Beef

Chipotle Turkey-Apple Chili

Have you ever been so excited to go to a new and different place but, while absolutely loving the excitement of it all for the first bit, after a while you start to realize how much you miss home and all the things you loved about it? That’s kind of how I’m feeling about the change in seasons. While I’m so excited for fall with the cooler temperatures, sweatshirts and leggings all day-everyday, and all the fall foods, a part of me is longing for those long summer days, easy shorts and a t-shirt, and warm weather. I mean, summer was just here! And now…it’s not. :(

Perhaps the dreary weather has me feeling wistful, but one thing that has reminded me again just how wonderful fall can be is this Chipotle Turkey-Apple Chili. Your classic chili can sometimes seem more fitting for a cold, winter evening, whereas this turkey-apple chili could not be more appropriate for fall. I’m coming at you with yet another apple recipe this week! This was another of the many recipes I made using the apples Philip and I picked a couple weeks ago.

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Steak & Arugula Salad with Gorgonzola & Balsamic Glaze

Spring is officially here! Thanks to Facebook, I was reminded of that yesterday and I could not be more ready or excited. I have a spattering of spring decorations up to help set the mood — that, ahem, have been up for a few weeks now, I have a brand new bike just waiting to take its maiden ride, aaaand we have snow in the forecast for this week. Go figure, right?

I’ll keep waiting patiently for spring to actually feel like spring, but in the mean time, I’m long past wanting to make rich, comforting, and cozy meals and am all about making fresh salads with wanna-be-grilled steak. This Steak & Arugula Salad with Gorgonzola & Balsamic Glaze is the perfect example. While we haven’t fired up the grill this season, this steak is just as delicious seared on a hot cast iron skillet.

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Spinach Salad with Steak & Blueberries + Family Weekend Recap

Hello again, everyone! Last week we had a busy (and very fun!) time with the whole family in town visiting us. My brother and his family arrived the day before the 4th of July, my parents drove into town the day after the 4th, and the fun continued well into the week. I couldn’t have asked for a better mini-vacation with family! I mean, how can you resist these faces?!

I don’t know how we fit in so much fun, but somehow we managed. :)

We splashed in the water at the local splash pad…

Danced to music (one of my niece’s many talents)…

Celebrated my nephew’s first birthday (!)…

Visited places of work…

Worked in the kitchen with my little chef-in-training (we made these energy bites)…

Had fun outside…

Had more fun outside…

And enjoyed a night out on the town kid-free. :)

Gosh, Madison is beautiful.

Whew! And that’s just a glimpse.

Everybody headed their separate ways on Thursday morning and we’re now a kid-free house again. Only the sidewalk chalk shows any sign of children being here.

After an eventful week, Philip and I were ready to take it easy this past weekend. And I was ready for a quick and easy meal. This Spinach Salad with Steak and Blueberries was just perfect!

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Cowboy Burgers

Maid-rites…Sloppy Joes…Taverns…it’s one classic Midwest favorite that has many names. I feel like the name you’re most familiar with depends on where you grew up (Taverns were something I hadn’t even heard of until about high school or college) and the consistency of the sandwich. While it’s essentially a simple base of ground hamburger with a ketchup sauce mixed in, for a sandwich with many names, there are even more recipes for it out there. How is one to decide?!

To make it easy for you, I’m declaring this version of the beloved Midwest sandwich the one you need from here on out. :) Don’t you love it when somebody makes a hard decision for you? I guarantee you won’t regret it and you’ll no longer be searching for that perfect go-to recipe that needs to be on the table in 30 minutes. (psst! it’s this one!)

Now, I grew up having maid-rites all the time. My mom’s were simple, no fuss sandwiches with just 2 ingredients — ground beef and ketchup. My friend, Karen’s, mom made maid-rites, too, but were completely different and I absolutely loved those as well…as in, I’d probably have at least 2 sandwiches when I went to visit (which was often). Not to mention, we had baked French fries at Karen’s house to go with the maid-rites, something my mom never made. So, I devoured those, too. I think it’s safe to say I had a big appetite.

But Philip, on the other hand, didn’t have as fond of memories of maid-rites as I did growing up. When I put maid-rites on our menu board, he wasn’t all that thrilled. As always, he gave it a loving try and he instantly knew these were much different than what he remembered as maid-rites (in a good way). With the negative connotation still in his head, I declared them Cowboy Burgers — my version of a maid-rite with a revamped name. Problem solved. The sandwich has so many names anyway, why not add one more to the list?

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The Perfect Grill-Out Steak & Vegetable Marinade

I’ve come to realize more and more over the past 2 years how blessed I am to have the husband that I have. Not only does he willingly do all the dishes that I regularly dirty up while cooking, help with laundry and house chores, and cross things off the honey-do list with no complaining (although he’s jokingly warned me not to ask for a 20+ frame collage on the wall), he also is pretty easy to please in terms of meals.

He willingly accepts almost anything I make him – no matter how “healthy” it is or how foreign it is from his childhood “meat and potatoes” meals. In the past 2 years, I can count on one hand the number of dishes he hasn’t been a big fan of…and he still ate the meal and the leftovers anyway.

Although I wouldn’t mind if he did, he also doesn’t have a long list of meals he grew up with that he requests me to replicate – he lets me freely experiment with new recipes and make my old favorites how I wish. Plus, talk about pressure to bring back a childhood favorite! Nothing ever tastes the same when somebody else is trying to copy it.

Howeeeeever, there is that one recipe. The one I hear about every summer: Grilled steak and vegetables that have been soaked in a saucy marinade accompanied by grilled Texas toast (because there has to be Texas toast to complete the meal, according to Philip). It was the only recipe card he had when we got married, stashed away in ~~one of his cookbooks~~ his only cookbook.

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Homemade Beefaroni

Hello again! I hope you all had a great Labor Day and were able to spend time not…laboring? We’ll go with it. :)

Philip and I had a very low key weekend with no set plans, which was so nice! Things got done, relaxation happened, and I still wasn’t ready to go to work this morning. Sigh. Nevertheless, we had a great time spending quality time together and I even got a little bit of baking in, which seems to happen far less than I’d like it to these days.

But now that it’s back to the normal grind of work, it seems like life instantly picks itself right up again and awaaaaay we go! Life is such a ride, isn’t it?

What I mean is, although I plan out my meals on a weekly basis (I still have hopes to write about this in one of my upcoming posts), I always consider and plan in the fact that, more than likely, I have about 30 minutes to prep a meal after coming home from work before I feel the “hangry” side of me taking over. You know, becoming ~~very unpleasant~~ angry because of your hunger. Please tell me I’m not the only one who gets like this.

Being the foodie that I am, if I could, I would gladly spend hours preparing an elaborate meal that includes several involved steps, one of which would be a half hour alone of chopping and dicing ingredients, and uses every bowl and utensil in the kitchen (as long as Philip is doing dishes). Not to mention, the table would be set with freshly made bread with homemade jam and a salad full of produce, picked just that morning from our garden.

That’s not real life. Sure, I plan out (and look forward to) “more involved” meals when I have the day off or it’s the weekend, but on week nights, meals that are fast yet still nutritious, fresh, and homemade is what’s on my menu plan. Recently, Homemade Beefaroni made it to our midweek menu that fit just that description.

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Favorite Beef Fajitas + One Year in Madison

You know those pivotal moments in your life that you always seem to go back to as a time marker? Things like a child’s birth, a wedding, starting a new job…the moments where you say, “wow, a month ago I was doing this…” or “it’s been 6 months since (insert event here).” Well, that’s what I’ve been thinking this weekend, since exactly a year ago, I packed up my belongings (which felt like the millionth time since moving off to college), and moved up to Madison, my new home, with the help of my soon-to-be-father-in-law. I had just finished my internship a week earlier and was about to embark on a whole new adventure in my life. Moving brings all kinds of emotions, but I was for sure, without a doubt, 100% excited to be moving up to Madison to be closer to Philip. Plus, how can you turn down a sunset and view like that?!

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Thai Beef & Noodles

Welcome to another week, Friends!

I’m just going to jump right into this recipe, because, even though it’s worth waiting for, I really don’t want to and I know you’re going to love it! I made it for dinner one night and it instantly got “pinned” in my favorites category in my recipe keeping app I use. And that’s saying something, because out of all the recipes I have (and I have a lot!), I only have 19 favorites; two of which are my Homemade Granola and Cookies ‘n Cream cookies…so this Thai Beef & Noodles is ranking pretty high!

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