Closet

The weather is starting to change....

Shirt: Target

Pants: Nordstrom Rack

Wedges: Payless Shoe Source

Acorn Necklace: Kohl's

Cuff: I can't remember for the life of me...

Chinese Chicken Salad

I've been doing this recipe for so long, I can't even remember where it came from. Did I make it up, get it from a friend, internet? No idea. But it is super easy and quick so I make it anytime I'm a) feeling lazy b) it's hot out and I don't want to turn the oven/stove on c) I'm feeling fat d) so starving I can't wait to finish dinner so I can shovel it all in my mouth as fast as possible.

Ingredients

• 1 package of cole slaw mix
• sugar snap peas OR snow peas (either will work), chopped
• 1 can of sliced water chestnuts, chopped
• approx 4 c. cooked chicken, chopped (I usually grab a rotisserie chicken from the store and I just use the white meat)
• 4 stalks of green onion, chopped
• 1/4 c. slivered almonds
• 1 pkg ramen noodles, dry
• Asian/Chinese chicken salad dressing of your choice (I prefer either Cardini's Roasted Asian Sesame Dressing or Girard's Chinese Chicken Salad Dressing

How To Cook It

• (if you bought a rotisserie chicken) pull chicken off the bone and chop
• chop all veggies
• in a large bowl combine, cole slaw mix (leave OUT the cole slaw dressing), peas, water chestnuts, chicken, and green onion, toss
• add almonds and ramen noodles just before serving
• dress to taste 

Closet

Still hanging on to summer!!! I know I say this every Closet post but I so need a real camera...

Shirt: H&M

Shorts: H&M

Belt: Forever 21

Sandals: TJ Maxx / Steve Madden

Watch: Urban Outfitters

White Bean and Bacon Soup

I originally got this recipe from Pinterest and it was great but now the link has that 404 thing on it and I'm pretty sure over the months I have changed the recipe so I'm not reposting it - I'm sorry to whoever posted it first! Moving on, I have made this a few times now and my husband specifically requests it a lot! It is very easy to make BUT it takes a lot of time, so maybe save this one for when you get home from work early. Here we go!

Ingredients: 

• 5 cups of chicken stock
• 1-2 cans of white beans (I keep forgetting and only using 1 can and every time I think it would be heartier or creamier or something if I were to use 2)
• 1/2 a red onion, diced (the original recipe called for a whole onion but I prefer only a half)
• 4 carrots, chopped
• 1/2lb bacon, chopped (like always, I prefer pepper bacon)
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• 2 cloves of minced garlic
• 1 tbsp (or more, because I love it) fresh rosemary

How To Cook It

• in a large stock pot cook your bacon pieces until they are crispy, remove them and dab the excess grease off
• saute onion, garlic, and carrots in the bacon grease until tender, roughly 5 to 10 min
• stir in the rosemary and cook for an additional minute
• carefully pour the chicken stock into the pot and add the drained beans
• whisk in the tomato paste
• bring to a boil and then cover and let simmer for 45 min, stir occasionally
• LET THE SOUP COOL! let it cool for a bit (i.e. not still fracking hot) or this happens

• and you get burned (so basically what happened is I tried to blend steaming hot soup, well the steam was pushed up and popped the lid off and exploded all over me and burnt my hand so yeah... don't do that)
• WHEN THE SOUP IS COOLED, carefully blend the soup until it is creamy - if you are worried about the texture blend half the soup and then add as you go
• add bacon pieces and serve

Closet

OSU plays at Utah this weekend, GO BEAVS! (That top is orange, I really need to get a real camera...)

Orange Top: TJ Maxx

White Tank: Nordstrom Rack

Black Skinny Pants: Nordstrom Rack

Flats: Target (NEW!)

Watch: Urban Outfitters

Necklace: Forever 21

Stir Fry from Leftovers

So, on Sunday we had Raclette and we still had some left over vegetables so I was brain storming on ways to make a new meal and it hit me: stir fry, duh! I mean like, what is stir fry really? It's a bunch of vegetables and noodles in a pan and then you put stir fry sauce on them. Awesome. Here were the results:

Ingredients (like I said, this was from left overs so I don't really have amounts)

• asparagus
• red bell pepper
• sugar snap peas
• zucchini
• red cabbage
• mushroom
• red onion
• ham? 
• olive oil
• 2 packets of ramen noodles
• ~ 1/2 cup stir fry sauce

How To Cook It

• boil ramen noodles, drain, set aside
• on a non stick pan or wok, drizzle about 2 tbsp of olive oil
• over high heat, saute your harder veggies first: red bell pepper, asparagus, sugar snap peas
• continue adding veggies in order of time it takes them to cook, I went like this: red bell, asparagus, sugar snap, zucchini, red onion, red cabbage, mushroom
• add the noodles and soy sauce and toss together, heat through
• serve

IT'S THAT EASY! 

Closet

Wow. I wear jeans a lot more than this blog makes it look like. Here's an example and also I stole this outfit from Pinterest (here).

Floral Shirt: H&M 

Jeans: Nordstrom Rack / Vigoss Brand

Sandals: TJ Maxx / Steve Madden

Peacock Ring: gift from my sister

Close up of ring

Home Made Crunch Wraps

So I've discovered that I can't really eat fast food anymore. It just gives me "rock gut". But, I CAN re-create fast food at home and a lot of the time it turns out more delicious and nutritious than I would get anyway, win/win right?

Ingredients:

• large flout tortillas (burrito style) 
• small tostadas
• 1lb ground beef
• taco seasoning, to taste (I did about a tablespoon)
• 1 - 2 roma tomatoes, chopped
• 1/4 onion, chopped
• shredded lettuce
• chedder or a mexican blend cheese, grated
• nacho cheese sauce
• sour cream

How To Cook It: 

• brown the beef in a skillet and add taco seasoning according to directions, set aside
• microwave the flour tortillas for about 15 seconds (this is optional but it helps them to fold easier)
• lay out the flour tortilla, spoon some of the ground beef on, followed by the cheese (both nacho and grated, if you choose)
• top with the corn tostada
• spread sour cream on top of the tostada
• top that with shredded lettuce, tomato, and onion
• starting at the bottom, fold the edges of the flour tortilla up toward the center, continue until the whole thing is wrapped up (it will not cover the whole thing, that is okay)
• using a panini press, or George Forman grill (or similar), OR a non-stick frying pan cook until flour tortilla starts to brown

Let that bad boy rest for a couple minutes (because it WILL be hot, and it WILL burn your mouth), add your favorite hot sauce, and nom down! 

And enjoy, I know I did....

Closet

Aaaand it's hot again. Seriously this weather can't figure it out!

Aztec Shirt: Forever 21

White tank: H&M

Shorts: H&M

Sandals: TJ Maxx / Steve Madden

Ring: was a gift

Raclette

Oh boy, where do I begin. Piper (who just got married yesterday! YAY PIPER!) spent a year teaching in Spain. While she was over there, she was introduced to raclette. Now, raclette is a cheese and I guess this term used to refer to putting raclette cheese on a stand with a hot light over it and you would scrape a cracker across the top of the melted cheese and it was effing delicious (visual here). But when I refer to raclette, I mean the appliance. Here's what mine looks like:

So, how do you make a meal out of this magical device? First, I would recommend you invite a couple of people over to do this. I would say between 4 and 6. Two people are going to have waaayy too much food left over and once you get past six people, it kind of turns into a cluster. 

Anyway, what you do is, you gather up some delicious vegetables, meats, and cheeses (make sure your cheeses are creamy, melty kinds - you do NOT want hard cheeses for this). I like to use the following: 

• asparagus
• bell peppers
• mushrooms
• onions
• zucchini
• ham
• summer sausage
• prosciutto 
• havarti
• raclette
• fondue cheese
• baby potatoes
• baguette

Now, this isn't really a wrong way to do raclette. There are only two rules: 

1. DO NOT use silverware on any of the surfaces of the raclette, it's non-stick and if it gets scratched it becomes sticky and apparently it's really bad for you too. Use the little plastic thingies that come with the appliance.
2. DO NOT let the food you put on the trays underneath touch the element, then you just get a burny, smelly, sticky MESS!

Confused yet? How about just READING THE WIKI ARTICLE HERE. 

Usually what we do, is melt some cheese in the little pans while other stuff grills on top (make sure you use olive oil on the top so food doesn't stick), then we put the melted cheese over the meat/potato/veggie mix and go to town. 

Once the first round is done, I like to put my veggies and potatoes in the pan and melt cheese over the top of them. 

So it ends up looking like this....

Soooo good, omnomnom...

Like I said, there is no wrong way to do it (as long as you follow the two rules). One of my friends just melts cheese in his little pan and treats it like fondu. Another friend makes mini pizzas. Whatever tastes best to you!

Closet

I'll be at a wedding while OSU plays Hawai'i but that doesn't mean I can't rock orange and black on Friday. (I promise this sweater is much more orange than it looks in the picture... I should really get a real camera). GO BEAVS!

Collared shirt: Forever 21

Cardigan: Target

Pants: Nordstrom Rack

Wedges: Payless

Pearls (that you can't see in the picture): a gift from my sister in law

Wine Tasting Bachelorette Party

Just last week, one of my best friends got married, and it was BEAUTIFUL! You may or may not remember two previous posts about Kari's wedding. One was her red and black bridal shower and the other was the invitation to her bachelorette party. What a bachelorette party it was! We went wine tasting in Napa Valley. It. Was. Amazing. I have never been to Napa before so I was totally blown away. We rented a limo and went to four wineries... but we only got pictures of three of them. Below is a picture album of our weekend!

San Francisco:

To save on cost, we stayed at the brides' sister's house. She has this amazing view of San Francisco: 

What a lucky girl! The first day we spent just relaxing as most of us were either flying or driving into town. A few of us ventured into the city and I think Erika, Jessica, and Piper had a pretty good time with the local fire department...

Napa Valley Stop 1: Castello di Amorosa

So apparently this guy made a bunch of money on his first vineyard and decided to spend it on building a freaking CASTLE. Ahhh to be rich. But I'm glad this guy is because his castle was amazing. See for yourself:

Oh yeah, we also tasted wine, but those pictures are boring. The staff there was super nice and put up with our shenanigans, which is always a plus for this group... 

Castello di Amorosa's website:  http://www.castellodiamorosa.com/

Napa Valley Stop 2: V. Sattui Winery

Remember how I said the guy who built the castle made all his money on his first vineyard? Well here it is. We didn't get a ton of pictures of the grounds because they had a huge BBQ event going on that day and we were trying to make up a bit of lost time. So there are only a couple of pictures of it: 

Yay! We got a group shot! I know you don't care but I do, so deal with it. 

V. Sattui Winery's website: http://www.vsattui.com/

Napa Valley Stop 3: Domaine Carneros 

This final Chatteau is actually a champagne winery, which suits me just fine because I looooooove me some bubblay! 

This place was also gorgeous. Whatever. It's Napa, they're all beautiful. And the champagne tasted like candy (well some of them did, others were nice and dry). 

Domaine Carneros' website: http://www.domainecarneros.com//index.cfm

Home: 

I don't think it's a surprise to anyone that the drive back to SanFrancisco looked like this: 

Sleepy Girls

But never fear, after a quick nap, we were all out and ready to go in our matching bachelorette shirts (that I designed, BTW... unless you don't like them, then I had nothing to do with them - that bitch over there did it all....). FUN WEEKEND!

Closet

The weather around here can't seem to make up it's mind lately: it's raining one day and hot the next. Just a day or two after the last cardigan and scarf outfit, I was in this. And I was hot.

Shirt: Love Culture

Shorts: H&M

Sandals: TJ Maxx / Steve Madden

Ring: A gift from Mexico

Hazelnut Torte

I was at my DEAR friend Julia's house (HEY GUUURL!) the other day and the girl just randomly baked a torte. Who does that? Julia does, and I love her for it. Here is what she served us for dessert that she just, "Made up, out of my brain!"

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 c. all-purpose flour
• pinch of salt
• 3/4 c. unsalted butter - chilled and diced
• 1 egg yolk 
• 1 jar of Nutella (25oz)
• 1 c. hazelnuts

How To Cook It

Crust

• sift the flour and salt into a large bowl
• add the butter and rub in with your fingertips until the mixture resembles bread crumbs
• add egg yolk and a little cold water (about 2-3 tablespoon) and mix with blade of a palette knife until the dough just starts to come together
• bring dough together with your hands and shape into a ball
• wrap in plastic and put in the fridge to rest for at least 30 minutes
• divide into two, roll out both doughs into a circle on a lightly floured surface and use the larger to line a tart tin, set aside the second for use later
• slide onto a baking tray and rest in the fridge for 10 minutes

Filling

• chop hazelnuts and mix them in a bowl with entire jar of Nutella

Torte

• first, remove the first crust from the fridge and bake for ten minutes at 350 degrees
• remove from oven and add filling and top layer of crust, let this "rest" in the frige for 15 minutes before moving on to the next step
• bake for another ten minutes at 350 degrees
• place in fridge to set