Fall Harvest Salad

What a great weekend.  Friday we grilled at the house.  Saturday we slept in late, went for a run to the lake and then had a nice dinner with my family.  Sunday was gorgeous weather so we spent the day at the Texas State Fair.  Photos of the fair to come later this week.

Friday night I made one of my favorite salads - my fall harvest salad (I just made up that name).  This is the perfect light salad to accompany any grilled steak, chicken or fish and just screams autumn to me as it has aged Vermont cheddar, toasted pecans, honeycrisp apples and dried cranberries.  My husband loves this salad - one of the few where he will go back for seconds and even thirds.  Recipe and pics are below!

Completed Salad (minus the dried cranberries)

Salad ingredients - I am missing the dried cranberries as I couldn't find them in
our pantry!

Fall Harvest Salad with Apple Cider Vinaigrette:

1 large head butter lettuce, roughly chopped

Very thinly sliced red onion (I use a mandolin to shave the onion super, super thin - I use about 1/4 of one onion)

2 handfuls of pecans, lightly toasted in the oven for about 5-7 minutes at 350 degrees

1/4 cup cheddar pieces (photo below - the chunkier pieces give you more flavor than grating the cheddar).  Cheddars that work well are the one-year aged Grafton cheddar from Vermont and the Irish Dubliner cheddar

1 honeycrisp or granny smith apple, sliced into small pieces.

2 handfuls of dried cranberries

Apple Cider Vinaigrette:

2 Tbl apple cider vinegar

1 Tbl dijon mustard

1/2 Tsp maple syrup

5-6 Tbl Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Salt & pepper to taste

Cheddar chunks

Assemble the salad. I suggest waiting to slice the apple until right before dressing the salad and serving so it doesn't turn brown.  For the vinaigrette, whisk all ingredients together (I just put mine in an old jam jar and give it a good shake).  Pour over salad and toss right before serving.  Enjoy!

Five on Friday, Texas Style

TGIF.  This week has dragged on.  One of those weeks that was super busy at the beginning and then starting Thursday morning, it just dragged by ever so slowly.  Here are my Five of Friday.

1.  Fall decorating.  I am ready to start doing some interior fall decorating. Candles on pedestals will be replaced with small pumpkins.  The river rock in my hurricane glass on the kitchen table will be replaced with candy corn and mini pumpkins.  Fake leaves will be set out on our accent tables, etc....

Thanks, Pinterest!

2.  Family Dinner.  This past Wednesday was my mom's birthday so we are all getting together on Saturday night for a Mexican food dinner in Grapevine.  I have never been to this place, called Mi Dia, but it gets great reviews!  Plus, I get to meet my sister's new boyfriend for the first time.  She's been dating him for awhile but they have been doing a long distance relationship right now so I haven't had a chance to meet him.

3.  White Rock Farmer's Market

Local residents put together a farmer's market that is ever other Saturday morning from 8 to noon just a few miles by my house.  For some reason, I have never made it over there but I am planning on it tomorrow.  I hope to get up bright and early, stop by Starbucks and then swing by the market.  I'm hoping I can score my mini pumpkins there for fall decorating.

Farmer's Market 

4.  Making my favorite fall salad tonight.  I'll post pics and a recipe on Monday (I promise).  Here's a teaser - butter lettuce, aged Vermont cheddar, apples, dried cranberries, toasted pecans and homemade apple cider vinaigrette.  One of my all-time favorites!

5.  Butternut Squash.  Another fall favorite.  I noticed they are finally back at Whole Foods.  How do you like to cook butternut squash?  One of my favorites is to roast them in the oven with salt, pepper and olive oil and then mash them up with some maple syrup and a little hint of nutmeg.

(Google images)

Happy Friday!

Fried Food Fest - the Texas State Fair

Fried Food Offerings (google images)

This Friday is opening day for the Texas State Fair, which happens to be the biggest (and the best, IMHO) state fair in the U.S.  It's also the Fried Food Capital that week.  Steve and I always manage to spend at least one day at the Fair and we read all about the fried food being offered that year but we never buy any of it.  We have two staples at the Fair - smoked jerk chicken from a Jamaican guy that has a tent and we always split one order of the tater twister which is essentially a freshly made potato chip that comes in one long spiral.

An oldie but goodie

Here's a description of some of this year's offerings as described on the Dallas D Magazine blog.  I'm telling ya, we don't hold back in Texas.

Deep Fried Cuban Roll (Big Tex “Best Taste” winner)– Really good pork shoulder and ham and Swiss cheese fried together. You want this.

Fried Thanksgiving Dinner (Big Tex “Most Creative” winner) - A ball of house-made stuffing and diced turkey, then dipped into southern creamed corn and rolled with corn meal. Fried and served with brown gravy. 

Fried Thanksgiving Dinner

Deep Fried Elote - Corn, queso fresco, and salsa is mixed into this one-bite wonder. Spicy cream sauce is drizzled over the top. 

Deep  Fried BBQ Wontons - Who likes Panda Express’ fried wontons? These come with hickory smoked pulled pork or chopped brisket instead. 

Fernie’s Deep Fried King Ranch Casserole (Big Tex finalist) - Looks like the fried version of Texas. 

Spinach Dip Bites (Big Tex finalist) – Deep-fried creamy spinach artichoke dip. Interesting.

Deep fried Spinach Dip

Southern Style Chicken-Fried Meatloaf (Big Tex finalist) – MEATLOAF AND MASHED POTATOES, MEATLOAF AND MASHED POTATOES. I have nothing else to say.

Texas Fried Fireball (Big Tex finalist) – Basically a pimento cheese+bacon ball. Not too shabby.

Golden Fried Millionaire Pie (Big Tex finalist) – Feel like a million bucks with this cream cheese-pineapple-and Texas pecan creation.You’ll turn into Bill Gates right after.

Awesome Deep Fried Nutella® (Big Tex finalist) – Ummm, yeah. I would probably punch 30 people for one of these right now, if that’s what it’d take.

Deep Fried Nutella

Deep Fried Chocolate Chip Burrito - Imagine a flour tortilla wrapped around chocolate chip cookie dough, then fried. Yep, that’s what this is. This comes with chocolate or strawberry drizzle and whipped cream. .

Spicy Spam Empanadas - If you love Monty Python’s spam video, you’ll love this empanada filled with shredded spam, potatoes, bacon, shredded sharp cheddar cheese, onions, red and green peppers, jalapeno and chipotle peppers, and spices.

Fall is Here

I know, I know.  Everyone is ready for fall, including myself.  After surviving yet another Texas summer, I am ready for some jeans, sweaters and boots.  To get into the spirit, I bought a new front door wreath today on sale from RueLaLa.

Can't wait to hang this on my front door

I'll probably also splurge on some pumpkins this weekend  for the front porch and for our backyard fireplace.  I try not to buy pumpkins too early because our neighborhood squirrels tend to attack them.  It's still too hot in Texas to really get into fall spirit, meaning that it's still way too early to break out the sweaters and boots and to start making big batches of spicy Texas chili but it can't get here soon enough.  I have a few other ideas for things around the house as well.  Time to switch out my table runners and redo my table arrangements.

I also bought this rug for the breakfast nook area of our kitchen.  Our old rug has seen better days and I love the fall colors of this one (plus it matches my kitchen which is painted in terra cotta tones).

New Rug (also from Rue LaLa Fall Sale)

I'm still not quite ready for my PSL yet but I have started adding pumpkin pie spice to my oatmeal.  I have to start somewhere.

You know it's true

Come on cooler weather!

Front Yard Redo

I finally broke down and called a professional landscaper to overhaul our front yard.  We used to have a huge, gorgeous dogwood tree in our front yard that had the most incredible seasonal changes.  In spring, it would explode with white flowers and looked like a giant snowball.  In fall, its leaves would turn bright red, which is unusual for trees in Texas.  We noticed about two years that it bloomed less and less and had little color change in the fall.  This last spring, there wasn't a single bloom and it only had a few leaves here and there.  By the end of this summer, it was pronounced dead by our lawn service and we had it removed.

Pinspiration:



There are plenty of other things we need to do with our front yard as well.  We have a large crepe myrtle on one side, which is great but it shades part of the yard so much that no grass will grow and we have a HUGE dirt patch that looks awful.  I also have no flower pots on the porch as my last set of pots were stolen in the middle of the night and it made me so mad that I haven't replaced.  I mean, really, who goes around stealing people's flower pots from their front porch?  Our front steps also need to be resurfaced or covered in flagstone.

So, I should be getting drafts of the plans later this week.  We intend to redo all of our beds in front of the house and will bring one bed out much further where the grass doesn't grow under the crepe myrtle and will plant it with shade-loving plants.  We will also redo our front steps and walkway, add new borders and redo the beds by the sidewalk.  I also plan to shop for a new mailbox as well.  Of course, Pinterest has been giving me some great inspiration.  I hope to be able to share the before and after photos in a few weeks.

A few ideas:

Love this simple border

Great idea for the "hellstrip" that is b/w your sidewalk and street

Friends with Kids. When is it too much?

I'm in my late thirties now and I have no kids.  I realize this makes me a freak to some people but I'm okay with that.  I like kids just fine and think many of them are incredibly adorable, funny and sweet. Some of them are brats but that's okay too.  At my age, pretty much all of my girlfriends, sans one, has children now.  I love my friends and their kids and am completely supportive of their choice to be moms, whether working or stay at home.

Ummm, no thanks.

I will say that when your friends have kids, it does change the friendship.  Naturally, they have less time to hang out, they can't be as spontaneous as they used to be with last minute plans and late night activities (concerts, etc..) become rare.  To be honest, this has also been good because I find that the older I get, the less I tend to do those things anyway, even without kids.  However, I did end a long-term friendship with one friend after she became a mom, which was unfortunate, but I still think it was the right decision.

Much cuter

So, this is for the new moms out there.  Love your kids but you don't have to lose your friendships with all of your non-mom friends.  The story with this one friends is that she became a complete mom-freak after she had a kid.  None of my other girlfriends have gone this far.  I finally reached a breaking point.  Now, I know that all of my friends love their little tykes but she took it to the extreme.  To the point where I couldn't stand to be around her anymore.  Just a few examples of what i consider to be over the top "mom" behavior:

• We had discussed taking a weekend spa trip someplace close by (i.e., less than a 4 hour drive).  She backed out of the trip, telling me that "I will never, ever take a trip or vacation away from child. Ever."

• Our conversations became 100% about her child.  When I say 100%, I mean 100%.  No detail of her child's life was spared.  If I asked her about her (or her husband), she would switch the subject back to her child with a comment like "Who cares about anything else?"

• One time I tried to talk to her about a work situation I was having (you know, b/c I thought friends were supposed to listen to each other and help).  About 3 minutes into my description, she looked away, rolled her eyes and told me that "work is so trivial after you have a child. One day you'll understand that."

• She began incessantly asking me when I was going to have a baby.  She would also tell me that I needed to "hurry up" as she didn't want to save her baby hand-me-downs forever (mind you, I never asked her to save them).

• She openly criticized me and other non-moms as being somehow inferior to women that have had children.  You know, we're" unfulfilled", we "don't get it" and we have never "really known love."

• I once gave her a copy of Chelsea Handler's book My Horizontal Life as my friend had always had a raunchy sense of humor.  A few weeks later she gave it back to me saying that she couldn't read past the first chapter b/c as a mother now, she couldn't bear to read such filth.  She told me the book was "shameful."

Those are just a few examples.  It got to the point that I realized I was getting absolutely nothing out of the friendship as it was completely a one-way street.  I also realized that every time I was around her, she just made me feel bad about myself.  So, I stopped calling and emailing her.  I stopped asking her out for dinner, drinks or movies.  I rejected the few invitations she threw my way and eventually we just stopped speaking.  There was no big fight, no drama.  We each just walked away.  That was after almost 10 years of friendship.  Sometimes it makes me sad but I guess some friendships just run their course and if both parties aren't willing to work at keeping the friendship, you have to move on.