back from the keys

With a view like that you can imagine how hard it was for us to leave! Andrew's family allowed us to stay at their home in the Keys for the weekend and it was the perfect get away! We had an awesome time with our friends!

The first night we were there we all cooked dinner together. Julie and I played it safe and followed a recipe for stuffed peppers that was D-to-the-licious. The boys on the other hand decided to play Bobby Flay and worked up their own concoction for their chicken. It all worked out splendidly and we ate to our hearts content and had left overs.






We also caught the sunset that night and it was beautiful! The sun literally set right in front of us on our own private beach. Incredible!









Friday morning we got up and headed south. We stopped at Bahia Honda State Park and did a little sight seeing and snorkeling. I am pretty certain Julie and I are the only individuals on the entire planet who could make friends with fish and become emotionally attached to them; therefore, it was entirely perfect that we were together making friends with our fish while the boys snorkeled into deeper waters that we were certain were shark infested deep waters. {At one point a family nearby saw a blue crab and started yelling to each other about it. Julie and I nearly had cardiac arrest because we thought they were yelling about a shark sighting and the guys were two little dots somewhere along the horizon. Oh my!}

After a morning at Bahia Honda, we headed down to Key West. I had never been and was so excited to go and see what the hype was all about. We had plans to spend all afternoon and into the night there. However, we had not accounted for the heat index spiking to over 100 degrees! We walked around quite a bit. Ate lunch. Checked out Peter Lik's art gallery. I got a picture at the Southern Most Point of the Continental U.S.A. {Something I've always wanted to do.} Ate some frozen chocolate covered key lime pie. Sweated more than I ever have in my life. Then called it a day because we were all so darn hot and uncomfortable. Next time we will go back down there in the Fall or Winter so that we can enjoy it more.



That night we enjoyed a Leo movie. Julie and I share a "love" for Leo that goes all the way back to his Growing Pains days. {Thank you to our dear sweet husbands who are confident in our love for them and allow us to watch our Leo and talk about him. We appreciate that. And we love you for it.}

The next day we just hung out on our beach and in the water for the entire day and it was wonderful!



Andrew deserved and needed this, and I was happy to look over and see him relaxing.







Vic and Andrew had a lot of time for catching up and talking while Julie and I had a lot of time for girl talk and getting to know each other better.



There was a lot of this over the weekend...






On our last night we played some Taboo and Scategories. Guys vs. the Girls. We shook on it and the playful competitive banter commenced. The guys won Taboo, but we totally creamed them in Scategories so we are even.



We had a great time and we made some great memories! Lyn Family, thank you for opening your home to us and allowing us to have such a good time in such a beautiful place. We can't express how much we appreciate it!

they are that good

Feast your eyes on my new favorite snack dinner side dish!

GARLIC ROASTED POTATOES

We were in charge of bringing some kind of potato dish to our community group dinner the other night. Andrew found the recipe and I did the cooking. It was a hit. They scraped the pan clean that night.

Sooooooo....

We had to make them again because they were THAT good. And this time we were in the kitchen together.

Now go get yourself a 3 lb bag of those cute, little red potatoes. Rinse them real good.

Quarter them up.

Over on the other counter....take out a big bowl and pour in a 1/4 cup of good olive oil,

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper,

and 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt.

Now for the fun part. Enter garlic! Please tell me you love the cousin to the onion! Andrew wouldn't touch it when we first got married, but luckily he has quickly acquired a taste for the good stuff. When you are out buying your red potatoes, be sure to pick up a garlic peeler if you don't already own one. It makes life so much easier when you are peeling 6 {yes, 6!} cloves of garlic. The clove comes out all pretty like. A garlic press will also be quite helpful, so add that to your grocery list. You're going to peel and press 6 cloves of garlic into the big bowl.

Then you're going to mix it all up and make it look gorgeous. Like this.

Go on back to the other counter and pick up your quartered potatoes and put them all into that big bowl. 

And mix everything up really, really well. Don't leave one, single potato uncovered. And be sure that you don't have all the garlic hanging out in one place. Spread the love!

Dump them out into a roasting pan. Be sure to get every last drop, speck, and particle from that bowl into your pan! Then spread everything out and cover that pan with the oil mixture and potatoes.

Now you're going to stick them in the oven at 400 degrees for an hour. Set the timer for 20 minute intervals because you're going to want to make sure to flip the potatoes to ensure even roasting. 

Now on Saturday night I popped them in the oven and went to read on the couch. While I was learning and relaxing the hubby was up to something...

He told me that he was going to get chicken for the grill when he left for the store. So I naturally assumed he was out there grilling chicken, but that was not the case, my friends, that was not the case.

He was grilling these bad boys. And let me tell you something...that steak nearly changed my life. It was sooooooo good! {Please notice the Master Griller's perfectly proportioned and skilled diamond sears on the steak. Oh yeah!}

Then when the hour was up I took these beauties out of the oven.

And this is how we dined on Saturday night. Better {and cheaper} than any steakhouse in town. 

After Saturday evening, I maybe might have been seen snacking on those potatoes a lot. Maybe. 

If you maybe might want to snack on them, too, then go here for the recipe.  It called for parsley, but we left it out. To each his own.

Happy Roasting!

you're welcome

A few weeks ago I hosted my sister's bridal shower. I made these delicious chocolate covered peanut butter truffles and it would be rude of me not to share the recipe because they.were.incredible.

Here's what you'll need:

1 cup creamy peanut butter {I used Jif.}
1/4 cup butter
1 1/4 cups confectioners sugar
6 ounces semisweet chocolate {word to the wise -- get a whole lot more than that.}

Mix the peanut butter, butter, and powdered sugar well...it needs to be really creamy. Try not to make as much of a mess as my friend and I did when we made them; insert Ethel and Lucy moment here.





Line a baking pan with wax paper.

Do yourself a favor and get a melon scooper. It's perfect for portion size

 and it's makes the balling go a whole lot smoother and quicker.

We had to get a bit creative here because the baking pan wouldn't fit in my freezer. I ran to the garage to get some cardboard boxes and we cut them to fit the freezer shelves to give our wax paper support. The peanut butter balls need a good 30 minutes to freeze well. When it comes time to dip the peanut butter balls into the melted chocolate you are only going to want to take a few out of the freezer at a time because they get gooey fast. Once they are gooey there is no easy way of giving them a proper chocolate dipping.  

Once they have been dipped into melted chocolate place them back onto wax paper on a baking pan and place them in the fridge. These do not have to stay refrigerated, but they tasted better and lasted longer if they did.

I put the truffles in these cute little boxes that I found on clearance at Michael's, spruced them up with a bit of ribbon, and placed them in the entryway/exit for people to enjoy as a thank you gift for coming to the shower.  

Evidence as to why I received many a phone call after the shower to a.) find out if they were homemade and to b.) find out if I'd be willing to share the recipe.

FYI in order to fill all of those favor boxes I had to triple the recipe. And to be completely honest I have no idea how much chocolate we went through, but it was a lot more then what the recipe called for for sure.

These were so delicious! I am happy to do a taste test when you whip up your own batch.

the day of luuuuurve

I know that there are a million people who think that Valentine's Day is really dumb. I know Hallmark, Target, Godiva, and florists love the suckers who fall into the trap. I know a lot of people think that the day brings on this awful pressure for guys to be the romantics they may not be and the women who want that romance let it be known to their men that they have great expectations. {Enter the 485 men at Publix at 7am feverishly reading the 7 cards left over.} And I'll give it to you...the holiday that claims there is one special day to declare love has its' absurdities and we ought to be romancing and wooing our One and Only's every day. With that said...I still love Valentine's Day! What's so bad about boxes of chocolates in the shape of hearts and loads of cards to choose from with BRIGHT PINK envelopes! Hey, I know it's Valentine's Day everyday in my house...but I will always love the 14th of February.  

On the Day of Love I spent some time assembling wedding invitations for my sister. Such fun!

I also received this beauty! Which I was not expecting even though I had been gushing about it for days! We don't normally do gifts on Valentine's Day so I was thrilled when I heard the hubby say that I had one waiting for me. Our friend, Rachel, has a very talented sister who makes and designs jewelry. I love, love, love her stuff and her style. I usually want pretty much everything she lists and whenever I see that my favorite pieces have been sold I feel so sad! So imagine my heart break when this necklace was gone within days of it first being listed...little did I know! All of Rebecca's jewelry is handmade, one of a kind. Check her stuff out at Spencer Morgan Designs!

I tell you we don't do gifts and then I tell you about our gifts. Confusing, right? Look, Andrew is always giving me things, surprising me, giving into me (I might be persistent and persuasive, a little) and doing things for me. With all of that in mind, I decided I would surprise him with a gift. A few weeks ago Em over at Today's Letters posted about the neatest thing! She and her husband had received a tiny letter that was made by the company Leafcutter Designs. I loved it so much that I decided to send one to my Valentine and to give him a clue in it about his real gift...a segway tour. He's always wanted to ride one of those things and since I want to be his adventurous sidekick I bought us tickets.

For dinner I decided to try making something he really likes to order at restaurants. This is the quicker and cheaper version of that sort of thing since I was trying to pinch the pennies. It's a french dip sandwich. I found the recipe I really wanted to make over at Pioneer Woman {love her}, but had to try this recipe from Rachel Ray due to time and money and was not disappointed at all. SO DELICIOUS! But next time I have 40 bucks burning a hole in my pocket I am going with the Pioneer Woman! (For the record...I am assuming that huge slab of meat in her pictures cost about 30 bucks...but I could be wrong and it could be cheap...I didn't even go look in the meat section when I went to the grocery store...feel free to enlighten me.)

Happy Love Day!



since Thanksgiving is tomorrow

I better post the pictures and blog what I've wanted to since Halloween.

About a month ago now I did something I've always wanted to do! I toasted the pumpkin seeds from our carved jack-o-lantern and doing both were SO MUCH FUN!

Here's what you need:

Ingredients:
1 cup raw pumpkin seeds, rinsed and dried
6 tablespoons white sugar, divided
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

*I used the seeds from our pumpkin, but you can use store bought pre-packaged seeds.

The hubby and I opened up that pumpkin and used an ice cream scoop to get all of the flesh and seeds out.

We filled the sink with a little water and dumped the flesh and seeds in. The seeds float right up to the top.

Allow seeds to dry a bit. Then spread them on a cookie sheet and bake them at 250 degrees for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally, until dry and roasted.

In a large bowl, stir together 2 tablespoons of white sugar, salt, and pumpkin pie spice. Set aside.

Heat the oil in a large skillet (or in a large wok, since that's what we had handy) over medium-high heat. Add the pumpkin seeds and sprinkle the remaining sugar over them. Stir with a wooden spoon until the sugar melts, about 45 seconds.

Pour seeds into the bowl with the spiced sugar and stir until coated. Allow to cool before serving.

 
Then eat and share with friends until your heart's content.

I had to post pictures of Trinity checking out the pumpkin Andrew carved in honor of her "halloween" cat pose. She approved.

* I got the pumpkin seed recipe from All Recipes