'Tis The Season To Have Chili

A few days ago I was asked an interesting question.  Could I name 3 presents that I had received last Christmas.  The answer is no...and yes.  At the moment the question was asked, I couldn't think of a single thing, but over the course of a couple of days, I did finally recall 3 things.

That question makes you think, doesn't it?  We spend all of this time, money, and stress thinking about presents that are so quickly forgotten.  When I was young, the presents were a big deal at Christmas.  As I've grown, I find myself cherishing moments more than gifts.  I feel that giving a Christmas gift to someone shouldn't be mechanical, something we have to do.  Rather it should be a way of saying, "I appreciate you, and I want you to know that."  So I haven't abandoned giving gifts this Christmas, but I do want to get all of my shopping done quickly, so that I can focus more on the moments of Christmas.  I want to invite friends over for dessert and wine, create a special meal for my family, take more time to drink hot chocolate and take my princesses to see the Christmas lights.  I want more time with my people and less time with my stuff.

I hope in this Christmas season, you find more time and more ways to show the people in your life that you appreciate them by giving them your time, your love, and maybe even a present or two.

Now, I'll step off my soapbox and serve you up a delicious wintertime meal.  If pumpkin is my favorite fall food, then chili is my favorite winter meal.  Only one teensy weensy problem, no one else in my house likes chili.  I would count it a major accomplishment if I could bring even one person over to my chili loving camp, but so far, no luck in that battle.  Nonetheless, I'm the lady with the apron, and I'm certainly going to soldier on and keep on making chili.  One day they'll come around, right?

Today's recipe comes from Rachael Ray, and it is called Steakhouse Chili.  As chili making goes, this recipe is pretty basic.  If you are not super confident in your chili making skills, try this recipe out.  I believe you will be successful.

I think of this as a "Texas" chili.  Someone once told me that Texans don't put beans in their chili.  It isn't a theory I've actually researched, just something I've been told.  This chili is entirely bean-free, but I'm sure a bean or 2 would be fine if bean-free chili isn't your cup of soup...I mean chili.

You patiently listened to me whine all summer about the Texas heat.  I can proudly report that it is long gone, and the chilly temps are here.  So I plan on making the most of these much cooler temps with a season full of chili.  If you are a chili lover, I hope you'll give this one a try!  Enjoy!

Link to Rachael Ray's Steakhouse Chili Recipe

Decadent and Divine Chocolate Oreo Cake

As you know, things have been nutty around here for awhile.  First we went on a cruise, had family in town, went to Houston for the Emmys, had our annual home improvement project, and then Thanksgiving...with more family in town.  Basically, it's been a sea of chaos here for about 6 weeks.  I certainly haven't meant to leave you hanging.  As proof to you that life in calming down, I'm going to give you a couple of great recipes this week.

Because our family is scattered all over the U.S., we tend to celebrate holidays together when we can.  While my husband's family was in town for Thanksgiving, we also celebrated Christmas with them.  Thursday was Thanksgiving, Friday the tree went up, and Saturday we celebrated Christmas with his side of the family.  It was a very special night.  We ate lasagna and garlic bread, shared some great red wine, laughed, chatted, and ate...and ate.  I felt like a special dessert was in order, since it was too early for Christmas cookies to be baked.  Since we were having red wine with dinner, that immediately sent my brain thinking of chocolate.  Well that, and I just always think chocolate is a good answer to most every dessert question.

I turned to one of my favorite blog's that I love to read when my sweet tooth is aching, My Baking Addiction.  It is a visual cookbook of yumminess!  I clicked on the "Chocolate" portion of the recipe list, and together with my sis-in-law, we just started drooling.  We finally landed upon Oreo Cake.  FYI-We made a really good decision in that moment.  One that I think you are going to LOVE!

There's so much that I love about this cake.  Where do I even begin?  First, I must start with the actual cake itself.  It is one of the most moist cakes that I've ever eaten, much less made.  It has pudding mix and sour cream added to make it incredibly delicious!  Next, I just love how the whole cake isn't frosted.  I think it gives a creative and stunning dimension to it, that I would never have thought of.  I just recreated what the blogger did.  Lastly, the chunks of Oreo cookie in the frosting are decadent and divine!  I can't say enough wonderful things about this cake!  I will tell you this, as if you aren't sold already, my husband is NOT a cake fan...and he LOVED this...loved it.  So now you know, it's that fantastic.

I will say this, it is a very rich treat.  A little piece goes a very long way.  I feel as if you could get 16 very generous pieces out of this, so maybe you could even stretch it a bit farther if needed.  I might scale back the amount of sugar in the frosting a tad, as it was insanely sweet to me.  Others in our family wouldn't change a thing.  Think about what sweetness of frosting you love and adjust it or don't based upon YOU!  If you are going to a dinner party this holiday season, or hosting one, this cake will certainly be a show stopper.  Happy eating!

Side note: The blogger added drizzled chocolate ganache to her cake.  It looks stunning.  I felt the cake was already sweet enough, so I did not add the ganache.  I might try it though next time, but in that case, I would scale down the confectioner's sugar in the creation of the Oreo frosting.  Just my thoughts and suggestions!  Enjoy!

Link to My Baking Addiction's Oreo Cake Recipe

Best Thanksgiving Leftovers Ever

I hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your family and friends.  We had 13 at our house this year.  That in itself is truly something to be thankful for, when all of your family lives out of state.  We had a lovely time and a delicious meal...if I do say so myself.

Pulling off a Thanksgiving feast for a crowd is definitely something that I am proud of.  Just a couple of years ago,  I would cross my fingers and hope that I would get to bring green bean casserole to the family Thanksgiving, because that was the best I could do.  Thanks to all of the new and fun things I've attempted on this blog in the past 8 months, I had enough courage to attempt and successfully create an entire Thanksgiving meal.  Pat, pat Lisa...that's me patting myself on the back.  And a good solid back pat to you my family, friends, and readers, your support of me through this blog has taught me so much about cooking.

Now there are two things I must apologize to you for.  The first, I apologize that I haven't put this recipe up sooner, and the second apology is because I didn't take any pictures.  We still have family in town, so I'm not the best blog updater at the moment.  Also, I was SO excited about this Rachael Ray recipe, that I dove right in, scarfed it down, and then with a full and happy belly thought about the pictures that should have been taken.  Oops.  I just KNOW I'll be forgiven though once you try this fantastic new recipe with Rach and me, Stuffin' Waffles.

Huh?  It's okay if you want to cock your head sideways and be confused a moment, I was too.  This was something I saw Rach excitedly cook up on her show last week.  I knew in that moment.  That I too was going to attempt this post-Thanksgiving culinary masterpiece.  Here are the steps:

1. Take out your waffle iron.  Slather it with a generous amount of melted butter.  
2. Put handfuls of leftover stuffing into your preheated waffle iron.  Cook for about 6-7 minutes.  You'll know they are done, when they become all brown and crispy.
3. While the waffle iron is preheating and the waffles are baking, put leftover turkey slices in some gravy and reheat on the stove.
4. Lastly in a saucepan, heat 1 part cranberry sauce (any kind will do, even the canned jellied kind) to 2 parts pure maple syrup.  (Rach recommended dark amber I believe, but I only had medium.  It worked out well.)
5. Now for the assembly.  On your plate, place a stuffing waffle, put the gravy soaked turkey on top of that, and then generously pour with the cran-maple syrup.

In our house, the cran-maple syrup was a topic of debate.  I too was unsure of it, but I like to trust Rach and make her recipes exactly the same way she would.  I must say, when I make them as she would, I am rarely disappointed.  I must beg of you here.  Yes, I'm literally begging you.  Please make the cran-maple syrup, even if the thought of it makes you want to pass on this recipe.  Is it that good?  SO good, amazing would be more appropriate.  In this house, one by one all of the non-cran-maple people slowly became cran-maple people due to the overwhelming roar of "YUMs" and "Oh my, that's amazing."  

I hope that you have a little turkey, gravy, stuffing, and cranberry sauce lying about.  I certainly do.  If you are looking for a new twist on those Thanksgiving leftovers, I give this one a solid 5 stars.  Matter of fact, I even used some leftover cran-maple syrup on my sweet potatoes. That sweet syrup is fantastic stuff!

Hope all is well with you!  Until later, when I've got something sweet and yummy just for you!

Crazy Busy & Pumpkin Monkeys

Tis the season to be crazy, fa la la la la-la la-la la!  What do I do to cope with the holiday season?  Add a home construction project to the mix.

Yes, it's the holiday season, and it so appears that I tend to get an overactive nesting instinct every time this season rolls around.  I hadn't noticed it before, but every November our home gets a little homier.  We've lived in this house for 4 Novembers now.  The first 2 years were painting jobs, then we had an outdoor kitchen built on, and now, this year's project...hardwood floors.

Updating the floors are something we have hoped to do the entire 4 years we've lived here.  We have beautiful hand scraped hardwood floors in the front part of the house, but we wanted to continue them throughout the first floor.  If any of you have ever gone through a conversion from carpet to true hardwood flooring, you know it is a looooonnng, tedious process.

To make, what I could definitely make a long story, much shorter, it was just about a 2 week process.  During which time, we had little access to the majority of living space we use the most.  Add to that a smelly staining and coating process, which prompted a short hotel stay, and there you have it.  I can finally say that we have made it through to the other side, and we've survived.  We've taken the past few days to put back most of our belongings, tidy the place up, and we are prepped and ready for Thanksgiving.

The new wood has been laid.  Waiting to be scraped and stained.

Mostly finished product.  We still have a huge area rug to put down, but that cannot be done for another week.  I haven't shared with you yet about the Emmys.  As you can see from the picture, my husband earned three more during the flooring process!  So proud of you babe!  I told you it's been crazy here.

Besides showing you some before and after flooring pictures, I'm also going to share a little Thanksgiving recipe with you.  My sweet sister-in-law flew in to watch our sweet princesses so that we could attend the Lone Star Emmys for broadcasting excellence in the state of Texas. (By the way, I must proudly state that my amazing hubby is the best meteorologist in the giant state of Texas-2 years running.  Yup, I'm a super proud wife.)  Back to the story, during my sis-in-law's visit, we crafted a yummy little something that you may wish to share with your family and friends this Thanksgiving.  We made Pumpkin Monkey Bread.

That's right folks, a recipe exists combining the beauty of pumpkin flavored food, and the overall sugary goodness of monkey bread.  Because this is a "from scratch" recipe and you are making bread, allow yourself loads of time for rising and such.  There are 2 one hour bread risings that need to occur, so just a little FYI, so that you can plan your time accordingly.

Ready for the photo montage?

The dough mixing in my Kitchen-Aid.

The dough in the bowl getting ready for its one hour rise.

The sugary monkey bread balls after rising yet another hour.

After some baking and a maple icing topper, voila, some festive Pumpkin Monkey Bread.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner.  Hope you get a free moment to make and enjoy this with those you love.  One last thing, really make sure the dough is rising.  You may need a warm place or more time.  Just a little tip!  Happy Thanksgiving!!

Link to Sugar Crafter's Pumpkin Monkey Bread Recipe

How To Live

Two days ago, our sweet baby, the Texas Tornado turned two.  In reflecting over the past two years, I can say that I've learned so much from such a little soul.  She's lively, headstrong, a tad mischievous, but we like to say "feisty" or "spirited," smart, and incredibly loving.  

What have I learned from her?  Some very important things that we can all remember in living our lives too.  This little Texas Tornado lives and loves with everything she has, and has fun in the process.  Isn't that what we all should be doing?  Using every moment of our lives actually living, not waiting, worrying, dwelling, wondering, etc.  Try actually living every day.  Love with everything.  With forgiveness, with kindness, and with a heart full of love.  Lastly, live it up!  As you can in the images that follow, this little girl knows how to have her fun.  While this tiny, now 2 year old, princess can trash a room faster than a rockstar or diva, it's just part of her living.  The part I'm trying to appreciate as I find myself with a messy floor more often than not.  

In all the things we can learn from this sweet princess, I should also let you in on her charm.  She's got an arsenal of adorable faces and sweet gestures that she calls upon to attempt to help reduce her "time" when she's caught doing something she shouldn't.  While all of the above lessons are what's important, a little sweet charm never hurt either.  Please enjoy some sweet and silly images of our Texas Tornado, as we reflect upon and appreciate all of who she is.

We "lub boo" sweet girl!!

Pumpkin Cookies and Pretty Princesses

I know that I claim to not be a cook, but I will have to say that I've dabbled in baking.  Today's recipe is one of my seasonal favorites, Pumpkin Cookies!

When I was 8 years old, I received a Thanksgiving card with a recipe for pumpkin cookies.  Three things excited me about this card.  One, I got mail.  Two, I would get to bake with my mom. And three, the recipe included chocolate chips.  

I've made this recipe for years, and now I want to share it with you!

Ingredients: 

• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup rolled oats, uncooked
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 1 cup chocolate chips (I vote a little more, but I'm a chocolate lover)

Preheat oven to 350.  Mix butter and sugars until light and fluffy.  Add egg and vanilla, mix well.  Alternate adding pumpkin and dry ingredients, mixing well.  Stir in chocolate chips.  Drop dough onto a lightly greased cookie sheet by large spoonfuls.  Depending on the size you make these, bake anywhere from 10-20 minutes.  I feel like mine are different every time, so watch the oven because you don't want these yummy lil' guys over baked!  Bake until lightly browned.  Remove from cookie sheet, and cool on racks.  Makes 20-30 cookies.

Life has been super busy!  I've got lots of fun seasonal stuff to come, so stay tuned.  My sweet sister-in-law came to watch our princesses so we could head to Houston for the weekend, more on that in the next post.  For now, I'll leave you with my Halloween princesses.  The Texas Tornado is Minnie Mouse and the Tiny Teen is Jasmine.  They raked in plenty of Halloween loot, which I am enjoying very much!