Hummus Anyone?

A few weeks ago, I made some hummus to test out my food processor...again.  Have you ever googled hummus recipes?  There's a ton out there but I finally found a basic hummus recipe that I worked with. 

Ingredients for success:

Rinse and strain the chick-peas before adding to the food processor.

Chop up the parsley and garlic clove and add to chick-peas.

Add freshly squeezed lemon juice to the chick-peas, parsley and garlic.

Add the tahini and some water.  Tahini is a sesame paste which was located in the international food aisle at my grocery store, however, it is sometimes found in the refrigerated section.  Puree the ingredients until smooth.  When making this hummus, I would combine it first and taste it before you add the salt.  You don't want it to be too salty.

Matt is my official taste tester.  He also considers himself a hummus aficionado.  Last year, he went on a trip to Israel and had hummus every day - which he loved!  He said this recipe came pretty close to what was served to him then.  Serve with fresh veggies, pita bread or in our case, some delicious pita chips.

Hummus
Adapted from Gourmet on Epi

Ingredients:

2 (15 1/2-ounce) cans chick peas
1/3 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
1 garlic clove, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup tahini, stirred
1/3 to 1/2 cup water
1 1/2 teaspoon salt, optional

Directions:

Rinse and strain the chick-peas and add to a food processor.  Coarsely chop the parsley and garlic and add to chick-peas.  Add lemon juice, tahini and enough water to make mixture smooth.  Add salt if necessary.

Cookies & Cream Truffles

As of lately, I have been quite interested in reading food blogs.  Yes, blogs about food.  I am actually quite amazed about how many are out there.  I have a few favorites, some of which are listed on the side of this blog.  I wish I could come up with recipes on my own, but for now, I will simply follow along.

I enjoy cooking and baking different meals but making desserts is my favorite.  There's just something about putting ingredients together that end up being the perfect end to a perfect day.

I have been eyeing a certain recipe for a couple of weeks now.  Cookies & Cream Truffles.  Need I say more?  Ingredients: Oreos (yes, a whole bag of oreos), cream cheese and chocolate.  That's it.  I wasn't planning on blogging about these so I didn't take any pictures, but after I realized how easy and delicious they were, I had to share.  Here is the end result:

These remind me of hanging out at the Coleys while dunking Oreos in milk.  The good ole' days.

The next time I make these truffles - yes, there will definitely be a next time - I will use white chocolate to drizzle on top.  You could even add food coloring to the white chocolate for a burst of color. Matt is already looking forward to the next batch and we haven't even finished this one yet!

Credit:  I got this recipe here.  Jamie Lothridge posted the recipe and is the author/creator of MyBakingAddiction.com.  I have made a few of her recipes and have loved every one of them.

Last week I made some hummus which turned out fabulously!  I have lots of pictures of the process to share so I will post them very soon!

Where's the Snow?

This past week has been an exciting one for Houston.  Earlier in the week, we were told that there was a chance of snow for Friday (yesterday).  As we got closer to the end of the week, that chance got higher and higher.  I even heard at one point that we would get up to 6 inches of snow.  Any snow for Houston is pretty amazing, but 6 inches is just crazy! 

By Thursday, the forecasters were telling us that the icy conditions could come by the afternoon, so the school (where I work) closed early and we went home.  That evening, I anxiously looked out the window every half hour or so to see if there was any snow.  Forecasters were now saying the snow was to start around midnight.  So I went to sleep.  I woke up pretty early and looked out the window.  And what did I see?  Nothing...not one bit of snow.  There was ice all over Houston, causing over 800 car accidents since Thursday night, but no snow...at least where I live. There were reports of snow flurries, but I didn't see any.  It was a little too warm, apparently. 

The positive part of all of this is we were able to take Friday off...for a "snow" day.  Matt and I rented a few movies and stayed home all day, which doesn't happen very often.  If I had the right ingredients, I'd probably be baking something like Jamie's snickers cupcakes or Jessica's snickerdoodles.  It's probably a good idea I don't have those items.  I'll stick to eating healthy stuff like salad and apples :)

I do, however, have ingredients to make homemade hummus.  I am thrilled about it.  You see, I just got a food processor for Christmas and have been wanting to make hummus ever since.  So, with all of this time on my hands, I think I will finally make some!

Merry Christmas

I know I'm a couple days late, but I figured the holiday season isn't completely over yet so from our home to yours...

Here are some fun pictures from the last few weeks.

Our new Christmas tree!

Candy cane cookies:

 Matt with his new salt and pepper shakers.  In case you didn't know, he has a thing for birds.

 

Candy.  Lots and lots of candy.

Yep, Matt got a watch.  Another one.

 Food processor? Check.

Update

Back in September Matt and I took a trip to North Carolina to see my best friend, Tara, and her husband, Morgan. While we were there, we carved pumpkins (Matt's first time!), played lots of cards, and took a trip to Wilmington. We had a blast and I can't wait to live closer to them! Here are some pictures of our trip.









As you can tell, Wilmington was gorgeous! I could definitely see myself living in a place like that one day :)

Toward the end of October, Matt's brother, Chris, came and visited us in Houston for the first time since we've moved here. We figured since Thanksgiving was so close we would have an early Thanksgiving dinner and yes, before Halloween. Trust me, I'm not the type of person that celebrates holidays way too early. I made an exception this time because I LOVE Thanksgiving dinner and thought it would be nice to have a traditional family Thanksgiving meal together (it was, me, Matt, Chris and Matt's mom).

Last year was my first time baking a turkey, which you can read about here. This time around I, again, brined the turkey before baking it and it turned out amazing! I'm thankful for the access I have to the massive amount of information on the world wide web.

Unfortunately, this is the only picture I have of the turkey, but it looked pretty much like last year's:

I'm really excited about the upcoming holidays. I'm very thankful that I will get to spend time with my wonderful family (my parents, two sisters, brother-in-law, 6 nephews and 2 nieces!) and old friends during the next couple of months.

Laura Came to Visit!

Last weekend our good friend, Laura Davis, came to visit.  Laura is on Summer break and was taking a road trip with Houston being one of her stops!  It was so much fun spending time with her and catching up.  We went to the movies and saw Inception, which I highly recommend, and ate out a ton because what else is there to do in Houston (ha! just kidding).

One night we went to an AMAZING custard place called Ritters.  If you live in Houston and haven't been there, you must!  It's on Fry Road so it may be a bit of a drive, but it's SO worth it! 

On Laura's last day in Houston, we went to NASA.  Matt and I have never been there before so we were excited to finally visit.  It was really neat getting to see all of the history. 

Matt and Laura were really excited! Ha!

They had one of the Saturn V rockets on display.  It's HUGE!  Pictures don't even do it justice.  The Saturn V rockets sent all of the Apollo missions to space. 

We also got to see Mission Control.  It's a lot smaller than I imagined.

We really enjoyed our day at Johnson Space Center.  Afterwards, we stopped at Crave on our way home for some AMAZING cupcakes.  Later we played Phase 10 and Laura dominated!  I've never played such a short game of Phase 10 before.  I don't think I've ever played such horrible hands of Phase 10 before either. Ha!

Matt and I had lots of fun spending time with Laura while she was in town and we hope to get to do it again soon!

5 Year Anniversary

Back in May, Matt and I celebrated our five year anniverary!  I can't believe it's been five years already.  It feels like just yesterday we were doing this...

On the weekend of our actual anniversary, Matt and I took a short trip to San Antonio and spent the day at Sea World.  It was so much fun seeing everything that was there!  As a complete surprise to us, Jars of Clay (one of Matt's all-time favorite bands) played the night we were there.  So fun!

A few weeks later, Matt and I went on a 7 day cruise to Jamaica, Grand Caymen and Cozumel!

One of Carnival's signature towel animals:

I don't think I was hungry for even one moment on the cruise.  So. much. food.  One night we ate dinner at the steakhouse.  Here's a picture of our fancy desserts:

In the picture below, you can barely see a red mark on Matt's left cheek (near his sideburn).  It was caused by an unfortunate accident that occurred on the ship involving a lawn chair, very strong winds, and Matt's face.  He was okay, but if you know Matt and his queasiness with blood, you can only imagine the situation.  That was accident #1. 

After being at sea for two days, we finally arrived to Jamaica!  We chose the Dunn's River Falls excursion.  Doesn't climbing a beautiful waterfall sound amazing?  We thought so too.  And so did the hundreds of other people who were climbing the waterfall with us.  Don't get me wrong, it was beautiful.  But it was also very chaotic.  There was a group of 10 of us and we all held hands pulling each other up the waterfall.  And I mean you're IN the waterfall.  Water is literally pouring all over you while you're climbing.  If you don't put your weight on your foot, the water pressure would literally push your foot off the rock.  You also couldn't always see where you were stepping.  I was right behind the guide so I would simply step where he had.  I guess Matt didn't get that memo.  At one point he stepped a little farther over than I did, but there was nothing to step on so down he went.  What's funny is that when he fell, he took me and the 10 year old whose hand he was holding down with him.  That was accident #2.  Again, he's fine, just with a few more scars. 

While on the Falls, it started pouring rain, which didn't really matter because we were already drenched.  However, that's when the lightning started.  At one point lightning struck a tree causing it to fall about 30 feet from where we were standing.  Crazy.  I think this is the point where I starting freaking out.  Literally hyperventilating.  I'm not one to freak out like that but Matt did a great job with calming me down.  I still get a nervous feeling just thinking about it.  We later found out that they closed the Falls right after we went up due to the weather.

After our full day of adventure, we returned to the ship ready for some serious relaxation.  Jamaica had a beautiful sunset.

The next day we arrived in Grand Caymen.  It was gorgeous!  I seriously think I could live on an island.  Unfortunately, the only good picture I have is below because the rest were taken on our underwater camera and none of the pictures turned out.  Bummer.  We had a much more relaxing day there.  We spent the day snorkeling at a reef and a ship wreck.

Our last shore day was at Cozumel, Mexico.  Matt's and my favorite excursion was spent in Cozumel.  We got to swim with dolphins!  It was seriously one of the most fun things I've ever done.

This is the resort that had the dolphin swim. Gorgeous. 

This is the hug.  Notice how the dolphin looks like she is smiling.  They are such sweet creatures!

This is the dolphin swim.  AMAZING!  The girls had a little bit harder of time with this because our bikini bottoms started to fall off because of the force of water!

This is the handshake. 

Matt is getting a sweet kiss.

Isn't this next one amazing?!  They did this right in front of us!

Overall, Matt and I really enjoyed the cruise, although next time we probably wouldn't take one with so many sea days.  You start to run out of things to do on the ship...especially if your bottom is so sunburned you can't be in the sun ;)