Recipe Tips

A few weeks back I posted a very simple status update on facebook that asked for suggestions on what to serve on the side with Carne Asada. I was very specific with the fact that i wasn't interested in rice or beans. Ohio mexican food is all about the rice and beans and I wanted to get back to the fresh delicious California mexican food that I am used to...well this recipe actually came from a college friend in Denver, but it is sogood that i thought i would share. It is called "calabasitas" - and it was one of about 18 fabulous suggestions I recieved in the 5 minutes after posting my question.

Calabasitas:

this recipe is easy and doesn't require a lot of ingredients (which i definitely like)

Like lots of other recipes, this one starts off with sauteeing onions and garlic in a little bit of olive oil. I would maybe use a little butter next time too becasue it seems to help carmelize the onions a little better than oil alone.

After the onions are cooked down, mix in green chiles, fresh corn, sliced squash and zuchinni. Stir all of the ingredients up and wait for the vegetables to carmelize more than this picture below. Add in some tomato paste, Rotel diced tomatoes, lime juice, salt and pepper.

Place in a pyrex casserole dish...cover with sharp cheddar cheese and bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

I forgot to take a picture of the final product where the cheese had been broiled to perfection...but believe me, it looked and tasted delicious!

Thanks Thomas for the new recipe....hopefully you all can enjoy it too.

Poor Kid!

Some poor kid was not told that his/her friend moved away to Atlanta about 2 months ago as we consequently received the threatening message pictured above. This little crayon scribbled note was tossed into my mail box amongst a bunch of magazines and bills. I feel so bad! I would totally go outside and play (NOW)! ....but i am pretty sure they are actually looking for the kids that lived in our house before me.

How funny is that?

Chicago Baby Shower.

So I have mentioned this on here before....but Pat and I will soon be Aunt Katie and Uncle Pat. To celebrate that fact I went to my sisters baby shower in Chicago this past weekend. My mom and Jim's mom (her husband) put on quite the shower.

I helped with some of the decorations including this cute little clothesline hanging in the back. As always with pictures of decorations (oh yeah and of me too) it always looks cuter in person :) ha ha

Here are the proud parents to be...Jim is dressed in his summer's finest which luckily also coordinated really well with the decor. How cute are they?

Some of the guests in attendance all seated in front of the cute little pink cupcake table with another clothesline that had cute little onesies and bibs that said things like "Gorgeous Just like my Mom"

I wish that Lauren could have been there too! We were missing a sister this weekend (and one other aunt Katie) but they will all be coming to visit from California when the baby is born.

A little snapshot of the food table that had some really fun custom flower pots that my mom decorated. We had delicious chicken salad with grapes, a zucchini/basil/phyllo dough dish, deviled eggs, muffins, fruit, peach/goat cheese and candied pecan salad...and my personal favorite: Knox blocks ( which is really cute layered jello (the green stuff in front) that my mom makes(although it is usually in Christmas colors).

All of the beautiful and adorable gifts for little baby Dowd!

And again...just for the sake of documenting the progress from the last preggers picture of her. Kristen! one of the cutest pregnant ladies I have seen in a long time!

Wall Paper Hell.

While I generally consider my house to be extra cute there were a few areas that were far from it. Lucky for Pat and I the lack of cuteness came in the form of wall paper so it will not require removing walls, adding cabinetry or any other major renovation to get the rooms up to par. Nonetheless, I do have a new found major dislike for the art of removing wall paper. In a nutshell - It completely blows. I am terrified that the amount of hot water required to loosen the paper (I tried "Diff" and it sucks) will end up ruining my floors in the end...somehow my mist turns into giant puddles that need to be cleaned off of the wood every 3-5 minutes and that requires me coming down from the ladder, getting a whole new pile of dry rags from the laundry room - and basically it has just been really really annoying.

I wish i could just ignore it and leave it on the walls but we are talking about a "BonVoyage Paris" motif in the 1/2 bath downstairs, black and white sheet music in the guest bathroom upstairs, a cute little sports border in one of the bedrooms that would be fine but we dont have any kids so it is kind of creepy, and quite possibly the least attractive look is a "country basket, gingham, apple" motif in my mud room/laundry room. It simply cannot continue to exist in my house without causing me a great deal of anxiety.

Soo- it has pretty much all been taken care of. Pat and i have spent the last 2 nights and part of the last weekend (actually the weekend was just Pat. I was in chicago for my sisters baby shower) working on it. We only have about 6 feet of basket border left, one more bedroom, and then we will have to tackle the wall cleaning and re-painting and we will be done.

I can't wait! (read: sarcasm)

sad...sad...sad.

Nothing makes me hate myself more than when I genuinely start to hate high school kids on TV. Why am I watching their show? Why do I care at the age of 25 what a bunch of 15 yr old idiots are doing at a prep school in New York?.....and even worse why do thoughts like "who would want to make out with these fug boys anyways" creep into my brain.

I watched this show for the first time yesterday during my lunch hour. I usually go home, grab a snack, sit on my couch, and try to find anything better than "what Not to Wear" on TLC to watch. Yesterday was no different, but it was the first time I saw this particular show. It is so sad how the kids on this show are trying so desperately to be adults but then you see how immature and "fragile" (for a lack of a better term) they really are when something goes wrong. Like the high school senior who is meeting up with a 25 yr old for a blind date and is curiously able to order a bottle of wine while filming a show about his life in high school....then the Woman (hello pedophile) never shows up and despite all efforts to look like a grown up - sitting in a restaurant, ordering wine, dressed like a total choch art dealer....he still sounds like a total baby dealing with his embarrassment over being stood up. Where are these kids parents??? and why do people even have children when they have no plans of being present?

Whatever the case I was appalled....at the kids and at myself for watching the show.

I just want to thank God that no one ever roped me into doing a reality show when i was thinking, saying, and doing all of the dumb crap that I did when I was a teenager. Although, had i been on a reality show in high school there would have been much MORE N'sync and much LESS making out - But maybe that is why I never had my own show...... or a boyfriend ha ha.

I'm in Love...

I am absolutely in love with the flowers in my backyard...especially the hydrangeas! I snipped a little bouquet from the pink plant and placed it near my sink. I love it so much that I thought i would share.

My Aunt and Grandma brought me a huge purple and Blue hydrangea that I am going to plant tonight so perhaps I will mix the 2 colors next time...get excited - It is coming soon!

Updates....

Surprisingly, I have been doing plenty of other things not related to missing Pat. Ccontrary to my last 3 posts I have actually been really busy and having tons of fun.

Right after Vegas with the O'B girls I drove to Chicago to meet up with my sister and Jim. We went to the Dowds lakehouse for 4th of July and it was awesome! The whole area was just like a Norman Rockwell painting. There were little boys playing baseball in a small park near the lake, adorable little lake cottages, american flags all over the place, fireworks on the lake and tons of BBQ. I didn't have my camera with me but I stole some of these pics form Kristen and Jim

Here we are on the actual 4th. Not as tan as I would like to be at this point of the summer, but at least I was "Patriotic" in my red dress.

And how cute is Kristen's baby bump? Only a few weeks left to go! - and P.S> that is the other Aunt Katie (jims sister...my college rooommate)

And here is most of the Dowd crew down by the lake.

And that is all...Pat had my camera in Africa still so I didn't fully document this super fun weekend.