In category Blog Post, Travels on  December 18, 2013 

Duty calls and we were on the road again. This time headed three and a half hours South to Ontario, California. The drive isn’t too bad. We aren’t the biggest fans of traveling on State Route 99, the North/South highway that runs through the entire central valley from Sacramento down to Bakersfield where it joins I-5 and takes you to Los Angeles. This is due to the fact that most California drivers seem to be…well…slow. But I digress. There is a really cool portion of the drive to Ontario where the road winds through the Grapevine Canyon through Tejon pass in the Tehachapi Mountains. This is the main connector between the Central Valley and Los Angeles and can still experience shut-downs when the mountains receive a lot of snowfall. It’s pretty and the best part of the drive...

In category Blog Post, Recipes on  December 1, 2013 

Last week I wrote about being invited to participate in two very different food blogging opportunities. The first was contributing to Richardson Living magazine and the second was an invitation to compete in a cooking challenge!

Food bloggers from across the country were approached for this competition, and I was chosen to be one of 12 finalists to compete in the 3rd Annual Colombo Marsala & Toscana Saporita Recipe Challenge! This means that Colombo provided me with their marsala wines and compensated me for my groceries needed to create an original and innovative recipe using their marsala wine as a featured ingredient. Cool! I can do this!

When I think of marsala, I think of very traditional recipes like chicken or veal marsala...

In category Blog Post, Recipes on  November 25, 2013 

It’s always exciting when I’m approached to be a part of something really cool. And just recently I was invited to participate in two very different food blogging opportunities. Each opportunity warrants its own blog post so I’ll start with the first one. Richardson Living, a lifestyles magazine, asked me if I’d like to contribute to their Nov/Dec issue by writing an article about food and community. All they asked was that I relate the two. Having the creative freedom to shape an article is always fun, and I was confident that tying food and community would be an easy task. But once you begin to define community, I realized that the breadth of the subject demanded a specific focus...

In category Blog Post, Travels on  November 4, 2013 

One of the best parts of being with my husband in California while he works, is our opportunity to travel. Frequently we either have to go to other cities in California or out of state. And just two weeks ago he needed to fly to Phoenix for two nights. Cool. I like Phoenix. Haven’t been there in 17 years and will enjoy going back. And they have a decent craft beer scene so I know we can find a cool place to eat and drink in the evenings.

Sure enough we hit up Four Peaks Brewing Company as well as SanTan Brewing in Chandler. Both were good and we’d definitely go back to either next time we’re in town. We unexpectedly needed to go to Denver directly from Phoenix. That was certainly a surprise as I had packed light for just a two night stay...

In category Blog Post, Recipes on  October 14, 2013 

Home Run! Touchdown! Gooooooaaaaal! Yep! That’s how I felt with this incredibly simple and fantastic dish! It doesn’t get any easier AND you can customize this to your heart’s content. A true winner in the Recipe Hunter’s book!

I came across this recipe, as usual, while cruising Pinterest. It was one of the first ones I saw for orange chicken and being so simple, I knew right away I had to try this.

All you need is: chicken breasts (I used three), one cup of orange marmalade (I used sugar free and discovered that one standard jar of marmalade was just barely more than a cup so I used it all), one cup of BBQ sauce (I used Stubb’s) and 3 tablespoons of soy sauce (I used low sodium). That’s it.

Seriously, how simple is that?

I cooked this on high for four hours in the slow cooker ...

In category Blog Post, Recipes on  October 9, 2013 

Now that we’re back in California after a celebratory birthday weekend in Texas, it was time to head to the store for essential food items like milk and Jameson. I had a few things in mind for dinners for the next few days but not much for lunch. We can eat leftovers if I’ve made a pot of beans or something the night before, but if we’ve just gotten back to town, that means there’s not much to eat. So I asked my husband if there was anything he wanted for lunch and he said, “yeah, why don’t you make some fish tacos with some slaw.” Perfect! We’ve been buying the small, frozen tilapia filets at the store and really like them for a quick and healthy meal but hadn’t had any in a while. So today for lunch I made tilapia tacos with a spicy slaw!

I made the slaw in advance so...

In category Blog Post, Recipes on  October 1, 2013 

October is officially here! It’s my favorite month of the year too. Not just because it’s my birthday month, but to me it means the start of cooler temperatures, the Texas State Fair and finally getting to break out long sleeves and my favorite pair of boots. But in the kitchen, a whole new show begins and the winter squash we call pumpkin is taking center stage.

This popular North American crop finds its way into kitchens across the country by way of pie, pancakes, chili, pasta, muffins, bread, smoothies, cocktails and cookies. Everywhere you look it’s easy to find recipes for pumpkin. This month’s Food Network Magazine even has an insert titled “50 Things to Make with Canned Pumpkin” which I now have saved for future reference...

In category Blog Post, Travels on  September 23, 2013 

I’ve finally recovered from our trip to Alaska. I’ve caught up on sleep, my body is no longer sore and the blister on my left foot has healed. That might give the impression that I had a rough time on our trip but it was just what came with the territory. Landing a 40 pound halibut along with a 3 pound weight from 260 feet of water will make your hands and arms sore. Wearing brand new rubber camo boots to hunt in and walking 8/10 of a mile just to get to the blind could potentially give you a blister. Staying up late in camp with friends and s’mores and Red Breast Irish Whiskey will eventually catch up with you...

In category Blog Post, Recipes on  September 21, 2013 

You ever have one of those meals you’re really excited about? It may not be anything special, but you are confident it’ll be tasty when it’s done and fairly easy to create. Well that’s how I felt about our sausage and sauerkraut dinner last week. And since today is the official start of Oktoberfest, this seems like the perfect meal to post today! I had looked on Pinterest for other similar dishes and decided to kick mine up a notch by throwing in baby gold potatoes and an apple.

Sausage, potatoes, apple, kraut & beer!

My sausage, which was a chicken hardwood smoked sausage, was fully cooked. So aside from heating up the sauerkraut, the only things needing to truly cook were the potatoes and apple. I didn’t expect either to take too long as they were fairly small in size...

In category Blog Post, Travels on  September 11, 2013 

I’m going to Alaska tomorrow. Yeah, that’s so exciting to say, Alaska! It’s not a cruise and it’s not your average sightseeing trip either. I’m going hunting, camping and fishing. I love to go camping and don’t get to go very often. In fact, my husband and I have only been camping together once. It was at a state park in Texas. It was very windy and fairly hot. And we had a great time.

This camping excursion will find us in the Eastern part of the state in Delta Junction. I’m not even sure of the particulars but I think that we will be camping in a park, it could be very windy, it could rain, and it will be much cooler. But I am so excited. Regardless if our hunting is successful or not – camping…in Alaska…will be so incredible and I can’t wait!

This whole trip came to be ...