my kitchen smells like mexico

Ok I'm lying.  I've never been to Mexico, so I don't know what it smells like, but my kitchen does currently smell like a Mexican restaurant, and that is always a good thing!

I think I've mentioned on here a time or two how much Austin loves Mexican food, so this week he requested that I make Arroz Con Pollo (aka rice with chicken).  I got this recipe from our friend, Caesar, who got it from his mama.  It's relatively simple to make, and while it is a little time consuming the end result is totally worth it!

So here's how to do it!

Arroz Con Pollo

Ingredients:

1 bell pepper

1 yellow onion

2 cloves of garlic, smashed

2 chicken bouillon cubes

2 chicken breasts

Salt

Pepper

Cumin

Chili powder

About 2 tbs butter

1 cup of uncooked rice

2 packets Goya seasoning (can be found in the International aisle of your grocery store)

Directions:

First, cut up 1/4 of your bell pepper and 1/4 of your onion.  But wait!  Don't rid yourself of the 3/4ths you have left over because you will need it in a minute!  You should also go ahead and smash your garlic and give it a rough chop.  

Fill a large pot about 3/4ths of the way full with water, and add in your previously chopped and smashed pepper, onion, and garlic.  Bring that up to a boil, and then add in your 2 bouillon cubes.  While the water is getting hot hot hot it's time to season your chickadees.  Sprinkle each side liberally with salt, pepper, cumin, and chili powder.

About this time your water should be boiling...

Doesn't that look like a fun pool party??  Yummy yummy look at all those veggies swimming around.  But now it's time for the guest of honor to arrive!  Put your chickens in the pool, cover 'em up, and then let them take a dip for about 12 minutes, or until they are cooked through.

While your chicken is being all social at the pool party chop up that 3/4ths of the pepper and onion that you previously had in time out.  I like to thinly slice these guys so they look like the side of veggies you get when you order fajitas.

About this time your chicken should be done, so take it out of the water, and set aside to cool for a bit.  Now you'll want to strain out some of the water that you cooked the chicken in, and use it to cook the rice.  I use 1 cup of uncooked rice, and then add in about 2 1/4th cups of the chicken water.  Now, if you don't have a rice cooker...you should get one!  They are awesome and you can cook all sorts of things in them.  Ok, so once you've got your RC (that's rice cooker), dump in the rice, chicken H2O, and a wee bit of butter.  This is also the moment when you dump in 1 packet of Goya seasoning.  Your RC should look like this:

Turn on your rice, and get back to your veggies.  Heat up a saucepan, and add in your 2 tbs of butter. 

Start by cooking your onions a bit, and the add in the bell peppers.  Again, you want to cook these so they look like the steaming mountain of yum that comes with your fajitas! 

While your veggies are a-cookin' you can pull apart your chicken:

Add the chicken to your cooked pepper and onion, and then stir in the second Goya seasoning packet.

Goya makes your chicken taste yummy and turn ORANGE.  Who doesn't love some orange chicken??

At this point in time you can start doing your dishes.  About the time that you're scrubbing your chicken water pot your rice should be ready...oh happy day!  Orange rice!!

Now all that's left to do is mix in the chicken and veggies:

There you have it, folks.  Authentic arroz con pollo!  I had to go to work yesterday evening, so I made it ahead of time and then left the goods for Austin to discover when he got home from work.  I think he was a happy camper last night :)

the BEST chocolate chip cookies

Ok I know I know...everyone in the world claims to have "the absolute best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever", but guess what?  They're wrong.  I have the best!  Just kidding--I'm sure your recipe is good too, but I thought I'd share mine with everyone because I love it so much :)

I got this recipe from my sister when I was in high school, and I haven't looked back since.  Here she is:

The BEST Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

1 stick crisco

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

2 1/4 cups flour

1 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips 

Disclaimer: I didn't have a full bag of chocolate chips, so I used 1/2 chocolate and 1/2 peanut butter

Directions:

First, preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, cream together the crisco, sugar, and brown sugar.

**I need to interrupt this regularly scheduled blog post to tell you a story about my mixer**

As you can see, this mixer is clearly the highest quality that Walmart has on its shelves, and cost me a fortune (a whole 12 dollars...gasp!)  Well, apparently Walmart's highest quality mixers have a little malfunction involving the "on" switch.  Somehow this lovely mixer's on switch got pushed a little too hard, and is now permanently on.  Goody.  Well, most people would take this as a sign to buy a new mixer, but not I!  Instead, I just wait to plug it in until it is already in the bowl of stuff that I need to mix up.  Usually this works great, but yesterday when I was making these cookies I forgot about that little trick.  Needless to say, I had to take a brief intermission from cookie making to clean up some sugar and crisco.  Don't worry...the cookies still turned out just fine.

Ok back to the recipe:

After the crisco and sugars are mixed up add in the eggs one at a time...

Then stir in the vanilla.

Now you can add your dry ingredients!  Dump in some salt, baking soda, and 1 1/4 cups of your flour.  Fold these in with a SPOON.  If you try and mix it up with a mixer you will have a kitchen that resembles a winter wonderland.  (I definitely learned that the hard way...in my sister's kitchen...sorry Fox).

Once the first 1 1/4 cups of flour are incorporated you can add in the other cup.  Finally, stir in your chips.  Like I said up there, I used half a bag of chocolate and half a bag of peanut butter.  This is also the point in time where you can go buck wild with pecans, coconut, whatever tickles your fancy.  I'm a simple kind of girl though, so I usually just stick to the chippers!

Now you can make little balls of dough and place them on a lined cookie sheet...

Stick these little cuties in the oven for 8 minutes, and then pull 'em out!  They won't look done, but after you let them cool off for awhile they will be chewy and delicious.  

Eat them with a big glass of milk.  Or pile 'em up and serve them to your boyfriend's softball team...

Deep Thoughts

Over the course of my life I've had a few people say this to me: "Jamie, I wish I could get inside your brain and listen to what you think for just one day".

I never knew how to take it.  Do people think I'm crazy? Funny? Insightful? Who knows.  But I decided to grant these individuals their wish and fill you in on a few random thoughts that I had today.

1) Sheesh Louise, my life would be so much easier if a) birds didn't exist or b) I wasn't afraid of them.

2) Why or whyyyy do top 40 stations play the same songs over and over and over again?! If I hear "rolling in the deep" one more time I will cry.  Actually, I'll probably sing along because I love Adele, but still.  They should have top 100 stations instead.

3) Why is it that lions and other wild animals can just eat raw meat right off the bone, but we have to cook it?

4) I AM SO GLAD THAT MELANIE WON SYTYCD!!!!!  If Sasha would've won Austin's TV might have a foot-shaped hole in it right now.

5) I wonder if other people think that bags/papers blowing down the road are actually puppies and/or small children and have a mini heart attack/slam on the breaks when they see them...

6) My heels hurt.

There you have it.  I'm sure there were other things racing through my head today, but those were pretty much the highlights.  I wonder what makes us think the things we think...

Baccas and Brunch

Meet the Big League CHEWbaccas--Austin's intramural softball team.  He plays with a bunch of people from A&M on Monday nights, and it is a great source of entertainment for me.

The baccas lost their first game, but got a W on Sunday night!  

We do lots of fun stuff together like go to brunch here:

Where you can get as many of these as you want for 8 ducks:

Oh and you get this for free:

And they have food like this:

Cheers!

Yep, hanging out with the baccas is good times.  And in case you're wondering, no I definitely do not take part in the softball playing.  The last time I played softball I struck out every single time I batted and once ran off the field in the middle of an inning because I had to pee.  Who cares if 2nd base was left unattended?  Did they actually expect me to hold it??  

So, yeah instead of gracing the field with my presence I cheer from the bleachers and bring treats.  Everyone calls me the team mom.  I'll take it.

The OC

Last week I went to Ocean City, Maryland with Austin to meet his family.

We played on the beach...

We went to the boardwalk...

We ate delicious food...

We tried on sunglasses...

We hung out with the Biebs...

Did I mention that Austin has the cutest cousins ever?

The trip was a blasty.  I've been anxiously awaiting meeting Austin's fam for many many moons, and I'm so glad I finally got to see everyone!  Austin kept asking me who my "favorite family member" was, and I would just say, "well, you know I like your mom, and your grandparents are so sweet, and your uncles are cool, and your aunts are super nice and fun, and your cousins are cute and so fun to hang out with..." And he'd reply, "so you like everyone?" Bingo.  The Harmons/Simpsons/Abernethys/Lehmans are wonderful.  I can't wait to see them again.  

Another great part about the trip was the food (obviously).  Seafood for a week?  Yes please.  We had fish, crabs, shrimpies, sushi...if it was under the sea it was in our bellies.  I am now a master crab-eater, and could shuck you a crab clean in about 2.5 minutes flat. 

Now it's back to reality.  And Carrabba's.  And dealing with the lovely people over at Time Warner Cable.  Meh.  I wish I was back here:

To see the rest of the pictures (I took a lot) you can go here.