my favorite vanilla cupcakes, and other things.

I have finally formulated the perfect vanilla cupcake. Well, perfect to me. Click on the picture and it will take you to my dessert blog where you'll find the recipe.
Things have been great around here, work is good, house is good, pets are good.
Our new kitten Salvador tested a slight positive (?) for feline leukemia at his first vet visit, the day after we brought him home. He can't be re-tested for another 6 weeks, but Dr. Dyson told us to look out for signs of general sickliness. He is anything but! He is healthy, rambunctious, and eats like a horse. It gives us high hopes. Apparently kittens can give a false positive result when they are young, as their mother can pass along antibodies. If he does in fact have it, he can become very ill, or live a long time until any symptoms arise, or his body can develop antibodies and he won't get sick. Here's hopin' for that last one.

We leave for Costa Rica in exactly a month! I'm so excited! I still have about 10 pounds that I'd like to lose before we go, so I've got to seriously start hitting the gym. Oh! I joined the gym by my work. I don't go enough. Lame.

I bought Ricky a Kindle as an "I love you and you're cute" gift, and so far he has downloaded 200 something books. Apparently any book written before 1923 is public domain, and therefor free. Pretty cool. Especially since all the books Ricky really wanted to read were classics anyway!

My birthday is next month, as is our 2 year anniversary!
2 years and we haven't killed each other.
Awwww ♥

bad bad blogger

Truth: This is the first time I've turned on my desktop in over a month.
Also truth: I have been bad about blogging.

Salmon with roasted zucchini, orzo, and a dill cream sauce with capers.

Penne with cherry tomatoes, feta, and olive oil.

Chicken fajitas with avocado and jalapeno quesadillas.

Cornish game hens with lemon, roasted fingerling potatoes, and Brussels sprouts with lemon, garlic, and cream.

Pumpkin and cauliflower curry and basmati rice with black mustard seeds.

I was up one morning for a few hours before Ricky got up. I felt ambitious and wanted to bake something... I made apple bread with cinnamon streusel topping.

Salvador and Jira... getting along?

Salvador and Malo, being nap time buddies.
Awesome kitten face.
We doggy-sat for my friend Ashley, which meant Sal got some new friends.
As did Ricky... this is insane. It's like in a Disney movie where the characters are always surrounded by woodland creatures!
My new favorite t-shirt!
The pond behind our house, which is filled with critters. If you stay still enough, you can...
...freakin' snatch turtles out of the water and feed them bread!
All the while keeping your pinkey out, as it is the proper way to hold a turtle.
I am awesome.

penny loafers

Ever since I was a little girl, for as long as I remember, my mother has worn leather penny loafers.

I've looked everywhere and never could find any. I always found penny mocs, without a functional penny slot.

I finally found some! At Dillard's, I found these lovely Cole Haan penny loafers!

They weren't cheap, $99, but they're so perfect and very well made, and I'm sure I'll have them for a long time. My mom has had hers for at least 20 years.

These make me happy and nostalgic.

new shoes make me happy

I've recently gone on a shoe binge. Not too sure why... it's not usually my thing. I've purchased a pair of cobalt blue suede pumps, a pair of iridescent nude peep toe pumps, and these! My new Sperry Top Siders!

They make me smile.

AND I wear a 6.5 in Sperry shoes... which makes me smile wider.

=D

three meals and a kitty

Roasted tomato soup and caprese salad. This is a great meal for nights that you don't want to cook very much.

Sprinkle halved tomatoes (I used Roma) with olive oil, salt, pepper, and Italian seasoning. Roast in a 400 degree oven for 45-55 minutes on a foil lined baking sheet. Roast a few cloves of unpeeled garlic on the same sheet. Meanwhile, in a dutch oven on the stove top, bring 2 cups of vegetable stock and 1 cup of canned crushed tomatoes (I like Muir Glenn brand) to a simmer. Add the tomatoes and the garlic, peeling it first, of course. Puree with an immersion blender until desired consistency is reached. I served mine with a spring of fresh basil and a touch of cream.

Chicken paillards on a chive and spinach puree topped with crispy green olives, served with mixed green salad and fingerling potatoes.

♥Kitten on a key board. ♥

Roasted salmon with a sauce of red wine, oyster mushrooms, shallots, garlic, and thyme, and an arugula and fig salad with parmigiana reggiano.

Happy Eating.

ladies and gentlemen...

...I give you...Salvador, the newest Powell pet family addition!

Yes, I'm serious. Critters this adorable do exist, and I do have one.

The dogs are great with him, they just want to lick his face and annoy him.

Snoozin'.

Jira and Salvador, facing off.

hungry?

Chicken seasoned with aleppo chili pepper, garlic, and basil served atop creamy polenta with mascarpone, green beans, and pancetta.

Chicken thigh tagine with olives, preserved lemon, parsley, cilantro, chili peppers, and couscous.

Green chili cheddar burgers!

For my New Mexican husband.

forgive me

I completely forget that I have a dessert blog. I mean, I know I have it, but I'm constantly forgetting to post recipes on it. I'm off tomorrow, and I've decided that I'm going to take some serious time on the desk top computer in the office and get everything updated. Sorry I'm so lame! Ah!

Ginger chicken and lavender cookies

Tonight for dinner I made ginger chicken and rice noodles. The chicken is simple, just onions, garlic, red pepper flakes, fresh ginger, carrots, chicken stock, soy sauce, and chicken. Just soak the rice stick noodles in hot water for about 10 minutes, then drain them and toss them with sesame oil, scallions, and cilantro.

Super simple, super tasty, 20 minute meal.

My favorite cookies, optimized!

My favorite cookie (to make & eat) is a simple vanilla bean cookie made with whole wheat flour. I thought that processing some lavender in with the sugar before adding it to the cookie dough would really add a nice, soft, floral element, and it worked beautifully. So this is now my favorite cookie! Lavender vanilla bean cookies. I only bake them for 9 minutes, so they stay soft in the center, which is the way a cookie should be, in my opinion.

♥

camera! passport! Yay me!

SO! A couple of weeks ago our camera broke. It was a sad day, but today everything is better. Our new camera is here! It's a Canon Powershot SD1400 IS and it's cute and little and black. I'm a fan.

Sooner or later I'll get around to uploading all the pictures I had to take with my phone while I was camera-less. Tonight I made dinner and actually got to photograph it.

Nothing fancy. Steak, zucchini & yellow squash, wilted spinach with sun dried tomatoes and green olives, and smashed red potatoes. The potatoes were awesome, instead of butter, I mashed them with a heaping spoonfull of very soft French cheese that I cannot for the life of me recall the name of. Hold on, I'll go check.

Port-Salut. It's delicious in smashed potatoes. Do it.

Ricky was hungry before dinner, so I made him this as a snack, hahaha. Bread, farmer's cheese, tomatoes, and pancetta.

Okay. So this was weird. I cut into this potato and this happened. WTF?! I was perfectly fine on the outside, and it was totally rotten and smelly on the inside. So weird. Blight?

Here's something to add to the list of weird crap that lives outside of my house. This giant praying mantis was just hanging out on the skeg of Ricky's kayak. I wonder if she was on this and not a plant because the skeg was pretty close to her color?

My passport got here today! Less than 4 weeks from the day I mailed everything out, I was impressed! Now everything for our trip to Costa Rica is taken care of (by me, a-thankyouverymuch) and I'm more excited than ever!

I will leave you with this awesome picture of my Maggiedoooo! Isn't she the sweetest!? Ah!!

Stomp Out Breast Cancer!

Okay, so this year I'm heading up (along with team leader Sydney True) the Starbucks team for the annual Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk in Pensacola. We are doing a fund raiser, and we need all the help we can get! Last year Pensacola raised over $300,000 and the money went to supply lots of women with FREE mammograms and treatment. We have until October 26th to raise as much as we can. The Starbucks team will be walking AND providing free coffee to all of the walkers, which is thousands of people! It's a pretty big deal. I was so honored when Sydney asked me to help out with this event. Please donate whatever you can. $20, $10, $5, even $1 will be a huge help to all of the women who are diagnosed with this terrible disease every day. One more mother, daughter, sister, aunt, grandmother, or friend lost to breast cancer is one too many! We can make a difference together, and here is a great way to help! Just click the link below and it will take you to our team page where you can donate to the cause!Fellow bloggers, please feel free to post this on your blog, we need all the donations we can get!Let's kick breast cancer's ass!Click here to go to our team page and donate!