WINNER! and other news

I am happy to announce that LAUREN is the winner of a free copy of Real {Fast} Food by Trina Holden!! I can't wait to hear about the recipes that you try! For all you ladies that did not win-I HIGHLY recommend buying a copy for yourself here. You won't regret it. The other day I roasted a chicken per her instructions. Mind boggling good. AND I'm going to use the carcass for stock. AWESOME!

In other news, we are going camping this weekend. I am not a camper; I've been twice in my life-neither time was it very fun. But alas, the hubs has decided to be outdoorsy, so I am going along. Luckily we are going with another family, so the kids will have other kids to play with rather than bickering amongst themselves which has become their new favorite thing to do. In an effort to ensure that I at least eat really well, I made some yummy snacks for the trip.

I of course made Trina's bread for sandwiches-I really can't say enough about this bread. It's delic. I also grabbed a couple of recipes from themarathonmom. Specifically, the chocolate peanut granola bars and creamy jalapeno dip. This dip is sooooo good. Cilantro, jalapeno, ranch. Add some chips and I am in heaven-even with bugs and dirt. Finally, I made my black bean hummus (or paste if you are offended to use hummus in connection with anything but garbanzo beans). It is a nice change up from the regular stuff, and it has become a staple snack in our house for the last year or so.

I will certainly post how the trip goes. I'm hoping for lucky number 3 to be the one to change my view on the great outdoors.

Kitchen Adventures: Keeping it real.

I haven't blogged about food in a LONG time-but let's face it, I haven't blogged about anything in a LONG time. Life happens-and I'm ok with that. The blog serves its purpose of cataloguing those things I care to catalogue, and memorializing things that I want to memorialize. But I will say that I miss blogging about food. I love food. I love cooking and baking and eating (now I don't always like the result of all of this eating, but that is a different topic for a different day).

This year, I have been taking more steps to eat REAL food. What does that mean? For me it means making more of my food from scratch to eliminate preservatives and other stuff that I don't think my body really needs. I started small. One recipe here, another there. Pizza dough was one of the first that I tried. It was a HIT, so I have continued. Haven't bought it in almost 3 years. I also made my own granola-more for cost purposes than anything else. Since this adventure began, I have added recipes along the way. I make my own soups, pasta sauces, and hummus. I make the kids pancakes and freeze the extras.

But this year (so far) I have added bread and pasta.

 (I know this is more a pic of the soup than the bread-but both were great!)

I tried bread before, but the recipe wasn't great, so I was discouraged. Then a couple weeks ago, I was talking with my friend Lauren-at a knit circle-and she told me she made all of their bread. She is the mother to 3 boys under 5, so if she has time to do this, I figured I did too. She gave me her recipe and it has been AWESOME! It is honey wheat, and OH SO delicious.

The pasta was made purely because we had none and dinner was supposed to be spaghetti. I had no desire to do my homework, so I made pasta instead! It was really yummy. I did a whole wheat variety. We cut it thick and whipped up some marinara. The only thing is that I will use my mixer with the dough hook next time. My wrists can't handle all the kneading.

So here are the recipes:

Bread ala Lauren
3 cups flour (I use half white, half wheat)
1 tsp salt
1 packet (1 1/2 tsp yeast)
1 cup warm water
1 egg
2 Tbsp honey
2 Tbsp oil

I throw it all in my mixer for 8 minutes. If you enjoy kneading or need the release, do that. Then let it rest for 1-2 hours. Form into a loaf and put it in a loaf pan. Let it rise a little more. Bake at 375 for 30-40 minutes.

The pasta recipe is from my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook (my go-to for easy and usually good recipes). You can access it here. The only thing I did was use half whole wheat flour.

Kitchen Adventures |:| a week of farmers market fare

When we visited Knoxville, we were lucky enough to get to not only go to the AWESOME Farmer's Market, but also to get half of the flat of veggies the Taylors normally share with another family (that family was going on vaca and did not need them). So we got to take home-potatoes, tomatoes, zucchini, squash, mustard greens, broccoli, hot chili peppers, unidentified leafy things (they looked like maple leaves).

I decided to try to incorporate at least one thing into each meal. The result? A week of wonderful and healthy meals.

Tuesday: Corey's chili.

He incorporated the hot chilis and who knows what else. I let him keep his secrets. Needless to say it was delicious--served with cornbread muffins. (and we froze the leftovers and used them on our southwest omelets for cityChurch brunch this morning)

Wednesday: Panko crusted Tilapia with mushroom and garlic wild rice and sauteed mustard greens.

I stole a Martha Stewart recipe to make the fish-I did fish sticks so the kiddos would eat it too!  The mustard greens

Thursday: Greek Wraps with tempeh. 

This is a recipe that we like to include as a light dinner. It comes from Cooking Light-you can find it here. We used the amazing tomatoes from the Farmers Market along with some spinach, lettuce and goat cheese, it was YUM. We usually serve these with Terra exotic vegetable chips of the Mediterranean variety. It makes for a quick and light dinner.

Friday: Loaded Baked Potato soup. 

ALSO from Cooking Light. (Have I mentioned my love of these magazines?). It is one of my favorite potato soup recipes- I extra love it because you bake the potatoes in the microwave-EASY PEASY! We used the Farmer's Market taters ( I use more than the recipe calls for cause I love em). Adding bacon and cheddar on top makes for a filling and comforting soup. I LOVE it. Try it.

Tonight: Veggie (pasta-less) lasagna. 

not the prettiest presentation, but hey-it's lasagna-it's messy

My friend Brittany forwarded me this recipe. I already had the squash and zucchini, all I needed was some eggplant. The recipe can be found here. It is gluten-free (as long as you omit the bread crumbs on top). It makes a TON-so plan accordingly!

I love cooking-especially when we PRE-plan our meals for the week. So having this post will certainly keep me accountable to plan out weekly meals. The one area that I struggle with is KID-friendly meals. My kids like food--but soup is not a fav, so we tend to make them ravioli or chicken nuggets on nights that we have a more unique meal. I'm open to ANY IDEAS :)

Kitchen Adventures |:| Noodle Bowls

I love going to a restaurant and discovering things that I can recreate at home. I have done this with the chicken caeser pasta salad from Cheddar's and certainly different drink recipes like Tennessee Manhattans that I first had at a place called Baker Peters. So a couple weeks ago, on a chillier day, I went to lunch at ZenClay. I usually get salads for lunch, but I was cold. So I opted for a Noodle Bowl. YUM. A few days later my friend Danielle told me about Noodle Bowls you can get at the grocery store--also YUM. The ingredients are simple... the prep shouldn't be too hard (right?)...so I gave it a whirl. And I think the end product turned out pretty tasty!! (and pretty)

Ingredients:
Broccoli florets -- 1 head
carrots--2 sliced
sugar snap peas--couple handfuls
(steam the above until fork tender and set to the side)
mushrooms--cup of whatever variety you want
shrimp--I used a bag of frozen
vegetable broth--1 box
garlic--1 teaspoon
crushed red pepper --1/2 teaspoon (or to taste)
soba noodles (8 oz) --cooked according to package directions--(PS I really like these noodles, they are new to me, and delicious!)

In a pan I heated a little oil and got the garlic and crushed red pepper going. Then I added the mushrooms. I let them sweat a bit and added the veggie broth. I heated it to boiling and dropped in the shrimp to cook for 4-5 minutes. Add the veggies and let them reheat for a minute. In a bowl put a quarter of the noodles and top with a quarter of the broth/veg mixture. Add salt and pepper to taste.

I liked it in this very clean form. I think the hubs would have liked it to be kicked up in the sauce department. Maybe next time some soy sauce and sriracha could be included. It is really a Choose Your Own Adventure type of dinner :)

COFFEE--how I love thee.

Happy National Coffee Day. 

However you drink it!!

It is my favorite (non-alcoholic) beverage and definitely deserves a post of its own. My friend Danie gets it-(-go look at her post with some fun coffee inspired songs :) I will share some of my favorite coffee prints from Pinterest, and continue to drink coffee all day long - I am doing my part!

haha--I think I have done this before

 I would love to have this is my kitchen :)

 My motto in law school for sure!

 I need to stage more fun photos like this

Kitchen Adventures|:| Soup and Bread

I love this time of year because I can make some of my favorite foods. One of which is SOUP. I love soup. It is warm and comforting and makes me very happy. I also love bread. At any time. With anything. Last night I made both of these. The bread was AMAZING! The soup was ok. I have had better. But I am determined to add a really good creamy chicken and wild rice soup to the recipe mix.

So first--the BREAD.

 It turned out to taste a little like sourdough and I think if I had let it set out longer, it would have enhanced that flavor even more. I found the recipe on a blog called Cheap, Healthy, Good. (I'm not sure that they are writing new articles, but I have had a lot of fun reading the old ones.) It was SUPER easy. Mix ingredients. Cover with plastic wrap. LEAVE IT ALONE for 24-ish hours. form into a ball. LEAVE IT ALONE for 2 hours. Bake in a pre-heated dutch oven for 45 minutes. Easy-peasy and OH SO delicious.

Next--the SOUP. 

I got the recipe out of this months Cooking Light. It had all the right elements-onion, celery, carrot, rice, chicken. But the creamy factor only came in at the end-by adding half-n-half. AND Corey noted that he would prefer more rice (that is after I had already doubled what the recipe called for). It might be that the only way to achieve a good, creamy soup is to go the traditional way-with a roux. But in an effort to try a healthier version first, I followed the rules. Next time...it will have butter--cause you know, it makes everything better.

A peek at my day "off" and a discussion of food...

Wednesdays are going to be my day "off." I will not be working and I don't have class (until 5:30). So yesterday was my first day off. And I baked. I baked chocolate chip zucchini bread and banana muffins and then some oh so delicious granola. I love baking. I have a love/hate relationship with eating what I make (as discussed below), but the process of baking is one of my favorite past-times. My mom is a wonderful baker. To me baking is far superior to cooking because it almost always involves chocolate and sugar. And how bad can it be if those things are in the mix?

I have recently also been doing things on Pinterest--if you don't have this, go sign up and watch your time fly out the window. It is a site of pictures and ideas and word art (YAY!)--PS thank you Danielle for introducing me to this wonderful website. I am not an artsy person, and I still love this! ANYWAYS, I was on the site and I found two pieces of word art that amused me-mainly because of their contrary messages. The first is this...

UGH! This is the message that so many people listen to. I listen to it too. Don't eat that... don't eat this... cut out carbs, lower calories, go vegetarian, only eat fruits and vegetables...I feel like I have been on a diet of one form or another for 10 years. Maybe not all of you know that this is a struggle for me, but it is. And while I think everyone was outraged when Ms. Moss said these words, so many of us believe it deep down. Women in general (at least the ones that I know) have this love/hate relationship with food. BOO. I say. So I was super excited to find this pic on pinterest.

YES. I want to embrace this philosophy this year. I love food. I love feeding people. I love baking and trying new foods. Corey and I have been experimenting the last few years with creating new dishes and incorporating new ingredients. And I don't want to feel bad later when I think about the calorie count or the fat content. It's a new season of life for me and food-God created too many wonderful tasting foods to worry so much about what the scale says. I wish that the "weight" mentality could be easily overcome, but the world has pretty well ingrained it in our heads. So how does this look in real life? I don't know. I'm certainly open to all the ideas out there too! I think the first step is to start looking at myself the way God sees me--in Song of Solomon He says, "You are altogether beautiful, my love. There is no flaw in you." (4:7 ESV). So I'm ditching the celery sticks (unless they are filled with peanut butter) and taking steps to enjoying all that God has given me here.

Juice--it does a body good!

So one thing I learned when Corey and I subscribed to Netflix was that my husband is a bit of a documentary junkie. While I can watch and enjoy one or two, he has watched LOTS. His most recent find was this one...

Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. It chronicles a man who drinks nothing but juice for 60 days in an attempt to rid his body of toxins, shed unnecessary weight and get to a healthy place. (He also travels around the US and talks to people about food and nutrition etc). Corey asked me to watch and see what I thought. I admit I only watched a portion of it, but what I saw was compelling. In the last year, Corey and I have drastically reduced the amount of processed food we eat; however, we still eat a lot of carbs and a lot of dairy (I LOVE dairy).

So what did we do?

We went and bought a juicer.

And we drank juice for breakfast and lunch for 5 days. We tried dinner, but ditched it after almost strangling one another from hunger. We modified it to include a "sensible dinner." It was a really good experience. We made juice with all of the following in the course of the five days: carrots, celery, broccoli, spinach, cabbage, tomato, cucumber, beets, sweet potatoes, kiwi, grapes, apples, oranges, pineapple, watermelon, pears, peaches, ginger, lemons, limes and strawberries. My favorite? Orange, pear, apple, sweet potato! SO DELICIOUS!

For me, I am trying to be the healthiest that I can be. But I am recognizing baby steps. It started with exercise and a healthy diet. Then I realized that diet food was not a great option for me and started making more of my own foods and cut out the Diet Coke. My one big take-away from the experience is that I really want to learn to eat in moderation and stay healthy. The more kind of "kooky" things I try, the more I realize that I LOVE FOOD. I don't ever want to HAVE to drink juice for 60 days because of obesity. Some things cannot be avoided-all of you lactose intolerant people out there I get that it is not your fault that some of my favorite foods make you sick. But to the extent that I can avoid it, I want to.

SO ACTION STEPS POST JUICE??

• I think I will keep juicing/smoothie-ing for breakfast. It is great to incorporate veggie juice into the morning routine and maybe I will start adding some tofu for protein in my smoothies.


• Do a juice fast post finals--to detox from all the CRAP I put in my body when I am stressed out!


• JUICE MORE--it is SOOO fun! Next time we entertain I want to make fresh raspberry lemonade--YUMMY!!

The UP side

If I haven't mentioned it, law school is ROUGH. It drains me. I am sure there are people out there that think it is easy breezy. I am not one of them. BUT nights like last night remind me that there is an UP side. I have a whole new community of people that I would have never known without law school. The blogger ladies (sans Lauren) were over last night for our monthly dinner/general silliness. And my funky week dissipated. I laughed hysterically. These women are all so different from me and from each other, and yet we fit. We all want different things-none has the same career path or the same lifestyle. But the level of humor and fun when we get together is unmatched by some people that I have known my whole life.

Here of some of my favorite parts...

The FOOD.

We are serious when it comes to eating!

The table was filled with yummy, healthy and fresh foods--salad and tempeh & green bean stir fry for the main course and delicious smores for dessert!

Jess talking with her fork. It was a very important point, apparently!

The fact that Joe grabbed a stool and climbed up to the counter to make himself a smore without asking anyone. He was a man on a mission.

This face says it ALL!

Eating our dessert over the sink.

We own a reasonable number of chairs, but somehow everyone congregated in the kitchen, standing around eating and drinking.

Clothing swap--Jess and I liked trying things on :)

(PS, I'm gonna rock some of the scarves that I snagged to combat the in-between hair phase)

FAV story of the whole night: Libby is our shy little gal. She doesn't warm up to people very often, but when Corey and Michael were playing Wii frisbee golf, she was the cheerleader. Unfortunately, Michael had a few holes where he wasn't doing great and had to throw several shots in a row. Libby's cheer was "Try again Michael, try again'" which she bellowed into a plastic cup for amplification. Nothing like a near 5 year old to remind you of your shortcomings :)--Michael was a good sport though!

food and photographs

I love food. Eating it. Cooking it. Buying it. And now photographing it. I follow a few blogs of people that cook, and I love the photos they take of the process. It is really difficult to do without help though!Yesterday I made lentil sloppy joes. It is a relatively easy recipe, but I almost over-cooked the lentils trying to snap some pics of the veggies. And since I was on my own (well Libby and Joe were there, but they are not allowed to touch the new camera), I couldn't take any action shots of chopping or scooping or stirring. But I still love the vibrant colors of the veggies and the warm feeling I get thinking about cooking.So here is my first step-by-step photo recipe. I hope there are more to come!

Put 1 cup of lentils and 2 cups of water in a pot and bring to a boil over medium heat.

Cover and reduce heat for 10 minutes.

While that is working, get out an onion, 3 carrots, and 3 stalks of celery.

Chop.

Add veggies to the pot along with 3/4 cup Ketchup, 2 Tablespoons of brown sugar, 2 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce, and 2 Tablespoons of cider vinegar.

Stir.

Pour everything into a crock pot and set on low for 10 hours (or high for 4-6).

Put a spoonful of the lentil mixture on bun (this is actually a thin);

top with cheese (shredded cheddar).

Libby wanted to be the waitress.

RECIPE:

1 cup lentils

2 cups water

1 1/2 cups carrots chopped

1 1/2 cups celery chopped

1 onion chopped

3/4 cup Ketchup

2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 Tbsp Brown Sugar

2 Tbsp Cider Vinegar

Buns

Cheese

Put lentils and water in a pot; bring to a boil; cover and cook for 10 minutes. Add the next 7 ingredients. Stir. Pour contents of the pot into crock pot. Cook on low for 10 hours or high for 4-6 hours. Put a spoonful of lentil mixture on a bun and top with cheese.

P.S. I think that this recipe would be great with just plain bbq sauce (a veggie substitute for pulled pork)

Quick and Easy Pork BBQ sandwiches

In an effort to make delicious food in a small amount of time, I have been utilizing my slow cooker. So that said...

Ingredients:

1 onion sliced

1 pork loin

1 cup apple juice (beer, chicken, beef or veg stock or water would also work)

a healthy dose of whatever bbq rub floats your boat

Any kind on bbq sauce

Put onion in first, rub the spices on the loin and put on top, pour the liquid all around. Turn slow cooker on low for 8 hours. Take the loin out and put in a large bowl. Use two forks to pull apart. take as much of the onion as you like. Add a little of the liquid left and mix. Add as much bbq sauce as you like. Serve on a bun.

This is DELICIOUS and very easy.

My Essentials for Combating Winter Blues

French Pressed Coffee (ok so really any coffee will do, but I LOVE it pressed) Today's flavor is Harry & David's Peanut Butter Cup--YUM!)

Happy Music. Today I am enjoying Fun. You can't help but smile.

Shower and get dressed. Feeling clean and pretty always makes me feel better. Today I was particularly happy with how my hair turned out.

Warm food. Lunch today will likely be leftovers from our delicious dinner last night. Soup warms me to the core.

Lots of love from little people and maybe a phone call to my best friend.

HAPPY FRIDAY!