Julia and Julia

Eric seriously thought this was a made up movie and not based on a true story and when I was telling him about Julia childs he was picturing Julia styles and thought that's who I was talking about. Silly boy. My manager at ULTA, Gio, shared this recipie with me and I will forever be grateful. This is probably my favorite recipie, and only because of the cream sauce. I could pour it on anything and eat all of it. It's. So. Good. 

(Chicken Breasts with Mushroom and Cream)

Source: Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. I by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck (Knopf, 1961)

Ingredients:

4 supremes (boneless, skinless chicken breasts)

1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

1/4 teaspoon salt

Big pinch white pepper

5 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon minced shallot or green onion

1/4 pound diced or sliced fresh mushrooms

1/8 teaspoon salt

For the sauce:

1/4 cup white or brown stock or canned beef bouillon

1/4 cup port, Madeira or dry white vermouth

1 cup whipping cream

Salt and pepper

2 tablespoons freshly minced parsley

Directions:Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Rub the chicken breasts with drops of lemon juice and sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper. Heat the butter in a heavy, oven-proof casserole, about 10 inches in diameter until it is foaming. Stir in the minced shallots or green onion and saute a moment without browning. Then stir in the mushrooms and saute lightly for a minute or two without browning. Sprinkle with salt.

Quickly roll the chicken in the butter mixture and lay a piece of buttered wax paper over them, cover casserole and place in hot oven. After 6 minutes, press top of chicken with your finger. If still soft, return to oven for a moment or two. When the meat is springy to the touch it is done.(Please Note: Although Julia suggests to check the chicken after only 6 minutes, I (as well as several of my readers!) feel that this amount of time is inadequate to thoroughly cook the chicken. I cooked it for closer to 30-40 minutes. Please use a meat thermometer to ensure the correct temperature before serving!)

Remove the chicken to a warm platter (leave mushrooms in the pot) and cover while making the sauce (2 to 3 minutes).

To make sauce, pour the stock and wine in the casserole with the cooking butter and mushrooms. Boil down quickly over high heat until liquid is syrupy. Stir in the cream and boil down again over high heat until cream has thickened slightly. Off heat, taste for seasoning, and add drops of lemon juice to taste. Pour the sauce over the chicken, sprinkle with parsley and serve immediately.

Serves 4.

Source: “Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. I” by Julia Child (Knopf, 1961)

Since the cooking time on the chicken isn't right, this is what I did. 

I browned the chicken on both sides in the butter instead of just rolling it in it. Once the chicken was brown on both sides and not cooked through, I then put it in the oven for about 20 min until it was cooked. SO GOOD. I could make this every other day. I ate mine with potatoes and green beans 

Spinach dip

This is seriously so simple. I made it 5 minutes ago and just ate more than I should have. Next time I'll probably add artichokes. I found this one on Pinterest. 

 

Sunday night stew

I got this recipie from the pioneer woman on the food network. She is one of my favorites right now. This recipie is also pretty easy and so flavorful. I don't like mashed potatoes but I eat these! The cream cheese makes them so delish. 

•  STEW
• 3 Tablespoons Olive Oil
• 1 Tablespoon Butter
• 2 pounds Beef Stew Meat (chuck Roast Cut Into Chunks)
•  Salt And Pepper
• 1 whole Medium Onion, Diced
• 3 cloves Garlic, Minced
• 4 ounces, weight Tomato Paste
• 4 cups Low Sodium Beef Stock Or Broth, More If Needed For Thinning
•  Several Dashes Worcestershire
• 1/2 teaspoon Sugar
• 4 whole Carrots, Peeled And Diced
• 2 whole Turnips, Peeled And Diced
• 2 Tablespoons Minced Fresh Parsley
•  Mashed Potatoes
• 5 pounds Russet Potatoes (peeled)
• 1 package (8 Ounce) Cream Cheese, Softened
• 1 stick Butter, Softened
• 1/2 cup Heavy Cream
• 1 teaspoon Seasoned Salt
•  Salt And Pepper, to taste

Preparation Instructions

Salt and pepper stew meat. Heat olive oil in a large, heavy pot over medium-high heat. Add butter, and as soon as it melts, brown half the stew meat until the outside gets nice and brown, about 2 minutes. (Turn it as it browns.) Remove the meat from the pot with a slotted spoon and put it on a plate. Add the rest of the meat to the pot and brown it, too. Remove it to the same plate. Set the meat aside.

Add the onion and garlic to the pot, stirring it to coat it in all the brown bits in the bottom of the pot. Cook for two minutes, then add the tomato paste to the pot. Stir it into the onions and let it cook for two more minutes.

Pour in the beef stock, stirring constantly. Add the Worcestershire and sugar. Add the beef back to the pot, cover the pot, and reduce the heat to low. Simmer, covered, for 1 1/2 hours to 2 hours.

After 1 1/2 to 2 hours, add the diced turnips and carrots to the pot. Stir to combine, put the lid back on the pot, and let it simmer for another 30 minutes. The sauce should be very thick, but if it seems overly so, splash in some beef broth until it thins it up enough. Feel free to add beef broth as needed!

When the carrots and turnips are tender, stir in minced parsley. Taste and add salt and pepper as needed. Serve piping hot in a bowl with mashed potatoes, letting the juice run all over everything. Sprinkle with extra minced parsley at the end.

MASHED POTATOES

Cut the potatoes into quarters and cover with water in a large pot. Boil until potatoes are fork tender, about 25-30 minutes. Drain the potatoes, then put them back into the same pot. With the heat on low, mash the potatoes for 2 to 3 minutes to release as much steam as possible.

Turn off heat, then add cream cheese, butter, cream, seasoned salt, salt and pepper. Taste and adjust seasonings as needed.

Serve potatoes immediately or spread them into a buttered baking dish to be reheated later. To reheat, put them in a 375 degree oven, covered in foil, until hot.

More pictures and actual recipie here 

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2013/01/sunday-night-stew/

Gumbo

My mom shared her chicken and sausage gumbo recipe with me the other day and it was SO good. Eric didn't even believe I made with when he came home from work on his lunch break. It has a lot of steps but it is a pretty simple recipe, you can't really mess it up. 

Here's the recipie ! 

Roux

4 Chicken thighs (with skin &bone) (2lbs) 

A pack of zumos sausage (slice before cooking)

2 celery stalks

1/2 yellow onion

1-2 bunches green onions

1/2 bell pepper

Rice

(Can sub water for chicken stock)

Put 3 heaping tablespoons of roux in a large pot with 3 cups of water over medium heat. Stir with a wooden spoon until dissolved. Add more roux if the color is not dark enough. While you are cooking the roux boil the chicken thighs and sausage in separate pots. This will just get rid of the excess fat/grease and help cook the chicken. Once the roux is dissolved in the water add the vegetables and cook on medium low. After boiling the chicken for 20 min add to the roux and vegetables. Take out the sausage with a slotted spoon and add to the gumbo. Add 2-3 more cups of water and another table spoon or 2 of the roux. Cook all together for about an hour. Take the chicken thighs out and removed skin and bones and shred the chicken. You should be able to do this with 2 forks. Add the shredded chicken back in the pot and cook over low-medium heat for another hour or 2. Season and serve over rice 

Seasonings

Salt

Pepper

Tonys 

A little garlic salt

Season salt 

File- right before you serve it 

( it takes a lot of salt)

Cooking cooking cooking

I love cooking. I love it more when what I cook actually taste good. Lately it has been. I am getting better at following a recipe. I use to cut out steps and ingredients if I didn't feel like buying them, didn't like them, or just because. When I did that it wouldn't taste right, obviously. I am getting better and have been cooking new things ALOT. I have a few rotating recipes but the past couple of weeks I have added a few more yummy ones. 

My current recipes (I'm writing these so I don't forget, most of them come from my mom) 

Spaghetti 

Chili

Tacos

Chicken enchiladas 

Shrimp lemon  & butter

Fried shrimp

Chicken Parmesan 

Chicken piccata (two ways)

Steak rice & gravy

Gumbo (chicken and sausage)

Crawfish and rice 

Julia child's creamy chicken (YUM)

I can't remember anymore right now because I'm too excited to blog about te new recipies I have tried recently! 

Busy weekend

I have no pictures :( but we had a very busy weekend! 

A few years ago Eric's dad took us to a casino/ hotel in Louisiana l'auberge du lac in lake Charles. We weren't even 21 yet but he had two free rooms so we went. It's a really nice hotel and they have a lazy river and multiple restaurants and gift shops you can go to so it was a lot of fun. His dad had another chance to use two free rooms so we tagged along this past weekend. 

We planned on going months ago, thinking it would be a free weekend for us with nothing else to do. Unfourtuntly that wasn't the case. First, we found out i had a Burge family reunion that weekend also in Louisiana (very convenient) and then later found out Eric's mom was having a birthday party for her moms 90th birthday at her house that weekend also on Saturday. Our relaxing weekend at the casino quickly turned into a busy weekend traveling back and forth between Texas and Louisiana. 

I found a picture! 

This was our hotel room, we slept in one bed one night and the other the next haha. These beds are soooo comfortable! Even though I didn't care for the casino (people smoking and drinking everywhere you look) it's not really my thing, the rooms made up for it, I guess. I didn't like putting money into a slot machine and less than a minute later it was all gone! Luckily Eric won back everything I lost ($40) plus he made back $5 more. 

We woke up early Saturday morning and drove about 30 min to the family reunion after that we drove about 20 minutes to Eric's moms house in orange for Cammies 90th birthday. When that was over we drove back to the casino and met Brian and Krisha at the lazy river at the hotel then got ready for dinner, at mazens, Eric's favorite. If you are ever in lake Charles for dinner GO TO MAZENS. It's delicious, elegant, perfect and right off 210. Sunday when we woke up we left and went back to Eric's mom to spend time with them, family from out of town and to watch the texans game on their 70in tv. 

Finally when we were on our way back to Houston we got stuck in traffic for 2.5 hours. We were parked on i10. We didn't move for two and a half hours! It was insane. Unfortunatly there was a wreck and they had to shut down the highway for a very, very long time. Our 2 hour trip home turned into to 4.5 hours. 

It was a great weekend filled with family, family and more family! 

I LOVE WEDDINGS

Now that I have had my own, I think I appreciate weddings more. All the planning and decisions and love that goes into it. No matter how big or how small I LOVE weddings. 

Last night our friends Ashley and Nathan got married. Nathan was Eric's roommate in college for 4 years at UT and him and Ashley are both from Port Neches.  

They got married at the Briscoe Manor in Richmond, Texas.

It was GORGEOUS! 

Our table center piece 

Luke came with us! 

The groomsmen! 

The bride and groom! 

Congrats Nathan and Ashley!! 

The past 5 years....

The past 5 years have been a bittersweet time. I know I am where I am supposed to be today but boy has it been a long disappointing, discouraging mess getting here (school wise). 

In high school I decided I would be in the nursing program to get my CNA, I took courses my junior and senior year. My senior year we took the state test to become a certified CNA. Since I was starting at Lamar university in the fall I decided not to get a job as a CNA out of high school because it would be hard to work crazy hours and also make good grades my first semester of college 

So fall of 2008 I started full time at Lamar. I was taking all the pre requests for the bachelors degree nursing program. I had about 2.5 years of classes before I could apply for the 3 year long program. Finally in my second year of college I was able to take anatomy and physiology, after taking  2 developmental math classes -_- . After a combined total of 5 times taking anatomy and physiology I finally passed both classes with a B. By that time I was a little discouraged. I still had to take another science course, microbiology. that I knew was tough.

I then thought maybe nursing wasn't for me? My grandma was a teacher, my mom is a teacher, and one of my best friends Bree was going for teaching and LOVED it. So then i transferred to Lamar orange and took 15 hours worth of basics and teaching classes. Hated it. I don't know if it was my intro to education teacher (annoying) or just teaching itself but I knew it wasn't for me. 

Around that time before my second semester at Lamar orange by friend Bree told me she was thinking about moving to Austin to be closer to her sister, since all of her family had moved back to west Texas. So of course I wanted to tag along. Who doesn't want to leave south east Texas, especially when your boyfriend of 3 years lives there. Eric and I had just gone through a rough patch and time together was what we needed. So I dropped my classes at Lamar orange and Applied to Austin community college. For nursing. Yep I was going to try nursing one more time. They offered the two year associate degree nursing program and I needed two classes to apply for it. Bree and I went to Austin and found an apartment and I registered for medical terminology. I LOVED being in Austin but I loved being 20 min away from Eric even more. (4 hours away before). About the time I was finishing my classes and signing up for the second class I needed Eric accepted a job offer in Houston. A couple months later he proposed to me and started looking for apartments in Houston. The class I was going to take wasn't go to transfer so I dropped it. 

Off to Houston we go. We found an apartment in Pearland and moved in once we got married. By that time it was too late to register to yet again ANOTHER college. College #4. So the following semester I enrolled and thought maybe NURSING wasn't for me maybe I should look into other medical programs. Surgical technology is what I came up with. I needed one class before I applied so I took it spring 2013. I made an A turned in my application months early had a good interview for the program and then... didn't get in. Bummer.

So I started over. I am going to take a six week course to get my certification as a nurses aid, again. And actually get a job with it this time. It shouldn't be hard since there are about 5 million hospitals in the Houston area. Only time will tell what I will do from there. Maybe apply for the surg tech program again,  or maybe continue on in nursing and eventually get my BSN, RN. WHO KNOWS. 

Sitting, waiting, wishing

Waiting to find out if I got accepted into the surgical tech program at HCC is making me crazy!!! I should find out any day now, the deadline for applications was today and I had my interview weeks ago. 

Since I don't have a "plan B" it makes the waiting process that much harder. What will I do if I don't get in? I have been out of high school for 5 years now and have over 2 years of college credits. I should be graduated by now! 

Now, back to waiting......

Catalina Island, California

Tuesday we went to Catalina island. Eric, Amy, Nate, Brian, Krisha, Denise, Gary, Travis, Nancy, Mercy and I all went. We left from Long Beach on the Catalina express

It is about an hour long boat ride. The inside looks like an airplane sort of except you also had the chance to sit backwards and at tables. But the seats were like an airplane. 

We rented golf carts for about 3 hours. We rode around and took LOTS of pictures, it was very pretty. 

We ate lunch when we got there before we picked up our carts, we drove around most of Avalon, shopped, got ice cream And then shopped some more, we really just browsed around. The houses were super tiny and I think the population was around 4,000. The main animal on the island is buffalo although we didn't see any while we were sightseeing. Our boat left the island around 7:30pm

There was a little restaurant on the pier   named "Eric's" of course he took a picture in front of it. 

While we were riding around through the residential area there was a little girl on the street selling lemonade for $.50! Fifty cents! We couldn't pass it up. 

I would definitely recommend going to Catalina, even if its just for the day. 

*free boat ride on your birthday 

California trip #3

We leave California tomorrow! It feels like we have been here 5 weeks. But really only 6 days. This will be one of those vacations you need a vacation from. 

We got here Wednesday and Thursday was Travis' graduation 

Friday we didn't do much, we swam and played darts at Nancy's, Travis Gary and Denise went to a graduation party. 

Saturday was the graduation party for Travis 

Sunday we went out on a yacht. We left from Newport and road to Laguna beach. We hung out there for a little bit and then headed back. It was pretty big yacht that John Limbocker co owns? Or maybes just the captin? I'm not really sure but somehow he is part of the family and has access to this massive yacht 

The co-captain on the boat the day we went was an ex whale watching tour guide. We didn't see any whales this time but we did get pretty close to a few dolphins riding along side the boat. 

 

Once we got to around Laguna beach we anchored and got to jump off the top. We went about 2 times each 

Monday we had family pictures and we also all went to the angles vs mariners game 

There are too many pictures to blog about Catalina island so that will be next 

One Year Anniversary

We just celebrated our one year of being married!

That year went by way to fast. So many new things. But first....

We had to give our puppy kevin back =(
maybe next year we will try again.

We didn't do much to celebrate this year because we are working on saving money but we had a good day regardless. Eric made me the SWEETEST homemade card on the computer filled with pictures from the past year. Of course I cried. He also got me flowers and took me to dinner at Carrabbas and we went to the movies to see the Internship. Super funny.

June 9, 2012 

Bringing Kevin home!

We got a DOG!! 

Happy anniversary to us! 

We adore this little puppy, Kevin. He is an AKC certified Golden Retriever. A sweet family from Seabrook, TX posted the puppies on southeasttexas.com. He is so handsome, soft, fluffy, playful, well-behaved, and semi- potty trained. He is the perfect first dog for us and I'm glad we waited until we were ready! He was the last puppy to go - it was meant to be =) 

On the way home! 

The car ride home wore him out! 

Helping set up his kennel 

He is seriously the cutest puppy! 

Watching TV - right after this picture was taken he got up, backed up then sat back down. He knows sitting close isn't good for his eyes ;) 

He is eight weeks today and 11lbs

His birthday is April 10, 2013