School

School starts tomorrow!  I'm hoping for the best!  Cross your fingers for me, but I am excited!

This week we have the following meals planned:

Meatball Sandwiches
Fried Chicken and Biscuits
Orecchiette with Shrimp, Lemon, and Asparagus



and for tonight,

Corned Beef Hash with Fried Eggs

The End.

Bourdon Tea Book Club

A few months ago, a group of my friends and I created a book club.  At the past two meetings, there has been this awesome drink, called Bourbon Mint Tea.  So, we have named ourselves the The Bourbon Tea Book Club.  The recipe is from Everyday Food (of course) and really good!  (recipe posted at bottom)  The rules of the book club are pick a book you either really love and want everyone to read, or pick something you've been wanting to read.   The rules are pretty simple.  Also, to choose a book, you must have read all the others and have to wait for everyone else to pick a book before you.  We're pretty relaxed about it and don't have to have the next one read for a couple months.

So far we have read:

The Lazarus Project by Aleksander Hemon
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
My Antonia by Willa Cather

and are currently reading:

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

I know absolutely nothing about Norse Mythology, so I am learning about that for insider knowledge into this book.  I am determined to get this book read fast since I will be starting school August 1.  I will be teaching art to elementary students!!!!  I am so excited and terrified.  I haven't said anything yet because I was waiting for it to be more official.  Wish me luck!  Hopefully they won't eat me alive.  ;)


Bourbon Mint Tea

In large saucepan, boil 4 cups water.
Add 1/2 cup sugar; stir to dissolve.
Remove from heat; add 8 tea bags of black tea.
Steep 10 minutes; discard tea bags.
Add 4 cups cold water; transfer to pitcher, and chill.
Add 1/2 cup fresh mint leaves.
Using a wooden spoon, crush mint until fragrant;
stir in 2 cups bourbon.
Serve over ice.  (serves 8)

Cute Animal Videos

I am a sucker for cute animal videos.  Luckily, Today's Big Thing dedicates a whole section to this awesomeness.  Here are my two favorites:

Herbs and Veggies

My first pepper!!!  Look at it, its so cute.  Nothing better eat it except me!  Pretty sure this is an Anaheim, banana pepper plant did not survive the crazy hale and wind we had earlier this summer.  Now we've reached the severe heat part of the season, and I am watering twice a day.

 And, my okra is looking promising too.

 And, my mint!  I want that whole bed full of mint.  It smells amazing and ants hate it.  David is keeping watch over the mint and he steals things when you aren't looking.  Also, a friend to the bunnies.

Grilling.

We grilled greek chicken kebabs tonight. I love Martha Stewart and I subscribe to her food magazine Everyday Food.  We almost always find at least one thing (normally many) in each magazine that we love.  And, its one of the few magazines I actually read.

Here is our action shot.

Here is the finished product. Very romantic with the soft focus...

I made some rice on the side with butter and paprika, which goes well with these.  The yogurt mint sauce is really good too.

Adventures in Cooking

Kris and I cook a lot.  We try to cook at least three times a week.  I was thinking about sharing our adventures here.  The other morning we made some really awesome biscuits and gravy... I have a pretty blurry photo.  We're new at taking food photos, so bear with us.

Biscuits and Sausage Gravy

Sorry for the bad photo.  I got the biscuit recipe out of Cook's Country.  They have cake flour, regular flour, and cream cheese.  They are amazing, we love them.  Plus, I get to pretend I'm back in ceramics class when I kneed the dough.  Kris normally handles the gravy and I make the biscuits, we make a good team.


Buffalo and Brie Burgers

This picture is better, thank you to Kris' iphone.  These are made with buffalo from the Oklahoma Food Coop (YUM), brie, and pickled onions (minus the onions on mine).  On the side, we made a tomato and mozzarella salad with pineapple basil from our backyard, and topped with fig balsamic vinaigrette.  Which, despite the name pineapple basil is spicy but good.  We took the recipe from Graham Elliot, in the recent magazine, MasterChef (which Kris is obsessed about), and tweaked it for us.  These were awesome!