Virtual Running Date No. 26: I have purple fingers thanks to the beets

Good morning, Crushers!

If we were on a virtual running date, I would tell you all about our vegetables. LOTS OF THEM.  I believe I mentioned this last week, but this weekend, I spent a good amount of time tackling these veggies, so I get to say it again. More gnocchi was made with delicata squash (same recipe as last time, but I added a little Parmesan cheese to it).

I also peeled and blanched a huge bag of carrots and a ton of beets. That's why my fingers turned purple. See?

Thankfully, a little scrub with some baking soda and it came off!

If we were on a running date, I'd tell you about how I peeled all the veggies, then put them in boiling water for no longer than 5 minutes. Let them cool a bit before bagging them up to freeze. That, Crushers, is how you blanch.

All the carrots!

We've got the Beets!

I cannot take credit for this. I actually had to call my Kitchen Crush mom and ask how to do it. I always get "shocking" and "blanching" mixed up. The first is taking it from boiling to an ice bath and the other is just to boil it for a short time. Here is how I plan to remember this:

"Shh" is the sound you make when you step out into the cold in winter. Shh = Shocking

Blanch and Boil start with B. It's kind of Dr. Seuss-y.

Anyway, that's all done thankfully!

We were not the only ones with veggies on the brain. When we went running on Saturday morning, we headed past the farmer's market. Too bad we know a million people because our 3-plus-mile run turned into a 2.5 mile run. We had to stop and talk to people. Or, well, we didn't have to, but it's hard to pass up saying hello to your friends.

Speaking of friends, if this were a virtual running date, I would tell you how my friend Kalie is coming to visit from Texas. I can't wait to have her here in town. She is the one that introduced me to 7-Up Biscuits. Maybe we'll have to make some while she's in town with a nice roasted chicken... Yum!

Note to self: learn how to roast a chicken...

Faith-Filled Friday: Where your heart is

Good morning Crushers!

To say that I'm an involved person is an understatement. I am working two jobs (both of which, I enjoy). I am a board member for the Wauwatosa Woman's Club. I am the president of the Goldendale Horseshoe Club (only really matters in summer). I play softball and in the handbell choir at my church. I am in a book club (hated the last book). And I try to post 2-3 times a week on this blog, which means that I have to be cooking on a regular basis. This last one is pretty easy since I love cooking and we have to eat, right?

However, last night after making 3 dinners (two are for next week when my friend Kalie and her mom come to visit from Texas!), I laid down next to my husband and opened a book. (FYI - Steve did help cook!) The first line of the book was one of my favorite passages:

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. - Matthew 6:21

It made me smile because here I was just relaxing at home with the person that I love the most. We weren't doing anything special. He had ESPN on and I had a book. We were all mashed up with our legs crossing over each others. That's where my treasure is. Right at home with our little family.

It was also a really good reminder that for all the busy, busy things I do, my real life is ahead of me in Heaven. "But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal." says Matthew 6:21. Heaven is where my ultimate treasure is. That's a really nice reminder for a very busy week.

But what did I make for those three dinners? I was in a pasta mood. It's always a wonderful thing to feed a crowd! Remember the tortellacci? Or the lasagna? Or the meatballs and angel hair? We kind of love Italian food at our house, and I LOVE Giada de Laurentiis and her book (and show) "Everyday Italian." I consulted this book while making baked eggplant Parmesan last night. Note: that recipe is not in her book, but she has helpful hints about cooking with eggplant in it. I also made noodles with veggies and garlic butter sauce and these butternut squash gnocchi from Kristin at Iowa Girl Eats.

Baked Eggplant and Zucchini Parmesan (original recipe with some help from research)
1 medium eggplant
1 medium zucchini
1 cup bread crumbs
3/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
1 heaping tbsp of Italian seasoning
Salt and pepper to taste
1 Tbsp olive oil, divided
1 egg
2 Tbsp water
2-ish cups marinara sauce
1-2 cups (or two handfuls) of shredded mozzarella cheese

Gear you'll need: two shallow dishes, one 8x8 or 9x13 baking dish, one baking sheet, measuring cups and spoons, a sharp knife.

Directions: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Wash and dry your veggies to make sure that all garden dirt is gone. In one shallow dish whisk the water and egg together. In the other shallow dish, combine the bread crumbs, Parmesan, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper. Slice the veggies in 1/2 -1 inch thick slices across the veggie. That means we're not making long strips, we're making disc-like shapes.

Coat the veggie slices in the egg wash and then roll them/cover them on all sides with the bread crumb mix. Place on the baking sheet that you've already give a light coating of olive oil to and feel free to let the veggies touch each other since they'll shrink. 

Tip: Put the olive oil in a shallow bowl or pour a little directly on the pan. Use a brush or even some paper towel to rub it all around. Only use half of the olive oil because you'll need the other half later for the baking dish. You could go ahead and brush that on now too because you won't have to do it twice!

 Bake the veggies for 25 minutes and then flip them over and bake for another 20-25 more so that each side gets golden brown. Remove from the baking dish and place the veggies in the baking dish and cover with most of the mozzarella cheese. Pour the marinara sauce on top of that and then sprinkle a bit more cheese over that. If you use the smaller pan, feel free to layer!

I put mine in the freezer for next week, but when you do need to bake it, make sure it's thawed all the way through. When it's ready, bake in the oven at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes or until it's bubbling and cheesy.

Note: Feel free to peel the veggies if you aren't a fan of the skins, but remember that the part of the plant that is the most brightly colored is the most nutrient filled!

Vegas Travel Time

Good morning, Crushers!

For today's post, I'm just going to share a bunch of photos with you from Las Vegas. The wedding was gorgeous, and the weather was perfect and hot. Unfortunately, it took us ALL DAY to get home yesterday. Really. We woke up at 4 a.m. to catch a flight at 6:50 a.m., which never made it much further than taxiing a bit from the gate due to hydraulic/maintenance issues. After getting re-booked on another flight that only got us to Chicago, taking a train, and then waiting until 11:54 p.m. for our bags to show up (that some how made their to Milwaukee without us on a late flight), we are beat. I still managed to make it to work by 7 a.m. today.

We're going to need a lot of mascara today, folks.

Anyway, we made it home safely, and really, what more can you ask for?

Fro-yo! Perfect poolside treat, except that it totally melted!

 

Poolside!

Celebrity chefs everywhere!

Palm trees!

More celebrity chefs!

The Bellagio's fountains

At the wedding. Yes, we matched...

Christine's flowers - gorgeous!

The cake - raspberry filled vanilla cake

No idea why this is fuzzy, but Le Pizza in the Paris hotel was amazing. And huge.

The strip

The Venetian's gondolas

Inside Caesar's palace

Inside Caesar's palace

At the MGM Grand - no confirmed celebrity sightings despite the iHeart Radio concert being there.
I thought I saw some celebrities, but they might have just been really good looking people.

The view from the balcony where Ryan and Christine got married.

VEGAS!

Oh the lights!

I'm happy to say that I only played $20 on slot machines and won $24! That helped pay for our bus tickets home! Ha! We also saw a Cirque du Soleil show, but no photography was allowed (obviously), so no photos of that. Overall, it was a fun weekend, and it was a great wedding.

Faith-filled Friday: Love is...

Dear Crushers,
I love that you read my blog and that some of you even take the time to comment on it. I love it.

I love food, obviously, or I wouldn't be writing this blog. I love the feeling that you get when you serve a meal to someone and you can tell they enjoy it.

I love my family, my friends, my church family, and lot of other people. However, since I am traveling to Las Vegas this weekend with my husband to celebrate the marriage of our friends, Ryan and Christine, this post is going to be a mushy one dedicated to the MR.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. - 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

There's a reason that this passage is read a many weddings. It's because that's one of the best definitions of love that I've ever heard next to the love that it's modeled after: John 3:16. We should love others how God loves us. Although we may try and fall short, it should still be our goal. I think that overall Steve and I have this love thing down, I mean, we should. We're married and plan to stay that way for a long time.

Then again, in the love-longevity game, we're novices. My maternal grandparents were married for over 70 years. My paternal grandparents were married just shy of 50 years when my grandma died. Both of Steve's sets of grandparents reached 50 years of marriage. Both of our parents' marriages are over 30 years and still going. They have this love thing down, although not perfectly, it's pretty close.

Here are a few things that we've learned from all those years of marriage we've been blessed to witness:

1. Love is doing the chore that the other person hates.
2. Love is cooking special meals or food that the other person likes.
3. Love is killing large jumping bugs for your wife.
4. Love is letting your wife warm up her freezing feet at night by sticking them next to your toasty feet.
5. Love is wearing a tie when you really don't want to dress up.
6. Love is climbing a mountain on your honeymoon.
7. Love is saving the last bite of ice cream for your wife.
8. Love is bringing your wife Kleenex when she watches Hallmark movies.
9. Love is smiling politely every time you hear your wife tell the same joke and laughing anyway.
10. Love is buying your wife Lucky Charms when she's feeling sick. 
11. Love is holding your wife's hand when she's sad.
12. Love is rearranging furniture in your house for no good reason except that your wife wanted to see how the couch looked over there to the left, no more to the left, no maybe back there.

See? Steve's got this down. I'm a lucky lady. We could not be happier for our friends who are getting married this weekend. We wish them all the joy and love that they can bring to each other. And we know they will because they've got this love thing down. They know what love is.

Roasty-toasty potatoes and pork chops (Wildtree stuff)

Good morning, Crushers!

Have you ever had one of those mornings where you know it's going to take a little more make up than usual to feel and look awake? Yeah, it's one of those mornings.

Source

I should be all rested and relaxed after last night's delicious dinner. Not going to lie, I kind of winged it, and it worked out. WIN!

Last week, Steve bought a big package of boneless pork chops. Before popping the whole package in the freezer, I divided them in two freezer bags and added some Wildtree goodies. One bag has four pork chops and a 1/4 cup of Wildtree Wicked Good Slow Cooker sauce in the freezer, and the other had four pork chops, 2 Tbsp Wildtree Natural Grapeseed Oil and about 1.5 Tbsp lemon and rosemary blend.

While I was waiting for Steve to get home from a meeting last night, I drizzled four small chopped potatoes in olive oil and some more of the Wildtree seasoning and then added beets because they sounded all good and fall-ish. Mix those veggies up and spread them out on a baking sheet. Then I popped them in the oven for about 30 minutes at 400 degrees F, or until Steve got home. It was about 30 minutes...

Tip: When baking beets, I suggest lining your baking pan with some aluminum foil. Beet juice can really stain things (as I found on on a white towel recently and you can see on the potatoes below), so why make more of a mess than you have to? Clean up is easy too, since all you have to do is toss the aluminum foil!

Anyway, I put the pork chops in a frying pan with no extra oil or anything, and let them sizzle way for 4 minutes on each side. Then I turned it on low to keep it warm until Steve got home.

Here are the pork chops half way through.
The long sprigs of rosemary are from our garden. Time to flip!

We ate a late dinner of pork chops, roasted veggies and applesauce for our sweet. It was so good!

Had to eat all this good stuff before I could get the applesauce out. Yum!

Hope this meal brightens up your morning! It's really cloudy here in Milwaukee. Maybe I'll go put another swipe of mascara on!

Virtual Running Date No. 25: Al's Run and kitchen gear crush

Good morning, Crushers!

I'm not sure what other parts of the country are all experiencing, but most of the Midwest seems to have found fall. I'm not just talking about how stores already have Halloween decorations up and there are pumpkin flavored things everywhere.

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The high temperature for today is 62 degrees F. That's a nice brisk jeans and hoodie kind of weather. Or jeans and cute top and scarf weather. I love scarf weather! I also love pumpkin weather. I really need to find my pumpkin chocolate chip cookie recipe...

Random side note: I have trouble typing the word pumpkin because my fingers automatically want to add a -g to any word that ends in -in. I keep having to backspace after writing pumpking... Argh.

Anyway, if this was a running date, I'd tell you about how the glorious weather was wonderful last Saturday for the Brigg's and Al's Run/Walk for Children's Hospital. As you may or may not know, I spent 12 days as a resident of Children's Hospital of Wisconsin back when I was 10 because I had a horrible staph infection (called osteomyelitis) in some bones in my left foot. Do not ask how I got this because I don't know. I'm pretty sure it's because I tripped and possibly broke the growth joint in my big toe while on vacation in Florida with my family. This is why I was called "The Florida Case". Although my doctor was kind of a jerk, the nurses, other surgeons, staff, and tutors there were fantastic! Especially the nurses on orthopedic floor 5! Love them!

We did the run/walk with a team from work. It was amazing! There was a rumored 13,000 people there. I believe it!

Two of thousands at the start line.

TONS OF PEOPLE!

If this were a running date, I would tell you that the course is mostly flat, if not downhill, and for a 5 mile course, that's important. My favorite part was seeing a family running together and they all had on superhero capes! I wish I had taken a photo at the finish line with the little girls because they were awesome! Here is the conversation we had a half mile from the finish line:

Me: Wow! I love your capes!

Little Runner #1: Thanks! We're Super Runners! Don't you wish you had one?

 Me: Yes! I wish I had thought to make one.

Little Runner #2: They make you go faster.

Oh. My. Word. Too cute!

If this were a running date, I would also tell you that my beloved 3 quart sauce pan is now flaking. Yes, the non-stick coating chipped. Before you all start saying "It'll give you cancer" or "Stainless is the only way to go", let me tell you that I have stopped using the pan (I think I'll just hang it up for decoration). I can also tell you that it was PFOA-free, I never put it in the dishwasher or used a metal utensil with it, and I am really careful about those things. Plus, I manage to burn things in stainless steel pans. Ever try to make an egg over easy in one of those without tons of butter? Yeah? How'd that work out?

Anyway, one of my kitchen crushes, Kristin from Iowa Girl Eats is having a giveaway on  her blog today for a Calphalon Elite Slide Nonstick Fry Pan, and I'm in love with it. Just in case I don't win, I think I'll use a gift card from our wedding to get these lovely pans or perhaps these. Right now, I'm leaning toward the second set.

I was showing this link to my friend Kelly, also an amazing cook, and she said, "Wow, if you got those pans (and got to use a gift card), all you'd need is a cast iron one and you'd never need another pan." Fortunately, Steve bought some cast iron pans for camping back in his bachelorhood. Unfortunately, they were stored in the garage, so I'm going to need to un-rust and re-season them. The aforementioned Kelly sent me some helpful hints on how to do this. I'll let you all know how it works out.

In the meantime, please go enjoy all things pumpkin and perhaps a run in this beautiful weather!

Faith-filled Friday: It's a good day!

Good morning, Crushers!

Do you ever wake up in the morning and think, "Today is going to be a great day." I don't just mean that because it's a Friday, but because it just feels like it's going to be a good day. There are many reasons:

• We recently found out some good news!
• We had two house showings this week!
• We finally got rain last night!
• The sun is shining!
• I got to talk to my little nephew last night on the phone!
• I finally found the match to my favorite shoes that somehow got lost in my closet!

Sometimes it's just a wonderful day and you want to shout it to the rooftops. That's how I feel about Psalm 118. It's one of those chapters of the Bible where the author is saying, "Everything that was going to go wrong, did go wrong, but we overcame them with the help of the Lord." It's kind of like giving God a high-five and yelling, "Boo-yah!"

 "the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes. The Lord has done it this very day; let us rejoice today and be glad." Ps. 118:23-24

 I hope that you all have a wonderful day today, and rejoice in it!