Lonely Thursday.

I already posted a recipe today but these were so fun and so cute I really don't want to wait to post them!

Mini Poptarts! On a stick!


These were SO easy. It's just premade pie crust cut in squares filled with 3/4 cup strawberry jam, 1 tbsp cornstarch, and 1 tbsp water. And the glaze is just 1/2 cup powdered sugar, 1 tbsp milk, and 1/4 tsp vanilla extract. They taste SO much better than I thought they would though, much better than a regular Poptart!

Matt has barely been home the last few weeks and I'm SO looking forward to tomorrow. We're carving pumpkins and baking the seeds, drinking apple cider, and staying up late watching these movies:



If you notice that none of those movies are actually scary it's because Matt is petrified of every scary movie. It's true, he can't sit through them! But I don't mind, I'd much rather curl up together and watch Charlie Brown than Freddie Krueger or Jason!

Baked ziti with mini meatballs and fresh mozzarella.

We had been craving baked ziti for weeks but I could not find a recipe that satisfied my tastes. I HATE ricotta cheese (yes, I know, I'm a horrible Italian) and finding a baked ziti recipe that doesn't include ricotta is pretty dang hard. And all those recipes that use sour cream? What is that about? Sooo I made this recipe up! And holy crap you guys it was SO GOOD!

For the meatballs:
1 pound ground pork (Yes pork tastes MUCH better as meatballs! But it's hard to do with large meatballs, that's why I use half beef and half sausage in my big ones! If you're totally opposed to using pork that's okay but it won't be as good! At least do half and half or half beef and half Italian sausage!)
1/4 cup milk
1 egg
1 slice bread
3 cloves garlic minced
2 tbsp fresh parsley (or 1 tsp dried)
2 tbsp fresh oregano (or 1 tsp dried)
1/3 cup fresh parmesan (not using fresh is okay)
salt and pepper
about 1/3 cup flour spread on a plate

For the ziti part:
16 oz ziti
4 cups sauce (I use homemade sauce but you can use pretty much any jarred sauce, just don't get anything too sweet!)
1 lb fresh mozzarella (it HAS to be fresh!)
1/2 cup fresh parmesan
a pinch red pepper flakes
salt and pepper

SO, first the meatballs:
1. Warm the milk in a small pan and cut the bread up into small pieces. Leave the pieces in the pan for a few minutes, then squeeze out the excess milk.
2. Combine the milk soaked bread with the rest of the meatball ingredients and mix with a fork or your hands.
3. Make small meatballs, about the size of a raspberry. Drop them in the flour and roll them around until they're well coated. If you use ground pork, it doesn't hold its shape as well as ground beef does. So just basically drop a small hunk of meat on the plate and it will be much easier to handle and shape once it's coated in the flour.
4. Pour enough vegetable oil in a large skillet so that the entire bottom is coated and the oil starts to come up the sides of the pan. Heat the oil and once it's hot, drop the meatballs in the oil. Brown on all sides.
5. Transfer to a paper towel and repeat with the meatballs until they're all browned.

Then:
6. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
7. Put a large pot of water on to boil, and add a few tsp of salt. Boil the pasta until it's al dente.
8. While the pasta's cooking, slice all of the mozzarella thinly.
9. Once the pasta is cooked and drained, toss it with the meatballs, half the mozzarella cheese, half the parmesan cheese, and the sauce.
10. Pour it into a greased 9x13 baking dish, then sprinkle the rest of the parmesan on top and top with the remaining slices of mozzarella.
11. Bake for 30 minutes! I like when the edges and top are kind of crispy, so if you like that too bake for closer to 35!

It was so good we ate more than half the dish by ourselves last night!


YUM! If you try it let me know how you like it!

Unemployment woes.

There are some jobs on craigslist that I'm considering applying to:


Donut maker.

Dump truck driver.

Housekeeper who loves dogs.

Mock jury participant.

Nestle Toll House baker.


But really. Finding a job in California when you are not bilingual English/Spanish is ridiculously hard. ESPECIALLY in the nonprofit/social services sector. I just wanted to prepare everyone at home so you can keep a straight face when I come home for Christmas and tell you my first post-college job is frying dough for minimum wage.

Fall baking IV.

Pumpkin spice cheesecake brownies. Need I say more?


Actually, if I'm being completely honest, I'd way rather have like triple chunk double fudge brownies. I'm a chocolate FIEND. But I kept seeing this recipe pop up everywhere and I had to try it. I used fat free cream cheese, which is a big no-no with this recipe. FF cream cheese never bakes up right (at least I think so), no matter how much you beat it on its own first, which is why you can see little white specs. So these weren't quite as decadent as they are supposed to be. But really they still tasted delicious and the whole plate is gone. If you love pumpkin or pumpkin cheesecake these are a must.

Remember when I said I was going to copy those candle holders?

Well I did!

I found these candle holders at Homegoods when I wasn't even looking for them (which is always what happens!) and they were okay before:


But they're so much better now!
The smaller one looks like there's white paint on the inside but it's just my crappy camera and the light reflecting off the glossy paint. I know I said was I was going to copy the yellow and white that YHL used but I decided to use green instead. I thought it made more sense with this pattern. What do you think? Now I just need to find the perfect place for them!

What's fall without football?

Yesterday we drove down to Qualcomm Stadium with Scott and Sim to watch the Chargers take on the Patriots.. and LOSE! After being in Hawaii for a few years it's such a nice change to be able to see professional sports, and especially Boston teams! It was such a fun day and I'm so glad we went because the Patriots probably won't be back here while we live here with the way football schedules work. We sat pretty high up but since the stadium is relatively small we still had a really good view. The Patriots were killing the chargers and then defense decided to stop playing. Buuuuut thanks to a missed field goal, the game didn't go into overtime and the Pariots won.



Next weekend we're going to Pasadena to watch USC play Oregon! But mostly to tailgate :)

October loving.

As part of my 26 before 26, I want to do something sweet for Matt every month beyond putting a love note in his lunch box. So I brought him his favorite breakfast, pancakes, in bed. With a sweet little twist. It was no grand gesture but I loved seeing how happy it made him.

The first of many apple recipes.

Since we went apple picking last week, I obviously need to use up a lot of apples. I know the obvious choice is apple pie but I only make my pie with granny smith apples and 1) we didn't pick enough, and 2) the apples are so small, they might be weird in the pie. SO I made this little dish, pork chops with caramelized apples and onions.

4 bone-in loin pork chops
2 whole yellow onions
3 whole granny smith apples (I actually used 6 of the tiny apples we picked)
1/3 cup brown sugar
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 325. Grease a 9 x 13 baking dish. Slice the onions in half moons and put them in an even layer in the bottom of the dish. Slice the apples in 1/4 inch slices and layer them on top of the onions. Sprinkle a generous amount of salt and pepper on each side of the pork chops. Cover the dish tightly with foil and put in the oven for 3 hours. Do not open the foil during cook time so that the moisture stays locked in and keeps the pork chops from drying out.

I actually really hate any form of cooked apples. But one of Matt's favorite meals are pork chops with apple sauce so this is a little variation on that. And I was really skeptical because of the cook time. But it was actually SO good. The pork chops were SO unbelievably tender.


Sorry, the lighting in this picture is even worse than usual since we ate super late last night. Also, it really looks like my plate needs some green and that's because I made green beans for Matt and I absolutely DESPISE green beans. So I went without a vegetable. Unless you call onions caramelized with brown sugar a vegetable. :)

Comfort food.

My ultimate comfort food is baked macaroni and cheese or mashed potatoes or ziti with my auntie's sauce. But this is my healthy-ish comfort food. Does it look appetizing? I can't tell. I know what it tastes like so I'm biased.
Simplest recipe and oh so delicious:

4 chicken breasts
1 lb baby red potatoes quartered
2 carrots sliced
1 carton of mushrooms sliced (how many oz is that? I don't know)
half a yellow onion sliced into half moons
4 garlic cloves minced
1/4 cup olive oil
1 package onion soup mix

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl and make sure everything is coated well. Cook it in the oven for 45 minutes at 450 degees! It's better if you saute the onions and garlic first but I never do. It's basically a one dish meal so why complicate it? I doubled the recipe in the picture above. If you double it, I suggest using only 1/3 cup of olive oil rather than a half cup and cooking for closer to an hour.

I freaking love onion soup mix. That's probably gross but pretty much any recipe that contains it I'm smitten with. Hence, comfort food. If anyone has any good recipes containing onion soup mix, hand them over!! Or comfort food recipes that don't use a stick of butter or heavy cream, hand those over too.

Fall baking, numero tres.

This recipe doesn't really use any fall ingredients, I just kept seeing a picture of Martha Stewart's blondies with Reese's Pieces and I wanted to blatantly copy it because they looked festive. I didn't use her recipe because it didn't have ANY baking soda or baking powder (what the heck Martha?) so I used this one instead. I left out the walnuts and obviously replaced the chocolate chips with Reese's Pieces. So delicious. And fattening.

Fall fun.

Yesterday Matt and I took an adventure to Julian, CA with the Herrington's. I had heard good things about Julian, especially in the fall, because of the nearby apple orchards. Our first stop was downtown Julian, which I took no pictures of, haha sorry! Julian was a gold mining town in the 1800s and the town (which is basically just a big intersection) still has most of the original buildings. It's a tourist town so it's filled with restaurants, bakeries, and general stores filled with souvenirs. We ate Mexican food because we are all obsessed with it and perused many of the shops. I found a great little used book store and the boys bought apple pie (which by the way, according to Matt, the famous Julian Apple Pie Company pie does not at all live up to the hype). I wish we had had more time to walk around town.

Next we hit up the Raven Hill apple orchards. The orchards are NOTHING like orchards at home, and the trees aren't even tall enough to need a ladder. But it was still so much fun. The Fuji apples are to diiiie for. I can't wait to use them in treats!

This is Cannon. He LOVED sucking on the apples!

On our way back we stopped at Mountain Valley Ranch's pumpkin patch. By then it had started raining, so we decided against walking around the corn maze or playing with the corn cannon. But we did a little photoshoot with Cannon and some pumpkins, found our big pumpkin and got on our way.


Despite the weather we had so much fun. We are definitely looking forward to heading back to Julian when it gets closer to Christmas for some holiday-themed baked goods and a horse drawn carriage ride!

Rotting vegetables.

Ever have a ton of almost rotten vegetables in your fridge? That's how this meal came about. I am admittedly terrible at making up recipes. Usually if something comes out good it's totally by chance. If I have 2 or 3 ingredients I need to use I usually look up ideas online as to what I can do with them. But my sister in law is like the QUEEN of winging it, and I was on the phone with her explaining my predicament as I was trying to start dinner and she told me to just go with it. And I just figured, it if comes out bad there's always pizza, right?

WELL. I chopped up half a yellow onion and 2 cloves of garlic and sauteed them in about 2 tbsp of olive oil. I also chopped up 4 Roma tomatoes, 1 green bell pepper, 2 teeny zucchini, and 1 small yellow squash... everything I needed to use up:

Hence my intimidation! I added them to the pan, with all the basil I had in the fridge (probably 30 large leaves, I'm a serious basil lover), and seasoned it all with black pepper and some red pepper flakes. Then I added a scant 1/4 cup of olive oil. I sauteed it all up and meanwhile boiled a box of spaghetti.

When the spaghetti was ready, I drained it (obvi) and added all the veggies. Then I added about 1/4 cup of Parmesan and cooked it all together for another 5. I was about to serve it, BUT as per usual, Matt needed meat. So I tried my hardest to keep the pasta warm and quickly cooked up some Italian turkey sausage, sliced it up, and mixed it in.

It was SO good. I'm seriously wicked proud of myself, and Matt ate more than half of it and there was A LOT! There was the perfect amount of spicyness and freshness. Try it!!

Yellow and white.

I am obsessed with what YHL did today. Especially in THAT color combo, my most favorite color combination ever. Need to hit a thrift store stat and find something similar and copy them verbatim.

This is our dream house.

This does not look like it tastes good.

But it's delicious, I promise. If you like pesto, you must try.

2 densely packed cups of fresh basil
1/4 cup pine nuts
3 garlic cloves
1/2 cup grated Pecorino
2/3 cup olive oil
salt and pepper to taste (though you don't need much salt at all!)

If you want to get technical you should throw in about 1/2 the oil with the first 3 ingredients, then add the rest of the oil and cheese after by hand. But I just throw it all in the food processor at once and it tastes just the same. And for the record, this is the ONLY recipe I know by heart.

It makes about a cup of pesto which I added to half of a large spaghetti squash, and then I chopped up 2 Roma tomatoes and threw those in because I love the combo of tomatoes with basil (hello Caprese salad!). I served it with garlic bread and over some chicken for Matt!

Truth.

A room without books is like a body without a soul.

So I've already shared my triumph in acquiring the first set of these books, but finally, as of about a week ago, the second set of books is also complete. Though I pre-ordered this entire set months ago, it's still rewarding to see the second set in its entirety on its own little shelf.

They've also released four more, whether or not they'll be part of a 10 book third collection, I'm not sure. But I'm nerdishly excited to find out!

Fall baking, second edition.

I made a pumpkin roll today. My favorite part of the pumpkin roll is the cream cheese frosting, as I'm sure you can tell seeing that the layers of frosting are wider than the cake itself. I use the recipe on the inside of the Libby's can label. I really need to invest in a 10x15 jelly roll pan just for the purpose of making these bad boys. 11x17 makes the cake too thin and 9x13 (which I used) doesn't allow the cake to be rolled over on itself enough times. Even though mine isn't as pretty as the picture on the Libby's site, it sure tastes good. Matt's on duty and I ate half the roll by myself already. The combo of pumpkin and cheesecake is just that good.

Cutting burlap is hard.

I love the look of a burlap table runner. I don't know why, I just do. I had one in Hawaii that was lined and when I washed it the lining shrunk but the burlap did not and it became bumpy and lumpy. And now I can't find one for under $35. And since burlap is like $3 a yard, it obviously made more sense to just make one.

But sewing burlap proved to be difficult. I'm not a great sewer anyway, but yeah, it didn't look neat. Turns out cutting burlap in a straight line is hard too. So I did my best to fold and iron straight lines and finish the edges with stitch witchery. And somehow my burlap table runner came out suuuuper pretty. And it's the perfect texture for fall.


If you want a tutorial on how to make a burlap table runner, go here. (Check out her cute centerpiece!)

And if you want a tip on cutting burlap in a straight line, go here. Wish I saw this BEFORE I started my project!

And thank you to all my wonderful family and friends who emailed me with encouraging words and advice! I love you guys.

26 Before 26.

I want to run a marathon. It's something I really have wanted to do for a long time. My brother ran a marathon a few years ago and I just could not grasp the fact that he ran TWENTY SIX miles. And that was when I was in shape. Now that I'm not in shape, running is way more difficult for me. I really want to challenge myself and push myself to the limit. For me, I don't think there's any better way to do that than to run a marathon.

So I started researching. Experts say that you should be putting in 20 miles a week for 6 months before you even start training. I can run 3 miles in like 25-26 minutes, which isn't TOO bad (though I'd like to improve), but lately anything beyond 4 miles no matter how slow I go my body just shuts down and I have to persuade myself to take every. single. step. Even running 3 miles every single day is only running 18 miles a week, and let's be real, I run no more than 4 times a week. So I need to put in a lot more miles per week. I also need to strengthen my muscles and joints because running 26 miles (and all the training leading up to it), will certainly not be easy on these knees of mine. AND I need to lose weight. I CANNOT carry my weight for 26 miles.

So I thought it all out, and realized, I need at least 2 years to train for this. That might seem like a really long time but I need to work my way up to running 20 miles a week, then actually run 20 miles a week for 6 months, then start training. And I don't want to give myself a deadline I can't meet.

And then I started thinking about goals. And how I feel a little bit loser-ish as all my friends graduated and are getting into amazing grad programs or getting really good jobs and I. am. not. And after starting my grad school applications, the idea of not getting in and all my dreams, goals, and plans falling through left me searching for a back up plan. And I came up with my 26 Before 26. Three years to complete 26 things, including running 26 miles, before I turn 26. And all this will coincide with Matt getting out of the Marine Corps. Sure, my goals aren't life-changing but it's something to work toward and if I complete my list, I will feel successful. Maybe not by other people's standards but by my own. And that's what's important.

So without further ado, here are my 26 before 26:

1. Run a Marathon

2. Lose 25 pounds (training for the marathon should help with that)

3. Volunteer:

a. At a soup kitchen

b. At an animal shelter

c. With the elderly

d. At a hospital

4. Quilt a blanket

5. Pay off all debt (We have no credit card debt but we have two car loans and small student loans. Being debt free for our transition to civilian life will be suuuuper helpful.)

6. Read 150 books (roughly 1 book per week!)

7. Read (and study!) the Bible

8. Bake a multi-layer cake with fondant

9. Bake perfect sugar cookies with icing

10. Bake macarons (yes, baking is a major theme here)

11. Do something romantic for Matt once a month (and expect nothing in return!)

12. Organize all our pictures

13. Sew myself a dress

14. Reupholster something

15. Clean out my closet. For real.

16. Travel outside the country (location TBD)

17. Travel inside the country (location also TBD, but Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Redwoods, and Wine Country are some of the many places I’d like to go)

18. Get a job I love, even if it's not a career job (Completed February 2011)

19. Take a dance lesson with Matt

20. Take a surfing lesson (nope, never did it in Hawaii!!)

21. Actually learn to snowboard (and do it WELL and not give up and resort to skiing)

22. Teach Jack to sit, shake, and roll over. (No, sadly, he can’t do these things)

23. Grow an herb garden

24. Bet on a horse

25. See Tom Petty live

26. Accept.

I was really hesitant in posting on this blog. First of all, it's kind of embarrassing and our families read this. Second of all, I can imagine how many of you are thinking (or maybe even laughing and yelling at the computer screen), "YOU!? Run a marathon!?" Third of all, the rest of my goals are also kind of embarrassing. But you guys are my friends and family right? So you should be proud of my goal setting. And besides, it's my blog. So in addition to recording our life here in order to share it with you, I'll be using the blog to keep myself accountable and record my accomplishments. Hope you don't mind!!

Is there anything that doesn't taste better with a dollop of Daisy?

Seriously. Why is sour cream so good? I made these stuffed peppers for dinner on Sunday night and they are deliciousssss. They have a little Mexican twist and Mexican food = salsa and sour cream in my mind. These are actually WW friendly and still pretty healthy even with a big old heaping helping of sour cream on top.
The commissary only had small green bell peppers so there was extra filling left over. I've eaten it in a wrap with spinach, made a quesadilla for Matt using the chicken and added cheese (of course), and added it to a salad with black beans and avocado. So many uses, so little time. Try them!!

First of fall baking.

I love Pioneer Woman and I love her Tasty Kitchen database. I was looking for a pumpkin bread or muffin recipe, something that I could swap in Splenda (yeah, yeah I know) and used less than an entire stick of butter unlike most of PW's own recipes. And I found the perfect one. Do yourself a favor and make these. Super easy and so SO tasty! You sprinkle this mixture of sugar and pumpkin pie spice on top and it makes the top crunchy and delicious!!

Virginia.

Did I forget to mention we were going to Virginia to visit our best friends from Hawaii? Well we did. And we are lucky that they live super close to Washington DC so we were able to spend a day there checking out the monuments and gallivanting through museums. I don't want to bore you with a million pictures of Washington DC because who hasn't seen the classic snaps of the reflecting pool and the Lincoln Memorial?

But we got to see this little lady who we love and adore so much:
And Matt hasn't been to DC before so it was a really fun day.

And we also got to go to the National Marine Corps museum. Anyone who knows Matt probably knows how much he was LOVING the museum. I was actually really impressed with how nice it was and how many artifacts they had. Here's a couple pictures from the day:

The boys out in front of the museum. The shape of the building is supposed to reflect the shape of the famous picture of the flag going up on Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima.

It was awesome how realistic the exhibits were! And kind of creepy! ha!

Matt wanted me to post a picture of this Medal of Honor because it is the actual medal that belonged to his idol, John Basilone. Can you say loser?

It was such a fun weekend but on the last day, I got super sick and could barely get out of bed. And Matt caught whatever I had and was up all night that night. Needless to say, the flight home was pretty miserable for both of us.

We are actually both glad that Matt goes back to work next week and life will be somewhat normal again. With both of us not working, all that free time is a little bit overwhelming.. and expensive! We do have plenty of fun fall activities coming up but Matt is excited to get back to his gym routine interruption-free and I am excited to get back in the kitchen and ruin all his hard work in the gym. :)