Pasta my favorite carb!

Hobby of the day: Cooking 

P.S. This does not include the tortellini in the freezer

I heart pasta! Truth!  I loved being in Italy, pasta all the time, pizza, cheese, bread.....mmmm....and I didn't gain a pound....fast metabolism, not really, but LOTS of walking!! Plus hot days = no weight gain. If I tried that here, the lbs would be packed on.


The other night I wanted to make a pasta that was little more springy and maybe a little more healthy.  I didn't however use whole weight pasta- shame on me I know.  It's better for you, but it just doesn't seem to be able to absorb the flavors like white four pasta. Maybe that's just my opinion.  


Usually when I cook I use, penne or angel hair pasta (my favorite). This time I decided to cook linguini.  You know, the thicker flatter pasta, not to be mixed up with lasagna noodles :-).  I wasn't sure what  I wanted to mix into it.  I wish Gary like seafood. I would have so many more possibilities. He might just have to suck it up one of these days.  Sometimes I can wiggle in shrimp. 

I bought sun dried tomatoes.  I wish I had purchased them in oil to give the pasta a little more moisture.  
Ingredients:

• I chopped up 1/4 cup sun dried tomatoes

• Sauteed up 2-3 cloves of chopped garlic in 2 tablespoons of EVOO

• Then I added about a 1/4 cup of chopped parsley- it's what I had on hand, I would have added basil if we had enough of it(next time)

• I also added about 1/2 tsp of red pepper flakes for some heat

--I also made some garlic bread- Gary's request. No, I didn't make the bread from scratch.  I went a little LC(low class) and used hot dog buns. Added butter and some garlic with a sprinkle of salt (we didn't have garlic salt- add improvisation) and topped with, what else?! MORE cheese!  I'm telling you we are a cheese family!


Boiled my linguini in salted water for 8-11 minutes, until al dente
Then tossed in linguini to my saute mix - I had planned on adding some lemon zest since I thought it would go nicely with my parsley, but forgot (again, next time)
Added some freshly ground black pepper and of course had a nice big block of Parmesan cheese to be grated on top.

I loved the color with the green specks mixed in with the red of the sun dried tomato. Gary enjoyed it which = success.  I didn't mind the parsley, but I think basil would work so much better.

Note: I applied waaay more cheese than necessary, but I didn't take a picture of that because it wasn't esthetically pleasing, but it was taste wise:-)

This little one knows where to hang out during dinner- she's waiting for me to drop some goodies- "As if!"  She was waiting under Gary, but someone eats a lot faster than yours truly. 

Sweet Confections!

Hobby of the day: Baking

I have decided that I am going to attempt to work through both the Martha Stewart Cupcake Cookbook as well as the Cookie Cookbook. However, I will NOT be doing it everyday. I have neither the time, nor the energy, or the money for that matter.  Thankfully both Gary and I are teachers and have students who would love to consume goodies, as well as co-workers.  Unfortunately, the summer is coming, good thing, I have more time, bad thing, who will eat them?! 
Thus begins my challenge. My goal: to bake 2-4 times a month.

I made these sweet treats for my grandmother's birthday this past weekend.  She can't really have chocolate, so..... I made Yellow Buttermilk Cupcakes, pg. 26 in the cupcake cookbook.  I topped them with a vanilla butter cream recipe that I got from here.

Recipe: 
3 cups cake flour (not self-rising)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter (room temperature)
2 1/4 cups sugar
5 large whole eggs plus 3 egg yolks- room temperature
2 cups buttermilk- room temperature (** if you can't find buttermilk you can make your own, crazy I know it's really simple 1 cup of milk to 1 tablespoon lemon juice of white vinegar)
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract


Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350. Line standard muffin tins with cupcake liners. Sift together both flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt. 

I heart my kitchen aid

2. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.  Reduce speed to medium.  Add whole eggs, one at a time, beating until thoroughly combined.  Reduce speed to low.  Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of buttermilk, and beating until combined after each. Beat in vanilla.

I love my cookie/cupcake scoop

3. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until cupcakes spring back when lightly touched and a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean, about 20 minutes (I did 18 and it was fine, I also forgot to rotate- I did less time because I like my cupcakes to stay moist) Transfer to wire racks to cool 10 minutes; turn out cupakes onto racks and let cook completely. Cupcakes can be stored overnight at room temperature, or frozen up to 2 months, in airtight containers.

On to the icing: For Christmas my mom gave me a great icing tip set, most of which I have yet to use.  I wanted to make the tops of the cupcakes extra special, go that extra mile. Enter Youtube......

It took me probably 1-2 hours to make the roses.  I had never ever made icing roses before, so it took me awhile to perfect them. Then transfer them to the cupcake and add the leaves. I tried to make my leaves like the guy on the video, but then I discovered I had leaf icing tips. I still can't figure out how to get my leaves to be fully pointy, but practice makes perfect/  


My grandmother has always had a green thumb. So I made, her own edible garden.  I really wanted to make more than roses, but when all was said and done, with coloring and filling bags and finding the right tips.... I didn't have the time or energy.  Until the next time....

First Successful Rose!

Grandma's Garden

To the Gym!

After a 3 month hiatus, I have returned to the gym. *Gasp*

Workout:
Weights: triceps and biceps
Treadmill: 3.5 miles/ incline: 1.0/ speed: 5.8
Elliptical: 30 minutes/ resistance 9


When I began training for my first half marathon I decided to put my membership on hold.  Even with a teacher's "discount" our gym membership is way expensive. Guess that's what we get for living on Capitol Hill. For my training I did a lot of out door running, I am just not one of those people who enjoy treadmill running.  There is just so much more to see while running.  I am a HUGE people watcher.  I also added Jillian Michael's 30 day shred, level 3, as well as other ab and core routines and of course burpees.  At some point I would like to try yoga too.  I hear that it does good things for runners.  I have done it before, but I lack flexibility.  I like to be good at things that I do, not perfect, but I would like to at least look like I know what I am doing.

Not going to the gym was okay by me anyway.  I tend to prefer to run in the cold anyway, so not going to the gym during those winter months doesn't really bother me. Plus, I hate heat, not as in sun heat, but as in opposite of AC. Our gym pumps it out during the winter months and it makes it hard for me to breath, dries out my eyes and my nose, overall just very unpleasant.  

At this point I'm trying to increase my speed while running. I just seem to be very consistent with my speed, never super slow and never super fast.  I know I will never win a race, but for my personal goals I just want to improve my PR.  I started off on the treadmill at a 5.4,  I have a quick turnover, which is good and bad.  I increased up to 5.8 and lengthened my stride, it make me feel like I wasn't even moving quite as fast, I probably could have even increased my speed more, but we'll work at it one day at a time.  


I then moved over to the elliptical for a little cross training.  The guy next to me was trying to destroy his machine.  He had no resistance on his machine and was going as hard as his legs and arms could move. The machine was rocking back and forth. I don't know if he was trying to show off, but seriously, I did almost laugh out loud. 


It feels good to be back at the gym.  Hope to keep it up!

Yeah Mon!

V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N!!!

One perk about being a teacher is the vacations, spring break, Christmas, holidays and summer vacation.  I honestly do not think I would be able to make it as a full-time teacher without having breaks. I would be soo burned out, ask any teacher, I think they might just feel the same way.  

I never went on a spring break before, not in high school, or college. I mean I was saving in high school and I was pretty broke in college. Gary and I have gone to New Orleans on two of our spring breaks, which was great and lots of fun, but we wanted to go some place where we could just sit, read and soak up the sun. Enter spring break planning.  Enter partners in crime, some fellow teachers :-)  We ended up booking our trip in January, the cheapest place that we could find a good all-inclusive deal was in Jamaica.  I have never been there before and I don't think one of the other couples had either, but the other couple was just there on their honeymoon about a year ago. But we stayed at a different place and this time we were with friends! 

I used Book-it.com to make the reservation, I had used it in the past when we went to Italy, they seem to have some pretty good deals.  Tripadvisor is another good website to get ratings of different hotels.  Sometimes though people are just too picky, too "diva."  We booked at the Royal Decameron Club Caribbean.  There were some really cute "villas" that you could get, but way out of our price range, some of these were right on the beach.  You can't really say that ours was off the resort, but it was right on the edge. The rooms weren't huge, but I didn't plan on spending a whole lot of time in them anyway. They were clean- huge points with me! The bathroom wasn't anything to write home about, but again, CLEAN, with good lighting! The shower curtain was not gross and grimy, another huge point!  The bed was king size, no gross bedspread (that's one thing I hate sometimes about hotels/motels).  We also had a closet and a flat screen TV with LOTS of channels, again not that we planned on really watching much TV.  We had a little sitting area outside our room with two Adirondack chairs.  

There were two restaurants that we could make reservations at: a Thai and a seafood, we ate at both, nothing fabulous.  I ended up getting the "steak" and potatoes for dinner at the seafood restaurant, per recommendation of our fabulous waitress we had for 3 nights.  Can I just say that the two nights we had reservations we also ended up going to the buffet too! DON'T judge:-) Free is free.....More dinner for dessert, yes please!

The beach was great, looong, water was warm and they had a trampoline out in the middle of the water.  Now, I am no Michael Phelps, so getting out there was a little difficult, but I did it, twice! 
I also went snorkeling twice too. The first time I freaked out there were tons of sea urchins all over the ocean floor.  The second time I went out I used a life jacket, to keep me afloat.  Very helpful! 


Our routine went as follows:  

• Get up, apply sunscreen ALL over
• Go to breakfast buffet
•  Head out to "our spot"  very near to the swing bar (that's what we labeled it)
• Read, soak up sun, nap, occasionally cool off in the ocean
• Lunch buffet
• Soak up more sun, swim, or for the paler ones sit in the shade of the umbrellas up by the bar
• Break in the shade, nap/read
• Shower, change
• Dinner buffet
• Drinks - throughout the day
• Nightly entertainment

* Repeat for following days :-)

Grilling- that's what's up!

So excited that grilling season has begun!  We don't actually have our own grill. It would be great if we did, but the condo building we live in has a communal one. I am pretty sure that we are the only ones who use it.  It's great because we are on the ground floor and really close to the grill.  


Gary is the grill master, but we both create the yummy creations.  You should look at our spice cabinet, well actually it's more like containers right now. I would love to be more organized, but we just don't have the room to get all the fancy schmancy things from Bed Bath and Beyond.  On my next to buy list is a vegetable/seafood grilling basket.  


Last night we had grilled chicken tenderloins, couldn't find thinly sliced chicken, but the tenderloins worked equally well.  Gary seasoned them with, garlic, salt, pepper, Italian seasoning and EVOO.  We let them marinade in the fridge for about 30 minutes, surprisingly the chicken soaked it right up.  

I have never been a fan of asparagus ever since I was little.  My mom would make it frequently since she and my dad were a fan of it.  Maybe it is the way that she prepared it, I dunno.  I hated it, I would cut it up super small chew real quick without tasting and swallow real quick followed by a swig of milk (it does a body good).  Up till about now at 29 years of age I haven't chosen to eat it.  The other night we were at a friends and they threw some asparagus on the grill, being polite I took some and YUM!  So I decided to try it myself.  

Recipe:
1) 1 bunch of asparagus washed with ends cut off.  
2)  2 tbs of EVOO
3) 1/2 tsp of Kosher salt to taste
4) 1/2 tsp of freshly ground black pepper
5) 2 cloves of garlic chopped


Add all ingredients into a Ziploc bag and shake, let marinade 20-30 min.  


** This is when I wished we had a grilling basket.


I skewered the asparagus which was supposed to help with the flipping of the veggie with the hopes that none would fall through the grates---which did work.....but.....I used metal skewers, thus when Gary flipped them one of the ends flipped up and landed on his wrist. Metal+heat+ skin= burn!  

Did I enjoy the asparagus?! YES! It was flavorful, crispy, good....too bad it makes your pee smell not so great.  Guess I've found a "new" veggie to enjoy. 

I placed our chicken on some lettuce, as an edible garnish, topped the chicken with some shredded 5 Italian Cheese mix and added some fresh avocado on top-mmmmm

Brazilian Night

Hobby of the day: Cooking

Don't be fooled, there will be no Brazilian waxes or Bikinis......


We did however have our monthly International Dinner Night. We chose Brazil, I'm not sure why since the last country that we did was Peru, too close? I had originally thought about doing Ireland or Belgium, but then felt that they might be too much considering we are leaving at the break of dawn tomorrow morning for Jamaica. So excited by the way.


Gary actually found and did the marinade for a Brazilian chicken recipe. That was real nice, usually I am the one who is doing all the prep work. I am making a side of Brazilian rice and we have all the essentials for a Caipirinha...hope it is as good as it sounds. We bought the, limes, sprite and cachaca.  You also add sugar or simple syrup.  Recipe here.....  it was pretty refreshing, I definitely needed to add the sprite Yummers!




Everyone always brings a side to the main dish. Gary made Brazilian Black Beer chicken, made with xingu beer. It turned out great! Usually I make the main dish, but not this time, everyone said how delicious it was.  We also prefer to use the thinner sliced chicken breasts than the thick ones.  They cook faster and they also seem to soak up the marinade much better.  

Here's the recipe: From www.food.com  
We would have let it marinade for longer than 6 hours, but we didn't find the recipe early enough.   

• 2 cups beer
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup dijon-style mustard
• 1 tablespoon paprika , sweet
• 1 teaspoon black pepper , freshly ground
• 1 medium onion , thinly sliced
• 12 garlic cloves , thinly sliced
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 chicken (3 1/2 to 4 pounds)
• salt , coarse (kosher or sea)

Directions:

1. Combine the beer, oil, mustard, paprika, and pepper in a large nonreactive bowl and whisk thoroughly to blend. Stir in the onion, garlic, and bay leaves.
2. Rinse the chicken pieces under cold running water, then drain and blot dry with paper towels. Add to the marinade in the bowl and turn to coat. Cover and let marinate, in the refrigerator, for 6 hours or up to 2 days (the longer the better), turning the pieces occasionally.
3. Preheat the grill, using the two-tiered method.
4. When ready to cook, remove the chicken pieces from the marinade, reserving the marinade, and blot dry. Season the pieces generously with salt. Oil the grill grate and arrange the chicken, skin side down, on the grate over the hotter section of the grill and cook. During the first 10 minutes only, brush several times with the reserved marinade.
5. Transfer the chicken pieces to serving plates and serve immediately.

Read more: http://www.food.com/recipe/brazilian-beer-chicken-456472#ixzz1rUmk7MXV

I think that this chicken would also go fabulously in a lettuce wrap with some rice, brown or white.  

Summertime favorite-mmm

Hobby of the Day: Cooking


I love my crock pot and just recently discovered that I can prepare my chicken in it and not boil it.  What I really needs is a pressure cooker.  That's on my Amazon wish list.  Crock Pot chicken just seems more tender and more flavorful and it's easier to shred.  Some people say to just throw it in and it cooks in its' own juices. I like to add some "extras," carrots, onion if available and some chicken broth or stock to give it a little extra juice to cook in. I hit the button and let the pot go to work.  Then I shred it, if that's what the recipe calls for.  

Tonight's specialty: Chicken Salad
My mother used to make it all the time when I was growing up. It's a comfort food and reminds me a lot of spring/summer.  She would add green grapes and celery, which is what I typically add.  Lately though I've been making it a little more artisan.

kinda looks like cookie batter...

I added cranberries to it this time, some celery and some pecans(should have toasted first-whoops).  I also use Hellman's Light mayo. My mother also always made blueberry muffins with the chicken salad, I don't know why, but it seems to go yummilicious together.  Usually I make the Duncan Hines blueberry streusel muffins, you know the kind with the crispy chucks of sugary goodness on top. Couldn't find them, so instead I made extra large whole wheat blueberry muffins, still Duncan Hines though.....mmm.....

The finished product:

My friend, Jenna, and I had a lunch date today.  Thank goodness that SPRING break has begun! My report card grades were finished early too! My room however, may not have been left in the cleanest condition.  Of course I have left over delicious chicken salad at home, but what do I get when we go out to eat?! Yup, that's right chicken salad, but it's one of my favorite things to get at Lola's on Barrack's Row.  It is on soft bread with melted provolone and bacon- I mean bacon makes everything great right? It's just like fried anything tastes good right? No, ok maybe just me.... our meals came with either fries or salad. We both decided on salads, even though we truly wanted fries, so changed it and one got fries and the other salad, the best of both worlds.  I brought home the other half for Gary, but I'm pretty sure I will be eating it.  


Hope you are having a wonderful day!