Gazpacho

 

Last weekend I made my first ever batch of Gazpacho. I had never heard of it until a luncheon I attended for work in February. It was called "empty bowls", supported the local food bank and many vendors and restaurants in the area served soup according to their specialty. It was pretty amazing and one of my favorites was this soup called gazpacho that is served cold! It seemed pretty weird, but was surprisingly good. It may be a southern thing? It originated through Spain and Latin America. 

Anyway, it's an amazingly fresh summer meal I highly recommend giving it a try with some fresh ingredients this summer :) One of my favorite things about this recipe is that you don't need to use your oven or stove at all - so no heating up the home on a hot day! You just dice everything up and blend half of it - so easy! It's been in the 80's - 90's here so I've definitely been in the mood for fresh summer meals and this one hit the spot. I got this particular recipe from The Pioneer Woman's Blog - have you checked out her blog or recipes? Oh my gosh it will make your mouth water. She makes amazing food.

Photos are up first, the ingredients list and full directions are below...

1/2 red onion, diced, and two minced garlic cloves added to the blender

Diced cucumber (ok... I may have minced it. Maybe this is why it took me so long to dice all of these veggies!)

Diced tomatoes. Does this make you ready for summer or what?!

Diced zucchini

2 stalks celery - pre-dicing

1/2 of all veggies (it makes for a FULL blender I may add)

Here are my reserved non-blended veggies (and yes, my thumb)

  Add the liquids and seasonings to the blender

Blend

Pour into large bowl and stir in the non-blended veggies. This gives it a great texture. Taste check to see if the amount of salt, hot sauce and pepper are to your likings.

Chill in the fridge for at least a few hours before serving.

Add remaining veggies as garnish (apparently the garnish is enough to serve 8 and I divided all of the garnish between our two bowls, creating an EXCESS of garnish. I believe that's why I didn't like it as much the first night. The other meals we ate it without garnish, I loved it so I think next time I'll just use a little sprinkling of the pretty garnish so most of the veggies are marinated). After sitting overnight, I LOVED it though and will be making many more batches for our long summer! :)

Ingredients:

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 red onion, diced

1 large cucumber, diced

5 roma tomatoes, diced

1 zucchini, diced

2 stalks celery, diced

1 dash salt to taste

1/4 gallon (1 quart) tomato juice

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/8 cup red wine vinegar

2 tablespoons white sugar

6 dashes hot sauce

1 dash black pepper to taste

Directions:

In a food processor or blender, combine the garlic with half of the red onion, half the cucumber, half the tomatoes, half the zucchini, half the celery, half the tomato juice, olive oil, red wine vinegar, sugar, hot sauce, salt, and pepper. Pulse until all ingredients are blended well; mixture will be nicely speckled.

Pour into a large bowl and add the rest of the tomato juice, half of the remaining onion, cucumber, tomato, zucchini, and celery (reserve the rest of the vegetables for garnish - or if you don't care about garnish, throw them all in :))

Stir mixture together and check seasonings, adding salt if needed. Chill soup for at least a couple of hours; soup should be served very cold.

Remove from fridge, stir and check seasonings. Serve with garnished vegetables if desired. Eat the chilled soup out on your patio on a warm day and enjoy!

Our Week in Review

We ate quiche...

BBQ Chicken Quesadillas...

Went on a lovely walk...

Ate chicken salad sandwiches...

Chocolate coconut cookies...

Went on a date to On the Border - and had amazing grilled enchiladas (highly recommend!)...

Ate too many Cadbury eggs. Have you had these? Omgosh, they are addicting and amazing.

Made fresh gazpacho (recipe coming soon)

Bought new lip tint and gloss (I already had the lip butter and loved it!). Target actually carries this line! Other drug stores may too...

Paraben FREE! And very reasonably priced. I had only seen colorless paraben free lip butters so I had to try these. The lip butters are USDA organic. So far so good! The lip tint is just that - a tint rather than a rich lipstick look, and the color I got is a pretty natural looking color, but I like it! May have to try out other colors in the future... A nice minty taste, no harsh chemicals, and the gloss has a pretty shine.

If you're into product reviews like I am, check out this blog for a review of the lip tint. This woman bought all of them and posted pictures of each color.

Made two batches of these cupcakes for Nick's upcoming birthday...

...And I apparently did something wrong. They were NOT good :( No worries though, another batch is on the way...

We purchased a new outdoor dining set! I love it and LOVED the price!! $69. That is not a typo. Sixty-nine dollars! For the table, two chairs and the seat covers (plus $4 if you give in to the older man excited to sell you the cool coconut candle. What? You would've given in too). Click here to check it out on Home Depot's website, it's a great deal. It says online only, but our local HD had many in stock.

So all in all, our week was good. Apparently we did a lot of eating. At least we went on a walk though, right? It's definitely feeling like summer now, high 70's to 90's most days! I need to enjoy these before we only have the 100's :) Hope your week was great!

Cauliflower & Ham Casserole

This week has really been a great week. I've been feeling really well for most of the week! Many days, I woke up without a headache (what an amazing feeling!:)) and had much lower pain than usual. I'm really feeling like this medicine is helping and the side effects are pretty much gone. I've been able to be much more active cooking meals, running errands, exercising etc. feeling so good. Thank you again for your thoughts and prayers for me, this week is definitely a PRAISE week!

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Update on the family I told you about with both the husband and wife being diagnosed with cancer just 10 days apart: they were on the Today Show last week (thanks Rachel for telling me about it!), watch their interview here and remember to keep their family in your prayers.

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 Cauliflower & Ham Casserole

Here's a recipe slightly modified from my Taste of Home The Market Fresh Cookbook. This recipe is a great comfort food. We love this easy recipe!

Ingredients:

1/2 onion, chopped

2 tablespoons butter, divided

2 tablespoons flour

1/2 tsp salt

Pepper to taste

1 cup milk

1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1 medium head cauliflower, cut into florets, cooked and drained (I microwaved them for a few minutes)

2 cups fully cooked ham

10 saltines (or more, depending on preference - not sure how many I threw in)
[I omitted mushrooms and pimientos from this recipe]

Directions:

In a saucepan, saute the onion in 2 tablespoons butter until tender. Stir in the flour, salt and pepper until smooth. Gradually add in milk. Bring to boil over medium heat; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened. Remove from heat, add cheese, stirring until melted. Fold in the cauliflower and ham. Pour into a greased 2-qt. baking dish. Crumble cracker crumbs with remaining butter and sprinkle over the top. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Uncover and bake for 5 - 10 minutes longer or until heated through.

This meal is so tasty and hearty!

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 Yesterday, we walked in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 5k in Fort Worth with 15,000+ other people. It was great to get moving [pun intended] towards a cure for cancer.

I hope you have a great start of your week!

Chocolate Cupcakes with Buttercream Frosting. So Good.

This past weekend, I made my first ever batch of homemade cupcakes and also my first batch of buttercream frosting! It was surprisingly easy too. I have two co-workers who are amazing bakers and bring goodies all the time (bonus!). They make their own frosting and I thought that sounded too crazy for me (to my surprise, it was the easiest part!). I talked with one last week and she told me that Williams Sonoma has an easy starter recipe and gave me a few tips. 

I used THIS recipe for the chocolate cupcakes and THIS recipe for the buttercream frosting. My directions below are a bit modified as I made a few changes. I got brave this weekend and tried the recipes, and even broke out a new kitchen appliance. It was a success all around! Now my mind is spinning with what types of combos I can experiment with. My co-workers have brought banana + cinnamon frosting, Boston cream pie (filled with pudding!), snickers (filled with caramel + nuts) + caramel frosting, and other more traditional flavors. The possibilities are endless :)

My first batch was a simple one but SO GOOD! I'll start with the cupcakes...

Chocolate Cupcakes

Ingredients:

2/3 cup all purpose flour

2 1/2 tbs unsweetened cocoa powder

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt (I didn't add this since I used salted butter)

3 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped

11 tbs unsalted butter, cut into pieces (I forgot and used salted and it was fine - will try unsalted next time to compare)

3/4 cup plus 2 tbs sugar

3 eggs at room temperature

1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 12-cup muffin pan with liners.

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt. Place the chocolate and butter in a microwaveable bowl, and microwave for 30 seconds, stir, and microwave in 15 second increments until it is melted and smooth (careful not to overcook). Allow the mixture to cool to room temperature, 10-15 mins.

Using a wooden spoon, stir the sugar into the chocolate mixture until combined. Stir in the eggs one at a time, beating until combined after each addition, then beat in the vanilla. Gently fold in the flour mixture until no traces of flour remain; do not over mix.

Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups, filling each one about 3/4 fill. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out with just a few moist crumbs attached, 22-24 minutes. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let cool for 5 minutes and transfer the cupcakes to the rack and let cool completely, about 1 hour.

Quick Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients:

6 cups confectioners' (powdered) sugar

16 tbs (2 sticks) unsalted butter (again, I used salted, it was fine but I'll try unsalted next time to compare)

4 1/2 tbs milk, plus more if needed

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp salt (I didn't use this since I used salted butter)

Directions:

Have all ingredients at room temperature

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with flat beaters, combine the confectioners' sugar, butter, 4 1/2 tsp milk, and the vanilla and beat on low speed until combined, about 1 minute. Stop the mixer, scrape the sides of the bowl and increase the speed to medium and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes (mine wasn't quite "fluffy", but was creamy and looked good to me).

If the frosting is dry, add more milk 1 tsp at a time until it's creamy but holds peaks. Tint with food coloring as desired. Makes about 4 cups. For 12 muffins, you could really cut the recipe in half. I had a lot extra, so have been snacking on graham crackers with the icing and added icing to last week's batch of sugar cookies :)

I hadn't used my stand mixer yet, but it was wonderful! (Thank you, Diane!) It gives my wimpy arms a break from stirring, plus I'd never get it to that consistency with my arms.

To frost the cupcakes, I used a ziplock baggie, cut one of the corners off, filled it with frosting and it worked really well!

Seriously good. To Nick and I, these chocolate cupcakes taste like brownies :) MmMmm good.


What's your favorite cupcake/frosting combo? Or what sounds like a good combo to try? Maybe I'll give it a whirl!

Cautiously Optimistic

 First of all, thank you all for your support and encouragement with the pain I talked about in my last post (found here). As the week has gone on, I've been feeling better and better and have had many hours at a time pain and headache free (3 good days in a row!). I honestly cannot tell you the last time I've been consistently pain/headache free. It's incredible. This weekend, I've been telling Nick when I'm experiencing no pain so he can celebrate it with me. He's seen me in SO many bad days, it's been great for him to see me enjoying a more carefree life again. Thank the Lord for answered prayers! I'm still taking one day at a time and I've read some people can react well to medicine and it may change down the road, but I'm SO thankful for my progress right now.

The side effects from Cymbalta have pretty much all subsided now, so I'm just taking one day at a time, still using my heat pad twice a day, being aware of my posture, and asking for massages from Nick when the muscles start to cramp up (isn't he wonderful?!). I'm hoping it stays that way once I go to work tomorrow. I seem to struggle the most at work when I'm sitting at a desk all day, typing and on the phone, so my prayer tonight is that I will continue being pain free at work this week.

Nick and I had the day off on Friday to enjoy the opening day for the Texas Rangers! It was a hot day (over 90), but thankfully our seats were in the shade (since they were the second to last row from the top - ha!). It was wonderful and like I said, my pain was way down, so we both enjoyed the day!

The Rangers' Ballpark behind us. We still need to get Nick a Rangers shirt ;) (but of course still love our Cubbies!)

The beautiful sunny ballpark - home of the 2010 World Series!! For those of you who didn't follow it last year, the Rangers were American League Champions and lost to the Giants in the World Series.

MercyMe singing the national anthem. Turns out they're from this area!

Soaking up some much needed sunshine and enjoying the view. The game was a bit hard to follow this far away, but it was great to be there!

 Watch for this post coming soon: chocolate cupcakes with homemade vanilla buttercream frosting. Seriously amazing and surprisingly easy!!!