It's About Time ...

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It's about time for another post. I've really been slacking off here. Feel free to give me a kick in the booty next time! I seem to have drifted off into the world of Pinterest and Bower Power. I have so many wonderful ideas for this house that we are buying may be buying. 

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The updates on the house are pretty much the same news over and over. We had been looking for a house for over a year. We toured quite a few of them, put offers on a few of them, and they all didn't work out for one reason or another. We finally decided to give up on looking for a while and focus on saving more money/ paying off debt when we came across this house. We decided to give it one last try. And to our surprise, the seller negotiated with us. So we spent a couple of weeks going back and forth with him and finally came to an agreement. We spent a pretty chunk of change getting inspections done and everything that we thought would pass with flying colors has turned into a road block, while the things we were expecting to be a challenge ended up being barely a rolling stop. It's been a pretty surprising process. 

So the latest news is that all of the inspections have been done, they came back and told us that the well was contaminated. It had been sitting a few months so we weren't really totally surprised, just disappointed because that meant waiting for them to treat it and test it again. We finally got all of that done (after a week of waiting) and now they said there's still a small trace of contamination. So that means retreating and retesting. They were supposed to retest early this week. I believe. It's hard to keep track now. So we should find out either late this week or early next week if the well will pass the inspection. We can't move forward until it does. And that is the last thing our lender is waiting on. We've gotten insurance and the whole she-bang ... so fingers crossed that the well passes this time, please. Pretty please! : )

And speaking of the house, I'd love to turn this blog ... or adapt it ... to include all of the projects/home repair/remodeling that we'll be doing to it over time. We aren't going to have much money starting out, so it will be a slow process, but I'll share what I can! : ) I think maybe if I start incorporating more of our daily lives into the blog I may end up writing more often than once every two weeks, lol. It will still have an emphasis on being healthy, but with a touch of this and a dash of that along the way! Hopefully you all enjoy it!

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I'll post another update as soon as we hear more info! Until then ... happy Thursday!  : )

Mouthwateringly Delicious Mexican Bake!

As I promised on my Facebook page, here is the recipe that we made last night. I wasn't really sure how I would feel about eggs baked on top of my casserole, but it was really good. It was definitely not something that I would have come up with on my own, which is partly why I wanted to try it, and I was pleased with how it turned out! 

This Mexican Hash Egg Bake recipe comes from PaleOMG. I believe I was searching around on someone's blog (unfortunately I can't remember who it was at this time) and came across a meal plan, so I started clicking and found a bunch of great recipes. This was one of them. 

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This recipe is nice and easy. It takes a bit of chopping, but I love recipes where I can do all of the dirty work and then pop it in the oven and clean up while it finishes. Then the food gets done right about the same time as your kitchen is clean. Always nice! : ) 

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I do have to admit that I cooked my bake for quite a bit longer than the 6 - 8 minutes that the recipe recommends. Maybe I did it wrong or maybe my oven cooks a lot slower. It's an older model. Probably been here almost as long as this apartment complex has been here, lol. I didn't time it and I actually turned the oven off and on a couple of times because I expected it to be done and then had to turn it back on because it just wasn't getting there. So I'd say I did another 15 minutes or so. And mine ended up being a little too well done because I was picking up Gus's room. That's our bunny, by the way. So I got distracted cleaning up and forgot about the eggs and they were pretty solid. Because of that, I can't really give an exact time for how long I'd change it. I would just recommend watching it or checking every few minutes past the 8 minutes to see if it's where you want it. 

Hubby and I gave it a try last night and it was so good that I went back for seconds! And I went and got more ingredients today so I can make it again, lol. The seasoning is perfect and I love the flavor that the tomatoes give it. And of course there are sweet potatoes in it and you know I will eat sweet potatoes any which way you serve them up! : ) 

So here you go, Mexican Hash Egg Bake from PaleOMG. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Ingredients:

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• 1lb chorizo (I used ground turkey)
  
• 1 (14 oz) can diced fire roasted tomatoes
• 1 sweet potato, diced
• 1 yellow onion, diced
• 6-8 eggs
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tablespoon fat of choice (coconut oil)
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• ½ teaspoon chili powder
• ½ teaspoon dried oregano
• salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Heat up a large skillet or cast iron skillet under medium heat.
3. Add your fat and minced garlic.
4. When the garlic becomes fragrant, toss in your onions, sweet potatoes and chorizo to begin to cook down.
5. Use a wooden spoon or whatever you have on hand to break up the chorizo and mix around to incorporate everything. Cover to help steam the sweet potatoes.
6. Let cook for about 6-8 minutes or until sweet potatoes are tender.
7. Add your tomatoes and spices and mix together.
8. If you are not using a cast iron skillet, pour your hash into a baking dish.
9. Use a spoon to press into the hash where you want your eggs to go.
10. Crack your eggs directly on top of hash.
11. Bake for 5-8 minutes depending how runny you want your eggs. Just press on the egg yolk with your finger to see how done it is! (I baked it probably 15 - 20 minutes)

New Discovery: Yumprint!

While browsing around one of my favorite blogs, Whole Family Strong, to see the changes they made with their recent blog remodel, I noticed a new option. Or maybe it was there the whole time and I just didn't notice before. That would not surprise me either, lol. 

I found one of the recipes that I love and have made several times and noticed a "Save" button next to it. So I decided to go ahead and click it. It took me to a site called Yumprint. I instantly fell in love. 

I always struggle with the grocery list each week because I try to make sure not to forget anything and keep it organized, but each week I get to the store and can't remember whether I need ground chicken or chicken breasts or whether I REALLY need that coriander, but can't remember which ingredient it's in. This website solves all my problems. 

It allows you to install a special button, similar to Pinterest's "Pin It" button. From there you can go to any website you want and find a recipe that you'd like to try or that is an all-time favorite and click the "Yumprint" button that pops up. It will open a mini window that shows you a "recipe card" listing the ingredients and instructions. You have the option to edit it any way you want before saving and when you save you can choose which category you'd like it to be placed under (breakfast, crock pot meals, appetizers, desserts, etc.). And just like Pinterest, you can choose from any of the photos on the page to use as the picture ID for your recipe.

That's just the start!

 

Once you've got a few recipes saved you can go to the Yumprint website and they will have all of your recipes organized for you by category.  You can then click and drag individual recipes up to your "Meal Planner" at the top of the screen to organize your meals for the week ... or month... it's pretty customizable.

And then ... you can click on the "Grocery List" tab and choose to drag and drop specific recipes to your grocery list where it automatically adds up and combines any like-foods that there are. It even organizes them by produce, dairy, etc. You can drag and drop individual recipes or even just choose to "Add all planned recipes" to the list to instantly have your grocery list for the entire week. You can go in and edit things as needed and just check off items that you already have or add in individual items if you are making something else that isn't in a recipe. 

 

Ok, you may love all of that already, but guess what! You can then email or print your grocery list to take with you, but I was curious and decided to search my iPhone for a Yumprint app and I found it! And it's free! Can't beat that. So now I can take my phone to the store with me (which I always do anyway) and just pull up my grocery list, check items off as I need to, and the best part is that I can click on an individual item and it will show me which recipe it belongs to so I can make any last minute decisions on whether I REALLY need to drive to the second store to pick up an item the first store didn't have. 

I love it! It's the most user-friendly option I've seen yet for organizing meal plans, recipes, and grocery lists. The only thing that I wish it had was the option to place your mouse over the individual recipes on the website and have the name of the recipe pop up. I can't always tell which recipe is which just by the picture. So that would be more convenient. But it's really not a big problem because I can always just click on it and it will pop up and show exactly which recipe is which. 

And if you don't know of any recipes or maybe just want some more, you can go to Yumprint's home page and they will have suggested recipes from other users for you to try, if you want. Pretty cool, huh? 

I tried out the app at the grocery store last night and it worked perfectly. I have a feeling Yumprint and I are going to be very good friends! : ) To follow my Yumprint Cookbook, click the link HERE!

A Fishy Recipe with a Horror Story (bones and skin included!)

Salmon Cakes with Dill Sauce

This recipe started out as a crab cake recipe from Jan's Sushi Bar, but since crab is more expensive than salmon we have switched and it is still equally as delicious! Maybe even more so!

I had originally tried this recipe from Whole Family Strong, but accidentally got the salmon with bones and skin included. I am not a fish eater. The flavor is fine. Let's just say that I have an incredibly sensitive gag reflex. I can't handle bones or gristle or any of that fun stuff. So I usually skip fish all together because I'm always afraid of getting a bone and it just basically ruins the eating experience for me if I'm in fear the whole time. I'm a baby. I know, lol.

So, when I got the cans opened and saw what looked like a little spine, I decided that I was not going to be eating salmon cakes for dinner. Hubby tried it and loved it, but I could barely eat what was on my plate while watching him shovel in bones and skin... yuck! Still get shivers just thinking about it.

So when I saw a recipe for crab cakes I was a little hesitant, but I do love crab cakes and so decided to be brave and try it. They were amazing. More than amazing. Maybe even better than chocolate. Almost.

The only problem is that I don't want to pay the price for crab. We tend to make very large batches and salmon is just cheaper. So I checked, double checked, and triple checked the can ... then triple checked inside the can when I got home to make sure that I did not get the kind with bones and skin. And I tried the crab cake recipe, substituting the crab with salmon.

I was not really all that anxious to try it, but decided to just go for it. I'm so happy that I did because I instantly fell in love. With no fear of bones I was able to enjoy the fishy cakes and they instantly became one of my new favorite recipes.

The crab cake recipe did not come with any kind of a sauce, but since I had just made a fresh batch of homemade mayo, I decided to use the dill sauce that came with the salmon cake recipe on the Whole Family Strong website and add it to the top. It is a match made in heaven, let me tell you. Each of them are yummy on their own, but oh-so-good together! : )

So we may or may not be having these crab salmon cakes once a week. I have decided to go back and try the original salmon recipe from WFS again and just make sure to get my boneless/skinless variety of salmon too. I'll let you know how that goes... if I can tear myself away from the tried and true recipe that is!

So if you want some mouth-wateringly delicious fishy cakes, try out the recipe yourself. I'm sure you won't be disappointed:

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup celery, finely diced
• 1/4 cup onion, finely diced
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 2 tablespoons mayonnaise, preferably homemade
• 2 tablespoons coconut milk
• 6 ounces lump crab meat salmon
  
• 1 teaspoon Old Bay Seasoning
• 2 teaspoons dill pickle, finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons fresh parsley, finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons coconut flour
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• few grinds black pepper
• 2 tablespoons coconut oil

Instructions:

1. Gently combine all of the ingredients except the coconut oil in a medium mixing bowl. 
2. Carefully shape into three patties; cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
3. Heat the coconut oil in a large, heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Fry the crab cakes until golden brown, about 4 minutes per side.
4. Serve with fresh lemon and tartar or cocktail sauce.

Old Bay Seasoning

Ingredients: (Couldn't remember where I got this recipe, but here's what I have)

• 1/2 tsp celery seed
• 1 Tbsp pepper
• 1 tsp mustard seed
• 1/2 tsp cloves
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1/4 tsp nutmet
• 1 tsp salt

Instructions:

 1. Mix all well with pestle & mortar (or Nutribullet). 

Homemade Mayo

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Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 2 cups extra light tasting olive oil
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon yellow mustard
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/3 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Instructions:

1. If you have time, bring your eggs to room 

    temperature by leaving out for a couple of 

    hours.

2. In a blender, add the eggs, vinegar, and 

    mustard and blend together well .

3. Leave the blender running and slowly-slowly-slowly,. drop-by-drop, drizzle in the olive oil. (This 

    will take a while but it is worth the wait and really MUST be done slowly.)

4. Turn the blender off once all the olive oil is in.  Add the salt and cayenne pepper and blend again 

    for another few seconds.

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Dill Sauce

Ingredients:

Juice of half a lemon

1 tbsp lemon zest 

2 tbsp dill

10 spoonfuls of homemade mayo 

Instructions: 

 1. In small bowl combine mayo, lemon juice, lemon zest, and dill. Mix well.


P.S. I forgot to add. You're gonna want to triple this recipe if not quadruple it. It's THAT good! : ) 

Wish I Could Say...

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I wish I could say that I had an update on the home-buying situation, but we still really haven't made much progress. It always seems like two steps forward and one step back. 

I did get a few more papers sent in, but otherwise we are still waiting. Right now, specifically, we are waiting to get a verification of my employment. I don't see why it's been so hard, but apparently they need a special report. They got hubby's report done and out of the way last week. 

We did narrow down our homeowner's insurance choice to one company though and will be calling them tomorrow to finalize all of that stuff. But at least we aren't moving backwards, right? And we're now down to one week and one day until closing... so hopefully there isn't much that can go terribly wrong in one week, right? Right!

Ok, moving on. 

We didn't have much time to sit and twiddle our thumbs while worrying about the house this weekend. We went to visit hubby's mom. It was hot and humid, but we had AC, so it wasn't so bad. Turns out that her dishwasher decided to die right in the middle of our visit. So hubby yanked it out and installed a new one for her. I helped. I read the instructions. Men don't do that, ya know. So someone has to keep him straight! ; ) 

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I do have to say that I have seen salesmanship at its best... or worst... depending on how you look at it. He was cheesy and kept changing his story. I don't even know how many times he told us something different. First he had the one she wanted in the color she wanted, but showed her a more expensive one. When he saw she wasn't interested, he suddenly didn't have the color she wanted in stock. Then she opted for a second color. He had it, but then suddenly that one wasn't in stock either. And then he started showing her a completely different one. 

When the other salesman started showing off the dishwasher that hubby's mom originally had liked, our salesman said that their salesman was not smart and that the other salesman didn't know that the one our salesman was promoting was better. He was slimy. If you followed all of that, I applaud you. It was hard to keep up with it ourselves. And he tried to make it seem like the third option he showed us came with wonderful free installation. Well, she already told him that hubby was putting it in ... so they ALL had free installation. We decided it was time to go. The second store was MUCH better. The guy answered our questions, didn't try to talk us into a different model, got it done in about five minutes. It was great. And it was about a hundred dollars cheaper than the other store too. Double win! : ) 

The installation was not all that easy because it seems the handyman who arranged the kitchen to begin with did not intend for people to take the washing machine out. There was just a clearance of a couple of inches to work with and a dip in the floor at just the wrong spot and let's just say it was an interesting night, lol. 

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And then...

I do have to say that hubby and I followed the rules of our Whole30-ish living very well ... until the last night. We were tired from wrestling with the dishwasher and starving because it took much longer than anticipated, so we went out to eat with hubby's mom and one of his good friends. So we splurged a little bit. It was a mistake, and we paid for it, headaches all around! But we are back to our good foods and speaking of good foods, I made one of our favorites for dinner tonight: salmon cakes with dill sauce and sweet potato fries. I'll post the recipe for that tomorrow! : )

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Oh, and another little bit of awesomeness from this weekend... Hubby's friend is into cameras, and I'm just getting into cameras. I just had the one lens that came with the camera and he had just bought a nice, new, huge, lens ... so he gave me his old lens. Gave it to me. Didn't have to pay at all. He tends to do that with things when he no longer has need of them, lol. I don't mind though! He wouldn't take payment, so I said I'd cook him a nice healthy meal when he comes up to visit next time. He accepted! So now I just have to figure out what to make! He'll be up in a couple of weeks to help us finish moving. 

Hope you all had a fun and safe and enjoyable Labor Day weekend! See ya tomorrow! : )