Lite summer meal...and a desert to boot!!

So last night D and I had our first official guest over for dinner. Now we have had a few friends over to the new house, but it was just to meet up really quick, or drop off, or something like that. Nothing really special to say I need to fancy up our house and make a nice meal. But in this case, we invited D’s Chief PO over for dinner. He has become a pretty good friend in the last year and we hang out pretty often. His gf is deployed so we try to do a lot so he isn’t lonely.

We all went to the beach on Saturday to get some sun and play some horseshoes and I had been planning on making dinner last night so I went a head and invited him. He cooks pretty often himself so I new he would be game to try a new recipe.

Again, I got this recipe for dinner from Homemade by Holman….Lemon spaghetti. YUM!! Like ridiculously yum. I didn’t take any pictures of it as I was making it because I was trying to hurry, but it is literally the perfect summer time warm pasta dish.

If you love lemons and spaghetti, then this dish is perfect for you. I ran to Wally World and grabbed a lemon pepper rotisserie chicken which was just perfect to throw into it. Here is what you need:

3 good size lemons, plus zest of ½ lemon

1 rotisserie chicken, warmed

1 tsp fresh chopped thyme

3 tbs fresh chopped basil

Salt and pepper to taste

1 pound spaghetti noodles (I used ½ box, but ¾ box probably would have been better for 3 with leftovers for D)

¼ cup Olive oil

Up to ½ cup pasta water

½ tsp fresh garlic (optional)

½ generous cup of coarse grated Parm. cheese

I used the juice of 3 good sized lemons for this dish. You could use the juice in the little fake lemon bottle if you like, but with lemons as cheap as they are, why not use the real deal?? So I rolled my lemons on the countertop applying firm pressure to get the juices all moving around and squeezed them out in my serving bowl. I zested ½ of a lemon and threw that in too. Next I added some garlic, chopped thyme, parm. cheese and salt and pepper to taste. Take the rotisserie chicken and just shredded it up with your fingers without the skin. I used most the breasts, but some of the thighs and legs went in to. But the breasts were really enough chicken, and throw that all in. For the basil, I took a good bunch of leaves (maybe 4 or 5) and rolled them up together length wise and just chopped them into thin ribbons. Throw that into your lemon mixture. Drizzle in about ¼ cup olive oil and let that sit.

Meanwhile, get your pasta water bubblin’ and throw in your pasta. I use whole wheat spaghetti and cooked it al dente. For me it was about 7 minutes to get it how I liked it. Now when that is done, you can either drain it, reserving a little pasta water or you can just leave it in the water and scoop it out into your serving dish. I just took my spaghetti spoon and just scooped it out, letting a little water drip off before I threw it in my bowl.

Scoop out all your pasta and toss it with your lemon cheese mixture. You can add a little more parm (which I did) and basil if you so like. Serve warm.

It is perfect and light…not super saucy like most pasta dishes, and it was really easy! D raved about it and so did our guest. I will for sure be making this again!!

Now on to desert….

I grabbed this recipe from a combination of different websites and sort of made my own recipe/cupcake. I made vanilla cupcakes with strawberry curd swirl and strawberry cream cheese frosting. Sounds terrible huh??? Lol…

I really made these for D to take to work today because I love to bake and I have all these recipes that I want to try, so for the next several weeks…they will be getting cupcakes!!

Here goes nothing….

Strawberry curd

Adapted from A cup full of Cake

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter

1 ½ cups coarsely chopped fresh strawberries (the original recipe I copied this from called for 2 ½ pints of raspberries or a 12 oz pack of frozen raspberries, thawed)

5 large egg yolks, lightly beaten

3/4 cup sugar

Pinch of salt

2 to 3 tsp fresh lemon juice

Take a medium sauce pan and heat your butter over medium heat and get it all melted. Add all ingredients to melted butter. Smoosh up your strawberries and mix around with all ingredients, stirring frequently at first and then more constantly towards the end, which is about 10 minutes.

It will begin to thicken up towards then end, you will notice this. After that turn heat off and drain mixture through mesh sieve. Now on this…make sure you don’t have a teeny little sieve like I used…had I thought about it, I would have bought the next size up, but I didn’t realize how small it was until I started working with it. SO get a bigger one to work with. Work your mixture through the mesh and try to push as much liquid out that you can into a separate bowl or container. Set aside to cool.

Vanilla Bean cupcakes

From Loves to Eat

3 cups cake flour

1 tbsp. baking powder

½ tsp. salt

1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise

16 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 cups sugar

5 large eggs, at room temperature

1¼ cups buttermilk, at room temperature

1 tbsp. vanilla extract

Preheat your oven to 350 and line 2 cupcake pans with your liners. I tried to find some pretty liners, but I was short on time and didn’t have a lot of time to search. Oh well…

Now in a medium bowl measure out your cake flour, powder and salt…whisk it all together. Next add your butter to a mixing bowl of an electric mixer with your paddle attachement (I jusut used the regular beaters because my mixer doesn’t have a paddle). Take your split vanilla bean (if you have one, which I was unable to find) and scrape out the seeds and put in in with your butter. Beat on medium high speed for about 3 minutes until it is creamy looking and lighter in color. Scrape your bowl down and beat 1 more minute. Add your sugar ¼ cup at a time and beat 1 minute after each addition, scraping the bowl before adding another cup. Next mix in eggs 1 at a time, again mixing until well incorporated and scraping in between each addition. Combine your butter milk and vanilla in a liquid measuring cup. Put mixer on low speed and add the flour mixture and liquid mixture alternately to butter mixture, a little at a time. Begin and end with flour mixture. Make sure and scrape down your bowl after each addition. For me, I just left my mixer on and scraped my bowl as it was going…it was a lot easier that way than to start and stop over and over. After your last scrape down, mix again another 15 seconds just to finish incorporating.

Now it is time to fill up your cups! Fill each cup 2/3 of the way full. For me, I always use my Pampered Chef medium cookie scoop to fill cupcakes. It is a lot easier and no where near as messy. So for me it was one very full scoop and 1 half full scoop to fill the muffin cup. After that I took my cooled strawberry curd (which I don’t have a picture of, but it was not very thick…maybe you could add a little cornstarch while cooking to thicken it, but I didn’t think of it) and put a spoonful on top of each cupcake and swirled it in with a toothpick.

Then bake for 18 to 22 minutes…I did 20 minutes and I probably could have done a little less since the bottom of my cakes were a little too brown. Make sure when you test with a toothpick that it comes out clean. Allow to cool before frosting.

I had some batter left over so I made a 6 inch round with my remaining batter and it took about 20 minutes to cook through.

Now the most delish part of all!!! The cream cheese frosting!!

Okay…so I forgot to take a picture of all my ingredients, but they are pretty standard, so…use your imagination!

Strawberry Cream cheese frosting

From Loves to Eat

½ c. strawberries

8 oz. cream cheese, at room temp.

1 ½ sticks unsalted butter, at room temp.

1 ¾ cups powdered sugar, sifted

½ tsp. lemon juice

1 tbsp. vanilla

Take your strawberries and put them in a food processor (I used my blender with a splash of water) and puree. Now…I would probably do more strawberries than the recipe calls…maybe ¾ cup chopped berries. I found ½ cup just wasn’t enough. Next, take your butter and cream cheese and place it in your mixer bowl and turn it on medium. Let it get all fluffy. Scrape your bowl!! Next slowly add your sifted powdered sugar. I highly recommend taking the time to sift the sugar. It makes a huge difference in the texture and it was soooo smooth and creamy. After that is all done add your vanilla and lemon juice. Now comes the strawberry puree. Make sure before you add it to your frosting, your push it through a sieve again to get all the seeds out. Add as much or as little strawberry puree as you want to get desired consistency. In the picture posted on the blog I got this off of, you will notice the intense pink color. Well, she must have added pink food coloring because it is the palest of pale baby pinks after adding all the strawberry puree. So I threw in some pink Wilton coloring until I got the color I was going after.

Then I put the icing into a piping bag and piped out my cupy-cakes. The frosting was very soft so I added, probably another ¼ powdered sugar to the mix to set it up a little more. But it was still pretty soft, so when piping it on, the frosting wasn’t really working with me. I mean my technique could use a little help, but it was just going all over the place and I didn’t have much control over it.

Either way, they were done and beautiful nonetheless!! D loved them and out guest had 2 and took 2 more home! D has already told me they were a big hit at work and they can’t wait until next time I make them some cupy-cakes!!

Enjoy!!

A week full of homemade dinners for D...

Well maybe not quite a whole week, but 4 days in a row is a lot for us without having any sort of left overs. I blogged the other day about making my Dijon chicken club sandwiches and how delish they were. Let me just say that Tuesday night's dinner was not a success.

Eww...is about all I can say. I made this white cheddar chicken pasta (again from Homemade by Holman). I followed the directions, and I was even able to make the rue that was needed for the sauce, but it just never came together. For one, it took me forever to find white cheddar. I had to go to a couple of different stores to find it. I was really excited about this dinner but it was just so bad that I didn't even bother taking pics of it.

I mean it tasted good and stuff, it just never thickened up. The cheese "sauce" was more like a water-y cheese soup that went everywhere. D liked it and all, but I was really disappointed. And it just made such a huge mess in my kitchen. I unfortunately won't be trying this one again.

That was Tuesday night, so Wednesday I was hoping for a little easier time. I made these Creamy Chicken Enchiladas....oh...my....yum!!! I loved it! I didn't take any pictures because I was in a hurry to fix dinner so I could get ready for work, but it turned out exactly like the blog and it was delish!!!

I didn't have the time to cook my chicken in a crockpot like she suggested in the recipe, and quite frankly, who wants to pull out the crockpot when it is so hot outside?? Not me! So I just got a large stock pot and boiled some water in it. I put all the "chicken" spices and what not that it called for, but I obviously upped the water content so that I would boil them. Turned out just perfect. And much quicker too I might add.

I only made enough chicken for about 5 enchiladas instead of 8 like the recipe calls for because I didn't want a huge pile of left overs, but now I am wishing that I did make all of it because it was so good. So for sure I will be trying this recipe again, but with more chicken so I can have left overs... :D

So that is another week of dinners for D and 3 new recipes (although only 1 will count for my 101). Enjoy!

Dijon Chicken Club Sandwich!

Well, it is time for a new recipe! And time for me to make a few homemade meals for D this week.

D is finally going to be home for a while. He gets 5 weeks "off" meaning he gets to be home for 5 weeks working at Coronado, instead of coming and going every couple of days to the desert. So we finally get to eat meals together like a normal couple. I am working nights this week so really this is a great week for me to cook dinner for him.

There is a really great blog, Homemade by Holman, that I have begun to follow and it is full of yummy food ideas! She has such a variety of things to try....dinner, desert, side dishes....the whole thing. So last night I made Dijon Chicken Club Sandwhiches. Huge...hit...gonna have to do those again!!

So here we go....sandwiches for 2! There is a recipe on there for her version of dijon chicken, but I just did it my way in a pan on the stove top since D couldn't get the charcoal to light on the grill. I just took my chicken breasts and put a coat of dijon mustard and the spices I wanted to use. I made 3 pieces of chicken because they were pretty small and D said he was starving....

Then I cooked them on the stove top. Meanwhile I gathered the rest of my ingredients:
4 pieces of whole wheat bread
Butter to put on the bread
2 pieces of mozzarella cheese
Bacon
Dijon Mustard

First step...get your bread buttered on one side....and get your griddle (or pan) hot.

After your bread is buttered, put about 1 tbs Dijon mustard on one side of your bread. Of course you could do more if you like. I did a double dose of Dijon on D's sandwich because he loves mustard!!

Next slice your chicken up into smaller bite sized pieces and lay them on the bread. Again, how ever much you want. But I only put about 1 chicken breast on mine.

Now the bacon...I used the pre-cooked stuff because I don't like greasy bacon at all. It doesn't seem near as greasy when you use this kind.

After that throw your cheese on, then your other piece of bread. Get it all toasty and grilled up, then it is done!!

Really good, so that is another new recipe and a home cooked meal for D. I have another meal planned for tonight so let's hope it turns out as well as this one did!!

Three birds....one date!

So this past week was our anniversary! Yea for weddings!!! D was OOT as usual so we couldn't celebrate until the weekend. Which really was just fine by me since I was also working all week and didn't get off until late every night.

So we decided to try out a new restaraunt for our date night. We didn't want to go to the same restaurants that we always go to...we wanted to try a local place. So we made reservations at a local seafood and steakhouse in La Jolla, CA. I drive by it everyday when I go to work and it looks so nice. It has an outdoor terrace that over looks the ocean. Can't beat that for date night, right?
The restaurant was called Vigilucci's. Yum-o!! Really expensive, but yum! We each got a prime rib, which was incredible, and we split our 2 small sides of a potato and fettacine alfredo. We also shared a bottle of wine. I am not normally a wine person al att, but D wanted to order some since it was our anniversary and all. It was a nice white wine and pretty tasty. Other than saying it was a white, I couldn't begin to tell you anything else than that...oh it was from 2008, does that count? Anywho, we had a wonderful dinner at sunset looking out at the ocean and then split an incredible chocolate lava cake and vanilla gelato. Then we took a walk to the ocean and just sat and talked for a while. It was nice to be one a fancy date and just be able to take our time eating and doing whatever.

After the dinner, we moved on to see a movie. We went and saw the new Leo movie, Inception. It was pretty good. You definately had to pay attention to the movie or you would miss a part. I guess it was good, but I wans't blown away like most people seem to be. Like it wasn't just incredible that I am raving about it to all my friends. Good and very well done, yes, but just okay.

That in a nutshell was out fabulous date night/movie time/ new resaraunt that we did all for our anniversary!!

I wanna get chocolate wasted!!!

Bawhahaha!! A few weeks ago D and I along with some friends went and saw Adam Sandler’s new movie “Grown Ups”….soooo funny!!! Like really funny. I mean David Spade…Adam Sandler…Chris Rock…Rob Schnider….and the guy from Paul Blart Mall Cop (can’t think of his name!!)…how could it not be funny?!?!

I had heard on either the tv or the radio the Monday after it came out that it was a bomb and it was terrible. I don’t know how that is even remotely possible. Surely I heard it wrong because I laughed so hard. The ending was super cheesy, but the rest was AWESOME!

D is a huge Adam Sandler fan! When we went to Hollywood a few months ago we stopped at Graumann’s and he took a picture with his hands and feet…

So naturally D loved it. So it was a really fun movie night for us and a good time to hang with our friends. We are planning a fun anniversary weekend, so stayed tuned for some more 101 updates!

You may now kiss the bride....

Happy anniversary to me and the hubs!!! Two amazing years ago we officially became Mr. & Mrs.!!! It was a long road in the making, but lordy was it fun!! It was, if memory serves, about 105 that day with 100% humidity for our outdoor, evening wedding. Yes I am a crazy lady for wanting an outdoor wedding in July...but in my defense it was a 7pm wedding and I figured it would cooler by then!

Wrong!!! Shortly after we kissed and said our "I do's" the heavens opened up and down came the rain. I didn't not freak however. I welcomed the water, as the tear fell from heaven.

You see, today is also D's dad's birthday. He passed 6 years ago in August. It was one heck of an emotional roller coaster. D has asked me to marry him 3 years ago today, and when he asked me he just said he felt like Dad was telling him it was time. And as usual, Dad was right.

I felt the tears also come from my mother who passed 15 years ago. I know she wished she could have been there to do all the mother-daughter wedding planning madness, but I think I did well on my own. I never really got emotional the day of our wedding. The only time cried for her was roughly a month before the wedding, when I went to try on my dress for the last time with all the trimmings. My mom's mom bought my dress and was there with me and I just broke down...in fact I am tearing up as I type this. All these monumental milestones in my life make me think of her. I know I did her proud.

And I know I did my other gma proud as well. She passed shortly after D's dad did. It was another devastating blow that year. She was my father's mother and practically raised me after my mom passed. She never had a daughter and I was the one she wanted. She fought lung cancer for not too long and finally gave in.

So as you can see the rain was more than welcome, because we knew our dearly departed loved ones were watching over us together. And I know they are still with us today. We miss them still more than ever.

Since D is OOT (as usual) and I am working (as usual) we will be celebrating this weekend. No plans yet, but D is wanting to finishing unpacking our house and maybe getting some paint for our bedroom. I am sure we will do dinner, but no plans as of yet. So happy anniversary my love. You are my one, my only, my always.

Forever and always....

Revelations in life...

So the last couple of weeks I have been on sort of a roller coaster in life. Nothing super specific in my life, but more or less things in close friends lives that have, more or less, shocked me.

The weekend D and I first went home to OK, we were in Mannford visiting his BF and his wife. I was checking my email and noticed I had an email from my old college roomie. She was coming to visit the weekend D and I returned to Cali.

I wasn't super shocked that I had recieved and email from her...we have been exchanging frequent emails in the last few weeks anticipating her trip out here. But this was no ordinary email. She started off the email by telling me that she had something important to tell me and she didn't exactly know how to say it...I am not a fan of emails starting like that. She goes on to say that she got a divorce from her husband almost a year ago and she had been living with another guy.

My jaw dropped and I just didn't know what to say. She begged me not to judge her and that the only reason she was just now telling me is that we just fell out of touch for a few months. I was just at a total loss for words...it came out of left field for me and D. When we lived together our sophomore and junior years of college and lived next door to each other our senior years, she had the most amazing BF, the guy she ended up marrying.

They seemed so perfecct for each other. He treated her like a queen. But it turns out the time after they graduated, things just went down hill. They moved into an apt together in Dallas and got their careers started and began to live the adult life. She told me when she came that no one did anything wrong, no one cheated, no one lied. He asked her to marry her about a year after graduation and they married the following fall. She told me she had doubts the whole time and just knew he wasn't the one. She told her mother, who told the rest of the family, and she was quickly bombarded by email from relatives saying it was just cold feet and this was normal.

So the wedding went on, but she never felt right about the whole thing. They ended up in marriage counseling, but she realized her heart just wasn't in it. In her email she told me that she had been seeing and living with another guy for almost a year...they moved in together just after she filed for divorce. She said she had never felt like this with her ex-husband. She felt complete with him and he made her happy in ways that she never was before.

It was just so much to think about and process that I was a little put off for a minute. I just always thought she had it all together...shows what you really know I guess, huh??

Revelation #2...

This one is still very shocking to D and I both. We recieved a message on FB last night from one of his very good friends. He started the email again with my favorite phrase..."I don't know how to say this, but..."

He went on to say that he came out to his mother 8 months ago. ::SHOCK:: A giant bombshell just dropped right then and there. He is probably one of the most guy guy's that we know. He loves football, beer, and is about as right wing as one can get. He told us in the email that he had been struggling with this feeling his whole life and he felt like he had been lying to us for years.

I called D since he is out of town and we began to say just how udderly shocked we were...still are. D and this guy have been friends probably since the 3rd grade or so. So they gre up together and are really good friends. After I got off the phone with D, I texted our friend to let him know that I still loved him no matter what. He said that it meant so much to him to get it off his chest and to have us know now.

We talked for a while and I told him that as long as he was happy D and I didn't care at all. He said he got all teary eyed and just kept saying how much it meant to him to have us on his side and to "be cool with it". I honestly could careless what his orientation is. he even said in his message that he was probbaly the "straightest gay guy we know"....and I know he is.

D and I were talking about how maybe we should have seen the signs, but you turn a blind eye when it is a good friend. He is not the stereotypical gay guy at all...he never really had a girlfriend, was always really shy and quiet. He told me that he felt like coming out was a black man declaring he was black. It really made me think about it in a different way. He said, that it is our society that makes such big deal about it. He siad his sexuality is such a small part of his life, that is shouldn't matter either way. He is the same guy he was the day before he told us and he will remain the same guy tomorrow, and the same guy 6 months from now.

I guess the whole point of this, is to just hope that my 2 friends are happy in their new lives. One, I hope she is happy with the new love of her life. Two, I hope he is finally happy and is able to live his life out in the open and without living a lie. I hope my friends know that I love them regardless of their choices and lifestyles....

2 more books down...

Moloka’I by Alan Brennert

WONDERFUL!!! Such a great book! It was again recommended by a great friend, Gingy. She reads so many good sounding books. I was sort of questioning this one, but I really like historical fiction type novels and being based out of Hawaii made it sound just lovely.

It is a story about a little girl who comes down with leprosy. Leprosy is a terrible disease and was at one point in time thought to be a communicable disease, a dirty disease, or just a disease the was plagued upon you for some wrong doing. But here is a little more about it:

Really a devastating disease if you ask me. But this story goes on to tell what the little girl’s life is like growing up in exile. The tragedy, triumph, the loneliness and the joy that she experiences while living on the island of Molaka’I.

A definite must read. I did tear up a little at the end, which is really no surprise because I cry at everything it seems.

Next book…

Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

Yet another wonderful historical novel. This time it take place in Nazi occupied Paris, France and it tells a story about the night of July 16th, 1942. This was know as the great round at the Velodrome d’Hiver, or Vel’ d’Hiv’ for short. It is absolutely heartbreaking what took place on this night.

In the wee hours of the morning, over 450 French policemen stormed the houses of all the listed Jewish families, rounded them up and marched them away in the middle of the night. They were taken to a large indoor facility with over 10,000 other Jewish people and held captive for a number of days. Little to no food or water, unsanitary conditions, and nothing but fear radiating through the walls. They were eventually let out, only to be taken to camps in the French countryside, and then transferred to Auschwitz, and gassed.

It is an absolutely heartbreaking story to hear what happened to these people. I do not recall ever hearing about such a terrible thing while in school. And I am a huge WWII buff, so to speak. It has really interested me to look into this more and learn about it.

But this story follows a little girl and a promise made to her brother. She is taken away in the night with her parents, leaving her brother behind. The story is also intertwined with an American journalist living in current day Paris doing a story on the 60th anniversary of the round-up. She soon discovers that the story of the little girl is over-lapping with her current life and family. She digs deeper to find the truth, even though she is repeatedly told there were no children who survived the time at the camps.

Like I said, I am a huge historical fiction novel lover, and a lover of all things WWII. I don’t know what it is about it, but I want to know everything about that time period…the good, the bad, and the terrible. It just blows my mind that something so horrible could have actually happened. I mean I know it did, but it is just so much it is hard to really imagine it.

Just a wonderful and heart wrenching novel that shows how a determined person clawed her way from the bottom to find a new life. And yet again...I got all teary eyed at the end...

June date night!

I know I am way behing in blogging, but please bear with me!!

June 23rd, 2010!

Nothing special at all for this date night…we had just got home from Oklahoma, moved out of our old military housing and into our wonderful new condo in the fabulous Eastlake of Chula Vista, CA!!!

We had already spent our first night there and it was weird sleeping in my own house. I mean, I own it…WEIRD!! Anywho, I had to work that night so we couldn’t do anything to special to commemorate our first official meal in the house, but it was nice nonetheless.

I had on my finest pair of scrubs, freshly washed and still wet hair pulled back in a clippie and D was in his best pair of gym shorts and t-shirt. We were super dressed up if you can’t tell (LOL…). But I made my wonderful chicken pasta that D loves. It is super simple and it is a spin off what my Uncle in Ft. Worth makes.

D grilled some chicken breast that had been lightly seasoned, and I whipped up everything else. Warm, buttery, garlic-y French bread, pan of whole wheat bow tie pasta, fresh chopped basil, and fresh motzarella, cubed and room temperature-ish.

After the chicken was all done up, D brought it in, I sliced it up and threw it in a bowl with some pasta, motza, basil and EVOO, just enough to coat it all. Toss…and DONE!!!

We opened the bottle of wine from our realtor, poured a glass, cheers to us, and plopped down on the couch, surrounded by boxes and chaos. It was such a nice relaxing evening before I had to jet off to work. It was nice to have a little wine and a great pasta dish to go with it. Oh and of course warm toasty bread… :D