a cue from beth

As I have been inspired by so many of Beth's posts, I decided I would give all you loyal readers a quick taste of what has been cooking in my kitchen. No, sadly you can't really taste it. However, I love to cook so if you bring yourself over, with a little warning, I will attempt to whip you up something palate pleasing. So here is what Claire and I had for dinner on Friday night.


I think I will call it Upside Down Stuffed Avocado. As you will probably notice, or have noticed in the past, I like to infuse a south of the border flair into my cooking. This recipe was a self created one. I decided this year I was going to find a good balance between using the 8 billion cookbooks I have and creating my own recipes. Someday I will compile my own creations into my own Tastebook.


The only problem I had with this meal was that I eyeballed the amount of olive oil put into the rice. Well, I'll admit, we all make mistakes and I over did it a bit so it came out just a tad on the oily side. Cutting the oil back would have made this probably a big winner, in this instance it just came out to be a good meal.



RECIPE:
1 Avocado (Halved, Peeled, and seed removed)
1 Chicken Breast (Grilled, Baked, or cooked to your preference)
1 Handful of Panko Crumbs
1 Cup Cilantro
1/2 Cup Green Onion
4 Chopped Button Mushrooms
1 Box of your favorite Spanish Rice (or make your own)
Salt, Pepper, Chili Powder, Tabasco, Cumin, Paprika, Fajita Seasoning, and Olive Oil

Saute the Mushrooms, Green Onion, Chicken in olive oil. Add all seasonings to taste. I like it strong so I pack it all on. Cover outside of Avocado with panko crumbs and quickly fry in olive oil until crumbs are light brown. Toss chicken mixture with fresh cilantro and portion onto the rice.
Top with the avocado, pitted side down and serve.

Enjoy.

when it rains...

...my hair goes nuts. Seriously. It's only rained about 3 times here in the past 6 months, and I'd forgotten how out of control my hair can get in the humidity. I remembered because Chance decided tonight would be a good time to dine outdoors. And, well, it was - but my hair doesn't thank him.

This weekend was exceptionally good for some reason. It was just your average weekend - no super exciting events or anything, but it was fun. Sunday Funday at the boys' yesterday was pretty enjoyable - despite having to choke down about 40 minutes worth of Meet the Browns (ugh, really?) - it was good company.

I was in a pretty strange mood last night - I was hyper when we rolled in at 12:30AM or so...but unfortunately Chance had taken benadryl for his allergies and just crashed. I stayed up reading til about 5am...just started reading Baby Proof by Emily Giffin last night and couldn't put it down. Brooke introduced me to her books Something Borrowed and Something Blue and I practically swallowed them whole. I often read relatively heavy or deep books, so it's refreshing to read something so light and girly. (Shoot, I never thought I'd say that).

We slept in until around 11:30 today - which we haven't done in a long time! We finished cleaning the house and kinda vegged, really, for part of the day. Got a few things knocked off our to do lists, at least.

Mid-afternoon I did something I'm quite proud of...I fixed my iPod by myself! Okay, I had a little help from a website...but still. I popped it open, unplugged the battery and the hard drive - well, and a few other things before I realized what I was doing - then plugged it all back in and restarted it - and it worked. It's totally back to normal now - I'm pretty excited about it and fairly proud of my relatively non-technical self for the repair. (:

Another interesting tidbit about this afternoon: Brewster escaped. (Mom, don't freak out - just keep reading). He's been having a digging problem lately - but I didn't think it was that bad. Chance went outside to get something from the car while I was finishing up the chores. By his account, he heard a dog barking coming toward him and thought "Great - another stray. Claire's gonna want to take him in". Then he saw the dog - a dachshund...and still wasn't too pleased. Then he noticed the green nametag - you know - the one that says Brewster. He was floored. Brewster came running up to him and Chance brought him inside - I was in shock when I saw them walk in. I'm glad Chance happened to go outside when he did. He cramed a bunch of rocks under the fence which should hold him in for a little while longer til we can either fill the hole or...correct his behavior. Geez. Scary, but slightly funny at the same time. Maybe you had to be here.

This blog wasn't supposed to be this long, really. What I REALLY wanted to tell you about was tonight - kinda the 'cherry on top', if you will. We had dinner plans with my super-amazing-great friend Natalie. Gah, I love her - we've been friends about 4 and a half years I guess (correct me if I'm wrong). (: She's a cutie. Anyway...we went over to her house to meet her (her house is super cute) and got to meet her roommate/best friend Camden and their precious dogs. She'd told me about a Mexican food place she loves (back when we wrote the top 20 Mexican restaurants blog)...and she wanted to take us there (for a late birthday dinner for me)! (: So she drove us down to a place called Sazon on South Lamar - interior Mexican (you know, only the BEST kind). She treated us to dinner (Chance and I shared a Chile en Nogado - one of my favorite dishes), she fed us some of her tasty grilled shrimp, and she bought us mojitos to top it off. Scrumptious. She also gave me my birthday present. I think I offended Chance a little on the way home when I told him that she has given me some of my favorite presents. (: But she has - she always makes me the most special things (like the rose painting/drawing and the dinosaur friends tshirt she gave me)...but this time she really outdid herself.

What amazes me is how much she cares - how well she knows me even though we don't get to hang out as often as I'd like, even though we missed AT LEAST a year of each other's lives since we've known one another. She somehow knows me.

I'll preface it with this: the other day...I'd found some jewelry on etsy I wanted to post a blog about (but, that never happened). For those of you who don't know what etsy is, it's a site where you can sell and purchase handmade items (from clothes, to artwork, to furnture, to jewelry...you name it). I had stumbled upon some sellers who crafted some pretty cool items - and I thought I'd share them with my readers. Luxe Deluxe, Just Be Designs, and Old But New - just to name a few (feel free to check them out).

Anyway, when I opened my gift tonight (it came in this cute little package):


...I was FLOORED.

She'd done it again. Natalie had gone to a place in town called Bead It and handcrafted a necklace for me. It looks like an antique - something passed down for generations. I love antique-y things. I can't even really describe it, it's so pretty - I'll just have to let you see for yourselves! I just can't believe she made it (well, I can, she's so dang creative, but still)...


Natalie, I really can't thank you enough! Now, I don't want to devalue all the other wonderful birthday gifts I got - which I love - I really do.... but Natalie - this gift means so much to me. It's such a work of art - I want to find a way to display it when I'm not wearing it!

...what a great day. What great friends I have (I could write 5,000 blogs about this). I hope I can be the friend to you guys that you all are to me. But like I said - that's a novel for another time. (:

For now, I'm off to watch Heroes with Chance - and to drink the coffee with the 'homemade creamer' he just created! (: Yum yum.

closets and mexican food

You thought we were gonna miss our daily blog, didn't you? Well I still have an hour so here goes with today's topics.

First a comedic story. As we are walking through Lowes on our way to pick out the wire shelving for a new closet redesign project, Claire yells out -loudly- "I sound like Jesus". Taken out of context this could sound blasphemous and possibly somewhat offensive. In context, however, it was humorous -especially to the innocent bystanders shopping for nails, Christmas trees, and lawn mowers. Maybe it wasn't her fault she screamed inappropriately - I was giving her a hard time about coming up with new projects that really don't need to be done (IE: redesigning a closet). I had been teasing her in a mocking voice, the voice of the Jesus character from the Vintage 21 videos online which portray him with a super meek voice and character (these videos might be somewhat offensive but were produced to make a point - many of you have probably seen them). So I'd been mocking Claire in the video Jesus' voice when she yelled. It was really funny - and much more so out of context.

I also thought I would entertain and challenge you foodies and culinary aficionados with the Patrick's top 20 Mexican food establishments. We want your feedback. Tell us what we left off, what you agree with, what you disagree with, and what you think about Mexican food in general. I think we are part Mexican because we both agree we could probably eat it for every meal and half the time our home cooked meals turn out to have some sort of south of the border flair. This list is in order of preference, however it changes frequently and is not totally mutual between the two of us, albeit, it was voted on by both of us.

1.) Picante Grill (San Antonio, TX)
Try: Chile En Nogado
2.) Polvos (Austin, TX, South 1st)
Try: Fajitas Al Guajillo
3.) Villa Montez (Tyler, TX)
Try: Chino Latino Rolls, Sea Bass, or the Daily special
4.) Jardin Corona (Austin, TX, Anderson Mill)
Try: Mango or Strawberry Margaritas, Chipotle Enchiladas, and the Salsa
5.) Margarita Rocks/La Bodega (College Station, TX, Same owner, same fair)
Try: BBQ Chicken Nachos,enchiladas, burgers, burritos, & Don't miss the salsa
6.) Posados (Tyler & Austin, TX)
Try: Cheese Enchiladas, Free tortillas, sopapillas, and ice cream
7.) Tacos Garcia (Amarillo, TX)
Try: Enchiladas de Chile Verde
8.) Trudy's (Austin, TX, various locations)
Try: Stuffed Avocado and brunch buffett
9.) Zocalo (Austin, TX, West Lynn)
Try: Fish Tacos, Dos Salsas, Ceviche, and Pulled Pork Posole Soup
10.) Taco Bus (Houston, TX, Behind Fitzgeralds Bar)
Try: Steak Tacos...it is a taco bus, literally.
11.) La Cocina De Consuelo (Austin, TX, Burnet Rd.)
12.) Leals (Amarillo, TX)
13.) Serranos (Austin, TX, Various Locations)
14.) Ruby Tequila's (Amarillo, TX)
15.) Chuy's (Austin, TX, Various Locations)
16.) Jalepeno Tree (Tyler and East Texas)
17.) Rosas Cafe (Amarillo, College Station and other various TX locations)
18.) Gueros (Austin, TX, South Congress)
19.) El Charro (Tyler, TX)
20.) Taco Garage (San Antonio, TX)

Honorable Mention: Pico De Gallo (Tyler, TX, Closed), Curra's Long Bar (Austin, TX, Closed), Don Luis Supertacos (Austin, TX, Closed)

Let us know what you have had and what you think of this list.