It's A-Ok Thursday!

I love this! So I am linking up for the first time! Check it Out!

It's ok...

To check your personal email, twitter, facebook and blog while at work

That Rich and I have watched over 120 episodes of Cheers...

...and that that equals over 2 days total of Cheers!

To be totally obsessed with the iPhone Instragram App

That I have started drinking coffee - more because I like it, less because I need it

That it is only Thursday!

It is even better that tomorrow is Friday!

Chicken Tikka Masala

I pulled out chicken for dinner and had no idea what to make.

So I consulted my lovely best friend Laura and she recommend this Chicken Tikka Masala Recipe.

headed out the door for his first day of school!!

Oh. My. Gosh. This was so tasty and I recommend it times a million! Thank you Laura for sharing!!

It was Rich's first day of school and so I wanted to make him something special. He has been working really hard on getting ready for school to start and I wanted him to be pampered when he got home!! And I know how much he loved Indian Food, so this was perfect!!

Ingredients

• 1 cup yogurt
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
• 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
• 4 teaspoons salt, or to taste
• 3 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces
• 4 long skewers

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 jalapeno pepper, finely chopped
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 3 teaspoons salt, or to taste
• 1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

In a large bowl, combine yogurt, lemon juice, 2 teaspoons cumin, cinnamon, cayenne, black pepper, ginger, and 4 teaspoons salt.  Stir in chicken, cover, and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Melt butter in a large heavy skillet over medium heat. Saute garlic and jalapeno for 1 minute. Season with 2 teaspoons cumin, paprika, and 3 teaspoons salt.

Stir in tomato sauce and cream. Simmer on low heat until sauce thickens, about 20 minutes.

Preheat Grill Pan.  Add chicken to the grill and discard marinade. Grill until juices run clear, about 5 minutes on each side.

Add grilled chicken, and simmer for 10 minutes.

Transfer to a serving platter, and garnish with fresh cilantro.

Buon Appetito! 

Make this! You will not be disappointed!!

10 on Tuesday

 I wanted to link up with Roots & Rings! I haven't done this in a while!

I am welcoming myself back to blogging in full force!

Thank you job for sitting me in front of a computer all day :-)

1. What is your dream vacation?

The vacation that we are planning for next summer: Machu Picchu

 

2. What has been your favorite trip so far in your life?

My honeymoon - we spent 10 days in Switzerland and 4 days in Paris - it was amazing and the company, well it was the best!

3. If you and one of your best friends could go anywhere in the world for one week, where would it be and why?

We would go to Italy. We have talked about it before and we were going to plan something, however time and money got in the way :-(

4. Have you ever booked a trip using an online deal? How did it go?

No, I haven't! I have book flights and hotels online, but never a full trip - they seem pretty awesome!

5. What’s your favorite thing to do while you’re on vacation?

Sight See!

6. Have you ever missed an opportunity to take a trip that you regret?

Yes and No. One day I was looking at flights to awesome places and saw an unbelievable deal to Greece. I had just gotten back from Italy and had NO money, so I didn't take it. I don't regret not going for financial reasons, but I regret not going for the experience.

7. You travel far away from home and get stranded with no way to buy anything, what’s the one thing you can’t live without?

Contacts!

8. What’s one of your favorite traveling memories?

Playing chess on my iTouch on the train rides through Switzerland and France

9. All included resort or backpacking? Why?

ha! This is a funny question....

Rich and I went backpacking for our honeymoon - it was wonderful! We had an awesome time!

We will likely backpack when we go to Peru

And our vacation after that will be an all included resort where we can eat drink and be in swim suits all day! 

10. Are you more of a lie on the beach kind of person on vacation, or do you prefer to see the sights?

It all depends! I love to relax and feel like that is important in a vacation, but I think that it is also important to see all of the sights so you don't regret going and just sitting! So you can say, "yea, I saw that!" or "yea, I've been there!"

When A Man Loves a Woman

This is one of the greatest song!!

Make all of your husbands, boyfriends and loved ones watch this/listen to this video!

I hope you all are having a great day!

Giants v Dodgers

Last week we went to the Giants vs Dodger Game.

I had a tough time because I would have been a Giants fan because I am from the Bay Area but I was at the Dodger stadium sitting with only Dodger fans...and, well, we also got Dodger hats with UCLA colors at the gate!

Our friend has been a season ticket holder and knows all of the security guards! So, we got to sit in an empty box right behind 1st base! It was awesome!!

I have definitely never been that close before!!

We also got some tickets to go into the club house for free food...

Rich chomping away :-)

We had a blast!!

BEARD!

After the Giants Lost....

We had a lot of fun!

My Fight with the Tennis Court

What Happened:

I fell while we were playing tennis.

How it Happened:

I was going for a back hand, apparently, I missed the ball and twisted around and ate it!

Why it Happened:

????????

The Story:

For my birthday, Rich gave me a tennis racket so we have been trying to get to the community courts down the street at least once a week.  So we went over to the tennis courts on Saturday to play for a bit before our date night!  We got there and all of the courts were taken so we decided to wait for a bit and see if anything opened up. 

So, finally a court opened up and we ran over and snatched it up. We were playing for maybe 5 minutes and Rich hit me a back hand, and I went to hit it, even though it was out, and I did a huge wind up, missed the ball and tripped over myself and landed with a huge smack on the ground scraping up my back, elbow, hip and knee.

I laughed it off - fortunately I was wearing sun glasses because my laughter turned into tears :-( because it hurt! We played for a little bit longer and then I had to stop because my elbow was hurting and it happened that I landed on my hurt knee (the knee that I hurt on our honeymoon) so I was limping around the court.

I landed right on the bone and so I am now limping all around!! It is no good!

Fortunately, I am a lucky gal with a great husband who takes good care of me!

We went on our date night out to dinner at Bucca Di Beppo {we had a gift card - love having gift cards!} and saw Moneyball - I definitely recommend this movie! And from growing up an Oakland A's fan, it was awesome to watch!

Fortunately there was a cherry on top of the accident!

Turkey Sliders & UCLA Football

Last weekend we went to the UCLA vs Texas game. We had a blast even though UCLA got crushed :-(

 In preparation for the game, I decided to make sliders for the tailgate before hand. Our friends were bringing the beer and we were bringing the food!

Let me start out by saying that I love love love to make burgers, so being on slider duty was exciting for me!

We use 1 lb of ground turkey meat. Let it thaw.

Put the turkey meat into a bowl.  Add 1 egg, about ½ cup of bread crumbs, salt, pepper, Italian seasoning and about ½ cup of feta cheese.

 Mix it all together.

With your hands, make patties that are a little smaller than the palm of your hand.

We use a grill pan because we don’t have a BBQ.  Cook patties until they are no longer pink inside.

Remove from grill and place on buns and enjoy!

{This should make you about 12 patties}

 For the onions:

I used about half of a yellow onion – obviously adjust base on how many you are feeding!

Coat your pan with EVOO salt and pepper and add the onions.

Coat the onions with the EVOO and cover the pan to keep the moisture in – this will help the onions soften.

Let the onions cook until they are soft enough to your taste buds.

Put the onions on your patties and add your favorite condiments and enjoy!!

Happy NCAA Season!

Pesto Pizza & Salad!

This is one of our very own!

From costco, we get chicken breasts that come in pre packaged 2 breasts. Let defrost and cut into small bite size chunks.

I seasoned this chicken with salt, pepper, italian seasoning and about a tablespoon of red wine vinegar.

*The red wine vinegar is so tasty and makes this tangy, it is my secret ingredient :-)

Cook the chicken until it is no longer pink inside.

The Chicken

To make the pesto, take just the leaves and put them in a food processor. Add EVOO and garlic (to your taste) and salt and pepper and process. For this type of pesto, I don't add too much EVOO because I want to make sure it doesn't make a mess of our oven and spill over the pizza! (it has happened!)

Basil, dough, tomato & mozzarella 

Put the pesto on the pizza, use as much or as little as you like, we did a thin layer.

We are teaching ourselves to like tomatoes so our slices are really thin!

We buy artichoke hearts from costco, in bulk, and added those

We slicked the mozzarella thinly, we did not shred it.

We roughly cut some garlic (we love love love garlic)

Put everything on the dough!

Bake for about 22 minutes

I definitely recommend the pizza dough from Trader Joes -- the Garlic & Herb.

It is so delicious and never dry!

Now for the Salad that we put on it...

I decided to continue with the pesto theme so I took some of our left over pesto sauce (about 1 tablespoon) and added EVOO and red wine vinegar and salt and pepper.

Mix it together. It is a little lighter and more 'dressing like'

The Finished product

Pecan and Walnut Pie

I get daily recipes from Real Simple in my email and this one came through a long time ago.

At work we had a potluck for one of the guys who was getting married. I asked him what he wanted me to make and he a.ok'd this pie!

All of the ingredients

Mixing everything together was super easy! 

I was worried about the crust, but it came out perfect!

How delicious does this look?!

I got compliments all day about it! It was delicious and I will definitely be making this again....even with all of the corn starch...Thanksgiving, here we come!

Pecan and Walnut Pie

Serves 8| Hands-On Time: 10m | Total Time: 4hr 00m

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups light corn syrup
• 1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 cup pecan halves
• 1 cup walnut halves
• 1 piecrust (store-bought refrigerated rolled or homemade), fitted into a 9-inch pie plate

Directions

1. Heat oven to 350° F. In a large bowl, whisk together the corn syrup, brown and granulated sugars, eggs, butter, vanilla, and salt. Mix in the pecans and walnuts.
2. Place the pie plate on a rimmed baking sheet. Fill with the nut mixture and bake until the center is set, 45 to 50 minutes. Let cool completely before serving.

What a Coincidence!

I have a staring and eavesdropping problem!

This past weekend, Rich, Friend and I went to one of Rich’s and my favorite cages and as they were waiting in line, I snagged a great table in the cute little courtyard and waited for them to bring the drinks out.

While I was waiting, I was listening to this group of 4 who were enjoying their coffee and time together. Two of the girls were chatting about how girl 1 wanted girl 2 to meet her brother and marry him. They were talking about how cool it would be because they would be sisters in law.

I am sitting there, listening, and wanting to say something because that is exactly what happened to me! Ha! And the best is that I was with my husband and my best friend/his sister.

And then they continued their conversation. Girl 1 was saying that her brother was looking great because he just got back from hiking the entire John Muir Trail.

At this point, I am just itching in my seat! My husband just got back from hiking the entire trail!!

What a coincidence!

I am now kicking myself because I didn’t say anything! I wanted to say something and say that marrying your friend’s brother is a good idea and we are a living testament!!

Too funny!

I hope you all had a great weekend and are enjoying your Tuesday!

Making Croutons and Crustinis

I grew up eating really well because my mom loves to cook and entertain and so she always made the most amazing meals.

Crustinis are one of my favorites {You may call them something else....and that is okay too :-)}

We made ours the same way, just cut different.

To my croutons we just cut the bread into square-like sizes and the crustinis just slice the bread into thin slices.

Heat the oven to 400 degrees

 After you slice the bread, put it all in a big bowl and drizzle EVOO, Balsamic Vinegar, salt, pepper, garlic powder - really whatever flavors you like!

Arrange them on a cookie sheet without stacking them

Put them in the baking sheet into the oven and bake for about 15 minutes

Take them out of the oven and let them cool and enjoy!

We eat them with cheese and dips.

Yummy!

Enjoy!

5 on Friday!

I am linking up with My Little Life for today's 5 Question Friday

1. If you had a weekly newspaper column, what would you name it?

This is such a great question...

Maybe: "Cheers"

And it would feature fun local places to get together and meet people

ha! I don't know!

2. Who is your mentor/inspiration?

My momma!

3. What is your wake up beverage of choice?

I drink emergency's in the morning with my breakfast and a vitamin. Typically, I do not need a "pick me up"

4. Would you wear your mom's clothes?

Oh yes! If only I could fit, my mom is a little smaller than I am!

5. When you were a kid, did you put posters on your wall? If so, what were they of?

I wish! No, I didn't. I was more about the pictures, so I would put pictures that I had developed of my friends and I all over the walls.

I hope you all have a fabulous Friday!

I go live today, at work, which means I am not really training any more!

Wish me luck, Luck, LUCK!

Homemade Goodness - Hummus

Rich and I have decided that we want to make some of our food from scratch (well food that we can make from scratch)

We have now mastered oven roasted garlic hummus.

It is so tasty, we can eat an entire tub of it in one sitting if we allowed ourselves!

Set the oven to 400 degrees and let it warm up.

Start by cutting off the top of 2 heads of garlic (this makes it very garlic-y, so do it to your tasting)

 Put the garlic in a roaster

 Drizzle with EVOO, and grind salt and pepper over them

Put in the oven and cover. We have a garlic roasted, and I know that before the wedding we roasted garlic by wrapping it in tin foil. That also works.

Now, here is the part you will have to eye ball...

There are about 2 cups of garbanzo beans (or chick peas) in this food processor. Then we douse them with EVOO, and by douse, I really mean drench! Like when you think you have put in too much, add a little bit more :-)

{Side note:

We buy our beans in bulk from Whole Foods - I will do a post on that later}

Let the garlic roast in the oven for about 25-30 minutes, take them out of the oven and let them cool to the touch.

Once you do that, use a small knife or spoon to extract all of the cloves from the garlic head and place them in the food processor.

Once you have added the garlic, grind some salt in to the mix and use white pepper. All to taste.

Process it all together to a nice fine texture. If you need too, add more EVOO and we also added some water to get the right consistency.  I recommend using the water sparingly and use more EVOO.

The hummus is delicious!! We sometimes will had about 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese. 

Yummy!

It is so tasty you won't be able to put it down!!

Enjoy!

Lodis Giveaway

Lacey from Lacey in the City is hosting an awesome giveaway over on her blog!

After looking at the beautiful bags on the Lodis site there are just so many to choose from and I am in love with the one that the lovely Lacey chose!!

Go check out the giveaway and start following Lacey, she is awesome!!