Chilaquiles: just one picture

January 18, 2010 ... is when I first published this casserole! It's a really great dish from EatingWell. I know previously I made it for a large group of friends for dinner. So I made a smaller dish and it was perfect for Patrick, myself, and leftovers. In 2010 I wasn't taking pictures of the food so I thought it would be fun to show that we really do go back and make lots of the recipes on the blog again... and add pictures.

Well this casserole just isn't meant to be documented. After one picture the camera battery went dead! At least it was a good picture...

Want to revisit the post for the recipe? Click here.
Did you ever make this dish?

Peace Lily and Outdoors

Everything that lives at this house is absolutely thriving ... except for the tomatoes. Lucky is doing great and likes his home on the coffee bar as you saw in the last post. Here are more updates on the greener items in our lives.

The peace lily is doing great! It beffudles us sometimes. It's hard to find good care information for it because everything seems to say something a little different. We've found it a good window with great light that's not too direct. I have also been trying to give it lots of attention (ie wiping all the leaves with a wet paper towel and pulling all the dead leaves out). It is letting us know it's happy because we are seeing the signs of its first blossom in the new house!

We're using a side table as a plant stand. The table is also functioning as wedding book central. I've got a few magazines (nothing crazy), an etiquette book, an organizing book, and then a notebook organizer that you write stuff in.

Here is the herb part of the backyard! Shortly after this picture was taken I harvested all the basil and made lots of pesto. The peppers in the middle are doing okay too. Still waiting on a yellow pepper but we harvest an handful of banana peppers every other week.

Here is the flower part of the backyard! Lots of color surviving the heat of the summer.

Here is the tomato part of the backyard! Their season is over. It's time for them to go.

Peach and Blueberry Clafoutis; Coffee Bar

Mom visited again. We weren't done dress shopping yet! Granny sent some more peaches! When Mom visited the prior week we were just getting started with dress appointments and made a savory dish with the peaches.

With these peaches I wanted to make something sweet and was thinking a cobbler would be great. When Christine and Kasper sent us the Le Creuset petite casserole dishes they included a Mini-Cocotte recipe book from Le Creuset. In this book I found a recipe for Cherry Raspberry Clafoutis. I have no idea what clafoutis is but the picture looked like cobbler. So I looked up clafoutis on wikipedia: it's a French dessert traditionally made with cherries. Too bad I read this after I made the dessert; I substituted peaches and blueberries for the cherries and raspberries. I enjoyed the dish but it was probably a little sweeter than I would have preferred.

Clafoutis from Le Creuset Mini-Cocotte 

   Serves 4 (we cut in half for 2)

Ingredients

   1 1/2 cups stoned cherries (substituted peaches)

   3/4 cup raspberries (substituted blueberries)

   1/2 cup all purpose flour

   3 medium eggs

   3/4 cup powdered sugar

   1/2 tsp baking powder

   1 pinch of salt

   1 cup heavy whipping cream

   powdered sugar for decoration (omitted)

   butter to grease the cocottes

Preparation

   Preheat oven to 400F. (We used the counter convection oven since we were only making two.)

   Lightly butter 4 mini cocottes, ramekins will be fine.

   Clafoutis batter: combine flour, sugar, eggs, baking powder and salt. Add the cream and mix well.

   Divide the fruits between the cocottes and place on a baking sheet. Add a small ladleful of the batter to each. Bake for 5 minutes (make sure you take the convection oven off the toast setting or your fiance will make fun of you). Add the rest of the batter to each cocotte and continue baking for another 20-25 minutes until puffed up and tops are a deep golden brown.

  Let cool to room temperature. Dust with sugar before serving. (We enjoyed it warm actually.)

What goes better with clafoutis than coffee?? Enjoy more pictures of the house ...

When you enter the front door you are greeted by the stairs; step to the left to enter the living area. On the wall created by the stairs we placed a shelving unit that functions as a coffee bar and Lucky the Goldfish living area!

The Keurig and Lucky are on top of the shelves. Our colorful mugs are displayed in the center top shelf flanked by cookbooks. Serving bowls are displayed in the middle shelves. The canvas totes on the bottom shelves house various items including cooking magazines, an assortment of teas for the Keurig, and items I couldn't find a place for so that makes it a junk drawer.

PS: We're done with dress shopping!

Wonderful curtains for the living room and bedroom

More "tour" pictures! Here are our main living areas: the living room and bedroom. Both rooms feature wonderful curtains that look just like regular curtains but they have really made our life a lot easier. They are thermal / black-out curtains.

In the living room we shut the curtains during the day to absorb the daytime heat allowing us to save us energy. In the bedroom we shut the curtains at night to black-out the street lamps allowing us to sleep soundly. I can't tell you enough what a difference this made. Until these curtains were put up I did not wake up feeling rested so when I say these are wonderful curtains, I mean it! Patrick is a big fan of natural light and was a little hesitant to put up the curtains so I purchased curtain hold backs for each set to utilize in the evening for the living room and throughout the day in the bedroom.

This picture is taken from the dining area. As you can see everything flows together seamlessly. In the living room we were able to set up our couch and love seat. We anchored the coffee table with a neutral area rug. It seems like the mantle was made for the TV; it hasn't fallen yet so I guess it really was. Note the peace lily to the left because it will be featured in a post or two. The sliding glass door opens to a nicely sized backyard which will also be featured with the peace lily post!

 Nothing fancy here... just some wonderful curtains!