Taste Buds

The makings of a perfect weekend...

2009-06-30T15:12:00.000-07:00

A best friend...

(sorry for the roughness, but hey we're at the lake)

A lake sunset...

A grill master...

a DELICIOUS meal...

(yes, that would be tequila lime chicken with grilled corn on the cob that has chile lime butter and feta sprinkled on top, props Lo)

and chowing down...

Once again, perfect.

I wonder if the hospital in Alexander City is hiring? :)

Sorry Mary

2009-06-25T13:11:00.000-07:00

Yep! She did it! And sadly this is one of the only pics I have on my camera. Oh well, this is a little grainy for some reason but a good one caught right in the middle of the "shake and accept" maneuver you do to get your diploma. Congrats Kalpal, see ya in Austin!!

Last weekend we had a girls weekend at the lake, I've noticed some facts about everyone as I've looked through these pics:

1. Margaret loves dogs.

2. Lori love magazines (and I probably bother her too much about less reading and more talking)

3. Margo loves headbands.

4. We all love a group shot, even though we all are looking like the definition of lake rat.

And on ANOTHER note, this post is really jumping around.... I made lamb last night! Now let's get two things straight, first of all, I am very nervous about cooking meat and secondly, I have been wanting to try this for a while now and finally got the guts to do it. I asked my self what's the worse that could happen? It would be inedible, which would be detrimental to my ego, but not the end of the world. Here's what I came up with....

It was delicious and SO easy. I got the recipe from here. I liked the lamb, but I liked the fried spinach leaves even more, who knew that would be so good?!

Road Trip!

2009-06-04T12:34:00.001-07:00

Well, I thought my blog had been broken, but it turned out to be my seriously inept technical skills...oh well :)

And we're off! J and myself are headed to Gainesville for Kallie's Graduation this weekend! I am so excited to see everyone! One small pit stop in Auburn to pick up Anna-banana and we'll have about 5 1/2 hours of car fun ahead of us...yeah, so I've decided to make it a little more exciting and came up with some homemade snacks. First up, Butter pecan cookies...you'll never want a Sandie again.

3/4c. chopped pecans

1/2c. butter, room temp

1/3c. sugar

1/8 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

1c. all-purpose flour

Preheat to 350. Toast pecans until fragrant (about 6 min) and cool. Cream butter, sugar, vanilla, and salt. Add flour, fold in pecans. Roll dough into small balls and roll dough balls in sugar. Gently flatten and bake 12 min. So easy, which is why I love these!

Look at that mixer go, I really love this thing way too much.

Mmmm...

I also decided that instead of buying the Jalapeno Chex mix that I can't get enough of, I would make my own hot and spicy mix! Of course I didn't follow just one recipe, I was working around about five I found and I added in a little of my own stuff too! Here it is:

6 tbsp butter

1 1/2 tbsp seasoned salt

1/2 tsp onion powder

2 tbsp worchestire sauce

3/4 tbsp garlic powder

2 tbsp hot sauce (I used tabasco)

3 c corn chex mix

3 c rice chex mix

1 c buffalo hot wing flavored pretzels :)

1 c crushed bagel chips

1 c goldfish

Melt the butter and mix in the seasonings, pour over dry ingredients. I baked it at 250 for about 30 min. Of course I sprinkled a little more tabasco, seasoned salt, and added some hot everglades spice stuff we had just to make sure it had enough kick. I already can't stop eating it and we haven't even left yet.

More pics from Gainesville when I get back! Have a great weekend!

Because I'll be working all weekend...

2009-05-06T15:50:00.001-07:00

Make a Smilebox slideshow

I know...FINALLY!

2009-04-14T13:12:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I've been a little busy :) ....

That's right it 's LAKE TIME!!! Last week Mom, Dad, and Kallie all made it up for a whole week! Margo and I were in charge of food for one weekend, so naturally we headed to Sam's, we got a little carried away when we spotted this gem...

It's our Carribean Island and WE ARE OBSESSED!!! It's complete with 2 built in coolers, an anchor, seating for seven, and a password...sometimes I think we're still in seventh grade. This week was such a perfect time spent with my family and friends, these are the times when I'm reminded how absolutely blessed I am to have an amazing family and to be surrounded by such wonderful friends.

Daddy-O was glad to be back to his favorite place in the world of course.

And me and Margs were glad to get away from Bham for awhile

To enjoy our study bug AU girlies...

Enjoy the ol' sunset cruise...

And of course LOTS of food

Complete with beer butt chicken...Kallie looks less than amused

Later in the week when it got cold and rainy, Mom and Kal headed to Mountain Brook to spend a few days with me in Bham. They did A LOT of shopping (notice how I say they, I choose to nap), and a lot of eating of course to recharge (to which I fully participated). This pic was taken right before we discovered the car battery was dead...which could be a whole post in it's own...

And after my week off, it's back to the real world. But work's a lot easier these days (or should I say nights) knowing that I'm first now on the list for day shift!!! Thank heavens!! Have a great week!!

Margie Pie

2009-03-23T12:57:00.000-07:00

Most of you know this girl, she's a frequent on Taste Buds. She's my roomie, partner in crime, and best of all...GIRLFRIEND (along with Beauty)!! We are taking Birmingham by storm...gradually. But one thing we don't let stop us is a small bump in the road. That being said, Margo this summer is going to be exciting. Love you so much dear. Oh and the Franzia is not only in the pic but there's some in the fridge :) Can't wait for May 3rd this year! Chuck's ISN'T ready!

St. Patty's recap!!

2009-03-19T13:56:00.000-07:00

Mags and Loberry came for a visit!!! Of course, they were just breezing through B'ham for the night and had to leave very early the next morning to catch a flight to the big D.C. for a spring break vacay with Maren (I'm jealous...) Anyways, we take what we can get! Margo and I made a little dinner which had to be in the spirit of things, which meant green. I decided to go with Baked Chicken Pesto. Very easy, very good.

Boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Pre-made pesto

Plum tomatoes

Mozzarella

S & P

Spread pesto over chicken. Bake in oven at 400 for around 30 min. Top chicken with sliced tomatoes and mozzarella. Bake for another 5-10 min. Your done!

It was good, but not as good as dessert. Margo made her strawberry shortcake which I failed to get a pic of. However, I did manage to capture the special dessert which was made for our guests who don't prefer fruit :) Lo, I'm not sure if you were able to finish this off, but if you did I applaud you... this pic doesn't even begin to do it justice, the amount of ice cream, chocolate syrup and mini chocolate chips cookies Margo managed to pack in this little dessert bowl, it was impressive.

Almost Spring!

2009-03-11T09:23:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure these trees are Bradford pears and they have blossomed overnight all over Mountain Brook~ so pretty and just a little reminder that spring is very close (along with all our warm weather...it was 80 degrees yesterday)!!

Last night as I was browsing in the grocery store trying to find some inspiration for a really great dinner, I stumbled upon some very delicious looking salmon. It was different from the usually chicken so I was happy. I also decided I wouldn't buy anything else but just try to use any other ingredients we had lying around the apt. Well, I lucked out and found this recipe in the newest Birmingham Junior League's cookbook and I already had everything!

Salmon Fillet bathed in Soy and Lemon

1lb fresh salmon fillet

1 tsp dried basil

1/4 tsp pepper

1 clove garlic, minced

3 tbsp lemon juice

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp veggie oil

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

Rinse salmon, pat dry, combine ingredients, pour sauce over salmon. Place in broiler until salmon flakes easily (mine took about 10 min). So very easy. Then I added some angel hair pasta with pesto (this sauce came from a Knoor's packet and was so good!) and a salad.

Later Margo and I watched the movie Rachel Getting Married, we had been forewarned by multiple people that it was a pretty intense movie and oh was it. We had to take frequent pause breaks and talk about other things to lighten our moods a little bit.

It's back to work tomorrow night and I'm trying to find any way to distract myself from this fact, we'll see what else I can come up with!

A few highlights...

2009-03-09T05:39:00.000-07:00

I know I've been a slacker about updating lately...anyways these last two weeks have been jam packed and flown by way too quickly, where does the time go?! Last weekend I headed up with J to his hometown of Oneonta, AL. You may not have heard of it, I certainly hadn't until I met him and now I feel like I hear about it everywhere, funny how that happens. We had a lot of fun and I got the first class tour of the little town :) And on Sunday we got to do a little four-wheeling in the snow!! (You know, all two inches of it.)

Yes, that is me driving, of course all that was going through my head in addition to trying to figure out how to shift gears, was wondering why the heck I was on this thing when my job is taking care of people who wreck these all the time! I just began to imagine all the possible injuries we could get if this went wrong (I know, it's very cynical of me, but I just can't help it, it's the way my brain works now working in trauma.)

But what I was really excited about most of all was seeing these covered bridges that Oneonta has. They have three and I got to see all of them.

They've been there since the 1800's or something and people actually still drive over them. That's about all the history I can remember about them, pretty cool, right?!

This past weekend it was back up to the the lake to finish those windows and on Saturday I got to drive in to Auburn to have a belated birthday lunch date with Lo!! Lo, Mags, and I got a little Jimmy John's and ate it at Samford. It was an absolutely beautiful day and I was glad they both got to take a little study break! We also got to debating which one of our friends complains about eating Jimmy John's but then eats it anyway when we all decide to go there. I said it was Margo, Mags said it might be Maren because she hates shredded lettuce, but I recall Maren loving a Slim 4. ANYWAYS....

And guess what? The windows are done. Finally. Bring on summer at the lake!! I can't wait.

To wrap up the weekend, margaritas at Hacienda to catch up with my roomie... as you can tell they were a little sour. We were just glad to high tail it out of there before the live music started, if you heard them, you would be too.

Whew...what a weekend!!

2009-02-23T14:03:00.000-08:00

So, last fall, dad gave J a little project to mull over in regards to replacing a large window at the lake house. Not such a big deal for my extremely handy boyfriend, he could do it in a weekend he said, no problem. So this past weekend that's exactly what we headed up to the lake with the intention of accomplishing. I was so excited when we drove up to see that the camellias were in bloom! So pretty!!

Now, I had just gotten off work that morning so I was a little sleepy and J decided he would take the door down and do some other things while I took a little nap. However, after I had jumped in the shower, I walked into the living room and see this...

He then informed me that the other two windows needing replacing as well and we needed to go buy more windows and more supplies at Home Depot. Long story/day short: 3 separate trips to the Home Depot in Alex City and a trip to the one in Auburn with a very patient and level-headed when it comes to any sticky situation boyfriend, and no sleep for Ashley who had been up for around 30 hours (which surprisingly was do-able)! The project as you can imagine lasted until late in the night...but I was just hopeful that I wouldn't have to go to sleep that night with nothing but a big hole for a wall in the living room!

Thankfully there were walls before bedtime, I told him he's like Bob Villa (except cuter)!!! :)

Good thing I had started this vegetable beef soup earlier in a crock pot, it was delicious at about 9 pm when we finally had a chance to eat it.

Amazingly, even though the task grew exponentially over the course of the weekend, it was finished and all it needs now is a little paint! He did an absolutely wonderful job and I know my parents appreciate it so much and will absolutely love it!

Congrats!!

2009-02-17T14:43:00.001-08:00

Well, it's pretty much official we have a future LONGHORN in our fam!!!! Congrats Kalpal, can't wait to visit you in Austin!!! Now, what is I'm supposed to say... is it hook 'em horns?! It is now blatantly aware to me that neither of my sisters will choose to follow in my footsteps and go to Auburn or be able to join me in the great state of Alabama any longer...oh well, I guess this summer I'll be responsible to make sure the lake gets its fair share of use, THAT shouldn't be a problem!!!

Wednesday nights in Birmingham...

2009-02-12T10:38:00.000-08:00

Say hello to my vegetarian roomie who makes exceptions for pepperoni and bacon. I caught her chowing down last night..."Bacon is DElicious!"

We made this Bacon, Asparagus, Parmesean Penne pasta last night and it wasn't bad but it wasn't so great either. It had a very strong bacon taste and it became dubbed bacon pasta the rest of the night. Margo got a little heavy handed with the bacon "drippings" which we thought would add more flavor and it would be our little secret :) I'm pretty sure it was our downfall. At least everyone enjoyed the pear and raspberry pie!!!

I'm off to work these next three nights...boo. Anyways, hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!!!

Tuesdays nights in Birmingham

2009-02-11T08:42:00.000-08:00

I made a little pre-Valentine's surprise for J last night...

Pear and Raspberry Heart Pie

http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/pear-raspberry-heart-pie?backto=true

This pie was sooo good. It's been awhile since I have made one and when I saw this idea in Martha Stewart Living I knew I wanted to try it. It's a little tart and a little sweet and very cute!! Thank goodness Margo has bags and bins FULL of cookie cutters because finding heart-shaped ones was a lost cause yesterday.

Margo and I got a little crazy last night (for example, starting a pie at 9pm at night) and decided we were bringing back the topsy-tail!! What do you think?

I thought hers was cuter, she thought mine was. Mine is actually still intact this morning! We also finally caught the Duggar wedding on tv~ needless to say, it was a fun evening.

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Gator Hater

2009-02-08T15:11:00.000-08:00

Well I was so proud of myself for doing such a great job of updates lately, then I completely dropped the ball. Sorry, I'll try better this time. I'm off work for 8 days and in Gainesville visiting the fam for a long weekend...and oh has it been an adventure filled time with the Mitcheners which is no less than expected. Today we decided to go and see some real life wild gators that mom just could not stop talking about. She'd only heard about this place from a friend and the directions she had were a little less than satisfactory, so in short we walked around a place that could easily be mistaken for the Saharan desert for an hour. Did I mention that Kallie and I did not get the memo about hiking and walking for miles and were dressed in our cowboy boots and flip-flops...oh yes it was an adventure...

When we finally arrived at this sign, I knew we were close and I was also glad that it was 2:30 which gave us plenty of time before dinner :)

When we we got there I was sort of in shock, at this place you can probably touch the gators if you wanted to, there is no gate, barrier, or fence holding you or the gator back from each other, and they were everywhere. I was also in shock when I overheard a father of a 3 year old tell his kid to move closer to the gator so he could get a picture. (This picture looks close, but you can rest assured that I safely distanced myself and zoomed in as far as I could).

To celebrate actually finding this place after around 2 hours of searching and because it was such a hike, we treated ourselves to some Dairy Queen which dad claimed he had never been to before (I think his age is really getting to him, because I'm pretty sure we went last time I was in Gainesville). Needless to say, he enjoyed everybit of his coke float...

Well, it's back to Birmingham tomorrow! I've been thinking Margo and I are long overdue for some shrimp and corn soup! Hope everyone had a good weekend!

All I can think about lately

2009-01-23T16:32:00.000-08:00

Is it time for summer yet?!?

Because I just want to be at the lake.

While I just went to run in Barnes and Noble and look around the other day, I suddenly found myself in the cookbook section and this familiar face was staring back at me and I just couldn't resist...

I already have her Barefoot Contessa at Home cookbook (thanks LoBerry!!), but this one just looked so appealing and had everything I'm always looking for: simple ingredients, not too complicated recipes, and very delicious. Three things that you would think wouldn't be hard to come by but sometimes just are. However, you can never go wrong with Ina, am I right?! I'm hoping this weekend I'll be able to make something, we'll see! Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Monday, monday...

2009-01-19T13:05:00.000-08:00

It's a cold and dreary day in Bham, so Margo and I have been holed up in the apartment enjoying doing nothing and catching some eps of Real Housewives of O.C. :)

Last night I put my new dutch oven J got me for my birthday to use! It's an absolutely wonderful pot, first of all it's so pretty and second cooks things to perfection and thirdly cleans so easily!!! Can you tell I'm a little obsessed?! I never thought I'd ever rave about a pot.

Anyways, I decided to make mushroom bourguignon from none other than one of my fav's smitten kitchen.

It was delicious and I highly recommend it...

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp butter

2 lbs portabello mushrooms, in 1/4-inch slices (I bought two pkgs pre-sliced)

1/2 carrot, finely diced

1 sm. yellow onion

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 c. full-bodied red wine

2 c. vegetable or beef broth ( I used beef)

2 tbsp tomato paste

1 tsp fresh thyme leaves (1/2 tsp dried)

1 1/2 tbsp all-purpose flour

1 c. pearl onions (J and I scoured Bruno's looking for these, couldn't find them so I decided to throw in some kalamata olives I already had~ hey they are similar in size, right?)

Egg noodles

Heat 1 tbsp butter and 1 tbsp olive oil in medium dutch oven over high heat. Sear mushrooms 3-4 min then remove from pan.

Lower heat to medium and add 1 tbsp olive oil, carrots, onion, thyme, (and in my case, olives) and s & p. Cook for 10, add garlic.

Add the wine to pot, turn heat to high, reduce by half.

Add tomato paste, broth, and seared mushrooms, bring to a boil then reduce temperature to a simmer for 20 min.

Add 1 tbsp butter and flour, simmer 10 more minutes. If the sauce is still too thin, boil it down to reuce to the right consistency.

Serve over egg noodles and enjoy!!!

Mmmm..steamy!

Do I really have to go back to work??

2009-01-14T11:40:00.000-08:00

Mmm the perfect dinner last night...

Jane's Chili from Tables of Content

3 lbs ground round

1 lb Italian sausage, casings removed

2 onions, chopped

3 garlic cloves, minced

1- 28 ounce can crushed tomatoes

1- 16 ounce can kidney beans, drained

1- 15 ounce can black beans, drained

1- 15 ounce can white beans, drained (I used navy beans!)

3- 4 ounce chopped green chiles

1/2 c red wine (I used 1 c!)

3 envelopes chili seasoning mix

1 tsp ground cumin

Brown meat and sausage, reserve drippings and cook onion and garlic for about 5 min until softened. Add onion mixture, undrained tomatoes, beans green chiles, wine, seasoning mix and cumin to a stockpot and mix well, add additional wine or water as needed.

Simmer, covered for 1 1/2- 2 hours stirring occasionally, remove the cover 30 minutes before the end of cooking process for thicker consistency.

*Side note: I used hot italian sausage and hot chili seasoning packets...you know, just for a little kick!

Oh and guess who found some pillows?!? What do you think? Don't mind the blur in the middle of the pic, it was in all of them, I guess it was just our friendly apartment ghost.

So long 2008...

2009-01-13T11:25:00.000-08:00

This was our cabin in Montana. It was straight out of cottage living, however I could never live there~ IT WAS SO COLD! This coming from a girl who wears her spandex pants under jeans when its 65 in Birmingham so you better believe I was packing it on up there! Me and the fam had lots of fun and I think my parents made it clear that this would be the last time that they would be participating in the skiing portion of a skiing vacation. I was very aware of this fact as I waited a few feet down the hill from my mom and listened as she begged and pleaded for God to get her off this mountain, and we all know that Vicki usually has such a positive attitude, it was pretty funny.

I then come home from a wonderful Christmas vacation to find this waiting for me in my living room:

After I stared at it in silence for about ten minutes with my mouth wide open and of course maybe a little misty eyed (crybaby), I called Jonathan and quickly informed him that he had truly amazed me and I was speechless. I absolutely love my new bed!!!!

This is the finished product of the bed portion, hopefully soon to be finished in the linens portion as well. Who knows where I can get some solid red Euro size pillows...??

New Year's Eve was sandwiched in between my working schedule so J and I decided we'd just spend the night in. On the menu? Butter pecan cookies, Quail with stuffing, asparagus and potatoes. Pretty good if I do say so myself, although I'm not sure if I'm totally in love with wild game...

I hope everyone has a wonderful new year in 2009! I know I have been so blessed this past year and I can't wait to see what 2009 has in store for everyone of our friends~ especially a certain someone's big move to D.C. !! I can't wait to see what it brings, love yall so much!

So far we're off to a great December...

2008-12-11T10:37:00.000-08:00

Whoa so many updates...

First off, let's start with the good stuff. Abigail came for a visit!! I cannot believe its pretty much been a year, but not to fear our fashionista friend is still the same, Ohio has not changed her too much. Question...is Ohio considered a northern state or more midwestern? Anyways, we had a great little visit which included shopping where she convinced me that I just HAD to buy the two anthropologie dresses we found on sale and not just one, and while I was questioning my decision at the register after I was rung up, as I look at them hanging in my closet, it was worth it. We then took a swing by Trader Joe's where Maren introduced us to the most addictive cheese puffs ever. Dinner at Jackson's and hanging out with two very best friends afterward that I miss very much brought the visit to an end. Love you girls so much.

Maren made some delicious cupcakes for us...

And I was able to successfully pull off some pralines! (VERY finicky little boogers, which I have tried many a time and failed, which is a constant frustration to me until I can muster up the patience to try them again.)

Changing gears...

We had a very fun little dinner party last night. Me and Margo went a little crazy, actually it was Mrs. Grantham's fault because she gave us the Christmas china...I know so fancy right? Sadly, I do not have any pics of the food because I realize now that hosting and cooking keeps you a little busy from taking pics. But here is our cute little table before the herb crusted pork tenderloin, roasted potatoes and asparagus, pear salad, and brownies with peppermint ice cream were devoured. Very tasty and so fun getting everyone together!

After din we decided to play some cards. Of course Margo and I became a little too much and Kemps got cut throat. At one point Margo starts raising her voice at Jay, "I've been doing the signal for 10 MINUTES", and I remarked how much I loved this game. It's true. Stovie turned out to be the champ of the night, only because he has hawk eyes. Before we knew it it was eleven thirty and everyone decided to call it a night.

Getting back to Business

2008-11-24T12:33:00.000-08:00

Ok kids, I know all of my avid readers have been anxiously awaiting an update, and I'm happy to report that it will soon come. I plan on purchasing a camera in the very soon future (maybe next week?!) hey I'm a working girl now I can do things like that! What do you think? I'm thinking I just want a camera with pink polka dots, how cute is that? Anyways, after the purchase I will be updating more frequently I believe. However, I would also like to remind you all of the original intention of this blog, I am not the only wannabe domesticated friend in my group of wannabe domesticated girlfriends. Therefore, if anyone has their own submission material, I want it. How convenient Thanksgiving is right on its way, I'm sure everyone will have lots of good stuff to share!! Miss you all, have a great Thanksgiving!!

Shrimp and Corn Soup

2008-10-13T10:17:00.000-07:00

1/2 c. veggie oil 16 oz can cream style corn

1 c. flour salt and pepper

1 lg. onion, chopped crushed red pepper

1 celery rib, chopped 2 lbs. shrimp

1/2 green pepper, chopped 6 sprigs fresh parsley

1 clove garlic

1 gallon hot water

16 oz whole tomatoes, undrained

8 oz tomato sauce

24 oz whole corn, canned or frozen

First Step: Making the Roux

Oil. Water. Stir. Not complicated just don't let it burn and according to Gran it should resemble the color of a copper penny. And overall rule of thumb for a roux is the darker the color the richer the taste!

Next Step: Throw it all together

Add the veggies and garlic to the roux, stir until softened.

Gradually add the warm water, mixing well. Little note: I usually add the salt, pepper, and red pepper and season as I go along- I also like to add Tony Chacheres's and tabasco.

Add the tomatoes and corn, bring to a boil then reduce heat to simmer for about an hour (another note: I have never been able to wait this long).

Finally:

Add the shrimp and parsley and simmer 10 minutes.