Zucchini Noodles with Lemon-Garlic Chicken

One of the bonuses of our new evening routine is I am back to making dinner on a semi-consistent basis; and I'm not just throwing some BLT's together and calling it dinner...although I do love a BLP!  I am talking meat, plus a side or two, sit down at the table and eat dinner together.  You better believe I've had my happy butt scrolling through Pinterest looking for some delicious recipes to try out.  While I was perusing the pretty pictures on my pinterest feed, I came across a recipe for zucchini noodles.  We tend to eat a lot of zucchini and squash at our house because: #1) it's easy to fix and you can make the flavor whatever you want; and #2) if I forget to make whatever it was that I was going to make I can bake something with the zucchini and feed the squash to the dogs...they absolutely love it....so they never go to waste.

I decided last week to try out my first zucchini noodle recipe:

adapted from this recipe

What you Need:

1.5 tsp olive oil

salt and pepper

1-1.5 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1 inch cubes

2 garlic cloves, sliced thin and divided

1 large zucchini, spiralized

1/4 lemon

1/4 cup halved grape tomatoes

How to Make It:

1. Heat 1 tsp oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat.  Add chicken and season with salt and pepper.
2. Cook until chicken is no longer pink. Add half of the garlic and cook for another minute.  Set aside on a plate.
3. Add the remaining oil and garlic to the pan.  Cook 30 seconds then add zucchini noodles and cook 2-3 minutes, or until tender. The thicker your noodles are, the longer you're going to want to cook them.
4. Add chicken and tomatoes to the pan and squeeze lemon juice over dish.
5. Serve immediately.

Notes: 
-You can add some red pepper flakes if you want to add a little kick to the dish.
-I don't have a veggie noodle cutter/spirlaizer (not sure what it's really called), but I do have a Vidalia Chop Wizard that we were gifted for Christmas and had never used.  It took some finagling to get the entire zucchini through it (I ended up cutting it in half first), but the end result was zucchini noodles!

Yum!

This dish just screamed summer.  It was so light and delicious! Eric gave it 2 thumbs up, as did I.  It was super quick and had a ton of flavor.

I liked the zucchini noodles so much I decided to do them again this week.  I was initially going to make this recipe, but changed gears when I realized the zucchini noodles weren't cooked.  I ended up just sauteing them in the skillet with olive oil and Penzey's Greek Seasoning and ohmygoodness was it delicious! It might be my new favorite side dish (of the veggie variety that is!).  I think my next attempt will be some version of this recipe. I say a version because it calls for cherries and I have a husband who has a fruit aversion....crazy I know and challenging when it comes to cooking sometimes, but it just means I get to be creative!

Weekend Recap: The Official Start of Summer 2014 Edition

And just like this gorgeous day lily in my garden, summer popped in to our lives this weekend and it didn't disappoint! 

We kicked off our weekend with some Little League All-Stars action on Friday night and we beyond grateful that the game was at 8pm and not 6pm.  I can't imagine how hot it would have been standing out in the sun.  But lucky for us a little breeze moved in and it was very pleasant.  Eric's best friend's nephew was playing in a tournament in the town we live in, against the hometown team so we went to support both teams.  I could not remember the last time I'd been to a little league game and I was quite impressed.  They may have been just 8 and 9 year olds, but a few of them were pretty good.  After the game we headed home and ended up going to the neighbors' house for a bit.  They were at the pool, but since it was late and I wasn't planning on swimming I didn't bother putting my suit on.  I didn't last 30 minutes.  In fact it only took about 3 minutes of the cutest kid on the planet asking Betsy Bop to come swim with her and I was in the pool...in my shorts and tank top.  Eric told me later he couldn't believe I got in.  I told him that there were very few people who could convince me to jump in the pool with my clothes on, and that kid just happens to be one of them.

The rest of our weekend looked something like this:

1. Seeing our pool like this makes me happy =)
2. Don't let him food you, he loves those pups!  I think the pups had as much fun swimming as we did.
3. Sweet Summertime!
4. The only time we left the house on Saturday was to go up to the lake to listen to a little live music.  That guy could play a guitar!
5. We had just finished cleaning up the pool when the rain hit on Sunday, so sipping mimosas while we watched the storm come through seemed like the appropriate thing to do.  That is until lightening struck a truck maybe 75 yards from us....we hightailed it inside after that.
6. Belgian Waffles for breakfast!
7. Eric got a craving for pizza on Sunday afternoon so in between storms we picked up a Garlic Parmesan Pizza and a Blake's (Shelton) BBQ Pizza from Pizza Hut.  Did I mention that Eric is a sucker for good advertising?  He was banned from watching infomercials years ago.
8. Mimosas seemed to be the theme this weekend.  This one was champagne, OJ ,and some San Pellegrino Blood Orange Sparkling Beverage.....I call it the Sunset Mimosa.  It's amazing.
9. 2nd day pool hair + Alabama humidity = braid it up!

I am pretty sure we took advantage of every bit of day light we had on the longest day of the year.  We were up early Saturday morning ready to welcome in summer. Eric threw some ribs, a Boston butt, some chicken, and even some bacon on the smoker (which is my new favorite way to eat bacon), while I set to work on my first potato salad of the summer.  Everything was delicious and we ended up with barely anything left.  We spent ALL DAY and most of the evening by the pool soaking up the sun and cooling off the in pool, doing summer the way it's supposed to be done.  

We had so much fun on Saturday, that we were both quite relieved to have the rain roll in on Sunday.  It stormed like crazy, setting us up for an afternoon of naps, pizza, and an SVU marathon--and a quick fishing trip for Eric of course.  It was the perfect end to the weekend.

We managed to celebrate Peanut's birthday with a canned dog food breakfast on Saturday morning, and I am afraid I have created monsters.  Since then, none of them have been too interested in their dry dog food, which is exactly why they only get wet dog food on their birthdays.  However it was so worth it to see them tearing up their breakfast like it was the best thing they'd ever had!

High 5 for Friday....Birthday Edition

At last! At last!  Friday is here!  I think this has been one of the longest weeks in the history of the world.  I guess being in the office only one day last week got me all out of sorts, but we made it, so let's get to it!

1

First things fist, I want to wish a very special puppy a Happy 7th Birthday!  That's right, our Lil" Peanut turns 7 today!  I can't believe it.  Despite his opinionated, strong willed attitude, I love that sweet little munchkin dog so much!

2

This week I finally felt like I fell back into some sort of a routine.  I got a workout in all 4 days after work, made dinner 3 nights this week (and will be sharing the recipes next week-they were sooo good!), and even managed to get a walk in with the boys every night this week, despite the heat and humidity.  It has been awful here with no end in sight.  Don't get me wrong, I love summer and I am so thankful that we have a pool in our backyard that we are able to cool off in whenever we want, but is it too much to ask for a little breeze in the evenings?  I felt a slight one last night and it was glorious, but way to short lived.

3

With the hot temperatures, our puppy walks have been pushed back later and later--Thank goodness for extra daylight!  I actually walked them at 8pm the other night and it was no cooler then than it was an hour before.  The temps have also caused us to cut our walks short.  When it's nice I can get at least a lap and a half out of the boys, but when it's like it is now, we barely make it a lap.  Hollow can go for days outside (I think his youth and history have something to do with that), but Hawk and Peanut are getting older and poor little Peanut has long hair, so when he gets hot and tired he finds a grassy spot in the shade and lays down.  If I try to pull him he rolls on his side so it looks like I am dragging him (told ya he was strong willed). But I found the solution last night! He needed a bath so I gave him a quick one in the pool shortly before we set out and that little stinker made it almost 2 laps and was running up the hill at the end while the other two were dragging.  Looks like pre-walk evening dips in the pool are going to become the norm at our house.

4

A new pizza crust made it's way into our house this week...called Naan...and it's probably going to stick around for a while.  It's probably the best pre-made crust I've had.  It's basically the South Asian equivalent of pita bread, but it's lighter than pita bread which is why I like it so much and why Eric gave it two thumbs up. It's definitely going to be my go-to crust when I don't have time to make crust from scratch. I topped it with the contents of our refrigerator which amounted to a Mediterranean flavor and was made up of leftover homemade Papa John Pizza Sauce, goat cheese, cherry tomatoes, chicken that had been marinating in the fridge for 3 days, kalamata olives, bacon, mushrooms, mozzarella cheese, parmesam cheese, and Penzey's Pizza Seasoning. It was delish!  It had been a few weeks since we'd made pizzas and I didn't realize how much I missed it!

5

Speaking about missing things....last weekend we missed a family reunion.  I hated that we missed it, but because of my D.C. work trip we weren't able to to go.  According to the pictures we missed a great time!  I am so lucky to have such a wonderful family who I adore getting together with!

If you need me this weekend you'll find me by the pool doing my best to stay cool and get a suntan while I'm at it.

Happy Friday!

Random Similarities

When Eric and I were going through our pre-marriage counseling several years ago, I distinctly remember the preacher asking us a question that I had no answer for: "Are there any random similarities between you two that you have discovered?" He didn't mean common interests, he meant odd things from our childhoods that occurred even though we grew up in different states. I thought about it, but I didn't have an answer.  For whatever reason, this really bothered me.  Why?  I'm not quite sure. Eric and I grew up in completely different places and had completely different, yet equally happy childhoods, but I still wanted to find some random common quirk or experience that we shared.  After nearly 4 years of marriage I can say that I can answer that question.   The other day at one of our softball games someone mentioned to me how good at baseball Eric was growing up and that if he hadn't quit when he got to high school that he could have been really good at it.  Eric quit baseball because he wanted to go fishing one weekend and his baseball coach scheduled a practice or a something and told him he had to be there.  Obviously fishing won out.  If you've met him and had at least a 10 minute conversation with him you would know that fishing will beat out just about anything in his world. So what does this have to do with coincidences between us? Well it just so happens that my last year playing organized softball (until we started playing together a few years ago) was when I was in the 9th grade.  That was the year my life became so consumed with basketball that everything else that I did fell to the wayside.  So there you have our random similarity: we both quit playing softball/baseball at the same age. I realize it's a bit of a stretch, but it's something, right?

Of course now that I am really thinking about it you could add in that we both were apple juice-loving kids and that my middle name/great-grandmother's middle name is almost the same as his grandmother's name: I'm an Annalea (pronounced Ann-uh-lee) and his grandmother is an Annie Lee, which is not the most common name in the world. However, I have found that it's a lot more common in Alabama than it is in Indiana or suburban Tennessee.  Gotta love those Southern double names!

Of course you can't leave out our childhood loves for fishing, too!

Aren't we the cutest?!

Ok-so my fishing experience was a few times a year with my Dad at my grandparents' lake house, while Eric literally played in a playpen in his Dad's fishing boat before he could walk, but it's still fishing. I had no desire to hold my fish...I was just fine with them sitting in the box next to me.

A few Days in our Nation's Capitol

Why is it that when you have more "free time" that you tend to have less free time?  I was really convinced that once summer started up and we really didn't really have a schedule that I would have infinite time to do things...aka blog. Boy was a wrong.  Apparently not having our days scheduled means that we take on more, which results in us becoming even busier.  When I was in college it always went that way....during basketball season I had all the time in the world to do things, but when we were out of season it always seemed like I was crazy busy.  I guess because during season I had my days scheduled down to the minute and I didn't take on anything else.  Go figure.  I am hoping now that we are back in town (for now) and Eric is busy in the evenings with football practice that I will be able to put myself on some kind of a schedule and maybe write a post more than once every two weeks.  I have cooked and gotten in a workout for the past 2 nights so I guess I am on the right track.  =)

So where I have I been?  Last week I was on a little work trip.  I had a 3-day meeting for a grant I work on in Washington, D.C. I was kind of excited about it because #1-I had never been to D.C. before, and #2-One of my friends from work who works on the grant with me was going.  Every other time I have traveled for work it's been by myself or with a boss, so I was looking forward to having someone to explore the city with.

We flew in Sunday afternoon and after taking only one wrong Metro Train made it to our hotel.  I had high hopes of sightseeing that night, but by the time we got settled it was dinnertime and with the conference starting early the next morning we decided to call it a night.  We were staying the in the Woodley Park area very close to the National Zoo.  We were very close to downtown, but not right in the middle of everything which was nice.  There were probably 20 restaurants on the adjacent block so we never really had to go too far for anything.

When we finished out meetings on Monday we decided to jump on the Metro and head over to Arlington Cemetery.  I'd read that during the summertime they did the Changing of the Guard every half an hour until 7pm and was told that it was something that I really needed to see while I was there.  We made it just in time to see the very last Changing of the Guard that day and it was very impressive.  One of the things that really stood out is how respectful all of the spectators were, even small children were completely silent during the 10 minute procession.  And the discipline of the men who guard the tomb is impressive.  They are probably some of the most dedicated people in the world to their jobs.  The cemetery closed after the last Changing of the Guard, so started to head back, but as we got closer to the Metro Station I realized how close we were to the National Mall.  My friend obliged and so we ended up going to the Jefferson Memorial, walking along the reflecting pool, by the World War II Memorial, and the Washington Monument (which recently had it's scaffolding removed after 2+ years).  I guess it never really occurred to me how BIG some of those monuments are....they are very impressive.  We caught the Metro by the Smithsonian and headed back to our neighborhood where we grabbed a delicious dinner and called it a night.

I can't even begin to explain how huge the cemetery was.  It was very impressive...and the Changing of the Guard was very impressive. 

1. The Washington Monument
2. Crazy tall escalator in the Woodley Park Metro Station
3. The Business District from the Arlington Memorial Bridge
4. The Lincoln Memorial
5. Brandi and I in front of the National Mall
6. Me with the Washington Monument
7. World War II Memorial
8. The National Mall...it was crawling with people!

Tuesday evening we planned to take a Moonlight Bus Tour around the city.  I have head that hop-on hop-off tours are the way to see big cities like D.C., so we booked one with our hotel and set off that evening.  We started at he Post Office which is in the process of being turned into the newest Trump Tower Hotel and drove down Pennsylvania Avenue to see the Capitol...holy moly that place is enormous!  After that we drove back up Pennsylvania Avenue to one of the most famous addresses on the country 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, the White House....not to be confused with 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue SW, a McDonalds. After that we headed to the Marine Corps Memorial, the Roosevelt Memorial, the Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial, The Vietnam Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, and the Korean War Memorial.  My favorites were the Marine Corps Memorial and the Korean War Memorial which was quite eerie at night.  It's 19 life-sized statues of soldiers walking through a rice patty and no matter where you are standing in the memorial, one of them is staring at you.  The other part of it is a wall that has faces of men who fought in the war etched in black granite and they are flawless.

1. The U.S. Capitol Building
2. The White House
3. Jefferson Memorial
4. The Old Post Office
5. The Dwight Eisenhower Executive Building...it was enormous!
6. The Lincoln Memorial at night
7. part of the The Roosevelt Memorial
8. The National Mall at night

1 & 2. The statues in the Korean War Memorial.
3. The Martin Luther King, Jr, Memorial
4. part of the wall in the Korean War Memorial
5. The Marine Corps Memorial

Wednesday was our last evening in the city and it was supposed to rain.  Luckily we'd see all of the things on our list of things we absolutely wanted to see (I decided early on that museums were out because there was no way we'd have time to see them properly in the hour or two we had after our conference ended in the evenings before they closed.) so we decided to explore our neighborhood.  Lucky for us our neighborhood included the National Zoo!  Since it was evening and quite warm, most of the animals were inside, but we did get to see most of the highlights like the PANDAS (my favorite), the gorillas and orangutans, and the cutest tiger cubs who were all about driving each other (and their mother) crazy.  We stopped for pizza on the way back to the hotel and made it to our rooms right before the bottom fell out.  After 2 late nights and long days at the conference being in bed by 8pm and having everything packed up for the trip home the next morning was just what the doctor ordered.

I mean how stinkin cute is that panda?!

I definitely enjoyed the trip and would love to go back sometime to see some of the museums and try some of the cuisine.  They had just about every kind of restaurant you could imagine and we took advantage of the delicious food.

1. Blueberry Glazed Donut from Dunkin' Donuts...this happened every morning
2. Rigatini Romano from Cafe Paradiso
3. Sesame Chicken from Mr. Chen's...most filling Chinese food I've ever eaten
4. Wild Mushroom Pizza from Open City
5. Pecan Pie from Open City
6. Chicken Salad Sandwich from Open City
7. Sour Cream Cheesecake from Open City (if you can't tell, we really liked open city)
8. Tuscan Pizza from Italian Pizza Kitchen
9. Tiramisu from Italian Pizza Kitchen

 If you're wondering how people don't weigh 150,000 lbs up there it's because they walk everywhere and they run all the time.  In the mornings when we headed to Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast, we dodged runners, in the evenings when we set out on our adventures, we dodged runners.  It was crazy.  There were probably as many joggers as their were tourists at the National Mall, which made me wonder if the people who live in D.C. realize the history all around them.  Working in Montgomery, AL, I know I don't think much about all of the history around me.  I walk by Martin Luther King, Jr.'s church and the exact spot where Rosa Parks famously refused to move to the back of the bus every day and rarely give it a second thought. I guess when something like that is part of your every day world, it doesn't seem that interesting.  I guess that's human nature.

As much as I enjoyed the trip I was so glad to get home to Eric and the puppies.  I may love to travel but I love being home with the ones I love just as much!

Mediterranean-Style Chicken Salad

I was going to give a little recap of our beach get-a-way today, but I am running a little short on time and I have a new recipe that I tried out last night that I HAVE to share because it was so good.

If you've read any of my recipe posts, you've probably seen Penzey's spices mentioned about 100 times.  I love them.  They are amazingly high quality and the flavor that comes from them is out of this world.  I just wish I had a store closer than an hour and a half away from me....on second thought that might be a good thing.  One of our favorite spices is their Greek Seasoning.  We go through a 4 oz bag of it (I have a jar that I continuously refill since it's cheaper that way) every few months because we use it on every thing: fish, chicken, eggs (oh yes), pasta salads, etc.  We have yet to find something that it does not work with.  I get their quarterly catalog which always has free spice coupons attached (bonus!), and also is full of delicious recipes that will make your mouth water.  I came across one in the Summer 2014 issue that I had to try: Mediterranean-Style Tuna Salad.  I am not a huge fan of tuna salad so I swapped the fish for chicken, naturally.  It's full of fresh veggies and it's vinegar based, not mayo based which cuts some serious calories.

Adapted from this recipe.

What you Need:

1.5-2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts

1 cup crumbled feta cheese

1 cup chopped Kalamata olives

1/2 cup finely chopped fresh parsley

1/2 cup finely chopped red onion

1/2 to 1 cup diced cucumber

1/2 to 1 cup grape tomatoes, quartered

1/2-2/3 cup red wine vinegar (the more vinegar, the more tart it will be)

1/3 olive oil

2 Tbsp Penzeys Greek Seasoning

How to Make It:

Boil chicken in a pot on the stove, until it's cooked through. When it's done, shred with forks or chop and place in a large bowl.  Add feta cheese, olives, parsley, onion, cucumber, and tomatoes. Hint: I chopped everything up while my chicken was cooking and added the chicken to the rest of the dry ingredients when it was done.

In a smaller bowl, whisk together vinegar, olive oil, and Greek Seasoning. Pour over dry ingredients.

Stir until salad is evenly coated.  Refrigerate until ready to serve.  I had mine with pita chips, but it would be great as a sandwich or just to eat plain.

Eric gave it two thumbs up, too.  You can't beat a delicious recipe that gets husband approval!

Dancing the Weekend Away

Surprise!  Guess who's back!  I ended up taking an unintentional vacation from these parts for the past few weeks. I really thought things were going to start slowing down for the summer...ha.  It always seems like my "slow times" are when I tend to get super busy because we end up doing more because we aren't bound to our routine.  The past few weeks have been no exception with softball, a beach trip, and a dance reunion. On top of that I have been writing a huge grant at work which has been sucking all of the creative writing juices out of me since I've spent all day writing at work.  I have several recaps to share and I don't want to leave anything out, but I also don't want to make this post 150 miles long, so let's start with this past weekend and work our way back to our Memorial Day Weekend Beach trip later this week.....

I make no secret around these parts that I teach tap dancing and that I love it! I took lessons from when I was 5 until I was 15.  I think my love for it really took off when we moved to Tennessee and I started taking lessons from Nadine's School of Dance...now NVS Dance.  When I was there it was a very well established dance school and I had the opportunity to really expand my horizons with tap and other types of dance.  For 5 years my parents took me to lessons several nights a week, spent countless weekends at dance competitions, and even spent summer vacations at dance conventions...thanks again Mom and Dad!  This year NVS Dance was celebrating their 50th year in business.  Amazing right? And Ms. Nadine is still teaching with her daughter.  Since Mom and Dad moved back to Memphis last year I have thought about catching a recital one year, and with it being the 50th year everything just fell into place this time around.  And the best part?!  I got to dance in the recital!  They had an alumni number at the beginning of the recital and about 25 of us danced (tap of course!). I had such a fun time dancing and catching up with old friends at the reception they had the night before.

Clockwise from top left: 1) My friend Ashley and I...we were always the tallest in our class and were consequently paired together all the time.  It was so good to see her at the reunion!
2) Caliente! This was my last dance routine I did.  It was our Mid-South Fair number in 1999....we placed in the top 10 that year!
3) Ready to dance with the alumni at the recital!
4) The alumni from my era at NVS who were able to come to the reunion.
5) A little gem from the past....This was from our Vegas trip in 1998.  I'm 2nd from the left with my head turned to the left.  I had never heard of a hair straightener at this point.  Ugh!

The recital conveniently fell on my Mom's birthday so I got to be there to celebrate with her, too!

Clockwise from top left:
1) Mom blowing out her candle on her Gigi's Cupcake birthday cake!
2) Hollow made himself right at home at Mom and Dad's house.
3) We did her birthday lunch at Huey's and stuffed ourselves silly with delicious hamburgers.
4) Hollow helping Mom tie up her home grown garlic.
5) A trip to Memphis is never complete without some Germantown Commissary BBQ!
6) Peanut making sure I did not leave him behind when I started packing things up to go home. 

It was a wonderful weekend and I am so thankful that I got to make the trip both for Mom's birthday and for the recital!  And the best part?! I have a holiday from work today so I get to recover all day long!

This IS a Happy Monday!