After just seeing the MAXI ladies for a weekend at Lake Oconee in early April (picture to the left - oops, never blogged about that), I got to visit Texas for Memorial Day weekend and see a couple of them again! I wanted to take Nick and introduce him not only to the great friends I have in Longview, but also to the great state that I love so much. The weekend was full of tours of LeTourneau, cruising Longview, cuddling with Emily, back scratches with Lolly, playing games, eating at my favorite restaurants, enjoying the backroads of Texas, LAUGHTER, spending time on the lake, and more. Clearly, it was a GREAT weekend.

We started out by spending some time with Crystal and Kenny around Dallas. We went to Central Market (YUM! Free samples!) and Half Price Books. I've decided that Florida should get those stores.

Emily and Lauren got there to pick us up and we joined Benny, Andy, and Tim at Campania Pizza, which was delicious. Topped it off with a *free* cupcake from Dimples - yum yum. Plus, who doesn't love free?? What was not so pleasant was the 2 hour drive back to Longview that became a 3.5 hour drive because of a wreck, and caused us to get home at 2:30am.



Saturday morning was not the time for slowing down though, so by 8:45, Nick and I were at Chad and Sherene's to spend time with that sweet sweet family that I love so much. Then we went STRAIGHT to cook out with Brenda, Robert, Ryan and Samantha. I love the back woods of Texas, and Robert lives a BIT out of town. Good to reunite with my bookstore family, too.

We might have been exhausted, but then we went to spend time with Em, Ben, Lolly and Kyle (and Boo stopped by too) for the rest of the afternoon/evening. Longview Bingo Hall was probably a bit annoyed by how loud we were, but we had a great time laughing at the things that go on at the Bingo Hall on Saturday night. Oh the fun to be had in Longview...endless possibilities.



Sunday morning, we headed to Macedonia Baptist for my first visit since graduating college, I think! It was good to walk in and still feel at home and as if I know so many people still there. Then, lunch at Papacita's (of course) before heading out to Caddo Lake for kayaking/canoeing and grilling out with Lolly, Em, Ben, Chase, Jason, Natalie and Jamin. So relaxing and beautiful outside. We took it easy that evening, playing games at the apartment.

Benny cooked breakfast on Monday morning, and then we just hung around until time to meet with Lolly and her parents for lunch at Bodacious before heading to Dallas to catch our flight.

It was sooo good to see everyone again, athough it is always a little hard to leave them all behind everytime I have to fly back to Florida. I know that was a season of life, and I'm totally happy in my current season too, but sometimes I just wish the two could coincide more often. I guess I just have to learn to enjoy what times that I do get to make the two intersect, and Memorial Day weekend was a perfect little getaway.










Until next time, Longview!

I made time to do some ethnic cooking this weekend, and was NOT disappointed. My lovely roommate, Kimberly, got me a pressure cooker for my birthday in March. I have used it to make some delicious parmesan risotto a few weeks back, and decided to bust it out again Sunday afternoon to cook lunch for Nick, Bekah, Nick and I. I chose to cook up some Chicken Adobo, a Filipino dish that is also popular in Spain, Latin America and other Asian Pacific places. Accompanied by simple jasmine rice and broccoli, this dish was delish! We all cleaned our plates.

Here's the recipe:

8 or 9 chicken thighs (I used skinless bone-in thighs, simply because I couldn’t find any without the bone, but we de-boned them before cooking. I would HIGHLY recommend boneless thighs if you can find them, but I wouldn’t substitute chicken breasts because the dark meat of the thighs works with the dish much better)
2 cups water
2 cups low sodium soy sauce (WOW, you MUST use the low sodium or you might experience salt overload)
1 large onion (cut into rings)
8 garlic cloves (chopped up)
3 bay leaves
2 tablespoons cooking sherry
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
3 tablespoons molasses
1 tablespoon olive oil

In pressure cooker, combine water, soy sauce, onion, garlic, bay leaves, sherry wine, black pepper and molasses. Place cooker over medium high heat with lid off so the liquid can start to heat up.

In a separate pan, heat olive oil over medium to medium high heat. Brown the chicken thighs on both sides. Once browned, add directly to the liquid in the pressure cooker. Stir a bit to get the chicken thighs down into the liquid.

Place lid on pressure cooker and bring heat up to high. Once the pressure cooker valve starts whistling and rocking around, drop the heat to medium high and set the timer for 25 minutes.

Use this time to cook some jasmine rice. Make as much as you like and simply follow the directions on the bag. When the rice is done, remove it from the burner so the bottom doesn't burn and get hard.

Once the 25 minutes are up, remove the pressure cooker from the heat and run cold water over it to release the pressure and open the cooker. Remove the bay leaves. Serve chicken and sauce over jasmine rice.

Yum-o!

Mother's Day was a little bit ago, I know. BUT, I am consistent in being an inconsistent blogger. That's just how it is, I suppose.

Anyways, I decided to cook my mom lunch for mother's day, and must say that the recipes turned out to be a GREAT mix together.

I tried a new chicken dish, which I also did for a wedding shower I helped host Saturday night of this past weekend, though it was slightly adjusted for the wedding shower. Basically, I took this recipe and adjusted it a bit. Instead of goat cheese, I used cream cheese - partially because I couldn't find the goat cheese at the grocery store where I was and I refused to go to another, but also because in planning to use the recipe again to feed 25+ people at a shower, I thought a trial run with the *cheaper* cream cheese wouldn't be a bad idea. Also, for the shower, I used basil pesto because I didn't have the sun dried tomato pesto on Saturday. And it turned out fine, though the red color of the sun dried tomato looked a little better than the bright green basil pesto in the chicken. =)

I was really craving red beans and rice the other day... odd.

So I decided to make a bunch to have for lunches this week (I am cheap and rarely eat lunches out). I found a recipe for Caribbean red beans and brown rice on the Mayo Clinic's recipe list. I actually find their recipes to be pretty good, and they are always healthier, which I love, so I was excited they had just what I was looking for.

This is the real deal recipe, using dried beans soaked overnight, not the canned stuff. Sometimes I cheat on that step, but not this time around, and I like the outcome! They did suggest using various varieties of brown rice for a more "dirty rice" feel, but I didn't do follow that little instruction.

My only hesitation on the recipe is the addition of the allspice and cloves. They are a little overpowering in flavor, so in the future, I would not include as much of them - possibly cutting the measurements from a 1/2 tsp to an 1/8 tsp of each.

Other than that - super tasty - if you like red beans and rice. Enjoy!

Caribbean Red Beans and Brown Rice (Mayo clinic)

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups dried small red or kidney beans, picked over and rinsed, soaked overnight, and drained
6 1/2 cups water
3 bay leaves
1 1/4 cups assorted brown rices, rinsed and drained
3 tablespoons olive oil or canola oil
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 yellow onion, chopped
1/2 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 cup vegetable stock or broth
1 tomato, cored and diced
2 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme
1 teaspoon hot-pepper sauce
3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro (fresh coriander)

Directions

In a large saucepan over high heat, combine the beans, 4 cups of the water and the bay leaves. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, cover partially and simmer until the beans are tender, 60 to 70 minutes. Drain and discard the bay leaves.

While the beans are cooking, combine the rices, 1 tablespoon of the oil, 1/2 teaspoon of the salt, and the remaining 2 1/2 cups water in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer until the water is absorbed and the rice is tender, about 45 minutes. Set aside and keep warm.

In a large saucepan, heat the remaining 2 tablespoons oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion, bell pepper and celery; saute until the vegetables are softened, 6 to 8 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook until softened, about 1 minute. Add the allspice, cloves, cayenne, the remaining 3/4 teaspoon salt and the black pepper. Cook for 1 minute. Stir in the cooked beans, the vegetable stock, tomato, thyme and hot-pepper sauce. Cook until the vegetable mixture is heated through, 6 to 8 minutes. Divide the rice among warmed individual bowls. Top each serving with beans and sprinkle with the cilantro.

I have realized I am really horrible about blogging about my normal, everyday life. Perhaps this is because I don't feel that I have anything to report, or really, it is probably much more likely that the things that I do have to report are on a more personal nature, and I'm not sure the whole blogosphere (I think I have always wanted to use that word in a sentence) needs to know.

Either way, I have decided that the one thing I can blog about and enjoy immensely, is cooking and baking. So, the format of the blog may change slightly to mostly report of the food I've been cooking, the sweet treats I've been baking, then the recipes (good and bad) that I can then report on. I have so many friends who request this sort of information from my constantly, so I've decided to give in. Also, a while back, Nick and I decided to cook ethnically (trying new and exciting recipes) as much as possible, so those recipes may show up here as well, and since we've done this about three times since that decision, I may have some catching up to do.

For now though... dinner last night. Mark came over since he recently moved to Oviedo, so we had a little Italian themed dinner party.

Main dish: Italian meatloaf in the crock pot (recipe here). I followed the comments on the recipe and crumpled up foil under the meatloaf to let the fat cook off and not saturate the meat. The only problem was that the meat turned out a little dry. Nothing that couldn't be fixed with some extra spaghetti sauce, but still... not the best ever. BUT, I figure it was a whole lot healthier, so I'm ok with that.

Side dish 1: Risotto (recipe here)! I had yet to use my new pressure cooker, so I decided to find a recipe so that I could remedy that. Granted, the pressure cooker is a little, um, scary as it bangs around and shoots steam out for 10 minutes straight, but the final product was delish.

Side dish 2: Broccoli. Simple - steamed in my little electronic steamer.

And then of course, the classic Italian dessert of tiramisu, which I actually had never made before. Again, a HIT of a recipe - one I'll keep to use again, though I will say that my egg whites almost didn't set up right. I think the 160 degrees in the sauce pan is pretty important, so next time, I might opt towards using my candy thermometer, which I didn't do this time. So, not the simplest recipe, but definitely delish. And pretty light on the coffee flavor actually. Nick who doesn't like coffee (what a weirdo!) even liked it. Bekah on the other hand? Not so much. I got the recipe from tasteofhome.com, and it was a subscriber only recipe, so I'll post it below. (Sidenote: it was delish AND a low fat recipe.)

Sensational Tiramisu

Ingredients

• 1 package (8 ounces) reduced-fat cream cheese
• 2/3 cup confectioners' sugar
• 1-1/2 cups reduced-fat whipped topping, divided
• 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
• 3 egg whites
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 packages (3 ounces each) ladyfingers, split
• 1/2 cup boiling water
• 2 tablespoons coffee liqueur
• 1 tablespoon instant coffee granules
• 1/2 teaspoon baking cocoa

Directions

• In a small bowl, beat cream cheese and confectioners' sugar until smooth. Fold in 1 cup whipped topping; set aside.
• Combine 1/2 cup sugar, egg whites and water in a small heavy saucepan over low heat. With a hand mixer, beat on low speed for 1 minute. Continue beating on low over low heat until mixture reaches 160°, about 8-10 minutes. Pour into a large bowl. Beat on high until stiff peaks form, about 7 minutes. Fold into cream cheese mixture.
• Arrange half of ladyfingers in an ungreased 11-in. x 7-in. dish. Combine the boiling water, coffee liqueur, coffee granules and remaining sugar; brush half of mixture over ladyfingers. Top with half of cream cheese mixture. Repeat layers. Spread remaining whipped topping over the top; sprinkle with cocoa. Refrigerate for 2 hours before serving. Yield: 12 servings.