I am a little obsessed with making soup at home.  But really hadn’t ventured far beyond the two recipes I’ve tried to so far.  Thanks to Pinterest finding more recipes has been easy to do!  I even created an “i heart soup” board.  Go check it out!

It was on Pinterest that I stumbled upon this recipe from The Pioneer Woman.  I was instantly intrigued and also a little freaked out…I was going to have to pull apart a chicken to get as much meat off the bones as possible!

The first time I made this soup was the weekend of the White Rock Marathon that my sister was running, so the house was a little busy.  Plus I decided to put up my Christmas Tree that weekend with the help of my five year old nephew.

There are quite a few steps to this soup because there is quite a bit of chopping: a couple peppers, an onion and a jalapeno…chop chop chop! Once the soup was finished I couldn’t wait to taste it and it was amazing!

A few days later I learned that our Christmas Eve dinner was going to be sandwiches and soups for dinner so I immediately volunteered to cook this soup.  What I learned from making it the first time was it makes A LOT of soup!  But then I also learned that is freezes good, so that’s a definite plus.  Remember I like that whole “pre-cooked” meal that all I have to do is defrost!

Needless to say, Christmas Eve this soup was a hit!  So to my cousins, sis-in-law and anyone else…here is the recipe!

I figured there was no need for me to take too many photos because the Pioneer Woman did such a good job of that on her blog!  Also I’m not writing out the recipe because it’s on her website (click recipe in the paragraph above to see it).  The only alteration I made the second go-round was I added another 4 cups of broth, the pasta just seems to absorb it and I wanted to make sure it went far enough because there were a lot of us!

If you are a soup maker I definitely recommend this one; give it a try.  Oh and if you can’t find a cut up fryer at your grocery store, get the butcher to up a whole chicken (or fryer) for you!  I refused to cut it up myself at home; plus I don’t really have the greatest knives.

Technorati Tags: Christmas Eve, Soup Recipe, The Pioneer Woman, White Rock Marathon

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Last year seemed to be super busy and reading a book that took too much concentration seemed to be more than I could handle.  So…I just now read “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.”  This year I plan to be a much more faithful reader and have actually challenged myself to read 20 books this year, though secretly I’m hoping I read more than that!

I first attempted to read this book back in May/June but man, those first 30 pages were just too much.  So I put it down thinking I’d come back to it when I had a good chunk of time to devote to it.  Next thing I knew the movie would be out in a matter of weeks and I still hadn’t read it.  I don’t know about you but I hate to see a movie before reading the book.  And I definitely recommend reading this book before seeing the movie.  So many details are left out of the movie.

My sister gave me a great piece of advice that I will pass on here. If you haven’t read “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” yet, keep a piece of paper handy and write down the characters names and a couple words about them to help you know who they are.  Since the author is Swedish and the book was originally written in Swedish the names can be quite confusing; there never seem to be enough vowels in there.

I did that this time and for some reason once I started reading I could NOT stop!  It was addicting, yet at the same time reading it at night freaked me out a bit.  Yes this book has some gruesome parts that are hard to read.  But overall this book is very well written in my opinion.  After finishing this book I truly felt like I knew the characters.  Larsson did a fabulous job of making you really feel like you felt what the characters were feeling.

Despite this book being really popular and hearing about it all the time, I loved that this book was by a Swedish author and the story takes place in Sweden. My dad’s mom was 100% Swedish; both of her parents immigrated here. Of all the different nationalities I have in my family, Swedish the most predominate, most of my grandparents were “mutts” (for lack of a better word).

I haven’t yet read books 2 and 3 but am looking forward to it. It’s too bad for Stieg Larsson that he did not live to see the success of his novels.  Though I wonder, would they have gained such notoriety if he hadn’t passed away?

Yesterday I went and saw the movie, and I thought it was one of the best adaptations that I had seen.  Yes there were things that were omitted and yes they changed some rather significant parts; but overall I definitely recommend the movie, after you’ve read the book!

Technorati Tags: books, Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, reading, Stieg Larsson

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With a 6 hour drive a head of us to the Valley, Beth and I decided we should get going pretty early, but after Beth hit yoga. I think we hit the road and left Austin about 10:30 with coffee and bagels in hand.

Our first stop of the day was just out side of Austin to fill up with gas and so Beth could get a new pair of sunglass:

We continued on our way southbound with our next destination being the Alamo.

We went once as a family years ago but Beth didn’t remember seeing it and since we are doing a tour of Texas this seemed a fitting stop. Plus we knew it’d make Mom happy! We walked through the inside but there were so many school groups that it was way too crowded to really look around. So we headed over to the Riverwalk for an outdoor lunch.

After lunch and about 4 attempts to get back on the highway I was so happy to see this sign:

Once again we arrived a little later than we had estimated and made it to Harlingen about 5:30. Since it is getting darker earlier these days our first stop was the border wall. I had NO idea that Harlingen was so far south and so close to the border.

Then we headed to one of Chase’s favorite restaurants:

The food was great and the margaritas were cheap and it was just fun to finally see where Chase lives and hangs out. After dinner we headed to Oxygen Bar for a few drinks and even got Chase to test out the beerstache

A little after midnight we all decided we were tired and headed back to Chase’s apartment where we were greeted by this dude:

Technorati Tags: Harlingen, San Antonio, The Alamo, the Riverwalk

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I had no idea, but shouldn’t have been surprised, that getting out of town to start our 1100+ mile road trip would have had a few snags. The brilliant idea of hitting the road just a few minutes after 5:00 was delayed by about an hour. I picked the most obscure rental car place with only one worker who left for 15 mins to go fill up another rental with gas. Which meant I had to endure a conversation with a woman who was busy exfoliating her flaking skin. I wish I were joking. But at least she cautioned me that the trouble with being her age is “there’s skin everywhere.” My only response was to look at my cell phone and hope she would stop talking to me.

FINALLY once I had my rental car keys in hand, because I had to work at convincing the guy I wasn’t going for class, all I needed was good gas mileage and an iPod port, I headed back to pick up Beth. Here’s our hot ride for the weekend:

We quickly realized that our plan to have dinner with Ryan & Sunny in Austin wasn’t going to workout; 35 was packed. In Waco we decided to grab a quick dinner at Chickfila so we didn’t waste too much time. Wrong. Chickfila was a quite a venture off the highway, so don’t let the sign fool you if you happen to be passing through Waco.

With Chickfila in hand we got back on 35 only to hit more traffic…not what we were hoping for…after jamming out to my “White Trash” play list on my iPod we finally made it Austin about 9:30. Since it was so late, and Sunny needed to work the next day it didn’t make since to go out somewhere to hang. Instead we ran to Walmart and picked up some wine and headed to Ryan & Sunny’s place. We were greeted by their adorable dog Riley, who I totally would have stolen if I thought I could:

We stayed up until after 1:00 am catching up and reminiscing, all the while half watching “Get Him To the Greek,” which incidentally I need to go back an actually watch because it looked hilarious. Beth and I were both bummed we got there so late and didn’t have more time to hang with Ryan and Sunny but I guess that means will just have to head down to spend a whole weekend in Austin with them soon!

(Too bad we didn’t take a pic from our hang out but I like this one Beth took at Todd and Lindsey’s wedding back in February.)

Thanks so much Ryan and Sunny for letting us crash at your place for the first night of our tour of Texas. We are definitely blessed to have some amazing cousins!

Feel free to follow us on twitter to keep up with our shenanigans: Kate & Beth

Technorati Tags: Austin, roadtrip, Texas

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I can’t believe how long it’s been since I blogged, but I have a legit excuse! My laptop is dying a very slow and for me painful death so I bit the bullet and bought a brand new computer I’ve been dreaming about for months. But enough about that for now, I’m here to talk about wine.

A little over a month ago my cousin Todd got married down in Corpus Christi. The rehearsal dinner was at an amazing restaurant called Vietnam Restaurant. At dinner his (now) wife, Lindsey picked out a few different wines. (Side not so glad he married a wino!) I had never tried the 2008 Hess Cabernet, but I fell in love.

Luckily for me, my local grocery store has had it on sale for the last few weeks and it has become the wine I like to keep around the house for whenever I get…thirsty. It has been hovering right around the $15 a bottle mark, a little more than I used to spend on an everyday bottle but this one is worth it.

Usually I blow off the suggestion to let a bottle of wine breath before drinking it, but with this one it really does get better the longer it is open.

Give it a try and like always be sure to let me know what you think!

Cheers!

Technorati Tags: Cabernet Sauvignon, Hess

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Today I thought I do a different kind of wine o. wednesday post. With Christmas just 3 days away pocket books are probably on the pretty lean side right about now, I don’t want you to think that means you have to forgo the wine this holiday season (as if anyone would really do that?).

After being lovingly scolded by Beau & Melanie for confessing that I do like Barefoot wines, I decided to ask my Twitter friends to tell me their favorite wines under $10 so you won’t break the bank stocking your bar and here are the suggestions I got:

Suggestions I have tried:

Jason (@BigJax34) suggests the Yellow Tail Cabernet or Shiraz

Sarah (@SarahBoswell) Menage a Trois (the red blend) mainly because of the name, just don’t take it to a dinner party with your parents!

Tiffany (@apiphany) Robert Mondavi Merlot but suggests letting it breath a bit.

Debbie (@CoffeeGirlPlano) Mark West Pinot Noir, she says this is a delicious wine

Kimberly (@kizzlethizzle) is not a wine fan, YET, but suggested Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill because it takes her back to high school.

Suggestions I haven’t tried, yet:

Beau (@UCBeau) had a few suggestions: 2007 Folie a Deux Amador County Zin & the 2007 Teague Vineyards 2007 San Benito Cabernet

Whitney (@WhitforBrit) Lucky Duck Cabernet to share with her man from across the pond; be sure to check out their fairytale!

Sara (@PolitoSara) Rex Goliath Merlot or Cabernet

Citimaven (@citimaven) says that the Antano Rioja is a great everyday wine.

Misty (@MSFJones) prefers whites and suggests: Barefoot Moscato, Beringer White Zinfandel & Moscato and Pacific Rim Riesling

Lynn (@lynnsherwood) Altos Las Hormigas Malbec, this is the wine they keep on hand at their house.

Monica (@FabOCGirl) suggests Volteo Tempranillo & for those of you with access, Trader Joe’s VINTJ’s Pinot Gris.

James (@JFTxWine) first became a wine fan because of the Banrock Station Merlot and Cabernet/Shiraz blend.

Jennifer (@txgourmetmom) Llano Chenin Blanc besides it being a Texas wine, she says it is cheap, refreshing and sweet. She always keeps 2 bottles on hand in her fridge.

Cheers & Happy Holidays!

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Apparently being on the coolest kickball team ever, Teammates With Benefits, afforded me this benefit! Jimmy, one of the guys on the team had been telling us about the restaurant he was opening all season long and was nice enough to invite the whole team to the friends and family soft opening.

The Honey Shack is on Lemmon Ave between Wycliff & Oak Lawn, it is the former home of the Catalina Room. If I’m being honest I was a little skeptical what this restaurant would be like as the only description I’d heard was that it was going to be like an upscale Hooters. I thought the layout and design of the restaurant was really well done, though the walls were still blank because most of their artwork hadn’t arrived yet. Although with an all ladies wait staff dressed in barely there uniforms, I’m not sure how many people would really be looking at the wall art.

I was there for about 3 hours Sunday night and the food and drinks never seemed to stop coming. I know this would be a really great time to interject a picture of the waitresses or of the food but I was so busy talking with everyone that I didn’t snap any pictures, my apologies for that!

We all decided to share our food so we could experience a little of all of it, though I should probably go ahead and say, I am not the most adventurous when it comes to food so I did pass on a few things which means I am by no means a food critic or even a “foodie.”

For appetizers we got the Ahi Tuna (which came before I got there), spinach & artichoke dip, chicken quesadillas and ribs (which I also didn’t have). The dip was good a little too heavy on the spinach and not enough artichoke but still not bad. I thought the quesadillas were good I liked the chicken; it was shredded instead of huge chunks. The ribs I heard were good, but I’m not a big rib fan, unless they are my dad’s and sauce-less.

The kitchen was running a little slow, but it was their test run and they were a little short handed, but they kept the drink samples coming so we couldn’t complain!
By the time we ordered dinner we were already pretty full from all of our appetizers, but again we decided to order different items so that we could share. (With the exception of the shrimp pasta which we heard was both good and very unique, they ran out before we could try it). I got a burger covered in jalapenos that was excellent. The other items ordered were the margarita pizza and the pork chops. I actually didn’t try these either because I was so full but wanted to save room to try the jalapeno mac & cheese. It was AMAZING, though they didn’t use traditional macaroni noodles.

Tonight is the official opening of the Honey Shack, with a grand opening in January. Be sure and stop by and support my buddy Jimmy!

Thanks to a review on the Thrillist you can see the menu & you can also “Like” the Honey Shack on Facebook.

Technorati Tags: Dallas, The Honey Shack

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