Tiana, Our Fur Baby!

Tiana the week before we brought her home

 

 

 

 

 

Jerrod and I adopted a black lab puppy on May 29. She was 8 weeks old then and only weighed 10.3 pounds! She now weighs 32 pounds at 4- months and has finished all of her puppy shots.

Her favorite hobbies are playing with her boyfriend Presley, a brown lab that lives in our apartment complex, chasing her tail, playing fetch with her ball, eating ice and frozen fruit and vegetable ice cubes we make her, attacking her mom and dad with her tongue, and anything that involves water, including sneak attacks in the shower. 

We had quite an adventure getting her comfortable with being left home alone, but she has now decided that she doesn't actually hate her kennel, we call it her "box", so that's nice because we get to have a life again.

I got my wisdom teeth taken out today, but as soon as I feel 100% again we are going to take her out to Chatfield lake so she can play in the water. She is proving to be a great "training kid" for us. We are enjoying watching her grow and learning together.  We are really excited at the thought of buying a house (goal is next summer) so she will have a yard to play in and we won't have to take her down stairs every time she needs to go outside. We may even get a buddy for her when that happens! If any of our Denver area friends want to go on puppy play dates let us know! She loves to play with every dog she's ever met.

The video below is of her playing in the sprinklers on our walk the other night, like I said, she LOVES water. Sorry it's sideways I couldn't figure out how to rotate it!

Love,

Danielle

Meatless Mondays

Jerrod and I have gotten in to a habit of doing meatless Mondays. We do this mostly because it gives us an opportunity to experience with new and different foods, it saves a little money, and it doesn't hurt that we're helping the environment a little bit. One of our most favorite meatless Monday recipes is homemade black bean burgers. These have amazing flavor, all kinds of nutritious vegetables, and make great left overs for breakfast or lunch. 

Last Sunday I made 20 burger patties so that I could freeze them and easily resort to that instead of an overly processed lean cuisine when I get in a pinch. I hope you like them as much as we do! This recipe comes to you from Americas Test Kitchen Healthy Family Cookbook

Black Bean Burgers with Corn and Chipotle

2 slices high quality white sandwich bread torn into pieces (we actually use 2 full whole wheat sandwich things and it seems to turn out just fine!)

2 (15 oz) cans black beans rinsed and drained

2 large eggs

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground chipotle pepper

1 red bell pepper stemmed, seeded, and chopped fine

1/4 cup minced fresh cilantro

1 shallot minced

3/4 cup canned corn, patted dry

1. Adjust an oven rack to the middle and heat the oven to 350 degrees. Pulse the bread in a food processor to course crumbs. Spread crumbs over a rimmed baking sheet and bake, stirring occasionally until golden brown and dry, 10-12 minutes. Let cool.

2. Place 2.5 cups of the beans in a large bowl and mash them with a potato masher until mostly smooth (we use our hands actually). In a seperate bowl whisk eggs, 1 tbsp of the oil cumin, salt, and chipotle powder together.

3. Stir the egg mixture, toasted breadcrumbs, remaining 1/2 cup of beans, bell pepper, cilantro, and shallot into the mashed beans until just combined. Divide mixture into 6 equal portions about 1/2 cup each and lightly pack into 1 inch think patties.

4. heat 1 tbsp oil in a skillet over medium heat. Carefully lay half of the patties in the skillet and cook until well browned on both sides, 8-10 minutes.

5. Transfer the burgers to the plate and tent loosely. Return skillet to medium heat and repeat with remaining oil and patties.

This recipe will create 6 patties, we serve these either bun-less or with a sandwich thin. Favorite toppings include sprouts, tomatoes, hummus (homemade), avocado, mustard, etc. They are also good in the morning with some scrambled eggs.

I hope you will try these and enjoy them as much as we do! I know I could buy these in the store but I just love knowing exactly what is in the food I'm eating! More to come.

Love,

Danielle

It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time!

Over the past few years and months Jerrod and I have been making a real effort to go more "raw" and "natural" with our eating habits. I can't remember the last time I bought a frozen dinner, it's just as easy to intentionally make extra servings at dinner and use them through out the week in place of these. Part of this decision for me was from a weightloss perspective, but part of it is because it's kind of weird that we put all kinds of things in our body that we have no idea what they are, or even how to say them!

Some of the things we have started regularly making at home include hummus, whole wheat bread, sherbet or frozen yogurt, fruit and vegetable juice and fresh juice popsicles, black bean burgers, and peanut butter!

Yesterday we decided that we would make a "sampler pack" of nut butters for my uncle for his birthday. But then we thought it would be fun to make a set for my parents and grandparents too. We made a traditional creamy peanut butter, a cinnamon cashew butter, a roasted almond butter, and a  dark chocolate peanut butter. This sounds really fancy and complicated but it's actually incredibly simple!

To begin you will need a food processor and what ever kind of nuts you are using. If you want to roast the nuts ahead of time you will do this on a cookie sheet at 400 degrees for about ten minutes. We used around 3-4 cups of nuts for each batch and wound up with around 2 cups of paste. All you need to do now is place the nuts into a high powered food processor (your magic bullet will work too, but not as fast or well), and turn it on. You will find that at first you will have just nut dust, then it will start to clump and you will need to scrape the sides of the processor down, and finally it will liquify. This whole process is very noisy, so don't try to do this if you have family who is sleeping!

What you add to each batch will depend on the type of nut, and how oily it is by itself. For our almond butter we did not need to add any additional oil, it is just straight almonds. The peanut butter has. about 2 tablespoons of peanut oil and a half of a teaspoon of salt. The cashew butter has around 2 tablespoons of peanut oil and a bunch of cinnamon (to taste). You could also use vanilla, honey, sugar, or anything else. The dark chocolate peanut butter is of course the "worst" for you, but incredibly delicious. You begin by processing the peanuts to a liquid, then add half a cup of dark chocolate cocoa powder, one and a quarter cups of powdered sugar, three tablespoons peanut oil, and a quarter tablespoon salt to the processor and turn on until they are properly blended.

We bought the little jars at bed bath and beyond, we were looking for empty baby food jars which surprisingly Babies 'R Us does not sell. You could probably find small glass jars in a variety of stores.

The reviews are still out from our family but we had fun making them!

Homemade Thai Vegetable Pizza

One of our most favorite wedding presents (or combination of presents) is our bread maker, pizza stone, and pizza paddle. Now I will willingly admit that I was not initially all that amped about bread maker. Having homemade fresh bread hanging around all the time isn't ideal for a carbaholic like myself, but as it turns out I love being able to make our own whole wheat pizza dough with fresh ingredients and no preservatives! We use the pizza dough with all kinds of combination of toppings, yum! 

Whole Wheat Pizza Dough 

1 1/3 cups water

2 tablespoons olive oil 

3/4 teaspoon salt  

2 cups all-purpose flour  

2 cups whole wheat flour  

2 teaspoons yeast  

 

Simply place the ingredients in the machine in the order your bread machine recommends and set to dough cycle. We actually split the dough in half and make two thin crusts instead of one thicker crust. The dough freezes really well so we usually freeze the remaining half for another pizza!

Thai Style Veggie Pizza

1 whole wheat pizza crust

1 cup sliced fresh shitake mushrooms

2/3 cup fresh pea pods cut into thin strips

1/4 cup sliced green onion

1/4 cup shredded  carrot 

1/4 cup bottled peanut sauce

2 tablespoons chopped peanuts 

2 tablespoons fresh cilantro leaves

Roll the whole wheat dough until it is about 12 inches in diameter, you will want to poke the rolled dough with a fork multiple times to avoid the pizza becoming a giant bubble. Heat a pizza stone in the oven at 500 degrees for at least 30 minutes. 

Lightly coat a nonstick skillet with cooking spray, preheat over medium heat. Add mushrooms, pea pods, carrots and green onions to skillet. (I also added sliced celery and a pre-sliced mix of carrots, broccoli, and cabbage. We love vegetables so I used more of everything than the recipe calls for.) Cook for around 2 minutes of until just tender. 

Carefully spread the peanut sauce over the rolled dough and top with hot vegetable mixture. (No, there is no cheese on this pizza, but I promise you won't miss it, even Jerrod didn't!) Very carefully transfer the pizza to the stone using the pizza paddle. I am still working on the best way to do this with out making a huge mess. I have found that four hands is a huge help in this, but it can be done with two, just expect some repair work to be done after you transfer the pizza! Bake for 8-10 minutes or until the crust is cooked through. Sprinkle with peanuts and cilantro leaves. 

Makes 4 servings. 286 calories, 8g fat, 12g protein, 46g carbohydrate, 8g fiber, 598g sodium. 

We loved this recipe! It was different from the typical italian or veggie pizza we have been making! And suprisingly you really don't wish that there was cheese. If you don't have a bread maker or don't want to make your own dough you can easily use a whole wheat boboli pizza, you will want to cook the shell seperately for a few minutes before adding the topping. 

I hope you enjoy it as much as we did! If you try it let me know if you liked it!

Lots of Love,

Danielle

So This is What Married People Do...

Hello World!

So as I have watched so many of my friends get married in the past few months it seems that the new thing to do is to get married and start a blog. So here goes nothing!

Jerrod and I have been enjoying the last 6 weeks as "man and wife" more than I could have imagined. Our wedding day was absolutely beautiful, it was so amazing to have all of our friends and family in one place, and all of the long hours paid off. We had so much fun dancing the night away, and on our honeymoon in Puerta Vallarta. We went snorkeling, kayaking, boogie boarding, and on a really fun excursion called "Ritmos de la Noche" or "Rhythms of the Night" where we took an hour long boat ride to a secluded cove that was only lit by candles and torches. Once we arrived we watched a Cirque du Solei style show in a beautiful outdoor natural amphitheater and indulged in an amazing buffet where we ate and drank way too much!

Once the honeymoon was over it was time for "real life" to begin. I have officially begun my work as a systems integration engineer at United Launch Alliance and I am working on some really interesting stuff including Commercial Crew Development for NASA as the space shuttle program draws to a close. Jerrod is enjoying some time off from school this summer and has spend a lot of his time playing with our adorably rotten puppy, Tiana. 

I intend to use this blog mostly to update our friends and family on our lives as we meander through the next 5, 10, 20 years together. I will also be doing a fair amount of recipe reviews because Jerrod and I love to experiment with new and healthy homemade meals almost every night!

That's all for this one! I hope you will enjoy watching us continue to grow as we embark on this new journey together! 

Lots of Love!

Danielle