Pin a Day: Slow Cooker Brown Sugar and Garlic Chicken

In the midst of my sickness, I grew tired of leftovers and food from quick restaurants by our house.  I discovered this recipe for Slow Cooker Brown Sugar and Garlic Chicken and realized it would be a quick fix for dinner.  It was really easy to mix up the sauce and throw it in the crock pot with the chicken.  I let it cook about 6 hours.  I made basmati rice and cut up some green onions to go with it.  It was really tasty, despite my lack of appetite, I ate it up quickly.  It also made for great leftovers.  It's always nice to have a couple of great "sick day" recipes on hand and this one did not disappoint.

Pin a Day: Skirt Steak and Potatoes with Herb Sauce

Before I got the plague, we tried this recipe for Skirt Steak and Potatoes with Herb Sauce.  It was a great recipe with my modifications and with more modifications, it would be fabulous.  I had a hard time finding a skirt steak at Target so I ended up at HEB, where I found one that looked a little bit better.  I also opted to substitute red potatoes for sweet potatoes, as we don't really care for sweet potatoes.  I started off by slicing the potatoes and I got a little over zealous and may have cut more than I really needed.  Two to three potatoes would have been fine and I probably cut four to five.  Then, I made the herb sauce, always a great excuse to bust out the food processor.  Finally, we got the grill pan ready for the steak.

We use a grill pan on our stove top instead of an outdoor grill due to the fact that we don't want to be responsible for catching this dry state on fire!  Everything always turns out great, but it would be nice to have a little more space.  We ended up making several batches of steak and potatoes to get everything cooked.  Everything was great, but the skirt steak was a much fattier piece of meat than we realized.  In the future, we would definitely opt for a less fatty piece of meat and possibly consider picking up a second or bigger grill pan!

Pin a Day: Baked Penne Pasta with Chicken, Broccoli, and Smoked Mozzarella

After a dreadful summer cold, it's time to catch up on blog posts before I hit my next travel destination.  About two weeks ago, I made this yummy Baked Penne Pasta with Chicken, Broccoli, and Smoked Mozzerella.  It was time consuming in the number of steps to make the dish, but the end result was worth the effort I put in.

While the oven was preheating, I worked hard to get everything else ready to cook.  Fortunately, I also have a great sous chef to chop up vegetables so that makes my work easier.  (He also worries about my horrible knife skills.) I did like that the recipe reminded me I could make everything in one pot so I took advantage of one of my fabulous LeCreuset round French ovens.  

Typically, I struggle with the cream sauce, but this night, the stars aligned and my sauce turned out excellent.  I combined all my ingredients, put them in the casserole dish, baked and was ready to eat.  I really liked this dish.  It seemed well rounded with carbs, protein, dairy, and veggies.  While step intensive, none of the steps were overly difficult.  The end result was great.  It made plenty for dinner and there were enough leftovers to feed Mike while I did a quick trip to Houston.  Mike likes to kick things up a notch and also enjoyed this dish with sriracha sauce.  This dish will likely be repeated in our house and would be a great dish to share with a crowd or serve with the intent of leftovers.

Texapendence Day

This year for July 4th weekend, we headed to Houston to visit Ashley, Jason, and Mildred. We lucked out and didn't hit too much traffic on our way there.  After unloading the car and cleaning up a "frap" disaster, we headed to Jupiter Pizza and Waffle Company in Sugar Land Town Center.  There were tons of unique appetizers, pizzas, beers, and desserts to try.  We started off with some meatballs and Sweet Potato Fries 102.  The meatballs were delicious with mozzarella cheese cooked inside of them.  The fries were yummy too, which says something because I don't typically like sweet potato fries.  These were crispy and covered in cheese and bacon.  Next, we ordered the Pacific Glow Pizza, which had tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, bacon, garlic, pineapple, fontina cheese, and prosciutto on a thin crust.  The pizza was delicious too!  It was a great combination of favors.

We couldn't order just pizza, so we ordered the S'Mores waffle to split four ways.  It was the best waffle I've ever tasted.  I hope that more places jump on the dessert waffle trend.

On the 4th, we went on a Burgers and Beer tour led by Houston Wave, a shuttle tour company.  The tour would take us to BRC, Buffalo Bayou Brewing, and a parking lot for firework viewing.

Our first stop was the BRC, where we dined on beer and burgers.  Ashley, Jason, and Mike ordered the Independence Burger, which had brisket, pickled jalapeños, and cheese.  I went with the traditional cheeseburger.  All the burgers were huge and tasty, complete with a side of well seasoned fries.

Next we headed to the Buffalo Bayou Brewing Company, where we were given these awesome can shaped tasting glasses.  Here we got to try several different beers.  My favorite was the Gingerbread Stout, which tasted like Christmas in a glass.  The much lighter, Summer's Wit was pretty great too.  We finished off with fireworks for a great evening.

Saturday night we headed to Hay Merchant for dinner and beers.  The menu there is cool because it's constantly changing.  I had some delicious chicken fingers with a spicy kick and some great homemade stoneground mustard.

After dining at Hay Merchant, we headed to Petite Sweets, a bake shop owned by BRC.  All the desserts were small items so you could easily try a few.  We picked the chocolate, funfetti, and lemon cake balls, snickers and pink lemonade macaroons, and a salted caramel Whoopie pie.  Everything was delicious, but I think my favorite was the lemon cake ball.  It was so flavorful and refreshing.

On Sunday before we headed home, we went to Ruggles Green with Jason.  It was located in the Town Square area and was quite crowded.  The menu had tons of items to choose from, but we all ended up with sandwiches.  I had the ham and cheese panini.  The Brie and Dijon mustard really gave the sandwich great flavor and the fries weren't bad either.

On our way home, we stopped at Bucee's in Bastrop.  We needed gas and a pit stop.  I was also a little curious about this well known gas station and rest stop.  It was totally packed so poor Cecil had to stay in the car.  I was impressed by the cleanliness and huge size of the bathroom.  We also bought some of the famous Bucee nuggets for a treat.  I can definitely picture coming back here again.

Our holiday weekend was so much fun.  We had a great time with Ashley, Jason, and Mildred and can't wait for the next time we can hang out!

Pin a Day: Baked Spaghetti

I love spaghetti, but sometimes traditional spaghetti can be a little dull.  I tried spicing it up a bit with this recipe for Baked Spaghetti.  It was fairly simple to cook.  First, I made the noodles.  While that was cooking, I worked on the meat sauce.  Next, I mixed the butter and egg.  Finally, I assembled  it and put it in the oven to bake.  The assembly reminded me a bit of lasagna.  The baked spaghetti was ok, but seemed a bit time consuming to me.  Mike liked it a lot and ate it several times as leftovers.  I think it made more than we needed and I'll probably stick with regular spaghetti.

Pin a Day: Six Can Chicken Tortilla Soup

Even though we've had a pretty mild summer, I still like to avoid heating up the kitchen with too much cooking in the oven.  So I found a this great recipe for Six Can Chicken Tortilla Soup.  I do not like canned chicken so I cooked two chicken breasts and added them in with the rest of the ingredients.  I let the soup cook about 3 hours in my crockpot and served it with shredded cheese, sour cream, and tortilla chips.  I thought it was good, but could use more seasoning.  Mike liked it ok, but said some of the other soups we've had were better.  This was fine for dinner, but next time we will probably try out a different recipe.

Pinspired: Grilled Chicken, Pasta, and Green Beans

Last week I made a meal that I'll call "pinspired."  I used recipes that were inspired by things I found on Pinterest.  For the chicken, I was inspired by a marinade I found and have lost.  It included lime juice, olive oil, garlic powder, salt and pepper.  I let it marinate for about 2 hours before Mike grilled it.  I also made some pasta and these green beans .  The green beans were quick and easy to make.  They were a refreshing change from the canned green beans I typically make.  Aside from the marinating, this meal was quick, tasty, easy, and fairly healthy.  This was a perfect summer, weeknight meal.

A Pin a Day: Pink Lemonade Margaritas

A few weekends ago, I was in the mood for a new drink, so I took inspiration from these pink lemonade margaritas.  I did change it up by using Triple Sec instead of Gran Marnier because that's what I had at home.  The biggest downside was that there was so much liquid after I mixed it in the blender pitcher that I couldn't add ice.  So, I poured it in a bigger bowl and put ice in the blender.  Then, I added the lemonade mix and blended.  The margaritas were great and it made about 2.5 pitchers.  I definitely enjoyed the sweetness of the pink lemonade mixed with the delicious flavor of a margarita.  One of the biggest challenges was finding a frozen can of pink lemonade concentrate.  This is definitely a great summer time drink that will be repeated in our house.

3.14-ology

Last week seemed like the week of pizza.  I made pizza one day and another day we decided to try Pieology, a new place in our neighborhood.  The cool thing about this place is that you walk down a line and tell them exactly what you want on your pizza.  They also had some suggestions of combinations as well.  

I opted for a buffalo chicken style pizza and added some onions, peppers, and basil.  Mike went create your own and did a classic half pepperoni, half sausage.  After we chose our toppings, they baked the pizzas and brought them out to us.  The crusts were nice and crispy.  The pizzas were delicious!  Mine was really spicy, but flavorful. Mike's was great as well.  The pizzas were decent size, so I definitely had leftovers.  Mike ate my leftovers and it was still super spicy the next day.  It was a great meal and we will probably try it again soon.

A Pin a Day: BBQ Chicken Pizza

Somedays, I used Pinterest for recipes that I follow to a T.  Other times, I use Pinterest as an inspiration to make a recipe better.  I used this BBQ Chicken Pizza recipe as an inspiration to make my own pizza.  I liked the ingredients involved in the recipe, but switched things up a little bit to make it my own.  First, I used a Pillsbury store bought crust to save a little time and patience.  I used a Kraft BBQ sauce.  I cooked my own chicken and assembled the pizza.  The pizza was pretty good.  To change up the flavor, I might definitely try different sauces or cheeses to switch things up.  It was pretty good and quick to make so it will definitely be added to our cookbook.

Melt with You

About 2 weeks ago, we celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary.  We tried coming up with a new place to go, but nothing seemed quite right, so we opted for a place we've been for a few other anniversaries, the Melting Pot.  Reservations were easily made on my phone the day before and it was conveniently located on the way home from Mike's work.  We love Melting Pot because it allows us to spend plenty of time together in a romantic environment.  Its also neat that the menu is constantly changing.  We go all out and get the 4 course meal because its a special occasion.  We started with drinks and the cheese course.  Mike's drink was really good and I ordered a sangria, that was way stronger than I prefer.  We selected a garlic cheese that was part of a seasonal menu that was on its way out.  It was delicious as usual, and paired nicely with the carrots, apples, and bread chunks.  We selected caesar salads for the salad course because we love the little crunchy bits on them.  For the meat course, we chose the teriyaki beef and potstickers in the coq au vin broth.  I love all the dipping sauces that are included with the meat course.  The whole meal was amazing and we always start to get too full during the meat course, but always push through to the chocolate phase of the meal.  We wanted to order a dark chocolate orange fondue, but they were out so we went with a standard favorite of s'mores.  I was excited to see that they added blondies to the dessert dippers.  During dessert, we were also brought glasses of champagne to finish up our celebration.  It was an amazing meal and a fantastic way to celebrate our memorable wedding and 4 amazing years together.  We will definitely be back to celebrate another anniversary!

A Pin a Day: Easy Pad Thai

Last week, I had pad Thai on my menu.  I love eating pad Thai, but making it can be time consuming.  I swear I use every pot, pan, and tool in my kitchen.  I had selected a recipe, but upon further look, the recipe was way more work than intended.  I browsed my collection and found this easy pad Thai recipe.  I had all the ingredients on hand and added in some chicken as well.  It was pretty good, but still used a lot of dishes.  I think this is one dish I appreciate more when it comes from the pros!

A Pin a Day: Weight Watchers Snicker Doodles

I love to bake, but if don't need to eat the amount of cookies, cakes, and other yummies that I make.  Last week, I tried a new snickerdoodle recipe.  It said it was one Weight Watcher point per cookie so they weren't too bad for you either.  When I made the cookies, there were about 5 dozen, which was way more than I needed.  I packaged 2 dozen for Mike to take to work and packaged 2 dozen to take to my BBW friends and left 1 dozen for us.  The recipe was easy to make and fairly healthy so it will definitely be a recipe I choose to repeat in the future.

A Pin a Day: Crockpot Chicken Parmesan

After several vacations, I am finally ready to get back to normal life, which includes cooking and blogging.  I'll be taking Mike to work 2 days a week in rush hour traffic now and we usually go once a week so I'll probably only cook about 4 times a week so there won't be new blogs every day, but it should be easier to manage once I'm all caught up.  One day last week, I made Slow Cooker Chicken Parmigiana sandwiches.  We had gotten all the ingredients we needed at Target.  The only thing I was disappointed with was my bread selection.  I was looking for a sturdy crusty roll and ended up with something better suited for a panini.  The recipe was easy to prepare and cook.  After cooking, the chicken was very easy to shred.  We put chicken on the sliced bread and then sprinkled mozzarella on top.  It was pretty goo, but very saucy and we felt like it would be better served on top of pasta than as a sandwich.  It was a decent crockpot recipe and we will probably try it again.

Pour Some Sugar Fire on Me

St. Louis friends, this post is for you!  During my recent visit to St. Louis, I heard a lot about a new BBQ place called Sugarfire Smoke House.  This Texas resident has gotten pretty particular when it comes to BBQ, but it got some good recommendations from some picky people, so I new I had to try it.  After a long day of shopping, my mom and I stopped by Sugarfire to pick up dinner to go.  We visited the location in Winghaven in O'Fallon, but there are 2 other locations as well.  It must have been obvious when we went in that we didn't know what we wanted so the meat cutter gave us several samples to try.  We ended up selecting turkey, brisket, and pork.  For sides, we ordered potato salad, beans, and southwest rice.  We topped it off with smoked chocolate chip cookies and ice tea to go.  It smelled so good on the drive home so I was excited to eat when we got home.  Another amazing part of the meal was the various different sauces we had to choose from.  (St. Louis Sweet, Carolina BBQ, Texas Spicy, Coffee, White BBQ, Sugarfire)  My favorites were the Carolina, which was mustardy, the Coffee, the White BBQ, which had horseradish and was very unique, and the Texas Spicy, which was not spicy by Texas standards.  The meats were amazing and each sauce paired well with different meats.  I also loved the sides.  The rice had a little kick to it and the beans had several different types of beans so it was more like a baked bean medley.  The smoked cookie was a great way to end the meal with the smoked sea salt.  This was a great meal and with the different sauces, it could give Texas BBQ a run for its money.  This will definitely become one of my St. Louis must visit stops and I highly recommend that everyone in St. Louis try it!

A Pin a Day: Lemon Chicken Romano

Lemon Chicken Romano

Another recipe I tried between vacations was Lemon Chicken Romano.  It was a fairly simple recipe.  I like that I used smaller chicken pieces to help with portion control.  I had forgotten to buy lemons, which makes a lemon recipe complicated, but not impossible.  I did have lemon juice and lemon pepper so I used those as substitutions.  This was definitely an easy recipe to prepare and was almost a little bit like a grown up chicken finger (which makes Mike happy).  While the chicken was baking, I made green beans and risotto to complete the meal.  Upon tasting, this was definitely better than chicken fingers and I can see it easily becoming a quick meal time fix.

A Pin a Day: Bacon-Basil Pesto and Chicken Pizza

A few weeks ago between vacations, I had a chance to try out some new recipes.  One of the recipes was this bacon basil pesto chicken pizza.  I took a shortcut and used a Pillsbury crust.  I had fun making the pesto in the food processor and it tasted great.  I used a little less bacon than the recipe called for, but it was still yummy.  We also love using the Kraft mozzarella cheese with the Philadelphia cream cheese added because it melts better.  I made a quick salad while the pizza cooked and we had a nice meal.  The pizza was good and pretty fast to make so this is one that will pass our test.

Its a Yolly-Holiday

Mike and I are fairly new to the coffee game, but we are really taking to it.  We each have our preferences, but there are a few things we agree about.  We don't like super bitter coffee and we really aren't fans of Starbucks plain coffee.  Starbucks can mix a great drink, but to drink by itself, no thanks.  Mike had read about a place not too far from us called Caffe Yolly.  We kept meaning to go for our midday coffee pick me up, but things kept getting in our way.  One Friday, we were out to dinner at Tony C's and remembered that it was close.  We stopped in and saw how cute it was.  In addition to all the coffee treats, Caffe Yolly also has froyo to meet everyone's needs.  Mike ordered an iced coffee and I got a caramel blended drink.  Our drinks were delicious and reasonably priced.  The atmosphere was nice, but it started getting busy with the after dinner family froyo crowd so we didn't stay too long.  This was the perfect way to top off our date night and will be a great addition to our favorite Austin places.

Vacation: Time to Get Away

Day 5 (May 13 ) Relax Day

On Tuesday, we relaxed.  We slept in and laid around in our pjs most of the day.  Mom and Dad did make it to the beach for a little bit.  We played some games and mostly just chilled all day.  Sometimes you need that.  

Day 6 (May 14 ) Cool Tours

On Wednesday we went on the Cool Tours Land and Sea Tour of Galveston.  We met our tour by Pleasure Pier and went all over historic Galveston.  Our land tour guide, Sue, was a hilarious older Southern woman.  She kept us cracking up as we learned about the island.  As a native, she could tell us all kinds of cool facts, trivia, and a little bit of scandal related to the island.  We were able to see many historic homes that had survived several hurricanes.  One of the coolest things to see came from the last hurricane, where many trees had been damaged, and they hired sculptors to make cool things from the damaged trees.  We were on the bus for just a little bit before we boarded our Baywatch Dolphin Boat Tour.  It was a little chilly and unfortunately our family had to sit on the back deck of the boat.  We did get to learn more about the Galveston area and we probably had the best view of dolphins.  We saw several as we were cruising.  After the Baywatch Cruise, we head to Olympia Grill on Pier 21 for lunch.  They had delicious Greek and seafood for everyone to enjoy.  After lunch, we walked the Strand and checked out cool shops.  Our favorite was La Kings Confectionary, where we stocked up on various candies and got to watch them make salt water taffy.  We had to cut our wandering short to make it back to finish the tour.  We were the only people on the end of tour so we had Miss Sue all to our selves and her stories got more salty as she realized there were no kids on the bus.  After the tour, we shopped the gift store by Pleasure Pier for souvenir tshirts.  Next part of the group headed to Bubba Gumps for happy hour and part went for a stroll.  We enjoyed several cocktails and dinner before calling it a night.

Day 7 (May 15) Pleasure Pier

Thursday was our last full day of vacation so we had to figure out how to spend our last day.  We opted to head to Pleasure Pier for the afternoon and then head out to dinner.  We arrived at Pleasure Pier close to the open and were slightly disappointed to see so many groups of school kids there.  However, it still wasn't too terribly crowded and we never had to wait very long to ride any rides.  The rides were impressive, but very short.  My favorite ride was probably the giant swings because it gave such a great view of the entire pier.  We rode several rides, enjoyed funnel cake, and had a great afternoon until it closed.  Next up, we hit the beach for some group photos in our souvenir shirts.  Finally, we celebrated the end of our trip with a yummy dinner at Willie G's Seafood and Steaks.  We went to bed pretty early as some of us were leaving early.

Day 8 (May 16) Travel Home

On Friday, Mike and I packed up all the remaining food and closed up the house before we hit the road.  The rest of the crew was long gone before we even thought about waking up.  We stopped in Sugar Land to eat lunch at Earl of Sandwich with Ashley and Jason before we made our way home.  It was a lovely lunch at one of our favorite places with some of our favorite people!  We all got to dish about our recent vacations and had a great time.  Finally, we headed back to Austin, picked up Cecil, and crashed on the couch.  It was a great trip and we were all so tired.  Thank you, Thank you Mom and Dad for an excellent vacation!

Vacation: All I Ever Wanted

Our big Christmas present from my parents this year was a family vacation to Galveston, Texas.  After much planning, we finally went May 9-16.  We got to spend time with my parents, my sister and her boyfriend, explore a new place, and just relax, which is always nice.  Its also nice to know that we only live about 4.5-5 hours away from a beach!  

Day 1 (May 9)- Travel Day

On May 9, Mike and I packed up the car and Cecil to begin our vacation!  Cecil went to go visit friends and was excited to go on adventures and play, but most of all, we all felt good knowing he'd be with someone he knew.  We stopped for lunch at Blue Baker (one of our favorites) and then were on our way to the beach!  It was a weird day weatherwise, kind of gloomy looking.  As we were driving, we hit both rain and traffic so it took us a little bit longer than we'd expected.  We arrived at the beach house just before dinner and in between rain so we unloaded quickly and got things settled in.  Mike and I searched out dinner options near us and found that we were limited, so we grabbed some Subway and went back to wait for the others to arrive.  Finally, after 16 hours of travel time, the rest of the family arrived and we were ready to begin our vacation fun!

Day 2 (May 10)- Relax and Settle in Day

After a relaxing night of sleep, I enjoyed breakfast and coffee with my family on the porch.  We made a grocery list and Mike, Mom and I headed to Walmart.  Walmart is one of my least favorite places and this one was no different.  It was super crowded and shopping was not fun.  We made it out without me exploding and finding everything we needed and more!  Saturday we chilled at the house and on the beach.  That evening we went out to eat dinner at Marios, an Italian restaurant.  We all enjoyed cocktails, seafood, pasta, pizza, and later for dessert-gelato.  It was also a great people watching spot.

Day 3 (May 11)- Relax and Mothers Day

Sunday was Mother's Day and we opted for a relaxing day at the beach.  We slept in, enjoyed breakfast on the porch, had lunch and spent some time at the beach.  We decided to celebrate Mother's Day Texas style and we ordered BBQ from Leon's and would go pick it up later.  It was a cloudy day, but still decent beach weather.  One of the things that made this beach a little different was the huge amount of seaweed.  There was a huge wall of it, which made getting into the water difficult.  Once we found a place to cross it, the water was a bit murky for my taste.  We were staying near private beaches so they were less likely to be cleaned than some of the more public beaches.  Mom and Dad went to go pickup dinner and we got the table ready and made margaritas.  Leon's BBQ was pretty good and had some great sides.  It was not the best BBQ I've ever had, but it was pretty good.  We made plans for the week so that we could make the most of our vacation.

Day 4 (May 12)- Moody Gardens

On Monday, we went to Moody Gardens.  We went in with low expectations and really not knowing what we may be going to visit.  We were definitely surprised by how amazing Moody Gardens was.  It was broken up into a series of pyramids with different activities to check out.  Some of our favorite activities included the rainforest pyramid, where animals and butterflies were roaming free, the boat ride, a pirate exhibit, and an amazing aquarium with fish, sea lions, and penguins.  Moody Gardens was neat because it was very interactive and there were lots of workers there to answer any questions we might have.  It was also nice that it was Monday and school was still in session so it really wasn't crowded either.  It was definitely a place for all ages and had lots to keep everyone interested.  We probably would have stayed all day if it hadn't closed early for a special event.  Its also located next to Schlitterbahn (a water park) and you could obviously spend a few days between the two places.  For dinner, we hit up Tortuga, a Mexican restaurant on the seawall.  The food was decent and we were able to catch the Cardinals game while we ate.  We finished off with Rita's Italian Ice.