homemade guacamole

Today is our company picnic and I decided to bring my homemade guacamole, because you have to be a crazy person not to love it (my professional diagnosis). And also because I'm hoping nobody eats it and we can bring the leftovers home (mwwahahhaah!) So while I mix it up, I thought I'd share my recipe with you. Until I realized that I don't use a recipe because it's just all "to taste" which is the single most annoying thing to read on an actual recipe. I've never written a recipe before, but I figure this is a safe place to start. If you make it and don't like it we can just blame it on "different palates" or something like that. (Of course that won't happen cause this stuff is delicious). 

And while I'm at it, I thought I'd share some tips, starting with my favorite method for dicing up the avacado. I'm all about minimal clean-up and this has never let me down. After you cut the avacodo in half, use a butter knife to slice it top-to-bottom and then left-to-right. Then use a large spoon to simply scoop the whole thing out. Ta-freakin-da! Instantly sliced avacado!

Next I add the cilantro, lime juice, onion, salt and garlic. Next tips: I prefer to chop the onion small (it's about having flavor, not big chunks) Also, garlic paste because, say it with me: "minimal clean-up". And don't tell my husband I said this, but lime juice from the bottle is fine.

Give everything a big stir and taste test it. Too salty? Add lime juice. Too limey? Add salt. Kinda bland? Add a little more everything, especially cilantro. At this point I add the (optional) tomatoes because, not surprisingly, I have a thing for tomatoes. Cherry tomatoes are my favorite: just dice them up and deseed them or you will have runny guac. Yuck. And then stir them in like you add chocolate chips to your cookie batter- until they are just incorporated. (Nobody wants mushy and over-stirred tomatoes!) Next tip: enjoy!

My last tip (from a true expert friend of mine): if you are storing it overnight, add an avacodo pit or two to keep it from turning brown. I hope your family loves it as much as mine!

Friday Night = Date Night

More accurately, Friday Night = homemade pizza and crash on the couch night.
It is one of our long-standing traditions with a rich history, beginning in Josh's Grad school days. (Take look at our humble beginnings)  Now that we have normal jobs, wait. No. Now that I have a normal job and Josh still works like a crazy person (and is always on-call) we have gone back to our Friday Night ways. It is such a simple thing (made so much better by the invention of HBO Go) but it's something that I always find myself looking forward to. We love trying new things outside of our house (and there is always something to do in Orange County) but at the end of a long week I love knowing that we can put everything aside for a couple hours and just be together.
Also, I have perfected homemade pizza. Not to brag. But yeah.

This week is Margarita pizza. Yellow heirloom tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, basil from our own plant, homemade dough, and canned pizza sauce. What can I say? I'm not perfect and it's just not worth the time and energy to try and beat Ragu on this one. It's called compromise, people. If you want your pizza "Josh style" (or "ruined style, as I like to call it) go ahead and add some chopped up serrano peppers.

I leave you with this mouth-watering image of my dinner and am off to spend the evening next to my husband, lounging on the couch, with Sven under our feet. Happy Friday to you!

Truth time:
after I took that photo, I decided I wanted a crispier crust and put it back in the oven. So this is actually what my dinner looked like. This is real life, people. And it doesn't always look pretty, but damn it tasted good!

summer in a glass AKA the dirty coke

While cleaning and organizing our kitchen last year when we moved in, one of the many gadgets we found was a Soda Stream. It's probably not something I would have ever bothered to buy myself, but since we already had it and all the necessary supplies, we gave it a try. It's so awesome! Seriously, I'm not a soda person. I don't really like it. I don't really drink it. But this thing is cool. The girls get a big kick out of it, and we just pull it out for something fun to do in the kitchen, not on a regular lets-have-soda-with-dinner kind of basis. Last summer we were obsessed with making our own root beer floats, and since the soda is made in small batches it never goes flat (not to mention cheaper than buying soda all the time). This summer we were in search of a new drink to add to our soda-making-repertoire and I stumbled on this recipe for dirty coke. I was so excited to try it. The girls' faces got all scrunched up in confusion when I said we were having dirty coke with dinner, but I persevered.

First we gathered all our supplies: coconut syrup (from a local coffee shop), lime juice, half & half, and our soda-making supplies. This is enough to keep us stocked with dirty cokes for quite a while!

The fun part- adding the bubbles!

Adding the syrup. (Technically this recipe is for diet coke. But diet soda, I mean yuck. So we bought the regular cola syrup)

Then just add some of the coconut syrup, lime juice, and a splash of half & half to finish it off. We found we liked them more with a little less coconut and a little more lime. They went perfect with our back patio dinner: Janelle's homemade sloppy joes, Nebraska corn right off the husk, and cheesy potatoes (a Meyers classic).

And then Janelle got creative with the extreme bendy straws. BTW, If you don't know Janelle, she's awesome. And she's our assistant, which means that she gets paid to hang out at my house 5 days a week :).

Cheers to our new favorite summer drink!

apple pie

There's nothing in the world I can think of better than a piece of homemade apple pie a la mode. I don't even like pie that much. I pass it by at the bakery. I don't order it at restaurants (even my favorite ones) and apples aren't even my favorite fruit. That being said, last summer my mom taught me how to make the perfect pie crust and since then I've been obsessed.

 I spent the summer and fall making fresh fruit pies and the winter making chicken pot pie, and pecan pie. 

My favorite part about pie is that it brings back so many nostalgic memories. Everyone has something they only like when made by their mother, and mine is pie. And besides the nostalgia, I'm making new memories with my girls. I announce I'm making pie and I get a resounding "YAY!" which feels pretty good. It's guaranteed that at some point one of them will wonder into the kitchen and ask what I'm doing. Why do you sift the flour? Why do you use ice water? How do you roll it out? What is that red thing for?

(side note: the red thing is my favorite pie-making tool. For whatever reason, putting foil on my crust just doesn't work for me. I either have to squeeze the foil down so tight that I mess up the crust, or I'm too light-handed and the foil won't stay on. My "Tan don't burn" is a life saver. You can get one here.) 

I get to share these pie-making memories with my girls, and I know that pie may not be their favorite thing either, but when they come and help me in kitchen like I helped my mom, then all of a sudden it is. Needless to say, it makes all the effort worth it.  

lucy makes cadbury eggs

well, here i am again gracing the internets and your computer screens with my presence. lucky you! i haven't been around much lately for no reason other than sheer lack of motivation. hubs and i are having lots {and lots and lots} of conversations about our future and dealing with all the little {and big} ups-and-downs of life that seem to be coming all at once these days. and while next year still has a big question mark next to it, i can definitely say i've kicked my funk and am feeling myself again. this uncertain time is a chance for us to define ourselves and look at life as an adventure again, not an obstacle, and i'm excited about the possibilities. even if that ultimately means staying in kansas one more year. {also, hubs passed his thesis defense! great news indeed} {also also some things are in the works that i might be sharing with you soon!}

so, moving on, happy belated easter! it's no secret that i'm in love with dessert of all shapes and sizes but husband really isn't. that being said, he's obsessed with cadbury creme eggs and i've kept a constant supply of them in the house since they appeared. since they'll be gone soon i tried my hand at making my own {with these instructions}

they taste ah.mazing!

unfortunately i didn't want to get molds and i'm really not good at dipping things in chocolate and i made a huge mess in the kitchen {and on my hands. and on the floor...} i felt like lucy at the chocolate factory. 

good thing my stomach doesn't have eyes!

friday nights

Friday night is our date night. we don't do anything fancy, just cuddle on the couch, indulge in our latest TV obsession, and eat pizza (usually frozen, sometimes delivery) this week it struck me as completely ridiculous that we haven't been making our own. Seriously, we have a bread machine and making crust couldn't be any easier.

Before it goes in the oven:

 (tomato, red onion and yellow pepppers)

when it came out:

so yummy! 

Although i needed to flour the pan a little more, the bottom layer stuck a bit!

As for our TV obsessions, most often it's an old HBO show. Early this year it was The Wire. (seriously almost-unhealtily-obsessed with that one) and now it's Carnivale- it's like a combination of Water for Elephants and Grapes of Wrath (plus there's magic)

 And speaking of Water for Elephants, I'm so excited for the movie! Although I just discovered that Robert Pattinson is the lead. Am I the only woman in America who is not attracted to him. At. All?

more macaron love

orange macarons with chocolate filling for halloween:

husband doesn't especially like sweets {how i fell in love with a man who skips dessert is beyond me...} but he finally tried my macarons. and he loved them! i said i was surprised, and then he told me he was too. because he really didn't think he'd like them. well ha! i finally found a dessert he can't resist :)

but this batch? my absolute favorite. 

ever. 

fresh strawberry buttercream {which i froze after making a batch in late september} with a dollop of chocolate in the middle.

so so yummy.

i'm becoming seriously obsessed. we may have these for thanksgiving this year.

thanksgiving trial #1

today i began preparing for thanksgiving. we haven't come close to planning the menu or anything, but there are a couple items on the menu we know will be included: cheesy-potatoes {a holiday must-have in our family} and home made bread. yummy! 

so today i thought it was time to take a crack at the bread because i want a few practice runs before the big day. and seriously, after mentioning home made bread it's all i can think about. my mom always makes the best bread! and i have no excuse for not doing the same because we actually have a bread machine. 

that i've never used in over 4 years.

i keep insisting that even though our apartments seem to get smaller and smaller, finding room for an appliance we never use will some day make us very happy. and today is that day! this morning, i dumped all the ingredients into the machine, pushed a button, and had fresh bread 3 hours later.

seriously, why haven't we done this before/?!

i set the crust to medium brown, but i think i'll try light next time.

it tastes amazing {i'm eating some right now!} and there are few smells in the world like bread baking.

i can't wait to make french toast in the morning. it's going to be....wait for it....legendary!
{it's amazing how proud i am of something i really didn't have anything to do with. the little oven did all the work and i take all the credit!}

good food weekend

among other activities this holiday weekend, i ate some excellent food. cooked by foodie  friend cheryl:

ginger pear pork tenderloin, asparagus and bread contributed by friend rachelle, and blondie brownie cupcakes from me.

 i died and went to heaven. 

and then i had seconds and pet an adorable kitty.

i

it was a good night.

bad thai {as opposed to pad thai}

confession time- husband and i like to eat. we like food. but we don't like to make it. so, we don't spend our extra money on movies or shopping, we spend it eating out. and it's nice- like little dates when we get to catch up and just talk and be together.

one of our biggest problems with manhattan is the lack of cuisine variety. i mean really, it's been hard. we like international foods and generally don't go for burgers and pizza {both of which we have a plethora of in town}

lucky for us, they do have one excellent thai place. it's been our favorite from day one, and we literally eat there almost once a week. and if you had told me last summer that i would eventually grow sick and tired of eating thai food i would have said you were crazy. i love me some good thai!

until recently.

for the last 2 weeks i have absolutely refused to go there anymore. why? i'm just bored. i need something new!

which means that i no longer like our favorite restaurant, and it's causing problems.

because when you don't want to eat at the best place in town, where do you go from there? i don't know. so husband and i are now trying to find a new place to eat. but he's not so excited about it {and i'm not too thrilled about how the search is going, either}. in fact, i'm getting big puppy-dog eyes everytime i say "anywhere but thai". it's sad. and i've never been able to resist those big blue eyes before.

until now, that is.