Fall Time!

I love fall time.



When the leaves change colors to rich reds and yellows and oranges.
And the crisp fall mornings.



And the decorations.
These are a few around our house! :)



I love these little pumpkins! They are a little bit o' color and fallness!!



I have this great birdcage I love to decorate! And I have these AWESOME butterflies that are GLITTERY!!


















And the wreath on our door! :)




















































And a little extra spooky picture!!

~Becky

Fight those leftover blues!!

October 10th, 2010

If you are like me, I tend to end up with left overs.
And I hate making new dishes when I have perfectly good food left.

Part of the problem is nobody wants to eat the leftover food for the third night in a row even if you argue that there are starving children all over the world who would happily eat the same thing for the next 10 years as long as they were getting food!!
(But I still don't listen to myself)

Well, One way to fight the leftover blues and still use what you already have is by making a new dish! The easiest, and one of my fav's is Spaghetti Bake!

This is a specialty of my mom's!

It's quick and easy and is great on a Sunday (the food guys!!! Not my mom!! Sorry Mom, I am not responsible for the dirty thoughts that people have. LOVE!!!)

Pretty much you put in your spaghetti in a glass baking dish. Add your sauce on top.
We had left over mushrooms and chicken that we added in too! (see, you can recycle everything!! Perhaps it comes from living in Oregon....)



Add some grated cheese, cover in foil and bake for 15-20 min on 350 degrees aaaaaand...



You're done!
Have some garlic bread (melt butter, mix in garlic salt and spread on bread) and call it a meal!!

~Becky

Food Challenge #3

October 6th, 2010

This weeks recipie, caare of Alexis, is Spaghetti and Artichoke Hearts and Tomatoes.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/10/wednesday-night-dinner-spaghetti-with-artichoke-hearts-and-tomatoes/

The thing I love about the Pioneer Woman, who is the wonderful author of this awesome recipie, she always talks about using what you have in your pantry.

Well, as I went through what I had, I realized I was missing half of the stuff called for!

But that's life.

So I did have artichokes,
but i had no tomatoes...
so I put in spinach and mushrooms.

I didnt' have chicken broth, but I did have chicken bullion, which is aparently a cooking faux pas, but WHO CARES!!! *laughs maniacly*

I didn't have olive oil, I used canola.

OH! And I used marinated artichokes!! SO THERE!!!

Anyways, it was delicious!



So there it is!

Yum Yum!
~Becky

SCTNow walk.

October 2nd, 2010


So today was the Stop Child Trafficking Now Walk.

It was at 10.

Which means we had to be there before that.

Which meant i needed to be up Earlier than that.

I didn't really want to get out of my warm, soft, pillow topped, covered in down blanket bed.

But today wasn't for me.

It was for those who couldn't get up and help themselves.

So Brandon and I got up and got coffee.


Yeay coffee!!!




And we met up with Hannah and her mom and her adorable son Dominic.





























They had a performer there, Enric Sefa, who is a Rwanda survivor from the genocide there. He was very talented.














Hannah and I decided we were NOT to old to have our faces painted!!
































































































The walk was only 3 miles, which went by really fast!

Perhaps it was because I was walking for a good cause...

Perhaps it was because I was united with others a team determined to right a wrong.

Perhaps because 3 miles isn't very long...

whatever the reason, we crossed the Hawthorne, walked to Taylor, then crossed the Morrison.


Marcus joined us as we came off the Morrison bridge, better late than never!

It was a good walk and we celebrated with a trip to Chipotle!

I love Chipotle!

Until next year...
~Becky

Food challenge #2

September 28th, 2010

So here is food challenge #2!
Make Ahead Muffins!

Which I took for "Go ahead and make them!!"
But really it meant "Make the night before!!!"

But whatever.

So the recipe is like an egg salad,
Hard boiled eggs (cut up)
Mayo
Bacon, but I didn't have bacon so I fried up some ham
Garlic Powder
Mustard
and I added paprika because it sounds cool...
and tastes good.


Honestly, I'm always afraid to boil eggs.
The first time I boiled eggs on my own I put the pot on the stove, added the eggs, turned up the heat aaaaaand.....
Completely forgot about it for 30 min and came back to a pot completely devoid of water and eggs exploded all over the kitchen.
I had no idea eggs could explode like that!
But they can. And do.

But I digress...
My eggs did turn out perfect!

SO you mix all the ingredients, you are supposed to refridgerate overnight, the part I skipped, and pile a scoop on half and english muffin and broil till bubbly!


I cheated and used my toaster oven which has a broil setting!!


And here they are!! yum yum!!

Thank you Brandon and Amy West for being my patient taste testers!!

Here's the link:
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/07/make-ahead-muffin-melts/

~Becky

STOP Child Trafficking!

September 23rd, 2010

Human Trafficking.
This breaks my heart.
Children are brought into the UNITED STATES to be USED!!

Used in exploitation, prostitution, pornography, migrant work, sweat shops, domestic servitude, forced labor, bondage, peonage or involuntary servitude.

Can you believe this!?


I dont understand how a person could be so unimaginably horrible!


If you have seen the movie Taken, think along those lines.

But not just teenage girls,

Children too.

And not just in some foreign land.

But right here in Portland.

This is one of the biggest places.

A group called Stop Child Trafficking Now is working to put an end to this.
There is a walk on October 2nd to raise funds and awareness.

It's only a 3 mile walk and it's free to register if you would like to join.
I will be there and so will Brandon and our friend Hannah.
You can join our group if you would like.
We are registered under Eastside Foursquare Church

Here is the link:http://www.sctnow.com/index.aspx

My goal is to raise $10. I think I can at least do that.

If you want to help us out here's where to donate: http://sctnow.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donordrive.donate

Think about it.
~Becky

Cooking Challenge #1

September 20th, 2010

So a group of us have decided to blog together and cook delicious foods as a loving community!

Alexis has graciously put us together to create amazing homemade masterpieces with the help of The Pioneer Woman http://thepioneerwoman.com

This week Melissa Silva (http://ms07123.blogspot.com/) chose the recipe.
The delicious Crispy Yogurt Chicken
Here's the link: for the Pioneer Woman's recipe and instructions. http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2008/08/crispy-yogurt-chicken/

Here is my delicious concoction.

Ingredients:
Chicken Legs, Plain Yogurt, Bread Crumbs, Butter, Garlic Cloves, Lemon Juice, Salt.










I had to use what I had in my kitchen already. I've been grocery shopping already for this week and i really didn't want to have to buy more chicken since I already bought meat. So I had to use what I had...which was 3 chicken legs.

Also Ree suggested plain breadcrumbs, but I had pre-seasoned crumbs with garlic salt, and onion powder and parsley.



In a bowl, put 1 cup plain yogurt. Remember I halved my recipe, so double this for a regular batch.



Add in parsley. I also decided to throw in some rosemary. mmmmmmm.....
Ree used fresh parsley, but I don't have a huge garden in which to pick fresh parsley.



Mince one clove garlic. (I can't wait till I have a garlic press! Then I will have no more yucky garlicy fingers that chase away even the thoughts of vampires from other peoples heads for the next 2 days!)

Mix into yogurt and seasonings.



In a second bowl measure out breadcrumbs, about 1 cup is what I used. My breadcrumbs are pre-seasoned, so that's what you see there.



Butter a glass cooking dish. Cause NObody want's to scrub baked on ANYthing!



Wash and salt the chicken and slather on the yogurt mix.



Bread the yogurt drenched chicken and place in the pan. Put a slice of butter on the largest part of the chicken, cause breadcrumbs will dry it out.

Cover in foil and Bake at 350 for 45 min. The last 15 min I uncovered it till it was brown and sizzling. The regular recipe is bake for1 hour.



And here's our delicious dinner!

Brandon says it's blog worthy.

I quite enjoyed it!
Good pick Melissa!

~Becky

Crispy Yogurt Chicken
c/o The Pioneer Woman

Ingredients
2 cups Plain, Unflavored Yogurt
2 cloves (to 3 Cloves) Garlic
Parsley, To Taste
1 whole (juice Of) Lemon
Chicken Legs (or Thighs, Etc.)
Salt To Taste
2 cups Panko Bread Crumbs
Butter (1 Pat For Each Piece Of Chicken)
Preparation Instructions
Pour yogurt into a mixing bowl. Peel and mince garlic; add garlic to the yogurt. Chop up a small amount of fresh parsley and add it to the yogurt. Add lemon juice. Mix together to combine.
Rinse chicken and pat it dry. Sprinkle with (kosher) salt.
In another bowl, place the bread crumbs. Sprinkle with salt and stir lightly.
Butter a baking dish. With a pair of tongs, place the chicken, one piece at a time into the yogurt mixture. Turn it over thoroughly to coat. Then roll the chicken in the Panko bread crumbs. Cover each piece thoroughly with bread crumbs and place in the baking dish.
Place a slice of butter over the large part of each chicken piece. Cover with foil and bake in a 350º oven for 1 to 1 ¼ hours, removing the foil for the last 15 minutes of cooking. When the chicken is nice and golden, remove from the oven and enjoy!