From Our Kitchen: Valentine's Day

For Valentine's Day this year, we decided to replicate a burger from Kuma's Corner that we didn't get to try while in Chicago last month. If you forgot how amazing these burgers were, that post is here.

Anyway, before I get to that, let me tell you that when I got home from work that day, Jay greeted me at the door & led me to a drawn bath. I soaked in a bathroom adorned with candles while Jay prepped the meal. And, to top that off, he came in & gave me a foot scrub/massage in between chopping & sautéing!
I know - I am one lucky girl :)

After the bath, I joined Jay in the kitchen to help prepare our delicious meal. We decided to replicate the burger called "Lair of the Minotaur" from the menu here. He started by cooking up some pancetta in the cast iron pan.

Then the burgers were seasoned & ready for the grill:

One of the key ingredients to a meal at Kuma's is their delicious homemade ketchup! Jay found the secret ingredient - Gardiniera - at our local Italian deli & I helped mix up a batch!

The burgers were topped with the crispy pancetta, pears cooked in bourbon, caramelized onions & brie. We used challah bread for the bun. 

I think it looks just as delicious as Kuma's and we didn't have to wait for a table!

And the taste? Can't be beat. It was drip down your arm delicious! 

Thanks honey for a very special Valentine's Day! 

Weekend Update: Family Visit

Jay's parents came to visit the second weekend we were home & we had a great time! 

This is what a good chunk of the weekend looked like - comfy on the couch watching football - specifically Nebraska beat Missouri:

Saturday night we went to the Roaring Fork for a delicious dinner! It was soooooo good. We started with their famous kettle of green chili pork with hot buttered tortillas...yum! Then for dinner I had the Sugar Cured Duck Breast with onion jam, sour cherry mustard and little cabbages. Jay had the RF Mixed Grill which included baby back ribs, rotisserie chicken, shrimp and sausage.

 Ed had issues with the chair. Memorable moment...

Saturday before heading out to dinner, I started working on Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Rolls. I had wanted to try the recipe for a long time and decided this weekend was the time to go for it! It wasn't until I started mixing the ingredients that I re-read her blog post & realized that the recipe made 7 pans!!! Yikes! 

 

As you can see they did turn out quite delicious & I had enough to share with my friends at work and even freeze 2 pans for later!

After we stuffed our faces with doughy deliciousness, we headed over to Desert Botanical Garden for a little walk. It was a gorgeous fall day & perfect weather to explore. I had been telling Karen & Ed about the Chihuly exhibit that I sadly missed out on a year or two ago & I was pleasantly surprised to see that they had one installation left. Here you can see the beautiful "Desert Towers" project that the garden is raising money for so it can be a permanent fixture. Can you believe it's glass??

 Awww. Happy to have my husband home!

 I loved this particular cacti. Can't remember its name, but it had the word "button" in it. Super cute polka dots :)

With it being Halloween, there was a big Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration going on. This lovely skeleton drinking a beer greeted us.

 Pretty flowers that remind me of home for some reason:

 Gorgeous sundial that had flowers/plants set just right to tell the time (and it was accurate!):

 Handsome husband among the Saguaro:

 Who says the desert isn't green??

Thanks Karen & Ed for a great visit! We really enjoyed seeing you!!

Weekend Update: A Few Weekends Real Quick

Let's just say things have been busy these past few weeks so here is a quick recap of a few highlights:

Tori arrived in town on May 27 for a few days. It was a last minute trip, and we're so glad she came! We went out on Friday night and stayed out till the wee hours of the morning!

I made popovers for the first time. My mom got me the special pan for Christmas (or my birthday?) and I finally gave it a shot! Our family friend Sarah gave me this tried & true recipe. 

They were so yummy! I had mine with butter and then maple syrup on one half and apricot jam on the other. Jay had butter & jam on his. They were delicious and pretty easy so I can't wait to try them again with guests!

Last weekend, we had to stop by Jay's work on Sunday to welcome the Brasilia (airplane) to his base. It (and pilots) arrived in the afternoon so I "enjoyed" some time on the ramp at Sky Harbor during a 110 degree afternoon waiting for Jay to finish up welcoming the pilots and showing them around the base. 

I'm guessing it was about 120 on the tarmac that afternoon!

Good thing we had a POOL PARTY to attend! Kiera's birthday party was that afternoon, so we arrived at Krista & Angelo's just in time for mai tais and delicious hawaiian pork, fruit, and even hawaiian pizza! Krista was such a great hostess and the birthday girl had a great time!

Oh and I thought you'd like to see how great Jay and I look. We've been working out, ya know :)

From our Kitchen: Homemade Granola

Remember a few weeks ago when my friend Emily spent the night? Well, we had asked her what she usually eats for breakfast so she'd feel right at home in the morning (and be energized for a full day of travel home). She said usually granola with yogurt. Jay picked some up at the grocery store that afternoon and since Emily left without eating any of it, Jay enjoyed it throughout the week. 

Fast forward to a week later when we're at the grocery store. Jay is about to throw some in the cart & I realize that we have everything we have at home to make our own! And guess what? It will be cheaper AND we can make some that even I can eat (no nuts)! 

I found this recipe that I used as a guideline and got started. 

Here is what you'll need:

Oats (not the quick kind), maple syrup, raw seeds or nuts, chocolate, and dried fruit. The one thing I'm missing in this picture is the butter. You'll need some of that too.

Mix together the oats, raw pumpkin seeds (pepitas), raw sunflower seeds and nuts if you are going to use them. Then melt 2T of butter and mix with 1/2 cup of maple syrup. (Please don't even THINK about using that nasty fake stuff). Slowly drizzle the butter/syrup mix into the dry components and stir until they are coated. 

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and spread out the mixture.

Bake at 325 for 30-40 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes or so. The longer you bake, the crunchier it gets. WARNING: Your house will smell REALLY good at this point. 

Put the pan on a cooling rack for about 10-20 minutes until cool. Then layer on the fun stuff. Here I used things that were already in our pantry - raisins, dried apricots, chocolate chips and a few butterscotch chips. You really don't need much of these ingredients - keep in mind that you want to have a nice balance of sweet & salty, crunchy & soft. 

Then mix it all up until it looks like this.

I put into a labeled ziploc freezer bag so that we know which one is mine (no nuts) and Jay's (w/almonds). 

Since it's warm in our place, I store it in the fridge so the chocolate & butterscotch chips stay firm. 

This really is such an easy recipe and it's great to have around the house! So far I've eaten it like cereal (w/milk & sometimes strawberries), mixed into plain yogurt (with or without strawberries), or just by the handful. It would also be really good on ice cream!! 

Enjoy & have a great week!!

xoxo

From our Kitchen: Leaving us Speechless...

Shane & Erin came over on Sunday with something that Jay was very excited to cook for us. Does anyone have a guess what was on the menu? 

No? Well, let's have Shane & Erin give you a hint:

Now do you have an idea?

Right there amongst the veggies (yellow carrots from the farmer's market!) and grilled ciabatta (freshly baked that morning also from the farmer's market!) is BUFFALO TONGUE.

Oh yeah you heard right. We had tongue for dinner on Sunday. Shane & Erin bought 1/8 of a buffalo recently and were oh so very kind to share this delicacy with them. Can you hear my sarcasm?!

We all agreed that the sauce - a recipe Jay found online - was quite delicious. But the tongue? It was tough. Tough to chew and tough to eat more than one bite. So that's all Erin & I could manage.

But man, was that bread good.

From our Kitchen: Delizioso!

Since nobody guessed what we purchased at the outlets a few weekends ago, I figured I might as well give it away....

...we bought a pasta maker!

Making pasta is ridiculously simple. It's flour, a little water & egg:

You slowly mix it up until it forms a nice firm dough:

Then let it rest for about 10 minutes.

It was fun putting it through the "machine"....

...but let's just say it was a learning curve. We think we put the pasta through the spaghetti side when it was a little too thick because it stopped working. So we then switched to the fettuccine side which worked just great. Later on Jay tackled "fixing" the spaghetti side:

at least the fettuccine side still works

Here is our beautiful spaghetti all ready to be cooked:

And in the pot - a little of both! It only takes a few minutes until it's done! 

While we were making the dough and testing out the machine I also made some homemade sauce (simple, easy & yummy recipe!)...

...and topped it off with our homegrown fresh basil! 

Ok, I admit we did purchase the parmesan! 

We loved the fresh pasta & recommend you give it a try sometime! Even if you don't have a machine, you can just roll it out real thin & then slice it with a knife.

Now THAT is delizioso!