Happy 4th of July y'all! It's my favorite holiday! I love the USA! Seriously, July is the best month. The 4th of July, our wedding anniversary, and this year... the Olympics! It's just so great. To celebrate our independence, I will be hanging out in our pool with friends, eating hot dogs {100% beef; 100% American}, slathering sunscreen on myself and all the kids coming over... and maybe playing some ladder ball or croquet. Keepin' it real. Celebrate America. ... Read more
Now that I've moved away from rainy Washington to sunny Arizona, I am all about grilling and eating dinner in the backyard. The weather is perfect for outdoor meals almost year round. This fall we moved into a house with a built in gas grill, and last week we added some big white lights to our back patio, so we have no excuse not to cook and eat outdoors as much as possible! So I was very excited to stumble upon this recipe for grilled veggies a few months ago. Usually, I just call them fajita veggies, even though they aren't actually the type of veggies you put in a fajita. Regardless of what you call them though, they are delicious. And as a former veggie hater, I am always looking for new recipes to try, since I finally learned to like vegetables at the ripe ol' age of 25. These make a perfect side to any summer meal! What you need: 2 medium red potatoes 1 small sweet potato 1 yellow summer squash 1 medium onion 1 red pepper 1/3 cup olive oil 2 tbsp. white vinegar 2 tsp. fajita seasoning 1 1/4 tsp. hot sauce What you do: 1. Preheat grill to 350 degrees. 2. In a medium saucepan, boil potatoes for 10-15 minutes, until firm-tender, but not fully cooked. You can also microwave them for about two minutes instead to save time. 3. Cut potatoes and all the other veggies into bite size pieces as seen above. Brush with olive oil {about half of the 1/3 cup}. 4. Pour remaining oil into a bowl and add vinegar, fajita seasoning and hot sauce. Stir and set aside. 5. Place vegetables on cooking spray covered foil and move to grill. Cook, covered, for 15-20 minutes, stirring/flipping them once or twice. At this point, you might have to remove the squash and red pepper and let potatoes continue to cook for about five more minutes. 6. Remove all veggies from grill and add to the oil mixture. Toss to coat and serve warm. *Make it easy. If you don't want to bother with grilling, you can pop your potatoes in the microwave for about two minutes, so they are partially cooked before you cut them. Then cut up all your veggies, toss them in the oil mixture, spread them out on a baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. Either way, they will be delicious! *Linking up with Stonegable and 5 Day, 5 Ways. ... Read more
Oh, sweet summer. How I love you. I'm so happy you are here, yet I want to cry because you are halfway over... I also want to cry because I am supposed to re-teach myself French this summer for a test I have to take in the fall, and so far all I know is: Hi, my name is Jennifer. I am from the United States. I speak a little no French. Thank you very much. But oh well! I mean... eh bien! I will keep practicing. Almost five years of French back in the day and all I can remember is what I learned in the first two weeks of class when I was sixteen... eek! But apart from struggling through Operation Français {I had to give it a name before I could take my studies seriously...} we have been having quite a bit of fun over here in the desert... Mom stayed in town a few days longer than the rest of the fam, so a fro-yo date was a necessity for us. Micah and I have been going on lots of outdoors-y twighlight dates. No, not the vampire kind. The kind where you ride your bikes around your favorite neighborhoods at sunset and dream of owning a big house filled with lots of kids someday. We've been hanging out in the backyard quite a bit lately... until the big nasty dust storms {yes, the technical name is "haboob"} drive us indoors. I love Arizona, but I am not a fan of the dust. At all. Oh, and did I mention that I am babysitting a little bit this summer? It's the first time I've babysat {ahem... "nannied"} since college! I've forgotten what it's like to make sticker casts for a foot injury and dress up like a superhero. Did they have belts on their heads in The Avengers? I can't remember... In other news, I actually put on make-up and real clothes one day last week and went out and about like a normal person. And by "one" I mean exactly that... one out of five weekdays I put on clothes other than gym clothes, my pajamas or my swimsuit and put make-up on my face. Feels so foreign. And this summer is all about sprucing up my living environments. We finally hung globe lights across our patio like we've been wanting to all summer. Perfect glow of light for s'more roastin' if you ask me. And I stopped by campus for the first time all summer and saw evidence that they are actually remodeling our office like they promised they would in the spring. I'm pretty sure the place hasn't been cleaned since before Vietnam... at least. That's it for now. P.S. Do you know it's July?!? July is my favorite month ever. It's our wedding anniversary, this little blog's anniversary, and the 4th of July just happens to be my favorite holiday. I'm so excited for the next few weeks of celebration! *Linking up with Hello Hue and Life Rearranged.* ... Read more