I totally would’ve posted this 5 days ago (when it actually was our anniversary), but a few unexpected things have happened this week and I haven’t had a chance to even get to my computer! Anyway, our 3 year anniversary was this past Wednesday – sometimes I can’t get over that we’ve been married 3 years. It seems like it wasn’t that long ago that we were on our honeymoon! On top of having our anniversary to celebrate, my hubby just accepted a new job (yay!), so we decided to go out for a fancy dinner a couple of days early, then on our actual anniversary have a nice quiet dinner at home. I was trying to think of something different that we haven’t had at home a lot, and jambalaya kept coming to mind. Since we both looooove Cajun food, I decided jambalaya would perfect (with a glass or two of champagne, of course!)!

And oh my gosh, it was SO good! I kinda-sorta followed a recipe, but mostly just threw stuff in. We absolutely loved it- I’ll definitely be making this over and over again. We had a wonderful, relaxing evening and this was a perfect meal to go with it! Who knows, maybe 50 years from now I’ll be serving this same jambalaya to my sweet hubby for our anniversary dinner!

Jambalaya
-(very loosely) adapted from Allrecipes.com

1 pound smoked sausage, sliced (I like to use turkey sausage)
1/2 pound peeled, deveined shrimp
2 bell peppers, diced
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 (14.5 ounce) can peeled and diced tomatoes
3 cups chicken broth
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
Cajun seasoning to taste
1/2 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
2 bay leaves
2 cups white rice

In a medium pot, bring 2 cups of the chicken broth to a boil and cook the rice as directed.  In a large pot over medium heat, cook bell pepper, onion and garlic in the oil until onion is translucent.
Stir in tomatoes, pepper sauce, cayenne, Worcestershire, Cajun seasoning and bay leaves; reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes.
Stir the shrimp and sausage into the spiced vegetables. Continue to simmer until flavor is as spicy as you like, adding the leftover chicken broth as needed to thin. Add the cooked rice and continue to cook for 10 minutes more.

*You may not need the entire amount of leftover chicken broth – just use as much as you need to get the jambalaya the consistency you want.

Believe it or not, I’m not a huge fan of meatballs in my spaghetti.  Something about them bothers me, but I can’t really explain what it is.  After a few weeks of wanting to try Ina Garten’s marinara recipe, I decided to make some for dinner. Then I thought I might as well throw some meatballs in the mix too, just to see if I could come up with a recipe I liked.  Of course (no surprise whatsoever) Ina’s marinara was totally delicious – I love that she uses red wine! It’s a little tangy and really hearty and thick.  I decided to just wing it on the meatballs – I mixed ground beef with fresh bread crumbs, parmesan cheese, an egg and salt and pepper.  Very simple and straight forward.  And since I hate standing over a skillet turning splattering meatballs every 2 minutes, I just threw them in the oven for about 25 minutes and they came out perfectly!

Hubby and I really enjoyed our spaghetti and meatballs!  Since the sauce is so robust and full of flavor, I didn’t spice the meatballs up too much – I just let the sauce take care of it.  I’ll most definitely be using this marinara recipe again and again…it’ll most likely be my stand-by marinara in the future!  This was a really (really!) yummy dinner – I’m glad I finally found a meatball that I’d actually want to put in my spaghetti!

Meatballs

1 pound lean ground beef
1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs (3 slices white bread ground up in the food processor)
1 egg
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, mix all ingredients until combined. Roll meat into 1 1/2-2 inch balls and place on a greased baking sheet. Bake for 25-30 minutes until browned and cooked throughout.

Marinara Sauce
-Ina Garten

1 tablespoon good olive oil
1 cup chopped yellow onion (1 onion)
1 1/2 teaspoons minced garlic
1/2 cup good red wine, such as Chianti
1 (28-ounce) can crushed tomatoes, or plum tomatoes in puree, chopped
1 tablespoon chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Heat the olive oil in a large (12-inch) skillet. Add the onion and saute over medium heat until translucent, 5 to 10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 1 more minute. Add the wine and cook on high heat, scraping up all the brown bits in the pan, until almost all the liquid evaporates, about 3 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes, parsley, salt, and pepper. Cover, and simmer on the lowest heat for 15 minutes.

*I also added about a tablespoon of brown sugar to add a little sweetness

This week’s pick is Flaky Apple Turnovers, chosen by Julie of  Someone’s In The Kitchen.  I love apple turnovers (honestly, my favorite kind is the store-bought frozen kind that comes with the little triangle of frosting….mmm…), so I was excited to see these on this month’s line-up.  Basically the filling is just chopped apples, sugar and cinnamon; but Dorie says you can also add a little jam, so I added some homemade peach preserves as well as homemade plum jam. I was really glad I did this because it added a lot of extra flavor.

It was nice to have a dessert involving apples (I’m finding myself getting a little tired of chocolate lately…weird!) just as the weather has started getting a little cooler and “Fall-y”. If you’d like the recipe for these turnovers, check out Julie’s blog!  Go make you some flaky apple turnovers and enjoy the weather!!

Ok, I know I’ve been sort of MIA lately…it’s been a busy couple of weeks (translation: I started teaching voice lessons last week and have 12 freshman girls…it’s not the easiest thing in the world trying to  get someone to open their mouth wider when they obviously think you’re the biggest loser that ever walked the earth…).  But anyway, here I am, back to normal (hopefully) and blogging on a regular basis again!  Let me just take a couple of seconds to tell you about this bread…it’s seriously good.  I was browsing allrecipes.com for zucchini bread and just wasn’t feeling all that impressed with the recipes.  They all sounded pretty boring to me.  So I finally just closed my eyes and picked one (sort of) and ended up with this recipe.  I’m SO very glad I did, because this turned out to be really, really good!

The inside of the bread was soft and incredibly moist, with just a hint of spice (I don’t like an overpowering amount, so this was just right!), and the top of the loaf had sort of  a crust on it that was crumbly and delicious – the top crust was by far my favorite part!  I can tell you with complete honesty that I will most definitely be making this recipe over and over again!  It’s just perfect for Fall….or for those of us who just have to pretend it’s Fall since it’s still a blazing 95 degrees outside…ugh.

Zucchini Bread
-allrecipes.com

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 1/4 cups white sugar
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups grated zucchini
1 cup chopped walnuts

Grease and flour two 8 x 4 inch pans. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
Sift flour, salt, baking powder, soda, and cinnamon together in a bowl.
Beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar together in a large bowl.  Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture, and beat well. Stir in zucchini and nuts until well combined.  Pour batter into prepared pans. (I sprinkled a little brown sugar over the top before baking and it helped to create the nice crust!)
Bake for 40 to 60 minutes, or until tester inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool in pan on rack for 20 minutes. Remove bread from pan, and completely cool.

**Note: This recipe makes two loaves – I cut it in half and came out with one perfectly sized loaf.

In the town where hubby and I grew up, there is a small little restaurant called The Purple Turnip that serves really good “chick food”.  If you were to go for lunch on a weekday, you’d see 90% women – teachers, old ladies, business women and “ladies-who-lunch”…of course there will be the occasional male, but chances are he was dragged there by his wife.  Their biggest seller? Quiche.  It’s SO good.  It’s different every day.  Sometimes it has broccoli, sometimes spinach, sometimes asparagus…but it’s always totally delicious.  Naturally, everytime we’re visting home, I always want to go to Purple Turnip. Quiche, followed by out-of-this-world tiramisu. Perfect.

Recently, I had a major hankering for quiche, and since an hour’s drive to Purple Turnip wasn’t in our near future, I decided to just make my own awesome quiche.  And boy was it good!  I was really pleased with the way it turned out – light and fluffy and filled with tons of asparagus, mushrooms and bacon…YUM! I will most definitely be making this one again!

Quiche with Asparagus, Mushrooms and Bacon

1 9-inch pie crust
7 large eggs
3/4 cup half and half
1 bunch asparagus, trimmed and chopped
1 small can sliced mushrooms, drained (you can use fresh, I just happened to have canned on hand)
4-6 slices bacon, cooked and diced
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Press pie crust into a pie plate and set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, half and half and salt and pepper. Add the chopped asparagus, mushrooms, bacon and cheddar cheese and stir to combine. Pour into pie plate and bake for 50-60 minutes, or until quiche is set (the center might still be slightly jiggly- that’s ok). If it starts browning too soon, cover it with a foil tent. Let sit for 10 minutes before serving.

*I like my asparagus slightly crisp, so I don’t cook it before putting it in the quiche; but if you like it really tender, you can blanch it in some boiling water for about 5 minutes before adding it to the egg mixture.

I’ve been taking the Wilton Cake Decorating classes over the past month (Course 1) with a good friend of mine; we really enjoyed it and learned a lot!  I didn’t know how to even do a simple flower, so this course was especially helpful to me.  In the first course we learned things like roses, sweet peas (my personal favorite!), hearts, clowns (eww), shell border, stars, dots and lots of other things! I managed to get some pretty good pictures of my last cake, but the clown cake didn’t get photographed, and my friend Andrea took a picture of the first cake with her little p&s camera – here are some of the pictures.

This was my first cake….not the greatest, I know. My writing skills are really lacking…(Sorry it’s blurry…I had to resize it and it sort of looks like crap. Plus, it was taken with a point and shoot…).

The last cake of the course.

Sweet peas….my favorite!

I’m planning on taking the other two courses, which include fondant, royal icing and a wedding-style cake!  Hopefully I’ll get pretty good..eventually!

This week’s recipe was chosen by Melissa of Life In A Peanut Shell.  Unfortunately, I actually didn’t have a very memorable experience with these brownies.  It’s too bad, too, because they sounded fantastic.  Maybe I did something wrong…who knows.  They looked pretty, though!

These were supposed to be marbled, but my cheesecake batter was so runny, I thought it best to just leave it be.  I sort of liked seeing the two distinct layers, though.  The sour cream topping was really nice, too- I’ll probably use that for future cheesecake recipes.  I think what I didn’t like about these was the dense fudginess of the brownie layer – it was just too fudgy for me, believe it or not.  BUT – as always, I’m still really glad I tried these.  They were tasty overall….just not something I’d make again, probably. Better luck next time, though!  Head on over to Melissa’s blog and check out the recipe – these just might be your cup of tea!