What's for dinner?

As part of a new year's effort to find a little more balance in my life, I have been working on finding some healthy recipes that are easy to throw together after a long day at work. This one was yummy and SO easy to make. Seared chicken breast with lemon herb pan sauce - so quick and delicious - and on the table in no time. We'll definitely be having this again soon! Check out Simply Scratch for more great recipes - I'll be sure to post about others I try and love.

Click here for recipe

Thanksgiving turkey brie!

My sister is a genius. First of all, she made a delicious brie en croute (a wheel of brie cheese wrapped and baked in a sheet of puff pastry, served melty and delicious with crackers, bread and/or fingers :P) last year as an appetizer and it instantly became a required part of all future Thanksgiving meals. YUM!

Then this year, as she was plating her masterpiece, she realized it would be pretty easy to make the whole thing look like a turkey. Extra points for THEMATIC creativity!!! All it took was a few small pieces of roasted carrot, two cranberries and a little piece of cracker for his 'chin' (what on earth do they call that?!). Isn't it ADORABLE?!!! Almost too cute to eat, but it was so delicious, we managed to overcome that!

Baking it up as we go...

Somewhere out there in other parts of the world, people are enjoying views like this. I just know it. While we are still seeing temperature forecasts up in the 80s this week. So no chocolate candy for trick or treaters coz it will probably just MELT. Sigh.

Well, I spent a lovely weekend with a few fun house guests, stayed up late (waaaaaaaaaay too late), laughed and chatted the whole time and we BAKED. Yeah, it wasn't cold or raining, but we pretended the weather was baking appropriate and had a GREAT time! Two of my FAVORITE easy recipes to share with a crowd:

Apple Crisp ~ the simplest, most deliciousest (word invention!) creation that evokes the happiest, homiest smells. Mmmmm. No picture (SORRY!) - but imagine... If you have a bunch of apples you need to use (or that you happen to buy at the store with the very intent of baking this!), it's the perfect thing to make!

And Aunt Holly's Banana Bread ~ yummmmmm! Yeah, I know, pictures!!! Sorry! Neither of these treats were around long enough to take a pic, the apple crisp was whisked straight from the oven and out the door to church!

These two recipes are so super quick and easy to throw together, completely forgiving if you get a little 'creative' with the ingredients, and perfect for you to try if baking isn't really your thing. Trust me. You will SUCCEED. And nothing emboldens a baker like SUCCESS!!!

Gosh I want to go apple picking. I've never been, it sounds like SUCH good fun. Of course if I were to go apple picking in Southern California, I'd probably pass out from the heat right now. Exaggeration? Maybe... just a tad :P

Wishing for winter...

Well after two ninety degree days in a row, I woke up this morning to a semi-cloudy day and because of the AC blasting, I deluded myself into thinking it was going to be a cooler day. So I made pot roast. By midday, the breeze still had a slightly cooler temperature than the sweltering weekend, but it was clear that it wasn't quite a pot roast kind of day. Still, it's nice to think there's dinner waiting for me at home at the end of a long, crazy work day. Phew. And I tried a new recipe for Balsamic Pot Roast that sounds delicious ~ I mean, doesn't this pic just make your mouth water?!?!?! Yum!


UPDATE: It's delicious!!! All three diners give this recipe a big thumbs up. We'll be eating this again!

Oh the places you'll go...

I LOVE that Dr. Seuss book, one of my favorites :) And I LOVED this super easy pinterest project that I made my hubby for an anniversary gift. We don't usually buy each other gifts, instead we spend money on a weekend getaway together, but sometimes we make little things for each other. I had pinned this craft a while back, and it took less than an hour to complete.


I bought a few maps from Barnes and Noble, a heart punch, some scrapbook paper and a cheap from from Michaels, and got to work down in the laundry (where my crafting wouldn't be discovered :P)... I punched out the most memorable places we've been together, where we met, where we honeymooned, and other fun places, stuck them to the scrapbook paper in a grid using double-sided tape, and put it in the frame.

That easy!!! I have a few extra pieces of the same scrapbook paper, and since we hung it as part of the gallery wall in our office, I'm going to use the paper to mat a few other items I want to frame, for a more cohesive look. Pics to come, when it's done :)

Party recap... finally!

Well, now that I have at least figured out how to work around Google Chrome's evil hijacking efforts, I can finally post about the two parties I threw during the week of sheer madness. The week of sheer madness resulted from the perfect storm of a combination of things. I was out of town the weekend before, had a work event on Tuesday night, and birthday party number one on Wednesday night.

One of my best friends was hitting the big 3-0 in August, and I had been planning a big surprise party for her when we both got the ultimate surprise - she was moving to Washington, and is it turned out, would be leaving the week before her actual birthday. So I moved the celebration up, changed the plan a bit, and ordered catering to make it easier on myself since I would be coming straight from work to church, and then the party afterwards. The party ended up being lovely, it was intimate, memorable and fun... And put a smile on the birthday girl's face!

Here are the party details:

DECOR:
I am SO bad at remembering to take pictures of parties, usually because I'm busy doing something else, I definitely need to improve on that! Anyway, for decor, I went with a simple, bright color scheme. Turquoise is one of the birthday girl's favorite colors (by chance, she wore a dress that matched the party!), so we decorated with turquoise, using hot pink napkins and pink roses for accents. The picture below (from Pinterest) shows my color scheme inspiration :)

I set up one long banquet table, so everyone could sit together, and added tea light candles for pretty lighting.

FOOD:

This is the important part, right?! :P Most of it, I ordered from Chicken Maison, which is yummy and an extremely affordable way to feed a crowd. Here's the menu for the dinner:

Appetizers

Caprese skewers**

Stuffed dates**

Stuffed Grape leaves

Main course

Rotisserie chicken - spicy lemon and original

Rice pilaf

Veggie kabobs

Pita and hummus

And birthday cake for dessert!!! Aside from the caprese skewers and stuffed dates (recipes at the end of the post) and the veggie kabobs, everything else came from Chicken Maison, and we just plated it and added garnish. 

PARTY FAVOR:

I wanted to make sure everyone left with a little treat, a reminder of a sweet evening spent with the birthday girl. I had been thinking of macarons, but when I realized one of the guests attending has a severe nut allergy, I figured I'd save that for a future party. Look how cute that idea is!!

Anyway, so macarons were out, and I immediately thought of yet another Pinterest inspired favor that seemed easy enough to pull off in the extremely limited time I had to do everything. 

These were adorable, easy to make, and I will DEFINITELY be using this idea again in the future! I put each oreo pop in a clear plastic treat bag and tied a bright pink ribbon around each stick, and by all reports (I didn't get to try one! But my hubby is my favorite food critic, and the fact that there were none left to try speaks for itself!), they were delicious! For a great tutorial, check out this website!!

So that's the first party recap! The second party recap will have to wait, as the few pics I took are on my other (good!) camera, which I am trying to use more! All in all, it was a lovely night and fairly easy to pull off on a work night :D 

Caprese Skewers

I love making these! They are easy, they look pretty, and people LOVE eating food on a stick. Even salad. It's TRUE! 

Ingredients:

mozzarella cheese (cut into 3/4 inch chunks or buy the little mozzarella balls)

grape or cherry tomatoes

basil leaves

balsamic dressing (or just balsamic vinegar)

skewers

Onto each skewer, thread a tomato, then a basil leaf, then a piece of cheese. Keep covered in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours, and before serving, bring to room temperature. Drizzle with balsamic dressing (or vinegar, I also add a little pepper), and enjoy! :) 

Stuffed dates

These are DELICIOUS. They might sound a bit odd, but the flavors go so well together, they are yummy at room temperature, or you can make them ahead and then put in the oven right before serving. I made extra of these, and saved some for our beach picnic birthday dinner the following night!

Dates (pitted)

Cheese (goats cheese, blue cheese, parmesan cheese, manchego - I've tried all of these, they're all good!)

Prosciutto

Cut prosciutto slice into quarters. Stuff each date with a piece of cheese, then press the date closed and wrap with prosciutto. You can secure the prosciutto with a toothpick, if you'd like, I don't find that to be necessary. Put the stuffed dates on a tray, and bake at 400 degrees for about 5 minutes (or until the prosciutto looks a little crispy). Transfer to serving plate and enjoy!!!

Lovely lavender

You might remember when I went a little nuts and bought four bunches of dried lavender at Trader Joe's... I can't help it, I LOVE lavender, and it's gotten to that point in the summer where all my plants are requiring more frequent watering, and cut flowers hardly last more than a few days before wilting because it is TOO DARN HOT! So buying a bunch of dried lavender seemed the perfect solution for my little table centerpiece container that's been holding a languishing little lavender for a few months now. I kind of squished it into the little container, and that may or may not have caused the languishing... But dried lavender is already dead - so PERFECT solution! :) Well, the lavender didn't quite stand up the way I wanted them to, probably coz the vase has a wide opening, so I needed to get some floral foam to stabilize them a bit. I finally got around to it this weekend, and it took all of 15 minutes (aside from the lovely aisle browsing at Michael's!), so here's how I did it:

You will need:

Dried flowers (or silk if that's what you like)

Floral foam

A knife

To start, use a knife to cut the floral foam to size - you want it to fit snugly into the vase or container you will be using.

Next, lay out the dried flowers on your counter/table/workspace. Begin to add the flowers, a few stems at a time, cutting them to the height you'd like the arrangement to be, as you go. If some stems break, put them aside and save them in case you can use them at the end.

As you begin to fill the container, turn it every now and then, to make sure that the arrangement is full and balanced from all sides (especially important for me as I planned to use this as a table centerpiece. When you are almost done, shake the container a little, and fix any stems that fall or lean over. I was very happy with how my new table centerpiece turned out - it is fragrant, simple and doesn't wilt in the heat! And I ended up with an extra bunch of lavender left over, to give to a friend :)  

Beachy waves!

Well, I have tried to take pics to prove it, but am unable to successfully capture just how pretty the beachy waves are that I created by using this recipe I found on Pinterest - how do people take such great pics of themselves?! Well, for now, you'll just have to take my word for it! When I first read this recipe, I was a bit skeptical, having tried many 'surf spray' or texturizer products. And I know depending on your hair's natural texture/body/wave, thickness etc. it may not work for you. But boy am I happy with the little spray I whipped up this morning! Try it - you might love it!

1 cup warm water

1 tbsp coconut oil (I bought it at Trader Joe's - recommend it for use as a body lotion too for dry summer skin!)

2 tbsp sea salt

a squirt of gel (I skipped this coz I hate crunchy hair, but it was in the original recipe as it helps hold the style/waves all day)

Combine all ingredients in a spray bottle and shake well to combine. Spray on damp, detangled hair, and scrunch if you'd like to. Air dry.

That's it. Five minutes of effort, and I can honestly say I am more impressed with this than any other product I've used! I haven't tried it yet on dry hair (to spruce up waves on the next day), but I will, and I am hopeful it will work just as well. My hair is pretty wavy naturally and prone to frizz, but I am LOVING these zero effort beach waves created by this spray. So try it :) Makes me feel like I'm spending the day with these ladies, on the beach... And heaven knows it's hot enough in LA today to make me wish I was there!

Chimichurri sauce ~ on everything!

I love chimichurri sauce - I don't know how a simple whirl of a blender or food processor can elevate such simple ingredients to such a delicious, unique flavor, but I LOVE it. It's great on steak (that's how we'll be eating it tomorrow), yummy for dipping a baguette, tasty with pita chips (I discovered when I'd whipped a batch up this afternoon and had no baguette for dipping), and I'm sure it would be delicious on chicken, fish, shrimp, and pretty much anything else you can think of. There are a lot of different recipes for it, and every time I make it, I think I alter it slightly. But here's my yummy chimichurri recipe - try it!

Bunch of parsley
1/2 cup of olive oil
1/2 cup of red wine vinegar
One garlic clove
Salt to taste

Throw everything except the salt in a food processor or blender, and pulse until it reaches a pesto-like consistency. Add salt to taste. Smother everything in it and enjoy :) Keeps for at least a week in the fridge.



Weekend houseguests and banana bread

You know those kinds of recipes that you can totally bake on autopilot? Aunt Holly's Banana Bread recipe is one of those for me. So easy, delicious, and yummy! With houseguests in town for the weekend and a few bananas that were kind of past the stage of overripe, we spent a relaxing day on Saturday hanging out with friends and inhaling the delicious, heavenly sent of this tasty treat baking. I may or may not have (ok I did) added an extra egg by mistake, due to my preoccupation with chatting with our guests, and it STILL worked out perfectly! So rather than throwing away those way (waaaaaaaaaaay) too ripe bananas, take 5 minutes to make a batch of this. Perfect for sharing with houseguests, or keeping it all to yourself :)

Aunt Holly's Banana Bread From Epicurious

Ingredients:
3 medium-sized bananas, overly ripe
¼ cup of butter, melted
1 ½ cup of all-purpose flour
1 cup of white sugar (I always use a little less and find it plenty sweet enough, even without choc chips)
1 large egg, beaten
1 tsp. of baking soda
¼ tsp. of salt
Optional additions: chocolate chips (milk, dark, even white chocolate is divine), walnuts, or shredded coconut

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 9 inch loaf pan with parchment paper, leaving about 2 inches hanging off the sides.
2. In a large bowl, mash bananas. Add all the ingredients but the additions. Mix well (until all the flour is gone).
3. Stir in the additions, until just combined. Pour into loaf pan and even out the top with a spatula.
4. Bake in oven for 50-60 minutes, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. If top of bread begins to brown but the inside isn't done yet, tent the top with foil and continue baking.
5. When ready, allow to cool in pan for 30 minutes. Lift out with parchment paper, continue cooling until banana bread is firm to cut into (about 20 minutes).

Yum!

Homegrown!

Well, I've been busy getting ready for a week in AZ, and one of my concerns was that the two juicy orangish tomatoes growing on my patio would ripen while I was away. Thankfully, the timing was right and they were ready to pick before I left, so I HAD to make this delicious tomato tart. YUM! The recipe is included below, although it's so easy, it's not really a recipe.

This picture doesn't really do it justice, and is upside down because I am frustrated with my technology today and no matter how hard I tried to flip the pic, I couldn't succeed... But you get the idea ;P

Mustard (coarse grain)
Parmesan cheese (shaved or grated)
Tomatoes (preferably juicy and delicious :P)
Puff pastry
Salt and pepper

Heat oven to 400. Thaw the puff pastry on the counter for 10 minutes, or in the fridge for several hours. Cut to the size you plan to use. Line baking tray with parchment paper (I am lazy and hate scrubbing trays, so I always do this :P). Spread a layer of mustard over the puff pastry, almost all the way to the edges. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese over the mustard. Thinly slice the tomatoes, and arrange on the crust. Add a little sea salt, and pepper to take, then sprinkle with a little more Parmesan. Bake until the crust is done - about 15 minutes.

Fresh basil would probably be delicious, but I didn't have any and this was still a very tasty pre-airport treat!! :)

An exciting purchase!!

Just LOOK at this little beauty!!! I am so excited about my little Friday afternoon boredom buster web purchase, I can hardly wait until it arrives! I have been wanting to try this banana fro-yo ever since I read about the idea on some hippy-dippy vegan website, for 'homemade non-dairy ice cream'. It seemed like hard work with a food processor though, and then a few months ago, when I read about this contraption, I really wanted one but couldn't justify spending so much dough on a kitchen appliance that really only served one purpose - it seemed so frivolous. Fast forward to this morning, when in a conversation with my sister, she mentioned having recently returned something to Hammacher Schlemmer, taking advantage of their lifetime guarantee and I suddenly remember having returned a steering wheel bluetooth last summer. Well, I looked high and low, but could NOT find the gift certificate they'd sent me for the return, so I emailed Hammacher Schlemmer to ask if there was some way I could still use the gift certificate even though I lost it :D (Hey, no judging, I moved house, I have NO idea where it could be!). This is where I have to say Hammacher Schlemmer has THE BEST customer service of any company I know. They are super friendly, efficient, and they have a no exceptions, no attitude lifetime guarantee that I have benefited from not once, but twice now! They let me verify the address and original order number, then applied my credit towards this new order, and are sending me my purchase and my remaining gift certificate in 3-4 business days. Have you ever heard of such customer service?!! Ahhhhh I can't wait to freeze up some berries and bananas and make a delicious bowl of hippy dippy fro-yo!!!

Tapas to go

Trying to plan ahead for our post-work mad dash to see Mamma Mia, I found myself wandering around Trader Joes this morning, in an attempt to assemble some kind of 'tapas to go' type snack to prevent me from spending the last thirty minutes trying to ignore to the rumble of my empty stomach. Since my commute was surprisingly light, I had a few minutes to grab whatever seemed like a good idea, and tapas, being one of my favorite things, seemed fancier and more fun than a bag of chips (besides chips are no fun without dip, and dip is messy for the car...). I bought some mini brie wheels, a tapas cheese sampler, crackers and a baguette. I hate shopping without a list, since I usually think of something else I wish I'd bought after the fact, and in this case, that would have included strawberries and prosciutto. But it'll be better than an empty stomach, for sure. I'll grab a few moments before I leave, slice up an apple and assemble everything ~ seems like a good solution to the problem of the rumbling tummy!

Crock pot BBQ chicken sandwiches - YUM!

Well, Sunday I endeavored to make crock pot pulled chicken sandwiches for a crowd. I borrowed my sister's crock pot, and between hers and mine, put ten pounds of chicken in, with a few bottles of BBQ sauce, and set it to high for 4 hours. It feels a little misleading to call it a recipe, because that is basically it. It really is so easy. But of course I messed it up - kind of. One of the two crock pots had a slightly bowed lid, which was steadily allowing heat to escape(!), so after the 4 hours cooking, it wasn't quite 'stir it a bit with a fork and watch it fall apart' done (that's the last part of the 'recipe' :P), so rather than feed the masses sub-standard BBQ chicken sandwiches, instead I ordered pizzas and let the chicken finish cooking. After we got home, the chicken was perfectly done in both crock pots, so I shredded it and froze it for the next time we're feeding the masses. I'll just thaw it, and reheat in the crock pot with a little more BBQ sauce - yum! Of course this 'recipe' works in any quantity, and is great at the end of a work day!

Pulled Chicken Sandwiches

buns
BBQ sauce
chicken (breast, thigh, whatever, boneless or bone-in depending on how much work you want to put in after it's done cooking)

Pour a little BBQ sauce into the crock pot. Add layers of chicken, squirting a little BBQ sauce in between each layer. Set crock pot to high for 3-4 hours, or low for 8-10 hours. Remove chicken to bowl, stir with a fork until it shreds, and add a little more BBQ sauce to the chicken. Serve on toasted buns - yum!

DIY art for Mr. & Mrs ~ AKA The Dylan Installment

The Dylan Installment :P And an abstract piece we both liked in the background

One of the things we both loved when we first saw our new house was the fact that it felt like an art gallery. Big white walls, high ceilings in several rooms, lots of natural light coming in through the giant glass block window next to the stairs, and just a general airy feeling that made us both excited to think about the possibilities. The thing is art is completely subjective, and one man's idea of something he'd like to hang the wall is likely to differ greatly from one woman's vision for the house in general. For example, when my hubby said he wanted to get a huge picture of Bob Dylan to put on the wall, I took a few deep breaths and started to think of a way to use his idea to make something that I would enjoy looking at every day. And then I had an epiphany. I love black and white photography, and I have an obsession with trios of things - not sure why, but this something we've noticed about me - trios and diagonals. But anyway... Then there's the matter of our budget. Since we're still working on paying off our appliances (which I am SO THANKFUL for, it actually doesn't bother me to pay the bill, I just make myself think of laundromats and how many Sunday afternoons of my life were spent there, and then I click 'Pay Now' with GLEE!!), and there are other things around the house we want or need to spend money on, we are trying to stick to a budget when it comes to art. And since our old apartment was only 500 square feet, we didn't bring a lot with us :) So I came up with a DIY budget art project that my wonderful hubby hung up last night. Here's what we did:

The poster I ordered online

First, I ordered a black and white Bob Dylan poster from here - it was about $3.00 plus shipping on Amazon. When the poster arrived (like a day later - the return mailing label showed they shipped it from less than a mile away - kinda funny), we rolled it out and decided on three small areas of the poster that we both liked and thought had interesting contrast and detail. Then we bought some simple, big frames and matting. We got these from Aaron Brothers (and kicked ourselves for missing their penny sale by two days - ugh!!), but Ikea is great for inexpensive frames too. Then I cut out and framed the three areas we'd selected and voila - beautiful, simple art for our empty wall, Bob Dylan like the hubby wanted, but a little more subtle. I took a few quick snaps of how our little weekend project turned out this morning:

The pics don't quite do it justice, and I need to upload a front on pic of all three together (there are still pencil lines on the wall from the very complicated process of hanging them - our house is crooked, we're ok with that, but it makes simple things like this tricky!), but it was such an easy, inexpensive way to create art for our walls that we both love :)

Five minute chocolate cake

Some things seem too good to be true - like this!! I found this recipe a few weeks ago, and then came across it again today - which seems like a sign that I need to try this recipe pretty soon. Like tomorrow! 



Ingredients:
4 Tablespoons cake flour
4 Tablespoons sugar
2 Tablespoons cocoa
1 Egg
3 Tablespoons milk
3 Tablespoons oil
1 Mug

Instructions:
1. In a microwavable mug, mix flour, sugar and cocoa, then spoon in egg.
2. Add the milk and oil and mix it with a fork.
3. Microwave for 3 minutes on high.
4. Wait a minute or two, to let the cake set, then remove from the microwave.

Yum! Can't wait to see if it works!