken on another, etc. so that if the vegetables needed to cook longer they were all on the same skewer. Also, remember to soak your skewers in water before you thread them so that they won't burn.

(Source: Allrecipes.com)

Servings: 6

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

2 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons honey

2 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons soy sauce

1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

4 skinless boneless chicken breast halves, cut into 1 inch cubes

1 clove garlic

2 small onions, cut into 2 inch pieces

1 red bell pepper, cut into 2 inch pieces

skewers

In a large bowl, whisk together oil, honey, soy sauce, and pepper. Before adding chicken, reserve a small amount of marinade to brush onto kabobs while cooking. Place the chicken, garlic, onions and peppers in the bowl, and marinate in the refrigerator at least 2 hours (the longer the better). Preheat the grill for high heat. Drain marinade from the chicken and vegetables, and discard marinade. Thread chicken and vegetables alternately onto the skewers. Lightly oil the grill grate. Place the skewers on the grill. Cook for 12 to 15 minutes, until chicken juices run clear. Turn and brush with reserved marinade frequently.

Julia's Peppery Pot Roast

2008-07-30T20:03:00.007-04:00

I borrowed this recipe from Jen over on Pass the Pepper and I've made it twice since I've tried it the first time. Casey and I both really enjoyed it and it's one of those things that my mom used to make on Sunday that I never really bothered to learn how to make. The sauce had just the right amount of spice to it and it's definitely been added to our list of recipes.

(Source: Pass the Pepper)

Servings: A lot

4 lb beef roast
2 cloves of garlic - minced
1/2 tsp onion salt
1/2 tsp celery salt
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp pepper
1/2 cup ketchup
3 Tbsp brown sugar
1 Tbsp dry mustard
Dash of nutmeg
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp lemon juice
3 drops hot pepper sauce
1 cup beef stock

Bring the roast to room temperature, rub it with salt and pepper then brown it on both sides. Place roast in the crock pot and add 1 cup of beef stock to the bottom. Mix all the above ingredients together and pour onto the roast. Cook for 6-7 hours on high. I added a half of an onion sliced, carrots, and potatoes during the last 2 hours like Jen did. I also added a little more broth when I added the vegetables. I served it with corn and biscuits. Very good!