September floats on by...

Lately my posts have been more photo-heavy and less wordy...
But you know what? I'm ok with that. There's not much to say these days anyway.


Shawn's birthday was last week. He never likes to make a big fuss about it but this year I made him a big cake (yellow cake with chocolate sour cream frosting, to be exact) and got him a few unexpected gifts. He was pleasantly surprised!



We also made meatballs with a side of tortellini for his birthday dinner - quite possibly the best meatballs Shawn has made yet!



I realized I never talk much about what I bake at work. Honestly, I always forget to bring my camera in with me! Here's a peek at what I'll usually make on a weekly basis.... cookies, muffins, scones, and some sort of loaf. And yep, that's all the workspace I have. Hey, you don't need a whole lot of space if you keep it organized properly!



Oh, and pies! I made a lot of pies this summer using up all sorts of fresh fruits, but I'm really excited about making some pies for autumn!



Zucchini bread gets its close-up. I honestly had never made or really even eaten zucchini bread until this summer, but now I think it's absolutely wonderful! It's a lot of fun to bake with vegetables too.


...Of course, what's a post on here without some gratuitous pictures of what we made for dinner?


Mini pizzas made on naan bread! My parents made some the last time I visited and I thought "What a genius idea!" Indeed. We used Trader Joe's frozen naan (warmed in the oven before adding toppings) topped with tomato sauce, red and green peppers, onion, mozzarella and cheddar cheeses, and a sprinkling of fresh parsley.



This week we also splurged and bought some steaks which we paired with homemade sour cream mashed potatoes and green beans. Yummy! Shawn cooked those steaks perfectly!



Oh, I know that's not food up there, don't be silly! But I was too proud of myself not to share a photo of this pillow case I 'fixed'. There was nothing wrong with it to start, it was just made for a bigger pillow that we no longer have, so I sewed it down to fit this smaller pillow. It was a simple sewing project, I can't believe it took me weeks to get motivated to do it! I'm so proud of myself every time I look at the bed now though :)

Expect an onslaught of photos on our flickr soon; we went to Longwood Gardens yesterday and took over 200 photos each! We're so excited to share them once we sort through them all.

An (I've Made Some) Meatloaf Recipe!

Shawn has made meatloaf three times now, and if I may use a cliche term, the third time is definitely the charm. The first loaf was made with a mixture of ground turkey and beef, and although tasty, we didn't like the lean-ness of the turkey meat... it didn't hold up well in a meatloaf. The second loaf was all beef - that one was tasty too, but something was still missing. So when we stumbled upon a 'meatloaf mix' of ground beef, veal, and pork at our local farmer's market meat counter, we just couldn't resist.

We bought two pounds of meat with the intention of making burger patties with one pound and a meatloaf with the other pound... but that idea went out the window once we got home and decided that we'd rather just make one giant meatloaf and have leftovers to hold us over for the week.

And so, the spicy pepper & onion meatloaf was born.

Meatloaf

Ingredients:
1 cup of chopped sweet onion
1 cup of chopped bell peppers (we used red and yellow)
3 tablespoons butter
2 pounds ground meat (we used a mix of beef, pork and veal)
2 eggs
1 tablespoon ketchup
1 tablespoon mustard
1/2 tablespoon crushed garlic
1 tablespoon worcheshire sauce
a squirt of chili pepper sauce
about 1/8 cup combined spices of your choice (we used dried basil, parsley, red pepper flakes, paprika, salt, and pepper)
3/4 cups bread crumbs

- Prepare all of your ingredients before you start anything. (It's just easier and makes putting the loaf together go much quicker.)
- Sweat the onions and peppers with the butter in a frying pan, you want to get them juicy so they add more flavor to the loaf.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine your choice of spices with 2 eggs, ketchup, mustard, crushed garlic, worcheshire sauce, and chili pepper sauce. Once everything is well combined, mix in your meat, onions and peppers, and then the breadcrumbs.
- Shape your loaf - we bake ours on a cookie sheet, you can also bake it in a loaf pan if desired.
- Glaze the loaf - it's what keeps it moist! Shawn used a mixture of ketchup, mustard, salt, and worcheshire sauce which he kinda painted onto the loaf.
- Bake it at 350 degrees until it's done! (for us that was 25 minutes, pull it out for a re-glaze, and then bake for another 25 minutes).

All the ingredients you'll need.


Sweat your peppers and onions.


Mix your spices together.


Mix mix mix.


Make your glaze.


Glaze it up!


P.S. Any other ATHF fans think our 'meatball' looks like meatwad? :)

Here's the recipe for the buttermilk mashed potatoes pictured above too:

Buttermilk Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients:
1 1/2 pounds russet potatoes
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons butter
salt and pepper

- Boil the potatoes until tender, about 15 minutes or so.
- Mash up the potatoes and stir in the butter and buttermilk; you can add more or less buttermilk depending on the consistency you're looking for.
- Season to taste.

EPIC CHILI !

I was extremely bored today,So I made a video and some music.This is some chili I made the other day.It was delicious,but now it is EPIC.

Saturday Night Dinner Party

I hope you all had an enjoyable weekend; ours was both enjoyable and more eventful than usual! Saturday night my friend Alina and her boyfriend Ryan came to visit us for the first time! We had our first small dinner party in the apartment - Alina made stuffed bell peppers, I made some herb&garlic dinner rolls, Ryan took the awesome photos that you see in this post, and Shawn took it easy for the night and enjoyed not having to cook.




tomatoes, mozzarella & basil + tabbouleh - 2009

Alina and I have known each other since our early high school days. We met during lunch period freshman year, and then we had Biology together sophomore year (where we made homemade yogurt to the tunes of Madonna and we also dissected a fetal pig together!) and we've been friends ever since! So you might not believe me when I tell you that she and Shawn had never met each other prior to Saturday night... I know, I'm ashamed. They've both known of one another for years, but Shawn's elusive and other things always got in the way. Or maybe it's me and I'm just an awful friend because I only see most of my friends about two or three times a year... I think that's just what happens to everyone over time though.



double couple trouble! oh, so corny.

It was also the first time Shawn and I met Alina's boyfriend Ryan - he's such a nice guy! And his camera puts both Shawn's and mine to shame.




Alina stuffed the peppers with ground beef and rice, then topped them off with some shredded cheddar and jack cheese. Then she filled the pans with diced tomatoes and green chilies, a little olive oil and some water - this made the peppers so incredibly soft and moist when they finally came out of the oven over an hour later!












Our kitchen table is only big enough for the two of us, so we gathered around the coffee table in the living room instead - no one seemed to complain. It was a late night because after getting stuck in traffic and making a trip to the grocery store, we still had to wait for the peppers to cook, but we had some great wine and some herb&garlic bread rolls while we waited. Thanks to great friends, delicious food, and good times, our weekend was a hit!

Check out the full set of photos on our Flickr!

Did someone say "Food Recap"?

Sometimes you need less words, more pictures! We'll start with what I'm good at and work our way through Shawn's awesome dinners from the past week!



Mini s'mores tart - graham cracker crust, shaved chocolate, marshmallows, more shaved chocolate - and then you throw it in the oven to melt the marshmallows, and right back into the fridge to solidify the tasty goodness again.




Marine makes perfect pancakes!




Shawn's first-ever meatloaf, served with mashed potatoes and stuffing. You wouldn't even know it was his first time making meatloaf!




Mini grilled cheese sandwiches...




.... and homemade hot wings...




... equals an awesome Football Sunday Dinner!






And on another night, homemade fishsticks, rice, heirloom tomatoes and sweet peppers - yum!



Also, our friend Christine introduced us to Virgil's Rootbeer - it's micro brewed! And it's the greatest rootbeer ever! Beats any rootbeer I've ever had prior to this straight out of the bush (and I'm really not a fan of rootbeer!)

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Where were we last week???

It's been quiet on the blog this past week; well, it's been pretty quiet in our lives too so we haven't had much to say. Here's a quick recap though: I've been putting in some extra hours at work lately so I've been taking a lot of naps and drinking lots of spiced tea (We've been getting so many great tea samples at work!), and Shawn's been busy cooking away and trying new recipes. Last week we bought some ground turkey and ground beef and he made turkey beef chili pepper burgers. Then he used the leftover meat to make fried meatballs two days later - yummy! Oh, and our friend Christine came to visit on Monday and pretty much made us dinner - pesto chicken caprese pasta - mmmm! It went down so fast we didn't even have time for pictures!






I've also been working on getting my homemade dog treat business up and going. Yes, you read that correctly, I make homemade organic dog treats! It started as something fun to do for my mom's dogs and friends' dogs, but I've started giving samples out to customers and their dogs love them too, so Bark Bites was born. There are no products for sale on the etsy page yet, but there will be soon! Right now though I'm focusing on getting a bunch of samples together to give out at work and to nearby pet shops, in hopes of getting the name out at least.



We don't have a printer, so I'm stamping and hand-printing each label. It takes some time, but the treats are handmade, so why shouldn't the labels be?
But back to people food! Did someone say... burgers?







How about those fried meatballs? Seriously, we're talking fried balls of beef. With some mashed potatoes, of course.






Oh, and did I mention the shell pasta covered in homemade pasta sauce and freshly grated parmesan?













Yeah. That's dinner in this house. But have you seen dessert?





I call these inside-out peanut butter cups - it's my take on Ashley from (neverhome)maker's peanut butter bites; the recipe caught my eye the other day so I went ahead and made some; I thought they were tasty on their own, but Shawn said they needed a little something extra, and the inside-out peanut butter cup was born! Next time, I'll make them with milk chocolate in the center; the dark chocolate was too overpowering for the peanut butter cookie. But they were still super tasty!
That's it for last week's recap!

simple animation time!

making mashed potatoes!

Pasta? Pizza? What's for dinner?

Last night Marine made dinner! (That would be me, she who is writing this post, which, oddly enough, I thought referring to myself in the third person would make more sense for the reader but now I've just gone and confused myself because I don't know whether to continue the post in third person or not... though it seems I've already decided against it.) Anywho, yes, I made dinner, for once, as Shawn kindly noted.

It's not that I never cook, I just choose to do so rarely. I can cook three things really well: grilled cheese sandwiches, basic pasta, and I can make eggs any way you want them. All of my other food skills rely on fairly exact measurements and the oven. So I guess it's not really a surprise that I can make a damn good pizza every once in a while. I've just never made such a fancy one before. I give you... Chicken Alfredo Pizza.



Chicken Alfredo... pizza?? Yes, it tastes just as amazing as it sounds. The pictures don't do it justice because the pizza was very drippy while hot, but you must. try. this. pizza. Please!





It is super duper filling too, so make sure you have an appetite! And finish the meal off with some homemade chocolate chip cookies too!



P.S... did you notice Shawn cut his hair? He's going for the classic American cut, by his standards; I like it :)