Sister-in-Laws, Babies & Easy Apple Crisp

Sorry I've been MIA the past few days! We've been busy bees with a houseguest, the arrival of a friend's new baby and the celebration of a friend's daughter's 1st birthday. Here we go with a little {long} recap:

WEDNESDAY:

Wednesday night we had a houseguest: my sister-in-law (a.k.a. Alex's sister)!!

She was passing through our part of Texas on her way to meet up with her boyfriend in San Antonio so she stopped in for the night. It was a quick visit but it was a lot of fun to catch up with her. She lived with me last summer when Alex was deployed and interned at my job so we have become close.

She's also a loyal Cupcakes & Combat Boots reader so she insisted that I take a picture of her to make it on the blog. In turn, I insisted that if this was to happen, it needed to be a photo of her eating. She agreed to my terms. :)

Chomp!

And yes, we ate dinner on the couch, even with a houseguest. We're casual like that. ;-)

So what did we eat? Well, it's a dish that's been seen on Cupcakes & Combat Boots before but it's certainly worth repeating.

Cajun Chicken Ranch Sandwiches

w/ sweet potato oven fries

Yummmmm. The flavors just go together so well!

As a military-related side note, my sister-in-law's boyfriend is also in the Army and he is deploying to Afghanistan next week. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers as he sets off on this journey. Also, please pray for peace for Andrea that she can remain calm during this deployment (it's the first she's had to deal with, besides her brother's of course) and that it goes by quickly.

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THURSDAY:

One of my very good friends, Connie, had her baby on Wednesday evening (!!!) so on Thursday night we headed out to the hospital to visit her and meet little Max.

Hubs with Max

Me with Max...he was so awake and alert...I was shocked!

Look at that big yawn! He's so adorable!

So since we had to drive 45 minutes each way to go visit Max & Connie, we were planning on just grabbing dinner along the way somewhere. When we spotted a Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburger we knew that was where we were eating.

We had both had Freddy's before in Wichita, KS (which is where the Hubs is from and, incidentally where the Freddy's chain began) and loved it.

I didn't take any photos of our dinner, but just trust me, if you ever have a chance to eat at Freddy's DO IT. It's a retro-esque burger & custard joint that specializes in super-thin "steak burgers" and delicious custard treats. The shoestring french fries are also TO DIE FOR.

I enjoyed a burger, fries, and a mini-Reese's concrete {basically a Blizzard by a different name}. It was sooooooooooo good and so absolutely worth the splurge in calories/fat/etc.

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Friday night we went to a 1st birthday party for our friend's daughter but I didn't take any photos. They served hot dogs, chips & queso, potato salad, etc. It was a fun night but I was so very tired by the end of the night.

SATURDAY:

Saturday night we had another repeat dinner while hanging around the house watching football.

Seared Skirt Steak with Balsamic Cherry Tomatoes (click link for recipe from Men's Health)

w/ Roasted Potato Wedges

{I'm so annoyed that it's getting dark sooner at night now. It makes it almost impossible for me to get good natural light photos since we are post-7pm dinner eaters usually.}

We really like this recipe. It's easy, quick and super tasty. We had a few "issues" while cooking it tonight though so it wasn't our best work. ;-) The meat was extremely undercooked when we cut into it so we tried to cook it a little more but it ended up being rather tough. Also, we almost smoked ourselves out of the kitchen at one point...beware the searing! :)

For the roasted potato wedges I just coated yellow-skinned potato wedges in olive oil and then sprinkled with kosher salt & pepper. Then I spread them out on a rack placed on top of a baking sheet. Baked for 20 minutes at 425 degrees until crispy and browned. They were really good!

Then for dessert, I made an Apple Crisp!

We had a sack of little baby Gala apples in our fridge so I figured I'd use some of them up in a delicious, fall dessert!

Gracie at Girl Meets Health posted the recipe for this apple crisp earlier this week and she swore it was amazing so I decided to give it a whirl.
She was absolutely right! It was SO good! The best part though was how stinkin' easy it was to make. I seriously whipped this up in 10 minutes and then all I had to do was wait for it to bake. That's dangerous because now I'm going to want apple crisp all the time and I'll know that it's not hard to get it! Uh oh...

I'm posting the recipe the below with my slight alterations but I basically followed it exactly.

Easy Apple Crisp

Ingredients:

• 4 apples, peeled and sliced {I used 6 small apples and cut them into small chunks, instead of slicing. I also left the peel on because I like it.}
• lemon juice {juice from 1 lemon}
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 stick cold butter, cut into tiny pieces
• 3/4 cup old fashioned oats

Preheat the oven to 375 and spray a shallow pan (I used a square pan) with cooking spray. Spread out the apples evenly along the bottom of the pan and sprinkle the lemon juice on top.

In a large bowl, combine all the rest of the ingredients and use your hands to work in the butter. In the end, you should have tiny pieces of butter throughout. You still want some chunks for optimal streusel.

Spread the streusel on top of the apples and bake for about 25 minutes {35 minutes for mine}. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or fresh whipped cream.

90 Degree Comfort Food

Tonight's meal was very Fall-ish.

Which kind of feels like blasphemy when the weather outside is still in the 90's everyday.

But, BUT, the weather has recently transitioned in low 90's instead of high 90's (or 100's)!! Here in Texas that's basically Fall. So that called for some Fall-like food.

Pumpkin Chili!!

This recipe was given to me by one of my friends and I knew I wanted to make it immediately. Pumpkin + Chili just sounds comforting.

Pumpkin Chili

Source: unknown

• 2 pounds ground beef (1 lb ground beef & 1 lb ground turkey breast)
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 green bell pepper, diced
• 2 (15 ounce) cans kidney beans, drained
• 1 (46 fluid ounce) can tomato juice
• 1 (28 ounce) can peeled and diced tomatoes with juice
• 1/2 cup canned pumpkin puree
• 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1/4 cup white sugar

In a large pot over medium heat, cook meat until brown; drain. Stir in onion and bell pepper and cook 5 minutes. Stir in beans, tomato juice, diced tomatoes and pumpkin puree. Season with pumpkin pie spice, chili powder and sugar. Simmer 1 hour. Makes 8 servings.

We served it with cornbread on the side and topped with cheese, avocado & plain greek yogurt.

Alex's only complaint with this chili was that it wasn't spicy, but he just added hot sauce to his portion and was happy. It makes a TON of chili, so I plan on freezing smaller portions of it for reheating later. Chili is very freezer-friendly!

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Rewind to last night now. Last night's dinner was a recipe I spotted on one of my favorite blogs, Carrots 'n Cake.

Soy Glazed Fish with Sauteed Summer Squash (click link for recipe from Real Simple)

It was pretty good. My only real complaint with it is that the excess sauce on the pan BURNED (badly) while cooking. Next time I know not to dump all the sauce on the fish....just enough to coat it.

Also be sure you follow the directions and only add the sauce in the last 2 minutes of cooking...I ended up cooking my fish for about 4 more minutes after adding the sauce (because it wasn't done) which probably contributed to the burning of the sauce.

OH! And big news: Alex, Mr. I Hate Squash, actually admitted that the squash side dish wasn't half bad. Hellz yeah!

Anyone else watch the premiere of Biggest Loser? What did you think?

Personally I kind of liked the new way they "tested" contestants and made them earn their spots. I thought it weeded out the quitters and cop-outs, which is nice. My current favorite contestant is obviously the military wife...I can't remember her name. We shall see how the season plays out!

P.S. Grrrrrr I am really hating Blogger these days. I don't know WHY it keeps f-ing with my font sizes but it pisses me off! I can't even fix it because it shows up just fine in my window but then I hit "publish" and it freaks out. SO ANNOYING. Anyway, sorry about the randomly changing font sizes...

Life is Like a Bowl of Fajitas

Tonight's dinner was an attempt to use up the mountain of fajita meat that we had left from last night's dinner. Alex smothered his fajitas with tons of provolone cheese and topped them with buffalo sauce....I find this to be extremely odd {the buffalo + beef fajita combo} but he assures me that it was delicious. And it MUST have been since he had two giant servings of it!

My dinner, however, was much more sophisticated. I decided to make mine into a Fajita Bowl of sorts:

That would be a bowl with a base of baby spinach which was then buried under a dollop of refried black beans, guac, beef fajita meat, sauteed fajita vegs and a small handful of crushed tortilla chips. After the photo I also added some salsa to the bowl.

SO, SO, SO GOOD! Like, perhaps even better than the fajitas themselves GOOD! I think I might eat my fajitas like this from now on whenever possible!

Here it is all mixed up:
Not quite as appetizing looking is it? But I assure you, it's still JUST as tasty as it looks in the pretty picture! :)

Date Night In

What's for Dinner? 5/28/2010

-Grilled Fillet Mignon
-Baked Potato {only half of one for me}
-Grilled Asparagus {Broccoli for Hubs since he's not a fan of asparagus}


It was Date Night In for Hubs and I last night! We enjoyed a delicious steak dinner, wine and a movie {The Time Traveler's Wife via Netflix}.

No real recipes to share tonight because it was all very simply prepared. We left the steaks bare since they were a high-quality cut of meat and didn't need much.

The asparagus was also grilled bare and then afterward I drizzled a teeeeeeny bit of olive oil on them. {Yesterday I found a new blog I love called A Healthy Slice of Life...on one of her posts she outlined the 5 Healthy Cooking Mistakes. One of them was that you should never heat olive oil over 375 degrees because it breaks down the healthy components of the oil. Very interesting...check it out!}

The baked potatoes were served with a drizzle of low-fat ranch dressing and a teaspoon of light butter. There's just nothing that goes together like meat & potatoes...can I get an "Amen!"??


This should be a fun weekend! Today we're headed to Austin for Kelsey's wedding and staying over night at a hotel. Tomorrow we're meeting up with our friends Kim & Ricky and their baby, Audrey, whom I haven't seen since she was 2 days old! I plan on documenting the whole weekend with lots of pictures so stay tuned for a recap blog post!

Splurge-Worthy Steak

What's for Dinner? 5/12/1985

-Flank Steak with Balsamic Port Reduction
-Goat Cheese Polenta
-Side Salad with avocado

Okay so I went a little bit off my "healthy eating" plan with this one, but it's my birthday week so it's allowed right!?! :/ Besides, it's really not THAT bad.

The worst thing was probably all the GOAT CHEESE inside the polenta. But ooooooh man do I ever love the combination of goat cheese and polenta. It was worth it.

And to justify myself even further, I've done the 30 Day Shred for every day for a week now. So that's good, right??

Okay enough justifying myself. :) This was a recipe I found on Confections of a Foodie Bride {which is yet another FABULOUS food blog}, but originally from Everyday Food {a food magazine/website that I LOVE}. With both of those credentials behind it, I knew it would DEEEEEELICIOUS....and it was!

A perfect pre-birthday splurge.

Flank Steak with Balsamic-Port Reduction and Goat Cheese Polenta

Source: Confections of a Foodie Bride

For the steak:
1 1/2 lb flank steak
Olive oil
Salt
Fresh ground pepper

For the reduction:
3/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup Port

For the polenta:
4 cups water
1 cup cornmeal
1 tsp salt
4 oz goat cheese
1 1/2 tsp fresh thyme leaves
1 Tbsp butter
Fresh ground pepper

For the steak: Heat grill to medium-high. Rub steak with olive oil and season liberally with salt and pepper. Put on the grill for 6-8 minutes each side. Remove from the grill and let rest for 10 minutes. Add any ‘resting liquids’ to the reduction. Thinly slice steak against the grain.

For the polenta: While steak is cooking, bring water to boil in a 2 quart sauce pan over high heat. Whisk in cornmeal and salt and reduce heat to low. Cook for 10 minutes, whisking occasionally. Add goat cheese, thyme leaves, butter, and fresh ground pepper. Whisk until smooth and remove from heat.

For the reduction: Bring balsamic vinegar and port to a boil. Reduce by 1/2, stir in ‘resting liquids,’ and remove from heat.

Divide polenta between 4 bowls. Top with steak slices and balsamic-port reduction.

Serves: 4
Adapted from: Everyday Food

Superfast & Supergood Orange Beef

I'm tired and I have a headache tonight. Therefore, this shall be short and sweet.

What's for Dinner? 5/4/2010

-Spicy Orange Beef
-Cucumber Salad

This dinner was great! I found this recipe in a "Superfast Beef" section of Cookinglight.com and it was indeed SUPER fast!! In fact, it was a little too fast because the rice wasn't anywhere near cooked when the beef was done. {Hence the lack of rice in the photo} I think the whole beef recipe took about 10 minutes, 15 tops.


Here's the link to the Cooking Light recipe. I followed it exactly and it was delicious. I don't think I would make any changes next time.

This one is definitely making it into a favorite recipe category!! We both commented on how it tastes exactly like something you would get from a Chinese restaurant.

Quick + Scrumptious = A Winner in my Book. Every time.

Lightened-Up Shepherd's Pie {What's for Dinner? 4/18/2010}

{First off, sorry my what's for dinner? posts have been MIA the past two days! I worked a concert on Friday night and we went to our little friend Autumn's 3rd birthday party on Saturday night. Hence, both nights we ate dinner out and about. Nothing to report.}

When we were trying to decide what to eat for dinner tonight I pulled out an old April 2008 issue of Every Day with Rachael Ray that I kept. I flipped through it and landed on this lightened-up shepherd's pie recipe that I had dog-eared way back when. It looked perfect for a rainy Sunday night dinner so we went with it.

It's not a standard shepherd's pie, which I like. Ground beef instead of lamb, mushrooms instead of peas, carrots AND parsnips. I had never cooked with parsnips before so I wasn't sure what to think of them. I'd say they are basically like a cross between a carrot and a potato.

The only thing I didn't like about this recipe is that it was split up into waaaay too many steps. I thought they could be combined into less steps so I tried that out. See my changes below. Just keep in mind that if you make it the way I did, you need to use a giant, deep skillet in order to fit all the components. If you don't have a giant skillet like I do, then do it the way it was originally written.

Now please don't judge a book by it's cover here....it is CERTAINLY not photogenic, but still extremely tasty!



Shepherd's Pie
Source: Every Day with Rachael Ray magazine - April 2008

INGREDIENTS:

* 2 pounds small yellow-fleshed potatoes, halved {I used red potatoes}
* 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
* 10 ounces cremini mushroom slices {I used baby Bella mushrooms}
* 2 carrots, cut into 1-inch pieces
* 2 parsnips, cut into 1-inch pieces
* 1 onion, chopped
* 1 pound 93-percent lean ground beef
* 1/4 cup flour
* 1-1/2 cups beef broth
* 1/2 cup canned crushed tomatoes
* Salt and pepper
* 3/4 cup 2-percent milk
* 1-1/2 pounds baby spinach

DIRECTIONS:


1. In a large saucepan, combine the potatoes and enough salted water to cover by 1 inch. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer until tender, about 15 minutes. Drain and return to the pot; cover.

2. In a large, deep skillet, heat 1/2 tablespoon olive oil over high heat, add the mushrooms {I added the carrots, parsnips and onion at this point too....make sure you use a giant, deep skillet if you do it this way} and cook, stirring, until browned, about 5 minutes. Arrange in a greased 9-by-13-inch baking dish in an even layer {I omitted this step} .

3. In the same skillet, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium high heat. Add the carrots, parsnips and onion and cook, stirring, until crisp-tender, 6 to 7 minutes {omit this if you did it my way}. Add the beef and cook, breaking it up, until no longer pink, about 4 minutes. Stir in the flour. Add the beef broth and tomatoes and simmer {At this point I also added the baby spinach to the pan and let it wilt down}, stirring, until thickened, about 5 minutes; season with salt and pepper. Ladle the meat mixture {into the pan} over the mushrooms. Reserve the skillet {no need if you did it the way I did}.

4. Position a rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat to 400°. Add the milk to the potatoes and mash. Season with salt and pepper.

5. In the reserved skillet, bring 1 cup water to a boil. Add the spinach and cook, turning, until wilted, about 2 minutes; season with salt and pepper. Transfer to a colander; press to extract any liquid. {I omitted this whole step...see above where I added the spinach to the meat mixture}

6. Arrange the spinach over the meat mixture {omit this if you did the spinach like I did}, then spoon the potatoes on top. Drizzle with the remaining 1/2 tablespoon olive oil. Bake until golden, about 25 minutes.

Really Good Repeat {What's for Dinner? 4/12/2010}

Recognize this? That's because it's a repeat! I actually featured this meal as my very first What's For Dinner? post back in January. It was good then, and it's good now.

I seriously cannot praise this recipe enough! I know it may not look like the tastiest thing in the world, but OH MY...the flavors just pop and burst in your mouth.

Plus, the whole thing from start to finish takes about 20 minutes. Did you hear that? 20 minutes!

Here's the recipe again, in case you missed it the first time: Seared Skirts Steak with Balsamic Cherry Tomatoes (click link for recipe)

Steakhouse in Our House {What's for Dinner? 3/21/2010}

Mmmmm I love Steak Night! Alex grilled up the sirloins and I made the side dishes, which were mashed potatoes and a random assortment of sauteed veggies. The veggie side dish basically evolved from having various vegetables in our fridge that were on their last leg. Use them or lose them!


Alex's Steak:
Season steaks with balsamic vinegar, garlic salt & fresh cracked black pepper on both sides. Put on a hot grill for about 5 minutes. Flip the steak and then put 1/2 Tablespoon butter on top of the steak. Cook for another 5 minutes and then remove from grill for medium-rare steaks.

Sauteed Veggie Mix:
Saute sliced mushrooms and eggplant in olive oil until soft and cooked through. Then add a couple handfuls of fresh baby spinach, some salt, and a couple splashes of Sherry vinegar to the pan. Saute until spinach wilts and then serve!


Ashley's Fave Mashed Taters:
Boil cubed red potatoes until cooked. Drain and then return to the hot pot. Add a 1/4 cup of sour cream, 2 tablespoons of cream cheese, and 1/2 cup of milk and mash the potatoes with a potato masher. Add salt & pepper and more milk, as needed to smooth it out. Serve and enjoy!

Near NuWay {What's for Dinner? 3/7/2010}

There's this place in Wichita, KS {Alex's hometown} called NuWay Cafe that holds a special place in both Alex's and my heart. They make the most amazing, crave-worthy loosemeat beef sandwiches. Every time we go to Wichita we make sure we stop at NuWay for a delicious lunch. {I had never heard of loosemeat sandwiches until visiting Wichita...apparently it's a Midwestern thing.}

In the months between visits to our beloved NuWay, we often find ourselves craving the sandwiches but not having any way to satisfy the craving. Well, this recipe was our answer. It tastes very, very similar to NuWay sandwiches, which was VERY exciting to us! What makes it even better, is that these are super easy to make and consists of ingredients that we almost always have on hand.


We served our Near NuWays in hot dog buns {because we didn't have any hamburger buns} topped with mustard and dill pickles. On the side we had sweet potato oven fries {that I accidentally overcooked...oops}.

What's for Dinner? 2/25/2010

Oh man I am SO GLAD this work week is over. I had one major event on Thursday and then another event on Friday night so it's just been non-stop for me all week. I've basically only come home to sleep at night and then get up in the morning and do it all again.

So Thursday night we had this Slow Cooker Pot Roast recipe on the menu. Unfortunately because of the crazy pace of my morning I forgot to put it in before I left for work at the crack of dawn. Alex was able to put it in the slow cooker at about 2pm when he got home but then we had to kind of rush it along and put it on high for 2.5 hours and low for 2.5 hours. We later realized that maybe the high setting at the beginning of the cooking process was a bad idea because the roast got cooked but it just wasn't falling apart like a pot roast should. It was sadly very tough. :(


Alex ate it anyway and said it would have been good except for the tough meat texture, but I just wasn't feeling it. Instead I made myself a salad:


It consisted of baby spinach, fat free cheddar cheese, light ranch dressing and a Morningstar Grillers Prime Veggie Burger with a side of bread & buttah. It was quite delicioso!

And pretty much directly after I ate this I passed out on the couch at about 8:00pm. Sweet.

What's for Dinner? 1/27/2010

1/27/2010
-French Onion Burgers (recipe below)
-Oven Fries
-Side Salad

Really yummy dinner! The burgers are juicy and the onion dipping sauce makes them even better. Definitely a make-again dinner!

French Onion Burgers

From: Campbell's Kitchen

Prep: 5 minutes
Cook: 20 minutes

Serves: 4

These juicy cheeseburgers, served with an onion-seasoned dipping sauce, are as easy to make as they are delicious!

Ingredients:

1 pound ground beef
1 can (10 1/2 ounces) Campbell's® Condensed French Onion Soup
4 slice cheese
4 Pepperidge Farm® Classic Sandwich Buns with Sesame Seeds, split

Directions:

Shape the beef into 4 (1/2-inch-thick) burgers.

Heat a 10-inch skillet over medium-high heat. Add the burgers and cook until well browned on both sides. Remove the burgers from the skillet. Pour off any fat.

Stir the soup in the skillet and heat to a boil. Return the burgers to the skillet. Reduce the heat to low. Cover and cook for 5 minutes or until desired doneness. Top the burgers with the cheese and cook until the cheese is melted. Serve the burgers on the buns with the soup mixture for dipping.

Tip: You can also serve these burgers in a bowl atop a mound of hot mashed potatoes, with some of the onion gravy poured over.

Serving Suggestion: Serve with romaine salad tossed with fresh basil and Italian salad dressing. For dessert, serve orange slices.

Nutrition Information

Nutritional Values per Serving

Using Campbell's Condensed French Onion Soup: : Calories 497, Total Fat 22g, Saturated Fat 9g, Cholesterol 92mg, Sodium 1226mg, Total Carbohydrate 41g, Dietary Fiber 6g, Protein 33g, Vitamin A 5%DV, Vitamin C 0%DV, Calcium 11%DV, Iron 28%DV

What's For Dinner? 1/4/2010

Today I had to go back to work after a week and a half off for Christmas and New Year's. My husband, however, did not have to work. Being the amazing husband that he is, he did things like laundry, dishes and grocery shopping all day long. Then, to top it all off, he cooked dinner for me.

What's that you say? Why yes, I am the luckiest woman on earth. I have a husband who is handsome, helpful, caring AND the boy likes to cook {and he's really good at it}. Cha ching! I hit the jackpot. ;-)


Seared Skirt Steak with Balsamic Cherry Tomatoes
Here's a link to the recipe on Men's Health.

Pico de Gallo Stuffed Avocado Halves
He just bought a container of pre-made pico de gallo and stuffed it inside the avocado halves.

This dinner was SO SO SO SO SO delicious!!! I couldn't stop raving about it!! And suprisingly, I actually didn't think I was really going to like it....but oh my goodness. YUM. And Alex said it was super easy to make, too. I've already told him that this one needs to hit the regular rotation every now and then.