Apple Crisp

I had quite a few Gala apples that I needed to use up. I have quite the sweet tooth, so the first thing I considered making was apple pie. I wasn't quite in the mood for that, so I googled and found Apple Crisp. YUM! It seemed easy and quick enough. It was!

I used the following recipe, but scaled it down a bit.

Ingredients:

- 8 Apples

- 1 cup all purpose flour

- 1 cup white sugar

- 1 tablespoon baking powder

- 1 egg

- 1 1/2 tablespoons cinnamon

- 1/4 cup white sugar

- 1 tablespoon butter, melted

Directions

- Mix together flour, 1 cup sugar, baking powder, and egg. The mixture will look
like cornmeal.

- Peel, core, and slice the apples. Mix together with 1/2 tablespoon cinnamon. Place apples in a greased 8 inch square pan. Spread flour mixture over the apples. Mix together 1 tablespoon cinnamon and 1/4 cup sugar; sprinkle over the top of the crisp. Drizzle with butter or margarine.

- Bake at 300 degrees F (150 degrees C) for one hour. Serve warm.
 

This would have been really good served over ice cream. I didn't have any, so I just put some whipped cream on it. It was delicious!

Guest Bathroom Upgrade

When we moved into our house, there were several smallish projects we thought we would do right away. We have taken a lot longer to do these projects for various reasons. We recently finished upgrading our guest bathroom! We painted, framed the mirror, upgraded the bathroom hardware, replaced the faucet and painted the cabinets.

This is what our guest bathroom looks like right now. I'm very happy with it.

We chose Sherwin Williams Bold Brick for the walls. I love this color! The frame was made from materials we had laying around the garage, so it didn't cost any extra money, just a little extra time.

Here are a couple pictures of the bathroom when we first moved in. 

 Beige walls. These really needed some color!

Unframed mirror. It's so plain and ugly.

 This is the old, hideous faucet we had.

New faucet! About $40 (for the faucet and new pipes to go under the sink) and 30 minutes of my time later...HUGE improvement.

 New TP roll holder. I didn't take a picture of the old one, but it was hideous! I also picked up a new towel rack.

 The cabinets and frame are painted with Sherwin Williams Burnished Brandy. I used the All Purpose Enamel for these cabinets. I used the ProClassic on our master bathroom cabinets. Between the two, I definitely prefer the ProClassic. The All Purpose Enamel seemed to take much longer to dry and it didn't dry as hard as the ProClassic. I'll definitely keep this in mind for the future.

I spray painted the hinges just like I did in our master bathroom. They turned out well. I also added the quiet shut hinge adapters. I still love these things! They're holding up very well and they make a huge difference! They're definitely worth a few dollars a piece!

I'm not sure exactly how much this upgrade ended up costing us, because we did it over time. I could figure it out, but I'm too lazy. I'll estimate around $125. Totally worth it!

Dogfish Dash

Josh and I traveled to Delaware this past weekend to participate in our first 10K! We left out early Saturday morning to take Bailey to camp and pick up a co-worker's son from college. His family lives close to where we were going to be staying, so we had no problem picking him up. On the way, he told us about this taco place/Mexican convenience store that he worked over the summer. It was only a few minutes out of the way and Josh and I get excited about authentic Mexican food, so we decided to stop by to pick up lunch number 1. Haha. We tried 4 different tacos. A pork one, and 3 different beef ones. Josh's favorite was the pork, which was very good, but one of the beef ones was amazing! We got them mixed up, so I'm not really sure which one it was. We also tried a cow tongue taco. I wasn't a huge fan of it. It was really good at first, but then it had an aftertaste similar to lamb, but not quite as harsh. I hate the taste of lamb, so I didn't appreciate this. 

We know someone who owns a condo near Bethany Beach, Three's Company. We stayed there with 2 other couples and we loved it! We definitely plan on visiting again. Josh and I were the first ones to arrive, so we got to pick our room first. We chose the gorgeous master of course. Mostly because of the view. We met up with our co-worker at the house and unloaded our things.

 Our beautiful master!

 The view from the master bedroom.

 The most comfy couch EVER!

The dining room. I LOVE this rug!

We just relaxed for a little bit then we made plans to meet the rest of our crowd at the Dogfish Brewpub for lunch number 2. Since we had eaten tacos a couple hours before, we weren't very hungry. We decided to share a pizza. SO good! After lunch, we went to pick up our race packets. We weren't supposed to be able to pick them up until 4:00, but they were nice enough to give us our packets early. Our bags included a t-shirt, our race day bibs with 3 beer vouchers, a pint glass, a plastic cup, chapstick, a coupon for 10% off at the brewpub, a bottle opener, and a couple other odds and ends. We didn't expect the pint glass, so we were pretty excited. 

We got back to the house and explored some more, lounged and made plans for dinner. We decided on taco night. Yes, I am totally fine with having tacos for lunch and dinner. We got hard and soft tacos with all the toppings and sides for a whopping $10 a couple. Score! After a quick trip to the grocery store, we were back and cooking dinner. We shared a few beers, had dinner, played Catch Phrase and did a mini beer tasting before crashing for the night. Half of us had to get up bright and early to go run 6.2 miles!

Taco stuff. YUM!

We got up early enough to have breakfast and relax in the sun room for a few minutes before we had to leave for the race. We were a good 45 minutes away from the brewery, so we had to leave pretty early. The 3 people who were not racing slept in and we planned to meet them after the race. We got there a little bit before the race. We enjoyed looking around at the costumes and other racers while we waited for the race to start.

 Dave!

Hubby and I pre-race!

The race started at 9:00 and we were off! You feel great at first because you're passing all the 5K walkers and such. The crowd REALLY thinned out once the 5K crowd and the 10K crowd separated. Josh and Dave stayed back with me until about the halfway point. Dave wanted to run for time so he sped up. Josh was going to stay back with me, but I finally convinced him to run ahead with Dave. He gave in, gave me a kiss, we wished each other luck and he ran up to catch up with Dave. The girl behind me said it was super cute and she wishes she would have had a camera for it. Haha. She and her husband separated at the beginning. We pretty much stayed together for the rest of the race.

While it would have been great to stay with Josh, I'm just not there yet, so I'm glad we separated. I was running faster than my pace to try not to hold him back, and he was running way slower than his pace. It wasn't good for either of us. If I would have kept pushing myself to run at that pace, I probably would have ended up having to walk part of the race and if he had to run at my slower pace with his long legs, it would have sucked for him. It bothers his knees to take short bouncy strides to stay at my pace. 

It was very challenging and there were times that I wanted to walk, but I never gave in. I think part of it was that the girl I was sticking with never walked. I even jogged through the water stations and while sipping on my water. I refused to walk at all. Haha. My goal was to finish in a better time than my practice 10K, which was 1:10:54. My time in this race was 1:08:10. The details are below. 

Dogfish Dash 5K/10K Road Races-2013 September 29, 2013 Milton DE

• Results

Place 522 Out Of 586 Bib# 1580 First Name KRYSTAL Last Name KINLAW Gender F Age 26 City ODENTON State MD Guntime 1:08:10 ChipTime Ageplc 57 Agefin 66 Div F20-29 Winning Time for Your Division 41:55 Genplc 231 Genfin 275 4mile Time 43:10 Pace 10:48 last2.2 Time 25:01 Pace 11:22 GUNTIME Time 1:10:34 Pace 11:22

Hubby met me and re-ran the last stretch with me. So sweet! On a side note, I totally could have passed that girl in front of me.

I do feel like I could have pushed myself a little harder and done a bit better. I definitely could have pushed to pass another person or 2 at the end, but I really had to pee and I did not want to be that girl. Haha. Josh and I both really enjoyed this race and we plan on running it again next year. My goal will be to finish in under an hour :-).

Post race brew!

After the race we were give 3 vouchers for beers and breakfast. We hung around to see the costume contest and to go on a brew tour. We have been on the tour once about a year ago, but it has changed so much! They are still undergoing renovations, so I hope to visit again next year to see what else is new. The new brewing room is AMAZING! The walls are cedar and it smells SO good! It's absolutely gorgeous. 

 Where do I apply? 

Palo Santo barrels 

Look at those nice cedar walls! It smelled amazing in here!

You can see inside the kettle! So cool!

After the tour and shopping around for some Dogfish gear, we decided to go to the brewpub for lunch again. This time, Josh got the Indulgence Burger (so yummy!) and I got the Short Rib Sloppy Joe. SOOOO GOOD! I will definitely try to make this at home at some point! 

After lunch, we went back to the house to shower and clean everything up, then we made our way home. It was so beautiful and the weather was great! None of us wanted to leave. We're looking forward to this trip again next year!

Happy Fall Y'all!!!

It's my favorite time of the year!!! Woohoo!

That is all.

Smothered Chicken

This is a recipe I have made a couple of times and I'm loving it! I love how versatile it is! I plan on making this many more times in the future. This is my inspiration for the recipe. I have changed it up a little each time I have made it.

Smothered Chicken

- 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

- Spicy Brown Mustard

- 3 large peppers (any color you prefer)

- Rotisserie Chicken Seasoning (or any seasoning you like)

- Montreal Steak Seasoning 

- 1/2 cup cheese of choice

- Bacon grease (if you don't have any, you can use vegetable or olive oil)

Instructions

- preheat your oven to 350

- Preheat the bacon grease to medium/high in a cast iron skillet

I love cooking meats in cast iron. It just has such a unique flavor that I love. Feel free to feel whatever cookware you have handy. Same goes for the bacon grease. I realize it's not the healthiest option, but it gives great flavor. When we cook bacon, we pour the grease off into a glass container and keep it in the fridge for times like these!

- Pound your chicken breasts out to about 1/2 inch thick. You could skip this step if you like, but it will tenderize your meat and make sure it cooks uniformly. I like to buy my chicken at Wegman's in the club packs. It's the same price that I would buy it for at BJ's, but it's already individually wrapped. I can just pound them out before I open the package.

- Season the chicken on both sides with your choice of seasoning. I used Rotisserie Chicken Seasoning this time, but just salt and pepper is absolutely fine. Cook the chicken almost all the way through. Make sure you have a nice crust on each side, but you will finish cooking in the oven.

- While the chicken is cooking, cut your peppers into strips.

- Remove the chicken from the pan and let cool just a little

- Scrape the pan and add more grease if needed. You can leave the little bits of chicken, they will just add more flavor for later. Add the peppers and cook until they're slightly charred. Season with Montreal Steak Seasoning (or any other seasoning you would like to try). You can use any peppers you like. This time, I used a mixture of red, yellow and orange peppers.

- While the peppers are cooking, cut the chicken breasts into strips and cover in spicy brown mustard. I didn't measure, but I probably used around 1/4 cup. 

- Once the peppers are nice and charred, mix them in with the chicken and mustard mixture. Cover with cheese and bake for 30 minutes. 

I like to serve mine over white rice, but feel free to try whatever sounds good to you. You can use onions, mushrooms, any color of peppers that sounds good. For a Southwest mix, you could add in corn and/or black beans with some Mexican flavorings. I think I'm going to try a Southwest version next time. You really can do whatever you like with this recipe. You could even substitute the chicken for other meats. Maybe a Philly Cheesesteak version? Or even smothered squash and zucchini for a vegetarian option! 

Let me know if you try any other combos that are delicious!

Friday Favorites!!!

Alright, I'm going to try to get back on track with this blog thing. This is sort of a Friday Favorites post I suppose, because today is my Friday!!!

Meeting Baby Jaden - Of course meeting our nephew and being able to spend the weekend with him was a favorite! I really enjoyed spending time with the family while we were home and I'm so glad we were able to go down to help out for a few days. I can't wait to see Jaden and the rest of the family again for Thanksgiving!

Keeping Baby Zach - I got to keep Zach for the day a week or so ago. It was an adventure for sure! I enjoyed keeping him. He's such a happy little boy. Bailey liked watching him and she has discovered that she likes the taste of spitup (GROSS! I know!). I loved having him for the day and I liked watching Josh interact with him too. It's nice practice, but I am mostly glad it was just temporary. I want to enjoy my full nights of sleep while I still can ;-).

Football Season - We have some major improvements to make, but I'm still hopeful for a good season. We'll be making our way down to Raleigh to see our Wolfpack take on Clemson. Hopefully it's a good one! Either way, I know we'll have a great time and I'm so glad football season is back!

Ferguson's - I don't remember if I posted about Ferguson's when they had their fire last year, but it's a restaurant back home that Josh and I LOVE. The owners are good friends and it's a small town staple that has definitely been missed. Well, after being closed for over a year after the fire, they have finally re-opened! Josh and I were able to stop by for an early lunch while we were in town last week. It was SO nice to be able to catch up and have a delicious Fergie burger!

Cherrywood Smoked Bacon - This may seem silly, but I LOVE bacon and we have found a new favorite. I grabbed this stuff last week and it is AMAZING! We've been eating it for breakfast ever since. I don't know if I can ever go back to regular bacon again. 

The Weather - It has been AMAZING! Cool mornings, warm afternoons, low humidity. It's beginning to feel a lot like Fall!!!

Brewing - We tried our first batch of all grain beer. We named it Fantasy Draught, because it was meant to be consumed at a fantasy draft party. The party fell through, so we got to keep the beer for ourselves! It's a pineapple wheat. Really nice flavor, but a bit lighter than we were hoping for, we're working toward getting better grain efficiency, so our beers should improve in that area over the next couple batches. The pineapple isn't really evident. You pick up the bitter from the pineapple, but not the sweetness. The sugars all got fermented out. The next time we do this, we'll chill the beer once we add the pineapple juice (or whatever sweet thing we're adding) so some of those yummy sugars stick around. In the end, it's not exactly what we had in mind, but still pretty dang good. :-)

We converted our pumpkin recipe to all grain and tried it for the first time. It's in the secondary right now, so we're not sure exactly how it will taste. It's close, but not the same. We will get a second go at it this weekend, and we know we need to adjust the mash temperature a little bit. I'm looking forward to seeing how both of these turn out!

Running - I REALLY slacked on training after we visited Raleigh, and I really thought it was going to do me in. Josh and I went to the park to train this weekend since they have some hills to run on. We went in planning to run 5 miles, but we stuck it out and ran the whole 6.2!!! I was so excited and I feel much better knowing I can finish the race! I'm not going to finish it in under an hour, which was my original goal, but I'll shoot for that next year.

I also got new running shoes. SO comfy! I had a Groupon for a local running store. These were a treat to myself for finishing my first 5K.



I'm REALLY going to try to post more often. Hopefully with more pictures that are actually mine. Haha.

Playing Catchup Again!

Wow!!! I can't believe it's been almost 3 months since I have posted! I will try to do a couple catchup posts on the major events that have happened since I last posted. Time has been flying by and the last few months kind of run together now. 

Babies Everywhere!

Remember when I said that between friends and family, we have 6 babies coming this year? Well, We've finally met them all!

I've already posted about our niece and the triplets being born. The latest addition is...


Our nephew Jaden! He was born August 26th. We got to spend last weekend with him and we had such a great time! He's a great baby and doesn't cry much at all. 

Baby Zachary! He joined us on July 20. He was a week old in this picture. So precious!

Visits
The Martins visited us. We got lucky and we were able to tour my favorite MD brewery, Flying Dog! We had so much fun, but I don't have any pictures of the humans from our trip.


This was the first time Carter has been to visit Bailey! They played SO much!

Then a couple of weeks later, we went to visit the Martins! We visited some breweries that were not around back in our Raleigh days, Crank Arm and Raleigh Brewing Company. I enjoyed them both, but RBC was my favorite!

While we were in Raleigh, I visited my old hairdresser. I've had enough bad haircuts up here and I've decided to stop my search. I'll just plan my haircuts around trips home when I can go see Whitney.

Yay for getting what I asked for!


After a couple days of hard playing. They love each other a lot, but they don't really cuddle, so this was special :-).


Bailey went to the dog beach for the first time.

Fitness
I completed my 5K program and ran my first official 5K! I finished the Dirty Girl Mud Run on August 10th. It was SO much fun! I am now training for the Dogfish Dash 10K that is at the end of September. Training has been a challenge, but overall I am enjoying it. I have been using Runkeeper and I love it!

Brewing
We've graduated to all grain brewing!!! We've been wanting to convert to all grain for a while and we finally bit the bullet! We're both really excited about this! It takes a bit longer, but it gives us more control over our beer.

We were able to build a nice mash tun for a lot less than we would have paid for one assembled. We've only brewed one batch of all grain so far, and we haven't tried it yet. It goes in the keg tomorrow. We have plans to brew again this coming weekend!

Football season has started!

Go Pack!!!