Mmmmmm....

Delish.  Muffins on Monday & Cupcakes (frosting to come) on Friday.

On monday I decided mixed fruit fall muffins were needed...I used marion berries, raspberries & blue berries.  These turned out amazing, froze half and we ate half....oops.  Happy Fall!

Then on Friday I decided Chocolate Kahlua Cupcakes were needed....although the frosting had to be remade & should be ready tomorrow....oops.  That said they are plenty delish without frosting and look picture perfect! 

Today at Costco I found a wonderful "holiday baking" package complete with spices and extracts and I am looking forward to many baking experiences to come!  Still can't decide if I prefer the kitchenaid mixer or my handheld mixer but I am sure there is enough baking ahead of me to figure it out!

Delish.

Last night Dave really wanted Turkey Burgers...I did not so much.  I compromised and made Onion Garlic Jalapeno Turkey Burgers for Dave and Turkey Meatballs for a meatball sub for myself.  Let me tell you- it was delish.  I sauteed some onion, seasoned the meatballs and added fresh mozzarella.  Let me show you.

I seasoned the turkey meatballs with garlic, salt, rosemary and other Italian spices, cooked them and then simmered them for the last few minutes with marinara and onions.  Added fresh mozz last minute and put in one of those new thin subs.  I savored every delicious bite.

For Dave's Turkey Burgers I make by actually putting chopped onion and jalapeno into the patty's add garlic and salt to season and then grill.  They are pretty dang delicious as well!

Tonight was a much lazier night, leftovers and soup, trying to get my training runs in before dark can make cooking a little, unless we want to wait for dinner until 10pm.  My training is going well though, 12 miles this week Tue- Thu and then another 7 on Sunday with cross training on Saturday.  I can't believe this half marathon is only about 5 weeks away! 

Off to watch Thursday night TV....Office, 30 Rock, Community.....I'm hooked.  On many shows.  I just can't help it and I figure there will come a day when I won't have to time to watch shows I love so I better get it all in now :)  Adios.

Sundays are for Eating

This morning got off to a slow start, I slept in and enjoyed some morning football and Private Practice and for the first time in weeks had something other than oatmeal for breakfast!  Eventually I got off my bum and decided it was run time, it was  GORGEOUS day in Seattle.  One of those perfect fall days where the sun is shining and there is a crispness to the air and it is impossible to not have an amazing day.  So I ran....7 miles.  My longest training run to date and it felt great!  Six weeks from today I will run my first half marathon.....ugh!

After running I decided I had earned delicious food!  So for dinner I tried out a new recipe, Chicken Stroganoff in the crock pot.  It turned out delicious!  Using fat free cream soups and fat free cream cheese to make the sauce I saved us some fat & calories, chicken instead of red meat is always a plus and I ended up with some good ol' comfort food without all the calories & fat.

Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture until I was putting the left overs away so we have a lovely picture of Tupperware.  Also- I'm learning to like mushrooms so I added onions & peas.

Post dinner I decided baking sounded like fun while watching Sunday Night Football and tried a little Cocoa-Oatmeal (similar to "No-Bakes") cookie recipe, I substituted peanut butter for raisins though because who puts raisins in cookies?  The color looks a little funny but I promise they were DELISH!

All in all a great little Sunday in Seattle.  It is a good thing I got in a 7 mile run and walked to Target, this is not the kind of dinner & dessert to have without earning it :)

Thursday Won

Thursday was not a good day this week.  It won.  I lost.  To demonstrate my sportsmanship skills I decided to get myself some red wine, a frozen pizza, a date with my DVR and quietly deal with it.

For a frozen pizza it wasn't terrible and completely filled my need.  One piece, one glass and 5 minutes into Brothers and Sisters and Thursday wasn't feeling so bad.  By piece three, glass two and 25 minutes of the Walker family Thursday was actually losing the battle.

In other news I made a pathetic attempt at fall decor last weekend.  It sounded good, clear marble vase filler, apple cinnamon potpourri and a much too large vase.  The much too large vase was the real issue, hence why this picture only shows the top third of the vase.  The rest of the vase is hiding, and will hide until Christmas decorations come out and it becomes beautiful from top to bottom with my shiny, pretty, absolutely wonderful ornaments.

Please keep in mind all these photos have been taken with my blackberry so while I know the pics are pretty shabby don't judge. 

Sweet Tooth.

So the other night I got a sweet tooth and was forced to give in.....homemade brownies was on the agenda!  They were the best handmade brownies ever!  Perfectly gooey delicious brownies.

We clearly enjoyed a lot of them on night one!  That was Monday and there is one left in the pan.

That is the problem with baking delicious goodness.....it is to good resist and therefore is eaten in days.  If anyone out there has self control and is able to walk by delicious sweets & not eat them I am both perplexed & jealous.

I think part of the problem is that since I am currently training for my first half marathon I feel entitled to eat whatever, whenever.  New goal- learn to train for a half marathon without throwing the diet out the window....or at least stop baking.



Tastes Better Than it Looks.

So- tonight I had a creative moment which created a pretty yummy dinner but the picture doesn't look particularly appetizing.  I guess you win some, you lose some.


Basil, Onion & Pepper Stuffed Chicken with Mozzarella

Ingredients:

Red, Orange & Yellow Bell Pepper
Onion
Chicken Breast
Mozzarella
Basil
EVOO
Salt
Garlic

Place peppers, onion, salt, EVOO, garlic & basil and food processor and blend until pureed. 
Place puree in halved chicken breasts, place in grill pan (or BBQ if, unlike me you have a deck) and grill on medium heat for approximately 30 minutes flipping once or twice, add EVOO or chicken broth to grill pan (if not BBQ) as needed to keep from drying out chicken.
Once chicken is cooked thoroughly place slices of fresh mozzarella and basil on top and use lid over chicken to help mozzarella melt. 
We ate this alone (watching the old waistline) but I image it would be great over a thin, angel hair style pasta.

Took about 45 minutes all together but was quite tasty!  Next time I will use much thinner chicken breasts as these were quite thick and the chicken to yummy stuff ratio was a little off.

In other news- I hope everyone had a great weekend!  We had a fabulous relaxing, putting around the house style weekend.  Enjoyed lunch with the girls (or 2 of them) and a birthday party for friend of Dave's from grad school....other than that lots of football, good food, long runs and relaxing.  

Speaking of football- here is a pic from us at the USC v UW (p.s. I am a COUG not a fan of purple & gold...went to the UCLA v WSU game too but those pics are not on my phone) game in LA last weekend, more pics of this trip to come soon.....by soon I mean when I'm not too lazy to get pics off the camera :)

 GO COUGS!!!!!!

Saturday...

I initially thought that putting up a blog post at 12:15am on a Sunday morning (Saturday night for those of you who don't follow) would make my weekends seem way to lame and then I realized again that I have 1 blog follower who already knows about my lame weekends and decided to proceed.

This morning I made some delicious banana walnut bread.....so good that half the loaf has already vanished.  I say vanished because that I would rather believe things are capable of vanishing than believe in my and my husbands ability to eat loaves of bread in a day or two.

This picture was clearly taken before our devouring began....

Ingredients:
2 cups Flour
3/4 cup Brown Sugar
1 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 cup  Butter
1 tsp Salt
4 over ripe banana's
12 oz Walnuts chopped
1 Egg

Mix flour, salt and baking soda in a bowl, in a separate bowl blend butter & brown sugar...add egg and bananas and blend well.  Add dry ingredients and beat until smooth, stir in walnuts and bake at 350 for 60-65 minutes in a 10 x 5 loaf pan.  Let stand 10 minutes then remove from loaf pan and place on rack.  ENJOY!

Only Pics I have left....

I do this thing where I take pictures of everything I cook/make/bake on my cell phone, then a few months ago I ran out of room on my cell phone & saved only 2 photos.  Thus, below there are 2 of my favorite home creations (that said I am sure 2987542 people have the same creation & I hope I don't get in some kind of trouble for calling these "my home creations").  The pics aren't great but I expect those will get better as I realize I am about to share them with my sister who follows my blog.....

The real problem is that I don't measure, I don't time and I don't write things down.  I do my best to keep things healthy....   Best luck :)

"Chicken Apple Sausage Penne"

Ingredients:
Chicken Apple Sausage
Penne Pasta  (a lot less pasta than veggies)
Sauteed onion, zuchinni and peas
Freshly cut tomatos
Basil, EVOO, Garlic & Salt

Second:

"Roasted Red Pepper Panini"

Ingredients:
Home roasted red pepper & onion
Thinly sliced chicken breast
Fresh Mozerella cheese
Sliced French Bread
EVOO, Garlic, Basil

Yes- you will notice I seasoned these two the exact same, partially because I LOVE EVOO, Garlic & Basil and partially because they are favorite and mostly because I always have it in the house.

The Begining....

I have finally entered the blogging world...jury is still out on how well I will maintain this but I have high hopes it will turn into a full time paying job and I can quit my day gig....okay my hopes really aren't that high, not even close but wouldn't that be awesome! I  always read these amazing blogs that people write for a living and become a tinge jealous.  Anyways- real goal is to just remember I have a blog and update it when I have a  domestic moment!

"Domestic Chaos" has a story behind it, most of which will never grace the blog, the gist of the story being that I have had two given nicknames from my friends, "Domestic Dawn" and "Chaos."  Both aptly describe my life so I figured I would blog about my attempts to reign in the chaos and be creatively domestic, domesticity and chaos are also 2 things I love dearly.

I am a social worker- which equals chronic chaos (although not why I have the nickname....that is more related to some of my less mentionable qualities) and I thrive on chaos.  Never know what might happen next works for me, I like the challenge of prioritizing, crisis resolving, the "which shoe will drop next and can I catch it" mentality.  Just to point out- my chaos requires a certain level of organization (enter my type A-ness).

On the other hand I LOVE cooking, baking, trying new recipes and mostly creating my own.  And in a shocking turn events learned last year that decorating and finding cheap (Dave may disagree that it is cheap) ways to make our little apartment a home on 1 income is too much fun, and now an addiction.  My husband, Dave, is in grad school to be a teacher so budgeting has become another keen quality of ours which lends itself to cheap homemade meals and home ambiance.

That is a heck of introduction for what I am sure is to be a measly blog satisfying my own need to save recipes and ideas.  Making dinner and  banana-walnut bread tonight so hopefully I'll have a first REAL post up this weekend...maybe even tonight if blogging becomes anything like a facebook addiction.