summer 2009.

It's been a pretty quick summer. I think last summer we forgot to blog all summer and ended up doing one post of a recap of our summer--I'll give you the same thing this year :)

Beginning of summer--school started. During the summer? School? I know....but it hasn't been all that bad. I've really been enjoying it. I'm coming to the end of my first quarter here next week and I can't believe it! 1 down, 5 to go. I hope to make the Dean's list...that's my goal this quarter. For those that know me---school and I don't get along, so the Dean's list is a pretty big goal. Next quarter I have baking--this should be fun. Expect lots of baked goodies on the blog :)

Well, we got a grill. We grilled every night for about 2 weeks straight, until the little old lady downstairs yelled at us and informed us we weren't allowed to grill at the apartment. The next day the landlord handed out a notice from the fire department informing us that grilling is no longer allowed at our complex. Bummer. It was fun while it lasted. We now have a portable grill for the occasional picnic...and about a years worth of propane.

In June we took a trip to Michigan for my Grandparent's 50th anniversary party. We had a family picnic at Lake Michigan, which was a lot of fun. I miss Lake Michigan.

We will be returning in a few weeks for a whole week for Mike (my brother) and Katie's wedding.

Meet Millie:

Millie is a dog we rescued at the beginning of July. When we found her she super malnourished, sick, and full of fleas. Blech. We thought she could be a good companion for Gracie since we've been so busy lately, but as it turns out, being super busy is no good for a new puppy and the potty training process. We found a good home for Millie, so she's no longer with us, but I wanted you all to meet her.

Gracie wasn't a big fan.

Back in July our good friends Nick and Aubrey (you may remember them from here) got married. We were both honored to be in their wedding party. We got to go to Ohio for the weekend for their wedding festivities. Unfortunately, I forgot the camera...so, no pictures from that event until they get their actual wedding pictures back.

In August we traveled to Dearborn, MI for a wedding of one of Paul's friends from high school.

In the car I was able to work on my new hobby:

Embroidery

there will be more on this at a later date.

Anyways, the wedding. It was amazing. Beautiful.

After the wedding, we headed to Grand Rapids for a couple of hours to meet a very special person.

Meet Claire:

No, no, no. She's not special....well, she is...but she's not the special person we went to meet. We already knew her. Claire is my bestie. We've been friends since 6th grade. This person that we went to meet wasn't around in 6th grade. She was born on July 20th. She is Claire's daughter.

Meet Rylee:

She is pretty much the most precious thing ever...maybe I'm a little biased...maybe not. Stephen and Claire make a cute baby.

Anyways, it was so good to see my bestest, even if it was just for a few hours. I'm excited to get to spend more time with them in a few weeks.

Me touching an infant.

More photos of our summer adventures are here. (As well as lots of other, older pictures.) I'm trying to keep our gallery updated.

Hopefully I'll have a few more recipes for you soon...I made a delicious soup tonight at work that I'd like to share with you.

Signing off,

Rochelle :)

Holy Moses, SOO busy.

We have been jam packed, full to the brim--with business. With school, work, weddings, dogs, and everything else in this life, summer clothes are now on clearance...which means summer is coming to an end.

I've been learning sooo much in school, and while I could impress you with my new fancy french terms, I'm just gonna show you how to make good ol' southern style biscuits and gravy. Paul and I aren't huge breakfast fans. Neither of us ever eat breakfast in the morning and neither of us are huge breakfast-for-dinner people. We have both recently discovered, however, that we share a love for biscuits and gravy--any day, any time. In college (the first time around) you could never, ever catch me up in time for breakfast (or class) during the week--but come Saturday brunch I could almost definitely be found in the dining room chowing on a HUGE plate of biscuits and gravy.

I've never really had any idea how to make gravy (this biscuits part doesn't seem so hard, especially when you're a fan of frozen bread/dough products) until last week at school when we started making sauces. I will now share with you, from my masterful, sauce-trained, culinary mind, step-by-step, picture-by-picture instructions on how to make some of the tastiest, most yummiest sausage gravy everrrr.

Start with the biscuits, get them baking.

Gather your sausage.

Throw it in a hot skillet, over med-high heat.

Mash it all up.

Keep on mashin'.

Until it gets nice and brown and yummy and golden and crispy. Drool.

Pull the sausage from the pan and set it aside, leaving the grease in the skillet.

I added butter to get a little more fat in the pan, my sausage didn't produce much grease. If you have greasy sausage, you may not need the butter. You'll need about 3 tablespoons of grease/fat.

Add 3 tablespoons on flour. We are now making a roux. (Oooh, fancy culinary term. A roux is fat and flour...a thickener..)

Whisk your flour into your grease until not clumpy (I don't have a non-wire-whisk...so I used a spatula...whatever works.)

I forgot to take pictures of a few steps...It gets a little hectic at this point. Slowly whisk in 3 cups of milk, then toss in the sausage. It will look a little thin, so let it sit for a bit to thicken...if it doesn't thicken up, mix more flour and melted butter then pour it in. (1 tablespoon of flour to 1 tablespoon of butter.)

Flavor with lots of salt and pepper (to taste.) (By the way, TT means "to taste"...not 2 tablespoons. People in my culinary lab did not know this.)

Tear open your biscuits and glop the gravy on top. Yum.

Drool.

If you like a recipe:

(This will make enough for about 6 biscuits)

6 biscuits

1 lb. ground sausage

3 cups of milk

3 tablespoons of flour

1 tablespoon of butter (you may need more or less depending on the fattiness of your sausage)

coarse salt

pepper

Brown sausage in medium skillet on med-high heat.

Remove sausage from skillet, leaving drippings in the pan.

Melt 1 tablespoon of butter into skillet.

Whisk 3 tablespoons of flour into melted fat until not lumpy.

Slowly add 3 cups of milk into skillet.

Add sausage into gravy.

Let thicken for 5-7 minutes, serve over biscuits.

(Again, if it doesn't get thick after this time--mix 1 tablespoon of melted butter and 1 tablespoon of flour, then pour into gravy and whisk until not clumpy. Let thicken again. Continue to do this until desired thickness is reached.)

The end.

Heaven on a plate.

martha would be proud. (part 2 of 2)

My final new thing, and my most favorite is my herb garden! Browsing through Target a couple of months ago, my thumb was feeling very green. I passed through the $1 Spot, where they had everything I needed to plant my very own herb garden (something I've been wanting to do for a very very long time) all for only $4! I can't wait until my herbs are mature enough to start using in my cooking, but with this lack of sunshine and way-over-rainyness, they are now struggling to survive and not drown--although I think they will pull through.

Oregano

Chives

Basil

My lone Parsley...

it's just taking a little longer than the others.

I realize my herb garden is tiny, and really isn't much to brag about...but it's definitely huge for me! It will be time to transplant them into bigger pots soon...I'm hoping to go to Lowe's today, if Paul will let me.

While I was photographing my herbs, I discovered that my tiny little garden is very pathetic compared to the little old lady downstairs' garden:

martha would be proud. (part 1 of 2)

Two posts in one week? Oh my!

This post is all about newness...and since it's about newness, I have loads of new pictures of new things.

Gracie has always loved looking out the window. In Florida it was easy for her--she would sit for hours just looking out the slider door window. Unfortunately, in our Kentucky apartment when you look out the slider window, all you see is a blocked in porch. Then, she started standing on her hind feet with her little front paws on the windowsill looking out the window. She has now started this:

Thing two. My kitchen has been a mess since we moved in. It is a really awkward space. Not much counter space with a very empty corner for a breakfast nook. Now let me just say that we have a dining room that doesn't even have a dining table in it, so there is no way we would have (or have a need for) a breakfast nook table. So here I am, with this too small kitchen with no storage, and a HUGE empty dead space. Then comes newness number 2:

A lovely shelf system.

I have one more new thing, which also happens to be my FAVORITE new thing..but that will have to wait until a later date--I have to check on my roast. Yes. A roast. Martha would be so proud.

Stay tuned for Part 2.

celebrities and hot dip.

I am a horrible blogger, this I know.

After a long long lonely day (Paul took an impromptu trip to Nashville for work today) of cleaning, laundry, and many episodes of Gilmore Girls (I've decided to watch all the seasons from the very beginning, a co-worker is letting me borrow them :]), I decided it was time to post something on here.

(This is the long version of the story. If you want the short version, scroll down and read the part in bold.)

This past weekend I had my very first Kentucky Derby experience. The last time we lived in Louisville, we arrived a month after the Derby had passed and left a month before the Derby began again. Bummer. This time we were here for the entire Derby experience. Although we didn't go to Thunder over Louisville (the BIGGEST fireworks show in the country), we watched it on TV and it was pretty amazing...we'll definitely be going next year. The day before the Derby there was a big festival on the waterfront, where Gavin DeGraw was playing...and it was FREE! We decided to go to that, to get into the Derby spirit, of course, and because it's GAVIN DEGRAW! Hellooo. Anyways...after arriving downtown it started POURING and pouring, and freezing, and winding, and pouring. Needless to say, as much as we loveee Gavin, we decided he wasn't quite worth hypothermia and pneumonia (sorry, Gavin)...and he's gonna be here again in June for free. After leaving the freezingness we decided to go down to 4th Street Live and do some bowling. Upon arriving at 4th Street, a member of our party had to go to the bathroom, and since Subway wouldn't let non-customers use their bathroom, we decided to go in the Hyatt. After using the bathrooms, we met back up in the Lobby where we spotted a nicely dressed guy and wife with security guard. We then came to the conclusion that it MUST be a celebrity in town, of course, because of Derby Weekend. A friend, Leslie, was SURE he was a member of the very very famous country band Rascal Flatts, but she couldn't be positive and definitely didn't know his name. After many minutes of trying to secretly stalk said guy and wife around the lobby while Google-ing Rascal Flatts band members on our phones...Paul just decided to go up to him and ask if he was in the band. Low and behold, HE WAS! He introduced himself as Jay DeMarcus from Rascal Flatts as he shook all of our hands. His lovely wife Allison introduced herself and offered to take our picture on my phone! Ahh! It was exciting (although I'm not a country fan, it was my first random celebrity encounter.)

This is the short version of the story for all those who didn't want to read the long version:

We ran into Jay DeMarcus from Rascal Flatts at the Hyatt downtown Louisville!

Paul, Me, Jay, Leslie & Phil.

I've been taking lots of pictures of new meals I've been cooking lately. I have many meal pictures stored on my camera and I've just been waiting for the perfect time to post them. Since it's spring and the weather has been so lovely as of late, I d

ecided to make a summery, refreshing chilled avocado and crab soup that I found from a recipe book one slow boring day at work. Sounds delicious, huh? Not so much. Paul can vouch for that one...eek. So instead of a delicious summery, refreshing soup...I will share a delicious, summery (and wintery, falley, and springy...all seasons!) dip.

This is my mother-in-law's recipe...with a few added tweaks to make it my own. So good...it's called Buffalo Chicken Dip. Mmmm.

Ingredients:

2-3 boneless chicken breasts, boiled, shredded.

2 packages of cream cheese, softened. (You can use full fat, or less..your choice!)

3/4 cup buffalo hot sauce (although the original recipe says you must use Frank's brand..I used Kroger and it was just fine.) You can adjust the amount depending on the spice factor you enjoy.

1/2 cup ranch dressing

1 cup shredded sharp cheddar.

Mix shredded chicken with hot sauce and spread evenly on the bottom of a 9x9 baking dish.

Mix together cream cheese and ranch dressing, layer on top of chicken. (In the pictures I mixed the chicken mixture with the cream cheese, but it turns out better as the recipe directs.)

Top with even layer of cheese and bake for 20 minutes on 350. (I forgot to take a pic of the finished product...it was just SOO good!)

Serve with tortilla chips or celery sticks.