New Years Soireé

We finished last year out with spending time with friends and family.  What better way is there to spend it?  I had a fun time organizing and planning a little intimate party at our house with some of our closest friends and family.  I made several dips, (all of which was my first time making them,) and had lots of munchies to dip in them, made a signature sparkling Apple Cider Punch, and had a wonderful time socializing.  Surprisingly the cheesy artichoke dip was a huge success!  Never have I worked with artichokes more than just ordering an artichoke dip while out.  But I promise I made this one my self!  It was easy!  Too easy... I also made a Mexican corn dip and a Mint Avocado dip, (whose recipe I got out of a Better Homes and Garden magazine whilst frantically cleaning for the party.

{A sweet picture of Daddy with his 'grand-dog, Bandit on New Years Day}

{Some of the delicious dips I had fun making!}

{ My theme was red/white/silver.  Funny story about the drink dispenser.  It was something I'd gotten from Kirkland's with a gift card from our wedding shower.  The party was my first time to use it.  Who would have thought to check and make sure the nozzle was completely screwed in??  Certainly not I...  Drink made, bacon cooking in the over, mixing up another dip; I noticed a little pool of punch under the dispenser, which was sitting on the stove top.  Hmmm, I must have spilled some while I was pouring the various ingredients into it... Wrong!! 

 Upon further inspection of the pour spout, I spied with my little eyes a small rivulet of punch flowing from beneath the spout.  I put my finger under it, it stopped.  I took it away, that little rivulet was back.  "David, come quick!  It's sprung a leak!  I don't know what to do!!"  Were a few of my frantic cries as I summoned my husband to the kitchen.  Looking at the stove top, I then saw that there were puddles of punch...everywhere!  

Good thing there was a lip on the stove or it could have been a lot worse.  

  As Husband was trying to figure out how to help me, I continued frantic cries of it's leaking, it's leaking!  All the while, our puppy was staring at me very confusedly... like Daddy, what's wrong with Mommy?  Why is she acting all crazy?  That is a very good question, Bandit.

  For our wedding, we had also received a beautiful clear glass serving bowl.  And guess what?  It was the perfect size to pour the leaking punch into.  And I mean purrr-fect.  Crisis averted.  I was thinking I was going to have to wrap the spout in electrical tape, upon thinking so, I began looking for a roll of electrical tape which I knew had to be there somewhere.  I'd spotted it earlier in the day, I just knew it!  Thankfully, it all came down to having to screw the nozzle all the way in.  Crisis averted, Mommy calm down, and happy Husband.  You are welcome, for a delicious punch!  Who knew so much went into making it??

Happy Tuesday!!

Pretzel Breaded Chicken with Apricot Dijon Sauce

  I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas!  We enjoyed spending time with family and friends, relaxing, playing with our new toys, and also remembering the reason for the season.  We went to Church on the Move's Celebrate Christmas program.  It was amazing!  It contained secular Christmas songs, along with hearing about the story of Jesus.  What that church is doing is amazing to see.  As its name implies, it's really going places.  They have so many people that they are helping and outreach into the community.  Their hearts are truly on fire for God!  As we move into the new year, (which I can't believe it's already almost next year!  Eek!!) we are going to be starting a series called "How to make 2014 better than 2013."  It's about new years resolutions and what they are usually lacking and why they fail.  Anyone had the resolution of exercising more, spending more carefully, being more productive, trying more new things?  Yeah, so did I.  Ask me how long they actually lasted....better yet, don't ask!  I'm looking forward to hearing how to include God in my new years resolution this year and making myself let go and hand it over to Him.  Who's with me??

    One of my favorite things about hosting a party is that my house suddenly has to get cleaned.  And by 'had to get cleaned,' I mean I run around cleaning like a mad lady.  I did some of the cleaning yesterday. (I even scrubbed the toilets!  But actually, now that I think about it...I did one then poured the cleaner in the other and forgot about it til just now...woops!  I'm sure it's even cleaner for having sat there for a while.  And I think I remember Husband using that bathroom last night, soo I think we're good.)  One thing I like doing while cleaning, and really it doesn't look like cleaning at all and slows me way down is going through old Better Homes and Garden, Martha Stewart and Real Simple magazines that I've let pile up and tear out the ideas and recipes that I really like so that I can throw away the rest of the magazine.  I then put the torn out pages in those clear plastic sleeves that I keep in my idea binder.  I got the idea from my parents.   

    Anyway, one of the pages I tore out was a recipe for Pretzel Chicken with Fig and Mustard Sauce.  It looked and sounded amazing!  Of course, my version didn't quite turn out the same as theirs did, namely because I used chicken thighs instead of drumsticks, but Husband and I were still pleased.  He even said this had made it to the top of his favorites of things I've cooked.  This is something I never would have thought to put together.  As I was mixing together the alternative apricot jam and Dijon mustard, I was pretty skeptical....until I tried it!  Same with Husband.  It has a kick, a zing to it when you first taste it, but the flavors somehow oddly complement each other. I hope you enjoy this as much as we did!!  The original recipe can be found here.  My version of it is listed below.

Ingredients
3 cups honey mustard flavored pretzels
1 tsp. ground Cumin
2 eggs, lightly beaten (though for this small amount of meat I think 1 egg would be enough)
2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken thighs
1/4 cup Apricot or Fig jam (I used Apricot)
1/4 grainy mustard (aka Dijon mustard)
Thyme Leaves (yeah..I forgot to use these and it still turned out deliciously!)

*Another difference between my version and BHG's was that I didn't have a chicken roaster like the magazine version described.  So I placed mine on a foil lined baking pan.  The online version seems to use this method.  Be sure to coat the foil with nonstick spray.  I did not do this so the chicken was hard to separate from the foil*

1. Preheat over to 425 f.  In a resealable plastic bag crunch up pretzels with rolling pin.  Add Cumin then shake to mix
2. Place beaten eggs in a shallow bowl.  Dip thighs in egg and let excess drip off.  Place in baggie of pretzels and gently shake to get chicken evenly coated.
3. Lay thighs on foil lined baking sheet after first having sprayed the foil with nonstick spray.  (This was an important step that I left out when making mine. Yes, I regretted it.)  Bake at 425f for 40-50 minutes until pretzels are a little browned.
4. While chicken is baking, mix the Apricot or fig jam and the Dijon mustard in a bowl to serve with the chicken.

  I'm usually scared of cooking chicken, namely because it seems to take forever and I'm always afraid I won't have cooked it long enough, then I'll over cook it and it will get tough and dry.  But this...this turned out as perfectly as I could have hoped for.  It was so full of flavor.  We were both pleasantly surprised.  I congratulated myself on trying a new recipe, one that I was very happy to have tried.  We will definitely be having this again.  Maybe even serve it with vegetables!!

Gobble, Gobble

Happy Monday, y'all!!  This weekend I took down all of my Halloween/Fall decorations.  For some reason, I'm extra ready for Christmas this year!  But don't think I'm completely skipping over Thanksgiving.  I did leave up our dining room centerpiece and added a hand crafted turkey made by my late grandfather.  Mom and Grandma would always find craft projects they loved at craft fairs and would buy one to bring back for Grandpa to make.  He would do all the woodcutting/woodworking and they would do all the painting/decorating of it.  So this turkey holds a special place in my heart.

{Big bowl of leftover Halloween candy since we had NO trick-or-treaters.  Call me crazy, but the more readily available candy is, the less I will eat it.  We still have a mostly full bowl of dark chocolate kisses that I got for Husband's birthday back in September. (Well, minus the several several pieces our doglet snuck out during the night when he thought we wouldn't notice.  I noticed.  I heard his little dogtags clinking against the metal candy bowl...)}

Applesauce, Applesauce, Applesauce!

When Husband and I visited his other set of grandparents that live in New Hampshire, not only was I very excited to finally meet them, but I was also very impressed with all of the food that we had while there.  They live in a beautiful old house up in the mountains.  Their land, which is across the road from them has maple syrup pipelines that they have someone harvest and bottle.  We got to take a couple of them home with us and we have been enjoying it ever since.
  That night for dinner we had some delicious slow cooked ribs, a plate piled high with potato salad and a bowl of homemade applesauce of which I couldn't get enough!!  For breakfast the next day we had homemade waffles heaped with strawberries, whip cream and Maple syrup.  Mmm, it all makes my mouth water just thinking about it!!!  I'll share the applesauce recipe with you.  It's so easy!

Ingredients
About a dozen apples sliced and cored. (My crock pot will probably hold only 15 sliced apples.)
2 cups water
Ground cinnamon
Sugar (as always, I used Splenda)

Directions
1. Slice and core apples and put in crock pot. (As pictured above, I used a handy dandy apple corer/slicer.  Made it go by a whole lot faster.)
2. Pour water over apples, and cover.  Cook on high for 2 hours.
(The house will start to smell pretty good!)
3. Being careful to handle the hot apple slices, mash through a colander (of which I did not have so I used a strainer,) to make sure all of the skin is removed.
4. Pour apple mash into a saucepan and bring to a boil.
5. Stir in cinnamon and sugar to taste.
(For added presentation when serving applesauce, garnish each bowl with a cinnamon stick.)


ENJOY!

Sloppy Bowls

Here is a nice easy recipe for when you're trying to make a real quick but delicious dinner. (or lunch.) This is a recipe I found on Pinterest the other day while browsing.  I couldn't find the original recipe but ended up changing it anyway. (accidentally.)  It takes just 4 ingredients. 1. Pillsbury biscuits (or similar,) 2. 1 lb. ground beef, 3. Taco seasoning, and 4. Sloppy Joe Hickory Sauce. (the original called for a can of Manwhich meat.)I thought I was getting sloppy Joes mixed meat but just ended up getting a can of the sauce.)  It still turned out deliciously!!  Okay, I forgot a 5th ingredient: shredded cheese!  All I had was Italian blend and it was still really good!  Husband thought it would have been better with shredded sharp cheddar cheese.

Directions
1. Turn large muffin tin upside down and spray the bottoms of the cups.
2. Stretch and mold biscuits over the bottom of the cups and bake according to the biscuit can directions.
3. While the biscuits are baking, brown ground beef in a skillet, drain, then add taco seasoning and hickory sauce and mix it all together.
4. Scoop meat mixture into biscuit bowls and top with shredded cheese.
5. Enjoy!!

Happy 100 Posts!

It is with excitement that can say I've finally reached 100 posts!  To commemorate, I am going to repost some of the milestone posts from our lives.  These were some pretty exciting moments!  Proposal, getting our house, decorating house, our puppy's first birthday... So many wonderful things and big changes have happened since starting this blog way back in the day. Hard to believe I've had it for about 3 years now.  (Though really it's like it's been one since I wrote in it mostly this year.  But 3 years sounds better.)  I hope you all enjoy the walk down memory lane.  Thank you for reading and I'm glad you could join me today in celebrating my 100th post!

         September 26, 2011

"David and I spent most of the 4th of July at my grandmother's house popping firecrackers, baking cookies and spending time with my family.  That night, we went to Riverpark's big fireworks show.  My cousin and a couple of mine and David's friends were in attendance.  One of his friends happened to be taking photos of the fireworks.  David casually asked his friend to take pictures of us.  So we stood up and hugged for the pictures.  David began digging in his pocket and before I knew it, he was kneeling down on one knee!  With the fireworks blossoming in the background, David asked me to marry him!!  I squealed as tears sprang to my eyes and said YEEEESS!!  That was the happiest moment of my life!  I was completely and utterly surprised.  I cannot wait to spend the rest of our lives together.  I could not ask for a better man to be my husband and take care of me.  Say hello to the future Mrs. Linde!!"

February 1, 2012

       The house is ours!! 

"We closed on Tuesday.  And by 'we' I mean David.  I was unfortunately stuck in Edmond doing mundane things such as choir and opera rehearsals...(during which we did get a lot accomplished.)  It is move in ready and we (and again I mean 'we' as in David and my Parents) have begun moving things in.  My parents came down yesterday and help load up the bedroom suite that we got from EARC Thrift store.  It's very nice!  A 5 piece set at a very decent price.  We also got to enjoy a delicious dinner at Earl's Rib Palace, (home of Oklahoma's best BBQ!!)  Though I will be going there this weekend to help with the moving process.  Maybe now would be a good time to clear out a few of my holiday decoration tubs that are sitting in my kitchen in Edmond and taking up space in the shed out back... Surely there's room for 4 tubs somewhere..."

                                                              January 31, 2013

"Pardon the mess, but it's almost heard to believe that this is the same living room.  Everything in the house was white, white, white!  We needed some color in there ASAP.  The paint color is Pomegranate I believe, and it was a perfect match for our red barn paintings.  The paintings actually have a fun story behind them.  The first one shown in the corner with the table lamp (from Kirkland's, love that place) was from a place in Tulsa called Persimmon Hollow Village.  It's a neat place full of rustic buildings containing anything from wood working to Coca Cola memorbilia.  We got it for about $5!!  The 4 small ones, we found on one of our antique excursions somewhere in Oklahoma. They are all 5 painted on what looks to be linen, or a fine burlap, all bearing the same signature.  I call this my Christmas room because of the red and the snow pictures.  Decorating this house was just so much fun!!"

                                                                       February 17, 2013

"Today, our little puppy turned 1 year old!! Back in September, we adopted him from the SPCA. One of the best decisions we made! He is so precious. We couldn't have chosen a better dog. Actually, he's the first dog I've ever had, so naturally we spoil him rotten! Both of his grandmothers came over today with precious gifts for our precious puppy! I baked a cake for the special occasion. (None of the ingredients harmful to dogs.). And it was super easy to make!! And it didn't taste half bad, only a little bland: natural peanut butter, flour, shredded carrots, being the main ingredients.  The recipe can be found HERE."

Homemade Butter

I've always wanted to make my own butter.  I think I might have made it once as a little girl, or had it sometime when I was young.  Something from my childhood got me the taste for homemade butter.  As strange as it sounds, I sometimes get cravings for homemade butter.  There's nothing quite like it.  Nowadays it's much easier to make.  (One day I will make it the manual way.)  Of course, my Grandma was the first person I called to gush to about this feat.  She shared that when she and her sisters were little, they were the butter makers.  Most of the time they shook the cream in jars, while other times they actually used the butter churn.  I opted for the modern butter church: my electric stand mixer. 

It was super easy!  The hardest part is the waiting.  But the process is amazing to see.  It only takes one ingredient really; heavy whipping cream. (2 ingredients if you want to add a little salt for flavoring.)

 Pour heavy whipping cream into mixer and turn on.  I started out on low speed.  This was a mistake.  It took forever for the cream to start thickening.  After about 30 minutes of  this (compared to the estimated 15 minutes I'd seen in other recipes,) so far all that had happened was that it got really foamy.

 I finally turned the mixer speed up to about 6 and things finally started to happen!  Peaks started to form and it started to really thicken up.
By this point, I was getting pret-ty exc-i-ted.  It was finally starting to look like butter!  From then on, things started to move pretty fast.

 The butter will start forming and clumping together and will take on a yellowish hue.  This is when the magic starts to happen.  It goes from looking like a bowl of whipped cream to a bowl of delicious, creamy butter waiting to be spread on warm fluffy rolls!

 The yellow butter will clump together and separate from the buttermilk.  (I learned from Grandma that you can save this runoff and use it later to makes cakes or anything else that calls for buttermilk.  You can save it in a recycled water bottle or any other airtight container.  It should save up to a few weeks.)

Once the butter has sufficiently clumped together, gather it all up into a ball and proceed to squeeze out all the buttermilk.  (This will help the butter keep longer.)  Run the ball of butter under cold water to rinse out the rest of the buttermilk, being sure to squeeze it all out.  For extra flavor, sprinkle a little salt over it and knead it into the butter ball.

Put the butter in a container to store in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.  the 3 cups of heavy whipping cream you use should yield about one cup of delicious butter.  Use it on rolls, waffles, pancakes, rolls, muffins, crackers, toast, pancakes, waffles....(I really like pancakes and waffles...) and use it on just about anything you can think of!!  I'm taking it to Grandma's house for Sunday dinner.

Ingredients
3 cups Heavy Whipping Cream
Salt for flavoring

Directions
1. Pour whipping cream in stand mixer bowl and turn mixer on medium speed.
2. Cream will become bubbly and start to thicken.
3. Peaks will begin to form and it will be like the consistency of heavy cream.
4. Cream will take on a yellow hue and butter will start clumping together, separating from the buttermilk.
5. Gather butter together into ball and squish out all the buttermilk, rinse butter ball under cold water to remove as much buttermilk as possible.
6. Sprinkle with a little bit of salt and knead into butter ball for desired amount of flavoring.
7. Store in a container in the fridge.  Enjoy on every sort of bread product!!

Don't you feel more accomplished now, knowing you just made homemade butter??  I know I do.  I feel pretty proud of myself.  Good luck, y'all!  I know you will do wonderfully.  I have every faith in you that you will make the best butter there ever was!

Old-Fashioned Spice Cake and Cream Cheese Frosting

And now continues my barrage of all things Fall.  When Hubby and I were in St. Louis last month, we picked up and Old-Fashioned Pumpkin Recipes book.  It goes through the process of how to prepare fresh pumpkin pulp and contains many delicious recipes!  I selected the recipe entitled Hallowe'en Cupcakes.  If you're one of those peekers and read ahead, then you can see that I only made half a batch of cupcakes and the rest into little bundt cakes using one of our wedding gifts from Grandma.  The recipe is super easy and straight forward.  Ok, actually one part was confusing to me.  The ingredients don't list butter, and yet the first direction is to cream together  the butter and sugar.  The first ingredient on the list is vegetable oil, so I just interpreted that as them meaning to say vegetable oil spread, like the Country Crock I have pictured.  The recipe still turned out deliciously!

Ingredients
1/2 cup vegetable oil (vegetable oil spread)                            
 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 cups brown sugar                                                          
 1/2 tsp ginger
2 eggs, beaten (I forgot to beat mine!  But I'm sure they thanked me for sparing them...)
1/2 tsp ground cloves
2 cups all-purpose flour
Dash nutmeg (I just shook my little nutmeg container a couple of times and called it good.)
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup whole milk (I used 2%)
1 1/2 tsp baking soda

Spice Cake
1. Preheat oven to 375 deg F.
2. Put on some good music- I love my Pandora station for the Civil Wars.  Great band.
3. Cream vegetable oil spread and sugar in mixer. (It will look like the consistency of wet sand.)
4. Beat in eggs.
5. In a separate bowl, combine dry ingredients and stir into first mix alternately with milk. (I actually poured the milk in first on accident then slowly poured the dry ingredients.  You'll want to add the dry ingredients a little at a time if you're using a mixer.  It tends to kick up dust if you put too much in at once.
6. Place paper muffin cups in muffin tins, (or spray the little bundt cups with a non-stick pray,) and fill each cup 2/3 full.  Bake for 20 minutes.

Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients:
3 oz cream cheese
3 oz butter (again, I used the vegetable oil spread...)
2 tsp vanilla
Powdered Confectioners Sugar (Enough to achieve desired consistency)
Milk (enough to thin out if need be)

1. In an a stand or hand mixer, mix together butter, cream cheese and vanilla.
2. Slowly incorporate powdered sugar.
3. Mix in milk a tsp at a time until the desired consistency is achieved.  I wanted mine to be more like a glaze, so I played around with how much powdered sugar and milk I added until I had it thin enough to drizzle over the bundt cakes. (Hubby loved the frosting!  It was his idea to make it cream cheese.  I was just going to make a simple powdered sugar, vanilla and milk glaze.  Good choice, Hubby!)

Fall Brew Review

Autumn.  Where can I begin?  I love everything about it.  Cool crisp mornings, sometimes misty, crunchy colorful leaves in every hue of red, orange and yellow, pumpkin, spice, coffee, hot apple cider...I could go on and on.  One thing that I look forward to every year is all of the pumpkin beers and ales that come out.  I have compiled a list of some of my favorites and a couple that caught my eye but were lacking in my palate's preference.  I will be the first to admit that I am a judger of labels.  A label is the first thing that catches my eye, then the description.  I don't like a brew that's too bitter, yeasty, or dark. An intriguing and flavorful smell is also desirable.  It is with these qualifications that I begin my list.

1. First up is Schlafly's Pumpkin Ale, from St. Louis, MO. At first glance, one can definitely tell that it is a harvest ale, with a prominent pumpkin on the front.  It's dark bottle and orange colors are very indicative of Fall. It is the best pumpkin ale I have had in a while.  It's a full bodied ale and complimentary to many different meals.   It's the embodiment of a pumpkin ale.  Containing pumpkin, cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove; all the ingredients of a pumpkin pie!  It has a slightly sweet pumpkin smell, hints of pumpkin spice and fall.  It's an 8.0% ABV, so usually one or two small glasses is sufficient with a meal.  Unfortunately, this ale is not distributed in Oklahoma.

2. A close second if Southampton's Pumpkin Ale from Southampton, NY. The dark bottle and orange label reflect the colors of Fall.  It's picture of a small country store or brew house with people gathered at the front, and the people waving from the window is a cheerful, cozy picture. It's brewed with pumpkin, spices, and vanilla extract.  It also smells slightly of pumpkin.  I have come to learn that the ones that have the sweet pumpkin smell are usually the best ones!  And it doesn't have a bitter aftertaste.  The beginning to end flavors and tastes are all pleasant.  It would go very well with a traditional Thanksgiving meal.  It's 5.0% ABV, and most definitely available in Oklahoma.

3. Coming in at number three is Samuel Adams Harvest Pumpkin Ale, from none other than Boston, MA. This label is of course the same as many other Samuel Adams beers.  The only difference is the wheat colored background color.   This Harvest Pumpkin Ale is brewed with pumpkin and spices as well.  According to the bottle, they use over 17 lbs. of real pumpkin in each brewing barrel!  It's not as sweet as the aforementioned Southampton, but still has subtle pumpkin flavors and an underlying spiciness.  It's smell is more that of a fresh squash without all the pumpkin pie spices.  It is 5.7% ABV.  

4. Now we reach the part of the list that contains my least favorites.  Abita's Pecan Harvest Ale is from Abita Springs, LA.  It's label is also very indicative of autumn and the harvest, with wheat, pecan branches and a palette of fall colors.  It's flavor tastes very subtly of pecan but is still sweet.  No bitter aftertaste with this one either.  It wasn't what I was expecting.  I was hoping it would be sweeter and more flavorful than it was.  Hubby liked it though.  This one is 5.7% ABV.

5.  Lastly is Bridgeport's Witch Hunt Spiced Harvest Ale from Portland, OR.  It's label is at first pleasing.  It looks very interesting, like a vintage Halloween label.  It's description on the back is also eye catching in its themed wording.  It contains flavorings of caramel, cinnamon and nutmeg.  I found it overall unpleasing.  It had a sharp initial taste and a bitter aftertaste that clung to one's lips and taste buds.  It was not as aromatic as others of it's kind.  It was darker than I cared for.  I will admit I was sucked in by it's attractive labeling.  But don't take my word for its flavor!  For those of you that like darker, more bitter than sweet beer, this could be the harvest one for you!  This one was 5.8% ABV.