Sunday, October 30, 2011

Happy Halloween!!


Or perhaps I should say Happy Halloweiner.  That was the sign on the door at Dormont Dogs Saturday.  Let me tell you, this hot dog place is quickly becoming one of my favorite restaurants in Pittsburgh.  The first time that we were there I was blown away by how good my hot (veggie) dog was.  This was our third or fourth time back and each time the dogs have been just as good as the first ones.  I love it when that happens!  It is my experience that it is pretty rare to find a restaurant whose food is equally as delicious time after time.  Especially when the first time is so stinking good, I mean how could it ever be that good again?  Dormont Dogs is that good again!

I think that it comes down to the quality of their ingredients and the perfect assembly.  They start with a roll that is near and dear to my heart.  It is the potato roll that is used for lobster rolls in Maine.  The kind that look like a hot dog roll, but have the sides cut off.  Their rolls are always so soft and ridiculously fresh and have the perfect amount of toastiness on the outside.  Yea, I know that is not a word.  Then they have a pretty killer veggie dog.  Devin really likes the regular beef frank that he gets.  Next you can pick what kind of dog you want in terms of toppings.  They have some special dogs with silly names, two of which I always get: the Reuben and the Tennessee.  The Reuben is as you might expect topped with thousand island, kraut and melty, gooey swiss (which you all know from my Veggie Reuben post that I love).  The Tennessee is topped with BBQ sauce, crispy fried onions and melty, gooey pepper jack.  Both are outstanding.  They have tons of other varieties, and you are welcome to create your own combination.  I highly recommend taking a drive out to Dormont to hit up Dormont Dogs!



Baking:
Saturday night was the annual Halloween party at Drews.  Last year I made jello shots and got pretty sick.  This year, I made cupcakes and cookies, and got pretty sick.  Just kidding.  About getting sick.  I did make the desserts and they were delightful!

Cookies – the cookies that I made were Pumpkin Oatmeal with cranberries.  It was a super easy recipe to follow and the cookies turned out great!  Aside from the two sticks of butter, they are pretty healthy.  They called for ground cloves.  I personally do not like a lot of clove in my cookies…or in anything.  In my opinion, cloves should be put into oranges and potpourri to make things smell delicious.  (I spent a lot of time when I was younger sticking whole cloves into oranges for table arrangements at my Grams.  It looks very pretty and smells even better.)   Cloves should not be eaten.  I used pumpkin pie spice instead (which I think contains cloves, but in a reasonable, sensible amount).


And P.S. the pumpkin donut at Dunkin’ Donuts is chock full of cloves.  The iced pumpkin latté at Dunkin’ Donuts is chock full of sugar.   I have mixed feelings about Dunkin’ Donuts.  Pretty much I don’t like it.  The donuts are horrible, like really really gross, and the drinks are all sugar. I like Tim Hortons.  Correction: I love Tim Hortons.  (Please God let them still have their pumpkin donuts when I am home for Thanksgiving.)   But, unfortunately there are no Tim Hortons in Pittsburgh or in Maine (at least within a reasonable distance from the camp), just Dunkin’ Donuts.  The Dunkin’ Donuts outside of Belfast (Maine) is the reason that I kind of love the place.  It reminds me of Maine and I love anything that reminds me of Maine.   I miss Maine.  I really hope I can get this job in Maine.  Ugh.  But anyways, did you ever notice that the people at Dunkin’ Donuts always ask you if you would like extra cream and sugar in your drink?  No matter what.  It drives me bonkers.  I would ask for it when I ordered my drink in the first place if I wanted it.  What is wrong with America that the people at Dunkin’ Donuts are trained to ask you if you want more fat and sugar added into your already fat and sugar laden drink?  Ugh again.

So anyways, the cookies tasted even better today!!


Cupcakes – I mentioned these cupcakes in an earlier post.  They are Pumpkin Carrot Cupcakes with Pumpkin Cream Cheese frosting.  The recipe called for fresh pumpkin purée.  I was hoping that by fresh they meant fresh out of a can.  The cupcakes were rocking so I guess they did!  I would recommend grating your own carrot for the recipe rather than buying it pre-grated.  I think the cupcakes could have been a little bit better if the carrot was shredded finer.  The frosting was killer!  Cream cheese, butter, pumpkin and cinnamon, how could you go wrong?  I frosted the cupcakes pretty heavily, but I still had like 2 cups of frosting left over.  I wasn’t sure what to do with it so unfortunately it went in the trash.  I would recommend halving the recipe if you make these.  Another super easy recipe to make (if you use canned pumpkin of course). 




While Devin admittedly is soooo sick of pumpkin, he really enjoyed both the cookies and the cupcakes!  Go me!  I think that the party goers also enjoyed them!


I am going to be trying out a few new recipes this week so I should have some good stuff to share with you in a couple days.

Costume:
Since moving to Pittsburgh, I have had some pretty great Halloween costumes and some not so good ones.  I was an aerobics instructor (not bad), Hulk Hogan (pretty awesome), Quailman (the best), Pebbles (pretty sucky and I had swine flu), 1/3 of the three blind mice (ok, but too many jello shots).  I wanted to do better than Quailman this year, as it was going to be our last Halloween party here.  I questioned the possibility of this, because not only was my Quailman costume amazing, but I set my cape on fire at the party and that was pretty cool too (I was not harmed).  I decided that to outdo Quailman, I was going to have to be a slutty bee.  Just kidding!!  Why do girls always have to go the slutty route on Halloween?  Ugh again and again.  I was going to be a bee though, but a very specific non-slutty bee.  The bee girl from the Blind Melon, No Rain video.  Personally, I thought my costume was great!  I especially loved my tutu, even though I knocked a bunch of stuff over with it.


We get 7 trick-or-treaters on average each year.  I don’t blame these kids, have you seen the hills around our house?  I bought a 50 piece bag of chocolate.  Lets hope we get more kids this year (or not).

Happy Halloween from the girls!!


So Long!

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Birthday Boy - Part II


So Devin left for work on Tuesday at 7:30 a.m.  He returned home from work at 7:30 p.m.  Very unfortunate that his birthday fell on a Tuesday.  At least it wasn’t on Wednesday because he gets home at 11:30 p.m. on Wednesdays.  I started making his birthday dinner as soon as he left in the morning by putting the chicken in the buttermilk.  I have a picture of this, but I do not think that raw chicken floating in buttermilk is all that appetizing. 

I think rather than go chronologically through the day, I am just going to talk about each component of the meal.  It was a very complex meal to make and to have timed correctly.  It all worked out well but I don’t know if I would make it all together again.  Perhaps if I had a bigger kitchen and better appliances, including a deep fryer.

The Chicken:
I followed Emeril’s recipe for Fried Chicken.  It called for a lot of Essence (see the bottom of the recipe).  Rather than buy it, I made my own.  The recipe called for 1/4 cup in the buttermilk (along with a whole head of smashed garlic) and 1/4 cup in the flour.  It made the breading deep in color.  It was very bold in flavor.  Bam!  The chicken sat in the buttermilk until 6:30.  Then it went into the flour (in a freezer bag for easy shaking/coating) and sat on a rack for 20 minutes to rest and come up to room temperature. 

I used a whole huge thing of peanut oil in a soup pot for my fryer.  The recipe says that the most important thing for frying the chicken is a constant oil temperature.  It needed to remain between 280 and 300 degrees.  I bought a candy thermometer for this exact purpose.  I began heating up the oil slowly around 6:15 expecting to give it a half an hour to get to where I needed it.  The oil slowly approached 300 and then soared right past it to 320.  I lowered the heat to try and get it down but it was not going anywhere.  Then all of a sudden it plummeted to 270 and froze there.  I pretty much bought a thermometer to tell me how wrong my oil temperature was and that there was nothing I could do about it.  I planned dinner for 7:45, so the first batch of chicken had to go in, oil at 270 and all.


I made two batches of chicken, each were in the oil for about 16-20 minutes.  The chicken pieces were pretty small so I think that they cooked in the normal amount of time despite the oil being slightly too cold.  I didn’t take a lot of pictures of the finished chicken, in fact I took one. A picture of my piece, a breast. I was hungry, I’m sorry.


I made honey ketchup for dipping the chicken in.  Just mix together ketchup and honey in roughly a 2-1 ratio.  It is delicious with the bold flavor of the chicken!

The Biscuits:
I decided last minute to make Buttermilk Biscuits.  I had a cup of buttermilk left and I think that you are always supposed to have biscuits with fried chicken.  At least according to Colonel Sanders.  This is the second time I have made these, and it couldn’t be easier.  They taste just like Pillsbury but are so much better for you.  I dare you to try and make homemade biscuits the next time you need them.  They are seriously as simple as popping open a can.


Twice Baked Potatoes:
Twice baked potatoes are one of my favorite things.  They are not hard to make, but they take awhile, so I only tend to make them for special occasions.  If you make them, make more than you need.  Since they take so long, you might as well have some left over for dinner the next day.  I made them early and put them in the fridge, then baked them off for about 20 minutes before it was time to eat.  I made four large twice-baked potatoes.  You start by baking the potatoes like you normally would.  I clean them and then rub them in olive oil and salt.  I put them directly on the oven rack at 400 degrees until a fork goes in nicely.  Then I just let them sit and cool down.  This is important a) so you don’t burn your hands and b) so that the skin gets stronger again and you don’t bust through it when hollowing them out.


P.S. we have had a lot of toaster ovens and we always save the little baking sheets that go inside.  They are very useful.

Once cooled, cut the side out of each one of your potatoes and hollow them out.  Be careful and go slow so you don’t break through the potato skin.  Season them all up with salt and pepper.


Next mash the potato you scooped out.  I add in milk/butter/sour cream until they get to the consistency/texture/flavor that I like.  I added in a combination of sharp yellow cheddar and some extra sharp white cheddar, fresh parsley and thyme from my garden and more salt and pepper.  I scored the mixture into four and then loaded it back into the potatoes.



This is when I put them in the fridge.  Keep the pieces of potato skin that you cut off to make potato skins.


When ready, put them in the oven at about 375 to heat them through.  About 5 minutes before dinner, put more cheese on the top of each potato and on the skins and crank the heat until it is melty and delicious.


So yummy!

The Pie:
Oh my god.  Making apple pie takes soooo long.  I am telling you right now that my pie did not look amazing, but it definitely tasted amazing.  I used the Apple Pie recipe from the Joy of Baking.  I was absolutely making my own crust because I do not normally like pie crust, especially store bought crust.  This is why I generally do not like pie.  I do however like (love) the coconut cream pie from Gullifty’s that uses a coconut macaroon for its crust (I have to learn how to do that!).

The recipe started with me making the crust.  This is the two sticks of butter that went into the crust.  It had to be good with that much butter right?


The crust was actually very easy to make in my food processor.  I lost a bit of flour when I ran it (as seen below).  I was nervous that would be a problem.  I also don’t think I added quite enough ice water.  Hey, it was my first time.  You live and you learn.


Here are my two dough disks that needed to go in the fridge for an hour. 


Next I had to roll out the dough to put back in the fridge (forever).  My crust cracked.  A lot.  I think it was the ice water thing.  It didn’t come together enough.  I was bummed.


With the crust rolled out (the bottom in the pie plate, the top on a cookie sheet) and in the fridge, it was time to prepare the filling.  I used 7 golden delicious apples.  It took forever to prepare them.


I need the fancy peeler/corer that my mother-in-law has.


They got mixed with some sugar, cinnamon and lemon.  Then they needed to sit for a few hours at room temperature.  The apples were supposed to create 1/2 cup of liquid.  I did not see that happening, but to my pleasant surprise, it did!  The apples then needed to drain for 30 minutes.  I took the liquid and put it in a small saucepan with some butter and boiled it down until it was syrupy and only about 1/3 of a cup remained.  That got mixed back in with the apples and then finally it all got put into the pie crust.


I put on my puzzle pieced together top and cut the slits.




It baked for about 45 minutes.  I had to put foil around the outside of the crust to prevent it from burning about 25 minutes in.  It baked kind of funny and had weird spotting on top.  Hence, the not looking so amazing.  I think that is because I have the worst oven in the world.  


But, like I said, it did taste amazing.  Especially when paired with Hagen Daaz Five Vanilla Bean Ice Cream (our favorite).



Baking a pie takes forever.  It was worth it though because it was really tasty.  I even liked the crust!  I have a piece of crust left over in my fridge to make a galette one of these days.  

By the way, the pie tastes even better on days 2 and 3!

This dinner was intense and took all day to prepare, but it was worth it!  I think Devin enjoyed the two hours we spent together and all the hard work that went into his Birthday meal! 

Here are the girls waiting for their dad to come home and dinner to be served.


So Long!

Birthday Boy - Part I

Da na na na na na. You say it’s your birthday.
Da na na na na na. It’s my birthday too yea!

I have very fond memories of the (scary) motorized animals at Major Magics performing that song.  I don’t believe that I ever went to Major Magics for my birthday, but it was always someone’s birthday at Major Magics.  My memories are so fond that I decided to learn how to play the song (by the Beatles) on the piano (badly) for Devin on Tuesday.  Let me just tell you, he loved it!  Oh and when I played “Happy Birthday” and asked Devin to sing along with me, he loved that too!

Side Note:  I cannot actually play the piano.  At least not well. Though I am (was) Devin’s best student.  I played the violin so I can read music on the treble clef, but the bass clef is a whole other (sad) situation.  So is getting my left hand to play a rhythm (besides whole and half notes) different from my right hand.  I decided last October to learn how to play the piano.   I was slowly achieving my goal one Christmas song at a time.  I really just want to know how to play the piano to lead a Christmas sing-a-long with my family. I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!  I learned a bunch of tunes, like Silent Night and Feliz Navidad (my personal favorite).  Guess what? I didn’t play a single note last Christmas.  I guess I was too embarrassed and then I hadn't really touched the piano since then (not my best moment).  This October rolls around and luckily after a quick review, I can play all of the songs that I learned last year.  I will play them this Christmas.  You mark my word.

Ok, so back to the birthday boy.  Devin turned 28 on Tuesday.  I can hardly believe we are approaching 30.  When I turn 30, I will have been together with Devin for half of my life.  I think that is pretty amazing!  How many people do you know that can say that?

Rather than everyone sending Devin money or gift cards this year, I orchestrated/organized the purchase of one big gift that he has been wanting for a long time:  a Rancilio Silvia espresso machine.  Devin makes espresso every morning and his old machine was quickly crapping out.  While these machines are expensive, he uses it enough to justify the money and more importantly, he deserves it.

Devin knew about the present, but we both sort of pretended that he didn’t.  When we got home one day, the giant box was sitting at our front door.  I quickly brought it upstairs, unloaded the machine in my closest and threw the shipping box downstairs.  Devin would make comments like “there is a big empty box downstairs that says Rancilio.”  Then I would reply “wow that’s weird” or “I don’t know what you are talking about.”  I also yelled several times “don’t go in my closet!”  Clearly, I am not at all obvious.  Clearly.  Devin also would make comments like “I really only have some free time on Sunday to spend setting anything up that might need setting up.”  I knew he was right.  In fact on Tuesday he worked 12 hours.  Some birthday.  So, I gave Devin his birthday present on Sunday.  I wanted him to be able to set it up and use it on the morning of his birthday (and Monday too I guess).

Here is the unveiling –

The machine was refurbished.  Which I guess means that it doesn’t come in a box, just 3 inches of bubble wrap.  I absolutely LOVE wrapping presents!  Just ask my family, my Christmas presents are bea-u-tiful!  I however HATE wrapping irregularly shaped gifts, like ones already wrapped in 3 inches of bubble wrap.  So, I wrapped the manual.

Happy Birthday!

Devin had no idea…

…that it didn’t come in a box.




The best I could do was put a bow around it.


It took awhile to get through the bubble wrap.


Such a handsome birthday boy by the way.

Getting Close


Yea!!

  
Thank god it fit under the counter!  So pretty!


Devin would like me to thank his parents, Aaron and Tanya, my mom, Tony, and Liv, my Dad and Bridget, and my Gram and Cal for his fantastic birthday present.

Stay Tuned: birthday food (Birthday Boy - Part II) coming up next!

So Long!

Monday, October 24, 2011

Taters

I watched the Lord of the Rings Trilogy for the first time maybe 6 months ago.  I was very apprehensive, I don't really know why, I just didn't think I would like it.  In all actuality, I thought they would be scary and I hate scary movies.  Devin insisted I watch them.  Well, I sort of agreed to it.  It was really more of a compromise.  One LOTR movie for one Twilight movie.  I am thinking I can bargain Breaking Dawn Part I for The Hobbit.  I am a little nervous about what I am going to have to watch for Part II since we are out of LOTR.  

Point of the story.  Quite often when I think of potatoes, I hear Samwise Gamgee say "What we need is a few good taters" and then Gollum replies "What is taters, precious? What is taters?"  Then Sam yells "PO-TAY-TOES!"  I frequently say "tater" like I had been raised on the Shire.  I also laugh extremely hard (read: way too hard) at LOTR jokes because I never got them before.  I guess I feel like I am making up for all of the lost time.  I think I am going to read the books.  I need a new series to read.

Last night we had taters.  Sweet taters to be exact.  This is a (highly modified) recipe that Kevin and Jenny introduced to me last year.  It is from Smitten Kitchen and the original recipe is for Sweet Potatoes with Pecans and Goat Cheese.  I changed up this recipe quite a bit.  First off, I used white sweet potatoes because I couldn't find the normal(?) kind at Whole Foods.  They were very tasty.  Maybe not quite as sweet as a normal one.  Speaking of finding sweet potatoes.  I cannot figure out (or ever remember) the difference between a sweet potato and a yam.  And a jewel yam.  I know they are different, they are not really even closely related, but they look alike, and I think can be used interchangeably???  All I know is that I can only ever find yams and I am scared to use a yam in place of a sweet potato.

Other Changes:
I cooked up the celery and shallot for the topping, keeping a little crunch.  I toasted the pecans.  I used balsamic in place of the red wine vinegar and yellow mustard in place of the dijon.  Last, I used feta instead of goat cheese.  Devin had an unfortunate goat cheese incident about a year ago and now we do not speak of goat cheese.  It's a bummer too, because I love it!  I think the feta works nice here though.  I prefer the crumble of feta for this dish to the creaminess of most goat cheeses.

I made a quick salad on the side with some Good Seasons Italian Dressing.  This is by far my favorite dressing in the world.  I grew up on it.  One of my absolute favorite things to eat is "Chics and Cukes" (chic peas and cucumbers) with Good Seasons.  My Dad would leave out the chics and add in fresh tomato and onion, but I like my version better.  Either way, its all Good (Seasons).

Here is the deconstructed meal:


Here is the constructed meal:


I swear there are potato medallions under there.  It was probably too much (tasty, tasty) topping.

On another note, I am getting geared up for my Fried Chicken/Apple Pie day tomorrow.  There are a lot of steps that go into making a pie.  A lot of "do it and then wait for 3 hours to do the next one" steps.  Good thing I read through the instructions today and didn't try to start making the pie at 4 p.m. tomorrow.  Good thing I get up at the ass crack of dawn and can get this started nice and early.  I also need to get my chicken swimming in buttermilk pretty early.  Maybe I should make a checklist.  I know I am going to forget something.  Also on the menu: roasted asparagus and twice baked taters.  Oops, potatoes!

So Long!


Saturday, October 22, 2011

BBQ Seitan Tacos

This is another one of my vegetarian recipes. In fact, it is Devin's absolute favorite and certainly one of mine.  I feel like I am giving you two of my best recipes right out of the gate.  I hope I can come up with some good ones for a later date to keep you wanting to read my blog.

Anywho, this recipe involves seitan which is a wheat protein.  It is delicious and nutritious but just cries to have BBQ sauce put on it.  When you put the two together, it is pretty damn amazing!  Oh then when you put it in a taco shell with cheddar cheese it is really damn amazing!

Here is the rundown -

Seitan tends to come in strips and cubes.  I buy the strips.  Throw it in a pan over medium high heat with some olive oil.


I spend a lot of time breaking it up into small bits and getting it nice and browned.  Then, I turn the heat down to low and add in the BBQ sauce.  You do not need that much.  Just enough to coat it.


<<Warning>> If the pan is too hot when you put the sauce on, it splatters all over your stove and you may not be lucky enough to have a husband that will scrub it off for you (not without complaints of course).

Mix it all up, and you should get something like this:


I think it looks delicious, but then again, I know what it tastes like.  I am thinking that you may think it looks kind of gross.  What do you think?  I hope that you can work through the appearance.

I like to use hard shells for the tacos.  I had tacos a lot growing up, and always used hard shells.  I really only like hard shells.  They are still all I get at Mighty Taco.  I don't know why we never heated the shells up in the oven like the package says to, but let me tell you, you absolutely need to do it!  It brings out all the flavors and oils, and even more importantly, it keeps the bottoms from blowing out upon first bite.  Every hard shell is different, just read the package for instructions.  It is usually something like 3 minutes at 400 or 6 minutes at 325.

I like to put the cheese on the bottom so that between the warm shell and the hot seitan, it gets all melty.  Then we put on some lettuce and sour cream and devour.


They really are that good!  Be adventurous, try some seitan!

So Long!

Doodlehead

Hey Everyone, Happy Weekend!

I already feel like a bad blogger.  I am behind on sharing things with you.  This post will mostly be about a few recipes that I tried this week, and a little teaser to get you excited for next week.

First up, some guac.  I made fresh guacamole for the first time this week.  I sort of followed an Alton Brown recipe and sort of just threw a bunch of stuff in a bowl.  I have this weird relationship with guac.  I do not like raw tomatoes, raw onions or raw garlic, but they all go into fresh guacamole.  Somehow it works and I like it; but I just could not bring myself to put it all in my guac, at least not in the amount/form suggested in most recipes.

Here is what I mixed up:

3 avocados [chopped]
1 (small) clove of garlic [minced]
1 green onion [minced]
1 (small) vine-ripened tomato (juices/seeds squeezed out) [chopped]
1 lime
some cumin
some salt
some pepper
some cayenne pepper
splash of Franks

It turned out pretty well.  We both liked it.  I think the key is to just keep trying it until you get the flavor you like.

I made guacamole because I was making (Vegetarian) Tortilla Soup.  I halved the recipe and it still made way too much soup for Devin and me.  I could only find fire roasted tomatoes with green chiles, so that is what I used.  If anything, it added more flavor.  We topped the soup with homemade tortilla strips, (slice up corn tortillas into thin strips and fry in veggie oil for about 45 sec) cheddar cheese, and Franks (of course).  Once the soup cooled down a bit, it was very tasty; not blow you away good, but a really nice soup for a chilly day.


I am definitely going to need to get some fancy soup bowls if I am going to keep taking pictures for this blog.

The next day I made some BBQ Seitan Tacos.  This is one of my recipes so I will make a separate post for it when I finish this up.

PUMPKIN OBSESSION CONTINUED....

On Friday I was looking at my food blogs when I saw a recipe for Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Pancakes from A Cozy Kitchen.  I exclaimed "Yep!" These were on deck for Saturday morning breakfast.   When telling Devin the story he said I should have gone "Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep" like Dave Hester from Storage Wars; then he called me a Pumpkin Slut.

Today is Saturday and this morning I made these pancakes.  They were so yummy, especially with some maple syrup.   Devin really liked them, even though he told me last week that he wasn't going to eat anything more with pumpkin in it (hopefully he changes his mind for when I make the carrot/pumpkin cupcakes later this week). My pancakes didn't seem as fluffy as the pancakes in the pictures on the blog, I think maybe I didn't shake the buttermilk enough.  Also, I didn't have cloves and ginger, so I used a teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice in place of those and the nutmeg.  I would definitely make these again!  I even have a few left in the fridge for tomorrow.


If I am a pumpkin slut, Devin is a coffee slut.  We only go to a few coffee places around Pittsburgh that are known as 3rd wave coffee shops.  I will tell you more about this another time.  Anyways, we went to Voluto this morning for coffee.  I love the homemade syrups that Voluto makes.  Their vanilla lattes are to die for, the cinnamon ones are pretty great too!  Today, I was so anxious to finally try their pumpkin latte.


It was very good, but not really "pumpkiny" enough for me.  By the way, I had my last pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks yesterday.  It was just as good as the first four, but I did not feel so great after this one.  Needless to say, I am done with those.  I hear that Dunkin' Donuts has a pretty good one.  I may try that next.


So, I have naturally wavy hair that is pretty wild and unmanageable on good days.  I am told that I am very lucky to have wavy hair.  I would agree on most days.  I can just spray a little gel in it and I'm done.  No blow dryer, no curling iron, no straightener.  It saves a lot of precious time and energy, especially in the morning.  I used to go through all of this from about 6th grade - 10th grade.  All those years I just thought I had ugly frizzy hair.  I would get up at 5:30 to shower, blow dry my hair and curl it.  It was awful.  Then one day, I discovered that if I just sprayed some stuff in it, it would wave up on its own a pretty good amount.  I haven't straightened my hair since (except on a few Halloweens if the costume called for it...Hulk Hogan).

My hair has pretty much always been some long length between shoulder and lower back.  This past July, I was so sick of it that I cut it all off.  Not all of it, but like at least a foot.  Now I have cute, short, wavy hair that I love!!  Unfortunately, when I shower in the evenings, even if it is at like 5:00, I have this problem when I sleep where the hair on the very top of my head goes crazy all over.  Devin has nicknamed this "Doodlehead."  Yesterday I was Doodlehead.  Have a look:


Kind of scary.  I just go with it.  Even when I run errands all day.

Next Tuesday is my amazing coffee slut husband's 28th birthday.  He decided that he wanted fried chicken and an apple pie.  I have never made either.  In fact, I have never made a pie.  For how much I bake, it is hard to believe that I have never made a pie, but its the truth!  I am a little scared/nervous, but very excited for the challenge.  So tune in next week to find out how the chicken was and take part in the adventures of Abby's first pie.

Last but not least, some more pictures of our beautiful girls:

Deeley -


Janey -


Have a superb weekend!

So Long!