Buffalo Chicken Tacos

With February winding down and our busy March schedule looming over us, I thought it would be fun to try something completely new in the kitchen. Last week I pulled out my Pinterest boards (because seriously why pin all those recipes and just let them sit there) and had Joe choose one meal for us to try. He had a hard time choosing just one, but was able to pick out these tacos. They looked simple enough, but also were completely different than the staples we always eat. I will definitely keep this recipe for future meals, even if the hot sauce was a little too hot for me. You can't see much of the chicken in this picture, but trust me, it's there! We went a little overboard with the avocado, but it was seriously delicious!

Buffalo Chicken Tacos
adapted from here

Ingredients
1 lb chicken breasts, cut into 1 inch pieces
1/3 cup flour
3 Tablespoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/3 cup Frank's RedHot
1 Tablespoon olive oil
Taco shells
Avocado
Shredded cheese

Directions
Heat the oil in a large pan. Mix flour, cornstarch and garlic powder in shallow bowl. Dredge the chicken pieces in the flour mixture, then drop into the pan. Cook chicken until completely cooked, about 4 minutes on each side. Drop them into a big bowl with the hot sauce. Toss to coat. Assemble the tacos and enjoy! Add whatever toppings you'd like. Ranch dressing, sour cream, lettuce, whatever!

Photo Friday #39

This little guy greeted us the other morning. We heard scratching noises coming from outside, but couldn't figure it out. Joe opened the blinds and there he was. I don't know what he was after and what his goal was, but he was all the way up on our second level. I think Joe scared him too because he started pooping! Eventually he scampered down the roof and screen porch. I really hope we don't get holes in our screens because of squirrels like this!

Ronald McDonald House Cookie Crew

This is (part of) my work crew (we're missing 4 people from the team). Meet Jean, Holly, Sean and Megan... or the Charlotte Area Sales team with Marriott International. We try to participate in one volunteer activity each quarter. This quarter we signed up for the Ronald McDonald House Cookie Crew. It's pretty much exactly what you would expect... we went to the Ronald McDonald House and baked cookies. It was a blast! After the cookies were just about finished (I think we baked 12 dozen in total... but don't worry, they were the pull apart kind) we got a tour of the building. The house was built about 2 years ago and I was so impressed by how nice it was! It was a great experience for the team.

Winter Wonderland... In Charlotte?

Joe and I don't live under a rock or anything. We usually stay up-to-date on the weather, what the week will be like temperature wise, what days we might get rain, etc. This last weekend we were a bit out of touch. Neither of us knew there was snow on the way. Saturday night we saw it start to snow in big flakes. Didn't think much about it, this wasn't our first rodeo with snow. We decided to stick with our plans and drive to a sushi restaurant for dinner. You could probably say we're Groupon-addicts, we wanted to burn a Groupon at a local sushi place. Anyways, on the road we noticed the snow start to come down harder and faster and our car started to skid a tiny bit. Now, in normal situations we would feel comfortable going a little bit farther in this weather, but the fact that most people who live in Charlotte don't know how to drive in snow compiled with the fact that there were A LOT of cars on the road made us feel uneasy.

Long story (somewhat) short, we turned around and headed back towards home. Luckily there was a pizza place really close to our house that we have been wanting to try. Turns out the place was packed, but we got a seat and enjoyed some really yummy pizza. It was really neat to see the snow covering the house and lawn. We saw multiple people in the neighborhood outside throwing snowballs (well we never saw them actually throwing the snowballs, but we knew their intentions) and building snowmen. Seriously, you'd think these people had never seen snow before... well to be honest many of them probably haven't! Guess our Groupon will have to wait for another day.

Juice Extractinator

Yes, that was my attempt to make the juice extractor sound tough by merging it with The Exterminator.

Joe and I recently watched the documentary Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead. It's a documentary about a guy who was overweight and wanted to make a change. He spent 60 days in the US (he's actually Australian) on a juice diet. Why the US? He said because in his past experiences in the states, the amount of greasy and fatty food available was absurd. He always found it hard to control himself and would ultimately gain weight. Along the way he challenged others to join him on the diet. Let's just say the documentary inspired us.

Lucky for us I had some points from an incentive at work (just like my bread machine). We did a bit of research and found out the juice extractor offered through my points at work was actually a really good one. It's a Cuisinart so we knew it would be quality. Like I said, we were lucky because these suckers aren't cheap! The juicer quickly found it's spot on the counter in the kitchen.

Our first trip to the grocery store was interesting. We had done some research online to find out what were some good combinations and good vegetables and fruits to use. This is what our cart looked like. Pretty healthy looking huh? Please ignore the cereal, bacon and beer. This was the weekend of the Super Bowl so I'll use that as an excuse.

After more research and thinking hard about what combinations would taste good, we came up with a few. We found out that carrots and apples make for a good base for the juice. We also wanted to pack as many vegetables in there as we could with a few fruits to make the flavor better. Here is what one day looks like. We learned the hard way what too much celery tastes like, now we keep it down to 1 or 2 stalks. It's completely trial and error with hopes of less and less error.

No, we're not on a juice diet like the guy in the documentary. We each have been drinking about 10-12 ounces of juice each morning for breakfast. We've gotten pretty good at estimating how many fruits and vegetables will produce about 20-24 ounces of juice. Some of the veggies are more fillers while other veggies have such a strong taste (celery, broccoli, etc.) we try to use very few of them in each batch. Then we pour it into two cups and sip on our drive into work. So far so good!

Super Bowl Commercials

I'm assuming most of you reading this did watch at least part of the Super Bowl. Did you enjoy the commercials? Some really stood out to me.

Growing up in Iowa I didn't live on a farm, yet farming still means something to me. This commercial has been a topic of conversation all over my office and the news. These images are amazing, but the commercial as a whole is simply genius.

This is another one that made me a bit emotional. It's one of those things that you can't really decide why it makes you emotional, but worked it's magic. After the commercial was over I looked around the room to see who else paid attention (since so many people were talking and laughing most didn't catch this one). Jaycee (our neighbor's daughter who is 13 years old) did the same thing and looked at me. We both had the same reaction, it pulled at our heartstrings. Who knew a beer commercial could do that!

Then to lighten the mood a bit, here was my other favorite commercial. I can't remember exactly the connection, but I think Jaycee said the creator of this one is from Charlotte? I believe Doritos held a contest and this was the winning commercial.

Which commercial was your favorite? Did you have the same reaction as I did after watching these? Happy viewing!

Ravens To The Rescue

Joe and I went back and forth trying to decide which team to root for in the Super Bowl. Yes, we use to live in San Francisco and yes, we did go to a 49ers game while we were there. You'd think we were hometown fans... but this year that wasn't the case.

You might remember this post, but while visiting Scott and Amy up north this past summer we spent a day in Baltimore. While Amy and I shopped Joe and Scott wandered near the Raven's football stadium. We kept seeing people with Raven's t-shirts and jerseys on and wondered what was going on. Long story short Scott and Joe got into the stadium, watched a bit of practice and came away with purple Raven's t-shirts. In addition to that, Joe and I like Flacco as a quarterback and wanted to see him do well.

With that explanation out of the way, here's Joe in his t-shirt!

We headed over to our neighbors house to watch the game. They had lots of delicious food (what would the Super Bowl be without amazing food and funny commercials?) Their daughter even decorated cookies for both teams.

We also played some fun games. Not true betting, but games with money on the line. They were so much fun and didn't require much knowledge of the game. We both put $10 in and let's just say we got our money back and then some. Our neighbors said they won't invite us over next year. Ha!

On a different note I wanted to share my new nail polish. This is also a sneak peak at my current crochet project. Once again it's a gift so that means it's a secret until finished.

Photo Friday #38

I attended a community awards breakfast last week. As part of my job I was there to represent the hotel, but in reality I was pretty excited to attend. The breakfast was held in the atrium of the NASCAR Hall of Fame. I've been to this building many times, but never for an actual event. You can see the cars lined up along the windows. Picture them extending farther to the left with a huge wall of windows. It was so cool. In addition I got to hear Manteo Mitchell speak. When I got the invitation that included him as the keynote speaker I admit, I had to Google him. Once I did I got super excited. He is a native of North Carolina and ran in the 2012 Olympics. His story is much better though, he actually broke his leg during his leg of the 4x400 relay. But that didn't stop him, he kept running and the US still qualified for the finals in the race. Although he didn't run in the finals, the US took home silver. Mateo's story was an inspiration. Keep your eyes on him in the future. He's still training and working towards the next Olympics.