Fall is (Almost) Here!

We dont really get much of a fall in Texas. It kind of goes from summer to winter. But in honor of the season and the fact that we have had milder (70s) weather this week I am choosing to claim that its now fall. 

 To celebrate I got these cool decorative squash at HEB

House Plant update

I tend to kill plants pretty easily, but I really wanted to try again. I mentioned a few posts ago that I found $1 house plants at HEB and felt safe buying them. If they die, at least they were only a $1.

I thought I would give you an update:

2 out of the 3 are doing pretty well.

The third one, as you can see is sad, wilted, and appears to be dying.

Those of you with green thumbs out there...any thoughts?
Its pretty demoralizing because it started to look like this literally the day after it came home with me.

I have been watering each of them once a week, although the sickly one seems to dry out more quickly so I have watered it twice this past week.

My mom also passed on one of her basil plants to me. I baby it, because we love basil around here and it is way to expensive to buy fresh herbs. She told me it needs full sun, and our apartment doesn't really have a spot that gets full sun (most of the time this is great because it decreases our electric bill). So to keep my basil happy and alive I move it around throughout the day (on the days I am home) to catch full sun - by our front door in the mornings, on the patio table in the afternoons. It seems to be doing very well too. :)

Happy Basil in the Afternoon:

It is sitting on our porch table. When we first got the table and chairs (for free from my parents' neighbors!Thanks!) I had grand hopes of having dinners out there often...it has only happened once so far. But the weather has been nice lately so maybe we will get in one more patio dinner before the winter sets in - it literally moves from summer to winter here. 

Drew's 25th Birthday

We had a great weekend for Drew's 25th birthday (October 24th). Thankfully, he had the weekend completely off and did not have to go up to the hospital!

We kicked it off on Friday by going shopping and then had dinner at BJ's with some other med school buddies. And as we all know now, the Rangers brought down "the Evil Empire" (as Drew likes to call the Yankees) just for his birthday. :) It was alot of fun, especially since everyone in the restaurant was watching the game.

I was a really bad wife and neglected to bring the camera and then forgot to even snap a shot with my phone. I apologize.

Saturday we totally lounged around all day. Slept in, at least, as much as Drew's body would let him...when you only get 5-6 hours of sleep a night 8-9 seems truly indulgent. We watched the 3rd season of the Tudors, which we got as part of Drew's present.

That night I made one of his favorite meals: Fried Ravioli with Chicken in Spicy Roasted Red Pepper Marinara. It was tasty :) Drew didn't want any kind of dessert, even for his birthday. He really doesn't crave sweets like he used to - this is a terrible development for me because if I make something sweet I can no longer count on him to eat most of it so I dont have to.

Sunday was pretty routine - church, laundry, clean-up the apartment, studying, emails, work-out, and relax.

Hope your weekends were great too!

Chicken Taco Soup

This is one of my favorites, its easy, quick, cheap, and tasty. Plus you only have to dirty one pot and you can dress the meal up with other items (tortilla chips, salsa, sour cream, shredded cheese, cilantro, etc)

It is a great way to get a couple veggie servings in one meal and better for you than drinking a V8. :)

Here is my recipe (there are lots of versions of this soup, make it how you like it, I change it all the time):
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cubed
2-4 cups chicken broth (depends how much liquid to solid ratio you like)
1-2 bell peppers (one green, one red), chopped
1-2 poblano peppers, chopped
1-2 stalks of celery, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
3-5 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup corn (frozen, fresh, or canned)
1 can diced tomatoes, with juice
1 can kidney beans
1 can black beans
If I use both cans of beans I only use one chicken breast, believe me this makes plenty, save your meat for another meal. :)

Cook chicken breast in skillet or large pot with EVOO and garlic. Cook on medium high for 5min. Add onion celery, and peppers. Saute, stirring, for about 5-10min. It might look something like this:

Add seasonings: black pepper, cumin, thyme, red pepper/cayenne, smoked paprika, 2-3Tbs your favorite BBQ sauce (trust me its good!)

Add corn, tomatoes with juice, beans, and chicken stock. Cover with lid. Turn heat down to low and let simmer this lets all the lovely flavors meld. And it just keeps getting better, we usually enjoy it the next day for lunch or dinner too. Like I said above, you can dress it up too. I just made this for Drew last week because I was out of town.

Its straight forward and low-maintenance enough that I made it as I was making dinner for us that night. Drew then had a few meals already prepared. He likes to eat it with some awesome HEB fresh tortillas.

If you have people over you can make this and dress it up with all those extras I mentioned above. ;)

Pocket Pies

The long and short of this post is that these were not worth the effort. I like alot of stuff from William Sonoma, and this was a cute idea. I had grand aspirations to make pocket pies in some form every week throughout the fall and winter. They would be great lunch and snack options for Drew. I thought I could make both sweet and savory versions.

They did come out looking nice...but they take forever to make!

I think the next time I want a pie I will just make a regular pie. I feel like, in this day and age, I am doing really well to make my own crust and my own pie from scratch. I guess I will just use the pocket pie tool I got as a cookie cutter from now on. Or I could use it to cut out stars to place on top of a regular pie. At least the tool was not too expesive...I got it on sale this summer. :)

I am proud of myself for at least attempting to make them. I also made my own filling - peach and apple. It would have been great except I used way too much lemon zest, so the sweetness of the peaches and apples was cancelled out by the zing of the lemon. Oh well, I consider myself a baker in training.

I also find taking risks in the kitchen to be helpful to me learning to try new things and responding in a more mature, healthy way to failure.