[Before] The Apple Kitchen

Last November we bought our very first home in Seattle, Washington. It was built in 1948 and we love the location, size, and charm of the house most of all. It's got many classic and beautiful elements including original hardwood floors, arched doorways, and large picture windows.

The kitchen is the heart of the home, they say. Ours, however, was severly lacking in the appearance department! Functional - yes. Spacious - yes. Ugly - YES. Please enjoy the before photos, taken the day we got our keys, prior to the mini kitchen makeover.

There are three doors leading into the kitchen. If you walked in through the front door this would likely be the way you'd enter. How do you like those apples?!

Homemade Taco Seasoning

Hello there friends! It's been a while, hasn't it? I've been cooking like crazy but haven't found the time to put together a proper post for you. After modifying my recipe no less than 6 times, I'm finally ready to share with you this homemade taco seasoning.

Florida

This year has been a big one for birthdays amongst my people. Mom and Dad both turned 60 and Bryce turned 30. To celebrate their "150th Birthday" we spent a week together in Siesta Key, Florida. (Prior to my move to Hawaii, that's where our family vacationed on the regular.) We got right down to the fun having immediately with a trip to the Daiquiri Deck just hours after we arrived!

Back Home and Zucchini Noodles

We're back home from a wonderful and long vacation to Siesta Key, Florida, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (my home). Bryce and I were away for 13 days and were eating and drinking all the while! There wasn't a bar, restaurant, coffee shop, ice cream store, etc., that we didn't visit.

We're just as happy to be home in Seattle as we were to embark on an adventure, although now we need to get our consumption in check! We're hitting the brakes on eating out, slowing down on the drinking, and getting back into the habit of cooking in our own kitchen.

Earlier this week I made overnight crockpot oatmeal for the second time! I have a few more tweaks to make to the recipe and will hopefully post it in the next few weeks. We've eaten it for breakfast each day to fuel the healthy train!

Dinner During Lent - Tomato Pesto Pizza

Do our plans get in the way of our lives? Or, do our lives get in the way of our plans? Either way you look at it, we humans get overly busy from time to time. That I'm sure we can all agree upon. Being busy makes me hungry! Less time to cook, less time to eat, increased likelihood of jamming 4 doughnuts/tacos/grande cappuccinos into my face in a hurried mess. Don't do that, though, it's not good for your sanity or your blood pressure.

My favorite bloggers are those who are most honest and transparent about life's ups and downs. It's easy to speak to the 'ups' although the 'downs' are where I'm able to truly relate to people as actual human beings, know what I mean?

That all being said, I vowed to make a different meat free meal every Friday, right? Sounds fun! Except when it's Friday and my colleagues want to go to happy hour and my husband is at the gym. Then, on the way home, we stop to pick something up from a friend. We run in the house, quickly, to retrieve the borrowed item. We get to meet her Mom, and her brother, and the dog! 45 minutes later we're on the way home to relax... NO, we need to make that meat-less meal! Luckily I'd planned something quite simple. Tomato Pesto Pizza is our 4th Dinner During Lent recipe and it's the easiest yet.