Heading East

Jay and I leave for Baltimore on Thursday for my Tricia's wedding! She is marrying her boyfriend of 5 (right Trish?) years Sean. We are very excited to get away from the heat and spend some time with the family. It is surely going to be a whirlwind of a trip - can't wait! 

We will have lots of pictures when we return - promise!!

A Bit of Randomness

There are a few good things that come from Jay flying to Mexico for work. One of the first things is the fact that he's out of the country & therefore he can get some REAL rest without people calling him all day. Yes, even his lovely wife bugs him while he's trying to sleep :)

The second great thing is that he brings home fun stuff that we can't otherwise get here at home. Check out the bounty from today: 

Chocolate All-Bran cereal (keeps us regular), Chocolate Frosted Flakes (they're GGRRRRRReeeeeaaaattt!), and Choco Milk powder. 

Bit of randomeness #2 is the dinner I made tonight. You know it's summer when you are grilling kabobs. So tasty, healthy, and kept the heat outside of the house! 
The credit for this fine grilling job goes to my husband. He taught me well and I've been much more comfortable with the grill now than I ever have. I only had to make 1 quick call (thanks, Jeff!) to help get the flames under control!

Weekend Update: Staying Cool

This weekend continued our streak of 10+ consecutive days of triple-digit heat. Jay and I enjoyed dancing lessons both Friday and Saturday, and are prepping for a "show" later this summer. Stay tuned for more details!

Sunday we headed up to Glendale to spend the day with the McNeills. It was very exciting because Jay held Alistair for the first time. It turns out they have something in common - they both think their hand is really tasty! 
Alistair loves the pool! Look how laid back he is in his new crab pool toy...
...and how cute he is sporting his hat...
...and how cozy and cuddly after a day in the sun. Don't you want to just eat him up?!
It was really nice hanging out with Jeff, Tara and Kathy too :) We enjoyed Tara's delicious potato salad and marinated vegetables, and grilled brats and sausage, finishing off the afternoon with fresh watermelon. Oh, and later on got some pizza and relaxed inside. Really - there isn't a better or more relaxing way to spend a Sunday! Thanks Tara, Jeff and Kathy! 

Oh, and before we left, Tara got this great shot. Check out Alistair's smile! :) Have a great week!

Date Night at Chase Field

I scored some sweet tickets to the baseball game last night (thanks, boss!), so Jay and I had a nice little date. We definitely went in style! One of the best parts was the valet parking. It's not just valet...we kept driving closer and closer past other valets until we got to the correct one. The one AT the field. Like where the players might park. Full of fancy cars. Our Jetta stuck out like a sore thumb :)

We went in the fancy "Press Entrance". I took a picture when we were leaving because it was just so hidden. We thought it might have been the wrong door if someone had not waved us in.

The seats weren't bad either. Five rows back. With a waitress, restaurant (there was a special restaurant & bathrooms just for our section!), wider seats, more leg room, and a great view of the game! A few "celebrities" were in our section as well - Dan Majerle (from the Suns), Dan Davis (ex-newsman from Channel 3 - he's actually in the red shirt behind Jay in this picture), and right next to me was someone that was somehow related to John Jay from Kiss 104.7. I think.
For dinner, instead of just a hot dog, I had a Hot Dog Panini. With jarlsburg cheese and caramelized onions. It was DELICIOUS! I want to try making them at home sometime.
The only thing that wasn't great was the Diamondbacks. Unfortunately they lost 13-5 against the Cincinnati Reds.
What a great night with my husband! I think we're both pretty spoiled now having had the royal treatment last night. Back to the real world today...

From our Kitchen: Hail Kale!!

I have a binder full of recipes that I have collected over the years. It's overflowing with pages from Cooking Light, Real Simple, Rachel Ray, and various other magazines. When I get bored of the normal rotation of favorite recipes, I look through the binder for a couple ideas. 

One of the recent requirements that both Jay and I have decided on is that new recipes can't require lots of ingredients. We're trying to save money here, so it doesn't make sense to go out and buy a special bottle of oil or some fancy ingredient that we probably will only use 1 or 2 times. 

Anyway - this week was obviously one of those weeks where I needed something different. (Jay, on the other hand, can eat the same thing every day and be happy with it. I don't know how he doesn't get bored but I'm not complaining!). Chicken and Dumplings was last night, and tonight's recipe featured sausage, kale and cannellini beans. 

I have never had kale before, but heard that it's pretty darn good for you...so why not give it a shot? After a short 30 minutes of prep and cooking time, here is what I ended up with: 

It was delicious!! And since it came from Cooking Light, it was healthy too :) 

Now, remember I said that we don't like going out and buying fancy ingredients? Well, I did leave out the sun-dried tomatoes. For that reason and for the fact that Jay isn't a big fan of them. After eating up the whole bowl, I don't think I missed them too much! Oh, and I used rotini instead of farfalle as you can tell. Not as pretty as the bows, but tastes just as good. 

Poor Jay is flying tonight so he won't get to try this until tomorrow. When he'll probably eat it for breakfast. Because he does that. Weirdo :)

From our Kitchen: Chicken and Dumplings

I saw this recipe on Natalie's blog several months ago and had been wanting to try it since then. I love Chicken & Dumplings and knew if Natalie approved, it would be good :) 

First, you sear chunks of floured chicken in a small amount of oil to brown. The recipe calls for boneless chicken thighs, but I substituted with chicken breasts and they worked just fine. Remove the browned chicken and cook the vegetables (carrots, celery and onions) in the pan along with poultry seasoning, salt and pepper until they are soft. Then add chicken broth, water, peas and chicken and simmer. It looks like this:

Then, you make the dumplings. Use pastry flour (see note below), all-purpose flour, baking soda, salt, poultry seasoning and buttermilk (see note below). It gets all sticky like this:
Finally, drop the dumplings by the tablespoon into the simmer, cover, and let cook for 15 minutes until the dumplings are cooked.  Here is the final product. 
It is delicious!!! And healthy!! Less than 500 calories per serving and it makes 6 generous servings. Enough for a few meals :) 

Regarding the flour: I researched pastry flour as this recipe specifically called for it. I guess pastry flour has less protein than all-purpose. The recipe would not turn out correctly if you just use all all-purpose. I found a bag of pastry flour at the grocery store (and am happy to see that you can use it for any recipe that uses baking soda as a levening agent - cookies, etc.), but if you can't find it, you can try 1/2 all purpose flour (high protein content) and 1/2 cake flour (low protein content) as a substitute.

Regarding the buttermilk: If you don't want to buy buttermilk for this recipe, you can make your own. Use 1T vinegar or lemon juice to each cup of milk. We always have lemons on hand, so it's super easy!

Weekend Update: A Blast From the Past

This was a very special weekend. Our friends from flight school came to visit. Visitors included the entire Perkins Family - Tori, Adam, Isabel, Serena and Noah as well as Brett and his girlfriend Amanda.

In order to abbreviate this post as much as possible (keep in mind this is in Amie terms), I'll cover the weekend in pictures!

We went to the park

We rented Marley & Me and ate pizza

We had breakfast at the Cracker Barrel

We played at the water park (this is Jay on the slide)

Brett and Noah bonded (it was their first time meeting each other)

We spent an evening at the Dubliner - where we used to frequent during flight school.

We enjoyed our Guinness (don't we always?)

We goofed off

We took lots of pictures (left to right: Amanda, Jeff, Tara, Me, Jay, Amanda, Brett, Adam, Tori, Myla)

Noah made us laugh

We walked around Tempe Beach Park

We had such an amazing time and are so grateful to have such wonderful friends! I can't believe it's all over :( The upside is that we can get some sleep!