One day, Rebecca and I will be ‘retired’ and on a beach in Maui.  We’ll own a small taco restuarant on par with the likes of Maui Tacos and Surf Taco.  We’ll grow our own avocados (uhh I paid 2 bucks for 1 avocado tonight; something is not right!) and continually make fresh guacamole.  We’ll serve all types of tacos, burritos and the like.  Heck, we’ll probably even open up a road side stand on the Hana Highway where we’ll sell fresh banana bread.  One can dream, right?

How do I do that by 30?

We played the “what do you want for dinner? … I don’t know, what do you want? … I don’t care, what are you in the mood for?” game tonight.  We settled with doing some kind of fajitas.  Typically when we’ve previously made vegetable fajitas, the veggies were bland — maybe only a sprinkle of cumin and cayenne pepper.  So we both agreed that these veggies tonight had to have some kind of flavor.  We briefly talked about using the packet fajita seasoning, but we both shrugged it off.  Rebecca had the vegetable fajitas at Jose Tejas the other night and loved them, so she set off to find a recipe.

And sure enough a few seconds later, she found one and emailed me so I could pick up the ingredients.  We settled on some peppers, onions, carrots, mushrooms and broccoli.  These veggies would be cooked in the marinade provided by the Allrecipes.com recipe (btw, how come all recipe sites are horrible?). The marinade was pretty easy.  I just combined the following ingredients.

• 1/4 cup fresh lime juice
• 1/3 cup water
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
• 2 teaspoons soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon liquid smoke flavoring
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

I let the veggies soak in the marinade a bit before I cooked them in a wok.  I especially wanted the mushrooms to soak in the marinade knowing they would pick up, and hold, all the good flavors.

The broccoli and carrots were cooked for about 10 minutes first since they were the thickest and would need the most cooking time.

Once cooked, I added the remaining vegetables and cooked for another 10-15 minutes or so in the wok — constantly stirring.

And after spilling a glass of water ALL OVER THE PLACE, we finally sat down to relax and eat our fajitas.  And then Macky started SCREAMING for our attention.  It’s never ending here at our house with our three needy, yet very lovable, cats.  And to think, we almost adopted a little girl today too!

Oh!  And I cannot forget about the fresh guacamole!  3 avocados (at 2 bucks each!  2 bucks!  each!), some diced onion, diced tomato, a squeeze of fresh lime juice, salt+pepper, and some cilantro!  So good!

As usual, we’re linking this up to What I Ate Wednesday at Peas & Crayons!

This weekend, we ran into Target to pick up a card. We have a running joke that every time we set foot in Target, it will cost us $40. As usual, we didn’t get just a card.

We were zooming past the furniture section when Mike suddenly came to a screeching halt and headed down an aisle. He spotted a small desk, just 34 inches wide. We’ve been searching for an entryway table for ages, but our entryway wall is only 36 inches wide and most consoles are 48 inches. We figured we’d build our own since our chair rail adventures have made us more confident in our cutting abilities. But this desk? It was just too perfect to let it slide by. It was the right size, had a single drawer (which I ideally wanted but probably wouldn’t build into a homemade one), it was dark wood, simple and classy. I always envisioned a parsons style desk there, though I toyed with the idea of going more rustic to contrast with the molding boxes we will be adding. For $99, we decided to snatch it up and end our search.

We started putting it together the minute we got home.

It was simple and would have taken 15 minutes or so, but we’re constantly battling a small pack of lions whenever we attempt to be productive.

Seriously, whenever we try to do anything new we get a series of looks that say “what’s that!”, “mine??”, “I want!”, “for me??” I’m surprised Macky doesn’t know how to use tools by now.

But finally, it was together, complete with an accessory that complements the dark wood and the light molding.

We debated changing out the hardware on the drawer, but I actually like the handle that came with it!

Oh and while we were leaving Target, I mentioned how I’d like a not-so-simple lamp to put on it, since the desk was fairly basic. Mike recommended we go to HomeGoods since we were right near it, so we made a stop there before we came home and picked up this lamp.

(The cord has since been hidden so it’s not visible from the door :))

I just fell in love with the intricate design of it and how it has an artistic, vase-like quality all on its own.

I also love the large scale of this lamp. At first I was afraid it would be too large, but the table is small and understated, so I felt like we needed a LAMP, not just a lamp. The metal aspect of it was appealing since it is inevitable that this lamp will be knocked over by a cat during some portion of it’s life with us. Therefore, glass lamp bases are unrealistic and downright dangerous in this casa.  The shade is currently a dark gray, but we want to change it to a white one. Though the gray doesn’t look awful, I think a white one would really look great against the darker walls

Now I will be in search of a round mirror to put on this wall and maybe some storage ottoman(s) to put underneath the desk. Oh, we also primed the lower half of the walls this weekend and finished up our caulking, so we are all ready to semi-gloss the lower half of the walls soon! 🙂

I’m just getting settled in from class and haven’t even eaten dinner yet, so I’m going to hold off on showing you our entryway progress from this weekend. But! I can do better! While I was in class, Mike began sorting through our pictures to find some to hang in our hallway gallery wall we’ve been planning. As I’m trying to pay attention to my classmate’s presentation, I get a text with this gem…

This was about 8 years ago, when Mike was channeling his inner fist pumper. Sadly, the quality isn’t good enough for anything other than a wallet size photo. The gallery wall has been spared….

The Beibs is off the hook.

Our kitchen runner arrived yesterday! (it still needs to flatten out a bit from the packing process)

Now, let me zoom out and tell you something…I’m not sure how I feel about it.

I can explain. I think the pattern is a larger scale than I expected, so it’s overwhelming me a little and making the runner itself appear larger. I knew how big it would be because I measured and marked it out on the floor, but I think the pattern is screaming HEY I’M A LARGE RUNNER! Though it’s much better than our previous choice.

The wool is a tad scratchy, but I think that will help it be a little more durable and wear nicely in such a high traffic area.

It’s also a nice flat weave like we wanted, though we’re going to need a rug pad. I’ve almost gone on a few magic carpet rides of my own already.

But I think it’s just one of those drastic changes I just need to get used to. Like how when we painted the office ceiling dark gray, we swore it was an awful mistake, but after a day, we loved it. What I do like about the larger scale pattern is that our mini-subway tiles are small and more intricate as a pattern, so the runner offers something totally different.

Plus the cats already love it, hopefully I will love it too in a few days!

ps- please ignore the bad lighting and dishes in the sink/drying on the counter in these pictures. I took them this morning while it was gloomy, raining and I was brewing my coffee with my beloved Tassimo. No time to empty the sink 🙂

Best baked potato soup.  Ever.

To be honest, I was always skeptical of baked potato soup.  Rebecca would rave about it and me?  I’d just be all, well, meh.  But then I had the baked potato soup at Houlihan’s.  It was very good; I had no idea soup could be something so great.  However, at the end of the day (or after using the toilet, whatever you prefer(hey, we’re friends, right?)) there was still something a bit off about it — the soup had too much of a creamy feel.  I actually wanted more potatoes in that thing.

A week or so ago, I discovered a baked potato soup recipe at The Curvy Carrot.  I admit; at first I shrugged it off thinking it was just another creamy attempt at the soup.  But then!  Then I saw that the crispy goodness on top wasn’t bacon and the recipe sucked me in!  Turns out that the crispy pieces on top are actually the skins from the baked potato!  What a fantastic idea!

And so on Sunday, I decided to make it.  To quote The Curvy Carrot, ‘Enjoy this recipe.  It’s a keeper.’  Amen.

Soup ingredients:

• 5 russet potatoes, scrubbed well and dried
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter (I used salted butter and then used less salt than listed below)
• 1/2 cup flour; divided into two 1/4 cup portions
• 6 cups of whole milk
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 3/4 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
• 1/2 cup green onions, chopped
• 1/2 cup sour cream (for garnish — Rebecca didn’t use any)

Crispy potato skins ingredients:

• Reserved potato skins (from the potatoes above)
• Oil for brushing
• Salt+Pepper+any other spices you’d like to use (I added some hot pepper)

First thing is to get those potatoes cooked.

I poked some holes in each of the potatoes, sprinkled them with some salt+pepper, and then placed them in a preheated over at 400 degrees.  These things cooked for about an hour until fully cooked and softened. Once they were fully cooked, I let them cool a bit so I could work with them — roughly 45 minutes or so.

Once cooled, I sliced each potato into two pieces.  I carefully peeled back the skins and placed them back in the pan.  Half of the potato insides went into one bowl, while the other half went into another.

The first bowl got mashed pretty good.  The second bowl got cut into bitesize pieces.

The skins got brushed with some oil.  I then sprinkled a bit more salt+pepper on them, as well as some red pepper flakes.   I put these in the over at 375 degrees for about 15-20 minutes, or until they were plenty crispy.  Check these often; you don’t want to burn them.

From here it was on to make the soup.  In a large dutch oven on medium heat, I melted the butter and then added 1/4 cup flour into the butter.  This mixture was wisked like crazy until it was lightly golden brown — maybe 3-4 minutes for me. I slowely added the milk and again wisked like crazy. After this was mixed came the rest of the flour; as well as some more wisking!  This was cooked until the liquid started to get thickened.  The original recipe said this took about 8 minutes.  It took me about 12-15 until it started to get thick.

Once thick, I added the mashed potatoes.  I stirred this well until completed mixed.  This mixture was followed by the bitesize potato pieces and some stirring.   Added some more pepper as well as the cheddar cheese.  Once the cheese was fully melted into the soup, we were good to eat!

I topped my soup off with some green onions and some sour cream.  Rebecca passed on the sour cream.  And then came the best part!  The crispy potato skins!  Mmm.

Once again, we are linking this post up to What I Ate Wednesday at Peas & Crayons!