Turtle Soup...

Just kidding!! If I ate turtle soup it would be because I wasn't aware of there being turtle in my soup and once I found out...I don't think it would stay in my stomach for long if you know what I mean. Anyway, all of our pretty wedding photos were taken at Cox Arboretum here in Dayton and because yesterday was our wedding anniversary and because I have been wanting to pay the place a visit with my new camera, we swung by yesterday afternoon. I wanted to share these pictures with everyone because I think it turned out so well. You can tell spring is in the air when you spot the turtles sunbathing.


Anyone know how to put a stamp on my published pictures for copy right issues? I should know how to do this however I am stumped. I do have photoscape so if anyone knows how to do it, please let me know! Help is very much appreciated!

Broccoli Casserole

My Step-Mom made this casserole for us all the time while growing up. It went with us to every family function and if we were lucky enough to bring home leftovers, I would have it for breakfast. I love this stuff and with the exception of the processed cheese, it is pretty healthy for you! It goes great with BBQ chicken!

Broccoli Casserole~
Ingredients:
2 cups cooked white rice
2 cans cream of celery soup
1/2 onion, finely chopped
2 boxes broccoli*
1 jar of Cheez Whiz spread

Directions:
1.) Cook rice according to package.
2.) In a food processor pulverize your broccoli and onion.
3.) In a casserole dish add your rice, broccoli and onion mix, mix until incorporated.
4.) Add soup and then stir in cheese.
5.) Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for about 45 minutes or until the casserole is heated through and golden on top.

Now for the hints...I use the broccoli that comes in the box with the stems still on. If you get the already chopped broccoli it tends to contain more of the stem than the florets. Also, my Step-Mom never made this in the oven, she just ran it through the microwave until it was hot, stirring every few minutes to make sure the cheese got evenly mixed. You can make it however you want. Also, if you like it really cheesy like I do, use a jar and a half of the cheese mixture and save the rest to top on crackers.

Happy Anniversary

I will be taking a leave of absence today while I celebrate my 2nd wedding anniversary with the love of my life. Two years ago when our journey into matrimony began I think we both had doubts about whether we had done the right thing...first year of marriage can be a tough one, add financial strains, sickness, a house that needed work our inspector failed to mention, and two very different people and you have yourself a rocky start.

Daniel is a go getter not sitting for one second while I am content sitting back and relaxing. It has been an adjustment for both of us, he learning to just sit around and be content with his surroundings, no matter how boring, while I have learned to get up and go conquer the world with him no matter how badly I would just prefer to sit around with our dogs.

Two years ago I promised that I would love him more today than yesterday, and that I would love him more tomorrow that what I did today. I have kept my promise, falling more in love with him with each passing day. He is my best friend and the man I can't see spending my life without. I am not sure what the future holds for us, good...more than likely some bad, but I know that as long as I have him, we will make it through everything.

Thank you Sweetie for loving me as I am! For dealing with my constant health battle to the best of your ability and learning to adjust to my constant anxiety issues. For not rolling your eyes too badly when I mention I screwed up another food dish by impatiently scanning through a recipe instead of carefully studying it. For slowly learning to just keep your mouth shut when I am driving like Mario Andretti. For standing in the middle of Wal-Mart holding my make-up and female items so that I can run to the bathroom, even though every man that walks by you just shakes their head in shame. For answering my five calls in a two hour time period when Lennon was sick with "garbage gut" causing me to not get a single thing done at work until I heard those magic words "he pooped". For helping me to deal with the fact children will come when God is ready for us to have them and knowing that we will be all right if they don't. For dealing with the large extended family that went from just being mine to now being ours. For understanding that that large extended family is my life and that they come before all things. And for allowing me to love yours like they were my own. Because of my husband I have nieces and nephews that are older than me, I thought that issue was just on my Dad's side of the family.

I love you and I can't wait for our dinner, as well as many more years together!!

Beef, it's whats for dinner...

It's a Monday evening and guess who I get to share my dinner with...my Hubby!!! Yay for me for getting to have human contact during an evening meal. The boys don't talk much, they just watch your fork move from your plate to your mouth.

Tomorrow is a special day in our house, you will have to stop by the blog in the morning to find out why. Anyway, because of this "special" day we are both taking vacation days off of work and because Daniel needed a break, he also took one today! You know you don't see your husband enough during the week when planning a meal and eating at the table while watching the evening news excites you about as much as winning a million dollars. I had originally planned on whipping up a new casserole but Daniel doesn't enjoy participating in my experiments so I figured I better hold off for that one until Wednesday. I also figured since I needed to run to the store anyway, I would allow him to pick something for us to make for dinner. For once he gave me something to work with...hamburgers. Not exactly fancy or necessarily blog worthy, but hey, at least he didn't say hot dogs again. I can work with hamburgers, put a little spin on them and make them worth your viewing pleasure. So here we go...

Big D's Triple Threat (I named them after my special guy!)

Ingredients:

2 lbs. ground beef

1/2 lb. bacon, cooked and crumbled

1 md. onion, finely chopped

mushrooms, right out of the jar, roughly chopped

red pepper flakes, a dash or so

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
4 tbsp. steak sauce

Directions:

1.) Allow your meat to come to room temperature, Rachel Ray says it's good to do that so why argue. Also, get your grill going!

2.) In the microwave cook about six or so slices of bacon until done. Allow to cool and then crumble, set aside.

3.) Pre-heat a skillet to medium heat and add a tablespoon of butter and then add your onion. Sprinkle in your red pepper flakes and add your mushrooms, you can use as little or as much as you prefer. Take off heat once onions are translucent. Allow mixture to begin cooling.

4.) In a separate bowl throw in your ground beef. Add your steak sauce, crumbled bacon, and onion and mushroom mixture. Lastly, add about a cup of shredded cheese, mix until all ingredients are incorporated.

5.) Form into patties about 1 inch thick, 3-4 inches in diameter. Or into whatever shape you would prefer. I should have gotten my heart cookie cutter out :).

6.) Add to your grill! Do not move your patties once you have settled them on the grill. Allow them to cook for about 5 minutes until you flip them. If you flip them before they are ready they will stick to the grill, especially with the cheese being mixed into the patty. If you really want to prevent sticking you can either oil up your grill, or you can cook your hamburgers on top of a piece of aluminum foil nestled on top of the grill grate.

Now, Daniel is a fan of the Angry Whopper at Burger King, so I also bought him some jalapenos to top his burger off with. There is no way on God's green earth that I was going to be adding those to my burger, although, with a Doctor's appointment tomorrow maybe I should just so he can hear what my stomach does when it's upset. I don't think the man believes I have an alien life growing inside of me. That's what the ladies at work call my stomach noises. Where was I, oh yeah, if your family likes the kick adding jalapenos to the mix would do, then by all means throw some chopped up in with your onions and mushrooms. You can also exclude the shredded cheddar to the mix and just top your hamburger off with a slice of american cheese or even pepper jack once they are ready to come off of the grill. Or you can do what Daniel did and eat the burger with the shredded cheese in the mix and with a piece of cheese on top. The wonderful thing about hamburgers is you can't really go wrong when it comes to making one.

*I would also like to make note that yes I mentioned Rachel Ray up in step one, but please make another note, even though I mentioned her does not mean I watch her. I used to religiously but then the hand movements and silly catch phrases started to get the best of me, and please don't get me started on the giggle. I can only take so much of the giggle! Daniel on the other hand enjoys her, as he does Giada. He likes Giada for another reason than why he likes Rachel and I am pretty sure I probably don't have to tell everyone what that reason is. Men! I sometimes I wonder if I should be worried that he has a thing for all of these brunettes and I am a blond. Did he settle for less or something?

Hope you enjoy!!

Sunday Dinner

Here is a short posts for everyone, I am up early thanks to a particular blind/deaf Great Dane who thought it would be funny to wake Mom and Dad up at the butt crack of dawn by knocking several glass dishes off of the kitchen counter that hadn't yet reached the dishwasher. As you all are already aware, Sunday dinner is a big thing in our house for me and the hubby. It's the only day of the week that we get to eat dinner together so we try to do something special. We bought a slab of ribs to do on the grill and they were really good, but a really poor cut of meat so we didn't get much meat off of them. My hubby knows what he is doing on the grill so they were good no matter how much work we had to put into eating them. He made them by rubbing them down with our favorite rub and then once they hit the grill he basted them with a mix of beer and applesauce, heavenly. No pictures but I did make two new sides, marinated tomatoes and green peppers and a homemade garlic butter to put on our french bread that Daniel toasted up on the grill.

Katie's Marinated Tomatoes and Green Peppers~

Tomatoes

Tuscan Italian Dressing

Green Peppers

Fine Sea Salt

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Directions:

1.) Begin by slicing your tomatoes, not too thin, not too thick. I used tomatoes that were about a week old so they were really soft, please use a tomato that is still fairly firm as it will hold up better during the roasting process. Mine looked more like soup when I dished them up.

2.) Layer tomatoes on a baking dish and top with a teaspoon of your dressing.

3.) Slice your green peppers into slivers, and coat with about a tablespoon of the oil and sprinkle on about a dash or so of your fine sea salt.

4.) Bake at 425 degrees Fahrenheit until they have wilted down. I was outside helping Daniel grill up the bread so I wasn't exactly paying attention to the time. You will know when they need pulled out.

Garlic Butter~

Ingredients:

1 stick of unsalted butter, softened

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

Ingredients:

1.) I think this is pretty self explanatory but you finely chop your garlic, finely people, you don't want to bite down on a piece of garlic. Add to your butter and mix well.

We used ours on french bread. I sliced the bread into slices, brushed some extra virgin olive oil on each side and Daniel grilled them until golden brown on each side. Right after pulling them off of the grill I spooned the butter on to one side. They were really good, but I will pulverize the garlic next time.

Apple Cake with Caramel Icing

German Apple Cake~
Ingredients:
2 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups white sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
4 cups apples - peeled, cored and diced

Directions:
1.) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour one 9x13 inch cake pan.

2.) In a mixing bowl; beat oil and eggs with an electric mixer until creamy. Add the sugar and vanilla and beat well.

3.) Combine the flour salt, baking soda, and ground cinnamon together in a bowl. Slowly add this mixture to the egg mixture and mix until combined. The batter will be very thick. Fold in the apples by hand using a wooden spoon. Spread batter into the prepared pan.

4.) Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 45 minutes or until cake tests done. Let cake cool on a wire rack. Once cake is cool serve with a dusting of confectioners' sugar or with a Cream Cheese Frosting.

Caramel Icing~

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons milk
3 cups sifted confectioners' sugar

Directions:

1.) Melt butter in a saucepan, stir in the brown sugar and the salt. Bring to a boil and boil for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and add the milk, stirring all the while.

2.) Return to heat and bring to a boil again. Remove from heat and allow to cool until lukewarm (approximately 20 to 25 minutes).

3.) Stir in the confectioners' sugar and beat until smooth and cool enough to spread. You might need to add a few drops of milk if frosting gets too stiff.

All I can say is that there is very little left of this cake. It was so good! I didn't wait the full 20 to 25 minutes before adding the powdered sugar to the caramel icing so it was still warm when I put it on the cake, OH MY GOSH. If you have never tried this dessert I beg you to give it a shot. I didn't have a full cup of oil so I added apple sauce to get a cup and it turned out just fine.

Chicken Fajita Melts

I stumbled upon this recipe a few weeks ago on allrecipes and I knew that I just had to try it. Our family loves Mexican food and we also love anything that comes between or on top of a nice slice of bread. I figured since I am doing a birthday dinner for my Dad why not try it out then.

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

6 (6 ounce) skinless, boneless chicken breast halves, thinly sliced
1/2 cup sliced onions
1/2 cup sliced red bell pepper
1/2 cup tomato juice
2 tablespoons taco seasoning mix
1 cup salsa
8 (1/2 inch thick) slices French bread
2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese

Directions:

1.) Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chicken, and cook and stir until lightly browned, about 5 minutes.

2.) Stir in the sliced onions and red peppers, and cook and stir for 5 minutes or until the vegetables are tender. Stir in the tomato juice and taco seasoning, and mix well. Cook mixture until the juice has thickened and the chicken is well coated with sauce, about an additional 7 minutes.

3.) Preheat the oven's broiler and set the oven rack about 6 inches from the heat source.

4.) Spread 2 tablespoons of salsa over each slice of French bread. Evenly spoon the chicken mixture on top of the salsa topped bread. Sprinkle each sandwich with 1/4 cup Cheddar cheese.

5.) Place sandwiches under the preheated broiler and cook for 5 minutes or until the cheese is melted and beginning to brown.

This was really good and really easy to make. I didn't add the tomato juice because I forgot to pick some up from the store, I just added water to the mix. Also, instead of using the broiler I preheated the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and baked them for close to ten minutes, until the cheese was melted and the bread was crispy.