Raspberries and blueberries and blackberries, oh my!

Today I made a less than stellar blackberry rustic tart. It had all the right flavors to make it delicious, but all the wrong textures. I was going for a flakey buttery crispy yumminess. I ended up with a gooey, spongey, overly liquidey mess.

 I'm a gourmet chef in mind only, it seems.

Except, however, when it comes to barbeque sauce. Apparently, that (at least) is not beyond my culinary reach. I made a rockin' chipotle blackberry barbeque sauce today following (this) recipe. Oh. My. Yum. It was so worth every minute spent preparing it. We baked some chicken drumsticks to baste in it and dinner was so finger licking, phenomenally delish!

I would make it again in a heartbeat.

Someone Had a Birthday...

A special guy in my life just turned another year older...

Which means I got to make some of these, and dress them up a bit with some butter cream frosting <333.

(If you want to make them too, I'd double the cinnamon, and cut the other spices by 3/4th's. Just so ya know. ;] )

And I got to hang out with the birthday boy...

...who wanted to go to the Dollar Tree for his birthday. ;] Sometimes, I wonder how I got so lucky!

We had a nice and laid back night. We raided the dollar store, we picked up some nastily delicious $5 pizzas. We lounged around home and stuffed our faces.

What are birthdays for, after all?

A picture from back when I first met the hubs. The very night we started dating, actually!  I'm so happy that he is still a part of my life. And will be for eternity.

Happy Birthday, babe. You put the awe in awesome!

Pumpkin Bread French Toast w/ Cinnamon Powdered Sugar

Hey ya'll, how's it going! Today I'm super excited... 

Because I don't have to write the post! Ha!! I'm kidding.... kind of. ;] Today you get to hear from my awesomely adorable husband who asked me if he could do a post on my blog! And I of course said yes! 

So without further ado, I introduce you to the hubsters:

Being my first post on my wife's blog, I thought it appropriate to introduce myself. My name is Kevin, but to keep my anonymity on the dangerous world wide web I will now only refer to myself by my code name niveK. Safety first! =)

I'm constantly full of brilliant ideas. Sometimes they come to me as I am pondering life, washing dishes, or practicing my table tennis serve. Whenever they come, I stop what I'm doing and excitedly tell my wife "nageM" (wink... wink...) all about them....... and....... sometimes she lets me try them. =).

So, once upon a time I was perched pondering life in front of my open (empty) fridge and the words "pumpkin bread french toast" ran across my mind like an electronic billboard. I ignored them at first, but they were so persistent I finally gave in to my sagacity. Trust me....... it's a blessing.......  and a curse.

Upon realizing the scope and divinity of my new revelation, my face instantly morphed to take on an appearance similar to the one shown below:

I instantly got to work! 

Luckily, each year, when buying pumpkins to carve for Halloween, we make sure to buy an extra pumpkin for cooking and pureeing. We love having pumpkin as an ingredient for pasta sauces, cookies, breads, and soups. What a delicious squash! 

I cut our pumpkin in half, threw it upside down  on a cookie sheet with some oil and baked it for about an hour. When my knife easily poked through the top I knew it was done. I scrapped out the meat and pureed it in our blender. With this puree I started on my pumpkin bread. Being the first time -- I was proud of my result. 

There was a restaurant where we used to live called "Kneaders." I loved their french toast because the bread was so thick. I tried to mimic that below with nice burly slices. 

From there it was just like making normal french toast. I dipped each slice in my egg mixture and threw it on the griddle. 

Some swear by syrup and that is an excellent topping, but for this I wanted something special. Instead of making cinnamon sugar, I made cinnamon powdered sugar. I used this to garnish the hot buttered french toast.  

 

Kay tested...

Kay approved!

Here's to many, many, many DELICIOUS breakfasts and their variations! Enjoy!

Cheddar Cheese Panini, Animal Style

Wow. Just started my blog and  I already took a week off. There is no excuse. Except for my own craziness! Some big changes happened around my home during the last week. It was a lot of work! But it was so worth it!

But before I share the deets on that particular tale, I thought I would share with you this delicious lunch we made last weekend (while watching General Conference).


Cheddar Cheese Panini, Animal Style!

At least that's what I'd like to call it. Sounds cooler than just you're average "Grilled Cheese" ;].


Between Saturday sessions of  Conference, the husband, kids and I went to the park. It was chilly, but we kept ourselves plenty warm with running and climbing on the play equipment.  The hubs and I even got to play a little bit of tennis!

And by tennis... I mean not really tennis at all. More like... I serve the ball, the hubster returns it over the net, and I (with lots of finesse and grace) swing my racket with all the power I can muster... and I miss ;].

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

It was a nail biter, peeps. Had my tots at the edge of their seats! After playing at the park for about an hour and a half, (in which Kay learned how to use the fireman's pole & the monkey bars! Go Kay!) the cold was too much for us. So we decided to head home for something warm and tasty. Like grilled cheese and tomato soup!

But we decided to go fancy. I like fancy =].

For any of you who have been to Inn-N-Out, you'll know what I mean when I use the term 'Animal Style.'  It is a type of (fry) sauce, mixed with minced pickles and grilled onions.  I happen to love Inn-N-Out, but my husband... well he's not the biggest fan. Blaspheme, I know!

 But we can at least both agree on the fact that the animal style sauce is just plain ole' delicious. And, lucky for us, it is super simple to make, and ridiculously cheap!  Assuming you keep mayo, ketchup, and mustard in regular stock.

So here's what you need:

1/3 cup of Mayo
1/3 cup of Ketchup
1 tablespoon of Mustard
1 half of a yellow onion
1/3 cup of minced dill pickles (I would say this is optional. We didn't have pickles and it was still yumm-o)
2 Slices of Bread (of your choice)
3-4 thin slices of Cheddar Cheese


Mix together the mayo, ketchup, and mustard in a small bowl.  If you are adding pickles, you can go ahead and add them in at this time as well.

Finely chop the onion.  Pre-heat a frying pan over medium heat, adding either a small amount of cooking oil of your choice, or lightly brushing the pan with butter. Add the onions and (stirring frequently) cook until translucent.

Once your onions are nice & sweet & translucent, you can go ahead and add them to the sauce you previously mixed. Be sure to pour off any extra cooking oil or butter beforehand.

Taking your bread, spoon on the 'Animal Style' sauce and spread it evenly on both slices. On one of the slices of bread, layer your cheese on top of the 'Animal Style' sauce. If you wish, you could also add some sandwich meat on top of the cheese. Take your other piece of bread, and with the sauce on the inside, place it on top of the the bread topped with cheese.

Here's where you can deviate. We personally like to make our grilled cheese on the George Foreman. It cooks faster, plus we don't have to add oil or butter to keep the sandwich from sticking.  If you have a Lean Mean Grillin' Machine, I highly recommend using it.

All you have to do is put your finished sandwich on the grill, close the lid, and then wait for the "ready" light to turn on. Simple as that!

If you do not have one of these genius contraptions, you can go ahead and grill your Cheddar 'Animal Style' Panini the old fashioned way: over the stove.

I am not the best person to ask how to efficiently and effectively do that. Which is why I use the Foreman ;]. But there are many wonderful reference sites that could probably give you great tips on making a grilled cheese over the stove.  I would try a google search, or allrecipes.com.  As always, be wise and use your internet common sense when navigating information from either of these sites.


AnyWHO.These sandwiches turned out superbly fantastic. At least in my mind! Hubs and tots thought they were pretty yummy too! They were mouthwatering and super filling. I could only eat one. Which is saying somethin'! I usually eat like a starved velociraptor. I'm not sure how I know that, but I'm pretty positive it is true.

In all, it was a perfectly wonderful way to warm ourselves up (inside and out) after playing at the park.  One bad side effect from the delicious food was that it put me in a food stupor only minutes before the next general conference session was to start. It was so hard to stay awake!

Thank you, Inn-N-Out.

So, for all my Inn-N-Out lovers out there, what's your favorite item on the menu? I'm personally addicted to their strawberry milkshakes. Best. Strawberry. Shakes. EVER! When it comes to the hierarchy of fast food restaurant milkshakes, I would say that Inn-N-Out is the emperor of the Strawberry division. Yum!