Garlic Toast Pizza

Last night I made something SUPER easy (only because the garlic toast was store bought).

I threw some pizza sauce, cheese and pepperonis on the garlic toast, popped it in oven for 12-15 minutes at 350* and tada! Garlic Toast Pizza :)

It was quite yummy as well :) Now that there's just Ian and I... we have SOO many left overs in the fridge! Ahh I hate left overs! haha

Mini Shepherd Pies

I've never had Shepherd Pie before.. let alone ever HEARD of it. But when I came across this recipe I decided to try it out.

Ingredients
1 pound ground beef
1 tablespoon dried minced onion
1/2 teaspoon minced garlic
1/3 cup ketchup
1 tablespoon vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1-1/4 cups mashed potatoes
3 ounces cream cheese
1 batch biscuit dough
1 cup shredded cheese

Directions:
In a large skillet, cook beef and onion over medium heat til meat is browned. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute or until tender; drain. Stir in the ketchup, vinegar and salt; set aside.

Make the biscuit dough and shape into tablespoon sized blobs. I just used premade biscuit dough. Although I should have gotten the HUGE biscuit dough because you're supposed to press 1  dough ball onto the bottom and up the sides of each of 10 greased muffin cups. Mine wasn't big enough to go up the side of the muffin cup!
Next you fill with beef mixture.

 In a small saucepan, whisk together your mashed potatoes. Beat in cream cheese until smooth. Spread potato mixture over beef. Sprinkle with cheese; press down lightly.

 Bake at 375° for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.

Like I said before, I've never had this before. So I wasn't sure what to expect. It was kinda different. Good, but different. :)

Let's play catch up!

Bah! I'm getting horrible at this!

May 22nd I was in California for Kyle and Sarah's wedding.
That trip was pure business and no play for me!

I started out in Bakersfield photographing Sky and Cat's engagements on a piano :)

 You can see more pictures HERE
After their engagements Ian and I headed to LA for Kyle and Sarah's wedding!

So far this is everyone's favorite! HA.. see more photos HERE
When we got home I had the chance to photograph my cousin's engagements. He and his fiance Mandy are soooo cute and totally awesome!!

 Again go HERE for more photos
After David and Mandy's engagements and a few other shoots, I photographed Sarah's bridals. TOTALLY beautiful. You must see THESE!

This past Saturday was Kyle and Sarah's open house!

I got a LOT of compliments on all the photos I took of them as well as the cute decorations I came up with :) See more photos HERE.
So far that's been my life the past few weeks!
Next weekend I'll be in California AGAIN photographing Sky and Cats wedding at a winery in Templeton. Totally excited for the fun photos we'll be getting there!!
Maybe I'll get around to cooking again........maybe.

Happy Anniversary!

Two years ago today I went out and got myself married to Mr. Hottie Pants himself :) Here's a little reflection of our wedding photos and such.

Our engagements..

Bridals...

Wedding day...

My wedding cake... I LOVED it :)

A year later we took Trash The Dress photos to make up for our lack of amazing engagement/wedding photos...

Love you Ian xoxo

Banana Bread

Enough excuses about not making fancy dinners......
I'll admit it.. I've just been too lazy.
Although today I noticed our bananas were getting pretty nasty looking.
Nasty looking bananas make amazing banana bread.
So, that's what I made!

Combine:
1 1/2 c flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp salt
mix in 1 egg
3 mashed bananas
3/4 c sugar
1/4 c oil
add in 1/2 c walnuts to make it banana nut bread

pour in greased bread pan and bake for 45ish min at 350*

I also made bbq chicken for dinner. I made it on the stove and now my house smells of burnt oil. Fabulous. Oh well.. at least the bread was good :) That is a heck of a lot of butter on my bread btw. There wasn't enough butter to spray, so I poured it. Yeahhh.. out came a lot of butter!

Studio Update

So we started on my studio.. here are photos of our progress..
This is the empty basement.

Our HORRIBLE windows WITH carpet inside.

Got all the carpet out!

Went to pull off the baseboards and found water damage!! The water shut off valve wall was all rusted! So they had to cut off the drywall.

The hallway has two different styles of carpet seamed together. I HATE it.. so we tore it out. 

 

The ceiling was also a HUGE disaster. The basement was previously remodeled but they did a HORRID job meshing it all together. So before I could snap a before picture, they boys tore down the ceiling and the ONE door frame that was on the corner of the wall.

 

 Then we tore out the hallway carpet...yes, part of the it painted red.

 

 Then my bro in law Tyler patched up the terrible window framing and the rest of the walls!

And here's my basement thus far! (Minus primer. We primed the floors to keep moister from coming up!)

Ian starts summer school tomorrow.. so I'm not exactly sure when it'll be done. We've had so many surprises with this house that we weren't planning on! I'm just hoping it'll be done soon. But I'd rather get it done the right way than regret it later down the road! :)

Dear today...

I am SO excited this day has finally come! In about 9-10 hours Ian will wake up and start ripping out the carpet in our basement. Why you ask?? Because we're going to turn it into my very own studio!!!
We bought wood floors to put down there and I have a list of new backdrops and props I'd like to eventually get. I'm so excited that we're finally doing it instead of just talking about it! :)
I hope to become AMAZING in the studio. I'd love to photograph more newborns and maternity portraits. There is SO much competition in this category. I've seen so many amazing newborn photographers that charge $250 for 5-10 images! But they CAN charge that because they are so great at what they do. Although I've found that this is their ONLY area of expertise. I on the other hand photograph EVERYTHING.
My goal is to create a beautiful studio that will help me create even more amazing photographs, which will lead to more clients, which will eventually help us make more money. With this money.. I want to remodel my house! haha
Anyway.. I'll take pictures along the way. Ian says it'll be a lot of work. I'm hoping he's wrong. One of our walls is badly damaged and needs either a lot of patch work.. or to be ripped out and redone. We'll see how that goes!
Happy days ahead!!!!

Beef Taco Ring

I felt bad for Ian that I haven't made food for him yet this week. I guess it is only Tuesday, but 2 days without a homemade dinner to eat at work is probably no fun. So today after a bridal shoot I came home and put together this Beef Taco Ring just in time before Ian left for work at 2. Here's how you make it.. luckily I had all of these ingredients from the past couple meals :)

It was super tasty.. like a taco salad! Hope Ian enjoyed it for dinner because there's a lot of left overs now that Kyle doesn't live with us!!
Here's how you make the ring....although I haven't figured out how to make it as perfect as this picture.

Sorry, nothing clever to say about anything tonight.

White Chicken Chili & Wheat Bread

My sister Richelle is famous for her amazing wheat bread and chicken chili.. so I decided to try her recipe out!

First we'll start with the Wheat Bread
In bowl mix:
1 T yeast
1/4 c warm water
In mixer mix:
2 1/2 c warm water
1/4 c brown sugar
3 1/2 c wheat flour
1 T salt (last time I made bread I put in TOO much salt... so I was scared and maybe put in half a tablespoon. But what I forgot was that last time I put in 2 tablespoons instead of 2 teaspoons. I guess the full one would have worked out after all)
1/3 c applesauce OR vegetable oil (I didn't have applesauce for the healthy version).

Mix ingredients together. Add an additional 2-3 c wheat flour. Kneed 4-10 min. Place in greased bread pans. Raise till double. Bake 38 minutes at 350 degrees. Makes 2 loaves.

This time around everything mixed so nicely!! And rose so fantastic as well. I only have one bread pan, so the other waited around on the cutting board (bad idea. When it was time to put the 2nd loaf in it deflated when I picked it up and looked so ugly after I baked it! haha)

 See how pretty it looks this time??! Yay!

Now for the White Chicken Chili
2 large boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 small chopped yellow onion
1 - 7 oz can diced green chilies
1 - 15 oz can great northern beans
2 - 15 oz white beans
1 lb ground turkey

Boil chicken breasts in about 2-3 cups of water flavored with 2-3 chicken bouillons. Add salt and pepper to the taste. Remove chicken, shred and place back in broth.

Since I made it earlier in the day Ian was able to help me out and shred the chicken :)
Next..
Saute chopped onions in oil till tender. Add ground turkey and cook till no longer pink.

After taking this picture I realized pink ground turkey doesn't look appetizing! hah
Then add to the broth. Add diced green chilies, Drain all beans and add to broth. Mix and cook till warm. Serve topped with grated cheese and sour cream (optional).

It was SO yummy. I mixed it all in time for Ian to take to work tonight. Then I gave my brother in law some for helping us move Kyle out. THEN Kyle and I had a bowl and I still had 2 servings left over! So needless to say.. this serves 6 people!

But yes, my brother moved out of our house today. I'm seriously SO sad. With Ian at school and work all day and night I've really enjoyed my brothers company. I cooked for him, watched tv with him.. and actually had someone to talk to. I'm so sad he left :(
Guess it's time for him to be a grown up!

Asian Lettuce Wraps

I decided to be adventurous today and attempt to make Asian Lettuce Wraps. I had NO idea what was involved until I looked up the recipe... there's a WHOLE lot of stuff!


Ingredients:

2 t vegetable oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 T  fresh ginger, peeled then minced
1 lb chicken, chopped (about 2-3 boneless, skinless breasts)
3/4 C  mushrooms, minced
1/2 t  salt
4 C cabbage, chopped (about 1/2 a head)
8oz can water chestnuts, minced
1/2 C green onions, minced
1/4 C soy sauce
2 t sesame oil
1 lemon, zested
1 t hot sauce
1/3 C cilantro, chopped
1 head iceberg lettuce

I had a heyday at the store trying to find everything on that list. I NEVER knew what fresh ginger was. I actually had to have someone point it out to me at the store. It's one nasty ugly looking root! I should have taken a picture... Sorry I didn't! 

As you can see... pretty much EVERYTHING needs to be minced. I am SO glad I have my little Pampered Chef chopper thingy. 

Here's everything I chopped up (there are two to three different things mixed in some of the bowls).. plus Kyle cutting chicken in the background..

I don't know why I didn't take very many pictures tonight! But anyway... after you brutally chopped everything to pieces you heat up a large skillet. Seriously, a super large one, this makes a TON. Put in vegetable oil and when it’s hot add minced garlic and ginger. Saute for a minute just until it’s fragrant and then add in the chicken, mushrooms, and salt. Cook until chicken is cooked through.

Then add in the cabbage, water chestnuts, and green onions. Cook for a few minutes until cabbage starts to wilt. Add in the soy sauce, sesame oil,  zest from the lemon, and hot sauce. When everything is cooked through, remove from heat and stir in the cilantro.

To serve, carefully separate the whole leaves from the lettuce. This was an amazingly difficult task!! Wash and keep them in the fridge beforehand so they’re nice and cold. Spoon chicken filling onto the lettuce leaf.

TIPS: I pretty much bought everything fresh. If you want to save some mincing time, buy some canned mushrooms.. actually.. that might be the only canned thing you can buy.
Next tip... chop your cabbage MUCH more fine than I did. A blender probably would have worked.
Another tip.. I think it called for too much cilantro and not enough water chestnuts! Just something to think about :)
And my last tip.. they are MESSY. I ate mine over my rice so that when it dripped my rice had some good flavoring :) hah

EDITS: I didn't buy any sesame oil. It's was like $9 for a small bottle! But the lettuce wraps were missing a flavor.. and I think it was the nutty taste the sesame oil gives.
Next edit.. I bought TWO heads of lettuce thinking 1 wouldn't be enough. Well.. 1 worked out perfectly fine. Plus I have a ton of other veggie left overs since it only asked for less than a cup of each thing pretty much.

Anyway.. it didn't quite taste or look like PF Chang's, but it was still super yummy!

Southwest Taco Pie

While I was flipping through the cook books yesterday I came across this recipe. Unlike yesterday, I was more willing to go to the store to pick up a few things. Here's how you make it, and here's how I did!..

I think my so called "dough" hated me. I swear I put everything in it called for. I couldn't roll it out big enough or pretty enough. The edges just kept crumbling!

After I got it in the pie pan and made it as pretty as I could (even though the dough didn't reach the edge) I put the meat, salsa and cheese in.

Popped it in the oven....

And here's how it turned out!

 

It was pretty tasty. Too bad Kyle and I weren't very hungry! Hopefully it taste just as good as left overs as well. Poor Ian, never gets anything homemade the day of! hah