Arrrgh!

So I'm not doing a very good job of remembering to do things for my blog. Not only was I supposed to wear a blog worthy outfit today, I was supposed to take a picture of it. I did neither. When I got home today and started thinking about my blog tonight I was like aw crap, now what am I going to blog about? Then I remembered that even though I didn't take pictures of my outfit today I could still blog about fashion BECAUSE I went shopping this weekend! Got some great stuff too. I'd been really wanting to get some warm weather options that didn't include rolled jean capris or dresses. I thought a cute pair of shorts would be a good choice. I got two really cute ones from Old Navy.

These:

And also a cute green pair that I can't find a picture of. To go with them I got several simple, fitted, t-shirts. A white with navy blue stripes, a white with pink stripes, a light blue, coral, and green. I think they will all make for really great summery, comfortable outfits on days where it's warm and I'm not feeling a dress.

I have found the cure for Manic Mondays!

And it is Chicken and Green Chili Enchiladas! I had a pretty hectic day today and by the time 4:30 rolled around all I wanted to do was come home and cook. We started our math assessments today and I swear the next time someone asks me if I'm okay with doing state assessments on a Monday I'm saying hell no! It was no bueno. Then I had issues with parents, kids, and coworkers all day. To top it off it took so long for me to get done at the eye doctor today I missed Zumba. When I finally did get done I headed home to relax and cook.

Tonight we had Chicken and Green Chili Enchiladas with black bean salsa. Here's the recipe for the enchiladas. I forgot to take a picture tonight. Oops! I'll try to do one tomorrow with the leftovers. Hopefully they still look pretty.

What You Need

4-1/2 cups shredded cooked chicken

1 can  (4 oz.) chopped green chiles, undrained

1-1/2 cups BREAKSTONE'S or KNUDSEN Sour Cream, divided

1 pkg.  (8 oz.) KRAFT Mexican Style Finely Shredded Taco Cheese, divided

16 corn tortillas (6 inch), warmed

3 cans  (10 oz. each) red enchilada sauce, warmed

Make It

HEAT oven to 375°F. COMBINE chicken, chilies and 1 cup each sour cream and cheese; spoon down centers of tortillas. Roll up. SPREAD 1 cup sauce onto bottom of 13x9-inch pan. Add enchiladas, seam-sides down; top with remaining sauce. Cover. BAKE 20 min. or until heated through. Sprinkle with remaining cheese; bake, uncovered, 5 min. or until melted. Serve topped with remaining sour cream. I got the recipe from Kraft Foods. Quite possibly my favorite recipe site ever. I tried to flavor it up a bit by adding some diced onions to the chicken, sour cream, pepper filling. I think it was a good idea. Then for the black bean salsa I just combined a can of black beans and a can of corn, drained and rinsed, a medium red onion, one jalapeno, some cilantro, cumin, and lime juice. I let it sit over night and served with tortilla chips. Simple and delicious.  I found cooking tonight very relaxing and therapeutic. It helped me forget my troubles from the day and know that when Brian got home he would have a lovely home cooked meal to eat with his girlfriend. I can definitely see my self in between tanning and boating this summer spending a lot of time in the kitchen. I really enjoy cooking and I am eager to start trying more and more complicated and inventive recipes.  I'm hoping tomorrow goes better than today did. I'm sure that it will. My friend April reminded me today only 6 more Mondays left of school this year! That is crazy to me! I can't believe how fast this school year has gone by. There were times in the fall and winter I thought it would never end, but here we are! I am so looking forward to summer. It will be here before you know it!  

Ceramics in the Springtime

I had a very lovely time tonight! After cycling and dinner Brian and I met up with Jess and Gwen over at Sunfire Ceramics. We'd never been before but thought doing some painting would be a fun Thursday activity to do with Jess/a nice mini date night. I have to admit when the Sunfire girl gave us the run down of how to do the whole paint your own ceramics thing I was a bit overwhelmed. First you have to choose from around 100 pieces of pottery which one you want to paint. They varied in price from a few bucks for small pieces to $40-$50 for larger ones. Then you choose from over 40 different paint colors which ones you want to use. They charge you $4 to use the paints. Then you have to decide what you are going to paint. They have stencils, sponges, or you could just free-hand. I had a lot of trouble deciding what to do. I thought I might want to do a coffee cup, but then I couldn't think of what I would paint. Then I thought I would do one of the small statues, maybe a Jayhawk, but I still wanted to be a bit more creative. I finally settled on a cute egg shaped plate. I thought I could do something Eastery. Brian ended up doing a stake for our garden that he labeled chili peppers. Jess decide that she and Gwen would work on a piggy bank for Gwen's room.

We had a really nice time. The painting was really fun and relaxing. I could have done it for hours. They also make the process really user friendly. All the tools you need are set up in the garage of the shop and all you do is take what you need and pay when you're done. We are supposed to pick ours up on Saturday or Sunday after they have been fired. Here's what mine looks like now.

I'm sure it will look really cute once it's been fired. I definitely hope we can go back and do it again sometime. It would be a great idea for a gift for someone. Not very expensive and easy to personalize!

Cell Phone DT's

I decided to skip Zumba today because my foot was still really bothering me. I think I must have bruised my heel some how the other day and every time I put weight on it, it hurts. So since I wasn't Zumba-ing I thought I would go on a bike ride instead. I came home, changed clothes, put my phone in my bra, key on my shoelace, helmet on my head, grabbed my bike and off I went! It was a really nice ride! I went across 23rd to the Prairie Park nature trail. Once I got to the pond on the trail I decided to stop and enjoy the view and check my phone. Brian has messaged me to let me know he got my message about going for a ride. When I tried to respond my phone freaked out. It said it was on "safe mode" and my H and C keys wouldn't work. NOT OKAY. I am so attached to my phone. I wouldn't even know what to do without it should it ever break. Last fall when my last phone crapped out I made sure I went less than 24 hours without a new one and hustled my ass to the nearest AT&T for a replacement. So today when this one started wigging out I cut my bike ride short and went straight home.

I immediately got online to see what I needed to do to turn off this "safe mode" business. Everything I read said the only way to fix it was to do a SD factory restore. I was not looking forward to doing a restore for fear that I would lose everything on my phone, but since it seemed like there was no other solution, I prayed and went for it. Everything went smoothly until I had to re-boot my MotoBlur account. When I tried to type in my e-mail address and password my phone was adding all sorts of extra letters. For instance I would type S and it would show "sdxctly." So weird. And since I'm such a freak about having my phone I hauled ass to Best Buy where I bought the phone to figure out what the hell was wrong. Unfortunately they couldn't help me since I did not buy their insurance when I got the phone, but they figured it was some sort of keyboard problem. So I headed to AT&T and wouldn't you know it as soon as I got to the counter and spoke to the lady my phone was working fine. Isn't that always how it goes? So I'm grateful to have a working phone and not have to wait for a replacement, but I'm also realizing that I need to calm the hell down when it comes to my cell. I mean I literally stopped everything I was doing to go get it fixed. Come on, it's not that serious. I have known life without a phone before and I survived. I know that I am probably not the only person who has reacted this way before, though. It makes you realize how reliant people are on technology now a days. One thing quits working and shit hits the fan. Sad really.

Anyway, I'm done talking about my cell phone crazies. I just wanted to add that I had the tastiest dinner tonight! While I was freaking out about my phone I failed to remember I was supposed to cook fish and potatoes for dinner tonight, and since Brian got home shortly after I got back from AT&T we decided to go out to eat. I had been wanting to take Brian to The Basil Leaf Cafe for awhile now and I'm so glad that's where we went! I first had The Basil Leaf this summer and it was fantastic. For those of you not familiar it is the restaurant inside the Phillips 66 at 6th and Kasold. It was soooo good! I had a chipotle corn tortellini thingy and Brian had a Thai BBQ spaghetti thing. Both super delish and affordable. I definitely recommend it to everyone!

Laid Back Look

I have to admit when I got dressed this morning I totally forgot my vow to post my outfits on Tuesdays. I didn't remember until it was time for cycling today and had to have Brian snap a quick picture before I changed into my workout clothes. So I don't look as good in the picture as I did when I got dressed this morning. My clothes are a little wrinkly, my hair wind blown, and my make up a bit dull from the wear and tear of the day. I also think I would have picked something a bit cuter if I had remembered this morning that I would be posting this today. Oh well. I promise to try to make up for it next Tuesday. So here's my outfit for today.

 It's a fairly laid back look. Not very dressy. But then again when do I ever get dressy for my job? The background's not so flattering either. The cycling room at the community center is gorgeous, no? I'll try to pick a better background next Tuesday as well. Here's the breakdown on the outfit. Jeans-Sweetheart Bootcut from Old Navy. Grey t-shirt-Old Navy.  Scarf- Old Navy. Flip flops-Old Navy. Purse on the ground (should have posed with it-Rats!)-Old Navy. Are you noticing a pattern here?  cardigan-Target, Mossimo.

So there's my first attempt at a fashion/outfit Tuesday post. I'm not too impressed. I'll try better next time!

OPA! Yummy, Yummy Greek Feast!

I don't know what the deal is but Brian and I have been seriously craving Greek food lately. So on Saturday when we made our shopping list/meal plan we decided to make chicken kebabs, pita, rice, green beans, and tzatziki. And it was delicious!

For our rice we just used are good ol' stand-by AB rice pilaf. So delicious. Same pilaf from No Pilates Pilaf Monday. Green beans was just a can and pita was store bought-hey we can't be fancy all the time. Below you will find the breakdown on the chicken and tzatziki.



Chicken Kebabs

About 2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into cubes
About 2 tbsp. olive oil
1 tbsp. rosemary
1 tbsp. thyme
1 tbsp. oregano
2 cloves minced garlic
2 tbsp. lemon juice

I started out by defrosting the chicken in the microwave. When it was thawed I cut it into kebab sized chunks. I combined my olive oil, spices, garlic, and lemon juice in a bowl and tossed the chicken chunks to coat. I prepped my wooden skewers by running them under the water for a bit. This was to avoid them catching fire in the oven. I don't know if they would, but better safe than sorry! I put about 6-7 pieces of chicken on each skewer. To cook the kebabs in the oven I used a cake pan and rested the ends of the skewers on the edges so they layed horizontally along the length of the pan. The oven was already at 350 for the rice so when it was done we put the chicken in for about 20 minutes. Super tasty!

For the tzatziki we used AB's recipe from his gyro recipe. I'm planning on making that some time soon too. We'll have to get some lamb from the Mediterranean Market for that one! But anyway, the tzatziki was delicious! After all the ingredients were combined it was still a little chunky so we threw it in the food processor for a bit (my awesome ex Pink Box Bakery $5 food processor!). It was perfect after it had been blended a bit more. Here's the recipe.

Tzatziki Sauce:
16 ounces plain yogurt
1 medium cucumber, peeled, seeded, and finely chopped
Pinch kosher salt
4 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
5 to 6 mint leaves, finely minced

Place the yogurt in a tea towel, gather up the edges, suspend over a bowl, and drain for 2 hours in the refrigerator.
Place the chopped cucumber in a tea towel and squeeze to remove the liquid; discard liquid. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the drained yogurt, cucumber, salt, garlic, olive oil, vinegar, and mint. Serve as a sauce for gyros. Store in the refrigerator in an airtight container for up to a week.
Yield: 1 1/2 cups

Oh! I almost forgot. We put our yougart in a dish towel the night before and suspended it over a bowl using kebab skewers. It says 2 hours, but over night was fine. Made for less prep today!

Here's a picture of the final product! It was really good and I think not bad for our first attempt cooking Greek. I'm excited to try something more complicated next time. I've got my eye on AB's gyros so watch out for that!

Fabulous Friday For a Feast!

It's Friday!!!!! Yay!!! And the weather is GORGEOUS today! It's about time. I'm so ready for spring. After the kids left today I texted Brian to see if he was home yet and what he wanted to do. I was ready for outdoors, beer, and food. He was still at work, but not really feeling his 5:30 swim work out so we agreed to meet at home and make plans for outdoors, beer, and food. We decided to pack a cooler with some of our home brew, go to the Mediterranean Market to pick up some dinner, and head out to Clinton Lake for a picnic. It was fantastic. We got 2 gyro dinners from the Market and some hot feta dip. The dinners came with salads, pita, rice, green beans, hummus, and tzatziki---which we ate with our hands because they didn't put forks in the bag! It was pretty tasty. We finished our beers and enjoyed the view of the lake from the shelter house. After dinner we decided to stop by Dillons for a coffee and Red Box. While I was ordering our coffees (Brian went to look for my goat cheese--it's Chevre by the way!) an older woman walked into the store dressed in a chicken suit. She was making chicken noises and flapping as she made her way to the deli. I turned to the girl in front of me and asked, "Did you see that too?" I wasn't sure if it was for real. I don't know if it was April Fools or just plain crazy. Weirdy! Anyway, we got our coffees and checked the Red Box. Couldn't find anything good though. So now we're home and I don't know what we're going to do tonight, but I'm very happy and content watching bad tv on the couch and getting snuggly. Tomorrow after Brian goes for a run and sees his trainer we're going to get our onions planted in our garden This summer we're growing tomatoes, onions, jalapenos, and herbs. We've dubbed it the "Salsa Garden." We may also try to get some spring cleaning done and go see people in KC. Then Sunday we're going to my folks to hang out. Maybe go for a bike ride at the lake. I'm excited to see Cameroni! He's walking now! All in all should be a very good weekend. Life is good! <3