Thursday, October 27, 2011

Butternut Squash Gnocchi with Kale and Chicken Sausage

This is a recipe that I took from Food Network magazine and made last night. It was amazingly quick, because almost everything cam straight out of a package (love it!) John and I both have our Bible Studies on Wednesday night's, so it's important that we have something quick to make.



We made this with chicken sausage that I got from Trader Joe's (LOVE them for quick meals). This one was their Spinach, Fontina and Roasted Garlic variety and it was yum-yum-good!

Just a note- I've had kale before, but for some reason I really didn't like it in this dish? I think it's because there are already a lot of heavy, dark flavors...if I made it again I think I would switch it out for spinach! Here's the recipe!

Ingredients:

1/2 butternut squash, peeled, seeds removed, and diced
1 tbsp. butter
3 cloves garlic, sliced thin
1 1/4 c. chicken stock
1 bunch/package kale (I would remove the ribs...they're tough!)
1 package gnocchi
4 links of chicken sausage, sliced 
1/4 c. parmesan
1 tbsp. butter

Directions:

In a cast iron skillet, melt butter and saute squash until soft.

Add garlic and saute for 2 minutes. Add chicken stock and bring to a simmer. Wilt kale in stock in batches.

Add gnocchi and cover in sauce. Season with salt and pepper. Add sausage, cheese and butter. Cook in broiler for about 10 minutes, until brown and bubbling.

Grr...this picture is SO ugly...I want a better camera...or an iPhone.



Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Twilight...

Sometimes, you realize that you're watching Twilight on FOX at 9:45 on a Wednesday while drinking a $4 bottle of red wine, and you just have to be OK with that.


That's really all that I have to say.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Baked Pasta w/ 6 Cheeses

Ingredients:

1 lb. cheese, shredded (I used mozzarella, triple creme brie, bleu, sharp cheddar, parmesan-asiago, and pepper jack)

1 lb. pasta (I used gobetti, penne or rigatoni would also work)

4 strips bacon, fried, crumbled, reserving the fat
1/4 c. all-purpose flour
2 1/2 c. skim milk, hot
1 egg, beaten
2 tbsp. mustard powder
1 tbsp. seasoned salt (I used a cajun-style seasoning)
Salt
Pepper
1/4 c. panko

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Boil pasta until al-dente. Drain and set aside. 

Combine bacon fat and flour in a sauce-pan. Cook oven medium heat for 5 minutes, whisking constantly. Take whisk and slowly temper a small amount of flour mixture into the hot milk. Once tempered, pour milk into sauce pan and cook over medium low heat for about 10 minutes, until very thick (about the consistency of a cream gravy).

Take 1/4 c. of the milk mixture and slowly temper it with the egg in a separate bowl. Once tempered, add the egg mixture to the milk mixture, and cook for 5 minutes. Add mustard, seasoned salt, sat and pepper to taste.

Slowly add the cheese in 2-3 installments. Whisk until combined. Pour over pasta and mix until combined. Pour pasta into a greased pan, topping with bacon, panko and additional cheese. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until bubbling and browned on top.

Monday, October 17, 2011

Crispy Italian Sausage with Warm Lentil Salad & Roasted Brussels

**Warning** This post does not have any pictures. Can you guess why? Is it:

A) Because Emily forgot to take any?
B) Because the meal was so delicious that she ran out of food to photograph?
C) Because Emily wants a fancy camera and is thus disenchanted with taking blog-related pictures?
D) All of the above.

This meal was amazing (PS- the answer was D...as in duh). AND, as we discovered after we finished eating...it was gluten-free! Not that either of us care...and not that the beer we were drinking with the meal was gluten-free...but still. AND, it's a Rachel Ray recipe...but don't let that stop you from trying it!

Crispy Sausage:

However many sausages you want
1 bottle good beer (an ale, preferably definitely)

Place sausages in a pan and cover with appx. 1/4 inch beer. Bring to a simmer and cook until beer dissolves and sausages are crispy on all sides (appx. 10 minutes)

Warm Lentil Salad:

1/2 lb. lentils, rinsed
1 bay leaf
1 small onion, halved
1/4 c. parsley
Salt
Pepper
1/4 c. Olive Oil (mine was infused with garlic)

Cover lentils, bay leaf and onion with water (2 inches above) in a pot. Bring to a boil and then simmer, uncovered, for about 15 minutes. Do NOT let them get too mushy. Drain, and combine with remaining ingredients.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts:

1 lb. brussels sprouts, cleaned and halved
1 apple, diced
4 slabs bacon, cooked and crumbled
1 tbsp. olive oil
2 tbsp. maple syrup
1 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
Salt
Pepper

Preheat oven to 375 F. Combine brussels, apples and bacon. In a small bowl, whisk together olive oil, syrup and vinegar. Combine with brussels mixture. Spread evenly on a sheet pan and liberally season with salt and pepper. Roast for 25 minutes, until golden brown.





Sunday, October 9, 2011

Chicken Tortilla Soup

It's been, approximately, 10 years since my last post. I've been doing much more "studying" and less "baking" lately. This weekend was our first weekend at home for a month! We have been beaching, wedding, and Homecoming it up! We spent our weekend off catching up on our favorite shows, cleaning house, studying (guh), entertaining, praising, and (dun dun dun DUN!) cooking up a storm!

No really, we have so many leftovers. Please just come over and take things from our fridge. 

On Friday we mixed it up by added spinach to our normal Italian sausage and jalapeno pizza. Success! On Saturday my aunt and uncle came over for dinner and we made chicken stuffed with spinach, artichoke hearts, kalamata olives and Panko with homemade tomato sauce and brown rice. For dessert we had a blueberry ginger upside down cake. Absolute perfection.

Then today I finally made Chicken Tortilla soup! I've been wanting to make this Pioneer Woman recipe for a few months and I finally got around to it. Downside...the recipe said that it took almost 2 hours to make. I was not down with that. So, I made some changes and came up with this masterpiece.

Ingredients:

2 chicken breasts
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 tbsp. each: garlic powder, chili powder, cumin, salt
1 red pepper, diced
1 small onion, diced
2 tomatoes, diced
3 garlic cloves, smashed
1 c. corn
1/4 c. green chilies
2 cans black beans, drained
32 oz. chicken stock
4 c. water
3 tbsp. tomato paste
3 tbsp. corn meal + water (to make a paste)
5 tortilla strips, cut into slices
Cilantro
Sour Cream
Cheddar
Salt
Pepper

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Rub chicken breasts lightly with olive oil and sprinkle with spices. Bake for 25 minutes, until done. Shred and set aside.

Meanwhile, heat 1 tbsp. oil in a soup pot over medium high heat. Saute pepper, onion, garlic until soft.

Add tomato, chili and corn. Saute 1 minute.

Add black beans, stock, water and tomato paste. Bring to a boil and then reduce to simmer for 30 minutes.

Add chicken and corn meal mixture. Simmer for 10 minutes.

Add tortilla strips and turn off heat. Allow to sit for 5 minutes.

Top with cilantro, sour cream and cheddar. Season with salt and pepper as needed.










Monday, September 12, 2011

Banana Ginger Lassi

I, just, cannot use my blender enough lately. Maybe it's guilt from not using it enough during the summer, when smoothies, gazpacho and margaritas are more appropriate? Either way...I've been using it A LOT lately. My latest fave is the lassi, which is an Indian yogurt drink, similar to a smoothie (but thinner).

1 banana
1/2 c. greek yogurt
1 tbsp. yogurt
1 c. skim milk
1 inch grate ginger
1/4 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg

Blend all ingredients until smooth. Serve chilled.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Crock Pot Mediterranean Chicken

I have been crock pot-ing it up this past week. We've just been super busy with work, getting ready for school, studying, hanging out with friends before the summer ends...the crock pot has really been a blessing this week.

This recipe is so easy that I'm kind of embarrassed to share it, but it turned out SO well, so I must.

Crock Pot Mediterranean Chicken

Ingredients:

2-3 chicken breasts
1/2 can crushed tomatoes
1 jar of drained artichoke hearts
1/2 c. green olives (or whatever olives you prefer)
Pepper

Directions:

Place all ingredients in crock pot. Set to LOW and cook for 7-8 hours. Serve over orzo. We also had a marinated tomato-cucumber salad with ours.

Note: This recipe does NOT need any added salt. The brine from the olives and the artichokes was enough.

Tomato-Cucumber Salad

Ingredients:

1 tomato, halved and cut into slices
1/2 cucumber, halved and cut into slices
1/2 onion, thinly sliced
1/4 c. apple cider vinegar
1/4 c. olive oil
Salt
Pepper

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in a Ziploc bag, removing as much air as possible. Allow to marinate in the fridge overnight.


Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Crock Pot Jerk Chicken & Rice

How, how, HOW excited is everyone that The Pioneer Woman premiers this Saturday?!?


What? No one else cares? This isn't rocking anyone's world but mine? No one understands me...

Well, this post is in honor of the premier of my hero's show. It's a modified version of Tasty Kitchen's (the community blog associated with The Pioneer Woman) Jerk Chicken.








Crock Pot Jerk Chicken & Rice


Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups brown rice
1 c. chicken stock
1 diced onion
3 diced green onions
3 crushed garlic cloves
Juice of 1 lime
1/2 c. olive oil
3/4 c. white vinegar
1/4 c. soy sauce
1 tbsp. allspice
1 tbsp. thyme
1 1/2 tsp cayenne
10 turns of black pepper
1 1/2 tsp sage
3/4 tsp nutmeg
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp. sugar
2-3 chicken breasts

Mix all ingredients (other than chicken and rice) in a blender. Place a small amount of mixture on the bottom, layer on top rice and chicken, and then cover with the rest of the mixture. Cook in low for 8 hours or high for 5 hours.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Berry Dark Chocolate Smore's

I love my Bible study so much. Ok...this past summer it's really been less studying the Bible and more fellowshipping it up...but we're hitting the books hard next week. Promise.

Anyways, it's super fun to have a house now that they can come over to...and I usually try to have some sort of snack for them (in addition to wine...which we drink in solidarity with Christ-followers across the ages, as well as our fellow Jews, whom we love). One week, John made some really delicious chocolate chip cookies for the girls, and the past two weeks I've made smore's.

At first, they were just your basic, oven smores. But this past week I decided to class them up by making them with dark chocolate and smearing raspberry and strawberry preserves on the graham crackers. I SHOULD have taken a picture...but they were gone so fast that I didn't have time!

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 F. Place graham crack halves on a baking sheet covered in foil. Smear raspberry or strawberry preserves on the bottom half, topping with a dark chocolate square & a marshmallow. Bake for appx 10 minutes, or until the marshmallow has melted and the chocolate has begun to melt. Top with the second half of the graham cracker.

I think next time I'll try these with homemade marshmallows and drizzle them with a dark chocolate sauce and a raspberry or strawberry sauce.


Friday, August 5, 2011

Breakfast for Dinner

We like to have breakfast for dinner about once a week. I LOVE breakfast food...but I would much rather have it in the evening, when you have a lot of time to dedicate to cooking. So, this past week for breakfast/dinner, we had Squash Nestled Eggs, Maple Pepper Bacon, and the best French Toast recipe in the entire world (from America's Test Kitchen). Here are the recipes for the first two!

Squash Nestled Eggs:

3 summer squash
3 zucchini
1 small onion, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
1 jalepeno, minced
2 tbsp. olive oil
Salt
Pepper
6 eggs
Sharp cheddar cheese

Directions:

1) With a box grater, grate squash and zucchini. Place in colander and toss with salt. Allow to drain over sink for 30-40 minutes. Squeeze out the remaining water. Set aside.

2) In a large, ovenproof skillet, heat olive oil. Saute onion and jalepeno, then garlic. Add squash & zucchini and sauté for 7-8 minutes.

3) Preheat oven to 375 F.

4) Make 6 wells in the squash/zucchini. Make sure not to expose the bottom of the pan. Place a drop of olive oil in each well, and then crack 1 egg into each well. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and top with cheese. Cook in the oven to 10-12 minutes, depending on your egg preference (we like over easy).


Maple Pepper Bacon

1 lb. bacon
Good quality maple syrup
Fresh cracked black pepper

Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 375 F.

2) Place a sheet of aluminum foil over a half sheet pan. Place a baking/cooling rack on top of pan. Lay bacon in a single layer on the rack.

3) Brush with maple syrup and sprinkle with pepper, then bake.

4) Every 5 minutes, flip the bacon and brush with syrup/sprinkle with pepper. Cook until done, about 35 minutes.

Friday, July 29, 2011

Chap Chae

So, the other day I had a hankering for something Asian. Noodles. Rice. It didn't matter. I knew that I had sweet potato noodles in our pantry, and my co-worker, Hee Joo told me about Chap Chae, a traditional Korean dish. It turned out pretty well....I think!




















Ingredients:

1/2 lb. sweet potato noodles (aka glass noodles)
Sesame Oil
Vegetable Oil
Tamari or Soy Sauce
Onion, sliced
2 tbsp. minced garlic
2 Carrots, cut into matchsticks
1 bag spinach
Hot Chili Paste
2 pork chops, sliced
Sesame Seeds

Directions:

Boil noodles in water for 5 minutes. Drain, stir with sesame oil and a little soy, then set aside. Cut up a little with kitchen shears.

Place pork into a pan and marinate in 1/4 c. soy and 2 tbsp. sesame oil.

In a large pot, heat enough sesame & vegetable oil to cover the bottom of the pan. When shimmering, add onions and , cook until translucent. Add garlic and carrots, and cook for 2 minutes or until fragrant. Add spinach and cook until wilted. Add noodles, and season with soy, sesame oil and hot chili paste to taste. Stir to combine and remove from pan.

Heat enough vegetable and sesame oil to cover pan. Add pork and sauté until browned.

Serve pork on top of noodles. Garnish with sesame seeds.

Monday, July 25, 2011

Fried Chicken for Grandpa

Last weekend I went to West Virginia to visit my grandma and grandpa. I got to cook dinner for my grandpa, who likes good, ol' fashioned country style food! So, I made creamed corn, mashed potatoes, fried chicken and a berry-peach pie. Heaven! Here's the fried chicken recipe:

Ingredients:

3 large chicken breasts
1 quart buttermilk
Salt
Pepper
2 c. flour
1 tbsp. poultry seasoning
2 eggs
1/4 c. vegetable oil

Directions:

1) Season chicken with salt and pepper. Marinate in butter milk for at least 4 hours.
2) Heat oil in cast iron over medium-high heat.
3) Pat chicken dry.
4) Drench in flour, egg, then flour/seasoning salt (add more salt & pepper if desired).
5) Fry in cast iron for 45 minutes, flipping every 15 to avoid burning.
6) Allow to sit for 10 minutes, then serve (with gravy is desired)

Gravy:

Whisk 1 tbsp. flour, 1 c. chicken stock, salt and pepper into leftover pan drippings and simmer. Adjust each ingredient until desired thickness is reached.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Oven Fried Zucchini

This side dish/appetizer is inspired by the fried zucchini at Maggiano's, where my bestie, Regan, had her rehearsal dinner a few weeks ago (hey, girl, hey!). Our entire table was OBSESSED with this zucchini, and I immediately knew that I wanted to try to make it at home. I'm not a huge fan of frying things in oil (except for fried chicken, recipe soon to come), so I tried oven frying it in panko. It turned out well...although you definitely need to eat it with a fork (I don't think you can really get that handheld quality without frying in oil). Here's the recipe!

Ingredients:

2 large zucchini, thinly sliced into ribbons
2 c. panko
1 tsp. sea salt
1 tbsp. pepper
2 tbsp. italian seasoning
1 tbsp. garlic powder
2 eggs, whisked

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 F. Individually, dip zucchini into egg and then into panko, salt, pepper, garlic, italian seasoning mixture, making sure to coat thoroughly. Place each coated piece onto a half baking sheet. After coating every piece, sprinkle remaining coating on top of zucchini. Bake at 400 for 10 minutes, then broil (or bake as high as your oven will go) for 10 minutes. Serve with lemon aioli.

Lemon Aioli

Mix 1 tbsp. mayo, 3 tbsp. lemon juice, 1 tsp. parsley, 1 tsp. garlic powder, salt and pepper until smooth.

Chicken Wrapped in Bacon

Have I blogged this before? I don't know. It doesn't matter, because whatever I may have blogged before was crap compared to the chicken wrapped in bacon that I made tonight. It may be the 2 glasses of wine talking, but this was the BEST version of this dish I have ever made. I made it for John the first time he came over to my apartment for dinner. What better way to lure a man into your clutches, er, I mean, let someone know that you think they're great than to make stuff chicken wrapped in BACON? Vegetarians....sorry 'bout it. Here you go-

Ingredients:

1 LARGE chicken breast, pounded to 1/4 inch thickness
1 /2 package stuffing that took you 5 hours to make and DEFINITELY not the Wegman's brand Chicken flavored stuffing....(make sure you cool it first)
5 piece of bacon

Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 350
2) Stuff chicken with stuffing (about 1/2 c.)
3) Wrap bacon pieces around stuffed chicken breast, making sure that entire surface is covered.
4) Place in square baking dish sprayed with olive oil cooking spray.
5) Bake for 30 minutes
6) Broil (or set oven to highest setting) for 5-10 minutes.
7) Remove from oven and let sit for 5 minutes before serving

We found that this made 1 John sized serving, 1 Emily sized serving, and 1 left-over serving.

Enjoy!

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Pesto Pasta

Quickie post about my lunch today. This morning was one of those mornings when you look in the fridge and say "I have NOTHING to eat..." This notion, however, is almost always false. Usually, it just means that we're out of salad fixin's and I start to panic about my lunchtime options. So, here is what I came up with!

Leftover linguini
1 tbsp. prepared pesto
10 sliced green olives
1 diced plum tomato
2 slices cooked bacon, chopped

Mix all together, microwave for 2 minutes, top with parm. SO good, and I ate a tomato. Plus!

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Cooking for Two-Chocolate Spiced Pork Chops

I think that we have been pretty good at the whole "cooking for two" thing. We've been cooking together for about 3 years now, and most of those times were just for the two of us (although sometimes we would cook for his house/my apartment/our families/random strangers). Last night was one of those successful times!


Chocolate Spiced Pork Chops

1 tbsp. brown sugar
1/2 tbsp. italian seasoning
3/4 tsp. cocoa powder
3/4 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. paprika
1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flake
1/4 tsp. cumin
1/4 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper
2 pork chops
1 tbsp. vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 350 F. Combine spices and rub on one side of pork, allowing to sit for at least 5 minutes. Meanwhile, heat oil in cast iron skillet over medium-high heat until glossy. Place pork chops spiced side down on heat and cook for 3 minutes. Meanwhile, rub unspiced side with the remaining mixture. Turn and cook on other side for 3 minutes.

Let sit for 5 minutes before serving. We had this with steamed broccoli and my mom's homemade mac & cheese (which we finished, mom, so get cookin'!) <- she loves this, and we love her!

Thursday, July 7, 2011

We Got Married!

Shocking, I know. Like anyone who reads this blog didn't already know that I was getting married, or that wedding planning consumed my life (in a good way) for the past year! It was well worth it, though. I could not have been happier with the way that the ceremony and the reception went. Of course, I was high off of endorphins and happiness after getting married to my bestie, John!

Isn't he cute? He was playing poker, mind you...not contemplating his future....maybe.
I was the most hardcore wedding planning psycho bride ever (again, in a good way). My Google Reader was filled with blog upon blog of wedding planning ideas, engagement portrait sessions, cakes, favors, dresses...you name it. I probably saw wedding pictures from over 1,000 different weddings over the past year. They actually started repeating themselves on different blogs; "Oh, Simons-McCarthy wedding...stalked it last week." Needless to say, became a little obsessed with the whole wedding planning thing.

These were picked after much deliberation and wedding stalking, I mean, research.
I am SO happy with the way that everything turned out for the wedding, but I did learn that I stressed over a number of things that I ended up not even noticing over the weekend. So, here is a list of things that I learned about the wedding planning process over the past year:

1) Budgeting Is Your Friend

We knew our budget from early on a stuck pretty close to it. The Knot has a really excellent budgeting tool that was quite helpful. We also created spreadsheets for everyone involved in the planning process to keep track of how much was being spent where by whom.

2) Scheduling Is Also Your Friend

We made a "Wedding Weekend Information Packet" about a week before the wedding and emailed it out to the wedding party and families. It had schedules for the day before and day of, contact information, directions, packing lists, and a list of responsibilities for the wedding party. It was super helpful when things got crazy and I couldn't keep track of who was supposed to be where when, and (I hope) made the wedding party more confident in knowing what they were supposed to be doing!

3) Trust Your Vendors

I guess, first, I would say "Choose vendors you can trust". Our photographer and DJ were both friends from college, and I had seen both of their work before, so I knew that I could trust them. I got to know our florist, cake baker, dressmaker and reception site coordinator pretty well, and felt like I could trust them as well. The big thing here is that you just cannot control every little thing that everyone does, and it alleviates so much stress is you can just point your vendors in a general direction and then let them use their expertise to decide on the rest. I have a feel that we avoided a number of headaches by not deciding every single song that would be played or by letting the chef just choose whatever vegetable was freshest the day of the wedding.
Josh, our amazing photographer!

Jeremy, DJ extraordinaire!
4) Roll With The Punches

This, really, is not that hard. I was so happy and having so much fun that I hardly had time to notice anything that might have gone wrong! Sure, maybe my train broke and, ok, maybe I didn't get to eat...but really, it just didn't matter!
Haha...not.
 We were too busy dancing ALL NIGHT LONG to even notice anything that may or may not have gone the way I had planned. Which brings me to my next point:

5) Don't Sweat The Small Stuff

 Here is what I consider to be small stuff: favors, napkin colors, chair covers, ceremony programs, ribbons, candles, hair staying curled, anything to do with the cake, people switching seats, sparklers, rain washing off the car decorations, guest books...pretty much anything that isn't the actual act of you getting married and then celebrating!

This is, really, the only thing I thought about all night.Not cupcake liners, surprisingly.
So, I hope that this might help anyone who is going through wedding planning stress. It was such a fun year, but as soon as I got home I unsubscribed from every wedding planning blog, newsletter and website that I have been studying for the past 13 months. Am I now addicted to HGTV? Yes. But that's another post...

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Partially Paleo

John and I have been inspired by my dear friend, Elliott (check out his blog here: Paleocity) Now...we are not at all Paleos, but we have taken some of the Paleo principles into our diets such as:

Loooooow carbs: We've been doing a super low carb to no carb breakfast (I've been having eggs for breakfast for the past 2 weeks), a no-carb lunch (big chicken salads), and a super low carb dinner (or no carb, if I'm feeling up to it).

High protein: So yeah, we've been replacing those carbs with a LOT of protein. I used to like to have at least 1 vegetarian meal per day, but by cutting out carbs I was getting SUPER hungry. So I load up on protein and veggies during every meal.

Low-no sugar: We both drink black coffee, and so this wasn't very hard. We aren't really sugar-nuts, but we have been more mindful of what sugar we are consuming.

High fat: John has been doing this more than I have, although I will have a slightly fatty breakfast, which has been really helping me to feel full during the day. Not so much with dinner though...as Elliott would say, I still have lipophobia.

AAAAAAND here is where we are not following the Paleo diet:

Carbs: I mean, we still eat them, just in very small portions. Mine are mostly coming from fruit and small amounts of bread/grains we'll have with a meal.

Alcohol: Look. I'm just not willing to give up drinking.

Dairy: We still have cheese if we're having a happy hour or occasionally on a salad or meat, but this has been cut back quite a bit!

Caffeine: I still drink coffee, tea, Diet Coke, etc. We have cut back to half-caf....and I've cut back to only 1 caffinated beverage per day. I think I read in Elliott's blog that water is the only thing you should be drinking. See "Alcohol" above for my feelings on that.

So, how is it working? Well, first all of, I no longer get tired after lunch like these guys:

 
Also, I'm shrinking? My weight hasn't gone down too much (though it has a little bit!), but what I've noticed most is that I'm losing inches like crazy! So, that's tight. 

It's definitely an easy lifestyle change. It's really easy to stick to...I don't feel like I need to cook something different just for myself; I can just adjust my carb to protein to vegetable portions. AND, what I love most, is I don't feel super guilty or like I blew it if I go to a party or have a fun happy hour. My body doesn't freak out, and I just get back on track the next day.

Definitely check out Elliott's blog. He has some really great insights to the Paleo lifestyle and he's just super interesting in general!

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Happy Birthday, Agnes!



Today is my grandma's 89th birthday, and she is totally ballin'. She's a fierce, Lebanese woman who has a lot of opinions (and I love opinions). She taught me a lot of the Lebanese cooking that I now know, and is also an all around great cook (her blue cheese dip is redonk). She loves coffee, drinking, and is super hilarious (I always love hearing her commentary on her opinion of the other ladies at her home). Also, she's cute as a button and is super good at accessorizing. Recently, I've been feeling very blessed and honored to have her and to be able to wear the wedding dress that she made for my mom's wedding in my own! Happy birthday, Grandma! I love you!

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Getting Off Work Early = Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies

Woo hoo! It's no longer tax season...which means that I have SO little to do at work. I left at 2 today and came over to John's to A) marvel at his new attire he got from Jos. A. Bank (they were having some amazing sale...buy 1 get 500 free or something like that....also, now when I see him I'm going to have a hard time not saying "Suit up!" a la How I Met Your Mother) and B) make cookies!

                                


                       

I just finished making some Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies for John's nice neighbor who fixed my car! Note: make sure that we always live next to a mechanic. Here's the recipe! I would include a picture of the finished product, but the picture made the cookies look like river rocks (HINT! Someone buy me an awesome camera so I can take beautiful pictures of my cooking like The Pioneer Woman!)