Grilling

I had a "first" yesterday. I, yes me, grilled for the first time yesterday. As in outside on the real grill, not inside on the indoor one. I have watched and helped many times before but this was the first time I actually did it myself. I will gladly say that Bailey started the fire, but once the fire was ready, it was all mine! I grilled the following two recipes from this fabulous book. And I must say that both were pretty delicious!

This is the first time I've used any of this book's recipes but plan to use many, many more in the coming months.

Jalepeno Chicken Wraps

1 lb boneless skinless chicken breats

1 tablespoon garlic powder

1 talbespoon onion powder

1 tablespoon pepper

2 teaspoons seasoned salt

1 teaspoon paprika

1 small onion, cut into strips (I didn't use these)

15 jalapeno pepers, halved and seeded

1 pound sliced bacon, halved widthwise

Blue cheese salad dressing (didn't use this either)

Cut chicken into 2-in x 1-1/2 in strips. In a large resealable plastic bag, combine the garlic powder, onion powder, pepper, seasoned salt, and paprika; add chicken and shake to coat. Place a chicken and onion  strip in each jalapeno half. Wrap each with a piece of bacon and secure with toothpicks.

Grill, uncovered, over indirect mediom heat for 18-20 minutes or until chicken juices run clear and bacon is crisp, turning once. (Mine took a little bit longer to get the bacon crisp). Serve with blue cheese dressing.

**This editor's note was included with the recipe: when cutting or seeding hot peppers, use rubber or plastic gloves to protect your hands. Avoid touching your face. (I used gloves because I'm prone to rubbing/scratching my eyes/face).

Grilled Potato Skins

2 large baking potatoes

2 tablespoons butter, melted

1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary, crushed

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1 cup (4 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese

3 bacon strips, cooked and crumbled

2 green onions, chopped (I skipped these)

sour cream

Cut each potato lengthwise into four wedges. (I cut them into six because my potatoes were pretty large). Cut away the white portion, leaving 1/4 in. on the potato skins. Place skins on a microwave-safe plate. Microwave, uncovered, on high for 8-10 minutes or until tender. Combine the butter, rosemary, salt and pepper; brush over both sides of potato skins.

Grill potatoes, skin side up, uncovered, over direct medium heat for 2-3 minutes or until lightly browned. Turn potatoes and postition over indirect heat; grill 2 minutes longer. Top with cheese. Cover and grill 2-3 mintues longer. Top with cheese. Cover and grill 2-3 mintues longer or until cheese is melted. Sprinkle with bacon and onions. Serve with sour cream.

I'm planning on trying a grilled pork chop and asparagus recipe soon so I'll be sure to post how that goes.

Back...Again.

Well, I'm noticing a bit of a pattern. Blog a time or two. Wait for 4-6 weeks to pass. Blog again. Repeat. I've had a few people tell me I need to get back in action so maybe this time I'll do a bit better. Summer is near so I sure hope so.

Bailey and I haven't had too much going on. Work, work, work. He's had a class or two to attend and getting ready to go to another one. I was lucky enough to finish therapy for the school year last week. Now I'm just finishing IEPs and holding meetings. I'm also helping to get everything ready for our state testing next week.

A few weekends ago we got ambitious and landscaped a bit in the front yard. We've only planted some flowering shrubs--no true flowerbeds yet. We have to wait until we get gutters before we do that.

We love Ole Miss baseball so that has consumed a good bit of our time too--going to games and then watching/listening to them. This weekend we'll be headed to Oxford to watch them play Arkansas.

Here's a recipe for Coca Cola BBQ. I got this from one of the cookbooks from NWCC. I've made it several times and really enjoy it. My sister has some of it not long ago and liked it so I'd thought I'd share it.

COCA COLA BBQ
1 chicken, cut up (I use several chicken breasts instead, cut into smaller pieces)
1 to 1 1/2 large onions (I don't use these)
10-12 oz. Coca Cola
10-12 oz. ketchup

Lay chicken in baking dish. Slice onion onto chicken. Mix Coke and ketchup and pour over chicken. Bake at 350 for about an hour.

Back to Work

Spring break has come and gone, always so quickly. I will say that I was fairly productive all week long, except for this last weekend--I did pretty much nothing to reward myself for all my hard work.

I had two goals over the break: first, to clean house and second, to paint my room (not the master bedroom but a spare room that we're making into a closet/craft room.)

I got most of the cleaning done, only lacking just a few things. I got my room painted--I just need to go back and touch up a few places. Bailey took off Thursday and Friday and we decided to tackle painting our bedroom. I was supposed to paint it over the MLK holiday but, obviously, never did. I only lack painting the trip in the bedroom. I know there were other things we worked on around the house, but I honestly can't remember what they were.

Thursday night we got the grill going and grilled some kabobs as well as some hamburgers since we had the grill going. Here's our recipe for kabobs (we got this one from my MIL). We usually eat these along some white rice. I'll also give you our hamburger recipe we got from a friend.

Chicken and Steak Kabobs

steak and chicken (this time I used about 1 lb. of steak  and 1 1/2 of chicken)

Italian dressing

medium onion

two bell peppers

Cut steak and chicken into cubes. Put into dish and cover with Italian dressing (as much or as little as you like). I usually let it marinate for at least an hour, sometimes longer.

Cut up your onion and bell pepper into about one inch pieces. 

Place all on skewers, alternating ingredients. (We make all chicken ones, then all steak ones because the chicken sometimes takes a little longer.)

Then grill them and enjoy. ( I really don't know how hot the grill should be or how long to grill them--that's Bailey's job!)

Italian dressing is a great marinade. I use it in our hamburgers, too, along with a few other things. Another really easy thing is to marinate some chicken in Italian dressing and then bake it. Super easy and yummy! I try to buy chicken in bulk and then separate it into the portions I'll use for cooking. I sometimes pour some Italian dressing into one of the freezer bags--that way the chicken soaks up the dressing as it freezes and thaws. After it thaws, put it in a casserole dish, a little fresh dressing and pop it in the oven.

As I said before, I hardly did anything this past weekend, unless you count watching America's Next Top Model for a few hours and giving myself a manicure and pedicure. Well, and we went to dinner on Saturday night with some friends of ours, but that's about it.

I'll end with picture of Lula and Wrigley. Both of them really enjoyed the nice weather last week. They got to stay outside all day long.

Not a great picture since it was taken from my phone and through the blinds. (Try to ignore the nasty sunken backyard in the background--it's a work in progress).

Busy, busy, busy.

It has been nearly 8 weeks since I last blogged. That's quite a while.

The last few weeks in the Hunt household have been rather busy. There's no way I can remember what all has happened since my last post, but I can briefly tell about the last few weeks.

Both of our birthdays have come and gone. We went to Kyoto with my family for dinner which was a lot of fun. I haven't been to a hibachi-type restaurant since prom. After dinner, a king cake was waiting on us at my parent's. My dad has had one shipped from Baton Rouge as long as I can remember, since my birthday is around Mardi Gras.

The last weekend in February I ended up going with my mom on a quick trip to Baton Rouge. (This is where I was born, as well as Olivia and William). The music minister of the church we attended there was retiring after nearly 30 years. My dad had originally planned to go with my mom but he got sick so I went instead. It was fun. I didn't remember most of the people but alot of them remembered me, or Olivia. Some of them said they remember me each year because my birthday is on Leap Day.

That same weekend, Bailey was in Oxford. He and some friends had made plans to go to the Eric Church concert.

The next weekend Bailey and I went down to New Orleans to stay with his cousin and his wife, and to go to a few of the Ole Miss-Tulane baseball games. We had a lot of fun and ate lots of good food. We got there Friday night and went to a little bar to grab a burger. Saturday we got up and rode around to see the remaining damage from Katrina. Then we went downtown and ate at Johnny Po Boys. Bailey and I split a shrimp poboy as well as a french fry poboy. Yes, that sounds crazy but it was so good. It had gravy and cheese on it--yum! After lunch we went next door to the Kupcake Factory and had a mint chocolate cupcake. Then we shopped around downtown a bit before heading to the ballgame.

After the ballgame, we went back and cleaned up before going to dinner. We ate dinner at Copeland's Social City and the food was incredible. They have lots of different appetizers and small plates (which are smaller portions of an entree) in addition to their dinner entrees. Bailey and I decided to share three different appetizers/small plates. They were: crab and shrimp spring rolls, crawfish pasta and crab-stuffed catfish. They were all unbelievably good. My favorite was the crab-stuffed catfish. Then came time for dessert. They are known for their cheesecake, that is super creamy, and their signature way of serving it which is two scoops of it in a martini glass with your choice of topping. I sampled the white chocolate strawberry and ended up getting the bananas foster cheesecake. Bailey got the fresh strawberry. All of it was absolutely delicious!

Sunday we had a lighter lunch, Subway, and then headed to the game. We ended up leaving with a few innings to go since we weren't playing too great and got on the road early. It was a really beautiful weekend and it was great to see Jonathan and Tiffany.

The following Tuesday I left for a conference in Jackson and was there until Thursday afternoon. I got to do lots of shopping after sitting in the conferences all day!

Friday at 3:00 marked the beginning of Spring Break and it's been fabulous so far! I've been trying to clean/organize all around the house. I've also been working on "my" room. I'm nearly finished painting it. Bailey and I are about to head up to Lowe's to pick up a few things for around the house. Then we (yes, both of us--he took off the next 2 days) will be able to work on some things around the house the rest of the week.

Sorry this was so lengthy! I've been gone too long. I'll really try to get better about it.

Blog Hiatus Over

I'm back, once again. I kind of took an unintentional leave from blogging. We were without our home computer for at least two weeks. We somehow got a nasty virus or something that completely took over the computer. However, I am ever so lucky to have a friend/co-worker who's husband is very computer savvy and he cleaned it up for us.

Right around my last blog post (right at a month ago), we found a sweet, sweet puppy at our church. She was incredibly thin and malnourished and it was right around one of those times when it was pretty chilly. I somehow convinced Bailey to let us take her home for at least a night or two. I took her to the vet the next morning to have her checked out. The vet said she looked to be about four months old, possibly a hound and/or boxer mix. It appeared as though she was probably dumped by someone.  We were going to think it over the next week or so, whether we wanted to keep her or not, and, of course, we decided to keep her. Neither of us could bear to give her away. So we now have two "babies"--Lula and Wrigley. We were hoping to get another dog (a bigger one) in the next year or so, so this worked out perfectly.

Lula and Wrigley waiting to come inside on one of our "snow" days.

School has been back in full swing since the first full week of January--for the most part anyways. I haven't yet had a full week due to a conference, snow days, and a holiday. And I'm really hoping this wintry mix is coming and we won't be at school tomorrow. (I love my job, but I'm just a kid at heart and love any sort of "snow" day--even if there's not a whole lot of snow!)

There hasn't been much else going on. We're still trying to work on things here and there for the house. We are currently planning/beginning to work on a room for me that's going to become a closet/craft room. I'm just trying to decide what color to paint it. I'd love any suggestions!

Our First Anniversary

We had a wonderful anniversary. We spend it mostly just relaxing and enjoying our time together. We opted not to go anywhere (out of town) since we're still settling in the house and have had so much other stuff going on.

We swapped gifts before heading to dinner. Here's Bailey's:

He got a fire pit and a scarf. The first anniversary is paper so I gave him a card too. (And, technically, paper could be burned in the fire pit).

My first gift:

I opened a box which contained these sheets of paper which say, "Happy 1 Year Anniversary, I LOVE YOU." He then told me that I could pick out a photo album--it will contain only pictures/things from our anniversary. Little did I know I had something else coming......

My surprise gift I received just before dinner.

The second band for my ring!!

I was totally surprised. I still can't believe he got it already.

We ate dinner at Texas de Brazil. If you've never been, go. They have an incredible salad bar and then lots and lots of wonderful meat. The house specialty sirloin is to die for. We ate way too much and then, of course, had dessert. Bailey had key lime pie and I tried the bananas foster pie. Both were fabulous.

It's been a fantastic first year of marriage. I am so blessed.

Well Overdue.

Here are some pictures from a few things over the last month...remember to ignore the poor quality of the photos.  We have a camera that gets the job done but doesn't have great quality. Hopefully we'll invest in a better one before too long.

Bailey and I after the Ole Miss-LSU game.

This was in my room at Thanksgiving. My students are 3rd-6th grade (most of them--the ones that made these). Our chain of gratitude is hanging about our handprint turkey.

A close-up of the turkey.

Before the Christmas Party at Felicia Suzanne's.

Of course we had to take a "family photo"--one with Lula. I intended on using this one on our Christmas card, but decided not to.