Happy Inauguration Day!

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

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

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)

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!

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

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

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.