My thoughts on food, fitness and life in Houston, TX
Hello and happy Saturday! Hope you have a nice weekend. We are in town for once, but are busy with a wedding and a baby shower. Here’s a review of the week. Can you believe Monday is August?
Also, during the week I re-organized my recipes. I created a pull down menu for the Recipe tab and split out each meal. Take a look! Breakfast Lunch/Snacks Dinner Dessert
Monday: Destin Again
Tuesday: Seven Links
Wednesday: Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies
Thursday: Guest Post by Lily
Friday: Show Your Hearts
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the Berry family in Houston who attend the school I work at who were in a car accident over July 4 weekend. The parents, Robin and Josh, died and the three children were all injured leaving two of them paralyzed. Since then, our community has raised thousands of dollars to help with their rehab and future expenses. Now the boys are at Shriners Hospital in Chicago for spinal rehab, and people from all over the world are hearing about their story.
Just this week, Justin Beiber started a movement called “Show Your Hearts” to help raise awareness of the family and encourage people to donate. The #showyourhearts hashtag was major trending on Wednesday, and more celebrities caught on, including Ellen Degeners, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Ryan Seacrest and on and on. It’s been a powerful social media movement!
(I love Ellen). I encourage you to donate, change your profile picture, spread the word, and remember this family and help the children.
Hearing about the story from the beginning, it has been amazing to watch it explode! Our local community and other cities started with lemonade stands and bake sales, then The Huffington Post picked it up. Local athletes came to see the kids in the hospital, and just yesterday, it was the lead story on People.com. It’s been refreshing to see celebrities promote good and cheer on this family.
Happy Friday! Show your hearts!
Hello my friends! Arf arf!
It has been a while since my mom let me talk to you through the computer. I’ve had a nice summer, but it’s really hot for me. I got a really pretty summer ‘do to cut some of my hair off, but I still pant when I’m outside and don’t really want to walk that far right now. I’d rather get my exercise from playing fetch or making my mom chase me up and down stairs. The plus side of my haircut is that I looked instantly skinny! You should try it–cut 2 inches from your whole body and look five pounds lighter. I was a little surprised myself!
I have also spent some quality time in the car and at camp. My parents left me at camp a few times, which was ok. I prefer being at home, but it’s nice to run around and bark at dogs sometimes. I got to go to Dallas one time, which was so fun. I love being at my grandma Soupy’s house. That’s what I call her. She gives me new toys and doesn’t make me eat dog food. I’m on vacation! I eat eggs, cheese, and turkey, but definitely not dog food. Then I go home with a big tummy ache and my parents get mad. Soupy laughs. I go in the car so Soupy can show me to her friends and take me to stores. It’s so fun. I even get to sleep on their bed like a real slumber party! I love visiting Dallas.
Also this summer, I have gotten some great new toys! My grandma Julie got me an Angry Bird toy that makes really annoying sounds. It’s pretty neat too. Soupy brought me an ice cream cone and popsicle toy when they visited me in Houston, and I always enjoy my old ones too. I am not a toy discriminator. I just love to play.
That is about it for me. I have become very independent in my childhood years. You know, I’m 1.5 in people years which means about 10 years old in dog years. I act like a little kid, but I’m very smart. I can also read the clock! I get tired everyday around 9:30 p.m. and wake up on the dot at 6:30 a.m. If my parents don’t go to bed with me, they don’t get much sleep. Oh well for them!
Oh, I have a serious question–who invented the vacuum cleaner and why is it the scariest thing ever? I HATE the vacuum cleaner! I won’t even walk past that thing when it’s on or off. It is SO SCARY.
Well that’s all, it’s nap time for me!
If you have any questions for me, leave me a comment and I’ll answer next time!
For more guest posts by Lily, see the dedicated Lily page.
What do you do with almost rotten bananas? Make cookies!
The lucky recipient of these cookies was our friend who just had a baby. If you’ve noticed, we have a lot of friends with babies! I like to bake for them. Especially cookies or bars or loaf breads that aren’t too bad for you. Comforting, filling, tasty, and easy to eat is what it’s about.
Bananas + chocolate chips + oats = the major parts of this cookie.
Ingredients:
Directions:
Makes about 45 small cookies
These cookies were really cute and fluffy. Sometimes I don’t like banana flavor in a cookie or any desserts, but this was mild and helped keep it from drying out. It also kept it really soft, even after I froze them.
And bananas are healthy, right? But really, baking with bananas helps add sweetness and wetness without using sugar or oil.
For all my cookies, I use a little teaspoon cookie scooper that makes them a perfect size. About four little bites.
A nice, little, golden brown chocolate oatmeal cookie. Yum!
There is a little chain going around the blogs I read where a blogger can write about seven of her own posts that fit each category. I was tagged by my blogger friend, Liz, which was great because I was hoping to write this post anyway. I love looking back at my own posts.
1. Most Beautiful Post
I am taking the physical beautiful meaning of this, and picking our recent trip to Aspen. I like all of my posts about our travels, but think the mountains and flowers and snow was great about this trip.
2. Most Popular
This post from tagged in March by Angela’s blog Oh She Glows where she did a series of vegan recipes from around the web. My Zucchini Bread was featured that I made last Fall, and it led a lot of traffic to my site. Yay, that was a good day. I re-made the bread because I thought the photos weren’t very good, and the second version was picked up by Food Gawker, giving it also a really good day.
3. Most Controversial
I don’t really have any posts that “stir the pot” too much, but this was one of my favorites where I wrote about my opinions of Oprah’s Vegan show.
I recently wrote a post called “Remembering” about a local family at the school I work at who was in a terrible accident and the parents died and two of the three kids are now paralyzed. I posted it on my blog and posted a link on our school Facebook wall (where other tributes and messages were posted before the family page was set up), and it was taken down.
4. Most Helpful
Back when I started blogging, I liked to write “how to” posts. Then I ran out of things I could instruct others on doing. Haha. But really, one of my favorite posts on the “how to” page is “How to become a morning exerciser.” That whole realization that morning is better than after work for me was part of the journey to blogging and telling stories.
5. Surprise Success
Again, thanks to sites like FoodGawker and TasteSpotting, some of my recipe posts have gotten nice attention. I only started submitting pictures to those in February. One recipe that had a great photo shoot was my Pita Chips. They are very simple, and always at my grandparents house, but the pictures turned out really great.
6. Not Enough Attention
A recipe that I was bummed didn’t get picked up by one of the photo sites was my Strawberry Walnut Bread. I loved this bread and thought the pictures were good too, but it just got average day of traffic.
Of course, I think my Lily posts should get lots of attention. She is just so cute.
7. Most Proud
I am absolutely most proud of my half marathon and the two recaps I wrote for it. That was such an accomplishment, and I hope to one day run another half. Since running that race, I have pretty much quit the sport. Oh well! Good memories.
That’s it! Are there any posts you remember that I wrote that would fit in these categories?
If you’d like to participate, you’re it!
Hello there! We were at the beach this weekend. If it looks like we were just here, we were three weekends ago. This time we came with two couples, one from Dallas and one from Austin.
We beached, pooled, ate, and shopped a little.
Best friends forever.
My favorite activity, as usual, was our evening in Seaside. I love Seaside.
It is just the cutest little community on the beach with kids running around, cute homes, and great and casual restaurants.
All six of us.
At a restaurant in Seaside called Great Southern.
The last night, we cooked in. We made grilled snapper, grilled corn, green beans and roasted potatoes. It is fun to cook in! So relaxing and easy.
Jeffrey on the grill.
And Sharon made guacamole to start the night.
Corn on the cob on the grill. We used an Ina Garten recipe. Peel husks halfway and brush with melted butter. Replace husks and grill five minutes per side for 20 minutes. Peel husks and sprinkle with salt. Eat!
Hanging out and enjoying the night!
We are done with the beach this year, but not trips! That never ends. We are, however, home for three weekends! Hooray! Hope you had a great weekend too!
It’s tough being us…
We’re back in Florida! See you when we get back!
Granolas can be a little risky to have in your pantry because they are usually high in sugar and fat. I like to live on the edge, but I also like to find a better-for-you alternative.
One of my favorite sites, Oh She Glows, made this lightened up granola a few days ago. What intrigued me about it was that it didn’t have any dried fruit, and it used millet. She also didn’t use any oil, which adds calories fast, and used simple things I had at home. I did make a few substitutions for what I had at home.
I subbed quinoa for the millet because that’s what I had, and added raisins after it came out of the oven, I learned that trick a few batches ago when the raisins burned while cooking with the granola. And I don’t make my own nut butter. I tried once and flopped.
Ingredients:
This granola was super crunchy and crispy. It had plenty of clumps too. I like adding raisins because they are like the little prize that you hope to get in each scoop, but it’s not necessary. If you thought quinoa in granola was strange, it’s no big deal. Just adds more protein and crunch.
If you’ll notice from the ingredients, there are a lot of superfoods. From the quinoa to flax meal to chia seeds to oats and peanut butter, there’s a lot of power for energy. Lots going on in this recipe! Added with yogurt or milk, it’s a great combo of protein and carbs, necessary every time you eat.
If you are unfamiliar with brown rice syrup, it is very sticky and has a distinct flavor. If you find you don’t like the flavor of the finished product, you could sub maple syrup.
So are you going to give it a try?
I was pretty sure I had a winner of a simple weeknight dinner with this dish, and I approved it, but here’s the story.
I had an idea for this Pasta Caprese as something that would be hearty enough for my husband, but still light and summery and without chicken. I made it hearty with cheese and whole wheat pasta, and even added a whole yellow onion and garlic to appease his love of stomach turning foods. I’m nice like that.
I was correct in the easy weeknight dinner part, and it was a filling enough dinner for me, but Jeffrey raided the refrigerator for leftover BBQ 30 minutes after the kitchen closed for the night.
Putting a spin on a Caprese salad (tomato, mozzarella, basil) by cooking it and adding it to pasta was really tasty. The cheese got melty and stringy, and the tomatoes dissolved into the pasta. I have a few thoughts to make it better, but that’s below.
Ingredients:
Instructions:
The part I should have done was reserve the pasta water to help the sauce stay juicy. In the sauce pan, it was very juicy, but the pasta absorbed it quickly since we didn’t eat right away.
The mozzarella also turned a little tough while it was sitting waiting for Jeffrey to come home from work. Lesson is to make this right when you want to eat it and your cheese will stay gooey and your sauce will be saucy.
I still liked it, and it made great leftovers to eat cold.
This pasta dish was super simple with just a few ingredients. I really liked how it made its own sauce of just tomatoes, onion and garlic. Few ingredients, just two pots, a one-dish meal, and under 30 minutes are my qualifications for an easy weeknight dinner. Even in the summertime!
What are you cooking up quickly this summer?
A few weeks ago, a company out of Austin, TX called Easy Canvas Prints contacted me through my blog about their product. They take a photo you have and make it into a canvas wall print. They wanted me to try their product in return for writing about them, so this post is sponsored by Easy Canvas Prints.
A little background first–Recently, I started a new job and moved into my first office. Like four walls and a door office. Yep, like a big shot. I have these four white walls, and nothing to put on them. I really like some of my food photos and printed them for an album. I never really thought about blowing them up for display.
I did, however, have an idea to mount a blown up picture of Lily and started researching Etsy sites who paint on canvas. They were pretty expensive, and I also didn’t have one perfect picture of her I wanted to have painted.
Then Easy Canvas Prints contacted me about trying their product, not knowing I was actually thinking of something similar. The way Easy Canvas Prints works is that you have a photo in mind that you would like to blow up and show on your wall. They do canvas prints in 8 x 8 (inches) for $30 all the way to 30 x 40 for $130.
You can choose how thick your border is, if your photo wraps onto the border or not, and of course, you choose the size. It is all done online and mine arrived within two days of ordering via UPS.
Below is the original photo I had blown up into a canvas print. Above is the actual print. I haven’t hung it in my office yet. I was given an 8 x 10 print. It’s a great size, especially if you had a few photos and hung them all together.
I am really excited to hang the final product, and really like the quality that I would consider buying one or two more of the same size for different photos to hang together.
Do you have anything like this in your house or at work?
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