Butters turns 1!

We cannot believe that our little puggle is already one years old! It was just 9 months ago when we were official owners to this cute 5 pound puppy! We both grew up with dogs and it should be obvious that we both wanted one eventually. As I got older, I wasn't much of an animal person anymore! My husband did some convincing and we added this little munchkin to our small family! Our little family of 2 became a little family of 3! She is definitely a huge responsibility and most of all, she taught us how to be more patient! SO for her birthday I made "PUP"cakes for her! She absolutely loved it and so did all her little fur friends! She was totally mesmerized by the candle on her pupcake...intently thinking of her one simple wish! Happy birthday little one!

 All regular ingredients that you can find at the grocery store...and you might already have some of it in your pantry! ***Although these ingredients are safe for pups to digest, please be sure to only give them moderate portions.

Carrot PUPCAKES with Peanut Butter Frosting

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 large egg
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup shredded carrots

Frosting

1/2 low fat cream cheese
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 tbs honey

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place paper liners in cupcake pan.

In a small bowl, mix together dry ingredients for the cupcake batter. In another bowl, whisk the egg, honey, peanut butter and vegetable oil until thoroughly combined. Stir in the dry ingredients and then the shredded carrots. Spoon the cake batter into the liners until they are 2/3 filled. Bake the cupcakes for 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on racks.

While the cupcakes are cooling, prepare the frosting. Whip the cream cheese, peanut butter, and honey together until light and fluffy. Pipe or spread the frosting onto the cooled cupcakes. Top with extra shredded carrots for the "sprinkles".

Pepper Chicken with Caramelized Onions

Can you say, Delicious?! This recipe is packed with flavor! The only big whoops that I made was substituting 2 tbs McCormick's Grill mates Steak Seasoning for 2 tbs McCormick's Grill mates SPICY seasoning!! The original recipe asked for the regular steak seasoning. OH MY GOODNESS! It burned straight from my throat to my stomach. I've gotta say though, I kind of liked it! haha! Well, that's coming from someone who LOVE spicy foods! No but seriously, it was REALLY spicy! SO do me a favor, don't make the same mistake I did...reason being? Even though you may like the extreme kick, others around you may not--->  like my husband. He hasn't had any yet, but I can already hear the words coming out of his mouth! lol. My advice, if you want a little kick just make sure you adjust it to your liking. Anyway, I hope ya'll enjoy!

Ingredients

• 2 lbs boneless chicken (cubed)
• 2 tbs olive oil (divided)
• 2 onions (sliced thin)
• 2 tbs McCormicks steak seasoning, or spicy (if desired)
• 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ginger (paste, grated or powder)
• 2 tsp garlic (paste or grated)
• 1 cup celery stalks (finely chopped)
• chopped fresh cilantro for garnish

Directions

	Heat one tbsp olive oil on med-high heat. Add 1/3 sliced onion and saute about 4 minutes until dark brown. Add ginger, garlic and saute 2 minutes.
	Add chicken chunks and the steak seasoning and cook uncovered about 10-15 minutesor until all the liquid as evaporated.
	Meanwhile in a separate pan, heat 1 tbsp olive oil on med-high heat. Add remaining onions and cook until it get soft brown and caramelized. About 6-7 minutes.
	Add 1 tsp fresh pepper, paprika, salt to the chicken mixture and cook another 2 minutes on med heat. Add chopped celery and remaining caramelized onions and simmer for 5-7 minutes. Garnish with chopped cilantro.
	Serve hot with rice or in lettuce leaves to make lettuce wraps!

Garlic Tri-tip Steak

My husband and I are trying a new diet...Over the past couple years we have managed to cut a lot of process foods and focus more on healthier foods. We stopped eating out several times a week and started cooking more food at home. We are not that big on "minimal eating" diets but more focused on natural ingredients, less sodium, and less sugar...eat more several times a day kind of thing. We had to make it work with work, our workouts and gym time regimen. At one point, we were what you called "gym rats"...Now that we have gotten use to being healthier people, we are aiming towards life time goals. Sure, we'll try a couple different diets here and there but not one that we know for sure we could not follow through. So what diet this time? The Paleo Diet...Daniel however will do it strictly. Me, not so much! I'm here as a support system and most obviously: the cook. LOL. He is only giving this a couple months and then maybe on to something new. I guess I'll go along for the ride since I'm the one making all the yummy food! SO the first recipe is...Garlic tri-tip steak!

I marinaded all the ingredients together 8 hours before cooking it. I took the short cut and threw it on the George Forman at 400 degrees for 4 minutes because I couldn't wait any longer! You can cook it in the oven, forman, grill, whatever you please! The beef cooked to medium, was tender and juicy! To DIE for! Oh my goodness, it was absolutely delicious! Don't think of this as a diet dish. Seriously, this is a dish that needs to be in the books! You can also serve this over rice, tortilla, or just plain with a side of mash potatoes and veggies!

Ingredients

• 1 lb tri tip steak
• 4 cloves garlic minced
• 2 tbsp EVOO
• ¼ cup cilantro, roughly chopped
• juice of 1 lime
• salt and peper to taste

Instructions

1. Combine garlic, EVOO, cilantro and lime juice and pour on top of the skirt steak and make sure it is completely coated.
2. Season with salt and pepper.
3. Marinate for 8 – 12 hours.
4. Preheat convection oven to 350F.
5. Place skirt steaks on a baking pan and cook for 10-15 minutes.
6. Once cooked, slice thinly and serve with pico de gallo.

Food blogging? Say What?

As most of you know, I love food! Come on, who doesn't?! For as long as I could remember, I have always had the desire to learn new things in the kitchen. It all started when I was a little girl...middle school to be exact. My first time making something in the kitchen was when I was in 6th grade. I was taking Spanish and my best friend and I had a project coming up. So we decided to make a dish...what kind of dish? An African dish! African dish...in Spanish class? yea...I don't know what we were thinking but it was a total hit! After that point, I always had this desire to learn something new in the kitchen from my parents. The most difficult part about learning how to cook with them was that they did not have basic instructions for their mostly Asian dishes. Every dish complete by the way it tasted! So I had to learn the hard way. I didn't stop there... In college, I would have at least 10 people over for Sunday night dinner and feed them whatever I felt like cooking at the moment...I call it, "This is how you get the boys". LOL. For some reason, cooking for the boys worked! Several days after I met my husband, I made dinner for him and his roommates. Apparently I was a keeper after that. You know what they say..."The way to a mans heart is through is stomach!" :) Wife duties came shortly after that...I was able to utilize and use all the imagination possible to try and make breakfast, lunch and dinner different everyday. After a year of marriage, all that eating got us in trouble! haha...it died down a little bit but my desire to stay in the kitchen didn't end there. Now, with all the demands of being a full time worker, homemaker, and wife, I stay trying to develop my talents in the kitchen. There's just this peaceful and calm feeling that comes over me when I create something new. I guess you can say it is my stress reliever. With all this said, I hope to start blogging all my recipes... Many of my friends encourage me to start blogging my recipes, it just took awhile. I hope that you are patient with me because I am not that great of a blogger! So here we go. I hope you enjoy!

The heart that keeps getting stronger! Part: 1

As you all can tell, I am a very horrible blogger! I never thought my life would be that interesting to blog! Now looking back at all the adventures and milestones my husband and I came across, I'd have to say that we have lived a pretty awesome life! AND we've only been married for almost 4 years. Try telling yourself that! :) Alright, lets review what's happened between the last time I blogged and now! 

July, 2011-Daniel graduated with a Bachelors of Science in Business Management with an emphasis in Mandarin, Chinese.

 August, 2011-Moved to Texas for only a brief period of time where Daniel can work on this last internship and hopefully get a job to work Internationally with China.

 Jan, 2012-Was contacted by a company in Shanghai, offered the job, accepted, never fell through. We then decided to stay in the Dallas area a little longer until we could figure out what else we could do. Now entering the real world, it was now even a greater challenge to find a job. Days, weeks, and months come and gone and all there was was frustration. We knew it would be difficult but we didn't realize HOW difficult it would be to find a job after graduating from college. We've gotten a couple interviews. It was always between Daniel and another candidate...and they always went with the other candidate. Daniel wondered what stood out with the other interviewers that stood out that didn't stand out for him. So, from there on out, he worked very hard to better his profile. Several months later, he gets a call from a local company called Reach Local located here in the Plano area. A job that he had not applied for. His profile on Linked-In stood out to the company and wanted to set up a phone interview with him. They then asked him to come in to have an in-person interview.

 July, 2012-Daniel was offered a full-time job at Reach Local as a Campaign Professional for search engine marketing. My challenge in finding a job came shortly after his job offer. With every intension I had, I was determined to find a job in the surrounding areas. From the time that I graduated from college, my career interest changed. So here I was, trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I no longer wanted to be a school teacher, still considered getting my masters in Family therapy, pretty much not knowing what I wanted to do.

 October, 2012-Accepted a full-time job at Bent Tree Family Physicians: one of the BEST family practices in the Dallas area with the best doctors around. The practice was voted number #1 in the D-Magazine. Now that we were all settled with jobs, we needed to find our own place. My in-laws were so kind enough to let us stay with them in their big home! Even though there were more than enough room for us to stay, we figured it was our time to move on. You can say that we missed being out on our own! :) We found a cute apartment much MUCH closer to our work place. A 7 minute drive for Daniel, and a 15 minute drive for me!

 December, 2012-We moved into our cute 850 square feet apartment! I loved everything about it! the spacious living and kitchen area, the perfect size bedroom for our king size bed, our two sink bathrooms, walk in closet, and not to mention a balcony pool side view! Everything seemed to be finally falling into place!

View from our balcony:

My new washer and dryer :)

 Work kept us busy! Every time we came home from work, all we wanted to do was lounge around and chill. The last thing we both wanted to do was get on our computers and do social media things! So after a long days of work, we spent it with each other doing what ever came to mind! I always tried to fit in a work out session...(for some of those that didn't know, I use to get very bad migraines and working out was the only thing that prevented it from reoccuring) Fitness was very important to me because of that very reason!

 After a couple months, Daniel felt like he needed more of an excitement in his life. So here came the serious question...whether or not we were ready to get a dog! LOL. I was totally against it...I couldn't see how we could manage to take care of a new puppy when we were so busy every day. Daniel thought that getting a puppy would be a little bit of a stress reliever for us. I told him we could go LOOK at puppies, but looking only! And what do ya know, we come home with one. I seriously am a sucker for my husband. He gets what he wants. Some of the time... ;) I definitely get my fair share though! We came home with a little Puggle, she is half pug half beagle. Cutest thing ever! I told Daniel that if he wanted her, she would be his sole responsibility. The first day we brought her home, we couldn't believe what we just did. She pooped and peed EVERYWHERE! I could kind of tell that there was a sense of regret in Daniels eyes after she had pooped and peed about 5 times on our floor! LOL. The awesome part was, it only took her a little less than a week to be potty trained. We were pretty much amazed. She was crate trained very quickly and potty trained very quickly. Consistency from the both of us was the key! We definitely had our rough days with her, but she definitely is what makes us a family. I won't admit it to Daniel, but I'm glad we got her. Even til this day he says, "you really love Butters!?" LOL. So where did the name Butters come from? The name came from the color of her coat. It has a peanut butter color to it. And not to mention, she goes bananas for peanut butter. So thats where we got the name "Butters". Our life everyday from there on out was work, home and Butters...

 I started to wonder what I wanted in life...thought about all the things that we both accomplished, where we needed to go and what the Lord expects of us. I often wonder, how and why are we still here in Texas. Will we be leaving soon, or are we staying for good?