in the kitchen.

I made an apple crisp last night for dessert. Sometimes i just get that urge to whip something up! Luckily i had all the ingredients on hand. =) And it was the perfect dessert for a cool (notice how i didn't say cold because it hasn't been at all) winter night.

What you need:

3-4 apples, sliced

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup quick cook oats

1/3 cup butter, softened

1/2 tablespoon cinnamon

1/2 tablespoon nutmeg

big handful of chopped pecans

combine all the ingredients and pour over the apples.

bake @ 375 for 30-35 minutes until golden and the apples are soft.

Quick and easy. And please throw a scoop or two of ice cream on top............YUM!

I'm eating leftovers for lunch today. =)

Sangria!

Last weekend my friend invited me over to her house to lay out in the sun and get some color. I decided it would be fun to bring over some Sangria. I love LOVE love sangria. It's the perfect summer drink.

Here's the recipe that I used:

-1 orange, sliced

-1 lime, sliced

-1 lemon, sliced

-1 bottle of Red Wine ( i used a 3 dollar bottle of Cabernet)

-1 cup of orange juice

-1 1/2 cup of Rum

-1/2 cup of sugar

Let the rum, sugar and sliced fruit jive in the refrigerator for an hour or two. Add the orange juice and wine before serving.

Simple. Delicious. Dangerous...... especially when it's just two girls sharing the whole pitcher.

What a fun way to spend the afternoon though! The boyfriend had to come pick me up later though... hehee.....

(Check out that view!! Scott's Flat lake in the background!! gorgeous!)

In the Kitchen

I find myself in the kitchen in the summer months more then any other time of year, which is weird considering it's hot outside (and inside). I think it has to do with all the fresh veggies and fruits that come with this time of year. I love going to farmer and grower markets. I go every Tuesday and Thursday and stock up for the week on zucchini, squash, strawberries, peaches, cherries, onions, cilantro, jalapenos, and anything else that is in season.

One of my go to summer dishes are Veggie Tacos.

I made this last week and I plan on making it again this week. You can use whatever you have on hand that you think would be good in a taco...this so happens to be what I had in my fridge from the market. (I have also added tomatoes and a jalapeno to the ingredients below..)

-2 or 3 zucchini and/or yellow squash

- 1 or 2 ears of corn of the cob (frozen works too)

- can of diced green chile's

-1 small red onion, chopped.

saute all the ingredients together, fry up a couple corn tortillas, add some cheese, sour cream, avocado, cilantro if you're into those kinds of things.... enjoy. So freaking good.

I love zucchini because it's such a versatile veggie.

Serve solo or with some frijoles or arroz. =)

This made about 6 taco.

In the Kitchen...

I'm at it again this week. I tried out a Zucchini Soup recipe. I love zucchini. It has to be one of my favorite vegetables because of it's versatility. I found the recipe from one of my favorite food blogs. I adapted a little bit. Plus all the veggies were from a local farmers market. =)

Find the Recipe HERE~ I'm lazy and don't feel like typing it out! haha but incase your curious... Instead of the bread I used corn tortillas. I also used a whole jalapeno instead of a half. And next time I think I'm going to try and some diced green chiles. =) Oh and I also topped it off with some sour cream.

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In the kitchen...

I made a bomb dinner last night. I like to cook but I just don't do it often. Plus when I do I'm so klutzy that I usually spill something at least once. Last night for instances I was making peanut sauce and the whisk flung out of the plan. I had sauce on me and my stove. Oh well.

Anyways, I made beef and broccoli with a peanut sauce and served over rice. It was pretty darn good.

Peanut Sauce Recipe

- 3 Tablespoons of peanut butter


- 2 Tablespoons of soy sauce


- 1 or 2 garlic cloves, minced


- 1 Tablespoon brown sugar


- 1/3 cup water


- a few squirts of lemon juice

It turned out really yummy! This served about 2 people so you could double or triple if you were serving a multiple people.

Please excuse the poor quality of the images. They are taken with my BlackBerry. One of the things I enjoy about fall most is I cook more often. I want to try to do more fun recipes. I think my next one will be this zucchini soup recipe I found. Wish me luck...

just some more..

Today was long... and I'm glad to be in bed now. :)

Although, I did get a lot of stuff done tonight. After work I went to the store and bought some more stocking stuffers for Ant. It's kind of hard picking out those things for boys.. girls are way easier.

Then I came home and made dinner. I decided to make blueberry pancakes and Ant had the great idea to add chopped pecans to the batter. Yum-O! They turned out really well. Kudos to my boyfriend.

(do you like my retro plates? I got them from my great grandma and they are from England too)

And I was in the mood to cook more so I decided to make this recipe that i found from this very cool site called Simply Recipes. There are a lot of recipes that I want to make from this site. Oh and her photography of the food is really awesome too!

Anywho, It didn't turn our quite the way i wanted it to but it was still a fun and tasty experience. Next time we will use a different kind of apple, smaller apples, and i would like to have a baster too.

I did more work on my Christmas Ornaments too which are turning out to be really nice and way more fun then i had expected.

Thank God tomorrow is Friday btw. :) We are probably going to go to Reno for the weekend and it's supposed to snow.. really low. yay.

Last Night..

I made Chicken Tortilla soup for dinner! I didn't follow a recipe so i wrote down the things i did as i went along. It was fun not following a recipe and seeing how it would turn out!




So this is my recipe for some pretty darn good soup:



5 or 6- corn tortillas, cut into strips

6- cups of Chicken broth ( i might do 7 next time, i would like a little more broth)

1- medium yellow onion (about 1 plus some cup)

2-cloves of garlic, minced

1-jalapeno, chopped finely and seeds removed

1-red chili pepper, chopped finely and seeds removed

1-15 oz can of tomatoes with diced green chiles

3-cups already cooked chicken, chopped up or shredded

1-15 oz can of black beans

1 1/4 - cup of frozen corn

1/8 tsp-cumin

A hand full of cilantro leaves without the steams, chopped up.



For the top:

Avacado-sliced

Sour cream

Shredded cheese, any kind

Cilantro



*First I cut the tortillas into strips, placed in oven at 200 and let them dry out a bit ( they will start to curl up when they are good). Then i put some vegetable oil in a pan and fried them up until they were nice and crunchy. Then i put them on a plate with a paper towel so the oil would drain off.

*I then put the onions, garlic, and peppers into the same pan and cooked. I then transfered them into a big pot. I added the chicken, chicken broth, tomatoes at this point and let that simmer for 15 minutes.

*I added the beans, corn, cumin, and cilantro next and let it boil/simmer for another 15-20 minutes. (For a thickening agent, i set a side about 1/4 cup of the beans and smooshed then in a seperate bowl, then added them to the soup along with the whole beans, it seemed to help thicken the soup)



To serve i put some of the tortillas in the bowl, then added the soup on top, then put more tortillas, avacado slices, a dollop of sour cream, some cheddar cheese, and a few cilantro bits.



I would say that all and all my soup turned out pretty good. I can't wait to try it again. And all i can say is that i'm excited for my leftovers tonight!