Sunshine, seasalt and steak!

While at the grocery store today I saw "top sirloin grilling medallions" on sale.  Like REALLY on sale.  So I grabbed two for Dan and I to try.  When I arrived home I thought - What a great time to try a new recipe! So I did!!  Here it is:

1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil
1-3 cloves of fresh crushed garlic

1 tablespoon freshly cracked black pepper

1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt

2tbs Olive Oil

2 top sirloin steak

Instructions:
Mix basil, garlic, pepper and salt in large bowl with olive oil.  Brush liberally over sides of steak.  Place steak in pan and grill evenly.  5 minutes for rare, 8 for medium rare, etc.

I added grilled baby potatoes and a garden salad to ours.  It was delicious!! Enjoy!

Going green...

My father has been an avid gardener since before I arrived into this world.  I've seen him grow things from the smallest yellow flower to the largest apple tree.  We've had fresh veggies, beautiful flowers and fragrant herbs from Dad's garden since I can remember.  What ever is in season is what we'll be having.  He's an amazing gardener, and as I've grown up he's let me help out along the way.  When I was small I was allowed to plant the carrots and sometimes help with the tomatoes.  We've had huge harvests and not so huge harvests.  I still remember the year we had over 30lbs of tomatoes!! 30 LBS!!!!  I love fresh veggies and I also love the beauty that surrounds my parent's place.  It's always lovely.

Now I would never profess to having a "green thumb" but I've always secretly (or maybe not so secretly) hoped that Dad had passed it along to me.  I've always wanted to garden.  I've never had the space.  Four years of residence life is not conducive to gardening.  Our last place was also no good for a garden.  But here, in our (sort of) new place I have space! I have free reign to plant what I want...and I'm going to try it.  I don't know that I'll actually plant anything in the yard itself, we're planning on moving in the fall, but I've got two large planters just waiting for my touch. 

So this fall I took a stab at gardening.  I started, from seed, some chives, some basil and some parsley.  The chives never sprouted.  The basil and parsley, however, sprouted quickly and now I've got some lovely transplants that I will be putting into my planters.  As soon as it warms up.  So until then...enjoy my lovely plants!

Home,home on the range....

Where the pugs and the dust bunnies playyyyy!

That's how I feel about my house! There are dust bunnies EVERYWHERE!  No matter how often I clean I find pug-fur-fueled dust bunnies.  I try to vaccumm once a week and I sweep ever few days but I still can't seem to contain the maddess! 

So I went in search of ideas and here are some that I'm going to try...
- Dust mop/swiffer  I'm going to get one and I PROMISE to run it around the house EVERYDAY. 
- I've changed the filters in my heating vents...
- Apparently fabric softener and water in a spray bottle works on fabric.  Spray, dry, vaccumm.

So we'll see what happens with those...

Cooking with class

I don't think I'm a horrible cook.  I can whip up a meal in good time.  And I have some  tested and true receipes that I follow.  Dan, almost, always likes what I make for dinner and I've heard few complaints from guests that stop by.  However, I'm leary of trying new things in the kitchen.  I always enjoy new tastes when I'm out, but ask me to cook it and I'm going to freeze.  I can take my old recipes and adjust them...add more of this, less of that, throw in pork instead of chicken, etc.  But brand new flavours make me nervous. 

So last night I challenged myself.  I wanted to try something new, something different.  So I made Katie's Mustard Baked Chicken.  (I must confess that I've made the chicken before just not the pasta...and I only put a LITTLE of the paprika last time.  I was ascared!)

So how did it turn out, you ask? WONDERFUL!!  The chicken was delicious (this time I followed the receipe to a T) and the pasta (with some grilled veggies) was delicious!  I think I'm on the road to new adventures in the kitchen.  But we'll see...