6 Things I'm Thankful For

So I've been tagged by my wonderful knottie-mommy-to-be, and internet friend who I hope to meet up someday, Elisa. I've been pondering about this post really hard because there are so many things to be thankful for especially around the holidays but I've managed to pick my top 6 picks.
1. I'm thankful for my husband, Eric. He's my other half - he truly completes me, he's my bestest friend, he is my peanut butter and I'm the jelly! I would truly be lost without him, and I can't imagine life without him.
2. I'm thankful for my wild & crazy family. This past weekend, we had family over for a mini-get together so everyone could see our house. It really warms my heart whenever the women talk and the men congregrate together and have a great time. You give these people wine...and let me tell you it gets wild and CRAZY. ;-)
3. I'm thankful for my wonderful friends. Adrian, Monica, Alex, Armando, Liz, Mikey - helped us tremendously with our move from the apt to the house, and painting, and multiple projects with the wedding. I can't thank them enough, another Bobby Flay dinner is in the works for them! I love you Yvie, too. I wouldn't forget you! Our friends are our second family.
4. I'm thankful for my job. After being laid off from the mortgage industry, I was in a dry spell...I didn't work for 4 months or so. I had no consistent schedule, I went to the gym for 3 hours a day, I spent hours watching foodnetwork, and just planning my wedding. Yeah, I got bored after 1 month of that. My boss is awesome, the people are wonderful, it's not a stressful job, and I'm not in fear of losing my job. I love my job because I see myself here for a long time and I love working with the people here!
5. I'm thankful for my house. I still remember the day we went with our realtor to visit the house. I was very hesitant about putting a bid, there were great bones in the house, it just cost so much, I didn't think we had a chance on owning the home. The market was bad, the economy was dwindling, and I was really scared about having a mortgage payment. I just had a hard time seeing the final picture. It took me awhile, and I envisioned the Turkey potluck in the works, the joys of renovating our house, and the benefits of owning our home. I love everything about our home.
6. I'm thankful for my life. It's absolutely perfect right now, there are more things I could generally list but I'm just happy right now. The love of my life, great friends, crazy family, beautiful home, my health, and more. Life is beautiful.

And in closing, it's my turn to tag 6 others...or as many people I know that blog! lol
Stephanie - My WC sis, she's an awesome cook as well. Where do you think I found those tasty blondies recipe from?? hehe
Hiscreations - My wonderful wedding photographers, Damion & Julie. They are just the best in what they do, and they are just adorable. I love everything about them, check out their new blog...BEAUTIFUL & AWESOME!!!!!!!!!
Kara - I seriously need to fly her out here because we would have a great time! Or I need to fly out to Chicago...it will happen!!!!!
Andrea - Because you need to add something onto your blog! lol
Tori - I'm hoping to hear a peep from her since the start of their new business...I love her mini!!!!!

Kitchen Renovation 2.0 Update Part 2

We finally finished re-surfacing the kitchen cabinets prior to our party on Saturday night and we finished it maybe about 20 minutes until everyone showed up!! We aren't entirely down - we still have the backsplash to put up, and fix my broken top to my microwave. This will be the last step to our kitchen renovation, and we're taking a break until the New Year. We've done alot of renovations within the past 2 months, and we've only moved in at the end of September. We don't even remember the month of October...it's a home renovating blur. It's time to enjoy our house a bit, and I absolutely love my kitchen. It's everything I've ever wanted...and more. Thank you to my crazy, wacko husband, Eric, for making it happen!

Before pic with new paint and white cabinets:

After pic, with the new maple cabinetry:

My fave drawer in the kitchen, the secret pocket drawer for my sponge!

Here's a close-up of our hardware, I love how modern and simple they are!

Coming home to my kitchen is my favorite thing to do...I'm inspired to cook anything. Who's coming over for dinner now? YIPEE!

Good Eats Roast Turkey

Updated Picture (11/20/2012)

My group of college friends would always get together around Thanksgiving and have a Turkey potluck, it was one of the social activities that we would celebrate in our club P.A.L.S., Pan American Latino Society. I always remembered how great it was to all gather, bring different yummy foods, and hang out with our friends. We continued the gatherings after college, and this year was our 3rd Annual Turkey Potluck as college graduates. The past 2 years we have celebrated it in our 1 bedroom apartment with about 20 or so people, we did the same this year...but in our house!!

It was really wonderful having everyone come over and celebrate our early Thanksgiving potluck dinner, and seeing everyone together under one roof. Most of us have moved back home, or work too much that we rarely see each other. The last time I think we were all together was our wedding. My good friend/bridesmaid, Yvette, had flown down from San Francisco to be with us. Jeremy, another good friend, had been evacuated from his place in Santa Barbara from the crazy fires and was in town to celebrate our potluck and it was also his birthday that same night! My youngest sister, Sasha, and her twins came up to celebrate as well. Everyone brought good food, and we had a great range of desserts...and the wine kept pouring!I had the lovely task of cooking the turkey. This was my 3rd year making it, and about my 4th time making the turkey. This time I went bigger, and bought a 22 pound turkey instead of my usual 16 pound turkey. I love brining a turkey, it gives so much flavor and it's so juicy. The turkey is never dry!

It took a little longer than I thought...also in part because we had just finished our kitchen project minutes before everyone showed up - so I started cooking late. Here's my turkey recipe, and some updated kitchen pics! I had to increase the ingredients a bit, but I highly recommend this recipe, and sticking exactly to the recipe. The bigger the turkey, it is harder to cook - 16 pound turkey is the perfect amount...I just went crazy going with the big bird!

Good Eats Roast Turkey
Adapted from Alton Brown
Ingredients:
1 (14 to 16 pound) frozen young turkey
For the brine:
1 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 gallon vegetable stock
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
1/2 tablespoon whole allspice
1/2 tablespoon candied ginger
1 gallon iced water
Aromatics:
1 red apple, sliced
1/2 onion, sliced
1 cinnamon stick
1 cup water
4 sprigs rosemary
6 leaves sage
Canola oil

Directions:
1. Combine all brine ingredients, except ice water, in a stockpot, and bring to a boil. Stir to dissolve solids, then remove from heat, cool to room temperature, and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled. *Sidenote, please do this at least 3 to 4 hours before you brine the turkey.*
2. Early on the day of cooking, (or late the night before) combine the brine and ice water in a clean 5 gallon bucket. *I use the orange Homer bucket from Home Depot* Place thawed turkey breast side down in brine, cover, and refrigerate or set in cool area for 6 hours. Turn turkey over once, halfway through brining.*Be careful when you flip the bird, you might splash the brine everywhere.*
3. A few minutes before roasting, heat oven to 500 degrees. *YES, please do this at 500 degrees!!* Combine the apple, onion, cinnamon stick, and water in a microwave safe dish and microwave on high for 5 minutes.
4. Remove bird from brine and rinse inside and out with cold water. Discard brine.
5. Place bird on roasting rack inside roasting pan and pat dry with paper towels. Add steeped aromatics to cavity along with rosemary and sage. Tuck back wings and coat whole bird liberally with canola oil. *I used a brush to coat the canola oil, and inside the turkey skin as well.*
6. Prepare the turkey cape, prepare a huge piece of aluminum foil and cover the top part as a triangle, it will resemble a turkey cape. Mold it to fit, and set this aside.
7. Roast the lowest level of the oven at 500 degrees F. for 30 minutes. *It gives the beautiful glowing roasted color for the turkey.* Remove from the oven and cover breast with the turkey aluminum cape, insert probe thermometer into thickest part of the breast and return to oven, reducing oven temperature to 350 degrees F. Set meat thermometer alarm (if available, and I highly recommend you get this one I love this one because it talks to me and lets me know how much longer I have let until my set temp.* A 14 to 16 pound bird should require a total of 2 to 2 1/2 hours of roasting.
8. Take the turkey out at 160, and it will continue to cook to 170 when you let it rest loosely covered for about 15 minutes before carving.
(We were fighting in front of everyone on which fork to hold the turkey down, Eric is laughing at me, and I'm trying to tell him to listen to me, Monica is in the background trying not to get in the middle of us arguing).

Afterthoughts: Alton Brown has the video on how to brine the turkey on foodnetwork.com, and explains the science of this all. It's the best turkey I have ever had, and I also make the gravy that he suggests as well. This turkey recipe was the turning point of my cooking skills, after cooking a turkey for the first potluck back in Nov. 2005, I realized that I could make anything. Alton Brown was the source of my inspiration, and I'm a better cook because of him!

More pics:

Super cute couple, Liz & Mikey...they always ham it up for the camera!

















Poor Marlon, he had a 2 hour detour from his house. The freeways were closed due to the wild fires we had surrounding our areas...but he still showed up with his appetite. He walked in, got his plate and was ready to eat...until he realized that the turkey was still cooking.

It was pretty funny, he thought everyone was waiting on him to eat! He had the task of bringing the utensils and his tasty quatro leches cake! Also, Liz was dying to eat some turkey. She was ready to eat my bird with the thongs!
Thanks again for everyone for celebrating our 3rd Annual turkey Potluck, it's always worth it for the fun, laughter, and good eats!

My contribution: November Tasty Tools

Kitchen Renovation 2.0 Part 1

I'm spicy!

That's how I feel about my cabinets. Eric chose a very unique color, Cayenne Pepper. He picked up a sample at Ganahl Lumber, he got Zar Ultra Max Wood Stain. My first thought, it's too red, and I'm scared we picked the wrong color. But after we painted a sample piece of venier wood and on the back of the doors. The color looked beautiful, but I was still uncertain of the color because it didn't look like a wood stain. It really looked like paint on our beautiful maple cabinet doors.

The paint takes 2 hours to dry, and I painted the 1st coat on Monday and a 2nd touch-up coat on Tuesday. The cabinet doors looked better...but I still wasn't impressed. Until last night, when I put the semi-gloss paint on the doors. I fell in love with the color choice times 1000!! The semi-gloss made a big impression, and it looks absolutely beautiful. I can't wait till we put these babies up, and finalize our hardware selections on door handles & knobs. I want satin nickel for the hardware. Let me know what you think of the color!

Before pic: 2 coats of wood stain

After: 1 coat of semi-gloss...we still need to add one more coat! It's beautiful!

Side by side comparsion, you can tell the big difference. DIY makes you appreciate everything 1000 times more.
Now....the race begins to finish this project by Friday night. We're hosting a party on Sat night!!!!!!!!! LOL, we're crazy yes, I know. I feel like we're on Extreme Makeover...without Ty screaming at me!

Eggs in a hole

I love our weekend breakfasts, I always make something for Eric & me to enjoy versus our normal "Peanut Butter & Jelly/ Coffee breakfast "during the week. I usually make waffles in the morning on the weekends with our Cuisinart wafflemaker...it makes the best waffles. But I had a craving for french toast, and had remembered my Top Chef: The Cookbook had a recipe! This comes from the quickfire challenge where they had to make Padma breakfast.

French toast is pretty basic, but I loved this interpretation of eggs in a hole, eggs in a raft, eggs in a basket, bird's nest, or my fave "One-eyed jack." I can't wait for the new season to start tonight!

Ingredients:

**1 grapefruit**I omitted this, because I didn't have any!

4 large eggs

1/2 cup milk

2 tablespoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

4 slices multigrain toast

4 thin slices proscuitto (I didn't have any, so I substituted canadian bacon)

Maple syrup for serving.

Preparation:

1. In a wide, shallow dish, whisk together 2 of the eggs, the milk, sugar, salt & cinnamon.

2. Using a 2 1/2 inche round biscuit cutter, cut a hole in the center of each of the 2 slices of bread. Put all 4 slices of bread in the egg mixture and let them soak for 1 minute on each side.

3. In a saute pan or skillet large enough to fit in the bread slices in one layer, melt the butter over medium-high heat. When the foam subsides, carefully transfer the bread slices to the pan. Crack 1 egg into each hole in the bread slices. Cook until the bread is well browned on the bottom, about 3 minutes. Gently turn the slices over and cook until the second side is well browned, about 2 minutes.

4. Place 1 of the holeless bread slices on each of the serving plates. Lay 2 slices of the proscuitto/canadian bacon over each and top with the bread slices with egg. Drizzle with maple syrup and serve immediately.

Beef & Goat Cheese Raviolos

Adapted by Rocco's Real Life Recipes

One of my fave hottie chefs is Rocco Dispirito, and I recently bought this book off Amazon because I was looking for a variety of recipes that would be fast and simple. This book definitely has plenty of good meals to make, some take maybe 30 minutes or longer. He breaks it down for the simplest chef, by cookware, ingredients, and time. Eric & I really enjoyed this meal, it was a nice change from the typical pasta dishes. I made this because Rocco used to work for Tom Coliccho, and this is one of the dishes he learned while working for him. Tom Coliccho is another fave chef of mine because of the show "Top Chef" and his restaurant Craftsteak is on my top restaurant list that I'm dying to visit!

Serves 4

Ingredients:

8 lasagna noodles, preferably fresh

7 tablespoons EVOO

1 medium onion, diced

2 teaspoons garlic paste or 3 large cloves garlic, chopped

1 1/2 pounds ground beef

2 1/2 tablespoons chopped fresh oregano or 1 1/2 tablespoons dried oregano

Salt & freshly ground pepper to taste

2 medium ripe tomatoes, cut into bite-size pieces

1 11-ounce log goat cheese

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

**Optional**2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil

Preparation:

1. Cook lasagna noodles according to package directions.

2. Meanwhile, heat 4 tablespoons of the EVOO in a very large saute pan over medium heat. Add the onion and saute, stirring often, for about 2 minutes. Add the garlic and saute 1 minute more. Add the beef, stirring to break into small chunks. (If using dried oregano, add 1 tablespoon at this stage.)

3. Season meat with salt and pepper and cook until the beef is just cooked through. Gently toss in the tomatoes and cheese (if using fresh oregano add tablespoons here**add fresh basil), and cook until mixture is hot throughout, about 2 minutes.

4. In a small bowl, whisk vinegar with remaining EVOO and remaining fresh or dried oregano, and season to taste with salt & pepper.

5. Lay down one lasagna noodle on each plate and divide the beef mixture over the noodles. Top off each plate with one more noodle.

6. Drizzle the vinaigrette over the raviolos and serve!!

Enjoy!

Kitchen Renovation 1.0

Just when I thought the house updates were over...we went ahead with the project of re-surfacing the kitchen cabinets. Friday afternoon we started on our task of by removing the old kitchen cabinets, and of course Eric and I are fixing the mistakes in the kitchen. At first, I only thought we had to take off the cabinet doors and not unpack everything that was put away...think again. I had to move everything in the kitchen BACK into boxes, put away all my precious wine glasses, take off the shelving paper that my mom, sister and cousin helped put up. I scraped off the gunk, and primed the insides of all the shelves. Painting inside little cabinets is not an easy task, and I had paint marks everywhere on my clothes!

Here's the work so far, my kitchen is out of service until Wednesday.

Eric worked on the tacking of the wood venier. We're keeping the original wood but covering it up with the wood veniers. I feel like we're cheating...but this project is half the cost if we were to demolish the entire kitchen and get a new one. Even though this project seems a little lengthy and time-consuming, I think it will be well worth it! After I was finished with priming the cabinets, I began staining the new maple cabinets. We chose the perfect stain, cayenne pepper! It is the perfect blend of red and dark wood color that we wanted. I'll have to take a picture later to show the color, the redness of the stain will bring such a warmth to the kitchen. I'm sooooo excited about it! The glass backsplash that I've already picked out will work out perfectly, I'm jumping up and down in excitement about it!

The wood venier looks as if we had put new cabinets in...I can't wait to see the wood stain on our new cabinetry!

Adrian came over and helped out tremendously. Adrian's dad had given us his old drill press machine, and it was a gift from heaven. It helped drill the perfect holes for our hinges. The guys finished in less than 2 hours for 24 drawers! Look at the boys in our make-shift workshop!

Here's a sample of our maple cabinets, this is a classic style that I love!Let's hope this project goes smoothly! I'll post the after pics once we're done!

Kitchen 1.0 & House

Here are some recent pics of the house...it's still a working draft. But we have accomplished many DIY projects, that our house is starting to feel like "our home." I love my red accents in the kitchen, it helps accent against the black tile countertops. We aren't finished in the kitchen yet. We are resurfacing the kitchen cabinents this weekend. We are taking out all the white cabinentry and putting in new maple cabinentry . No more black and white kitchen, we're taking it back to the wood!!! Let me know what you think about it!

We got the butcher block kitchen island from Ikea, I love it because it's got these shocks for the drawers. If you tried to slam them in, you couldn't because it closes it gently....it's the coolest thing ever!! My KA mixer is my best friend, I couldn't hide her!

No more bright yellow paint, we went with a brown taupe, it sets a nice warm tone to the kitchen. We added

the kitchen island, and I found the bar stools on craigslist. I'm using a photo stand for my "Top Chef"

cookbook, I love it!! I really feel like a chef in this kitchen, cooking is my passion!

Eric took out the ugly fluroscent lights and put in recessed lighting, it makes a big difference in the kitchen!

Here's our foyer, I love this wine artwork that I found at Linens-n-Things during the start of their liquidation sales. I found the foyer table on craigslist.

Here's our fireplace, the white paint didn't accent the living room like we wanted. We found this great granite texture paint, and added some sparkly crystals to the paint, it sparkles and it looks like bricks! I love our fireplace!

Here's our living room set up so far...it's pretty bare but enough room to play Wii! When I can, I play Wii Fit in the living room, and set up my yoga mat! hehe, we have new living room furniture coming to us by the end of the month. We got espresso brown leather recliner sofa & loveseat. I can't wait to have it in our living room!! This futon will be set up in the office.

Our master bedroom...our bed looks so small in here. Eric will build a gigantic leather-ish headboard to compliment our bed & furniture...I can't wait to see how that DIY project turns out!! The faux wood blinds compliment the paint as well, I really wanted curtains...but the wood blinds will suffice for now.