So Long Sweet Summer

Summer is coming to an end.

The six most depressing words I could hear right now. Although hearing "it probably will be snowing soon" is even worst.

Trying to take advantage of the last few nice, sunny and warm days we have left, we spent Saturday at a friend's cabin. We packed up our stuff (I made individual Oreo Cheesecake's) and headed out.

Yummmmmm....

It was such a lovely day and we had so much fun cruising on their side by side.

We're loving it, haha.

The sky was so blue and the water so calm.

We won't have many days like this left. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Autumn but our summers are so short, we have to take advantage of what we get.

The sunset that evening was beautiful over the lake.

How serene :)

Oven "taste like fried" Chicken and Sour Cream Potatoes

This chicken recipe is to die for.

You may be sceptical about baking chicken and having it be as good as fried chicken, but I kid you not, this recipe is great. I first came across the recipe here: http://dlynz.com/?p=1155 and just changed the amount of spices used. I also used pepper flakes, because I like it a bit hotter.

In a shallow dish, mix the following:

1/2 cup of buttermilk (which, if you don't have buttermilk, is just regular milk with a teaspoon of vinegar in it, and let it sit for a few minutes)
1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of pepper

Put some plastic wrap on a cutting board, place your chicken and cover with a more plastic wrap and pound chicken to a even thickness.

Place chicken into buttermilk mixture.

Make sure the chicken is completely covered by the milk mixture.

I started this part ahead of time and placed the chicken in the fridge for 4 hours. The original recipe says the longer the better, but if you only have 20 minutes, that should be fine too.

In another dish, you're going to combine your spices. Here's what I used:

1 cup of bread crumbs
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp of garlic powder
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried parsley
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

Take the breasts from the buttermilk (no shaking!!) and coat in the spices.

Place the chicken on a wire rack (that's over a baking sheet) and place in the fridge for 30-60 minutes.

I placed parchment paper underneath because I'm lazy and hate cleaning a mess.

After your chicken has been in the fridge long enough, pre-heat your oven to 400 degress F.

Take the rack of the baking sheet and remove any crumbs that feel through the cracks. Drizzle a line of olive oil where the chicken will be placed, place chicken on oil an then drizzle another line down the chicken breast.

Bake for 12 minutes, turn over and bake for another 8-10 minutes.

How. Freakin'. Delicious!!!

I made my favourite Sour Cream Potatoes and a side of corn to have with this dish.

The potatoes are pretty easy ...

Peel and cut your potatoes into chunks/wedges (I used 4 small potatoes) and parboil them for 15 minutes. This meal was only for 2 people, so this potato recipe would be doubled if you were serving four.

In a bowl, mix half a small tub (I think it's 8 oz) of sour cream, half a can of cream of chicken soup and a couple handfuls of cheddar cheese.

Drain your potatoes and place in an oven safe dish. Pour sour cream mixture over potatoes. Sprinkle some more cheese on top!

Bake for about 25-30 minutes.

Look at the cheesy goodness!!

Absolutely delicious.

... And now I'm hungry again, haha.

Baked Chicken (Cream Cheese) Taquitos and Spanish Rice

I love chicken taquitos. If I ever go to a restaurant that has taquitos on the menu, it's for sure the food that I'm going to buy. I have been trying as much as possible to stay away from eating at restaurants and having take out but I was really in the mood for some chicken taquitos, so I figured I'd give it a go at making them at home.

They actually were delicious!!

I cut the chicken into cubes and seasoned them as they were cooking in the frying pan.

Seasoning

1/2 tsp of onion powder
1 tsp of chili powder
1/2 tsp of garlic powder
1/2 tsp of cumin
1/2 tsp of pepper
sprinkle of salt

When the chicken is almost cooked, pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees F and start making your sauce.

Heat about 1/2 cup of cream cheese (I used fat free) and mix with 1/4 cup of salsa. I sprinkled a little extra of the seasoning that I used in the mixture as well.

Mix in your chicken

Warm the wraps for a couple of seconds in the microwave so they are nice and bendy!

Start placing your chicken mixture on the wrap, keeping it about 1/2 inch away from the top and bottom. Sprinkle some of your favourite cheese on top of the chicken (I used mozzarella). Roll your tortillas as tightly as you can.

Place seam side down on a baking sheet. Try to keep the wraps spaced apart so they are not touching each other.

Bake for 15-20 minutes until they start turning a golden brown color and get all crispy!

Delicious or wha?!?

You can serve with extra salsa for dipping or use some sour cream (or greek yogurt to be even healthier!)

To see the recipe that I used for the Spanish rice, go here:

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/best-spanish-rice/

The rice was incredibly good as well!!

Frozen Watermelon Margaritas

A couple of weekends ago, I had some friends over for a few drinks. I seen a commercial on TV earlier in the week for frozen watermelon margaritas and I instantly wanted to try them.

I find that making your own cocktails can get so expensive because there always seems to be a million kind of mixes that need to go in the drink.

But not this time. This simple recipe calls for 3 things:  margarita mix, tequila, watermelon and a lime.

I had some watermelon that I had frozen a few days before and already had a lime in the house so it worked out pretty perfectly.

I threw a handful of watermelon in the blender, along with a shot of tequila (1.5 ounce), 3 ounces of margarita mix, a squeeze of lime and BAM! All done!!!

I cut a piece of lime and rimmed the glass (I didn't have margarita glasses, so I used martini glasses instead). My friend wanted her glass rimmed with sugar and not salt, so I used sugar instead.

The drink was so slushy ... it was delicious! 

Doesn't it look gorgeous?!

Smashed Potatoes

The easiest recipe to follow and the easiest side dish ever. Smashed potatoes are just what the name says ... potatoes that you smash!

Submerge your potatoes in salted water and make sure they are completely covered. Bring to a boil and then simmer. You're going to want to boil your potatoes until they are cooked, about 20 minutes. You don't want them to be too soft so that they'll fall apart when you add pressure to them.

Once your potatoes are cooked, drain them. I let them sit for about 15 minutes so they weren't scalding hot.

Preheat your oven to 475 degrees F and starts smashing those babies!

I used a meat mallet but you could also use your hand (or whatever you have handy, really).

Add some extra virgin olive oil to your baking sheet; you're going to want the bottom of the sheet covered in oil. Using a spatula, transfer the smashed potatoes to the baking sheet. Drizzle some oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Bake for about 25 minutes. The inside is going be really soft and the outside will be all crispy.

I added a bit of paprika to the top of mine, but you could use whatever seasoning you like. I also had some home made turkey burger patties frozen so we had a BBQ turkey burger and smashed potatoes for supper. It was really good and so fast and easy to make.

I seen this recipe on TV actually and it looked so easy, I just had to try it. You can go here for the TV version:
http://www.cbc.ca/inthekitchen/mobile/touch/blog/2012/10/crispy-smashed-paprika-potatoes.html

Split Lighting

I love photography. I am amazed by the beautiful pictures that some people can take. Learning your camera can be very tricky and takes so.much.practice!!! I'm really going to try to focus (pun intended!) more on my camera and practice as much as I can. I always say I'm going to do this but then I get frustrated and give up. But not this time!!

 I came across a website that has been very helpful in providing photography tips. It's called Click it up a Notch (http://clickitupanotch.com) and the blogger has soooo many tutorials that can help you learn your camera. It's a pretty fantastic website, actually.

After looking at some of her tutorials, I decided to try something called Split Lighting. It's basically when the sun is hitting half of your face, which causes one side to be lit up and the other side to be dark. I grabbed my camera, tripod and remote flash and tested it out. I put a chair in front of my window and threw some pillows on it (so I could focus on something before I got in the picture). I removed the pillows and sat at a 90 degree angle so the sun/light was only getting half of my face. I was so surprised to see that after one shot, it actually worked!! I took the picture a few times, trying to make sure I was in focus and getting a shot I liked.

Here is the final picture ...

 I know it's not perfect but I think it turned out pretty good. When I try it again, I will probably use Photoshop to brighten one side and darken the other. In this picture, both sides are bit dark, but you get the point! Hopefully my sister will let me practice on her - it's hard to take pictures of yourself sometimes!! 

Happy Shooting!