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A Wonderful New Blog (and Giveaway!)

For any of you who love any of the following things:

1. Books/reading
2. Hilarious up-and-coming writers
3. Young Adult literature
4. Shenanigans
5. Free stuff!

One of my good friends, Corey, has started a site called Twin Pigeon.  I lived with Corey in my freshman year of Undergrad in KY and we spent a lot of time goofing around, eating wonderful college food and talking about music/books/movies.  Corey is hilarious…there is really no other way to describe her in a nutshell.  I am always thrilled when I see an email pop up in my inbox from her because it is full of goodness.  She got me hooked on the Twilight series, and I’m not sure if I should thank or curse her for that.  It’s too late now though, so we just spend a lot of time making stupid jokes about how many times the word “chagrin” is used in the series. 

In case you missed the subtle hints above, Corey is big into Young Adult fiction.  I am not as well-versed as she is, but I love it! For me, between semesters in an English BA (followed by more semesters in an English MA) program, something like Twilight is just what I needed.  YA novels tend to suck you in like no other (except maybe Picoult?) and get you to love characters who have a good chance of being ridiculously annoying and will probably make horrible decisions repeatedly throughout the book.  It’s awesome.

Another wonderful thing to know about Corey:  she had a KICKASS wedding…I was a super-helpful bridesmaid, dressed all in red.  We marched up the aisles of the KY theater for a dark and wonderfully romantic ceremony on the stage with a delicious reception full of movie-themed goodies all around.  Yet another reason she is great.  Does this make you want to visit her new blog???

ANYWAY, Twin Pigeon is currently mostly about reviewing YA books…it’s just getting started, so send her some love/suggestions/harsh criticism/knee-slapping jokes about vampires/whatever.  BUT to start things off on a blogger-friendly note, Corey is giving away a book!  A FREE BOOK! This one is a brand new, hardback, just released, fresh off the presses, exciting work of literary wonderment. You all know how contests work, so click your way over and enter Corey’s contest and explore her quickly growing site 🙂

PS.
Corey, WOOO!

Vacation!

So I have been fairly delinquent with posting lately.  Aside from the recipe for the Lettuce wraps and eggrolls that I just posted (which I actually wrote last week, but for some reason never actually put up?), it has been busy and relaxed all at the same time, and it has left me with very little push to blog.  We just got back from a mini-vacation to Packwood (just south of Mt. Rainier National Park), and I thought I’d share some pictures!  We had a great time just relaxing with Santana, goofing off and enjoying the gorgeous weather and scenery.  You’ll notice that just like when we’re at home, laughing at Santana is one of our favorite things and we spend a good amount of time just taking pictures of her being hilarious. 

As we packed up, we managed to take more stuff than we would have needed for three weeks away.  It filled up our entire trunk!  Santana helped, of course and then got impatient in the car, waiting for us to join her….

It was a long long drive, and Santana was exhausted when we got there.  In fact, she slurped down an entire bowl of water in about 60 seconds….and then threw it all up on the floor.  Great start to the weekend!  Here are some pictures of Santana (and Matt!) checking out the giant king-size bed in our room.

  

We got ready to go swimming and I took advantage of this time to snap a picture of Matt’s short hair….I cut it  myself!  We decided $25 spent on a hair trimming kit for guys would quickly make us glad he wasn’t spending 10-15 dollars every time he wants his hair cut.

   

Dinner on our first night (well….and our second) was a complete splurge.  We were on vacation!  Just up the street in the tiny town of Packwood there was one pizza place.   Since we’ve been out here together, there are only 2 or 3 pizza places we’ve ever visited more than once.  We usually try a new place every time!  Nothing beats NY pizza, but we’ve found a couple that come close.  This one had OK crust and sauce, but the cheese was SO stringy and delicious!  We also go breadsticks, which was a great choice since they were AMAZING!  Despite our best vacation efforts, we didn’t finish all of this food in one sitting.

We agreed to NO TV for the trip, even though there was one in the room.  We also didn’t bring our laptops despite free Wi-Fi at the lodge.  This meant lots of reading, talking and cards!  Matt reminded me how to play Rummy 500 and Santana watched while we played!

   

For breakfast the next day I made red potato mini hash browns with onion and random seasonings.  Plus a red scallion and tomato scramble.  We split a banana and I had a Sobe Lifewater (I am addicted to these) and Matt made some black black black coffee.  Yum!! (Sunday I turned similar ingredients into a breakfast sloppy joe of sorts, with some ground beef we had planned to use for burgers and some cheese we had brought along.  It was…interesting.)

We planned a hike to Sand Lake for Saturday morning. It was supposed to be ridiculously hot and we thought it would be a nice swim at the end of the hike.  Little did we know, we picked the trail where all of the mosquitoes in Washington live.  I think I’ve found up to 40 bug bites on my arms and legs since coming home.  We made it about halfway through the hike (covered in bug spray) and then decided we’d rather just relax.  We got Santana some water at the trailhead and then headed back to the lodge, stopping at a scenic viewpoint on the way.  Since dogs are not allowed in Rainier National Park, we stayed just south of there.  But you can see the mountain peeking out all over the place.  Gorgeous!

 

We were all a bit squinty facing the sun, but I remembered my sunglasses!

We also got a couple with all three of us, but Santana couldn’t keep her eyes off the mountain!  

After our dusty, muddy, buggy hike, Santana got a mini-bath and wasn’t very happy about it.

 

She did, however, find my sunglasses on the bed at some point, and we decided they would be cute on her.  It’s clear that we had too much time on our hands!

 

The pup was beat, and so were we.  We crashed pretty early on Saturday night, slept in on Sunday and drove home with a couple mini stops along the way.  Sunday was a really lazy day of running a couple errands before the workweek started back up and we were in bed early early early. 

Hopefully I’ll be back to regular posting over the next couple weeks…and then we have some really fun summer visitors here for most of August, so I’ll probably be missing for a while again!  I hope everyone is having a great summer!  We miss vacation!!

Green Dinner

Matt and I are getting excited with our summer plans!  The closest thing coming up for us is a weekend trip to Packwood, WA to spend the weekend with Santana in a little cabin-type lodgey thing, do some hiking, and visit Olympia on our way home.  SO excited for this.  I want to make some fun meals there on the stovetop in the place we’re staying, so my mind is racing with easy to transport ingredients that can be made into yummy meals.  Any suggestions??

To use some spinach and broccoli from our CSA box this week, we went super green for Wednesday’s dinner.  It was a pretty heavy dinner, but we both went pretty light on lunch this week, so I’m ok with that.

Spinach Alfredo

• 8oz fettuccini
• 1 Tb butter
• 1 cup half and half
• Salt & Pepper to taste
• 1 bunch spinach, washed and roughly chopped
• Grated Parmesan

1. Cook pasta according to package directions (Fettuccini takes about 10-12 min)
2. While the pasta cooks, melt butter over medium-high heat and add half and half.  Let this cook for a few minutes until it starts to thicken a little.
3. Season with S&P and add Spinach to cook down for about 1 minute.
4. Blend! We used our stick blender, but you could use a regular blender, or you could leave it rough chopped.
5. Cook down for a few more minutes.
6. Add cheese! (I admit, I went WAY overboard with the cheese, so our sauce was crazy thick)

That’s it! Super easy!  It wasn’t the prettiest thing I’ve ever made, but it was really really easy and super tasty.  We had a french baguette that I sliced a couple pieces from.  Toasted them, rubbed with a clove of garlic, added a tiny bit of pepper and a sprinkle of parm (this was before I overdid it on the sauce). The thick thick thick spinach alfredo was too thick for dipping, but it made an AMAZING spread on the toasty baguette.  I had visions of tiny bites of toasted bread topped with my spinach alfredo spread for an appetizer…maybe with a bite of good fresh tomato sauce. Mmmm….

We served it with Broccoli Balsamico…a recipe that was basically steamed broccoli with a glaze made of balsamic vinegar, garlic, olive oil, grated ginger, brown sugar, salt and pepper.  We made the sauce and then didn’t have the right amount of broccoli, so it got a little soggy/overcooked…but it was still yummy and I may try a similar mix in the future (I usually just go with garlic and balsamic for my broccoli).  I have a huge problem getting broccoli to be as wonderfully cooked as some restaurants get it…especially when I want it lightly glazed with a sauce or something.  The florets always get banged apart or overcooked…or some other tragedy comes to pass.  It really makes me grumpy at the time, but I always eat it up….LOVE broccoli.

Sunday Gritty Sundae

Saturday we ate out…for every. single. meal.  It was delicious all around, but we didn’t feel so hot afterwards.  Sunday we vowed to do some good eating in.  And we did!  For dinner, we had leftover tortilla soup…this stuff was even better the second time around (largely because I could now taste it) and we both had giant bowls.  Plus we froze two double-servings for later.  Because I got the giant pack of chicken thighs on sale for just over $5, this was a super economical creation as well! Hooray!

For breakfast, we had some old-ish apples and I remembered we had quick cooking grits in the cupboard. Easy easy breakfast to the rescue:

Cinnamon Apple Grits Breakfast Sundae

• 2 servings grits
• 5-6 small apples, peeled, cored and chopped
• 1/4 cup apple juice or cider
• 2 Tb sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon

1. Combine apples, juice, sugar and cinnamon over medium heat in a small saucepan, stirring to coat.
2. Cook away, stirring frequently to avoid burning, until apples are nice and soft and the liquid has cooked down into a nice syrup.
3. If the apples get too dry and all the liquid evaporates, add more juice or cider as needed.
4. While apples are cooking, prepare grits according to package directions.  I added a tiny bit of butter at the end to add a bit of flavor and extra creaminess to the grits!
5. Top grits with apples and dig in!

I’d recommend serving with biscuits and jam (which we didn’t have) or toast or maybe even more fruit on the side.  This bowl was really filling at the time, but didn’t last us all the way until dinner.  So tasty though.  Yum!

And for some fun, here are giveaways!

• Envirosax Giveaway at Jackson’s World
• Maple PB giveaway at I Walk In This World
• Holey Donuts (!!!) at Danica’s Daily

Spicy Spicy Grilled Chicken Tacos

I’m home sick today because my head is so congested it feels like it might explode.  The congestion has turned me into a completely nonsensical wreck, so here’s last night’s dinner.  Homemade tacos are one of my favorite comfort foods.  As long as I can remember, we always had the box that came with shells, seasoning and sauce and we just used ground beef to make some really satisfying tacos.  We also included green olives in our toppings, which Matt will have none of.   At home,we grabbed a taco shell and filled it with our own meat and toppings, but my grandma fills the tortillas with meat and cheese and heats them in the oven…this leads to less giantly heaping, over-filled tacos that my mom and I tend to create. Recently, I’ve been experimenting with some other taco types, and thinking about leftovers and the extra space we have in our freezer right now, I went with something I could turn into soup the next day. 

Spicy Spicy Grilled Chicken Tacos

• 1 large, family-size pack of boneless, skinless chicken thighs (you can go with breasts or really any kind of meat you want, but I find that the thighs have so much more flavor and work well in this kind of preparation)
• Spice Mix (I used equal parts cumin, cayenne pepper, paprika, salt, garlic powder, onion powder, chili powder)
• Hot Sauce (Big S Farms Tennessee Lightning hot sauce)
• 1 medium onion
• 1 clove minced garlic
• 1 large can black beans (Drain about half of the liquid off the beans)
• 1 can sweet corn
• 1 can diced green chilies
• flour tortillas
• Your favorite taco toppings (we used red leaf lettuce, shredded cheese, chopped onions, tomatoes, taco sauce, sour cream and Big S Farms Hot salsa)

1. Rub chicken with spice mix and coat with hot sauce.  I did all of this in a big ziploc bag to try and keep the mess to a minimum (it didn’t work).  Let that sit for 20-30 minutes in the fridge.
2. While the meat rests, heat a tiny bit of oil in a small pot and sauté onion and garlic just until soft.  Add beans, corn, and chilies and heat on low while you cook, stirring every once in a while to keep from burning or sticking.
3. Grill, roast or pan sear chicken until cooked through.  We used our stovetop grill pan and it worked pretty well. If it had gotten a tiny bit hotter, I would have had better grill marks, but the chicken still turned out great.  Be sure not to crowd the pan you’re using, since the chicken and its marinade will let off quite a bit of liquid.  You don’t want to boil the chicken.  If you’re grilling, the chicken under a brick method is pretty wonderful.  I used a big heavy skillet with the bottom covered in foil to achieve a similar effect.  (this chicken was INSANELY spicy, but once it was topped with the other yummy stuff and wrapped in a tortilla, it was perfect! Matt loved them so much he had 3 huge tacos!!)
4. While chicken cooks, prep vegetables (chop, dice, shred, etc.) and heat tortillas.     We heated the tortillas quickly on a hot pan, flipping a couple times until warm.  You can also microwave in a damp towel or heat in the oven.  Whatever you prefer.  Matt got these great thick, handmade tortillas from across the street that were wonderful for the huge amount of stuff we put on them!
5. When chicken is cooked through, let it rest on a plate for a few minutes, then chop and serve!
6. Top flour tortilla with chicken, black beans and toppings and prepare to make a huge mess!