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.

Developing Community in Temple

Drew and I seem to be settling into Temple life well. It has been 4 months since we moved. I have pictures of our move and our new apartment btw. So stay tuned. I would like to post a video tour of our new apartment again, but I am waiting until we have cleaned our bedroom. :) We seem to do really well at keeping the living, dining, and kitchen areas clean, but our bedroom is a bit of a disaster area. We spend so little time in there - we are either changing, folding laundry, sleeping, or well, you know, not sleeping...

Anyway, pictures and video tour to come soon.

Drew has been meeting up with a group of guys from his med school class on Sunday nights. They gather together to talk, eat dinner, laugh, share life, and pray for each other. I only say this is what they do because that is what Drew tells me they do. I dont really know.

Anyway, I have been looking for a group of women to hang out with here in town too. I told you about my friend Ashley who lives in Temple too, but apart from her I had not really connected with anyone. Thankfully, two of the guys in Drew's group are married and have lovely wives. We thought we would like to start getting together on Sundays too - its convenient because the guys are already meeting, so we are not spending more time away from our spouses. :) We just started meeting and I really enjoyed it. I had started praying regularly with the two women on my staff team in College Station, and I was so blessed by it. I felt like I really grew in my prayer life and I always walked away so rejuvenated. I am so happy to have another couple of women to pray with together.

I also love our apartment now - it finally feels like home. We both really enjoy having people over and it feels spacious enough that we can have more than 2 people visit. Unfortunately, we do still have second-hand smoke leaking through at various times, but the air purifier seems to take care of most of it. I also just bought some indoor plants ($1 each at HEB!) to hopefully help purify.

Thats the short update on us. I have loads more to share with you about what is going on in our lives, so keep coming back.

Ina Garten Parmesan Chicken

I keep forgetting to take pictures of things...

But, believe you me, this is a great and simple recipe. I had it last night with a friend (another med school wife) while Drew was on call and again tonight with Drew.

Last night's menu:
Caprese Salad
Parmesan Chicken
Field Green salad
Garlic & Cheddar Cheesy bread

Tonight's Menu:
Caprese Salad
Parmesan Chicken
Roasted Asparagus

So besides the Parmesan chicken I have had Caprese Salad alot the last few days. Mostly, this is because my mom gave me one of her basil plants. I LOVE basil, but buying it fresh at the grocery store is really expensive. But there are a whole host of things you really can only make with fresh basil (there are plenty of herbs that I dont mind substituting dried for fresh, but basil is NOT one of them). So I am often caught in a catch-22 which means that I end up not making the things I need fresh basil for...so now that I have my own abundant and fresh supply I am going a little overboard. I need to slow down; I dont want to be left with a completely bare basil plant. That would be sad. :(

But, back to the Parmesan Chicken...like I said, tasty and simple. As you can see Ina Garten (Barefoot Contessa) serves her chicken with a field green salad in a lemon vinaigrette, but you dont have to. Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

• 4 to 6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 2 extra-large eggs
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1 1/4 cups seasoned dry bread crumbs
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan, plus extra for serving
• Unsalted butter
• Good olive oil

Directions

Pound the chicken breasts until they are 1/4-inch thick. You can use either a meat mallet or a rolling pin.

Combine the flour, salt, and pepper on a dinner plate. On a second plate, beat the eggs with 1 tablespoon of water. On a third plate, combine the bread crumbs and 1/2 cup grated Parmesan. Coat the chicken breasts on both sides with the flour mixture, then dip both sides into the egg mixture and dredge both sides in the bread-crumb mixture, pressing lightly.

Heat 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a large saute pan and cook 2 or 3 chicken breasts on medium-low heat for 2 to 3 minutes on each side, until cooked through. Add more butter and oil and cook the rest of the chicken breasts. Toss the salad greens with lemon vinaigrette. Place a mound of salad on each hot chicken breast. Serve with extra grated Parmesan.

Lemon Vinaigrette:

• 1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (2 lemons)
• 1/2 cup good olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

In a small bowl, whisk together the lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Yield: 6 servings