Chicken Tortilla Soup

on my recipes page!

My beloved honey bunches of oats just celebrated his 25th birthday a few weeks ago. I just had to double check on that...I'm really bad with remembering how old everybody is. After 21 it's all just a blur to me. Anywho, for his birthday I got him a pressure washer....a cute, green, little pressure washer. He probably wouldn't appreciate me saying that, he really loves it! Here is our Saturday project from last week....The above picture of Riggins is just a bonus. Isn't he SOOO CUTE! He looks so little in this picture but he's actually up to 30 pounds! My little baby is growing up so fast!

I just liked this picture. We had some really strong storms that came through this week and blew the flag holder and all off of the house. We'll put it back up another day.

We REALLY enjoy spending time in our back yard but right now it's totally trashed...WAS totally trashed. We decided to pressure wash the patio and back of the house so we took everything off of the patio...

Nothing like a man and his pressure washer.

This project....this project.....is going to be a hot mess. I dread shoveling these rocks up and taking them somewhere to dump. Buying the plants and mulching will the be the fun part...I'm not sure when we're going to get around to this but it will hopefully get done soon. I'll keep you posted.

I'm really excited about getting this done. I think it'll look nice!

Our patio area/backyard

Riggins watching Bobby pressure wash the pati0.

He caught me!

This is that cute, green, little pressure washer I was talking about. I asked Bobby how he would describe it in three words - electric, green, useful. 1 for 3. Not too shabby.

Clean, baby, clean!

Can you tell a difference?

This is as clean as we were going to get it today....huge difference, to us anyway. We wanted to brick it in but we're thinking we might hold off for a year and save the money? We'll see. Sallie Mae wants our money more than we want a brick patio. Thanks, Harding!

Bobby was pretty excited about cleaning things. I must admit, I was impressed. We'll see how long it lasts. I hope you are not disappointed that you read this post today. If so, just scroll back up to the top and look at that sweet puppy. He makes my day everyday!

Greek Salad
on my recipes page!

The Dressing
on my recipes page

This isn't really a recipe but I thought I would share this delicious meal we enjoyed last week when my family came over for dinner. It was one of those days I knew I was having people over and had nothing at home to make. I left school at 4, ran to the grocery store and had dinner on the table by 6:15. It's really simple, nutritious and still delicious. Like I said, it doesn't involve much preparation or mixing or chopping or dicing.

Here's what was on the menu-

Italian Grilled Chicken

Grilled Zucchini and Squash

Spring Mix Salad with a Homemade Vinaigrette

Grilled Bread

Chocolate, Chocolate Cake

The only recipe I'll be posting on my Recipes page is for the Vinaigrette. I'll do that tomorrow!

Here's what we're starting with...the bread, the veggies and greens. I marinade my chicken in a really super special marinade..it's called....Italian Dressing. I know that it's so simple and plain but I love it and again, it was easy. I let it marinade for at least an hour.

This is random and pointless but I thought I would share...this is Bobby's milk. We had purchased it from Walmart four days before I took this picture...Notice the expiration date

March 25, 2011

This is my milk. I prefer organic milk. Bobby claims "They add all kinds of weird junk to that and it tastes weird."....Yeah...he said that. Anyway, I bought this milk 2 weeks before I took this picture and it doesn't expire until April 29th! I thought it was really ironic that organic milk lasts longer. It turns out it has to do with the process they use to preserve it. I know, no one cares but me but in case anyone else was wondering....

Back to dinner! Cut up your squash and zucchini. I cut usually cut it into 6 equal pieces. You have to be careful because you never want it to get overcooked or mushy on the grill.

Like so...then drizzle on some EVOO and salt and pepper and toss.

I would typically recommending making your own French bread since it's a fairly simple process as well, but there was no time today! And I've never been dissappointed with Kroger's bakery.

Grab a handful of grape tomatoes and cut them in half. Toss them with the baby spring mix and some feta cheese...This dressing is SOOO GOOD and really low in calories. Sorry for the poor picture quality.

That's a lot of food. I was cooking for 6 and Bobby and I had leftovers for lunch the next day.

I love grilling.

The bread was super simple. I cut it up and soak up the extra EVOO, salt and pepper from the squash then grill it. Did you know you can even grill SALAD!? My friend, Mike Sommesi, made it once for Bobby and me. It was heavenly. Maybe I can convince him to make a special post on here. He's a chef though, none of this silly cooking that I do!!

Pull everything off of the grill...

Set the table....and enjoy.

And don't forget dessert!

Chocolate Chocolate Cake
on my recipes page!

NEW BEDROOM FURNITURE! HALLELUJAH!!!!
I was a little surprised and caught off guard when Bobby said we were ready to buy new bedroom furniture...All those days of not allowing myself to go inside HomeGoods has FINALLY paid off. And it feels good!

Bedroom BEFORE
(This pictures is a little....a lot embarrassing. If we had made the bed and put away the folded clothes it would have helped, but I was looking for dramatic effect.)

Bedroom AFTER

Bedroom BEFORE

Bedroom AFTER
(We still have to hang the mirror!)

Bedroom BEFORE

Bedroom AFTER

I am not a decorator by ANY MEANS....But the house looks a lot better than it did. I don't have any before pictures of the living room but we moved everything around and added a few touches that have made it look so much better. If you've been over before...you know what I mean.

The next home improvement post will be (fingerscrossed) our new bricked in patio. Bobby and I are going to do it ourselves...yikes! It should be interesting. I hope that you will learn from the mistakes that I imagine we WILL make.