Bedroom Inspiration

Great news everyone! Mike and I put an offer on a house and it has been accepted! We will be moving September 27th and are excited to start this new adventure of home ownership.

The house is fairly new (2009), has good bones, but does need a little bit of work. The wood (cabinets, vanities, molding, stairs, etc) is all an orange-y oak color which isn't quite our style. We have already begun researching ways to refinish the woodwork as a far off, very time-consuming project. The basement is also not completely finished and the backyard needs some of my mother's green thumb to perk it up. Until moving day, I am stuck in dreamland getting anxious to begin decorating and creating our first home.

Here is my inspiration for the master bedroom. I want a romantic but rustic feel with muted and relaxed colors. We will probably end up making the headboard on our own, and buying or refinishing the bedside tables and dresser to match. Does anyone know where to buy quality unstained furniture? We are thinking this may be the easiest way to get everything to match.

So gorgeous! Found here: My Home Sweet Blog

Christmas present please? Found here: Crate & Barrel

A new house also means we FINALLY get a dog. We are so excited! Found here: Decor8 Blog

Great headboard tutorial. Found here: Thrifty and Chic

Color scheme for room. Found here: Design Seeds

So what do you think? I am so ready to get started!

Peach Cheesecake Wontons

Boy do I have a treat for you guys today!

Yesterday I made southwestern chicken wraps with avocado ranch sauce, found here, with a simpler dip (1 part avocado, 2 parts ranch, with a pinch of dried cilantro). They were totally delicious and a very filling vegetarian meal. I may have stuffed them a little full, because I ended up with quite a few eggroll wrappers left over. I had planned on making a cream cheese peach tart for dessert, but had a stroke of genius! I will make a peach cheesecake eggroll to get rid of my aging peaches and leftover wrappers! After ten minutes of research, the only recipes I could find were fried in a deep fat fryer, which I do not have. So I had no choice but to get a little creative. The results were fantastic!

4 oz (1/2 a brick) of cream cheese
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
1  teaspoon cinnamon
1 pitted, peeled, and diced peach
Cooking spray
2 egg roll wrappers
Pinch of both cinnamon and sugar

Mix the first 4 ingredients until smooth using a whisk in a small bowl. Add the diced peach and mix until combined. Spray two cups of a jumbo muffin tin (3 1/2 inches wide) with cooking spray. Place an eggroll in each and push down slightly to make a bowl shape, overlapping the roll over the edge on all sides. Divide the peach mix into the two wrappers and fold the wrapper over to completely cover the tops. Lightly spray tops of folded wrappers. Sprinkle with remaining "pinches" of cinnamon and vanilla (I used Penzyes vanilla sugar). Cook at 375 degrees for about 15 minutes. Let sit for a few minutes before removing from tin. Serve hot over ice cream with caramel drizzle.

Caprese Stuffed Chicken

Yum yum! Caprese stuffed chicken is a fresh, cheesy, and crispy main dish that is surprisingly easy to make. The recipe can be easily modified to work with other stuffing combos (cheddar broccoli, boursin asparagus, Swiss ham, etc).

Start by making a tomato bruschetta-like topping with tomato, basil, garlic, balsamic, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Mix 1 chopped tomato, 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil (from the garden!), 1 teaspoon minced garlic, 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar and 1 tablespoon olive oil in a medium bowl. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Pound 2 thawed chicken breasts between parchment pepper with the smooth side of a meat mallet until flat and near doubled in size.

Dip one side of the chicken breast into Italian seasoned bread crumbs. Place a couple spoonfuls of the tomato mix in the middle of the flattened chicken breast. Place 10-15 fresh mozzarella pearls on top of the tomato mixture. Fold up both end to roll over the cheese/tomato mix. Stick two tooth picks through the roll to hold in place. Sprinkle with more bread crumbs and place in greased glass dish.

I had some tomato mixture and cheese leftover that got covered in raw chicken juice, so I dumped the remaining filling in the pan around the chicken breasts and sprinkled with more balsamic vinegar. This got all crispy and super yummy while cooking!

Cook in a 400 degree oven for about 35 minutes, or until the inside temperature reaches 165 degrees.

We served the chicken over mashed baby red potatoes with garlic toast. Make sure to either take the toothpicks out or warn others before eating. Make sure to serve with the crispy cheese from the bottom of the pan; it was my favorite part!

Enjoy some good cooking from your Neighbor's House!

Chicken Vegetable Casserole Topped with Biscuits

Today, I made a chicken vegetable casserole topped with biscuits by cooking with "feeling" instead of measuring ingredients. My dear husband always complains that I follow recipes too closely and am not willing to make changes to what is written. Here was my chance to prove him wrong and get in touch with my inner chef.

First, I started with sauteing a handful of chopped onion (from the farmers market) in vegetable oil until soft.

Meanwhile, two chicken breast were sliced into strips as cooked in a large pan.

Next, a small handful of flour, Italian seasoning mix (because I couldn't find basil and thyme), salt, fresh crushed pepper and a glug or two of milk was added to the pan of soft onion. I then found the basil and thyme (apparently I alphabetized the spice cabinet) and threw some of that in there too. I brought to a boil over medium heat, stirring often until thickened.

Once the chicken was cooked through, a bag of frozen veggies and the onion mixture was added to the large pan and heated slightly. The mix was transferred to a greased glass cooking dish (after biscuits are made).

While the chicken/vegetable pan was heating, I mixed, just till combined, a handful of flour (my guess at 1/2 cup), a small bit of sugar, a few turns of the salt shaker, and a bit of baking powder. This was spooned over the filled glass dish once the chicken mix is spread. I could only cover half of the casserole, so made a second batch of biscuits. This time it was very wet and goopy, not sticky, as you can see the variations below.

The mixture was cooked at 375 degrees for about half an hour, until the biscuits are golden.

Ta-da! What did I learn with "feelings" instead of written recipes? Sugar does not belong in dinner biscuits, cheese should not be forgotten, and I need to remember my spice cabinet is alphabetized.

Adapted from the 2010 Best Ever Chicken Cookbook by Taste of Home.

Fresh Pesto

While our pepper plant still has only produced one useable pepper... the basil plant is doing quite well! I even had enough to snip off half the leaves to create fresh pesto. In the process, I learned that my "for decoration only" mortar and pestle works 10x better than the food processor. The mortar and pestle was a purchased from Ikea a few years ago when I had a love affair with the movie Julie and Julia. I suppose I was hoping it would be a good luck charm so my kitchen can be 1/100th as cool as Julia Child's.

Anyway...

Here is my delicious adventure in pesto, serves two:

First, pick and wash about 1/2 cup of fresh basil.

Place basil in a food processor and add 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of garlic, 

about 1 tablespoon of pine nuts,

and about 2 tablespoon of olive oil. 

Process until smooth or until you get frustrated that the blade glides right over the top of the ingredients...

Then move to the mortar and squish it up until smooth.

 As you can see below, the pestle did a much better job mushing the ingredients together than the food processer.

 

Add salt and pepper to taste and mix again. Add to your favorite dish and enjoy! Or as Julia Child says, Bon Appetit!

We mixed our pesto with alfredo and chicken and served over noodles with bread, oil and vinegar, and wine.

We will be making this again once the basil plant has recuperated from the plucking. Haha!

Well, I have learned that blogging takes a bit more of a commitment than originally thought. I have no problem creating blog-worthy meals and enjoy sharing the recipes, I just don't like uploading the pictures to the computer.  So far, some fun foods that were missed due to my lack of picture taking are: vanilla bean cupcakes with fresh raspberry buttercream, watermelon sorbet, honey mustard porkloin, garlic butter steak, homemade mac and cheese, stuffed peppers, sugar cookies, monkey bread, mini peach pies, homemade ravioli, and cinnamon roll waffles. I will get better at this, I promise!