Beef Stroganoff

When I was little, my dad made the best beef stroganoff.  I loved it on deliciously cozy and cold evenings, when all you want is a little comfort food to stick to your lungs. 

We have not been experiencing such nights around here lately, but that doesn't stop me from wanting some serious comfort food.  So, a few weeks ago, I decided to make a recipe out of my head but very similar to this Beef Stroganoff recipe.  It was SO delicious.  Yum!  I used heavy cream rather than sour cream, since we never buy sour cream and I thought that it may be a waste of money to buy an entire container for one recipe.  It tasted delicious!

Our week and weekend

Things have been pretty busy around here.  David is studying again, which means that he is indisposed 99.9999999% of the time.  My work has been getting busier and busier, which is fun because I really enjoy my job, but it all just leads to a pretty busy lifestyle for us. 

Because of this, it is really fun to have a few weekends where we are just at home, knocking around, not doing much at all.  This past weekend was one of those weekends.  On Friday evening, we hung out at home.  I caught more than a few episodes of How I Met Your Mother on Netflix (quick critique: I think that the show is funny and cute but I hear that after about the third season the viewer pretty much wants to know who the mother is and they don't find out).  On Saturday, I ran some errands, we went to mass, and that evening I enjoyed a delicious dinner at La Bodega with one of my friends.  After that, we had drinks at The Rieger Hotel, which were outstanding.  I tried the Blancadora and loved it.  

On Sunday, I had lunch with another friend and then Paco and I met up with his friend Leon and we went for a walk together. 

That afternoon, I made cookies (I shouldn't have...haha) and enjoyed the warm breeze wafting from our window. 

My batteries are definitely recharged for the week!  What did you do?

Olive Tapenade

I love olives and unfortunately, David really, really dislikes them.  Just this weekend we were playing a game like the Newlywed Game with one of our friends and she asked us about the other person's least favorite food.  Mine is definitely cheese, so the question wasn't as fun for me, but I guessed butternut squash soup for David (that is the only recipe I have made that he just flat out disliked).  At that point, he reminded me of his distaste for olives and I had to admit defeat. 

But how could you dislike olives?  I think they are one of the better foods on the planet:

Olive tapenade is a delicious olive dish that I love making every once in a while.  I eat it and buy David fancy cheese (this involves my staring for 20 minutes in the cheese aisle in the grocery store, not sure what to buy).  We grab a baguette, salami, and enjoy a satisfying and easy dinner. 

This time, I added grape tomatoes on the top of my pile and it was heaven.  I just adore simple meals like this. 

Olive Tapenade

 - One jar Kalamata olives or green olives (make sure you buy these without the pits)
 - one can artichoke hearts
 - olive oil
 - salt and pepper to taste

Drain the olives and artichoke hearts.  Process them in your food processor until fine.  Add olive oil, about 1/4 cup, and salt and pepper to taste.  Serve on hunks of bread or with your favorite crackers. 
 

 

Spring Panzanella

I am one of those crazy people who actually enjoy winter.  I love the snow, the cold, the snuggling, the sweatshirts, the soup...I love it all!  I am definitely a four seasons girl who enjoys things about each season. 

So, because we have been having an insanely warm winter this year, I have been thrown off kilter a bit.  I've been making soups and stews way less and have found myself craving spring dishes way too early. 

A week ago, I saw this delicious recipe for Spring Panzanella by Smitten Kitchen pinned pin Pinterest and had to make it.  I love things like salads and olive-type dishes, and this definitely fit the bill. 

For the record, I made our bread and kept it separate from the salad itself because I knew that we would have leftovers.

This recipe did not disappoint!  Do you like salads like this?

Lazy Saturday by Paco

This weekend was so lazy.  I slept most of the time, as I always do, but the weather was so gorgeous that one of my humans decided to take me on a walk around our park!  I had a really great time sniffing around and seeing the lake.  We went across this scary bridge, and there were so many things to sniff on the posts!

 I tried to make friends with some ladies, but they were rather loud and unfriendly:

 More interesting light posts:

 Getting some sun:

After that, my human ran some errands while I rode in the car.  Riding in the car is one of my very favorite things in the whole wide world!

She took me to a bath for the car, and I did NOT enjoy it one bit.  Luckily, my human was there to snuggle me and make me feel better:

As you can see, I had a great Saturday afternoon!  I hope you did as well.  When we got back I had to recover so I napped for the rest of the day, that night, and then the next day as well. 

Southwest Chicken Paninis

 A few weeks ago I attempted to make these Southwest Chicken Paninis from Annie's Eats.  The pictures on her blog looked SO tasty that I just had to try the recipe. 

However, instead of her filling, I decided to try my own filling in the crock pot.  I put two chicken breasts, tomato sauce, some cream of chicken soup, green pepper, onion, and chili powder into the crock pot and let it sit on high for about four hours.  I shredded the deliciously tender chicken.

However, the end result with the paninis wasn't so fantastic.  First of all, my filling had too much liquid for a panini.  This resulted in a lot of the filling actually slipping out of the sandwich either during the press stage or while we were eating it.  However, if we improvised a bit and used the bread to sop up the liquid and chicken, everything was just fine.

Next time, I'm thinking about either following Annie's recipe OR making these open-face sandwiches with well-toasted bread and the filling on top, which would be eaten with a fork.  Either way, I think that we agreed that we should try this recipe again sometime!

By the way, I can't get enough of the Whitney Houston Pandora radio station.  Yay for soft rock full of Mariah Carey, Boyz II Men, and Toni Braxton!  Ha!

Another song I like

This reminds me of David for some reason, even though it sounds kind of weird if you listen to the lyrics!