which one of these is not like the other?

a view of our top shelf in the bathroom...

which two items just don't seem like they belong?

Last month, I posted about going green (you can read that here.) and part of the process involved making my own facial cleanser with Castor Oil and Sunflower Oil. It's called the Oil Cleansing Method. Which, sounds crazy right? Cleaning your face with OIL? Sounds totally ick! I read several articles and, ya know what? it actually makes sense. When I considered my own personal struggle with trying to keep my skin moisturized and in a state that doesn't make me want to scratch it off my face, I figured that I'd tried everything else I could think of, spent hundreds of bucks on different cleansers and moisturizers... what did I really have to lose by slathering oil on my face?

I'm going on day 10 of the oil cleansing method (I admit to opting for my regular cleanser 2 times as I was in a rush) and I have to say; it's pretty good! The process takes a big more time than a normal session of face cleansing, but it's worth it. Since I have dry skin, my current combo is 1 part Castor oil and 2.5 parts sunflower oil. I'm going to add a bit more sunflower oil because I erred on the side of too little for fear of breakouts. (hey, I was skeptical!) I take a small amount of oil and gently massage it into my face and neck. The oils take away eye makeup with ease, even waterproof mascara! You can rub it over your eyes and eyelashes and even open your eyes with the oil still there and there's no burn or irritation. After massaging the oils in, I wait a minute or so and then lay a hot clean washcloth over my face and let it steam. Once the cloth is cool, I wipe my face to remove oils and impurities, rinse the cloth and repeat.  With this method, I no longer need a separate eye makeup remover or moisturizer, everything is in one! And the cost? Castor oil was about $3 and the sunflower oil ran about $4.  Way less expensive than a normal facial cleanser, plus, this lasts so much longer! Plus, there's the satisfaction in knowing that I'm not covering my face in chemicals and stripping my skin of it's natural oils. Dare I say that maybe something so natural will delay the onset of wrinkles?!?! SCORE, SCORE and SCORE!!!

Has anyone else tried this method? or something similar? I'd be interested to hear about your experience.

tex-mex in the house

Considering the fact that I was born and raised in Texas, it makes perfect sense that I would love love LOVE Mexican food, and hold a special place in my heart for Tex-Mex. When I lives in Texas, I had Mexican and/or Tex-Mex multiple times a week. One might think that with so many fresh ingredients and native Mexicans around me that I'd have gotten some amazing authentic (or not so authentic if we're talking Tex-Mex) recipes and have perfected several scrumptious dishes. One would be very very WRONG. The thing about living in Texas is that every time you turn a corner, you see a Mexican and/or Tex-Mex restaurant. To put it simply... it was easier and cheaper to but it from a restaurant than to make it myself. Sundays at the local grocery store boasted homemade tortillas... warm, fresh and glorious... so I *could* have bought some, taken them home and made a wonderful dish... or I could take them home, throw some cheese or sour cream or, um nothing, on them and shove them in my mouth while they were still warm. Guess which route I chose.
Since moving to Chicago, there a few things I simply can't easily find. One of those things is great salsa. I am picky when it comes to salsa. A bowl or raw veggies chopped up and served with chips? not salsa. That's pico de gallo and it is ick. Pureed tomatoes with chunky raw veggies? not good salsa. In the past few years I have perfected a few great salsas that I make on a regular basis (thanks to Mexican food god, Rick Ballis). This weekend, I brought to Chicago a Tex-Mex classic that I love so dearly and have not been able to find, Sopapillas. It's basically, fried dough. The dough it rolled out like this...

Then popped into hot oil and fried for 2 minutes. The dough puffs up and leaves an empty center. Once done, sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar

For tasty results, slather with HONEY.

I found a recipe Here. And it was great! Although I really am not a fan of frying food, this? totally worth it! It was a perfect dessert! I froze most of the dough for future sopapilla cravings.

Now I should back track and tell you about dinner. I originally wanted to try my hand making tamales, but while researching how to make them, I realized it called for some cookware I don't have and well, the kitchen is already bursting at the seams so the purchase of more stuff is a no-go right now. After poking around at a few other options, I settled on enchiladas. I'm not a huge fan of the standard red enchilada sauce, so I went with an enchiladas verdes. I found a recipe by Tyler Florence from the food network (note my adjustments in bold blue)

Ingredients:

Roasted Tomatillo Chile Salsa:
1 pound tomatillos, husked
1 white onion, peeled, sliced, quartered or whole (I used 1/4 onion )
4 garlic cloves
2 jalapenos
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped cilantro leaves
1/2 lime, juiced

Enchiladas:

Extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 medium onion, diced (1/4 onion, again)
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups chicken stock, store bought
Chopped cilantro leaves
1 deli roasted chicken (about 3 pounds), boned, meat shredded ( I cooked and shredded 4 chicken breasts)
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
10 large flour tortillas (flour?? no. I used corn)
1/2 pound Monterey Jack cheese, shredded (I used a combo of pepper jack and quesadilla queso)

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

For the salsa:
On a baking tray, roast tomatillos, onion, garlic and jalapenos for 12 to 15 minutes. Transfer the roasted vegetables and any juices on the bottom of the tray to a food processor. Add the cumin, salt, cilantro, and lime juice and pulse mixture until well combined but still chunky.

Enchiladas:
Meanwhile heat a 2 count of olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until soft and caramelized - this should take 5 to 7 minutes. Add the garlic and cumin then cook for a further minute. Sprinkle on the flour and stir to ensure the flour doesn't burn then gradually add the chicken stock to make a veloute. Continue stirring over a low simmer until the flour cooks and the liquid thickens. Turn off the heat, add half of the roasted tomatillo chile salsa, some additional fresh chopped cilantro and fold in the shredded chicken meat. Season, to taste, with salt and pepper.

Change the temperature of the oven to 350 degrees F and begin assembling the dish. Take a large baking dish and smear the bottom with some of the reserved tomatillo salsa. Now take the flour tortillas and briefly flash them over the stove-top flame (or put them briefly under the broiler if using an electric stove). Using a shallow bowl, coat each tortilla lightly with the reserved salsa mix. Put a scoop of the shredded chicken-enchilada mix on top of the tortilla followed by a sprinkle of the shredded cheese. Fold the tortilla over the filling and roll like a cigar to enclose it. Using a spatula place the tortillas in the baking dish and continue to do the same with all the tortillas. Finally pour over some more of the salsa and top with the remaining shredded cheese. Bake uncovered for about 30 minutes until bubbly and cracked on top. Garnish, cilantro and tomato.

Additional notes: I added about a cup to a cup and a half of my cheese mixture to the enchilada filling- what can I say? I love me some cheese! Also, the salsa is actually really mild. I would probably add an additional pepper next time. Possibly a serano or maybe even a habañero if I could get away with it without killing the hubs!

Here's the finished product:

It was a pretty tasty meal... the only issues I had were 1. it could have been spicier, I love me some heat! and 2. the bottom and sides of the tortillas became a bit mushy. perhaps I squeezed too many in the pan? or maybe they are supposed to be that way. Afterall, since the recipe calls for coating the pan in salsa first, it makes sense that the bottom of the enchiladas won't by crispy.

I'll admit, the recipe took quite a while and required tons of multi-tasking. I ended up having to call my husband into the kitchen and have him help out with things like shredding the chicken and shredding the cheese. It would be one of those dishes that you could prep most of the components beforehand and throw together at dinner time. Also, pretty inexpensive... ingredient-wise.



*apologies for the crappy photo quality... it was late, lighting was bad, and I was too hungry to try and improve the lighting for the photos.

stumped...

As you may know, the hubs and I have been alternating turns and making new dishes (that we've never cooked in the past) every 2 weeks. Well, this weekend is my turn... and while I had originally thought about making tamales (YUM!) I have since found out that I don't exactly have all the cookware required and I think that if I try and bring any new items other than food into the kitchen 1. it may expload or 2. my husband may kill me.
So, with that said... I'm hoping for a few ideas. Any special meals you recommend? Any particular cuisine you think it would be fun for me to try?

thrifty nifty!

While out shopping this weekend, we hit a thrift store in my husband's hometown. We got into thrift stores last year while looking for glass bowls and vases for the cookie bar we had at our wedding reception. We've been randomly hitting them up ever since. Most of the time we don't buy anything, but sometimes... we have a major SCORE! This weekend was totally a SCORE weekend. While strolling around the store we stumbled across a storage chest. It caught my attention because we are seriously in need of storage. I opened it up and then I smelled it. Cedar. Dear God in heaven, I LURVE the smell of cedar. Seriously, how useful and utterly timeless is a cedar chest? The price was right and we packed that baby up in the backseat of the car and brought it home! I did a little searching on the interwebs and a chest similar to what we've got can run about $500. The chest along with 8 gorgeous and completely unused crystal champagne flutes ran us $115! SCORE! It has a few scratches, so after we move this summer, we'll need to sand it and refinish it. Not a big deal at all, considering the price!

 

 can you smell the cedar???

 

even the dog seemed to enjoy it's presence?

For now, it'll serve as storage for our extra bedding that gets used when we bust out the air mattresses in the sunroom  for guests or have a college student crashing on our couch. Yay for storage! 

 On our drive back to the city today, the hubs and I had a few laughs while speculating how big the paperwhites might have grown while we were gone for 3 days. Maybe we'd see roots peeking out from under the front door when we came up the stairs or perhaps they'd be sitting on our couch smoking cigs and demanding lunch. Luckily neither of those things happened, but O-M-G... they grew several more inches! 

 

need I remind you what they looked like six days ago?

 

and nine days before that?

Seriously, y'all... I've never seen ANYTHING grow this fast! They really need to flower already because I'm convinced that a flower will make them a little less creepy.

the plants are starting to scare me...

Last weekend I put together the bowl of paper white bulbs that I bought for my husband. You can see how I did that here. I knew it took about a month to grow tall and start blooming, but seriously... these things are growing so fast that they are starting to creep me out.

Last weekend, they looked like this:

 

and today, nine days later, they look like this:

it's like every time I look at them, they are growing larger and larger. The roots are getting longer by the minute, they remind me of jelly fish or squid or something else super creepy.

 

We keep joking about how we're going to wake up in the middle of the night and these things are going to be standing at the foot of the bed staring at us.  It's crazy how fast they're changing, but that really just means that the flowers will bloom sooner rather than later. I can't wait to try these again when winter rolls around again (god help us) it will be nice to have fresh growing flowers in the house in January.

In other news, I whipped up the cleaners I previously mentioned here. Much to my husband's chagrin, the cleaner not only worked well but smelled GREAT! We spent hours scrubbing baseboards, shelves, moldings, window sills, etc. and I put together a carpet deodorizer with the lavender oil and some baking soda and sprinkled it over the carpet. After 15 minutes, I vacuumed it up and the house smelled fabulous! I haven't had a chance to make the scrub for the bathroom shower tiles (for shame!) but I have no doubt it'll work well, provided the plants don't take over the place and hold me hostage.

love a man that can cook

It is no secret that I love to cook. But honestly, sometimes I just want to sit on the couch and let dinner magically arrive in front of me without having to lift a finger.
The hubs and I have started a new cooking challenge... every other weekend we take turns and pick a dish we've never made before and cook it, in hopes of finding new easy recipes to add to our normal rotation of meals or something for special occasions or even guests. Two weeks ago I made tandoori chicken, which you can read about here. This past weekend was the man's turn. He waffled about with several ideas and finally landed on a dish from one of the Rick Bayless cookbooks I bought for him a few years back (which has only gotten used twice... just sayin'). I have a bit of an obsession with Rick Bayless, I admit. I'd pretty much eat anything he cooked and put in front of me, which is saying a lot because I'm a picky eater! But this man... this man is MAGICAL in that super dorky/slightly creepy white boy that knows more about Mexican culture/customs than anyone on this planet kind of way. Needless to say, I was pretty pumped for dinner and luckily, I was not disappointed!

Jalapeno-Baked Fish With Roasted Tomatoes and Potatoes

Ingredients:
• 4 medium (1 pound) red skin boiling or Yukon Gold potatoes, sliced 1/4 inch thick
• 1 tablespoon jalapeño chili pepper pickling juice
• 2 tablespoons vegetable or olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 can (14.5 ounces) diced tomatoes (preferably fire-roasted), including their juice
• 1 large clove garlic, cut in half (we love garlic and use 3 cloves)
• 1/3 cup coarsely chopped cilantro, plus extra for garnish
• 1/4 cup sliced, pickled jalapeño chili peppers
• 1 tablespoon jalapeño chili pepper pickling juice
• 4 to (1 to 1/1/4 pounds) skinless fish fillets, such as mahi-mahi, halibut, grouper, snapper, black cod or striped bass, preferably 3/4 to 1 inch thick, patted dry (we used mahi-mahi, from the freezer section)

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
In a microwaveable 8-by-8-inch baking dish, toss together the potatoes, 1 tablespoon of the oil and the salt, and spread out evenly. Cover the dish with plastic wrap and poke a few holes in the top. Microwave on high (100 percent power) until the potatoes are nearly tender, about 4 to 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, in a food processor or blender, combine the tomatoes with their juice, garlic, cilantro, jalapeno chili peppers and the tablespoon of pickling juice. Process with a few quick pulses until well combined but not quite smooth.
In a large skillet over medium-high heat, heat the remaining tablespoon of oil and quickly sear the fillets on both sides, about 15 seconds per side. Remove from the hot pan and set aside.
When the potatoes have finished cooking, place the fish fillets in a single layer over the potatoes. Pour the tomato mixture evenly over the fish and potatoes. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the fish can be flaked easily with a fork.
Divide among individual plates and garnish with cilantro. Serve hot.

Let me just say, YUM! He used mahi-mahi as our protein. It is one of my favorite fish, but I couldn't find any fresh at the local grocery store and ended up picking up frozen fillets at Trader Joe's, and they really worked out great. The real gem of this dish is the salsa. In fact, last night I made the salsa from this recipe and chowed down with a hand full of tortilla chips, it is just that good.
The man raved about how easy and quick it was to prepare and we (us plus our dinner guest) raved about the great flavor, so it was win win! We'll be adding this as a somewhat regular dish in our house. I can see this recipe working great for chicken as well, but since I have a more difficult time getting my husband to want fish for dinner (and I love fish!) we'll probably stick with fish here.  

  the "judge" for our cooking challenge, aka a hungry college student

If you try the recipe, let me know what you think... and if you're not a meat eater, then totally just make the salsa. You'll thank me.

going green on st. patrick's day

After all, green is the new black, right?

It's no secret that I'm a big fan of making things from scratch. You won't ever catch me buying lasagna from the freezer section of the grocery store or buying canned biscuits. I prefer to make pasta from scratch, roast tomatoes for homemade tomato sauce and homemade buttermilk biscuit are my specialty. I even tried my hand at a container garden last year (mostly unsuccessful, but I have learned from my mistakes) and once the sun comes out in the spring, I will hit the store for some seeds and grow fresh herbs in my window sill again. One day, when we have the yard space, I want my own modest garden. Because fresh home grown produce? YUM! Until then, I will continue to mooch off any friend lucky enough to have a garden and hit the farmers market when it set up shop in the city.
I'm not a fan of preservatives in my food (just to clarify, i do still buy some packaged food, but honestly, it's only a small portion in comparison to the rest of the grocery list)  so it only stands to reason that the next logical step would be ridding the unnatural chemicals from my environment. Honestly, there's nothing worse than spraying the bathroom down with Scrubbing Bubbles and then having to run from the room in order to breath some non-toxic air! A while back my BFF mentioned in one of her blog posts that she was using a vinegar concoction as an all-purpose cleaner. I tossed the idea around, but in the back of my head had doubts because I *HATE* the smell of vingar. Seriously, it takes me back to my childhood when my mother would run vingar through the coffee pot to clean it. The ENTIRE house would smell disgusting and god forbid it was raining outside and I couldn't escape to my swing set! So, I did some further research anc checked out my current obsession (sorry, I'm going to keep referencing younghouselove.com because they are simply awesome and consequently, ADORBS!) and they did indeed have a super informative blog about making your own cleaners!   I'm especially looking forward to trying the following (these and many more can be found on the above link!)

Gorgeously Green All-Purpose Spray:

32-ounce plastic spray bottle

2 cups water

1/2 cup distilled white vinegar

1 teaspoon pure castile soap (peppermint)

3/4 cup hydrogen peroxide

20 drops tea tree oil

20 drops of lavender essential oil

Toilet Bowl Cleaners:

Liquid castile soap (like Dr. Bronner’s)

Baking soda or borax

Scrub with a toilet brush.

Carpet Deodorizer:

Baking soda

10 drops of essential oil (optional)

Mix together then sprinkle generously on carpet, wait 15 minutes and vacuum.

and who knows what else I'll try after that... maybe something from HERE or even HERE! I take great comfort in knowing that the possibilities seem endless!

In addition to finding natural cleaning products, I've been trying to find more natural skin and hair products. It's no secret that since moving from the humid climate of Houston, Texas to the dry and often frigid Chicago, Illinois, I've been on a never-ending search for a product to slather on my skin and give me the moisturized feeling that every girl deserves! I've easily spent hundreds if not a thousand plus on different cleansers, scrubs, moisturizers, lotions etc. etc. in hopes of something that will rid me of dry flaky red skin and soothe the urge to scratch my skin off. I recently came across this site that provides a recipe, instructions and all the scientific mumbo jumbo that supports the oil cleansing method.
Basically, you find the right combonation of oils (castor and sunflower-or EVOO if you like) slather your face in the mixture, massage it into your skin thoroughly. Cover your face with  a hot, wet washcloth until it cools, then wipe away the oil. Rinse the cloth and repeat a few more times.
I know it might seem crazy to slather your face in oil in order to clean it, but honestly? I'm up for the challenge. So bring on the castor oil and let's give it a try! Maybe this will be the end to my search. My skin and my pocket book will be greatful. I'll certainly let y'all know!

For now, that's all I've got in the way of going green. Once I've picked up all the necessary items and given them a try (this weekend) I'll report back. If you have any additional tips or opinons you'd like to add, please let me know! Meanwhile, check out the BFF's blog where in addition to cleaning products, she's been cooking up some lotion and lip balm! Who knows... Maybe she'll feel compelled to pop a sample of lip balm into the mail for me!