First Trip to Trader Joes

I got to go to Trader Joes this weekend!! And to add bonus points, it was with my mom, sister, aunt, and cousin and they love food as much as I do.  We had so much fun.  I walked around the perimeter of the store first, then I walked up and down each aisle, up one side then down the other to make sure I didn't miss anything.  I'm pretty sure I bought one of each of everything they had to offer.

This isn't everything.  I kept trying to get everything together for a picture and just couldn't manage it.  I kept forgetting 1-5 items.  I was tired, okay.

Booze, baby!  Ginger beer for Moscow Mules (my girl Oprah's favorite drink), 3 Buck Chuck, and Trader Jose.

Grocery items, some of which I needed anyway and some of which I just had to take home.  2 salad dressings- Spicy Peanut Vinaigrette and Champagne Pear Vinaigrette with Gorgonzola (OMG!), fancy cherries, better 'n peanut butter, Trader Joes pizza sauce, Gouda cheese, Munster cheese, whole wheat pizza dough!, almond milk, and spicy jalapeno chicken sausages.

Sweets and junk.  Reduced fat cheese puffs (total hungover impulse buy), Fiberful fruit bars, dark chocolate pistachio covered toffee (ah-mazing), smashed smores, vanilla something caramels, chocolate frozen banana bites, brownie batter, and dark chocolate with caramel and sea salt.

Believe it or not this isn't even everything.  I had so much fun there!  The only thing they didn't have was Kombucha tea but I won't bring that up because I don't want to be a Debbie Downer.

Chili + Corn Muffins + Apple Cake

Yeah, it's totally fall around this neck of the woods.  It's stormy and rainy today and I was so happy we went to the store before the nasty weather rolled in.  We planned for the ultimate "first weekend it really feels like fall" kind of weekend.  I'll give you three guesses on what we planned to make.

Chili, duh.

We made Breeze's famous chili!  And corn muffins (I'm not talking about Jiffy here).  And apple cake.

Since you'll be making all this tomorrow, here are the recipes.

Chili- There is no recipe, but this is the general outline of how we make chili.

Recipe
Black beans
Chili beans- medium and mild
Kindey beans
Red beans
Fire roasted diced tomatoes
Chili diced tomatoes
Tomato paste
Tomato sauce
Orange pepper
Yellow pepper
Red peppers
Green peppers
Pickles
Pickle juice (this is the secret ingredient that makes all the difference)
3 lbs. ground beef
Onion
Salt and pepper


Brown the meat with the onion.  Add everything together in the crock pot on high for a few hours or until heated through.

Corn Muffins
Adapted from How Sweet Eats Blog
Recipe
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup cornmeal
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1/4 cup creamed corn
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
1/2 cup milk
1/3 cup heavy cream
1 egg
1/3 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
1/2 jalapeno, finely chopped

Preheat oven to 425.
Stir together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, salt, and sugar in a bowl.  Add the cream corn, melted butter, milk, cream, and egg.  Mix it all together.  Fold in the grated cheese and jalapenos if using.  Bake for 15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Caramelized Apple Upside Down Cake
Adapted from Food Network
Recipe
1 stick butter
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Dash nutmeg
1 apple, thinly sliced
For the cake
6 tablespoons butter, very soft
1 cup sugar (I only had 1/2 cup white sugar left so I used 1/2 white, 1/2 brown sugar)
2 eggs, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup flour
3 tablespoons cornmeal
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven to 350. Prepare the cake 9 inch round cake pan by buttering the bottom and the sides.

In a small saucepan, combine the butter, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg.  After everything melts together, let boil for 30 seconds.  Pour the mixture into the prepared cake pan, scraping all of the mixture with a spatula evenly into the pan. Place the apple slices on top.

Now make the cake.  Beat the butter and sugar until creamy.  Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until smooth and fluffy (about two minutes).  Add in the dry ingredients and beat 10 seconds.  Add the milk and beat until until fully mixed, about one minute.  Pour the batter on top of the apple slices.

Bake for 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick in the center comes out clean. Flip the cake over onto a plate.

To review-
Chili
Corn Muffins
Apple Cake

Enjoy!  And try not to do this!

So we put too many chili ingredients in the crock pot.  Our bad.

 

Let's Talk About the Weather

I have super conflicted feelings about this weather.  I'm okay with it being this wonderful outside as long as we have a few more outrageously hot days.  I need to get my fix before the heat is gone.  Plus, the ragweed has come out in full force.  Welcome back to a wonderful piece of nature that ruins my life.  I had to get a shot in my butt cheek yesterday to try and ward off the pollen's power.  And I had no time to prepare for it. Looking back it was probably best not to tell me any more than two minutes that the shot was coming or I guarantee I would have rescheduled it!
Anywho, back to the weather.
The one thing I do love about this weather is grilling.  It always seems to be associated with summer but who wants to cook outside when it's a million degrees outside?  Not my hubby.  So now that we have these amazing temperatures, we get to grill again!

On tonight's menu, we had cheeseburgers from outside and roasted broccoli and asparagus from inside.  That's what we call teamwork!

Step One:
Our burgers were a modified version of Breeze's favorite recipe.  I used ground beef, bits of bacon, Worcestershire, garlic powder, salt, and pepper.

Step Two:
Roasting vegetables is the best way to cook any veggie, I swear on it!  Just spray down some asparagus and broccoli pieces with some olive oil, sprinkle salt, pepper, and garlic powder and pop it in the oven at 450 for 20-25 minutes or until the burgers are ready.

Enjoy!

Hey, what's up?

Hey Blog Followers!
First things first, I'd like to apologize for my loooong absence!  I can make up excuses or I can just tell you is that I put the blog on the back burner.  Because there are no signs of anything slowly down, I have new blog goals.
1. To blog at a minimum of once a week, hopefully more.
2. To blog about many things, not just recipes, but keeping healthy living as the main theme.  Trust me food is on my mind about 99% of the time so there shouldn't be any issue with it coming up frequently.

Now, let's catch up!

I've still been cooking dinner almost every night since I started working/quit blogging.  It makes me feel guilty that I don't share the recipes/pictures.  The main problem is I'm in much more of a hurry these days.  If I remember half way through the cooking process that I forgot to take pictures, I scrap the idea of blogging about that specific recipe.  I guess that is another goal of mine, to take pics of more meals so I have more options on which recipes I want to blog about given a more limited amount of time.

Tonight I had a cardio meltdown.  It's pretty much what drove me to blog tonight.  I'm sooooo bummed because I didn't get signed up for Spin in time this session and all the bikes were reserved when I called.  I literally almost cried.  This led to me really dreading working out/doing cardio  tonight, which led to the following routine:
Dance cardio DVD I haven't done in months.  Lasted ten minutes.  Treadmill to do interval training.  Lasted ten more minutes.  Five jumping jacks. Blog.

Lastly, I want to address the main reason I've been gone so long which is as most people know, I started my new career.  I love saying career vs job.  Job was explained to me as just over broke and I never liked thinking that is how I was living.  One of the best things about my current work is I'm so busy I don't even think about paychecks or stress about when pay day is anymore.  It's such a relief.  That's not to say there aren't new stresses, because there totally are.  I feel a whole different kind of stress/pressure than I felt at the salon.  Joining a new company means there is so much to learn: names, faces, responsibilities, terminology, etc.  Although marketing is a whole different ballgame than coordinating chaos at Salon 9, I use many of the skills I was taught or developed while I was there.  One thing that definitely didn't change when I switched to a new workplace is that I still work with mostly women.  I might as well get used to it, huh?

Well there are my somewhat random thoughts to get me back to blogging.  I'll be back soon!
By the way, what's for dinner?

Zucchini, Baby!

Steph 1: Buy one of these bad boys at the farmer's market.

Step 2: Make it into a cake.

But wait!

Before you eat your cake made from a vegetable, eat this fish for dinner!

Oh yeah, THIS fish.  Topped with butter and cheese. Mmmmm.

Parmesan topped Tilapia

What you need:

4 tilapia filets (thawed if frozen)

Salt and pepper

3 tbsp butter

1/8 cup shredded parmesan cheese

1/8 cup grated parmesan cheese

3-4 minced garlic cloves

1 tsp fresh thyme

How to do:

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. 

Pat down the filets with paper towels.  Place on a baking sheet sprayed with cooking spray.  Season generously with salt and pepper.

Bake for 10-12 minutes.

In the meantime, mix together the butter, cheeses, garlic, and thyme.  

When the fish is finished baking, take it out and turn on the broiler. 

Flip the fish over and top with the mixture.   

Broil for 3-4 minutes or until the cheese is beautifully golden and bubbly and your kitchen smells wonderful.  (Please note: the smell is of garlic and parmesan, not fish)

recipe adapted from How Sweet Eats

--back to zucchini--

Serve with zucchini and onions with basil, unless you follow a recipe from a not-to-be named website that has poor directions and so it gets done 25 minutes after your main dish. 

I know this might seem a bit heavy and maybe even (gasp!) unhealthy, but it really isn't.  I love Brummel and Brown butter spread and it's only 3 tbsp.  Shoot, I make cookies and muffins with WAY more butter than that on a regular basis.  Cheese is always good, so it doesn't neccessarily count.  I used the two different kinds because I think shredded parm has a much different flavor than the grated kind in the plastic container and Breeze isn't a huge fan of it.  It really isn't heavy either, it's very light and delicoius.  Also, we don't eat a lot of fish at the Breeze house but I know Omega-3's are very important. 

This is a great dish to fit in some fish. 

I think I'll end on that. =)

Enjoy!

Burritos! Whole Foods!



Clockwise from the left:  7 layer dip, Nancy's avacado garlicky dip and homemade pita chips, veggie chips, burritos, and an assortment of veggies with ranch dip. 

 Do you have foods that when they are cooked or even mentioned they remind you of someone or something??

Burritos are that way for me.  They remind me of Salon 9 and Brian Hendrickson.  He makes the best burritos ever!  That's them on the left.  The mixture of meat and beans paired with the crispy shell is ba-nanas!  For my last day of work on Thursday, the Salon 9 staff had quite the spread of deliciousness to send me off.  Even Kennedee, who I'm pretty sure is scared of the kitchen, made some ah-mazing seven layer dip!  I so appreciate what they did for me and I was so happy they went with the Mexican theme. 

Nancy made me white texas sheet cake.  Yummmmmm.

Somebody had a few bites before I got to take a pic.  I don't blame them, it is out of this world fabulous.  The almond flavoring is nothing short of amazing. 

I'm so going to miss everyone at the shop AND their food.  As my last attempt at being in charge, I pulled everyone together for a group photo.  It took an act of congress, but look how good the picture is!  Isabel needs to be a model! 




What a good looking group!

 

On another note, Friday I got to go to Whole Foods with my mom!  It was really fun!  I had to hold back and not buy everything I wanted, but I grabbed a good amount of things that I can't find in the Burg. 

My favorite finds:

I've never even seen Quinoa pasta! 

My sister and I always talk about how celeberties love coconut water but we tried the regular flavor and both think it is sick!! So I got some flavored kinds to test out. 

Seseme crisps- a super healthy snack!

Veganaise!  A much healthier alternative to Mayo.

Pop Chips!! 3 bags for $5 at that! 

And the best find of all:

Synergy Kombucha!! I'd give anything to be able to buy this in town!

Did you notice all the exclamantion points?  Exciting stuff!

Sweet and Sour Sesame Chicken

When things seem out of the ordinary, like when you are approaching your last day of a job you've been going to every day for the past eight years, sometimes all you want is normal.  Well, tomorrow is my last day at Salon 9 and so tonight all I wanted was taco meat and my favorite orange blackberry muffins. 

But last week everything seemed totally normal, so I took a walk on the Asian side!

Sweet and Sour Sesame Chicken

Ingredients:
2 large boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 cup cornstarch
2 eggs, whisked
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 cup rice vinegar
3/4 cup agave nectar
1 cup ketchup
3 tbsp soy sauce (low sodium)
3-4 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (or more if you like spicy!)
1 tsp toasted sesame seeds

How to do:
Pre-heat your oven to 350. 
For the chicken:
Cut chicken into bite sized pieces.
You'll want to do this in two batches.
Roll the chicken in the cornmeal, then in the egg.
Heat the oil in a skillet over medium heat.  Add the chicken and cook until just browned on the outside, not fully cooked.
In a 9x13, place the battered chicken in a single layer. 
For the sauce:
In a small bowl, whisk together the vinegar, agave, ketchup, soy sauce, garlic and red pepper flakes. 
Pour half the mixture over the chicken and place in the oven for about 40-45 minutes, flipping every 15 minutes.
In the meantime, pour the remaining sauce in a small saucepan, and reduce the sauce over medium heat, stirring frequently.
When the chicken is done, pour most of the remaining sauce over the top.  I reserved just a little bit of sauce to have on the side. 
Pour the sesame seeds on top of the chicken.

On a side note:  Next time I would either use less vinegar or more agave/sugar.  Breeze thought it tasted perfect though so do what you please!
Recipe adapted from  this Tasty Kitchen Member. 

Follow these photos for a wonderful dinner:

Everyday ingredients you have in your cabinet to make sweet and sour chicken!

Brown the chicken covered in cornmeal.

Bake the browned chicken for about less than an hour.

 Thicken the sauce over medium heat.

Serve with brown rice and mixed veggies!

Enjoy!!