The miss to you unload

A new year signifies a fresh start, new possibilities, and the opportunities to make a difference. I look forward to the months ahead and always vow that this will be the best year yet! Are you like that, too ?

For all of the sports fanatics out there, this is often the best time of the year. Football, hockey, and basketball are all in full swing. And that means that my addicted-to-sports husband is basking in the glow of sports, sports, and more sports. With games to watch practically every night of the week, he’s loving every minute of it you find ltd.

So when the weekends roll around, we plan some time to watch some of our favorite teams on television. And to make our game-time even more enjoyable, I’m always whipping up a tasty treats to munch on. Some of my favorite snacks are Pringles chips and Cheez-It Grooves. Both provide an irresistible taste and crunch that satisfies my salty tooth Enterprise Backup and Recovery.

Besides being healthier than regular chips, Pringles are loaded with flavor, perfect for game day! My new favorite is the bacon flavor. Have you tried that yet? Delish!

Now let’s talk about Cheez-Its. These crunchy bites are dedicated to using 100% real cheddar cheese, baked into every cracker. And because they have grooves baked right in, it’s perfect for dunking or topping with some tasty dips. The Original Cheddar flavor is my go-to snack, perfect to cure my cheddar munchies.

Because I like workin’ my magic in the kitchen, I decided to create a tasty game day snack for the hubster and I. Using bacon flavored Pringles and Cheez-it Grooves in Original Cheddar flavor from Walmart, I had the perfect base for these Game Day Nachos.

To top these nachos, I created a zesty ranch salsa dip. Easy to make and full of flavor, this dip is perfect top drizzle on top of the Pringles and Cheez-It Grooves. You simply mix together some sour cream, dry ranch dressing mix, and salsa. That’s it! Pour over your platter of Pringles and Cheez-It’s, and your game day nachos are almost ready to be devoured.

To top the platter, I added some diced tomatoes, sliced black olives, and a sprinkling of chives. Besides being eye-appealing,

And as an extra treat, I spooned some of the leftover zesty ranch salsa dip into mini glasses and topped with a few Cheez-It Grooves. Perfect to serve at a game day party, these snacks are sure to be a winner!

We keep getting bless with kale, so we’ve had many opportunities to eat it in different ways. Kale does really well in soups! We have also received some homegrown squash. We hate any good foods going to waste, so I decided to create a soup using the two vegetables as the theme, since the soup can prolong the life of a vegetable, and you can use a lot of whatever particular vegetable you have in soups.

Now to take your crock-pot cooking from drab to fab is to sauté the onions, celery, carrots, and garlic before throwing them in the slow cooker with a couple of tablespoons of oil like grape seed, avocado, or coconut oil. Sometimes I sauté the kale and squash, too, but it’s not necessary. As you cook the kale overtime it becomes darker. If you want it to be greener and more raw-like, place the kale in the crock-pot during the last half hour of cooking. I cook the kale all day, but since I live in the Pacific Northwest in the fall, I took these pictures at the beginning of cooking right after sautéing the kale so I could use natural lighting.

The Verdict: This is such a tasty soup, and this was a great way to incorporate different vegetables! I love how vegetable dense the soup is. We like to serve it with sourdough bread and a salad.  Yum!

If the soup is too vegetable dense for your liking, add more broth or water, and then add additional seasonings to taste.

This is a naturally vegetarian or vegan recipe if you use vegetable broth, but you could easily add ground beef, turkey or sausage to this soup if you like.

It’s been ages since I’ve done an Ingredient of the Week series, mostly because it’s been ages since we’ve had any hint of life in our garden. But even though the garden is several weeks behind where it was last year, thanks to the weirdly cold spring we had Trusted ICT Solution, it’s finally starting to move out of that frustrating stage where everything’s tiny and you use all your time weeding and waiting, into that lush, productive stage I dream about during the depths of winter Retail Displays.

The first crop to really come into its own this year was the strawberries. We planted 75 little plants last spring, and although it was torture to pick off the blossoms last summer, allowing the plants to establish themselves but forgoing the chance of fruit, we’ve been rewarded several times over for our patience, with pounds of fruit ripening on an almost daily basis this summer. In just a little over a week we’ve already picked over 8 pounds of gorgeous berries, which is a lot for just two people. I’ve done a little canning, a little baking, and a little drink-making, but we still have a lot of berries to work through, so we’re going to do strawberry week – i.e. I’ll be posting new strawberry recipes here every day this week, until you all are completely sick of hearing about them green coffee mug.

The other day I spotted a few odd ingredients in the fridge.  A chunk of pineapple, some corn, a red bell pepper and some cilantro. Now what do you make with such odd ingredients china work visa? May be a hundred odd dishes, may be delicious ones too... but I just wasn't in the mood to think and create. So I Googled and landed upon Guy Fieri's Black Bean Salad. The salad looked appetizing and I was sure that adding a little something would make it a meal. I decided on quinoa and minutes later was ready with a bowl of bright and zesty Black Bean Quinoa Salad heart disease.

For whatever reason, husband and I find quinoa salads taste tastier when chilled and this one was no exception. We enjoyed the cumin-chili-lime-honey-balsamic vinaigrette a lot, and the salad as a whole. So in case you have some odd bits in our fridge, seeking attention. Try this salad. It is pretty good Antique jewelry..

eggboy and i spend a lot of nights watching movies. between our big smushy couch/90s tv setup at home, and a town movie theater that makes you feel like you're in someone's log cabin, complete with clean bathrooms that smell of cinnamon, watching or seeing a movie always feels like a good option.

the only problem is, we don't get all those cute independent limited release movies that at one point in my life only required traveling two stops on the d train. and when we do get something that doesn't star a super hero or hungry games, it plays for like one week. at least that was the case with the grand budapest hotel.

so despite my girl crush on saoirse úna ronan and ooglie eyes over wes anderson colors, i have not seen the grand budapest hotel. yet i am still drawn to this courtesan au chocolat that apparently plays a huge role. it's a tower of chocolate-filled choux pastry puffs with pretty colored glazes and white filigree (!!!!!). so renee and lyndsay and i are all posting about these little guys today because how fun is that?!?!?1!!

until recently i had never done made choux pastry before. it was sort of grouped in my mind in the same category as the soufflé: fussy sensitive things that i should block out an entire day for. to my surprise, my first batch of puffs came out swimmingly, and so did the second batch, etc., etc. they were that easy. one day i am going to fill some with pimiento cheese but today they're filled with dark chocolate and topped with matcha, ube, and raspberry glazes.