Tasty Tuesday

We've been busy in the kitchen lately.
After making pickled jalapenos a few weeks back, Tom made jalapeno infused vodka. We still have plenty of peppers, including a variety that we are calling a hybrid. Jelly? Maybe.
Onto the cooking:
I tried an eggplant and chicken lasagna (eggplant slices instead of lasagna noodles).

I've been craving broccoli cheddar soup and decided to make my own. Except that I didn't have potatoes like the recipe called, instead I had one sweet potato. It started with a roux and chicken stock in which I cooked the veggies, and once they were tender, the immersion blender came out. Finished with a small amount of shredded cheese (since it was thick enough), and topped with some grilled chicken and green onions.

And when I didn't want to cook, I finally broke out the Hamburger Helper, Stroganoff, except that I didn't have ground beef. Instead, I used cooked beer brats from our freezer and tomatoes from the garden. Topped with a few basil leaves.

And when I still didn't want to cook, Tom took over and made turkey nachos with refried beans, onions, banana peppers from the garden, and topped with Mexican cheese. Leftover meat went into soft taco shells and onto the Foreman for Quesadillas. 

Onto my sweet tooth Tom's lab meeting treat:
Tom presented lab meeting two Fridays ago. On Thursday night while he was in lab until the late hours of the night, I decided that this mathematical equations looked good: Wine + Pinterest + Tom's lab meeting = Mini Oreo Cheesecakes.

The Pinterest recipe made a little over 24 cheesecakes, one tray for Tom's lab and one for mine :)
One more treat but I can't tell until tomorrow afternoon :)

September Crafts

 Updated our football board to include Texas A&M and Missouri to the SEC (this picture was taken before Week 2 of college football)

The wreath of the month.  Can you tell that we love football?
Kelly said it perfectly, we are not a house divided, but rather a house united.
I may not want to change it for October but it may get a few orange and black streaks and something Halloween-ish.

New earrings. I get in trouble when I go to Hobby Lobby to get one thing and wander around all the aisles. Maybe wedding bling?

I love our moss initials and wanted an L to complete our monogram. I found a map of Wisconsin (we had picked it up from a visitor's center back in 2010.. wait 2010? Time flies). The bottom corner of the L shows La Crosse. Waiting for it to dry, then maybe some more mod podge, fix the wrinkles, and it will be ready for display or maybe I'll add some more details. 

Wordless Wednesday

Tasty Tuesday

I harvested most of our peppers and tomatoes before I left for Alaska and in the fridge they went.

When we got back, Tom picked a few more and we made pickled jalapenos. These are very spicy, so spicy that even I couldn't eat them. Maybe they need to pickle for another week.

It's looking as if we will have at least one more good harvest of peppers. We want to make jalapeno vodka for bloody mary's and if we have enough maybe a pepper jelly.

I also made a basil pesto on Saturday. I used some as the dressing for orzo pasta with almonds and topped with goat cheese crumbles. Served with chicken, mushroom, tomatoes, asparagus, and poblano peppers ragou.

 
For Labor Day, Tom decided that grilled steaks were in order. Served with the usual accompaniments of mashed potatoes, sauteed mushrooms, lettuce and tomatoes.

Disclaimer, I couldn't eat that big serving of meat. Tasty leftovers? yes please!

Finally, we had bananas that were overripe, so I whipped up a batch of banana pancakes last night. After they cooled, I froze them and on a morning of running behind, pop one in the toaster (ours has a frozen setting) and voila, breakfast on the go! 

Happy Labor Day!

For September, I'm
Excited:  about craft nights and football weekends
Worried: the amount of work I have to get accomplished in the next three weeks
Watching: Football, Masterchef, Hotel Hell, Hell's Kitchen, Time Machine chefs
Reading: I am on the list for book club, this month it's a false dawn
Listening to: nothing in particular
Creating:  football board, September wreath
Cooking: pesto, orzo, veggies
Loving: the garden 
Hoping: that the residency stuff is fine
Looking forward to: Thanskgiving?

Sunny Sunday

First, Happy Birthday to Tom's mom, Laurie and her dad, Grandpa Gass. It was so nice to spend time with you in Alaska. Isn't it neat when a child and parent share a birthday (my mom and sister have the same birthday). While we're on the topic of birthdays, happy (belated) birthday to my dad. We were thinking of you all the way from Alaska!

We were glad to come back and see that our garden hadn't completely died. Yes there were some casualties. I spend a chunk of yesterday pruning the plants, removing dead ones, and cleaning the balcony. Here are updated pictures:

Two of our pepper plants, Tall one with the hot banana peppers, other one has jalapeno peppers

 Our other two pepper plants, both jalapeno peppers

This tomato plant has decided that the roof is its territory. We are waiting on about four clusters

 Nice surprise when we came back from our trip!

Marigolds - we were worried that it was on its last leg, but were surprised by more blooms when we came back

 Yum! Waiting a few more days before these are harvested

Our mint has been very prolific, we have plans to make a mint infused vodka and a coconut mint chutney, a Mauritian favorite.

A new addition to our garden - even though it's in our kitchen. I have been craving basil pesto and saw this basil plant at the store. An impulse buy that I hope will pay off :)














Okay, now here is the link to the Alaska pictures :)

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10101612549839225.3095043.23413201&type=1&l=4d059bed6d

Week(s) recap

Has it been two weeks already?
Two weekends ago, we got the bread maker out and used it to make pizza dough for some homemade pizza.

Last week, I was in North Carolina for a workshop. My friend and co-mentor Jennifer showed me around her Alma mater of UNC. It was fun hearing stories from her college years, meeting her friends, and eating and drinking at her favorite spots. One of the things that I was really excited about was a Late Blossom, whose main ingredient is lychee, my favorite fruit. Unfortunately, you can only find canned lychees in the US, but I will take that any day over none :)

I got back on Friday with a cold, so the weekend was spent recovering. I did manage to meet up with Zak for part of his farewell night, joining the group at Dreamland's only, as the rest of them continued on for drinks at the Summit and a movie.

Earlier this week, I also got a stomach bug or maybe I was reacting to the medicine I had been taking. But on the bright side, our garden has been producing some veggies. We are looking forward to the jalapeno peppers to being ready. I already have the pickling recipe. We are also enjoying the rain this week. I love waking up to rain or sipping tea while watching the rain. Plus, it makes it cooler and I bet the plants are enjoying a nice break from the summer heat.

After talking with Laurie, it finally hit me that it will be a bit cooler in Alaska and the dress that I was planning on wearing to the wedding might not be warm enough. So yesterday I went on a bargain shopping spree and found a nice purple dress. Later that day, Tom and I went to the mall to find him a purple tie. We are weirdly cute in that we try to coordinate my dress and his tie when we play dress up. Afterwards, we had an impromptu dinner date at Billy's. I had the Absolute Stress cocktail, which was very relaxing. We sat in a nice nook and watched the rain as we enjoyed our food. If you've never had fried olives, please try them at Billy's. They were yummy!

My parents also hosted my sister's engagement party back home yesterday. According to their reports, it went without a hitch. I wish I could be there. They have set their wedding date for August 2013. This means that we'll be heading there at that time (and will have our Mauritian wedding then too). We hope that family and friends will be able to join us. 

Today is a day of chores.

I hope your weekend is going well!

Week in recap

As I mentioned in my previous post, we submitted the green card residency application. This was a bit of an ordeal between having passport pictures taken, having a medical exam done by a civil surgeon (can't use your regular doctor, and it's not covered by insurance, but I'm glad to report that I have all the immunizations needed for my age group but do not have tuberculosis, syphillis, a mental disorder, or a drug abuse problem), filling out several forms, and reading even more pages of instructions. I have to say that the International office at UAB was very helpful. If everything goes well, I'll be getting a travel card in the next six weeks, which means that I can travel internationally again. Then in about four months, Tom and I will have to go to Atlanta for an interview where the interviewer will ask questions to make sure that our wedding is not a sham.
Okay, other things happening this past week:
Garden: we have one fully grown jalapeno pepper! Finally! We have a few baby peppers that we are monitoring. We are waiting for about10 grape tomatoes to ripen. Our Marigolds (started from seeds) are officially dead. Tom will have to keep up with the watering schedule.
We have a new wreath:
Beads on the left, Mauritian Flag;  beads on the right, USA's flag.

The lab went to lunch with Jennifer for her birthday. We had a somewhat of a surprise dessert session afterwards (strawberry cupcakes and peanut butter pie).
Dessert/eating out + a pinched sciatic nerve = no exercise = weighing scale disaster
Work picked up quite considerably as in the span of two days, we found out that I had to analyze ~1000 patient samples and since I'm out next week at UNC, I'll have about 10 days to run them! yikes!
We are trying to make a catering decision for the wedding reception. We haven't found one place that has the best of everything. For example, Dreamland's meat is unmatched to Jim n Nicks, but JnN has the better sides. Dreamland also has a killer banana pudding. We might have to get creative. 
And finally, we have kicked off Zak's going away parties. Zak is leaving Birmingham for Boston, where he'll start law school at Northeastern. There are so many unanswered questions: what will happen at Thanksgiving? Or any holiday party? What about football season? Who will be Tom's partner in crime for Fourth of July shenanigans? One thing is for sure, we will miss you! Last night, we went to On Tap in Hoover for pregame drinks, and then to Regions Park to watch the Barons Baseball game.

I had ice cream served in a baseball hat cup - I chose the A's because it was the least offensive to the guys (Tom hates the Yankees while Zak is a fan, wasn't sure about the Orioles, and both Tom and Zak hate the Cubs, White Sox, and Phillies).

It was also Pyro-palooza. The show was put on by the same guys who do our fourth of July fireworks show over the mountain.

Look at them with their matching red polos! We will miss you Zak!

Oh August!

For August, I'm
Excited:  about upcoming trips
Worried: about our green card application
Watching: The Olympics
Reading: The newspaper, magazines, e-books
Listening to: nothing in particular
Creating:  jewelry, or thinking about them
Cooking: everything
Loving: the Olympics 
Hoping: that the residency stuff is fine
Looking forward to: having the option to travel internationally if we wanted to, in about 6 weeks

Busy week recap

I am not proud of this but after a busy week, this is what the craft room looked like this morning:

Here are a few things that contributed to this mess:

1. Medical exam for my residency application: I had provide my vaccination record, which mean digging through my files. I found everything I needed and I get the results this Tuesday. There is also a pile of paperwork for the rest of the application process.

2. Annual eye exam: Looking for my eye insurance card, which I couldn't find. Eye exam was fine, no changes in my prescription. The doctor said that my vision is stabilizing and that in theory my eye numbers should not change for a very long time.

3. Joann had some good 50% coupons, which meant getting wedding supplies. 

4. I had leftover fabric after making the iPad pouch, so I made a small make-up bag. 

5. The Pattersons are in town this weekend and I've been collecting items to put together a baby basket.

6. Birthdays! Laura's, Jen's, and Baby Julia = making birthday cards/putting together gifts.

7. Wedding crafts; invitations; also we received our save-the-dates this week. We hope to finalize our guest list in the next few weeks, and send our save-the-dates in September.

I am a firm believer in a place for everything and everything in its place. The issue at hand was that everything had a place, but nothing was in its place. Clean-up was a breeze. In merely an hour, I was looking at this:

For Baby Morrison

This is what happens when we forget to water our plants for a couple of days. Maybe that's why we don't have any peppers yet (They are too stressed with the heat and not-so-frequent watering). Interestingly, the marigolds that we started from seeds are less tolerant of the heat/watering issue than the ones we rescued from Lowes. I'm not worried about the peppers; an hour after watering the plants, this pepper plant had already bounced back. I also found more tomatoes.

Jalapeno pepper plant

Marigold from seeds; look at the bright flowers from the other Marigold (rescued; right)

Also, my parents and sister came back from China this weekend. They had a nice trip, visited Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai, and Wuhan (where my sister was). Soon my sister will apply to be registered as a specialist with the medical council of Mauritius, and hopefully will start practicing soon. Good luck sis!

We are also very entertained by the Olympics - I did watch the Walk of Nations on Friday and cheered for Mauritius - yes, we are represented at the summer Olympics. Looking forward to the women's gymnastics event this evening and hope that the US team will do great.