Chipotle Shrimp w/ Cheddar Grits

Let me be the first to say that I heart our Everyday Food magazine subscription. I probably have ranted endlessly talked about this before. But, seriously, this is one of my favorite magazine subscriptions we have. And we have a lot of magazine subscriptions (thanks frequent flyer miles!).

 Over the weekend, we tried a completely new and different recipe than we normally wouldn't make: chipotle shrimp with cheddar grits. Now, I'm not normally one for spicy entrees. Call it a weird fear of not wanting my tongue to feel like it just licked the bottom element of a pizza oven. And I'm certainly not the one in my relationship with an unnatural love of sriracha. Lately, however, my curiosity has gotten the best of me-as it typically does- and I have been a little more open to trying to spice up my life (pun intended).  Or perhaps my amygdala is on the fritz.

And as with most of my shopping trips, I bought a slightly different product than what the recipe called for. It clearly states in the perforated shopping list so conveniently provided in the magazine that this recipe needs quick-cooking grits. What did I buy? Instant grits. Of course. For those of you who don't know the difference, it's like buying instant oatmeal when you need regular Quaker oats. Go. Figure. But, it all turned out in the end. Yay me.

Ingredients

3/4 cup quick-cooking grits
1/2 cup shredded cheddar (2 ounces)
Salt
3 Tbs unsalted butter, divided
1 bunch scallions, thinly sliced
1 chipotle in adobo sauce, seeded and chopped, plus 1 Tbs sauce
1/2 cup chicken broth
1 pound frozen large shrimp (31-35), thawed, peeled and de-veined (tails left on)
1/4 cup lime juice (roughly 2 limes)

Directions

In a medium pot, cook grits according to package directions. Stir in cheddar and season with salt. Because I bought instant grits instead (yes, Deven, I know I know. Come shopping with me next time, then), we just put 2 1/2 packets in a sauce pan and waited until the shrimp and broth was almost done. Then put in the boiling water according to the package directions, mixed it up a little and added the cheese.

Meanwhile, in a large skillet, melt 1 Tbs butter over medium heat. Add scallions, chipotle and chipotle sauce; cook, stirring until scallions are tender, about 4 minutes.

Add broth and bring to a simmer. Add shrimp and cook until opaque throughout, 3 minutes.
Stir in lime juice and remaining 2 Tbs butter and cook until sauce is slightly thickened, about 2 minutes.

Season with salt. Top grits with shrimp and sauce. Devour. Enter the yum.

I have to say, it was preeety damn good and not as spicy as I thought it would be. Probably because the chipotle was seeded. Just a guess. Deven said he could have just eaten the shrimp and broth, it was so tasty. I would have to agree.



HOWEVER.. on the last damn shrimp, I was trying to wrestle the tail off, my fingers slipped on the saucy coating, thus catapulting said sauce into my eye. To which my eye angrily replied to my tongue "not that hot? NOT THAT HOT?" Yeah, so that happened. I'm still experiencing a residual burning sensation, 4 days later. But it was oh so worth it.

Happy Halloween!!

I love Halloween! I love carving pumpkins, dressing up and decorating in the most tacky way I know how. Plus it's just fun going into stores in full costume to get groceries, you don't get to do that everyday. 

Banana Hazelnut Bread

 Now that I'm finally winding down from returning home, I seemed to have packed my plate full today with things to do. Why do I always do this to myself? First thing on the agenda: banana bread! I forgot to eat the last three bananas before I left to Nashville so when I returned home I had some pretty good candidates for bread. Darn.

While the boys were watching football (Go Seahawks!) I started getting my hands dirty in the kitchen. I have no idea where my motivation came from..perhaps it was the three cups of coffee before 9 am. Quite possible. I also don't know where my sudden baking frenzy has come from the last few weeks but at least I have plenty of guinea pigs to feed my labors to so I don't eat it all. *Sigh* so much for trying to limit my sugar intake. 

Traditionally, banana bread is made with walnuts or almonds, but I have had this lonely jar of hazelnuts in my pantry for far too long that I decided to use instead. I never stick to a recipe anyway. Plus I have to save the rest of my almonds for the wine/cheese/almond plate that I will be treating myself to this afternoon once I get all my shit done. The only bad thing about using hazelnuts is the skins: hard to get off the whole nut and a real pain in the ass to remove from the pile after you've chopped them. Whatever. 

Here is the banana nut recipe, modified slightly from here. 

Banana (hazel)Nut Bread

1/4 c butter

1/2 c granulated sugar

1/2 c honey

2 eggs

1 1/2 c mashed, over-ripe bananas. I used three

1 1/2 c all purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp sal

1/2 sliced/chopped nuts 

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 12 x 4 1/2 x 2 1/2 loaf tin, or three smaller loaf tins as I usually end up doing. The size of the tins I use is roughly 5 x 3 x 5.

Cream the butter. The original recipe said to use a wooden spoon, but I must not have the right kind of wooden spoon because it was way more cumbersome than it should have been so I just switched to a regular soup spoon.

 

Add the sugar and honey and beat until creamy and light.

Add the eggs, one at a time, then thoroughly mix in the bananas.

Sift together the flour, soda and salt and blend thoroughly into a mixture. 

Finally, fold in the chopped nuts.

 

If using more than one loaf tin, evenly distribute between pans. I found this recipe made the perfect amount to split between the three tins. 

Pop them in the oven and set a timer for 1 hour. The original recipe said to lightly cover the bread with foil so the top doesn't get too brown, but I didn't do this...mostly because I missed that part. But it turned out just fine. Plus, I'm a big fan of crispy crusts. Just makes a nice contrasting texture with the soft, moist inside of the bread. 

I think I'll make my self a pumpkin spice latte (aka drive my happy ass down to the nearest coffee establishment), grab a slice-or three- and sink into bliss before I'm off to the next, um, adventure... maybe I'll just take a bath first.

Fall, In Love

I absolutely love this time of year. The colors. The leaves. The crisp air. The rain. The food. The wind blowing through the trees. The crunch of said leaves as I stomp through a parking lot. The puddles of rain on the side of the road I purposefully drive through. This is how I know I live in the perfect place for me. I just wish more people who lived here knew how lucky they truly are.

 Today, lover and I went to our local pumpkin patch to pick out some punkins for Halloween. I was so excited! I'm leaving for a business trip this weekend and it's just cutting it too close if we go after I get back and I'm just not doing that to myself. There's just something special for me about going with the one I love to do something I remember doing as a kid. Now we begin our own tradition to start with our someday children. Here are some of my favorite shots while we were out enjoying our time together in the patch.

            

I  had to put the same picture of lover in here too, just because it's game day for our Ducks!

Plum Bread

But it should really be called YUM bread, because it's dangerously delicious. Like, I'm glad I don't have plum trees 'cause I'd eat this all the time and leave an ass groove in my couch, delicious.

I was lucky enough to get this recipe from one of my best friend's mom, after she brought over a loaf a few weeks ago that was almost instantly devoured-upon which I practically demanded she hand over the recipe. Have I mentioned this bread is delicious? Because it is. Anyway, her parents have a ca-shit-ton of plums right now because, well.. it's plum season, and they (fortunately) have plum trees. I was even GIVEN some of these detectable beauties when she brought over the recipe. Let's face it, I have some pretty awesome connections.

Because I didn't want this amazing fruit going to waste, I decided to make the plum bread today because the plums were starting to look pretty sad. And, as Deven stated, we don't want to attract fruit flies and this is practically an open invitation to invade our home. No thanks. So I took my glass of wine, grabbed the recipe, pulled out the ingredients and proceeded to make a mess of the kitchen.

I made a few variations to the recipe, like using vanilla yogurt instead of plain because that's what I had on hand. I replaced the one loaf pan with three smaller loaf pans. I also used my beloved Cuisinart (thanks Mom!) instead of an electric mixture because, again, that's what I had on hand. The Cuisinart actually worked quite well, except for the part where I had to muscle the batter out with a too-big-for-the-job spatula into another bowl to fold in the plums. Gah. I suppose I *could* have just stopped to grab a more appropriate utensil, but I was determined (or stubborn, whatever) at that point. And by god if I am going to dirty another dish. Hell to the no.


Plum Bread
as adapted from Mama Ardis, who originally got it here

1 1/2 cups pitted, chopped plums (I used about 15)
1 Tbs all-purpose flour
1/2 cup butter
1 cup white sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup yogurt, plain or vanilla
1/4 cup brown sugar
Cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Spray a 9x5-inch loaf pan with cooking spray, or line with parchment paper. I used three smaller loaf pans. The size of the tins I use is roughly 5 x 3 x 5.  Sprinkle chopped plums with 1 tablespoon of flour and a couple generous dashes of cinnamon in a bowl, toss to coat. Set aside. 

In a(nother) large bowl, beat the butter, white sugar and vanilla extract with an electric mixer (or Cuisinart) until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs. In (yet) another bowl, sift together 1 1/2 cup of flour with salt and baking soda. Stir the dry ingredients into the egg mixture, alternating with yogurt until the mixture forms a smooth batter. Lightly stir in the flour-coated plums,and pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan(s). Sprinkle the top of the batter with brown sugar.Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick (or the nearest chopstick) inserted into the center of the loaf comes out clean, 45 to 50 minutes. If you use the three smaller loaf pans, it takes 40-45 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool in the pan 10 to 15 minutes before removing from pan for slicing.

Needless to say, the house smelled amazing and it's a good thing they got done baking a mere 30 minutes before dinner was ready, otherwise I might have just eaten an entire loaf to myself. I mean, just look at that beautiful brown sugar crust.. *drool*

Yeah, this one is definitely going in the favorites folder. 

Can It: Stewed Tomatoes

Today we embarked on a new journey: canning! Well, technically we've made jam before but today we're canning this gorgeous crop of tomatoes we plucked from our garden today into stewed tomatoes. We have 3 different types of heirlooms, 2 kinds of cherry, Roma and some other kind of German heritage tomato whose name escapes me right now. Seriously, there's probably a good 8 pounds of tomatoes on our kitchen table right now. I'm surprised the heirloom plants didn't fall over, each one is so heavy!

I'm so excited!

We also are using this beauty you see right there, our very first pressure canner. It's the little things (or maybe weird..? I'll get back to you on that one) that excite me. Seriously..this is coming from the girl who bought herself a crock pot with her birthday money and was excited about it. But I digress..

While the jars, lids and rings were happily sanitizing away in the dishwasher, we prepped and cleaned both sides of the sink (filling one side with cold water and leaving the other side empty), the pressure canner and the utensils. We kept the jars, lids and rings in the dishwasher until we're ready to use them so they stay nice and hot.

First, we blanched the tomatoes, about 4 at a time, in a pot of boiling water for approx. one minute-or until the skins crack- then transferring them immediately to the pot of cold water in the sink. This is done  to stop the cooking... and so you'll be able to actually handle them without getting 3rd degree burns! Peel the skins off into the other (empty) sink and place the toms on a cutting board or bowl, something to retain all those wonderful juices!
Do this for all tomatoes. I think a normal person would use probably 20-30...Deven estimated afterwards we had 7-10 pounds. Holy tomato.

 Once you've done this for all tomatoes, rough chop the toms, adding them AND the excess juices from chopping into a pot on the stove.
Bring to a boil and simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring to prevent burning on the bottom. All the recipes I looked at say to add salt, sugar, onions, celery and green peppers but since that's really for flavoring, we're just going to stick with the amazing flavor of the tomatoes because we'll be using these for so many different things in the coming year.

When the tomatoes have simmered for 10 minutes, begin transferring them to your hot jars. Make sure you have dish towels laid out on the counter, ones you don't mind getting stained, 'cause it'll get a little messy. (Turns out, the jars were cold when we were ready to pull them out of the dishwasher so we threw them into the oven on 175 for about 5 minutes.)

Using a large ladle and canning funnel, fill the quart mason jars, leaving about 1 inch of room at the top. Use a non-metallic utensil to remove air bubbles in the jars that may have formed. Then add 1 Tbs lemon juice to the top before placing the lids and rims on, securing only finger tight.

**Be careful not to touch the inside of the jars or lids with your bare hands as this can cause contamination.**



Using your handy-dandy canning tongs, place cans into the pressure canner. Use the instructions on your pressure canner.

According to our instructions, here's my really condensed, run-on sentence, version: add 3 qts boiling water to the pressure canner before placing the cans in, then secure the lid, place it over the burner on high, make sure the regulator is off, let the steam vent for about 10 minutes, place the regulator back on, wait for the valve to pop up, watch the pressure gauge until it reaches 11 pounds, drop the burner a little and set the timer for about 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, use the canning tongs to take them out and let them sit in an undisturbed area for about 12-24 hours. Voila!

It was a long process and we learned a lot today. I think it took us about 2 hours start to finish.  We can't wait to try the next batch now that we know what the hell we're doing!
Plus, the boys were nice enough to do most of the grunt work while I happily snapped away. All in all, it was a very successful day.
We used practically every single pot and mixing bowl in the kitchen! And we haven't even made dinner yet! At least I have the day off tomorrow, I'll postpone dishes until then.

For now, I'll just enjoy my glass of wine and listen to the fruits of our labor softly popping in the background.

Warrior Dash

"The craziest fricken' day of your life".

That's how Warrior Dash touts their 5k 12 obstacle course race. Sure, I've had crazier days but this still right up there as one of them. This is the second year I have competed in Warrior Dash and I plan on doing it again next year.

I told myself in the middle of the race this year that I wasn't going to do it again next year because it was really hard on my knee; the hills KILL me. But, you know what, it's awesome motivation to get my strength up. Plus, I honestly think the reason I keep going back to it, is to challenge myself and because I have never done anything like this in my life (well, save for last year of course). And, really, when do you get an opportunity like this to do something crazy? I mean, sure it's a 5k, there are 5ks all the time. But then you have obstacles? Shit, it's crazy different.

Plus you get MUDDY! I love getting muddy. I may look tired as all hell (probably because I was still trying to get my breath back haha) but it was fun. And there's this unique camaraderie with the other participants on the course. You can bitch about the course with each other and have that immediate understanding. You get help from others if you are struggling with any of the obstacles. You are motivated by others. It's really neat.

Mud. Sweat. Beer. Well, Miller Light.. which isn't really beer to me but hey, it was free. I ended up giving half of it to Samantha but she killed the course and totally deserved it! She completed it in 30 minutes, I did it in 46 I believe (shaved 11 minutes off my time last year!).

Next year will be even better. Cheers.

Kick Clutter to the Curb

Pack-rat.

That's something I've heard, and used, all my life to describe the inherited clutter traits from my mother. See that picture on the right? That was the garage at my parent's house and I'm glad I took a picture of it. Now, whenever I feel overwhelmed with my stuff, I look at this picture, mentally go back into that garage, and feel better about our situation.

A specialty of mine is the 'what if I need that one day?' thought process I go through when trying to get rid of my crap (don't even get me started on 'I'll fit into that one day'). I always seem to amass a smorgasbord of just stuff from the parents, or grandmas, or from people who are giving something away for free. Who can resist free, anyway? Not this girl.

I am always going through our stuff and trying to get rid of something, ANYTHING! I hate the feeling of knowing I have all this stuff in boxes that isn't useful in any way but insists on sticking around, year after year. Mostly, the things I lug around with me are purely sentimental items from my past. But it's ironic because I never see these things and am not reminded of the precious memory until I go through all my boxes again for the 6th time this year, solely for the purpose of donating unused clutter. Until I came across a quote that really stuck it to me and my clutter.

“Hanging onto resentment is letting someone you despise live rent-free in your head" -Esther Lederer

It's not exactly aimed at clutter, more at people, but it still spoke to me. I'm letting the burden of all this stuff live rent-free in my head. Let's not mention the 5 years it wasn't living rent-free in a storage shed. I realized I didn't want to drag all this around with us anymore. It exerted too much energy and money we didn't have for a whole lotta nothing in return. My problem also stems from my poor memory, so I become afraid I would forget something I wanted to remember if I got rid of the item(s) which evoked the memory. Not good.

I have read (and reread) lots of articles with great tips and tricks for dealing with the psychological part of clutter, or 'emotional clutter'. Mostly on Pinterest. Oh, I love Pinterest. But, I digress.. that's a post for another day. Basically, by saying 'what if I need this later?' you're putting value on that item in your head. The emotional clutter that ties directly into the fear of losing a connection to a loved one or a special memory is a dangerous one too. Would Great Aunt Millie really want you keeping her huge China hutch in your home just because it was something she used all her life and then passed on to you? Especially if it causes more pain than happiness? Chances are, if she could be here now she would say something like 'Oh heavens no child, you don't even own any China, give it to someone who can use it.' It's pointless to force yourself to keep or use something just because that something holds significance. Notice I said 'force yourself to use it'. Keep it only if you're really, really going to put it to good use or if it truly benefits/enhances your life. Take a realistic approach and don't kid yourself, as my boyfriend says.

There's another trick I really like that deals with weeding out your closet. Take all of hangers and turn them the other way and as you use them turn the hangers back the way they were. Anything left after 3 months, 6 months, 2 weeks, whatever period of time you feel is acceptable for your life, get rid of it! Donate, pass to a friend, or have a garage sale. I haven't had a chance to try this one out in full-scale mode, but once I tackle my garage the closet is surely next.

Now I am all too familiar with the fact that all these nifty tips and tricks are easier said than done... it took me 4 years to finally get on the track to correcting my clutter mentality. Just release yourself from the burden of carrying around unnecessary items you let live rent-free in your head; your children and future grandchildren will thank you for it. I have a big goal for myself in the coming weeks, to once and for all go through those sentimental things that do not enhance my life and give them to someone who can really use them. Of course, I will be documenting everything I get rid of with, you guessed it, my trusty camera. Because I can zip photos, I can't zip 10 boxes of papers.

John Hancock

I have a basic photo editing program that lets me play around a little bit with my photos. Photos that I happen to take on a smartphone camera. It's nowhere near the level Photoshop is, but I don't have $900 to spend on it so I use the most of what I have. Besides, I don't really need a bunch of fancy editing tools right now, I'm just interested in basics. Why mess with a good thing, right? While playing around with all the capabilities of the software I have, I stumbled across a watermark-type feature which I played with the rest of the afternoon.

I'm glad I can finally add my 'signature' line to the photos I create, because I tend to share them out in the internet world. Which can be dangerous. Like compromising your own intellectual property. Not a good thing if I'm aspiring to eventually have my photos on display.. somewhere, someday. For right now, I have been scouring for photography contests I can enter to bulk up my portfolio. Eventually, I'd like to save up enough money to get myself a beautiful digital SLR camera. I have lost so much of what I learned about photography when I was taking classes in college. Aperture, f/stops, ISO, darkroom development, camera angles, composition, diffused lighting techniques, the list goes on and on as to the intricacies of photography. And I love every second of it. Thankfully I kept the very well-loved, very well dog-eared photography text book from college.

My real interest right now is macro lens photography, getting down to the nitty gritty of things around me. I am also experimenting with different angles of ordinary things, as well as taking more pictures of people (something I was never really interested in doing, aside from capturing candid photos of my friends and loved ones). And of course, there's flowers. I love taking pictures of flowers, which I am fortunate I get a lot of this time of year. The dahlias are especially wonderful for the photos I love taking.

As much as I enjoy taking pictures of the bright greens and deep blues of summer; the rainbows of flower patterns, colors, shapes and sizes; the intricacies of the most simple of gardens; wonderful reds of ripening tomatoes; alas I have so much anticipation for the fall. I would argue with myself that fall is my favorite time of the year. My first love is and will always be trees. And when those leaves begin turning, falling and crunching beneath my feet, I am in pure photography bliss. I can't wait to throw on my rain boots, wrap my scarf around my neck and hop out the door, camera in hand.

Now, where did I put that photography book..

Mushroom and Spinach Cups

Each month in our Everyday Food magazine, there is a 5 day menu and shopping list. We have been doing weekly meal planing on and off for almost 4 years so this was a no-brainer for us. Recently, they began making the shopping list a detachable card, which was way cool.

Last week, we made something that is definitely one of my favorite dishes we've come across from this magazine. They are simple (like a 'why didn't I think of that' simple) and delicious but I think what excites me most about this is the versatility of the dish. You can make just about anything in these tortilla cups. The three of us listed off at least a dozen dinners we could make in this fashion. Here is the recipe below, from Everyday Food.

5 oz spinach
1 lb mushrooms- we used crimini
1/2 med onion- we had the luxury of using one from our garden :)

Tortillas- we used 6
1 1/2 cups pepperjack cheese

Oil for pan
Heat oven to 450 degrees

Heat pan over medium and add oil. Add onion, sautee 3 minutes then add mushroom until it's all nice and caramelized. Then you put it in a medium sized bowl and mix with the spinach and one cup of the pepperjack. We missed that part of the directions and added the whole cup and a half. But hey, I don't have anything against extra cheese :) Fold your tortillas and place them in a big muffin tin, ours was 6. Evenly distribute the yummy mixture into the cups and top with shredded pepperjack. Place in the oven until tortilla is brown and the pepperjack is melted, about 5 minutes.

Now the picture above was an action shot, I was right in the middle of helping Deven and had to take it quickly, so I didn't get the peppperjack topping on there, but below you'll see our modified version. We had skirt steak happily sizzling away on the barbecue and decided to combine the two. I ended up taking all my steak out and cutting it up. Much easier to eat.

We are definitely making this again. Soon.

What's life without food?

Of course, I have to take pictures of anything yummy we come across. Even if Deven rolls his eyes when he sees my phone come out and power into camera mode, I'll always do it. It's just my thing, don't judge!

It was Deven's birthday when we went camping so we definitely had the perfect excuse to go out and eat. Not that hot dogs over the campfire are not an acceptable birthday fare, but there was a restaurant in town on the way to the campgrounds that caught our eye.

The Point restaurant overlooked the lake which fed the river where our camp was. We decided in an instant this place is well worth the 90 minute drive from home and will definitely be taking my dad here when he visits next month. The wait staff was excellent, I mean excellent like we've never had in I can't tell you how long. The owner was one of our waiters and had an awesome personality. Then of course, there was the food and drink. Once the owner, Michael, listed off Oakshire Overcast as one

of the beers on tap, we knew we really liked this place.
On a side note, within the last 6 months to a year I have been struggling with drinking. First world problem, I know. Poor me. My body just can't seem to handle it anymore. (Perhaps it was all that drinking I did when I was younger...oopsie!) Anyways, we finally figured out that I must be the most extreme beer/alcohol snob because I can really only drink when it's off the tap-or it's a homemade gin and tonic. Which makes for an expensive date, but thankfully I'm not all that into drinking anymore, anyway. I digress.
For lunch, Deven had an amazing chicken melt and I got that beautiful plate of food above. Fresh Crab Louie. And do you see that *perfect* avocado? My lord, I was in heaven. It's a "I can't believe I ate the whole thing" moment. But it was so worth it.

Finally

We finally went camping last weekend. First time in, oh about, 3 years! Far too long, I say. We had a wonderful time on the Santiam River with Deven's parents. I was able to take some beautiful pictures. Unfortunately, the sun was so damn bright I had to touch up some shots. Here are just a few of my favorites from our trek up the river.