Today is a Great Day!!!

Today is a great day! First of all look at what I got from my adorable, sweet husband to celebrate our 5-month wedding anniversary...delivered to my office this morning!




Here is a recent pic of us in case you all forgot how adorable he is....he is the best!!!






Next of all, look who I won't have to hear/pretend to listen to much longer....

Gerald Myers announced his retirement from my beloved Texas Tech University...he will not be missed! At least not by me or any of my Tech-lovin' friends.

Now, it's officially time to get my football on!! Go TECH!!!

Happy 5-month anniversary back-at-ya my sweet hubby!!

Hope all of my blogger friends are having a fabulous day too!!!

Banana Bread

I took to the kitchen again this afternoon in the mood to bake something. I wasn't quite sure what I would make until I looked in our fruit stand and two very sad looking bananas were staring back at me.

Their days were limited so of course my answer was to make banana bread. I went to my stockpile of recipes that I have had for years, found my favorite recipe and planned to make it. Clearly I used to not give a darn about calories or fat content as the first ingredient was shortening....and a lot of it.

I could not do it. I knew there was no way I would be able to enjoy the way over-ripe fruits of my labor with that much shortening (other ingredients were oil and butter so needless to say Weight Watchers would not be proud of 16-pt per slice loaf of bread. So I took to the internet and found this fabulous recipe that I had to share:

Before Pic:

 

Ingredients

2/3 cup white sugar
1/4 cup margarine, softened
2 eggs (I used egg whites instead)
1 cup mashed bananas
1/4 cup water
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 heaping teaspoon of cinnamon (not in original recipe but I added and it's yummy!)


Directions
Preheat oven to 350. Spray one 9x5x3 inch loaf pan with a non-stick cooking spray.


In a medium bowl, beat the white sugar and margarine or butter until smooth and creamy. Beat in the eggs, water and bananas with the sugar mixture until it is well blended.


Mix in the flour, baking soda, salt and baking powder just until the mixture is moistened. Be sure to scrape the sides of the bowl to blend all ingredients.

Note: I used my KitchenAid so started with the sugar and butter then just dumped the rest of the stuff in the mixer till it was all mixed in and moved the mixture to the loaf pan.


Bake at 350 for 55 minutes (mine was perfect at 55 minutes). Bread is done when the top is firm to the touch and a golden brown color. Time will vary according to loaf size and oven type. When bread is removed from oven, allow it to cool on it's side for 10 minutes, then remove from pan and let cool on a rack. This bread is also excellent if you add mini chocolate chips or small fruit pieces to the mix just before baking.


Nutritional Information
Amount Per Serving Calories: 169
Total Fat: 4.9g
Cholesterol: 35mg
Sodium: 275mg
Total Carbs: 28.8g
Dietary Fiber: 1g
Protein: 3.1g

Here is the finished product and it's delicious!!! Enjoy!

Zac Brown Band

My husband and I love music. He moreso than me for sure but we love having the tunes on at home while we cook or sit on the back deck relaxing. This morning he asked if I would want to go to the Zac Brown Band show at Red Rocks. Ummm....YES!!! Red Rocks is a pretty awesome venue in itself!

 

 

So I just logged on to get us some tickets and, much to my dismay and clear dissapointment tickets for general admission are $197 a piece. Really? I want to know the secret to the other fans to know how $400 is an affordable decision for a couple to go enjoy a concert? $400.

 

Here is what else I could get for $400 dollars:

• Round-trip flights to Texas to see family and friends
• Haircuts for two years
• Weekend in the mountains with my husband
• Electricity in the house for six months
• Gas for another six months
• Groceries for 2.5 months at least

And the list goes on...

 

So, needless to say I will not be spending $400 on a 3-hour concert. So instead, we've opted to save $385 and go buy this:

 

 

 

And we'll crank it up and sit here:

 

 

 

And enjoy a little concert of our own at home. Just the two of us. And for free.

So for those of you that know me you know I am frugal, cheap or whatever you like to call it. I love a good deal and can easily justify any good deal whether it's a 2-for-1 Happy Hour special or this fabulous dress I got at Nordstrom Rack marked down to a mere, and very logical, $29 USD to wear to a friend's wedding last weekend.

 

I am also considered to be cheap, frugal or whatever because I refuse to throw away food that still has a life expectancy of even a few days left in it. I have actaully made it a challenge to re-use and re-make some fabulous meals over the 2-day old leftovers. My most recent, and possibly proudest feats conquering my goal to not waste has been quite successful in the days of late.


A week ago Sunday we hosted a fabulous 50th birthday party for my brother-in-law. My fabulous in-laws were in town and basically bought out a Whole Foods Market and enough food for a small Army. Particularly the Army of 2 strong eaters in the Katen household. There were 2 main entrees served at the party - halibut filet of fish and pork tenderloin which were both cooked to perfection. After feeding 30+ people at the party and 3 days of eating leftovers as the original entrees were meant with sauces, etc., my sweet hubby and I were ready for a change of pace. So here goes:


Pork - sliced it up for sandwiches, sauteed with onion to make soft tacos and diced very tiny to serve as the meat on a platter of nachos on the final evening of it's life.


Fish - heated and topped with cabbage, salsa and lettuce for some killer fish tacos, chilled in lime and added fresh cilantro and served over tortilla chips ceviche style, and finally, our favorite, tossed in a mixture of onion, spices, chicken broth and a can of lite coconut milk served over rice for one helluva fish curry if I don't say so myself.

Last week we ate like kings and it was so awesome to make it all without going to the grocery store once.


So tonight, as I sit here with another full belly I have to show-and-tell my latest fun food. This weekend we hosted a shower for our sweet friends Tiffany and Chris who are expecting their little lady any day now. We had 2 leftover burger patties which I just threw in the freezer for a later BBQ. That is until my garden took up steroids over the weekend and is now spitting out zuchinni, and I mean LARGE zukes here, to the point where I can't keep up with it. So what does a zuchinni on steroids + leftover burger patties turned ground beef again + onion + spices + the final remnants of a jar of spaghetti sauce in the fridge + breadcumbs + random spices + light ricotta = in my husbands opinion "One of the Top 5 dishes you've ever made me"! And I didn't even have a recipe or hit up the store! Wifey be happy.

Now that my zuchinni's are getting way too happy in the garden I need recipe ideas? I did find one online tonight for cinammon-zuchinni bread. And I gots it all in the house already. That will be this weekend's project.

What a LOSER!

FROM HUNK...

TO TOTAL PUNK!

This guy is a racist, women-hating, verbally abusive disgusting piece of dirt.

What a shame, Mel. You officially make me sick.

Fourth And Fabulous!!

The Fourth of July is simply one helluva time of year. What better to celebrate our country and honor all of those wonderful and brave troops who keep our country free each and every day? It’s just awesome. Purely awesome. God Bless our great country!

We had a great weekend with friends and family in town. My sister, Shawn, and her fiancé, Justin, flew in from Houston as did our friends Meredith and Stephanie from Dallas. We had a full house, but a VERY fun house.


On Friday after work we hosted a BBQ at our place, then hit the road early to Rocky Mountain National Park on Saturday morning. We first stopped at Lucille’s in Boulder for a Cajun-style breakfast before taking the scenic route to Estes Park and RMNP. That was a fun, but exhausting, day.

Sunday morning it was the All-American 4th of July. We hit the downtown Tavern early and met up with some friends of ours from Texas who just moved to Denver. We had a beer there and then we all hit the Rockies game at Coors Field and may have had several too many some more beers there too. We headed back to the Tavern after the game for a beer or three and then called it quits early, went home, ate dinner, made some more mojitos and we were all in bed at 9:30pm! I would normally balk at that idea but since we had gotten going early felt it was only appropriate to call it quits early (some of them earlier than others of us). Molson Coors and Anheuser Busch must LOVE people like us on Sunday.

It was truly a great weekend. I hope you all had a fantastic Fourth of July also!!!


PS – This is a random pic of me holding/wearing a real Olympic Silver Medal from the Vancouver 2010 games. A friend played of mine played on a team which took home the Silver and how much more American is that??? We are so proud of him and thank him for letting me flaunt his bling-diggity-bling!!

Toe Woes

So after an incredible and fun-filled weekend with family and friends I woke up today ready to start the week off fresh. I got in the shower and while rinsing my hair with my eyes completely closed I was rudely startled to be met by the pounding of a large, barely used, metal and VERY heavy bottle of shaving cream falling straight down and firmly in the middle of my toe.

Did I mention it was heavy? Well it is. I am not sure why nor how foam could possibly weigh so much but what I am now sure of is that I know the damage it can do to a toe. Specifically a big toe on my own left foot.

It's going to be left to die now. The nail I've worked 33.5 years to keep, maintain and have proudly shown off in numerous cute pairs of sandals. Nope, not anymore. It will die, fall off and hopefully grow back. Mind you I hope this all happens whilst avoiding an infection. Until then it appears I'll be putting the cute sandals away and keeping this bad boy covered. Ugh. Toe woes are not fun.

But it may be a good excuse to buy these once we are back in business again.

I Think I Might Be Sick Today...

Cause I met this little guy last night at my company party.

And now I might have a small case of baby fever.

I Heart The Bachelorette

So at the end of every weekend, when most people are dreading a case of the Monday's I am secretly excited as Monday evenings have become more or less a very entertaining night for me. Why you ask? Well, you see, there is a chick named Ali who was looking for love from a pilot named Jake in the Spring of 2010. She ended her pursuit of Jake to go back to her career (something in Advertising blah blah blah), immediately regretted it and tried to woo him back and fly to St. Somewhere in the Caribbean to beg for his undying love and Jake would not have her back. He was too interested in Vienna, the Dub-T girl named after a mixed-minced-meat-sausage-thingy who I am convinced must have a VIP Shoppers Card at Forever 21 and Wet Seal. But enough of her.

So here we have poor Ali. Unlucky in Love for the ump-teenth-billion time of her life. She is absolutely, undeniably cute.



So in the MOST SHOCKING SEASON EVER she became this summer’s sought-after “Bachelorette”. And I am infatuated with this show almost as much as I am infatuated with Dog the Bounty Hunter. At 7pm each Monday evening my dear friend, we'll call him Tivo, and I bond for several hours of the newest commercial-free, absolutely fantastic, surely staged episode of this show. I love it. Each and every minute of it.

While the show is appealing to me I'd also like to point out a few of the things that are not-so-very-but-not-enough-to-make-me-not-watch appealing. Let's talk about a few of this season's lowlights according to me:

• The guy who introduced himself as Shooter in Episode 1 - dude, if you ever get a date again you must have found her under a rock!
• The wrestler named Rated R who is an all-around idiot
• Oh poor weatherman - you were entertaining while you were on but I do believe your career forecast is going to endure severe thunderstorms moving forward.
• Dear Canada - you stole the Gold medal from us in Olympic Hockey this year. Please steal your people on the show back too. And please keep them.
• Cape Cod Chris – while he is one of my favorites I do wonder who picks his shoes for him. Whoever it is should be fired.
• Kasey – whoever told you that you can sing clearly did not know the proper definition of talent.

To be honest I am not 100% sure what lures me to like this show. It makes me laugh, roll my eyes, say OMG out loud to myself and I’ll probably even cry at the final episode too. But I think all-in-all the real reason I love this show is it makes me appreciate my sweet husband even more to know my own personal Bachelorette journey is over.

And I’m proud to say he didn’t even have to wrestle half-naked men drenched in Olive Oil to land me.

Step 1: Admittance

People say Step 1 is Admission. Well, here's mine. I think blogs are cool. And I admit it - I want to be cool. So this will be my attempt to keep all you people updated, informed, amused, etc. on life with my new husband in the Mile High City. And here is a picture of me and the aforementioned hubby on our honeymoon. I love this guy.