Happiness Is: Guest Pictures!

I'm still (somewhat) patiently awaiting our wedding pro pics, but this week was a very exciting one, because we got a lot of guest photos, in response to asking for them in our thank you cards! These are all that are getting me through until we get our pro pics, because there's so much I just didn't get to see at our wedding.

For example, this week I got to see a peek of our choose your favors table set up for the first time. My blogger friend Kim, aka The Perpetual Party Planner uploaded it for us to our photo sharing site. (Who's own wedding is 3 months away, and by the way, really should apply for Weddingbee. She has a fantastic sense of personal style, is an entertaining writer, and is planning what is sure to be a gorgeous, rustic-vintage-glam, 400 person, Catholic-Indian wedding at a winery in the East Bay!)


And one of my bridesmaids uploaded 448 pictures for us, which combined with my photos, now makes it possible to start writing our week-before-the-wedding recaps!


I've already looked at the new guest pictures this week about 400 times, and am pretty sure I will be doing the same all weekend!

So, what are your weekend plans? And was anyone else obsessed with looking and looking at your guest photos, to tide you over until you got your pro wedding pictures?

I Told You I Can Cook Something: Baked Enchiladas!

I don't really want this to be a cooking blog. But after all, newlywed life is (for me at least) learning how to cook, so I thought I'd try to share one recipe a week. And after last week's not-that-great cooking attempt with our slow cooker, I decided I need to do something more along the lines of what I know: throwing a bunch of stuff together with lots of cheese, until it tastes good.

So I made easy baked enchiladas!

Now, I think at one point I may have actually looked at a recipe for this dish, but it must have been back in my hazy college days, because I don't remember where I got this idea. But it's pretty quick, easy, and oh so cheesy, so I thought I'd share!

Start with a package of fajita beef (already cut, so it saves you some prep time), large can of enchilada sauce, salsa, cheese, onion, tortillas, and Mexican spices and garlic powder if you want (please ignore the pictures of my ancient spices...still haven't made it to Costco to replace them with new ones!).


Partially cook about 1/3rd of a chopped onion in a little oil, then add the meat and cook until brown.


While the meat is cooking, pour about 1/4 of the can of enchilada sauce in the bottom of a large pan.


Once the meat is cooked, add 1/2 of the enchilada sauce to it, along with about a 1/2 cup (I think? I just dumped some in until it looked like enough) of salsa in, and add whatever seasonings you like (I added Mexican seasoning and some garlic powder). Let simmer for a couple minutes.


Then it's time to load your tortillas! Just place it in the baking pan, scoop some of the meat and sauce mixture in, and top with a whole lot of cheese. And by the way, if you have more stuff in your house, it's really good to add stuff like peppers, beans, guac, whatever you want. But this is what we had, so I went with it.


Roll the tortilla up after stuffing it, until you have 6 enchiladas ready in the pan.


Top with the remaining 1/4 can of enchilada sauce, and add some more cheese, then bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees, covered with foil.


The end result is yummy, gooey, cheesy goodness!


I like mine topped with some nice, artery-clogging sour cream.


See? I told you I knew how to make SOME food! And this is good for 3 nights of dinner when paired with a side salad. Mission achieved, two more nights I don't have to cook!

Why I'm Still Full From Yesterday: The Gilroy Garlic Festival

I still haven't eaten yet today, and didn't eat anything for dinner last night, except some garlic kettle corn. And for good reason, I stuffed myself silly of my favorite "food" yesterday afternoon at the Gilroy Garlic festival!

It took a good hour and 45 minutes to get to the festival, since traffic was really heavy, so once we finally got in, we had to quench our thirst! The hubs had some beer and I had a classy "wine cooler," aka, wine, Sierra Nevada and a splash of cranberry juice.


Next came the tough decisions. What type of garlicky food would we start with? There are a ton of choices, all over the festival, but I knew a good place to start was Gourmet Alley, where the specialty (i.e. not standard fair food with garlic thrown in) foods are featured. So many choices!


We split the combo with a half of roasted garlic pepper steak sandwich, penne con pesto, calamari, and garlic marinated mushrooms (I didn't try the mushrooms, but everything else was very good, although the calamari was on the chewier side and not that garlicky).


After inhaling the combo plate, we decided to finish off our drinks while walking around the festival, just checking things out. They had lots of interesting garlic displays, cooking demonstrations, and several stages with live bands.


Of course, after all that walking around, we needed another garlic fix, so we got some of the best garlic fries I've ever had! So crispy and garlicky!


We went and listened to some more music in another pavilion, and I happened to notice yet another strip of food vendors, with one featuring something I'd never seen before.


Deep fried garlic! Holy awesomeness, they found a way to make garlic into an actual food, not just a seasoning! I of course had to try it.


ZOMG, so freaking good! The batter was light and crispy, and not too greasy, and when you bit into it, the garlic clove was nice and soft and nutty. It tasted much like roasted garlic, but not as soft and mushy, but with a similar mild flavor.


And no, we weren't done yet! Next we needed to go get yummy real fruit smoothies. You go around to the three flavor stations inside the tent, and they layer on the flavors however you want (sadly I couldn't try the banana, because I'm allergic).


By then we were getting tired from being out in the sun all day, so made one last stop to get a big bag of garlic kettle corn to take home with us. It was still warm, and an oh-so-good snack, or dinner, for later. Me with my popcorn baby:


So yeah, that's why I didn't really eat dinner last night, or anything yet today! I'm still stuffed with garlic. Sigh! Best food day of the year!

Happiness Is: Garlic!

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I seem to be writing all about food this week!

This weekend is the annual Gilroy Garlic Festival, held in the garlic capitol of the world, about an hour south of where we live.

I'm pretty insanely excited about going with The Mr. to the festival, because garlic is MY FAVORITE FOOD (yes, the all caps is necessary), and we haven't gone the past three years.

I know, I know, garlic isn't really a food. But I love it to death and will put it on just about anything, so to me, it counts! Saturday we will be eating about 4,000 calories of garlicky foods, and I will definitely be bringing home a giant bag of garlic kettle corn. It sounds a little weird, but the salty/sweet flavor of kettle corn, with the addition of garlic is heavenly.

Do you have any yummy food-related plans this weekend? And have you ever been to an entire festival dedicated to your favorite food?

Good For Nothing Cats!

On my way out the door this morning, as I was grabbing yogurt out of our fridge (ok, fine, it was Scooby Doo kids go-gurt!), I heard a rustling noise under the fridge. At first I thought it was just veggies shifting in the bottom drawer, but then I decided it might have been a mouse under the fridge!

We have three freakin’ cats, how the heck do we have a mouse in our house? Their one job is to take care of flies and other pests, in return for love, toys and cuddles, but apparently they’re not pulling their weight around here.


Or else maybe they brought the mouse in themselves. They’ve left dead mice on our front foyer before. And lizards, birds and gophers, as nice little “presents.” I wonder if maybe they only injured a mouse and it escaped?

Either way, I’ll be spending tonight pulling out the fridge and scrubbing our whole kitchen with bleach. Even though in middle school I had pet hamsters and two baby mice (that a friend managed to kill in two separate incidents, within a half hour of each other), wild ones gross me out!

Damn cats. There’s a reason why I’m more of a dog person than a cat person. At least dogs will clean up spilled food on the floor and bring you your slippers. They know how to make themselves useful!

Dining Out With Your Hubby For Cheap

Now that we aren’t spending every spare minute working on wedding projects, we have time to go out and enjoy ourselves. But just because we aren’t spending out the ying-yang every week at Michaels and writing catering checks, doesn’t mean that we aren’t still trying to be conscientious about our spending. On the agenda for next month is laying out our joint savings plan for the next few years, and with saving for a house high on our priority list, cheap entertainment is key.

Enter Restaurant.com.

Have you all heard of this awesome website? Basically, you can buy gift certificates for tons of local restaurants, for at least half off, but often times for a whole heck of a lot less. As in, a $25 gift certificate for $2 or $3. It’s insane! I signed up for their emails, which let you know when their $2 and $3 sales are happening, but even their normal special, a $25 certificate for $10 is still a great deal. And there’s no waiting either, you just print the gift certificate out after purchasing it.

Last time we were in Vegas, for The Mr.’s birthday, I got a $50 gift certificate for $10, which was great to toward our $130 bill. Especially great was the free transportation, since the restaurant we ate at, Casa di Amore, will pick you up from your hotel in their old school red limo.


The remainder of the Bruschetta and roasted peppers I had arranged to have waiting in our corner booth when we arrived, along with a bottle of Pinot:


Followed by a fabulous dinner of chicken rollatini and stuffed pork chops:


A great birthday surprise for The Mr. for $40 off, thanks to Restaurant.com. And now that we have the time for eating out, and I don’t have to be quite as strict with my dieting, I can’t wait to use this site to try some new restaurants in the Bay Area!

Do you have any other tips for saving on dining out?

EDIT: You may only want to buy certificates on this site using Paypal, not your credit card number. I've never had any issues, but I've only used my Paypal account. (see comments below)

Slow Cooker 1st Attempt: Only A Somewhat Success

Alright. Cooking. Yeah…..

So I’ll preface this post by saying, I DO know how to cook. Kind of. I don’t have a huge repertoire, but I can usually throw something together that won’t give you food poisoning. And when in doubt, I just put some more garlic powder on it and call it good.

But I swear, cooking is NOT like riding a bike, you do forget stuff and lose your skills over time.

I haven’t really cooked anything for a good….9 months? Since before Christmas at least. And I don’t count microwaving and then mixing pre-cooked chicken with frozen veggies as cooking. Or heating up frozen dinners in the oven (although I will give a shout out to Safeway brand Eating Right meals, they’re all under 350 calories, and pretty healthy, except for all the sodium. They have a big variety too, so you can, literally, eat them 5 days a week for months and not get too bored. Yeah, know that from experience!).

But now that I’m a newlywed, and trying to be domestic (or just not die of non-crafting boredom), I’m going to make an attempt to cook more. I’m starting slow though, with some casseroles and slow cooker recipes, meals that only involve one night of cooking for several nights of food in return.

For my first attempt, I opted to use our brand new slow cooker (thanks to The Mr.’s co-workers), and the Fix It and Forget It cookbook, to make 20 Clove Garlic Chicken.

I was a good little blogger, and took step by step pictures, but I’m not sure they’re really worth posting because the dish only turned out just ok. The chicken was falling apart soft, but could have been a little less done. I’m not sure how it was both soft and dry, but it was. I blame that on having never used the slow cooker before, so I wasn’t 100% sure on the timing, especially when all the recipes give you a range of cooking times, with lots of non-specific notes on adjustments for different sized slow cookers.

The other problem? No flavor.


The recipe called for 2 tablespoons of parsley, 1 tablespoon of both basil and oregano, 20 cloves of garlic, some celery, ¼ cup of wine, and juice and zest from one lemon. For 6 pieces of chicken breast. You would think that would be enough spices, right? Especially with all that garlic.

But sadly it wasn’t. At all. It was nothing that some BBQ sauce couldn’t fix, and we still ate it, so it was a somewhat success. But by itself there wasn’t much taste, and even the garlic cloves themselves were mushy and nearly flavorless.

I’m guessing I went wrong in one of two places. 1) My spices are old? I don’t know, do spices go bad or lose their flavor over time? I have no idea, but I guarantee some of them are probably 7-8 years old. And from the dollar store. Or 2) the flavor went away because of the overcooking?

Is anyone else out there familiar with slow cooking and can tell me where I went wrong? Or was it just not a very good recipe and didn’t call for enough spices? I really don’t know enough to be able to tell, especially since I usually just season things to taste without much measuring.

And because I figure I might as well not waste them, here are the pictures I took while making the slow cooker chicken. It did not take the 10 minutes prep time listed in the book though, more like 40 minutes, because peeling garlic is time consuming! But basically I combined the spices and wine, added the garlic and celery, stirred and set them aside, then added the chicken to the spice mixture and left overnight. The next morning I just layered the garlic and celery in the bottom of the cooker, added the chicken, and topped off with the lemon juice, leftover spice mixture and the lemon zest. The recipe was followed, and it actually looked yummy, but just lacked any flavor. Please tell me why!


(The side dish of steamed red potatoes with sauteed garlic and butter was much better than the slow cooker chicken)