Peanut Butter & Jelly Muffins

 

Guess what???

I saw my first hummingbird of the season last night! I was soooooooo excited. The hubby and I were watching "Mad Men" when I caught the first glimpse. Yes, the hubby and I are quite behind on "Mad Men". We actually hadn't watched a single episode since we left Portland. We estimated this left us at the Season 4 finale. However, we estimated this after we had re-watched all of Season 4 and before we subsequently realized we watched it in Portland. For the love. Here's the funny part- both the hubby and I remembered some moments from Season 4, but for the most part, it was all new. We cannot figure out, for the life of us, how we watched all of Season 4 in Oregon, and somehow don't remember most of it. Anyhoo, we've recovered from that faux pas and we've steamed ahead. We just started Season 6. Just as enthralled as ever. In fact, it's making me want to create cocktail recipes and Chicken Kiev for the blog... but back to that hummingbird-

Buffalo Chicken Wings

Guess what today is??

Guess what day it is!!

Today is the kickoff of the NCAA tournament, or "March Madness" as much of the country joyfully calls it. What better food to kick of the tournament than the official food of sports-watching? There is none, these are hands-down the best! The hubby makes them a couple times a year, usually for the Super Bowl, the title game of the NCAA tournament, the Hall of Fame Game in the NFL, occasionally when the Steelers play the Bengals... and that's about it. They are a treat for us, and I look forward to them as such whenever I get them.

The Best Raspberry Vinaigrette

plus a salad recipe!

I love a good raspberry vinaigrette. Until recently however, I've been buying it at the store. Eek. Commercial salad dressings top a lot of foodie lists of the worst processed food items you can buy. Full of preservatives, artificial flavors and colors, and dun dun dun, waaaaay too much sugar. Preservatives I can see, but artificial flavors and colors? Look at that gorgeous raspberry color! Why would you need to artificially color that? And I'm pretty sure some commercial raspberry vinaigrettes don't even contain much of real raspberries. Well, I can tell you with ease, there are more than a few real raspberries in this dressing. 

This has to be one of the best raspberry vinaigrette recipes I've tried. And I've tried quite a few recipes. Recipes that had way too much vinegar and very little raspberry. Recipes that had way too much sugar and very little vinegar. Recipes that were bitter. Recipes that were way too sweet. Recipes that were too thin. It wasn't until I came up with this recipe that I was finally satisfied. This isn't your typical vinaigrette. It's thick, creamy, and for lack of a better word, luscious. The texture kind of reminds me of honey mustard. And it works.  It's a very versatile dressing, good for lettuce, spinach, veggies, fruit, meat, nuts, etc. 

One of my favorite salads to put raspberry vinaigrette on is a spinach salad. I've been making this salad (with commercial raspberry vinaigrette) for years. Years upon years. One of my friends brought a version of this salad to "Family Dinner" when the hubby and I were still living in our first apartment in Portland. "Family Dinner" was basically the hubby and I, plus a couple of his co-workers and their significant others getting together to share dinner and episodes of "Nip/Tuck". You know, in "Nip/Tuck"s heyday. We called it "Family Dinner" because one of the couple's family lived in Minnesota and the rest of us, well, our families lived not quite close. Each week, one couple would prepare dinner for the group. The next week, a different couple would prepare the meal. Ah, the early 20's. When friends were your family. Good times. I was introduced to quite a few "new-to-me" foods during that time. One being this salad. Spinach, red apples and red grapes, gorgonzola cheese, and raspberry vinaigrette. Yummy!

After being introduced to this salad, I began to reserve it for special occasions and I usually served it with steak. I remember 2 or 3 Valentine's Day menus that included a New York strip and this lovely salad. These days, I make it more often that once a year. And it goes perfectly with quite a few proteins- chicken breasts, fish fillets such as cod, halibut, tilapia, even salmon, pork tenderloin. You get the idea. This salad makes a great side dish. And don't limit your use of this dressing to this salad. The dressing goes quite well with lots of toppings, as I mentioned before. 

So, it's November 17 and here in NE Kentucky, we run the risk of getting some snow today. I'm not too worried, the temperature has been quite warm around here. It was 43º yesterday and it only got down to 35º last night. We are sitting firmly at 37º right now, so I'm thinking we might miss this first winter storm. I can only hope. I'm not ready for snow because once it starts, we'll probably be dealing with snow here until March. Maybe April, like last year. Ick. Can you tell I'm not a winter person? He he. 

All right, I'm out. The hubby says I need to be home by noon today, because that's when the snow is supposed to start. We went back and forth on this, me saying it should be too warm, him saying the snow could fall hard and fast and then it wouldn't matter if the temperature is too high. I'm not a snow driver though, so I fully plan on being home by noon. So-- off to run my errands :)

Happy Monday! Have a fantastic week everyone!

Ingredients (yields 2 cups):

3/4 cup frozen raspberries, thawed

1 cup canola oil (I used canola as to avoid the olive oil flavor)

1/4 cup + 1 tbsp white vinegar

1 1/2 tbsp dijon mustard

1 tbsp sugar

1 tsp poppy seeds

3/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp onion powder

Directions:

1. Combine all ingredients in food processor. Pulse until smooth, about one minute. Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 weeks. 

Printable Recipe

Recipe adapted from Food.com.

If you liked this recipe, you may enjoy these!

Apple Walnut Salad with Poppy Seed Dressing

Creamy Blue Cheese Dressing

Crispy Buffalo Chicken Salad

Linked to: Treasure Box Tuesday, Weekend Potluck, Foodie Friday, Foodie Friends Friday Linky Party

Oregon Trip 2011

It has been awhile since my last post but with good reason! I took 9 days off to travel 2700 miles back to Oregon to visit my family and friends. I must say that while the weather was awful, my time spent there was not. I did the worst job taking pictures, I think my camera remained at the bottom of my purse for the entire trip. When I arrived home I discovered I took a whopping total of 16 pictures! Wow, that is a new record of awfulnes! Pictures aside, it was a jam packed trip!
The trip did not have a smooth start. My travel day to Oregon was stressful. My flight schedule was Huntington, WV to Charlotte, NC, have a 3 hour layover, and then a flight from Charlotte to Portland landing in Portland at around 10:30 pm. First off, the flight to Charlotte was diverted due to a tornado warning. We were diverted to an express airport that only flies to Charlotte. Stuck there for almost 2 hours, the airlines loaded people back on the planes with clearance to land in Charlotte and I made it to Charlotte with 10 minutes to make my connecting flight! And on the wrong side of the airport! I sprinted to the other side of the airport and made my flight with no time to spare! While I may have made the plane, my suitcase did not. When I arrived in Portland, I found my suitcase was in Phoenix and went home empty-handed. The suitcase finally showed up at about 8 pm the next day.
The next couple of days were action packed! My first day in Oregon my mom treated me to lunch out and a pedicure at a salon in downtown Albany. The following day, Friday, I spent in Portland. I visited my old workplace and was able to visit with old coworkers, and then went to lunch with my old boss. After spending an afternoon shopping, it was dinner and drinks with one of my little sis's from my sorority, Kristin. It was great catching up! Saturday was my 10 year high school reunion and I am seriously wishing I had taken some pictures! Sunday my parents had a barbeque at their house, which happens to be the only day I took some pictures, shared below.

My brother Jeff, my Dad, my Mom, and me

My brother's girlfriend Katie, Jeff, and me

Dad and me

Mom and me

Good friends Sean and Kim and me. Kim is an old sorority sister of mine and Sean is her fiance, a good friend of Jerame's. Sean and Kim actually are the ones who introduced Jerame and I.

Jeff, Sean, Kim, and me

Kim, Mom, and Me. All alum's of Alpha Chi Omega.

Dad, Mom, and me

On Monday, I headed south to Eugene to visit one of my oldest friends, Megan. I got a tour of the new place she is working at and then we headed to the Duck Store because as I explained to her, it is impossible to find Oregon Ducks stuff in Kentucky. Go figure, lol. After the Duck Store we had dinner at my favorite Mexican restaurant, El Torito. I devoured my whole plate along with 2 margaritas and a truckload of chips and salsa.

Me and Megan outside El Torito

The next couple of days were relaxing, without activities planned. There was one beautiful day when I was there, which was Wednesday, the day before I flew back home. Figures! My dad and I were able to make good use of this nice day, taking my parent's dog on a 3-4 mile walk.

My dad and my parent's dog, LB. It was such a gorgeous day, I wish the weather had been this nice the entire trip!

Later that night, my mom treated me to after-dinner drinks at a martini bar in downtown Albany, the Vault. A surprisingly nice bar for the Albany scene!

Me and Mom at the Vault

A picture of our delicious drinks, Pom-Tini's!

It was a great trip and went way to fast! 9 days were gone before I knew it. I love where I live now, but there is nothing like being with family :)

Starting my blog

Well, this blog has been a long time coming but I am finally there! Procrastination is in my nature which is always something I am trying to work on. One of the main reasons I want to start a blog is to keep in touch with my family back in Oregon and give them a way to keep up on what's going on in my life. A life-long Oregonian for 28 years, I am currently living in beautiful Kentucky which is about 2700 miles away from my family. Kentucky is a gorgeous yet economically challenged state. I'm learning to look past all the double-wides to appreciate the miles of rolling green hills and sun almost every single day! If you know Oregon, you know that sunshine is few and far between!
There is a lot to appreciate about where I am living right now. Having spent the majority of my life thinking I was born to be a "city girl", it only took me 3 years of living in Portland, Oregon to discover I was in no way a "city girl".  It didn't take me long to grow tired of the 24-7 traffic, wall-to-wall people EVERYWHERE, and the fact that houses are separated by sometimes as little as a foot. Not to mention that city life is expensive! Having spent my whole life within 2 hours of where I grew up, I was ready for something different. I wasn't sure what that was and I certainly didn't think it would involve moving across the country! Now that I am here though, I love that Ashland is the polar opposite of Portland. I love that I haven't seen real traffic since December! I love the sunshine! I love looking out the window and not seeing a 100 homes squeezed onto an acre of land (yes, that is an exaggeration). The people are wonderful here. Simple, warm, and friendly all the time.
That's not to say there aren't things I miss about Oregon, because there are a million things! What I miss the most though is my family and friends. I miss that I can't see my parents whenever I want or my brother. I miss my parent's dog and my brother's dogs! While I don't miss my job (yet), I do miss my cube mates and my boss. I miss my small circle of close friends who I also can't see whenever I want. I miss Whole Foods desperately as healthy eating doesn't seem to have caught on in the South yet. I miss Chipotle, Quizno's, Henry's in downtown Portland, Salvador Molly's in Hillsdale, and GOOD mexican food. People in Kentucky seem to have no clue what real Mexican is. And I am really going to miss attending Oregon Ducks football games in the fall.
All in all though, I feel extremely blessed at this time in my life right now and I don't feel like I have anything to complain about. I have a happy and healthy marriage as well as two happy and healthy chihuahuas. My husband's family has taken us under their wings and welcomed us with open arms and plenty of support. Things can only keep going up from here!