Mmm Mmm Monday (... Err Tuesday)

Oops! Yesterday I got sidetracked and didn't get to post any yumminess, but I'm posting some today. You're welcome.
I had planned on making this last night, so I went to the store to get all to fixin's. But, while I was in the checkout line, I received a text from Aaron saying we were going to play golf with some of our friends, the Wanck's, so I didn't get to do my original meal plan. Enter frozen pizza at 8:15. Enter "ticked off mama" ... A lot of my happiness resides in a big yummy dinner, NOT frozen pizza. Clearly, I have issues. At least they're cute.



Moving on. Yesterday I had my coffee outside as usual and was loving that there was almost a chill in the northeastern air ... 68 degrees! Perfect excuse for soup and salad. Since I didn't get to do it last night and AB is working from home today I figured lunch would be the perfect opportunity to make it!
My first dish was this delightful Smoky Corn Chowder with Shrimp I keep seeing pinned and re-pinned on Pinterest. I honestly don't think I've ever had chowder, much less made it, but the ingredients sounded delish and I had lots of fresh Farmers Market corn to use.
The recipe is adapted from Real Simple magazine.

Ingredients:

* 2 slices bacon, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
* 1/2 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined
* 1/2 medium yellow onion, diced
* 2 cloves garlic, minced
* 1 Tbs. smoked paprika
* 1 pinch crushed red pepper
* 3 ears fresh corn, kernels removed
* 2 cups chicken stock
* 1/2 cup half and half (or cream)
* coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
* basil slivers for garnish (optional)

This just served 2, so I doubled it.

Heat a medium-sized pot over medium heat. Add the bacon and cook until crispy. Remove bacon from the pan and set aside on a paper towel to drain. Drain all but 1Tbs. bacon fat, if you have that much in the pot.

Raise the heat to medium-high. Add the shrimp to the pot and sear on one side for 2 minutes. Flip and sear 30 more seconds. Remove shrimp from pot and set aside (At this point your kitchen should smell heavenly)

If you need to add a little oil (or bacon fat) to the pot, do so. Add the onions to the pot and sauté 5 minutes. Add the garlic, paprika, crushed red pepper and a pinch of salt and pepper. Sauté another minute.

Add the fresh corn to the pot and toss to combine. Sauté another minute or two, careful not to burn it.

Add the stock and half & half to the pot. Stir to combine. Keep on a low simmer for 15 minutes. Taste it. Need a little salt and pepper? Add a pinch or two.

If you have an immersion blender, place it in the pot and pulse it a few times until about half of the soup becomes creamy, still leaving whole kernels as well. If you don’t have an immersion blender, ladle about a cup and a half of the soup into a blender and pulse until creamy. Pour back into the pot and stir to combine.



This soup was SO delicious! I will definitely be making it again. Served up with some Rosemary Focaccia it was quite the delicacy.
Later this afternoon I'll be making one of my all-time fav salads, another Pinterest find of course: Autumn Chopped Salad.

Ingredients
*6 to 8 cups chopped romaine lettuce
*2 medium pears, chopped
*1 cup dried cranberries (There is a Craisin Salad Topper that has dried cranberries and candied pecans)
*1 cup chopped pecans
*8 slices thick-cut bacon, crisp-cooked and crumbled
*4 to 6 oz. feta cheese, crumbled
*Poppy seed Salad Dressing
*Balsamic Vinaigrette
*Grilled Chicken (optional)

Instructions
*On a large platter, combine the lettuce, pears, cranberries, pecans, bacon and feta cheese. Drizzle generously with poppy seed dressing, followed by some of the balsamic vinaigrette. (I would estimate that I used about a cup of dressing: 70 percent poppy seed dressing and 30 percent balsamic vinaigrette). I've also topped this with grilled chicken for the perfect lunch.
I've made this a bunch and every time people just rave on it. Since, I'm not making it until this afternoon I'm borrowing a pic from www.expressoandcream.com to show the final product.



Yum.

Lastly, I'm posting something sweet. I would be embarrassed to call this a "recipe" because it's just compiling your favorite sweet treats in nacho form, but my kids (ahem, and myself) totally loved this. They're called
Apple Nachos.
We used:

*3 of your favorite apples (we love the Honeycrisp apples).
1 tsp lemon juice
3 tbsp cream peanut butter
1/4 cup sliced almonds (I love them toasted)
1/4 cup chopped walnuts (again, toasted)
1/4 cup flaked unsweetened coconut
1/4 cup chocolate chips
1/4 cup white chocolate chips

First we sliced up the apples finely and tossed around in the lemon juice to prevent the yucky but practically inevitable browning.
Then melt the peanut butter until it's runny enough to drizzle over the apples. Then I let the kiddos pile on their favorites: unsweetened coconut, almonds and walnuts, the Chocolate chips and some more peanut butter. We started eating them before all the toppings were finished. Add in the fact that the kids were the head chefs and it wasn't very pretty, but here is a pic from www.manifestvegan.com so you can get the idea:




Yum. Yum. Yum.
It's all pretty Mmm Mmm Good!!!!

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A Midsummer Night

This summer Sayre has been putting on a Summer Concert Series in Elmer Park downtown in the square. Tonight was Kid's Night and they had Tom Knight, who's a puppet/singer/entertainer and Doc Possum which was a SUPER fun band singing kids song. I thought it was SUCH a fun night!






























































Fun, fun, fun!!


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Better Days.

A family friend once told Aaron and me that there are hard marriages and bad marriages; that if you're not working hard at it, it's probably bad. I'd say that's usually pretty true.
I think the same can be said for a lot of parenting days; it's either hard or it's bad. There are lots of warm, fuzzy good days, but in this season there are lots of hard days too. There are so, so many hours of the day when I want to be selfish. I want to do my own thing. I want to sit down. And there is almost always at least one little face needing me to do something. And if I fight it and get annoyed and frustrated and all "mad mommy" then it gets bad and sad and just turns into an all-around poopy day. So ... In short: It's hard. It's. So. Hard. Even though it's my dream job, it's hard. Did I mention it's hard?
But, mixed in the hard days, there are good, good days. The stars align, the sun shines and I want to break out into the chorus of "What a Wonderful World." And lo and behold, today was one of those days.
I slept in ... Til an ungodly hour that I won't even document. But, my husband is a saint and provided me with QUITE a leisurely morning. I had coffee outside in the 75ish air having a long phone date with one of my besties from back home. And then something grand happened: we packed the kids up for a pool day. In Arkansas we live at the pool. Live. Our days looked the same most days: wake up, pack lunches, throw on swimsuits, head to the pool, come home, take lonnngggg naps, eat dinner, take baths, bedtime, REPEAT. Oh, the life. But, in PA they don't really have outdoor pools. I can't get over it. I loathe it. So today we drove about 30 minutes to Mt. Pisgah State Park where they had a public outdoor pool. It was nice. And cold. Because it's spring fed. Brrrr. The kids didn't seem to mind, and Aaron was super fabulous about getting in with them while I smiled and took pics from the side. Supermom.



Love that stinker.



And this one.



Cutie Pie, Trip.




Swim coaching.















The park had a great playground.












Even a sand volley-ball court we played on ... Embarrassingly enough.



Love this girl.

After this is started raining, so we changed clothes, grabbed some ice cream and went home for naps. It would have been a great day if it ended right there. But, it didn't.

Tonight I went with a friend to a really cool Yoga place. I loveeee Yoga and I've done it in several different venues, but this one was my all time fav. It was in this old historic building that I was a wee bit concerned about. We were walking up this crickety old stair case to the studio and I was halfway expecting to end up in someone's apartment filled with incense, chia pets, and ferrets.
However, I was more than happy to find a serene little space with candles and old beautiful hardwood floors, Jack Johnson music and a quirky little instructor that I totally loved. It was just what my body and soul needed. I totally intend to make it part of my week.
Because I'm a creeper, I snapped a couple pics:






Just a couple snaps. Invasive? Oh well, I won't do it again. Scouts honor.

I came home to eat with the fam and go on our nightly walk ... One of my fav things about our time in Pennsylvania.






Lots of pretty flowers and almost everyone has a veggie garden. Jealous.






My fav house on our block ... I'm not sure why, but I just love it.



Now for Big Brother and card games with my love.
Twas a good day.



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Mmm Mmm Monday

I'm getting better about this whole healthy eating thing already, but I'm bound and determined to not lose some of our favorite flavors. We're really doing more plant-based, whole foods, which actually means no meat. Sounds so crazy. But, it's been easier than expected. We will definitely cheat here and there ... But for our day to day life, we're eating much less animal protein.
Since I'm doing so many veggies, I almost have to wait until I get in the grocery to decide what I'm going to make depending on what veggies are looking and smelling the best ... Which is not how I usually roll. The old-Rebekah tends to plan out a menu for at least a week, sometimes two. Anyway, today after going into the grocery store the tomatoes were practically calling out to me; they smelled like they had just been plucked out of the garden this morning. So I stocked up and rolled through my Pinterest files to a tomato-happy dish. Ding, ding, ding: found just what I was looking for: Creamy Avocado Pasta. This pasta includes one of my fav flavor combinations: avocado and tomato. Plus, one of my all time loves, pine nuts. It was entirely easy to put together, but still totally scrumptious. I wasn't here for the actual eating of the dinner, but Aaron said they all ate it up!












I wasn't here to see it all plated, but even warmed up for leftovers it was
Especially with one of my new favorite beverages: Sooo yummy!!



PASTA INGREDIENTS
10 - 12 small Campari tomatoes, quartered (My tomatoes were the on-the-vine variety and that worked great, too!)
3 - 4 tbsp olive oil
4 servings of fettuccine noodles
2 ripe avocados, seed and skin removed
2 garlic cloves, peeled
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 cup pine nuts (toasted makes them SO much better!)
grated fresh Parmesan cheese
salt and cracked black pepper to taste
DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 300 ºF.
2. Wash and quarter the tomatoes. Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Drizzle with 1 - 2 tbsp olive oil, just enough to make the tomatoes glisten. Bake for 1 hour in the oven.
3. Ten minutes before tomatoes are finished, fill a large pot with water and a sprinkle of salt. Bring to a rapid boil. Add the dry fettuccine to the water and cook until al dente.
4. While the pasta is boiling, add 2 tbsp olive oil, avocado, garlic, salt and lemon juice to a food processor. Pulse until the ingredients are smooth and creamy.
5. Strain the pasta, and combine with the sauce in a large bowl, until all the pasta has been covered.
6. Add the roasted tomatoes, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and pine nuts. Add some salt and black pepper to taste.
This was a big hit! It was super creamy, deliciously flavorful, and just the right amount. However I'm sure some grilled chicken or shrimp on the top would have been divine.
I still had a bunch of tomatoes left, so I served the pasta with one of my fam's favorite salads: Summer Tomatoes and Boursin. Slice up fresh tomatoes, crumble Boursin cheese over the top, some sliced scallions and then drizzle Newman's olive oil and vinegar dressing (or your fav vinaigrette) over the top. I can't get enough of it, I would eat it several times a week. Not to mention it's so pretty!
I had some whole wheat rolls that I threw on the table too ... Because I'm a bread-a-holic.
I actually made a dessert today too ... And it was a good one. I love carrot cake. Loooooove it. I found this recipe on Cooking Light and tweaked it just a bit to make it into some yummy cupcakes.
Ingredients:
Cake:
10.1 ounces all-purpose flour (about 2 1/4 cups)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups grated carrot
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
6 tablespoons butter, softened
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup low-fat buttermilk
Cooking spray
Frosting:
6 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 ounce fromage blanc
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup chopped pecans, toasted
Preparation:
1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. To prepare cake, weigh or lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups, and level with a knife. Combine flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, ground cinnamon, and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a medium bowl, stirring with a whisk. Add 2 cups grated carrot, tossing to combine.
3. Place granulated sugar, brown sugar, and 6 tablespoons butter in a large bowl. Beat with a mixer at medium speed until combined. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in 1 teaspoon vanilla. Add flour mixture and buttermilk alternately to sugar mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Spread batter into a 13 x 9-inch metal baking pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 28 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool cake completely on a wire rack.
4. To prepare frosting, place softened cream cheese and next 4 ingredients (through 1/8 teaspoon salt) in a medium bowl. Beat with a mixer at medium speed until fluffy. Gradually add powdered sugar, beating at medium speed until combined (don't overbeat). Spread frosting evenly over top of cake. Sprinkle evenly with toasted pecans. I chose to do cupcakes, and I baked them around 24 minutes. Yummy!















Thankful for lots of helpers! :)
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