From Our Kitchen - a recap

We've been trying a few new meals lately.  Most of which were found via Pinterest.  I love trying new recipes, but I'm always a little skeptical of how it will turn out.  People pin everything they see on Pinterest, sometimes without even reading a recipe to know if it's actually worth making. In other words, just because it's a popular pin doesn't mean it's a great recipe.  However, I have pinned my share of recipes and am now trying to weed through them. I am also working on reorganizing my recipe binder and making it more uniform looking, so I have typed up the recipes we like in a simple format with an image. You can print these by clicking the corresponding link under each description below.
I thought about sharing some of these as step-by-step instructionals like I have before, but the ladies from each of these blogs do a better job of that with better images than I can, so their links are also below each image.
Here are those that we've tried lately:

Chicken Tikka Marsala

(original recipe found here)

(printable version here)

I decided to be adventurous a few weeks ago and "whip up" some Indian food at home.  I also tried my hand at the naan mentioned in the post - some of which turned out okay. The chicken was delicious. This meal is packed with flavor and some kick (reduce the amount of jalapeno if you're not a spicy fan.) You must marinate this - it makes all the difference!  We cooked rice to go along with this.

Chicken Cordon Bleu

(original recipe post found here)

(printable version here)

This one will definitely make it into our regular series of meals.  It was quick to prep (even though I took the time to pound out the chicken breast halves to all be fairly even). I'm always looking for a new way to cook chicken, because let's face it, it can get boring. The panko breadcrumbs are what give this meal a special touch, so make sure you have those on hand. We served the sauce on the side. Since it is toasted breadcrumbs on top, this meal does not make the best leftovers - so make this for a crowd, or just reduce the amount of ingredients. These are all ingredients you probably have on hand anyway, so it's easy to modify for less.

Hawaiian Roll Ham Sandwiches

(original recipe post here)

(printable version here)

I'm sure you've seen these before somewhere. I made these this past weekend for Sunday lunch with Matt and Heidi. They were tasty, but once you see the amount of butter that goes on these, you'll know why I won't be regularly making them.  However, I'm sure I could change it some to help reduce clogged arteries. A few things to note: 1) there are lots of onions involved, but even if you don't like onions (Jesse) you may still like this dish. The onions are finely chopped and cooked until soft,  to bring out their sweetness which pairs really well with the sweet bead and other ingredients. 2) If I make this again I'll probably reduce the amount of cheese on top because my slices were kind of thick and it was a bit heavy. 3) You must use the Hawaiian sweet rolls - they make this dish.  (The bread always makes the sandwich no matter what you have going on inside.)

Apple Yogurt Cake

(original recipe post here)

(my printable version here)

This one is seriously as delicious as it looks. Make it for your family when they visit (like I did) or make it for yourself to eat all week, because the longer it sits the better it gets!  I did make several modifications for this as I was making it (fingers were crossed that it would come out okay).  There was just too much oil and sugar in the original recipe for me to be okay with serving this for breakfast, so my printable version has my rendition.

Give one of these a try and let me know how you liked it, or if you changed anything!
Have you tried any new recipes lately that you would make again?  Share a link to the recipe in the comments section.

High Five for Friday

A quick High Five for Friday for you, as I head off for #5:

1.  Another wonderful weekend visit from Matt and Heidi, which consisted of a girl's outing to the mall, some delicious banana pudding at Miss Myra's BBQ, a game night with with community group folks, and a couple of new recipes (coming soon)!

2.  I got the sweetest surprise in the mail this week:  a book of copies of my grandmother's letters to her grandchildren. They were sent by my uncle along with a photo collage of my parents and their children through the years and a poem written by my dad.  It definitely made my week and made me cry. (Sweet tears.)

3.  I made a purchase from Etsy a couple of weeks ago and got my package this week - a few earring findings to make my own earrings. Sorry no picture. Trust me, they are cute!

4. Today begins my spring break! Woo hoo! It is much needed.

5. Headed out with the girls today to Atlanta for an optometry conference. Should be lots of fun!

Goodbye Lovely Month, Hello Spring?

By the end of this week February will be gone.  Somehow the days of this month ran in fast forward.

It's been a busy month in relation to school and an eventful month for Jesse having gone on vacation to Colorado.  Even under the piles of school work I feel buried in most weeks, I really do love this life we are living together. It's the little things sometimes - like just enjoying the fact that my husband got to get out of his cubicle and glide down snowy mountains and enjoy the outdoors,

(I wasn't even there and I can't get enough of this view. Don't give me weird looks if it winds up as my desktop background.)

or decorating the mantel in celebration of our love during the month of Valentine's (sappy, I know),

(the "B" was recycled from our wedding decor; the yarn heart wreath was a Pinterest inspiration; as was the framed printable and the paper heart garland; two Valentine's cards- one from each set of our parents; oh, and ignore the fact there is no candle in the candlestick; and yes those are still the branches of our ex-Christmas tree peaking into the corner, we're keeping it around for a while, sans ornaments)

or taking a few minutes here and there to create something to make my desk space a happier place, and to share with you.

click HERE to download and print

(excuse the blurriness of the copied image, it won't be blurry when you print)

I like a cute, blank, month-size calendar to fill in all of my big events to display above my desk.  I've found printable ones online, but I've enjoyed making my own. I tinkered around and created a February calendar but never got around to sharing it. So, here is the first official calendar of the year for you to print and fill in with all of your events. Hang it on your fridge, or bulletin board, or place it in your binder - what have you.  I plan to make one each month. As you print this PDF select "fit to page" ... I got a little carried away close to the borders (and don't forget landscape). 

(all credits are not to me from making this from scratch - the cute images were downloaded elsewhere as free scrapbooking elements and I just threw them together on the calendar)

Soon we will say hello to spring! (Insert complaint about the recent and ongoing cold and rain.)

High Five for Friday

1.  It has nearly been the best week ever this week in relation to school.  Last week was super stressful with exams, which flowed over to Monday, but then after that this is what the week looked like:  no labs, no quizzes or tests, lots of procrastination due to having some "free time," free time to catch up on a few episodes of Grey's Anatomy and clean a few things around the house; "free time" also lead to #2.

2.  Tuesday night we went to the dollar theater.  Do you guys know how cheap we are?  Maybe you've figured it out by now, but we are so cheap that we never, hardly ever get snacks at the movies. I realize that to some it's all part of the experience, but  I just can't bare the thought of paying $7 for popcorn!  Even as the rule-following kind of girl that I am, I'll be the first to sneak my own snack into the movies to prevent forking over enough to pay for 10 candy bars only to receive one.  (Confession time.)  But, the dollar theater is awesome.  Twelve bucks for 2 tickets, 2 drinks (I assume they are large...large enough for any one human to consume in a 2 hour period), and a large popcorn (again, large enough to stuff 2 adults).  We watch the movie Promised Land, which I would recommend as being worth your while.

3. The biggest highlight of the week is that Jesse came home Sunday!!! I know, you all didn't know he was gone. He was in Colorado all of last week snowboarding down exquisitely beautiful mountains with his brother and friends. He had SUCH a good time.  Who wouldn't just with that view, huh?

4.  While Jesse was gone, my parents came up over the weekend to keep me company.  It was their first time up since they helped move us!  I had to study while they were here, but I still thoroughly enjoyed their visit.  Of course, I had to take them to Steel City!

5.  Prepping for my upcoming spring break leisure reading.

Linked up with Lauren @ MyGreyDesk for H54F!

New Discovery

As I've told you before, I'm still learning this blog thing as I go.  I've always wanted you to be able to be notified of replying comments if you comment on a post.  This makes the blog more interactive and allows me (and others) to reply to you when you share something with us.  I've searched and searched for this feature at different times, and finally landed on it today. Maybe you already noticed and figured it out, because it's been right in front of our faces this whole time!

Whenever you comment on a post, beneath and to the right of the comment box are the words "Subscribe by email" (hello!!!).  Click on that, and then I'm not sure what happens from there (I assume you have to enter your email address if you are not already a follower of the blog), then you will be notified by email if I (or someone else) responds to your comment!  Ta-daaaa!

(This is what is should look like:

So comment back, and let me know if and how this works for you, since I've only partially figured it out. Thanks!

High Five For Friday

It's about time to celebrate Fridays again! (Except it's nearly midnight and you probably won't be reading this until Saturday... but at least I'm here tonight, right?)

Lots of things have been going on to keep us busy lately, but here are a few highlights from this week:

1.  Our most frequent visitors, Matt and Heidi, came up this past weekend.  Jesse and I got to help celebrate Kayla's (Heidi's sister) birthday at The Cheesecake Factory.  There was quite the wait, but we girls made the most of it by window shopping while the guys held down the buzzer in line. (Can you still call it window shopping if you walked through the entire store...?)  Our meal was delicious, and of course the cheesecakes were divine. (Photo taken after all the damage was done.)

(((Still wishing you a Happy (early) Birthday, Kayla!)))

2.  Okay, so I didn't just window shop (or whatever we are considering it), I picked up these darlings at Charming Charlie's.  Aren't they adorable?! In the spirit of Valentine's and all.

3.  Jesse had guys night at the movies to see the latest Bond, which he enjoyed a lot.  For those of you that realize this is "out of theaters" we have a dollar theater (really dollar-fifty theater) nearby that shows movies right after they are out of the "real" theater.  It's awesome - it beats paying a million dollars to see it as soon as it first comes out and makes for a great cheap date, which I am. :)

4.  I've had two great lunches this week:  one free lunch from Urban Cookhouse (yum!) during a club meeting - and let me tell you, free lunch (that's not pizza) is kind of a big deal for a room full of broke students; and one with my lovely friend Hannah who goes to school right across the street from me, yet we manage not to run into each other very much.  She's been doing cool things in school like suturing pig feet.  Oh, the things we experience in professional school! Speaking of which, let's throw in a 4 and a half:

4.5.  This is technically not related to only this week, but over the past 4 weeks we have been dissecting in the cadaver lab for our Gross Anatomy class.  As disturbing as it may be, I'd just like to point out that I know what all of your insides look like. It's gross and smelly (formaldehyde how I loathe thee) but I remind myself that it is a great learning experience and a privilege to learn from these donors, because they gave themselves to further our knowledge as health care professionals.

5. On a different note, which may not be the best of transitions after that one:  Jesse and I had date night tonight and tried a new Chinese restaurant. We picked it off the urbanspoon.com top list of places to eat in Birmingham.  It is definitely a happening place. It's a small little hole in the wall, but it was packed the entire time.  So much so that an older couple asked if they could sit next to us, since we had been seated at a four-person table.  After they pulled up their chairs we told them it was our first time eating there, so they gave us a few menu tips for next time, then insisted we try their food choices as soon as they were served.  Apparently a hot item there is the sauteed snow pea leaves. Not the peas, just the leaves!  They were SO delicious - like eating cooked spinach that tastes like fresh, crisp snow peas! We were so glad they shared.

UPDATE:  I has seemed like such a long week I forgot to also mention that we watched the Superbowl game this year.  I know....I watched the Superbowl!  (Surprised, no?)  Our neighbor friends, Mike and Kelsey, prompted the get together, mostly to hang out and watch the commercials and not the actual game.  There were definitely some odd and some disgusting ones, but here was a favorite, in case I actually watched a football game that you didn't:

Good answer, dad.

I'm so glad to finally link up again with High Five for Friday.
What was a highlight of your week?

The Unknown Future

So we have somewhat of an issue occurring.
Jesse's job may be at risk.
This is a little hard to write. Mostly because it's opening up and telling you something not so great that is going on in our lives. I contemplated even sharing it, but then I thought:  you guys are our family and friends.  You're our support system. And the whole point of this blog is to keep you updated on what is going on - whether good or not-so-good.

What's going on: There is a huge "re-organization" going on within his company, and they are moving a lot of people around.  Around here at the corporate office. But mostly out of corporate and to the sites.  Where are these sites, you ask?  Dothan or Georgia. Equals, not Birmingham.

Now, as most of you know, half (or more) of the reason we are here is so that I can go to school at UAB - the only optometry school in the state (or in Georgia, for that matter).  It's a bit of an anchor that keeps us here for a few more years.

What this means:  Either he keeps a job at corporate, keeps a job at corporate for now which will eventually (hopefully around the same time I'm finishing school) move to a site, loses a job here and has the option to go (without me) to the site, or loses a job here and has to get a new one here.

How we feel:  There are lots of options, mostly unknown at this point, on the table.  We don't really know what is going to happen, which is the scariest part. We feel like the company will try to be as fair as possible, whether that works to our advantage or not. They are taking opinions from the workers, which is somewhat comforting.
As we were "planning our lives" around the time we got married, I had been excepted into optometry school and he needed a job in Birmingham.  He had co-oped during college with the company and it was common for them to hire on students upon graduation. The problem then was that he had co-oped at a site, not corporate.  But guess what God worked out?  A shift that allowed him to get on at corporate.
Now, instead of asking: why might God take away something He provided, I'm just going to remind myself that He knows what He is doing.  There is even a chance that it will work out "perfectly" in the end.  Since it is possible that I may practice near Dothan once I graduate, if Jesse were to get the option of keeping his job here for a few years then have it moved to the site the world would be a happy place.  I'm not saying the way I think it should go is the way it's gonna go, or even really should go.  While I do love a good plan, I realize I'm not really in control of the plan anyway.

What you can do:  We tell you this not so that you feel bad that we're getting into a sticky situation, but we just ask that you pray for us.  Pray that the head honchos' decision is whatever is best for us. And if it's not (aka- job loss) that a new job will be available.

Thanks for caring about us and supporting us! We will keep you posted!