3 Year Anniversary Weekend

Wow... it's been quite some time since I've written on here!  And what better reason to make a new post?  An awesome weekend with the hubby!  Get comfortable, because this is long enough to make up for the gap in my posts.

Today is our 3 Year Wedding Anniversary!  Since it fell on a Wednesday, we decided to spend this past weekend celebrating.  We bought a house a month ago, so instead of going to the hotel where we spent our wedding night (our 1st anniversary) or going on a trip (our 2nd anniversary), we decided to stay home and enjoy our new house!

When we were in the thick of saving for our house and house hunting over the summer, we had no clue where we would be living on our anniversary or what our financial situation was going to be. Would we have to up our housing budget and continue our cutbacks to save money?  So we decided to take the Friday of the weekend before off work and play it by ear.  It happened to work out that the October OKC Philharmonic concert was the same weekend, so Saturday night out was covered.

One week before our close date, the City of Norman announced a free tree giveaway.  We've never been able to participate in the past as it's restricted to homeowners.  I was ecstatic!  The registration was just 5 days after our closing.  SCORE!  Tree pickup was scheduled for the Friday of our anniversary weekend.  We registered, put in our preference for an Oak tree (I LOVE red oak trees!), and had at least one activity for our day off work.  I was also very excited because landscaping our backyard is a project we want to do.  It doesn't have a single plant or tree!

I've been going crazy with all the boxes, and random things lying around our house.  We've also been incredibly busy, so I seem to stay up late each night trying to unpack a box, organize some closet, or try to find that one item that doesn't seem to be anywhere!  Hubs on the other hand has a more laid back approach to unpacking.  I can't relax with boxes and random stuff everywhere, but it doesn't seem to bother him.  So my goal is to get it all done ASAP so that I can start relaxing.  Needless to say there has been some tension.  So we agreed to spend Thursday night doing as much as we could unpacking and cleaning up so that we could take a break from it over the weekend.  I really wanted to stay at a hotel for the weekend because I honestly didn't think I could not do anything house related for a full weekend right now.  Some last minute searches for hotels turned up disappointing results though.

Thursday night finally came and we ended up at Lowe's again (I never thought I would spend so much time in a home improvement store, let alone actually enjoy it!) looking at light bulbs.  Hubs was really into this part of the house, and by 8pm, I had to drag him home to get our house stuff done so that I didn't do it over the weekend.  He was procrastinating, and it clicked with me that he likes this part, as do I.  So we agreed to spend some time this weekend shopping for our house.  That should take care of our weekend!

We got a lot done Thursday night!  All boxes are contained to 3 rooms of the house, and there are not many left.  We stayed up REALLY late!  But it felt good to get so much done.

On to our weekend...


Friday:

Since it was "first come, first served" with specific species in each tree category, I wanted to be there right at 7:30am when the tree pickup started so that we had the best change of getting a red oak.  Not the sleeping-in, lazy start I wanted for our weekend, but we got a free tree out of it.  After staying up till 1am working on the house, we didn't make the 7:30am pickup time.  But we did manage to get there within an hour and I was thrilled that we got a red oak!

Hubs was a bit grumpy with me for getting us up so early, but I knew once the tree got planted, he would get over it.   We went to Old School Bagel to pickup some breakfast and headed home.  We lounged around for a while and hung out until it was time to go pick up our anniversary cake at 9:30am.

Our wedding cake vendor recreates the top layer of every couple's cake the first year for only $10, so you don't have to endure stale cake if you don't want to.  We are pretty picky about quality, so we liked that idea.  It was so delicious.  So delicious in fact that we decided to do it again for our 2nd year.  We declared that it's a new tradition.  So each year, we have our awesome wedding cake vendor do the same order.  3 years in, she has picked up on it and thinks it's really cute.

It was really cold and raining, so the cake could stand to sit in the car for a while.  Since we were out, we decided to start doing some house errands.  Back to Lowe's again to continue looking at lighting.  We also hit up Bed, Bath & Beyond, Target, and Home Depot.  We stopped by Bath & Body Works to use a gift card we had received for a previous anniversary to pick up some bath supplies, now that we have a jetted tub to enjoy, and got some nice soap for the various bathrooms.

We managed to get a lot done, and headed home to get some Raising Cane's for lunch and then take a nap.  The 5-ish hours of sleep was not going so well.  But after eating lunch, we were both energized.  We changed out most of our light bulbs with energy efficient florescent and LEDs.  Our electric bill was insane.  I forgot how how much energy incandescent bulbs sucked.  Made worse that our house has mostly canned lighting with flood lights!

Hubs was feeling rather handy, so he worked on changing out light switched to put dimmers on our exterior lighting switches.  Even getting lower wattage LEDs, it was still too bright.  The previous owners had the house lit up like Clark Griswold's house at Christmas!

I thought for sure he was going to crash around 3pm, but he wanted to plant the tree.  It was quite cold, so I bundled up and went outside to help.  I tired helping, but about all I could do was measure to make sure we were off the easement and help break up dirt.  I thought the ground would be soft enough for me to shovel, but I dug the shovel in, stood on the top of the blade, and nothing... "Honey!?"

He was happy to do most of the work. :)

   

We picked a spot at the SW corner of our property so that we wouldn't block the lake view, and it would hopefully provide some shade (eventually) for the master bedroom which gets really hot. It was a little smaller than we expected, but we are still happy to get a free tree!  One of the many perks to oaks is that they grow fast.







Now came time for something I could do!  I've lived in Oklahoma my whole life (sad, I know!), and I always knew we had red clay dirt, but I guess I never went digging after a rain.  My hands are still a little sore from trying to break up the hard, thick, clay chunks.  I gave hubs quite the laugh when I walked out of the house in my frog hat he had gotten me several years ago. :)

 

I was right... after the tree was planted, hubs was very happy we got up early and got a red oak (which he also likes).

I think it's really cool that we planted a tree in our own back yard for our 3rd year anniversary!

Next it was time for dinner.  We made Roasted Lemon Chicken, angle hair pasta, and steamed sugar snap peas.  I failed to take a picture of our dinner :-0

We spent our first Christmas married 2 years ago in the San Fransisco area of California with my father-in-law.  They are very close to the Lodi Valley, which has wines that rival the Napa Valley, so we spent a day touring wineries and buying wine.  Father-in-law made an awesome DD for us!  We managed to bring back six bottles of wine!  We save them for special occasions, so we decided to open the last white we have for our dinner.  It didn't quite go (way too sweet), but it was still good.

For dessert we went and got custard.  I of course had pumpkin!  We came home, lit the fire, and played a game while watching an old movie in the background.  We crashed early for a long night's rest!


Saturday:

I worked on unpacking office stuff while hubs slept in a bit.  By 10am I was starving.  I broke down and woke him up.  Thinking we didn't have anything for breakfast, he reminded me that there were some left over potatoes from his recent camping trip, along with some bacon he stashed in the freezer.  We had just bought eggs, so we had hash browns, bacon and fried eggs for breakfast.  I hadn't eaten that in years.

Then we went to see Gravity in the new IMAX 3D theater.  It's apparently one of the largest in the world.  I've never been to this one, so I was a little excited.

The scientist/physicist in me had a really difficult time with parts of the movie, but that aside, it was really good.  I can't imagine seeing it in 2D and enjoying it as much.

Next up was dinner and the OKC Philharmonic.  I had heard about this restaurant called Metro Wine Bar & Bistro.  It had really good reviews among the foodies in OKC, so I showed it to hubs and he was on board.  It was delicious!  We started with the Smoked Salmon appetizer.  It came with course-ground mustard, another sauce, capers, onions, tomatoes, and toast.  It was delicious.  Our waiter listed the specials, and among them was a Roasted Red Pepper Bisque.  It sounded too good, so we shared a cup.  I'm glad we did because it was outstanding.  It had a very deep and bold flavor and was well seasoned.  Oh, and they also had awesome rolls!  For dinner I ordered the tenderloin.  I had heard their mashed potatoes were not very good, so I substituted them for the Parmesan Risotto.  Oh my... this was some serious Parmesan Risotto.  It was thick, rich, and had strings of cheese with every bite.  My steak was so tender, I really didn't even need a knife.  It was cooked perfectly and was well seasoned.  I ordered with a red wine reduction sauce that paired perfectly with it, and the risotto.  It also came with green beans.  They were not anything special, but they were good.  Hubs had the Grilled Yellow Fin Tuna special.  I tired a bite and it was quite good.  He seemed to really enjoy it.  We were saving our anniversary cake for after the Phil, but dinner was so fantastic and we don't know when we will be able to go back, we decided to do the ultimate splurge and try deserts too.  I had the Vanilla Bean Pot de Creme and hubs had the Fudge Cake.  Mine came with caramel, chocolate, and raspberry sauce, all of which were homemade (I verified).  It didn't need sauce though.  It was so rich, smooth, and creamy.  The sauces hid the delicate vanilla bean flavor.  Good thing all the sauces come on the side!  Hub's cake was more like a brownie.  It was over the same raspberry sauce as well as a coffee sauce.  I didn't care for the coffee sauce, but the cake was pretty rich.  It was topped with real whipped cream.  The wine list was the biggest reason we went.  It was quite extensive, and I liked that you could order by the bottle, half bottle, glass, ounce, or try flights.

The OKC Philharmonic was set to be a good concert.
Smetana: The Moldau
Barber: Violin Concerto
     Jennifer Koh, violin
Beethoven: Symphony No. 5

It was one of the top 5 concerts from the OKC Phil.  The Moldau was everything I remember from playing it years back.  The orchestra was energetic and full of sound.  Jennifer Koh was really great!  I don't normally like violin concertos, but she played so fluidly and freely.  You could tell she was born to play the violin and play it well.  Barber's Violin Concerto is also one of the more lighter violin concertos, so it was quite enjoyable.  Beethoven!  I haven't gotten to listen to a live performance of Beethoven's 5th since playing it this spring with the OU Civic Orchestra.  Wow!  Talk about energy and stamina.  I've never hurt so bad after playing a concert as I did after playing Beethoven's 5th.  The OKC Phil executed it greatly.  It had energy until the very last note!  Great concert!

Home we went for our annual cake and champagne!  When I went to buy a bottle for our first anniversary, it was on clearance.  Clearance?  The vendor who sold it was no longer working in Oklahoma.  OK... so why not just order it?  Or go to another liquor store?  Or buy it online?  Thanks to our outrageously ridiculous alcohol laws, this meant that you would no longer be able to buy it, find it, or get it shipped to Oklahoma... at least legally.  So I bought all they had left.  We don't really like champagne, so we spent a few good evenings sampling champagne (or more accurately, sparking white wine) to find a good one for our wedding.  I think it was hub's favorite part of wedding planning.  I distinctly remember a drunken evening, blowing off wedding steam when we found a winner.  I don't want to substitute with sub-par sparking white wine.  So we are well stocked for a few more anniversaries and celebrations, until I have to find another way to get some.

I pulled out our toasting flutes and cake knife and sever from the wedding (part of our yearly tradition).  And we had cake and champagne... just like at our wedding!

Sunday:

I had picked out a restaurant to try for brunch:  A Mexican Diner.  It was really small, but had an extensive menu.  I had Papas con Chorizo which was scrambled eggs, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, homemade choizo, cheese, and plenty of mexican spices.  It was served with two corn tortillas and a warm salsa.  I really liked it.  Hubs had almost the same thing, but potatoes on the side and everything else wrapped in a tortilla and topped with green sauce.  He wasn't a fan, unfortunately.  For some reason pancakes sounded really good, so we shared an order of plain buttermilk pancakes. They were very good!  Overall, it was a so-so breakfast.

A few years ago we started a yearly tradition of going to a pumpkin patch out in Newcastle.  We haven't made it out yet this year, and the weather was beautiful, so we took a drive out to Newcastle.  We've been to a few pumpkin patches, but so far, this has been the best one.  They have hay rides, a corn maze, hay maze, various barn yard animals for petting and feeding, pony rides, pig races, tricycle races, and of course the pumpkin patch.  They also have enough fall gourds, pumpkins, hay, corn stalks, and various canned goods to bankrupt me.  My favorite part is feeding the animals of course!

This year they had baby goats!  I was told they were about 4-5 months old.  {sequels}  They were so cute and lovey.

 

Usually the goats are full and not all that social.  This year, however, they were quite hungry!  I've never had goats climb up on me to get food.  And they were all about the food.  As soon as I tired to pet them, they ran off.

 

After feeding goats, and pigs, and petting ponies and bunnies, we did the corn maze.  We've had lots of rain this year, so the corn was very tall.  Much better than last year when even 5'2" me could see over it.  We didn't do the hay maze, but we did do the hay ride.

 

Usually they have the pumpkin in an area where they actually grew pumpkins, so you have the pumpkin patch feel with the vines.  This year though, they just scattered pumpkins out in a pasture.  :-/ We still had fun though and each picked a pumpkin to carve.

We hadn't spent much money decorating for fall or Halloween because of the expense of moving and buying a house.  But now that this is our house, we were able to talk ourselves into getting our usual hay, pumpkins, gourds, and mums for the front porch.  We went home to decorate!  In just the few minutes we were outside setting it all up, two people walked by and we overheard them talking about how much they liked our porch, and another couple in a car slowed down in front of the house and were pointing and smiling at our house. :)

While we were at it, we deiced to pull out our Halloween stuff.  Hubs REALLY likes decorating for Halloween, and the holiday in general.

We ran some errands and went to get pizza for dinner, and continued working until well after dark. The house looked awesome, but before I could get any pictures the next day, the wind tore a lot of it down.  I'll have to take more pictures after we get it set up again.

This was the best anniversary weekend so far, I think.  Totally random, last minute, and not at all what we would have planned ourselves.  But I loved every minute of it because we spent some quality time together and worked on our own house, that we own, together!

Happy 3 years to us!!!!! It's been an awesome 3 years and I look forward to the many more ahead!

A Quest for Completion - Part II

As I mentioned in my last post about trying to complete my lineup of the Zwilling J.A. Henckels Twin Cuisine line, the meat fork has been very difficult to find!

I had pretty much given up hope after my father-in-law had done an extensive search online, and even called the manufacturer over Christmas.  When I recently launched my new quest to complete the set ASAP, I looked again.  All these months of searching (maybe even a year), and now I was finally able to find it!

I present to you, the Zwilling J.A. Henckels Twin Cuisine Fork!

I didn't tell hubby that I had ordered it, holding my breath that it would actually show up.  I was a little skeptical since the site I found it on was in the UK, and looks less than professional.  But I do have to give a shout out to http://langtoninfo.co.uk/.  Placing my order was pretty difficult.  I wanted to pay by CC, and the site said it took PayPal or CC, but every time I tired using my CC, it bounced me back to PayPal and gave me an error and told me to wait 15 minutes.  Imagine how frustrated I was becoming after 4 attempts and still no luck.  In finally caved and used PayPal.  Once I got that all set up, everything else went smoothly.  I placed my order, got a confirmation that it was in the system, got a confirmation the next day that they had received my order and began processing it, and it shipped 3 business days later with an additional email notice.  I emailed them to find out how long I should wait for the package to arrive in the states.  They promptly emailed me back the next day (quite timely given the time difference!).  They were always informative with timely updates.  I think I was told to give it 3-4 weeks.  It arrived only 5 mailing days later!  Imagine my surprise when it wasn't even on my mind yet since it had just shipped and we were walking in the door from our Memorial Day Chascation when there it was.  WOW!  The box was a bit beat up, and in German, but the fork is in perfect condition and hubby was so surprised and impressed that I obtained it.

TWEET, TWEET!

My current difficulty - the bread knife.  I've attempted to order it from 4 sites now, and all have failed.  I wish these companies would take out of stock items off their websites. :-/  But I will continue trying to find one of my last few knives that I need!

After that, we hope to get a set of steak knives.  One thing at a time though... these babies don't come cheap.

A Quest for Completion

So, I never followed through with making a blog post.  The weekend I had anticipated doing that was spent trying to forecast and keep friends and family save from the tornado outbreak in NW Oklahoma and Kansas on April 14th.  We actually had a tornado go through Norman, OK on Friday, April 13th.  Luckily no one was severely injured and there were no deaths.  But on Saturday, a significant tornado came way too close to one of my dear friend's houses.  Luckily instead of trying to prep for the storm and ride it out, she fled the state and went to visit her mom instead.  Her husband remained at home, so I kept a watchful eye out.  Since then, my weekends have been filled with other things, and this blog continues to be neglected.  I had intended writing about the tornado events, but that never happened either.  So... onto something current and exciting (for me!).

My husband always give me a hard time b/c I'm more interested in "home" items for birthday and Christmas gifts. He says I'm nesting, like a bird. I got an Amazon gift card for my birthday back in October, and I have been trying to figure out what to spend it on, and trying to think of something fun, and not home related, but I recently found out that Zwilling J.A. Henckels has discontinued their Twin Cuisine line. My heart was broken.

I got my first Twin Cuisine knife (the 4" parer) way back in October 2005. My hubby (then boyfriend) went against all his upbringing advise to never buy a women kitchen or house things as gifts, and bought me my first professional knife that I had been eying for months. I was ecstatic! I fell in love with it when I first tired it out at a William-Sonoma store. They were surprised I like it with its heft and my little hands, but the grip was so perfect for my hand, and I liked the weight behind it. Even better, hubby liked it too and thought it felt natural and comfortable. A knife we both agree on... SOLD! To boot, I thought the handle was beautiful and unique. I don't care so much for the rivet look.

We were poor college students, so buying a block set was not practical for us at the time. We were also just starting to ease into enjoying cooking and experimenting in the kitchen. I decided to take this new, and very expensive I might add, endeavor to get a complete set slowly. I envisioned buying a new knife or two each year until I had my complete set.

For my birthday in 2007, hubby surprised me with the 7" Hollowed Edge Santoku. Sequels! In 2008, he got me the 6" Chef's. What a nice little tradition we have started here! It was the perfect size to get used to using a chef's knife and the skills needed. Keep in mind, this was my first time to ever use professional knives. It took some time to get used to using less pressure and being mindful of the super sharp blade. I got engaged in 2009 and everything is a blur after that. For some reason hubby stopped buying me knives, but I know he got me other kitchen goodies for my birthdays. With my new skills, I was now ready for a larger chef's knife.

My father-in-law and his wife got me the 8" Chef's knife for either my birthday or Christmas in 2009, with some coaxing from my dear husband of course. My father-in-law didn't believe him at first that I actually wanted a kitchen item for a gift. He then had to make sure I was OK with it after I opened it and called him to thank him. How thoughtful he is!

My brother, was out in the summer of 2011 and was trying to cut something with a thick skin... maybe a tomato? I didn't have any serrated knives in my set. I had been wanting to get one, and had been looking at two different ones. We discussed options (him being a big Wüsthof fan) and he recommended the 4" serrated parer. He surprised me on my birthday in 2011 with that exact knife. My little set was coming right along thanks to all my generous friends and family!

We were all set to host our 2011 2nd Annual Fritchie Thanksgiving, the 2nd Thanksgiving after we got married where we buy a huge 22 lb Turkey! The first year was last minute and went over so well, we decided we are now doing it every year! The first year was kind of a disaster trying to carve the bird with a huge ass chef's knife. I promptly went online and got us the 8" Carving knife at the beginning of November to ensure it's timely delivery. I had my heart set to get the carving set, but soon learned the fork was very difficult to find. I went forward to buy just the carving knife with hopes to find the fork later. The carving knife worked so well and sliced through joints like they were turkey meat, and hugged the curves of the bones to get every bit of meat possible.

My father-in-law was hellbent on finding me the fork for Christmas. He went as far as calling the manufacture, only to find out that it had been discontinued. I supposed they had already discontinued the whole line, but I didn't know that. I randomly keep an eye out for it every once and a while. I had just resigned myself to not having my Twin Cuisine Meat Fork and just buying one from another line.

Earlier this month I took a knife skills class offered by one of the Zwilling J.A. Henckels representatives who has been through culinary school. What a treat! Our local kitchen store that hosted the event didn't have any knives from the Twin Cuisine line. That was where I learned that the Twin Cuisine line had been discontinued.

I've since been trying to decide what knives (that I will actually use) I need to finish out our set and at the same time, not bankrupt us. At the class I learned the uses of a fillet knife and how to use it properly. I hadn't thought of this as a particularly useful knife that I, myself, would use often, but after that class, I changed my mind. Enter my Amazon gift card!

So, my first knife in my quest to finish off our set while we still can is the 8" fillet knife! I guess this means a belated happy birthday to me. It just arrived today, and as my husband would say, "Look at my new stick! {Tweet tweet. Tweet tweet}!"

My Fear Came True

Well, it's been 6 months now since I last wrote a blog post. And even that one was overdue. I struggled for years trying to decide if I wanted to do a blog or not. Privacy was the first thing that held me back, but I have since gotten over that with the invent of Google+. I came to realize that I wanted to share my passions, mostly food and cooking, with other people. Then my only fear was that I would not have the time to keep up with it. And that has happened. Last fall got very crazy for us. Then it was the holidays, then we were catching up most of January from being so busy and out of town over the holidays. February was alright and I began taking pictures of food again, but just couldn't find the time to sit down and write. March was another crazy month, and now we are already to April. WOW...

Hubby has some plans next weekend that will give me lots of free time, so perhaps I'll do some blogging then. Will the posting of intent to blog publicly hold me to it?

Happy Easter!

It's All Good!

It's been a while! We have been busy, but most of all we have been enjoying this wonderful fall season and pampering ourselves. Hubby and I had gotten into a wonderful habit of creating new dishes together on the weekends, so I had lots to blog about, but we haven't done that in a while... until tonight actually, but more on that later.

So what has been going on since my last post? Not a whole lot. The most exciting thing that has been going on is enjoying being newlyweds. We got some awesome news on the 14th last month that the long legal battle with my hubby and our former employer had ended. They had started the lawsuit back in May when he left the company to work for a competitor, and then after a motion to dismiss the parties decided to explore a settlement. Hubby said he is very happy and that it could not have gone any better, so we of course went out to celebrate. Since then we have pretty much been thrown back into newlywed bliss and celebrating ever since! For the first time since November 2010, just 3 weeks after our wedding and the week after we returned from our honeymoon, we are both employed, not trying to leave our jobs, there is no pending lawsuit, and we are very happy and content with our lives. It was a long 10 months, but it is finally over, and we are so much happier now on the other side!

What else...? We met with our photographers to get all of our pictures and go over our final selections for the photo album. There has been so much going on since we got back from our honeymoon, that we never really got around to it until recently. It will be another 2-3 months until it is ready, but until then I have been going through the pictures and getting my favorite ones and posting them online. Here is a teaser!


As part of us enjoying our new, relaxing, newlywed bliss (again), we have been doing some fun date nights. We went to see the re-release of Lion King, and I got to see my first movie in 3D. It was really good, and definitely worth the extra price of the 3D ticket. Neither of us saw it in the theater as a kid, so it was great to be able to see one of my favorite Disney movies in the theater!

We also went to the Grand Opening Night at the OKC Philharmonic. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner at Pearl's Oyster Bar and then watch/listened to performances of Wagner's Lohengrin: Prelude to Act III (my favorite piece of the concert), Liszt's Les Preludes (also a wonderful piece), Turina's Danzas Fantasticas (a piece that sounded part romantic and part contemporary that I didn't like so much), and Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto performed by violinist James Ehnes. James Ehnes played Tchaikovsky so delicately and precisely. I never used to be a fan of violin concertos, but have really started to enjoy them more in the last two years. Tchaikovsky is probably my favorite composer, so naturally I really enjoyed the performance. The Philharmonic sounded the best they have sounded in years. The last few years have been good, but not great. This past concert sounded much more rehearsed, the orchestra was together more, and they just sounded excellent. We have season tickets again this year, and I'm really looking forward to the remaining concerts if the first one was any indication to their new sound.

Speaking of orchestra, after a year break from playing, I have returned to the OU Civic Orchestra. I didn't join Fall 2010 because I was too busy trying to finalize our wedding, and would also have to miss about 4 rehearsals. That wasn't fair to the orchestra, and I don't think I could have handled anything else on my "to-do list" last fall. In Spring 2011 I was unemployed and trying to save every penny we had, so that was part of the reason for not joining. Even though hubby encouraged me to join, I was on round 4 of 5 of interviews for a big company in downtown OKC. If I had gotten the job, I would have had to drop out as I would not be back in Norman in time for rehearsal. If I didn't get the job, I still didn't know if my new job would have a schedule that would accommodate it. But I am employed now in a nice 8-5 job, so I have once again joined. We are performing Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 (New World Symphony) and Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 ("Emperor"). I'm very happy to be playing again. Hubby has been spending money on paint ball stuff, so I decided I deserved some new strings, new chin rest pad, new metronome, and a pickup tuner that clips onto my instrument and plugs into my tuner so I can tune in noisy places (it will be very handy trying to keep the new strings in tune through rehearsal). Everything came in the mail last week, and I am one happy musician!

Hubby got really into football the last two weekends in September and I didn't feel like trying new recipes alone, so we didn't do anything fancy. There hasn't been a whole lot to post food wise from the last 4 weeks. Instead we have been enjoying the season. Last year at this time, we were getting ready for our wedding and were very stressed. We were too busy to stop and enjoy the season. We didn't get to do any of the stuff we normally do this time of year: going to a pumpkin patch, carving pumpkins, decorating for fall, decorating for Halloween, baking yummy pumpkin things, laying in bed enjoying the cool weather, and eating way too much. This year, we have done almost everything on that list! We were going to knock off the pumpkin patch on that list this weekend, but our patch is flooded.

For those of you who don't know, Oklahoma has been going through a horrible drought. All of our small ponds are completely dried up and have weeds growing them, and the larger ones are very low. Wildfires have been a big problem, and the summer heat was unbearable. We broke all kinds of records. This weekend however, we are getting some much needed rain. It started around 3:30 PM yesterday, and it pretty much has not stopped. As I'm writing this, we have had 3.80" since the event started. Once the rain started, the temperature held around 61F until today around 4:00 PM when the temperature started dropping again. It dropped to around 57F at about 7:30 PM and it's been hovering there ever since. The rain has been so refreshing. There has been lots of flooding, but we need the rain so bad that no one is complaining.

So that's about all that's been going on. Last week we finally got back to making dinners at home and trying to get back on the diet. Then this weekend, we used the cooler, cloudy weather to stay in and created some new dishes. I'll report on those in another post. We had a wonderful weekend together in true fall fashion. We slept with the windows open listening to the light rain last night, slept in this morning, and ate a late breakfast together. Hubby has gotten into coffee, so he filled the house with the wonderful aroma of coffee while we ate. I don't like the taste, but I sure do like the smell! We actually got hubby a french press and a hand crank coffee grinder (any decent electric one is really expensive!) last weekend and he is thrilled with the new addition to the kitchen that's just for him. After breakfast we went to see Moneyball, which was one of the best movies we have seen this year. Then we came back and cooked up a new meal. While Hubs was watching the Green Bay Packers game I baked up a yummy fall treat and caught up with my blog.

Well, I think we are all caught up. I'll try and post more soon. Off to bed to start a new work week.

A Mexican Afair

Mexican food is at or near the top of my "favorite kind of foods" list. I usually eat it at least once a week. I have developed a rather picky taste for my Mexican food, and tex-mex and grocery store convenient items just don't cut it anymore. I want authentic, fresh flavors with some serious heat (when heat is appropriate).

The hubs and I have gotten into a nice habit of cooking something new on the weekends. On Saturday morning before our usual shopping trip, we consulted the Healthy Family Cookbook again. Not really knowing what we were in a mood for, we flipped through the Poultry section to see if anything caught our eye. I was nearing the end when I flipped to a page with a nice picture of Chicken Enchiladas. We both paused and at the same time and made the same sound: "Ooooo!" A quick read of the recipe and we had our new weekend recipe to try out. We searched in the same book for some Mexican-Style rice. We found a Basmati Rice Pilaf recipe that had a "With Mexican Flavors" variation. To round out the meal, we cooked a pot of Anasazi Beans to last throughout the week.

What in the world are Anasazi Beans you ask?
A friend of our got us hooked on Anasazi Beans (yes, they really are the best beans in the world!). We had a gathering a few years ago where we made Indian Tacos and everyone brought an item to help with the meal. This particular friend brought beans. I don't recall if he made refried beans, or just simply cooked the beans and we ate them whole. What I do remember is how amazing they were. This was around the time the foodie in me was making a noticeable appearance. I knew what I was eating was not just any ordinary pinto bean. It was creamy, flavorful, and smooth. There was something unique about it, but I didn't know what. I'm forever happy that I questioned the hell out of my poor friend. I found out they are a type of bean specific to Colorado, and sadly, could not be bought here. He told me all about ways to cook them and why they were unique because you didn't have to soak them and they cause less gas than pinto beans (an added bonus!). Not long after this, he and his wife were on a road trip to CO when I called to see if they wanted to hang out. I was so in love with this new discovery that I talked him into bringing us back a 10lb bag! Over the next few months we experimented with the beans and we worked them into a regular part of our diet. We were just about to run out last October, but then he and his wife got us another 10lb bag of Anasazi Beans and a dutch oven to cook them in for our wedding! SCORE! The bag of beans were by far the oddest and funniest wedding gift we received, but completely practical and the perfect gift for this foodie couple!

Chicken Enchiladas:
I started by making their recipe for Green Enchilada Sauce. You first have to roast the poblano chiles and tomatillos.


Once the peppers have been roasted you remove the skin. Then you throw them into a food processor with the roasted tomatillos, chicken broth, a minced onion, garlic, a lot of cilantro, lime juice, extra-virgin olive oil, and a little sugar. We added a little salt to balance out the sugar, and it was perfect with just the right amount of bite with a subtle hotness!


Now it was time to make the Chicken Enchiladas. The chicken was cooked in a pot with the Green Enchilada Sauce and then shredded into bite-sized pieces. It was then mixed with some of the Green Enchilada Sauce, queso fresco cheese (I used reduced fat), green chiles, and cilantro.

Now it was time to assemble everything. The corn tortillas were sprayed with cooking spray and warmed up in the oven to make them more pliable. Then 1/3 cup of the chicken mixture (a generous portion) was spread down the center of the tortillas.


After everything was in the pan, more Green Enchilada Sauce was added on top, and then everything was covered with cheddar cheese (I used sharp, 2%). We baked it with foil over it to keep it from burning until everything was heated through and the cheese was melted, and then removed the foil and allowed the cheese to brown.



Basmati Rice Pilaf With Mexican Flavors:

The base of this recipe is just a little olive oil, a small minced onion, basmati rice, and water. We only eat brown rice now, so we substituted regular basmati rice for brown basmati rice. We forgot that you have to soak brown basmati rice before cooking with it in recipes like this, or that it takes longer to cook. Luckily we started early knowing the enchiladas were going to be involved and require both of us, and thinking the rice was fine to sit since it will stay warm. Instead of letting it sit, we just kept cooking it and it was done by the time we were ready to eat.

For the Mexican Flavors, jalapenos, garlic, tomato paste, cilantro, and a diced tomato were added. Luckily we bought 3 bunches of cilantro! At this point we had used more than 2 to get 1 1/4 cups of minced cilantro, and our other mexican recipe for later in the week to use up the beans and rice calls for another 1/4 cup. We LOVE cilantro!



The meal was amazing! We didn't like the rice all that much and felt it lacked flavor and didn't have much heat. However, it got better as it sat overnight. When we had the left overs, the flavors were better developed and the jalapeno heat was present where it wasn't the first night. I think it takes longer for brown rice to absorb flavors since it has the hard outer shell. I'm not sure we will be making it again though. A 3/4 cup serving was 5 WW points+ and neither of us felt it was worth the extra points.

The enchiladas were fantastic! They moved to the top of our recipe list and we will be making them often. They are 10 WW points+ for 2 enchiladas. A little heavy for WW, but so worth it, in our opinion. The flavors were authentic, fresh, and the Green Enchilada Sauce added just the right amount of subtle heat to the dish. The chicken was tender and very flavorful. And left overs were just as good. The texture of the corn tortillas was better the first night, but we both agreed that the flavors got better the 2nd night. They were delicious and so filling.

And of course the beans were awesome! :) I cook them in water with a little salt and canola oil. We found nutritional info for 1/4 cup dry beans and have noticed that the beans make about 2.5 times more cooked. Using that ratio, 1 cup of cooked beans is 5 WW points+, which is the same as what we normally do for our starch, 1 cup brown rice or 1 cup whole wheat pasta.

All in all, a VERY good weekend meal. I wouldn't have time to do this during the week, but it was a fun activity for hubby and I and we got 2 more nights of meals out of it. It was so worth the work and we will be doing it again soon!

My Mouth Got Assulted Tonight

My husband and I wanted to do something different for dinner tonight. I have been very good this week on Weight Watchers and had a lot of extra points that I could use if I wanted to. So we decided to try a new place that had decent enough reviews to at least give it a try. We figured at worst it would make a good story, and in fact it did. Nothing like a fun night out making fun of the awful food!

A review of Cajun King in Norman, OK by a foodie who loves Cajun
(post as it appears on Urbanspoon.com. I was unable to locate the restaurant on Yelp, but it was so awful I had to put a review out somewhere to warn people!)

My husband and I wanted to try something new, and I don't normally like buffets, but figured it couldn't be that bad since it had so many positive reviews. Those people must not know what real Cajun food is! This place was awful!

I started with blackened chicken pasta. The pasta, meat, and sauce were all separate and you put it together yourself. The pasta was cold, the meat was dry, overcooked, and lacked authentic Cajun flavor, and the sauce tasted like it came from a powder packet.

Next I had the blacked pork chops. There were only the bone part of pork chops with very little meat. I managed to find a decent sized piece. But it was so overdone and dried out that I could barley saw through it with my knife. It was like eating jerky, and the flavor of the meat was awful. It tasted as though it had been freezer burnt, cooked, and reheated several times. It too lacked authentic Cajun flavor.

Our waitress was very slow, but she brought us benyas and fried catfish. The benyas were OK, but the catfish was actually good (not great). They put a special seasoning on it that is sorta sweet and the breading was very light. It came with a special sauce that was sorta like a spiced up honey mustard. This was the only good thing going for the restaurant.

Next I had the blackened catfish, jambalaya and some red beans. The jambalaya was again dry and lacking Cajun flavor (and meat!). The catfish was OK, but as everything else lacked Cajun flavor. The red beans were OK, not salty, cooked correctly, but lacked any kind of complex flavor.. they were just simply cooked beans.

I'm a huge potato fan, so I got a big scoop of the Au gratin potatoes, because, how can someone mess up potatoes? They can! They tasted like fake mashed potatoes with potato chunks added in. Very few times have I ever had potatoes that I couldn't eat. This was one of those times.

For dessert I tired the bread pudding. This was NOT bread pudding. And anyone who thought it was needs to get to NOLA immediately, or any other respectable restaurant (Pearl's in OKC or Bourbon Street Cafe in OKC) and try bread pudding and you will see what I mean. The pudding part was not rich and was like undercooked cake with a weird slime. The "sauce" that you put on top was in desperate need of some bourbon, and actually crystallized as it cooled on my plate because it was so sugary and didn't have enough butter.

Simply disgusting. I feel like I just ate at a bad Chinese food buffet. Stay clear and go to OKC for some decent Cajun. I highly recommend Bourbon Street Cafe in Bricktown or Pearl's up by Penn Square Mall.

Impromptu Date Night and Another Weekend Already

Yesterday afternoon my husband randomly asked me if I wanted to go on a date night with him that night. I was excited. We had been talking about seeing the movie Contagion. Worried about how eating out would fit into my Weight Watchers points, he thoughtfully suggested Thai! I can't seem to get enough Thai food lately. And I have been in a great search to find a new "go-to Thai place" that is easy to access and affordable. We have a nicer Thai restaurant that is amazing, but it is too expensive for us to eat at regularly, as in once a week. Our old Thai restaurant that closed down and changed hands is not very good anymore. I found this new one through some co-workers though that seems to be doing the trick.

Usually impromptu date nights don't work as movies start either too late and I can't stay up that late after working an entire week, or they start too early and don't give us enough time to get home and made something or even go out. But this Thai place is really fast. So we met up at home around 5:30 and headed out to what is becoming our new Thai place. Being so early the restaurant was very calm.

We started with some pork spring rolls which had pork, carrot, onion, and green onion. They were just OK, but were served with this orange colored, thick, sweet & spicy sauce. I forgot to ask what it was called, but the sauce was amazing. I began drenching my spring roll in it and they were delicious. I'll be ordering that again!

For dinner I ordered their Basil Stir-Fry with a spicy level of 4 out of 5. The last time I went I ordered a 4 and it was perfect. I like my Thai food hot enough that my sinuses are running, but not so hot that I can't enjoy and eat bite after bite. Last night however, it was hot! I'm not quite sure if they gave me what I ordered because they added green beans to it, which were not on the menu, but it did have basil. I like green beans, so this was not too much of a problem. But it was so much hotter than the last time I ordered a 4. It was so hot I couldn't take more than 3 bites at a time without having to wash some water down. I went through 4 large glasses of water and finished the meal in actual physical pain in my mouth. It was delicious though. The green beans, onions, and bell peppers were cooked perfectly, but way too hot to enjoy. I do love Thai restaurants that take their spicy level seriously and don't joke around with it, and this place is no exception! I was hoping that the fortune cookie at the end would tame the heat, but my mouth was so much on fire that anything touching it burned. I had trouble getting through the fortune cookie! Part of the roof of my mouth was numb, and my lips were tingling. I had finally found something that was too hot to enjoy! Something that is very rare for me these days. My mouth didn't stop hurting for another hour or so. It was without a doubt the hottest thing I have ever eaten.

We were out of the restaurant within an hour and had plenty of time to get up to the theater, get our tickets that my husband ordered online, and get good seats. A few weeks ago we made the mistake of getting to the theater 10 minutes before the movie started and had to sit at the front and it was not pleasant. The screens are huge, and my eyes and head were in constant motion for 2 solid hours trying to take in everything on the screen. We won't be making that mistake anytime soon! We got great seats near the back of the theater that were perfect. The movie was really good! There was not much of a personal story line which was unique, but focused more on the spread of a contagion. It was pretty scientific, but no so much that you get lost. It moved quickly, but not so quickly that one had trouble keeping up. I found it to be very fascinating and enjoyable. This is a movie I will be adding to my wish list when it comes out.

It was a wonderful date night with the hubs. We are so excited that another weekend came so fast. This week went by so much faster than we expected it to, even with it being a 4-day work-week. He is out playing paintball this afternoon to enjoy the end of this cooler weather before it heats back up a bit next week into the 90s for a few days. I think I'll finish up cleaning the last of the house today that I have not gotten to over my last 3 weekends of cleaning and will start decorating for fall. We have no real plans again this weekend and are just going to be relaxing once again. It's so nice to have time on the weekends again. And just in time for the fall season of staying close to keep warm! There is supposed to be another cold front coming through mid-week that is to bring the highs down to the 70's.

It seems as though Fall is starting to settle in. I hope this is the start of the fall cold fronts that come every two weeks or so. After this summer's heat, I'm so ready for fall and winter.

Fage 2% Honey

My brother told me that he found the 0% Greek Yogurt to have an odd flavor. I have been doing really well on Weight Watchers this week and have some extra points, so I decided to give one of Fage's 2% flavors a try. I got the honey flavor as I hear this is one of the best ways to enjoy Greek Yogurt. The honey flavor was 5 WW points, but most of the 2% flavors are only 4. Since Fage keeps the flavors separate from the yogurt I was able to give the 2% a try.

Oddly enough, I did not like it as well as the 0% Fage. The 2% was creamier, a bit loser, but tasted more like sour cream. While I say I love sour cream, and I do when I'm cooking and eating, I do not like it plain. My husband on the other hand loved it. But he puts sour cream on almost anything and licks the spoon clean after getting some out of the container. There is just something about it plain that I don't like, and I think it's the tang. For whatever reason though the 0% is a tad less tangy and has a slightly thicker texture. It also has more protein I noticed. I'm happy to stick to the healthier 0%!

Adding the little honey well into the yogurt made all the difference though. I figured out that if you hold the honey well part in your hands for a bit, it comes out of the side container a lot easier. I didn't mix the honey in, but instead let is settle on the top. I then dug in and scooped from top to bottom to get an even disbursement of honey and yogurt. Yup, I could tell this one had fat. It was much creamier and tasted richer. Even though I don't like the Fage brand of yogurt as much, it has never disappointed after I mix in the sweet fruit or honey. This one was very good, but had 29g of sugar, most of which comes from the honey, but it still had added sugar. I'll save this one for splurges. They have a 0% honey flavor, and so does Chobani, but I can't seem to find it anywhere.

Discovering All-Natural Lunches

Over the weekend, hubs and I were at the organic grocery store that just opened a couple months ago. I'm a big fan of this new store since we have tried to cut out artificial sweeteners and eat minimally processed foods for the last 2 years or so. It's so much easier to shop already knowing that there are no artificial sweeteners of any kind, in any product which they carry in the store!

While casually browsing the store I found a "Savory Turkey" frozen dinner by Organic Bistro. The description reads:

"Turkey Breast in Rosemary Mushroom Sauce with Green Beans & Lentil-Quinoa Pilaf"

Hubs has been buying a lot of Amy's Kitchen frozen meals for lunches, but they are all vegetarian. They are all impressively delicious and are of the same quality of dishes I would make in my own kitchen and just as flavorful, but with my blood sugar issues, I need more protein than what they can offer. So I decided to give this Organic Bistro meal a try.


As you can see, the main name of the product is the smallest portion and looks like nothing on the front of the box (see the link above)! I opened up the box, and like Amy's freezer meals, this one came in a paper tray all wrapped in a cellophane bag. You cook the meal in the bag which I think helps steam the veggies. Although the portion of meat was much smaller than I was expecting, it had plenty of protein to keep my blood sugar in check. I was disappointed, however, with the lack of gravy. I thought it had settled to the bottom, but there was nothing but a watery mess on the bottom when I tried to stir it up. The veggie portion was excellent, and that is a lot coming from someone who doesn't like veggies. They tasted fresh and were steamed perfectly, for my tastes anyway. The Lentil-Quinoa... I'm not so sure about. It looks sorta like couscous, but was much mushier, and dry. It looked very moist, but with each bite it sucked every ounce of moisture out of my mouth. The lentils added a pleasant texture to chew. I was very impressed with the lack of sodium, until I got to the turkey chunks. It was quite a shock. By the time I finished the dish, I had gotten used to the sodium. It may have been the complete lack of sodium in the veggies and Lentil-Quinoa that just threw me off with the first few bites of turkey. I thought the turkey could use more of the gravy. There was hardly any there, or maybe it was the watery stuff that had pooled at the bottom. I used the "juices" to moisten up the Quinoa. This was my first experience with Quinoa, and I don't really even know what it is, so I'm not sure if that is a natural characteristic of it or not. It wasn't bad... just different.

Overall I would give it 3.5 stars. It was only 8 WW points+, and was by far the most filling 8 point meal I have ever eaten. It was a considerably larger than the Lean Cuisine meals I usually eat. I found the flavor to be lacking, but that didn't make it bad. I would certainly not characterize this meal as bad. It just wasn't as good as I was hoping for, but was certainly much healthier than what I normally eat for lunch. I don't think I would buy another one unless I was looking for the most filling meal possible for only 8 points.

A Surprisingly Great Day

The first day back to work after a holiday weekend or vacation is usually sucks. After one of the best weekends since probably our wedding, I had little hope for today. When I went to bed last night I was prepared for a rough day of getting back into the swing of things. But that was not the case at all...

This awesome weekend managed to stretch into this morning! And for the record, I am not a morning person. It got down to 49.6F last night and we slept with the windows open again. I woke up snuggling with my hubby in the middle of our big King bed under our down comforter in a crisp 68F bedroom. ahhhh :) I managed to wake up on my own without an alarm, which usually makes my mood much better. We laid there for silent with our bodies pressed together for about 20 min. I had my eyes closed and was enjoying the cool breeze, fresh air, and the warmth of my husband. When my alarm went off at 6:45am there was an awesome orange glow outside as the sun was beginning to rise. It was all very familiar... It all reminded me of staying on Lake Forggensee in Fussen, Germany on our Germany trip in late September 2009. It was a perfect morning!

In Germany, we stayed in a little B&B right on the lake and the room had this sort of country cottage feel to it, complete with flannel sheets. At this point in the trip, we both had mild colds and the heat had not been turned on yet, so we huddled in the middle of the bed to keep warm. As I reluctantly got out of bed this morning I was telling my husband about this, and he said he thought the same thing. That trip was one of the best times spent together that we have had. Here is a picture later that morning as we were waiting to tour Hohenschwangau Castle. This picture was taken on the far northeast edge of Alpsee Lake, about a mile and a half to the southeast of where we woke on up Lake Forggensee.


I was in a state of bliss this morning with all those memories. But I still expected the day to be hard to get through. I walked outside though and it felt wonderful! It was 58F and not so cold you needed a jacket, but cool enough that for the first time in months, (maybe more than 5?) I turned the A/C in the car off on my commute to work. And for the first time since I started my new job in May, no hot blast of air as I arrive to work and step out of the car. It's amazing how much cooler weather improves my mood!

My day at work wasn't all that bad either. I was able to put my head down and really dig into my project without getting interrupted too much. I even got to go on lunch date with my husband to our old Thai restaurant. They shut down for 2 month, remodeled, and changed owners, so I was anxious to try it. I was disappointed to find out that their portions are smaller, the prices are about $1-$2 more, the lunch buffet is gone, and the food isn't as good. But it was still a nice little date night with the hubs. I think we will be sticking to a new Thai restaurant that we found as our "affordable go-to Thai place."

I had our 2nd Civic Orchestra rehearsal tonight, and I was dreading it. I had such a wonderful day by late afternoon that I wanted to just go home and continue the relaxation and just hang out with my husband. But, skipping rehearsal is not an option, so I left work and rushed through my leftover dinner and made my way up to rehearsal. As I was walking in the door, a cellist came out and asked if I was going to rehearsal. She then told me how there is a note on the door that rehearsal is cancelled due to the conductor being sick. I was a pit peeved as the conductor had just sent out an email the night before outlining the rehearsal schedule and never bothered to send another email earlier in the day that he was too sick to conduct.

As I drove home though I got very happy because I had been given the gift of time! I didn't really want to go anyway, so this worked out pretty well. I now had 3 extra hours I didn't have before! So I came back home, opened the house up again to let all the cool, fresh air in, and am just hanging out at home relaxing, which is exactly what I wanted to be doing anyway.

This weather has put me in a very good mood! I usually start decorating for fall in early September but I figured it would be so hot it just wouldn't fit. But this cold front has been strong enough that I think our 100F days are over for the year. Our house is finally really clean, so I think I will have to start decorating for fall this weekend a bit.

Fall is in the air and I could not be happier! :)

A Relaxing Labor Day

Happy Labor Day!

Usually we have a cookout of sorts and either go to someone's house or have people over. Since things haven been so crazy lately and we are just now regaining control of time and still trying to catch our breaths, we decided to keep Labor Day quiet and relaxing.

A Much anticipated cold front came through yesterday dropping temperatures by about 15 degrees or more. We have had 60 days this summer where the temperature has been 100F or greater. It's been ridiculous. All kinds of records have been broken. The Norman Station at the Oklahoma Mesonet broke it's all time record high twice this summer, two days back to back. It ended up getting to 110F on August 2nd, 2011. Oklahoma broke the record for hottest July with an average temperature of 89.1F. Oklahoma ranked 2nd, only behind Texas, for the hottest summer on record. A bunch of cities broke records for number of days above 100F. It's been awful. So this cold front that came through dropping high temperatures into the 80's is very nice!

We are taking full advantage of this nice weather! We are dog sitting for the next week for a friend of ours, so we took our new doggie friend on a walk last night. It was gorgeous out and my husband enjoyed getting out of the house and just casually walking around our neighborhood talking. It was extremely relaxing and gave us a new way to connect. We came home and relaxed for a little while and it was so nice out we decided to sleep with the windows open. We got to sleep in this morning and woke up cuddling in a cool 70F room under our big down comforter. Newlywed bliss! It doesn't get much better than that!

To keep with our relaxing day, we decided to go see Our Idiot Brother mid afternoon since we were planning something new for dinner. This is going to sound weird, but before the movie started I was sent into a euphoric state because the big red curtains over the screen were illuminated with dark colors of orange, yellow and red, which were the colors of our wedding. Looking at the curtains for 20 minutes sitting next to my husband brought back so many great memories and feelings from our wedding. And with the cold front, it was like I was surrounded by fall, one of my favorite seasons! So the movie... it was good, not great, but a nice couple of hours out on a mid-afternoon date. We came home and started getting things ready for dinner!

Grilled Boneless Chicken Breasts with Lemon Vinaigrette:

This ended up being a really quick, easy, low point, and very good recipe! We have been buying the smaller chicken breasts at Sam's Club that are supposed to average 5oz so that it's easier to eat smaller portions than with the regular chicken breasts that can weight as much as a pound a piece! I'm also hoping that these smaller breasts have less hormones in them as well, but I can't seem to find an answer to that.

The recipe calls for 4-6oz breasts (1 1/2 lbs). We like having left overs, and I can easily fit 5oz of cooked chicken breast into my Weight Watchers plan, so we made 6 of our smaller breasts which came out to 2 lbs. They were each rubbed with some olive oil, and then seasoned with a mixture of coriander, sat, and pepper. Even though we added 33% more chicken, we didn't alter the recipe in any other way.

My husband who has become great at the grill threw these on a split fire where only one burner was on and the chicken was placed on the cooler side to cook slower. Right before the chicken was done it was moved to the hotter side of the grill to finish cooking and brown it. This resulted in ultra juicy chicken!

The Lemon Vinaigrette was a simple mixture of olive oil, lemon juice, parsley, Dijon mustard and sugar. Alone we were not impressed as it had a very herb-y flavor. But when drizzled over the chicken, the flavor of the Dijon mustard came through in combination with the seasonings on the chicken. I had a generous portion of 5.25oz of chicken with 2 teaspoons (which was plenty!) of the Lemon Vinaigrette for only 7 WW points. We served it with steamed haricot vert (French green beans), and steamed red potatoes. It was a very filling and delicious dinner.

And for dessert? You guessed it... more Greek Yogurt!


Chobani Greek Yogurt - Strawberry:

This was much better than the Yoplait Strawberry Greek Yogurt I had on Saturday! Unlike the Yoplait brand, this one had real strawberry chunks in it, was not too sweet, and had a more natural consistency of the fruit. I do have to make a note though about the color as I wrote horrible things about the color of Yoplait's Strawberry Geek Yogurt. Chobani's Strawberries also had an off color. They too were darker and had a bit of a brown tint to them. It was not nearly as bad as Yoplait's, but after some reading, this is the normal color for strawberries when they are not in their whole fruit form anymore. This made sense after thinking about it more as you get the same problem with Strawberry cakes when you try and make them with fresh berries. So I guess I can't hold the color of the strawberries against Yoplait anymore. But it doesn't change the fact that appearance aside, Chobani's Strawberry was much better!

This flavor ranks 4th for me in the Chobani flavor lineup: Lemon, Peach/Blueberry, Strawberry, Chery, Vanilla. Fage's Blueberry falls between the Lemon and Peach flavors by Chobani. I will be sticking mostly to Chobani, but I do plan to try some of the other Fage flavors.

Off to the duck pond to take our doggie friend on a more eventful walk and an opportunity to feed the ducks and geese... something I love doing!

Are You Sick of Greek Yogurt Yet? I'm not!

I will be the first to admit it... I'm obsessed. It's a little sad really... but something so delicious, only 3 WW points, and so much protein... do you blame me?

I'm making my way through the Chobani 0% flavors. So far Lemon is my favorite followed by Peach. I wasn't a huge fan of the Vanilla, but am going to give it another try now that I'm fully immersed in this whole Greek Yogurt thing.

So today after lunch I tired the Cherry. I was really surprised how good this one was since I'm not a huge cherry fan. It had just the right amount of sweetness and tart and ranks 3rd for me now, knocking Vanilla down another notch. This flavor had nice cherry chunks and was wonderful when all mixed together. I would buy it again.

And then later after dinner I finally got a chance to try to Chobani Blueberry! I had been anticipating this one for a while. While on an impromptu trip to Sam's Club Friday night, I found a 12-pack of Chobani Greek Yogurt (Blueberry, Peach, and Strawberry). I was quite excited as I cannot contain myself with this stuff. I had previously tried the Fage Blueberry flavor and really liked it. So I was anxious to see how this one compared. As I have stated before, I like the Chobani Greek Yogurt plain better than the Fage. So I expected to like the Chobani Blueberry better than the Fage Blueberry.

Not the case though. While the Chobani Blueberry was delicious, the Fage Blueberry was a bit sweeter, which I think made it taste a bit better. As I have mentioned before, Fage uses sugar though, while Chobani only uses evaporated cane juice. What I find interesting is that Fage only has 16g of sugar while the Chobani Blueberry has 20g of sugar. Fage's website has an asterisk next to the listing of how many grams of sugar and then state: "Naturally occuring lactose sugars, no added sugar." (yes, that is their misspelling of the word occurring). But on the product, under ingredients, it lists sugar. That's a bit puzzling.

Since I'm able to get Chobani in bulk at Sam's Club, and because it doesn't have sugar added, I will stick to the Chobani Blueberry. It's still really good! This flavor is currently tied at number two with Peach.

I have a few more flavors to try, so I'll be posting about those later this week. Then I think I will be done talking about yogurt for a while.

So Fresh and So Clean, Clean

Now that things have calmed down for us and we have more free time, I have been trying to get the house back in an orderly state. My husband was awesome the month of July and ran two households by himself while I was dealing with a family emergency. Luckily not a lot had to be done cleaning wise at the 2nd house, the family member, but my husband knows a clean house puts me in balance. I came home one day and he had vacuumed the living room, dining room, hallway, cleaned the kitchen spotless, and even cleaned off the entertainment center. This may sound like a regular cleaning adventure to most, but we had not cleaned in a few months! I'm embarrassed to say, it was bad! So his feat was a large one and I love him dearly for it. He was so sweet and thoughtful to know that this act would make me so happy and I feel so lucky to have such a great guy. I may be biased, but I think he is the best husband in the world! :)

So I of course started cleaning the kitchen, my favorite room in the house, 2 weeks ago. I scrubbed and disinfected every single surface of the kitchen. What did this make me want to do? COOK! And I did and destroyed the kitchen with my husband later that night. It wasn't too bad cleaning up after though and has been much easier keeping up with the clean kitchen. It has managed to stay clean for 2 solid weeks now. I'm proud! Again, most of you probably think this just makes good sense, and it does, but our busy lives always seem to get in our way soon after and wreck all our cleaning efforts. I am hell bent on keeping the kitchen clean this time though!

Last weekend I tackled the kitchen table. It had become a dumping ground for junk mail, semi important mail, and even important mail was buried in there, and anything else that didn't quite have a place. I managed to get it down to 2 small piles. And another work week to put it all on pause.

I spent a lot of time cleaning on Saturday so that my holiday off from work could be spent in a clean home relaxing. I thoroughly vacuumed most of the house, including baseboards, cobwebs from ceilings (I swear I do not live in a wreck of a home I just have not had time), and what I didn't get to Saturday was cleaned today. I still didn't quite get everything knocked out today... but it's looking a lot better and more relaxing already.

And I must praise Dyson. We got the Dyson DC28 Animal as a wedding gift, and more than 9 months later I'm still in love with it. Vacuuming is so much easier with this beast. There are too many good things to say about it that I'm not even going to attempt to start.

I guess I'll end up cleaning tomorrow, but at least I will have a clean house. I'm already feeling so much more relaxed and at ease. It's amazing how happy a nice clean home makes me.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful Labor Day weekend!

In Search of Delicious Asian Dishes

My husband and I love Thai! There was this little place we used to go to that I introduced him to shortly after we started dating. We hadn't been in a while, and about three years ago we started going again, and about a year later got hooked. It was so good! I tried making something similar at home, but I just couldn't recreate the flavors. I know how to build great flavors for Italian, Mexican, American, etc., but Asian flavors are a whole other type of cooking that I just was not used to. In general I'm not an Asian food fan, too many veggies, and I'm more of a country girl eater... and my eating habits are the only thing country about me!... but I can't seem to get enough of Thai. I think it's the sweet/spicy flavor that keeps me coming back for more. Anyway, so Thai is the one thing you can count on my husband and I eating out for. We cook a lot at home, but about once a week, we would go to our restaurant. One of my favorite memories of Thai Raja was that during our 15 months of wedding planning, even though we were on Weight Watchers, we ate Thai almost every Wedding Wednesday Night. The girls knew our order and when we strayed from our usual, they were confused. When we skipped a week, which was rare, they asked if we were OK. Sad, I know. It was one of the few things that got my husband through those long nights. Even after the wedding stress had ended and we came back from two weeks of Italian food, we went right back to our Thai food once a week. Sadly, our restaurant, the staple of our Wednesday nights for the last 2 years was closing. This forced us to finally learn the art of Asian cooking. I still don't have it, but with the help of great recipes, I'm leaning my way to building complex Asian flavors.

After my husband was able to get me to eat our last Stir-Fry creation, Stir-Fried Shrimp and Asparagus with Lemon Sauce, he talked me into making something new that had the word "spciy" in it. I was game.

Stir-Fried Chicken and Green Beans with Spicy Orange Sauce:

We did our usual grocery shopping on Saturday and were unable to find shiitake mushrooms and other good looking veggies at our usual source, so we went to the new Natural Grocers and picked up a whopping 12 oz of shiitake mushrooms, 12 oz of green beans, and some other veggies for my husband to snack on. I wasn't too excited about this recipe after looking at how much 12 oz of mushrooms were. I'm just now starting to come around on them, and this was a first for me with shiitake mushrooms.

We started by slicing the chicken thin and marinating it in a mixture of toasted sesame oil, cornstarch, flour, low-sodium soy sauce and Chinese rice cooking wine (we used dry sherry again instead since we still couldn't find Chinese rice cooking wine). Then we did the notorious vegetable prep of stir-fries and I played with my macro lens a bit.

I still wasn't feeling it for this recipe after everything was prepped and ready. But cooking out of the Healthy Family Cookbook by America's Test Kitchen, I had hope. We cooked our wonderful organic green beans and they looked awesome! Now came time for the mushrooms. We added them to the pan, and it was full! I wasn't too sure about this. The recipe said they would cook down, then I began to worry about slimy mushrooms. I was entertained with the contrast in colors in the pan and played with my macro lens some more while the hubby cooked.

Sure enough a few minutes later the mushrooms had cooked down. I made the Spicy Orange Sauce as my husband added the scallions, garlic, and ginger to the stir-fry. The Spicy Orange Sauce was very simple with orange juice, Chinese rice cooking wine (we used dry sherry here too), low-sodium soy sauce, Asian chili-garlic sauce (and we added extra since we like things hot), sugar, cornstarch, toasted sesame oil, and orange zest. It was added to the pan, and now I was getting excited about dinner!

During our prep we had toasted some sesame seeds before hand. We served this over a bed of brown basmati rice and sprinkled the sesame seeds over it. The mushrooms were not too slimy, not too mushy, and were actually quite good. The dish wasn't too spicy, but I think it was just right. Any spicier and it would have overpowered the mild orange flavor. I would not, however, recommend serving this on brown basmati rice. It has an aromatic nutty flavor that competed with the toasted sesame oil in the dish. I think plain brown rice would be better, and definitely jasmin rice.

UPDATE: This keeps really well in the fridge. The mushrooms get a little "slimy", but I'm not a mushroom fan and I was able to handle it fine.

This is another stir-fry that we will be adding our our rotation of dishes!

Yet another fun Saturday evening in the kitchen with my husband! I'm really loving all the free time we have on the weekends lately to experiment with new recipes.