Garlic Cilantro Hummus

Slowly but surely I am getting back into my blog! Lots of things going on to blog about, but, first up is a super delicious hummus recipe that we have been munching on lately!

I love to cook, and I love being in the kitchen creating new things, so when I discovered how simple hummus was to make, I couldn't wait to attempt my own! I searched Pinterest for a few different recipes that sounded good, then asked the Mr. which one sounded the best, and we ended up choosing the Cilantro Garlic Hummus recipe, and I think I can speak for both of us when I say, I am SO glad we did! It is amazing, and so simple to make!

 

Ingredients:

• 2 cans Garbonzo Beans/Chickpeas (Drained)
• 1/2 Cup Tahini
• 1/2 Cup Olive Oil
• Juice of 2 Lemons
• 1/2 Bunch Cilantro
• 1/2 of a Cucumber (Peeled and Sliced)
• Pickle Juice
• Fresh Garlic (I used probably 2-3 heaping tablespoons .. We love garlic, ya'll!)
• 1/2 Tbsp Garlic Salt (Optional)
• 1/2 tbsp garlic powder
• Pepper 

*Notes --- We used probably 2-3 tablespoons of pickle juice, and a few shakes of pepper to begin with, but added more after mixing everything. The best way is to just follow the standard ingredients list, and once blended, add more seasoning as you prefer.

To Make:

This is the best part ... Put all your ingredients into a blender and  blend until smooth. It is seriously THAT simple! Once it is blended, let sit in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, but we found the next day it was SO much more flavorful after everything had a chance to meld together -- So yum!

Enjoy!

Looking back...

It's practically been a century or so since I've updated this thing, but life just won't slow down. I mean, is it really almost SEPTEMBER? Wasn't yesterday New Years? Although the year is literally flying by, I am soo ready for the next couple of months!

This summer has been terrible weather-wise here in GA! I think it rained two and a half months out of the three summer months, no joke! And not to mention we had a few days with highs in the upper 60's lower 70's? That just doesn't happen in the south during the summer.... especially not AUGUST! Crazy, crazy! But none the less, we have had a jam packed summer, and made the best out of all the sogginess.

So many things I could post about, but per the usual, I am running short on time, so I figured I would just do a quick post. This past June we hit two years in our house, can you believe it? It seems like just yesterday we were sitting at the closing table praying our little hearts out for a smooth closing! We have accomplished so much in two years, and I am so proud of how far our house has come.

But, as we all know, I am literally terrible at before and after pictures. I always forget the dang before picture, then I snap a quick after picture on my phone post it to Instagram, and wah-la, I am done. I've gotta stop that lol -- I have pledged to myself to A. keep up this blog more, and B. start taking better quality pictures with my camera I just "HAD TO HAVE".

So with all that being said, this morning I looked through my Facebook album of our house before we closed on it -- I just cannot believe how much a can of paint, and some DIY'ing can change a house! Case in point.. Our living room.

 

Even though the stripes may have almost been the end of our relationship and the start of world war three, still to this day, we BOTH love them more than anything! The impact they have on the entire space is amazing -- All for the cost of a gallon of paint and a few hours of bickering ;)

I plan to do a full post on the entire living room with sources, and how we painted perfect stripes, but for now, I hope this will hold you over! 

 

Life Lately & House Hunting..

I have been seriously slacking on these blog posts. I have about a million and two things I could post about .. but I just can't seem to find the time lately! Now that spring has rolled around......... or should I say supposed to be rolling around? (There are a chance of flurries tonight & freeze warnings until 11 am tomorrow ...??) the real estate market is booming again. I LOVE IT! We have six new listings going on right now, and are working with several first time home buyers, which are my absolute favorite!

But anyways, life outside of work has been a flurry of activity for us also. Last weekend we had our kitchen and foyer painted for the 3rd time in two years... have I ever explained how indecisive I am when it comes to paint? Ha! This time we had it professionally done, and I am absolutely IN LOVE with both spaces. They turned out great. I will be posting finish product pictures on that soon enough!

The following Tuesday we had our backyard finished ... thaaaaaank the Lord! It is so nice to finally have some fresh green grass down there! Now, once it starts to warm up outside, we will have the landscaping professionally finished, and both decks and the fence stained and our backyard will be complete just in time for warm summer nights around the fire pit! (Please excuse my 5th grade photoshop abilities hahaha...)

Speaking of our backyard .. I think this week it finally hit me, what if once it's all finished and we are ready to list our house... WHAT IF we don't get to enjoy it this summer? What if we do go under contract on our house and we find another that we love?! We have been on the hunt here lately because time is ticking. I think we have been looking at our possibilities since the beginning of January and have not really LOVED anything.. Until the past two weeks. All of these houses have shown up on our daily emails, and every.single.one matches almost all of our criteria. How crazy is that?! I feel like things are getting more real the closer we get to summer.. but, we have also agreed, we are only going to sell if we absolutely find something we are in LOVE with, and honestly, between the two of us, and our never ending list of things we want, that may be impossible. I have had several people ask me why we are planning on selling, and what we are listing our home for. The short version of both is.. we need a three car garage, and preferably would like a larger lot (at least an acre) and to answer the other question regarding what we are listing for, probably in the mid 200's :) Let me know if you're interested! Ha!

Current House..

Here is some of our current favorites that have come up recently..

 

Via

 

via

 

via

 

via

I meannnn...  are they all not just darling?! They all have great, large, flat backyards for Cooper, three car garages, basements, and each are in our price range AND an area we would be comfortable moving to .. double bonus. So stay tuned for more details on our moving status :)

We also celebrated the mister's 24th birthday this past weekend with friends and family and had a great time. I always love birthdays :) And not to mention, the weather was perfect all weekend! But, I have to say, it was weird not going down to Atlanta and getting crazy drunk like past years ... signs of growing up I suppose lol. I also spent a good portion of my Saturday with my parents which is always so nice. We laughed about the fact that Cody and I enjoy spending time with our families so much now that we are growing up, but when we were in our late teens and early 20's you couldn't keep us home to spend time with the parental units for nothin! Funny how growing up works! I cherish my parents more than anything, and wouldn't trade the world for the great relationships we have.

But, the weekend ended and it was back to the grind this week. Busy, busy, busy! This weekend we are taking a nice get away to Cherokee, NC for the Darius Rucker concert on Friday and then the Blake Shelton concert on Saturday, with a little gambling and golf action in between! I was hoping that the weather in Cherokee would be nicer than what is predicted here, butttt after looking at the weather this morning, that's a definite NO. Oh well, at least gambling and drinking takes place inside ;)

Hope everyone is having a great week... and enjoying some buffalo chicken sliders -- I am not kidding when I say I am so humbled by peoples reaction to these things lol -- Over 26,000 page views for those things alone! Crazy I tell ya!

Easter Wreath

For once, I did semi-okay with taking step-by-step pictures of one of my projects! I always get a million questions on how I do things, so I am trying to get better about taking pictures along the way! :) Bear with me ya'll.

I knew I wanted a cute Easter wreath, but had a hard time coming up with this one. I had seen a few different wreaths that I liked on Pinterest, but of course when you click on the link to see better pictures, either half of them don't exist, or, the freakin thing is over $100, um no thanks!

So, after deciding on a style I really liked, off to Hobby Lobby I went. Once I was there, I began to run into some issues. I know bunnies have large, cute floppy ears, but apparently Hobby Lobby doesn't understand this. After brainstorming for over and hour a little while, I picked up these overly large oval shaped grapevine wreaths. They are ridiculously dis-proportioned, but oh well, you should have seen my other options .. I'm talking like tiny little ears that come on those headbands that kids wear around Easter, not cute. 

I picked up two "ears", a head, and a body. Then grabbed some wire-edged ribbon, and small pink and white flowers and off I went!

First.. I placed my grapevine wreaths down on a table to figure out how I wanted everything. I always put everything face down because you will be tying the different wreaths together on the backside so it is not visible when you hang it up.

 

Once you have everything positioned how you want it, tie all the wreaths in place using a durable string. My go-to string for all of my wreaths is a jute string that I picked up at Hobby Lobby months ago and has never let me down.

 

I wrap the string through the different vines to make sure it will hold. Tie together in a tight knot to ensure it will stay in place. Continue this for each wreath you need tied together. (I generally do two knots per wreath.)

 

 Now that your wreaths are tied tightly in place, flip it over to make sure everything stays in tact and is exactly how you want it to look. I decided to add flowers to my grapevine to give it more of a spring touch. This part is quite time consuming, but is worth it in the end! I bought these flowers because I knew they would be easy to take apart to stick into the wreaths. Here is an example of what I am talking about...

Each stem in the bouquet was individually wrapped wire, so they were super simple just to pull out of the bunch. Once they were separated, I stuck them into the grapevine and made sure they were securely placed in there so they wouldn't fall out...

Repeat this step five million times and you will be ready to hang up your new wreath! I added a pink ribbon between the "head" and the "body" wreaths to add a little more character. The possibilities are endless with this wreath, and there are so many personal touches you could add, mine is just a basic how-to! Hope this has helped! :)

Spicy Hawaiian Burgers

 

Ingredients:

2LBs Ground Chicken
Pineapple Rings (I accidentally picked up chunks, but rings would be much easier!)
6 slices pepper jack cheese

6 whole wheat hamburger buns
1/4 cup low-sodium soy sauce

Minced Garlic
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp seasoning salt (I use Lawry's)

 Directions:

Combine the ground chicken, soy sauce, paprika, chili powder, seasoning salt, and garlic. Once well mixed, form six patties (or however many you prefer) and place in refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Normally, we would grill these, but since it was a cool 32 degrees yesterday, I cooked them inside on the stove! I heated a small amount of EVOO in a medium pan over medium heat. Once the oil was heated, I placed the patties in cooked on each side for about seven minutes or so. 

While the burgers were cooking, I placed my pineapple chunks in a small pan with just enough juice from the can to cover the bottom of the pan, and let them simmer over medium-high heat until they began to brown. Once a nice golden brown, flip them over, and allow the other side to cook until golden brown. 

Once you flip your burgers, place your pepper jack cheese on and finish cooking. Heat up your buns, place your burger on the bun, add your pineapple slices on top .. and enjoy!

**I added a spicy mayonnaise to just mine, since the mister doesn't like mayonnaise, but it was ridiculously simple to make. I'm talking mayo mixed with Sriracha and your done! Ha! So simple and so yummy!

Oh, How Pinteresting!

So, it is no secret I pretty much adore Pinterest. Some of my greatest ideas ever have stemmed from some of the amazing pictures I come across .. for example, my living room stripe wall..

Orr... the gallery wall in my office ...

 

Or, to paint the inside of our front door..

Pinterest pretty much is my home away from home! I use it for everything from recipes, to paint colors, to biulding ideas, you name, I've pinned it! Ha. So, of course, when I stumbled across this little link party on one of my daily reads.. I had to join. So please excuse me while I go a little Pinterest-cray-cray on ya'll, but I have been doing some serious lusting over all the spring pins lately :)

 Loving on these Dolce Vita Flats -- with the pop of pink, they are perfect for spring!

 I adore this Essie color! It has spring written all over it! :)

 Love, love, love these workout capris - Perfect color to motivate anyone to work out!

 Truth!

 

These are more "summery" but regardless, I am obsessing!

 This Tory tote is SO cute! I will be adding this to my collection soon. 

 Loving the denim and hot pink combo!

 Planning on attempting this in our backyard this spring..

 

I just had to with this one haha! This is SO Cooper! 

These colored deviled eggs are perfect for an Easter get together!

 These Tory flats are PERFECT for spring!

 

 And, last but not least ... haha anyone who knows me, knows this is exactly something I would say! hahaha

Spicy Thai Peanut Noodles

 This week is really busy for us.. so I needed some simple, go to meals for dinner each night this week.

Last night I was craving Thai, and considering I have never had thai, I have no idea where that craving came from! So random, I know. But, this girl was on a mission. I didn't get home until 6:30 last night, and the Bachelor started at 8 .. talk about a time crunch!

I threw this dish together in less than 10 minutes, the longest part was waiting for my water to boil to cook the noodles! I just love a simple dish!

Ingredients:

1 Box Noodles (I used Linguine Noodles)

Fresh or Frozen Shrimp

Vegetables (Optional, I added Mushrooms)

1 Tbsp Crushed Red Pepper Flakes

1/2 Cup Sesame Oil (or Vegetable Oil)

6 Tbsp Honey

6 Tbsp Soy Sauce

2 Tbsp Sriracha Sauce 

Crunchy or Creamy All Natural Peanut Butter 

Directions:

Begin by combining your oil and crushed red pepper in a small to medium pan over medium heat. Let cook for 3-5 minutes, then strain out pepper and set reserved oil to the side. 

Start your water for your noodles, and begin preparing your shrimp. Since I was using frozen shrimp, I placed the shrimp in a strainer and ran hot water over the shrimp until almost completely thawed. Dry off the shrimp and place in your small pan with fresh garlic and sautee while preparing your peanut sauce. 

For the peanut sauce, combine your strained oil, honey. soy sauce, Sriracha, and peanut butter (I didn't put an exact amount of peanut butter because I just taste tested as I was adding to adjust to our liking, but I think it was somewhere around 2-3 heaping spoonfuls of peanut butter).

Now that your water should be boiling, add in your noodles and cook according to package instructions. Once all your ingredients for your sauce are combined, whisk together until a smooth liquid. Slowly add the sauce in with the shrimp and garlic, stirring constantly. Let this simmer over low heat while your noodles finish cooking, stirring every few minutes.

When noodles finish cooking, combine noodles with sauce and enjoy!

Pasta, Sick Days, & Duck Dynasty

My blog posts haven't gone exactly as planned this week! Being non-stop busy and sick at the same time doesn't work out so well.. So yesterday I took a day off from work to get some much needed rest to start feeling better .. and thank goodness I am! My day consisted of the following..

9 AM When mom is sick, the babe is sick.

 

10 AM Admiring my Frye boots :)

11AM Coop & his baby have a disagreement

 

12PM Start doing a little spring decorating

1PM Decided to paint the fireplace..

(Before: Stark White)

 

In process.. Only part of the top is painted, and is still wet, thats why it looks lighter in some areas..

Finished product.. (Sorry for the terrible picture quality, it was cloudy and I was using my phone sitting on the couch.. HA!)

It's hard to tell much in picture, but it looks so much better. So now, I am in the process of painting all of our baseboards, crown molding, and wainscoting in this color. I may be slightly insane.

2PM - We facetimed with daddy :)

3PM Watched Kourtney & Kim take Miami and scoured the internet to find these beautiful chairs...

 

4PM (Clearly I was running out of things to do at this point..)

Finally around 5PM the mister got home and I was feeling much better! So I decided to throw together a simple pasta dish just in time for our favorite shows to come on ... In the Middle, Modern Family, Saburgatory, The Neighbors, Nashville, and Duck Dynasty! Seriously, Wednesday nights we are glued to the TV ha!

But anyways.. this pasta, ya'll, once again, super simple & so good! Obviously, the picture is a little disturbing, but that doesn't matter! ha!

 

Ingredients:

1 Package Hillshire Farm Turkey Sausages (You can use any brand, and any flavor, we just prefer the Hillshire Farms Turkey Pepper Jack)

1 or 2 Cans Died Tomatoes (Fire Roasted Style)

1 Cup Spinach (Frozen or Fresh)

1 Cup Chopped Mushrooms 

1/2 Cup Chopped Onion

Rotini Noodles 

Parmesan Cheese 

Fresh Garlic

Olive Oil

Any Seasonings

 (I used Garlic Powder, Onion Powder, Pepper, and a small amount of Garlic Salt) 

Directions:

Begin with heating your garlic and olive oil in a pan. While the pan is heating begin dicing up your onion, sausages, and mushrooms. For this recipe I only used three sausage links, but feel free to use as many as you like. I cut the sausage link width wise so my pieces were slightly thick, and the size of a quarter (I have no idea how to explain this otherwise haha)

When all the sausages were cut up, I added them to the pan first over medium heat letting them brown. Next I added in the onions, then mushrooms and let everything sautee together just until the onions and mushrooms began to get soft, once at this point, add in your can of diced tomatoes (including juice) and allow to simmer.

While simmering, bring water to a boil in a medium pan for your noodles. Once it begins to boil, add in your noddles and cook according to directions.

When your noodles are almost finished cooking, add in your spinach, seasonings, and fresh Parmesan cheese and mix everything together, including noodles!

Serve immediately, topped with additional grated Parmesan cheese. Enjoy!

Weekend Update!

Hi Ya'll! Surprise, surprise it's Monday again! And a cold one at that! Feeling pretty accomplished after this weekend, got a lot of things crossed off my to-do list plus a few loads of laundry also!

If you follow me on Instagram you pretty much know what my weekend consisted of! So here is a little photo dump for my weekend..

Friday night we had tilapia tacos and they turned out better than expected! Also, watched the season finale of Gold Rush -- does anyone else watch this show?! I am obsessed haha!

Saturday we slept in .. some of us longer than others ;) Cooper would not wake up to save his life! But, of course when I asked if he wanted to go to grandma's (my mom's) he was ready to go! Ha! 

Got in some much needed retail therapy on Saturday and picked up my new bedroom lamps, which if we're friends on Facebook I am sure you have seen my cry for help regarding our bedroom lamps. But, here's the deal .. Since I literally could not decide on one or the other, even after my five million comments on Facebook, I decided to buy both sets of lamps. BUT, of course, went to pick them up Saturday and they only had one left in stock of my 2nd choice, and none of my first choice... GO FIGURE! So I bought the last one, and will just have to order the other online. So to sum up that story, my bedroom still looks just like this..

Also, since I was still semi rocking the winter-ish decor around the house, I decided it was time to add in some spring-like decorations! I picked up these vine like stems at Pottery Barn, and the glass jug on clearance for $18.

Sunday was ridicuously productive and I am glad! Woke up, made our weekly meal list, planned out my grocery trip, did some laundry and took Coop for a walk .. It was B-E-A-U-tiful outside ya'll. 

While at the grocery store I discovered this little gem.... Pretty much, if Cody could marry a type of candy, this would be his girl. He loves these things, and this one just so happened to be like the size of my palm. HA!

Once home I completely organized all the kitchen drawers/refrigerator/restocked the pantry and got everything ready for our lunches/dinners this week. And then, it was time to FINALLY start staining my beautiful new farmhouse table that my sweet babe built for me ;) I am so in love with her, and I am super happy with how the stain turned out. I will be posting our instructions on how we completed it later this week! Now just to find chairs... Hmm.

Then Sunday night of course we watched the Oscars, and I couldn't stop drooling starring at all the BEAUTIFUL dresses! I mean let's be real here... these are just some of my favorites, I am sure I could find a hundred more that I loved! I think Jennifer Garner stole the show for me. I loved the color, the detailing in the back, just everything about it.

Hope everyone had a fabulous weekend!