Refreshing Cucumber Water…

Cucumber Water

For Valentine’s Day this year, Joel took me (sans baby) to an nice hotel for the weekend. We lounged in bed watching movies, snacked on complimentary cake balls and champagne, and literally did pretty much nothing but wallow in our sweet, sweet freedom. I know. That sounds just horrible, doesn’t it? How could we even think about enjoying ourselves without our precious one year old?? Well….it was EASY. Although I did require hourly updates from my parents and may have ended up watching a video they sent us of Cassidy having an absolutely splendid time over…and over…and over. Ah, freedom from the baby; always a bit bittersweet, no? 😉

Anyway, to treat ourselves after a particularly long and tiring few weeks, we visited the spa at the hotel. Being one of the top rated spas in the DFW area, we were eager to give it a try, and it totally lived up to its reputation! Hands down, the greatest massage I’ve ever had! However, the thing I remembered most from our little spa outing was the lovely snacks they had! All kinds of fresh fruits, dried fruits, nuts, coffee, a variety of teas, and glasses of ice cold water with cucumber slices. It was so crisp and refreshing! Since that weekend in February, I’ve made several pitchers of this cucumber water. When it’s hot summer, there’s nothing better than a cold glass of this stuff! It’ll cool you right off!

Refreshing Cucumber Water

filtered, cold water
1 seedless hothouse cucumber (if your store doesn’t carry the seedless variety, regular cucumbers are fine)
ice

Fill a large pitcher with cold, filtered water. Thoroughly wash and thinly slice your cucumbers; no need to peel. Add ice and cucumbers to pitcher. Serve immediately.

 

Share:
 
   




Buttermilk Biscuits…

Buttermilk Biscuits 2

Raise your hand if you love breakfast for dinner. Me too. Something about getting to drink coffee at night is strangely fun for me. Speaking of that, isn’t it funny how old people always drink coffee with their dinner? In our little town, you’ll go to a restaurant and see an old couple eating mexican food and drinking coffee. Weird.

Anyway, about these biscuits. Now, normally, I would insist on making my great-grandmother’s biscuits, since that was her thing. Baba was a very gifted cook, but I think she would agree with me when I say biscuits were her specialty (well, it may be a tie with her peach cobbler.). However, I don’t exactly have the recipe. Once I tried making them from the cookbook my mom said Baba always used for her biscuits, but something wasn’t right. Honestly, for whatever reason, I’m too scared to make Baba’s biscuits. Just add it to the list of things I’m too chicken to make (my mom’s fried okra, chicken fried steak, anything involving yeast…the list, unfortunately, goes on).

So this time, I chose Deb of Smitten Kitchen’s recipe. And they were really, really good. So perfect hot from the oven and smeared with butter alongside a cup of coffee. And far too easy to continue making store-bought. Frankly, there’s just no comparison.

Buttermilk Biscuits

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon sugar (to taste; you can use more or less. I don’t like mine to be overly sweet)
1 tablespoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
9 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter, cut into small chunks
3/4 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 400 °F and line baking sheet with parchment paper. Whisk flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda in large, wide bowl. Using fingertips or a pastry blender, work butter into dry ingredients until the mixture resembles a coarse meal, Add buttermilk and stir until large clumps form. Using hands, knead mixture briefly until it just holds together.

Transfer dough to floured counter and pat out until 1/2 to 3/4-inch thick. Using a round cutter (about 2 inches; I always use a small juice glass, like my great-grandmother did), press straight down — twisting produces less layered sides — and transfer rounds to baking sheet, spacing two inches apart.

Bake until biscuits are golden brown on top, about 12 to 15 minutes. Serve warm. Makes approximately 9 biscuits.

Recipe source: barely adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Share:
 
   




Meatloaf Muffins…

Meatloaf Muffins

Ok, so these look more like meatloaf…spheres.

I make meatloaf all the time- I love it, Joel loves it, Cassidy loves it….we all love meatloaf. But sometimes it’s fun to play around with a classic. What’s more fun than having your own personal little meatloaf sphere muffin? I don’t know how it is at your house, but at my house, everyone wants the end piece of the meatloaf- it’s the piece with the most “crust” on the outside. By making muffins, every single piece is the end piece! Huzzah!

Meatloaf Muffins 2

Meatloaf Muffins

1 pound lean, ground beef
1 egg, beaten
1 15-oz. can diced tomatoes
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon worcestershire sauce
half an onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
1/2 package Saltine Crackers, crushed (probably about 10 crackers or so)
ketchup for the tops, if desired

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Grease a muffin pan that holds 12. In a small skillet over medium-high heat, sauté the onion and pepper with a little butter or olive oil until soft; about 5 minutes. Set aside to cool.

In a large bowl, combine the ground beef, egg, tomatoes, salt, pepper, worcestershire, onion and pepper, and saltine cracker crumbs (I find the best way to do this is with my hands). Place some of the meat mixture in each greased muffin cup and bake for about 35 minutes, until a nice crust forms on the tops. Top with ketchup before serving, if desired. Makes about 12 muffins.

Recipe source: Sing For Your Supper original

Share:
 
   




Ugh, Blogging…

I’m going to be real honest with you for a second. I’m sick of blogging. Each day I find it harder and harder to sit down and write a post. Usually because I’m too busy/too tired/whatever. But mostly because, frankly, I’m just tired of it. I’m too lazy to style my food, so my pictures suck. There’s nothing I can say in my post that hasn’t already been said a billion times. I’ve been blogging for 5 years, people. It’s been said.

Blogging is a different animal nowadays. When I first started this blog back in 2008, it was pretty simple. We cooked, we photographed, we blogged. It seems like now there are like, 10 added steps! We cook it (not necessarily because it sounded like great recipe, but because we think it might be a big hit on pinterest), we style it, we photograph it, we blog it, we submit it to various food photography sites, we pin it, we post it to our facebook, twitter, and instagram, and then we do the whole thing over again the very next day, because if we let off the gas pedal for even a little, we might lose our followers and our advertising revenue will go down, all the while, finding time to go to countless seminars and conferences learning how to better our blogs, become masters at SEO, and learn how to get the maximum exposure on pinterest. Well, I’m in trouble….because I hardly do any of that! Imagine the cloud of worry constantly hanging over my head because I’ve fallen off the blogging horse and can’t seem to get back up. What will happen to my blogher ads? What if I lose readers? My pay will go down considerably! ‘My pay’?? Seriously?! Gross, Amy.

Then I log onto twitter/pinterest/feedly and see so many fellow bloggers selling out and proudly doing some random company’s advertising for them. Is that what we’ve become, bloggers? An advertisement for someone else‘s stuff? If every post you create revolves around a product that someone paid you to talk about, I think you’re missing the point. I’m tired of good bloggers trying to sell me on cell phones/potatoes/coffee makers/yogurt/WHATEVER.  But even that isn’t the real reason I’m sick of blogging.

There is a particular post that has been sitting in my drafts folder for almost a year now. It’s a cursed post. Seriously. Every time I sit down to finish the dang thing, something ALWAYS happens to prohibit me from typing a word. I’m not kidding- the post draft contains one picture…but not one word. This morning, I decided to sit down and just knock it out in one setting. Just plow on through and get it finished! And then this happened:

photo 1

And this:

photo 2

 [heart = melted]

Seriously, HOW can I, in good conscience, sit there and blog while my sweet baby looks like this?! I can’t. That’s why I barely get any blogging done anymore. Because I refuse to do it while Cassidy is awake, since that’s our time. When she’s napping, I try to use the time for a shower or cleaning or napping myself. By the time bedtime rolls around, honestly, I just don’t feel like it. That’s my time with Joel, and the last thing I want to do is sit in front of a laptop.

I know. There are LOTS of blogging moms who find time to do it all. Pretty much all of my closest blogging friends have kids- little kids!- and they find plenty of time to devote to their blogs while giving ample attention to their children. I guess the difference between them and me is they’re not burned out. I need to find purpose in my blogging again. And something tells me it has nothing to do with stats, ads, or pinterest. I know that every time I wait a week in between posts, I lose readers. I know that. But it also means I’m doing something far more meaningful with my time- whether it’s swinging in the back yard or pretend cooking with Cassidy, lounging in bed watching Psych re-runs with Joel, or having coffee with my mom and sister. When I finally do find my blogging purpose again (and I will), it’ll be because it was on my schedule and not my readers’ or pinterest’s or my sidebar ads’. So there.

Phew. It feels good to get that out! Any other bloggers out there feel my pain? Share it with me! I’d love to know how you refreshed yourself and your blogging! Hopefully I’m not alone, here. 🙂

Share:
 
   




Crispy Baked Black Bean Taquitos…

Crispy Baked Black Bean Taquitos

Hi friends! I hope everybody had a great 4th of July weekend! We had the whole family over Thursday, and then Joel took off work Friday through yesterday, so we’ve had a great, loooooong weekend! We ate out, saw the new Star Trek movie (finally), had brunch, slept in, went shopping, and lounged by the pool. I love stay-cations! Unfortunately, that means I’m way behind on my blogging (as if I weren’t already…). So let’s get back to it!

You know those crunchy black bean tacos I love so much? Well, these are their not-so-distant cousins. As much as I love the tacos, I wasn’t in the mood to stand over the frying pan for a long period of time. So I decided to make baked taquitos instead of tacos! The filling is the same, but you could easily add meat and customize it any way you like. These are crunchy, crispy, and oozing with cheesy bean filling- super yummy!

Crispy Baked Black Bean Taquitos

1 can black beans
12 corn tortillas
small handful chopped cilantro
1 1/2 tablespoons salsa
1/4 teaspoon salt
shredded cheddar cheese
vegetable oil

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. In a small bowl, mash the black beans with the back of a fork; stir in the cilantro, salsa, and salt. Set aside.

In a skillet, heat a few tablespoons of vegetable oil over medium-high heat. Have your bean filling nearby. Place one of the tortillas in the hot oil and cook for 30 seconds or so on each side; remove from oil and place on a work surface. Spread some of the bean filling over the tortilla, then sprinkle with cheese. Roll the tortilla up and place on a baking sheet. Repeat with the rest of the tortillas and filling. Bake for about 10 minutes, until crisp. Serves 3-4.

Serve with guacamole, sour cream, and/or salsa. I like to stir a little salsa into my sour cream to make an easy dip.

Recipe source: Sing For Your Supper original

Crispy Baked Black Bean Taquitos 2

Share: