New Blog Feature: Recipe of the Month

I highly recommend this recipe from Ellie Krieger, one of my favorite Food Network personalities. Her "schtick" is that she is a nutritionist that creates healthy, flavorful, and very easy meals. Her Three Bean and Beef Chili is one of my favorites.

I tried this recipe for Turkey Meatballs with Quick and Spicy Tomato Sauce and Whole Wheat Spaghetti a couple of weeks ago and it was perfect for a weeknight dinner. If spice is not your thing, cut the chipotles. Enjoy!

Ingredients
Sauce:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1 (28-ounce) can crushed fire-roasted tomatoes, liquid included
1 teaspoon finely minced canned chipotle en adobo and sauce, or more to taste
2 teaspoons chopped oregano leaves
1 sprig fresh rosemary
Salt
1/4 cup torn fresh basil leaves
Meatballs:
Cooking spray
1 pound ground turkey meat
1 slice fresh whole-wheat bread, crusts removed, pulsed into crumbs
1/4 cup grated Parmesan, plus more for serving
1/2 cup finely grated carrot
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
2 large cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley leaves, plus more for garnish
2 teaspoons minced fresh thyme leaves
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 box (16 ounces) whole-wheat spaghetti
Directions
Fill a large stockpot with water and bring to a boil for pasta.

Make Sauce:
In a 4-quart saucepan heat the oil over medium heat. Saute the onions until translucent, about 3 minutes, then add the garlic and cook for 1 minute more. Add tomato paste, tomatoes, chipotles, oregano, rosemary, and salt. Bring all the ingredients to a low boil, reduce heat and cook for approximately 15 minutes, until liquid has evaporated slightly. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. While sauce is cooking, make meatballs.

Meatballs:
Preheat the broiler. Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray. Combine the turkey with all other ingredients in a large work bowl. Form into 2 1/2 -inch balls and place on a baking sheet. Broil for 10 minutes, or until browned and almost entirely cooked through.

Meanwhile, remove rosemary sprig from sauce and add fresh basil. Add the meatballs to the sauce, cover, and cook additional 10 minutes, or until sauce has slightly thickened and meatballs have absorbed some of the sauce. While the meatballs are cooking, cook the whole-wheat spaghetti according to package directions.

Drain the pasta and return it to the pot. Add the sauce and meatballs, toss and heat through over medium heat. Divide evenly among 4 pasta bowls and garnish with parsley and 1 tablespoon grated Parmesan.


Yield: 6 servings (1 serving equals about 1 1/3 cups pasta and sauce, plus 2 meatballs

Emily "Post" (get it?)

Question: Is there established etiquette for linking someone else's blog to your blog? What must your relationship be with this person for this to be appropriate?

Please advise.

Hardball

If you know my husband, you know he is a good negotiator. Beyond good, really. So good I am embarassed to go with him when he is returning something at the store. I usually walk around outside in silent shame until the deed is done.

Along these lines, I was reminded of a funny story from our time in D.C. We went to a Washington Nationals game during our visit and planned on either scalping some tickets or buying some at the ticket office. (The game was far from sold out - the Nationals are pretty terrible.) We ran into an older gentleman who asked us if we wanted to buy his tickets along the third base line. He said, "face value is $50 per ticket, and I will give them to you for $50". I am thinking, "Score! Two tickets for the price of one". Travis, on the other hand, is thinking "No way I am buying these tickets for face value, you idiot". He apparently didn't realize he meant BOTH tickets for $50 total. Seeing Travis's hesitation, the nice man said, "ok, $40 then". Travis, shrugged and said, "alright, that sounds good", and proceeded to hand the guy $80 cash. And then there was this moment of inner turmoil as I saw what was about to happen.

To sum it up, Travis was super embarassed that he strong armed a nice man into giving us $100 worth of tickets for $40 instead of $50. And to make matters worse, our newly purchased tickets were right next to the nice man and his wife. Luckily, the guy was cool about it and we bought him a Coors Light as a peace offering.

Next time Trav may think twice before playing hardball.

But probably not.

Vacation Part 2: DC is the Place to Be!

After we left Philadelphia, we took the train down to Washington D.C., where we were able to stay for 4 days and 3 nights! Turns out, that is not NEARLY enough time to see all that there is to see. But, we have a running list of things that we want to do next time we make it up there.

Highlights from D. C. include...

Preferred mode of transport: The train, hands down. It was great. It is like being on a plane, except you don't have to deal with airports, it is much cheaper, and you can talk on the phone. Unless you are in the "quiet car", that is.

Best middle eastern dining experience: Mama Ayesha's. We had dinner here with Judd Littleton, Travis's friend from law school. The food was really good, and so was the Lebanese wine and beer.

Worst middle eastern dining experience: Marrakesh Palace. Mediocre Moroccan food at outrageous prices.

Worst major league baseball team with the sweetest ballpark: The Washington Nationals.

Best cup of coffee: According to the hotel concierge, Starbucks (strike 1 for the JW Marriott). According to Travis and Katie, it all tasted like Folgers. Seriously. Not a good cup of coffee to be found.

Most moving memorial: Lincoln. It was incredible.

Biggest disappointment: The White House. I mean, it is cool and everything, but there isn't much to see.

Biggest kid-in-a-candy-shop moment: Travis at the Supreme Court.

Most cultural experience: The National Gallery

Here are some photos for your viewing pleasure.

The U.S. Capitol

Travis & Katie in front of the Supreme Court building.

Travis posing with his favorite Supreme Court Justice. Don't ask me who it is.

Travis & Katie at the White House

Lincoln Memorial

Gothic architecture at Georgetown University

Travis, Katie & Judd at a sports bar in Adams Morgan watching Michael Phelps and the American 4X200 relay team beat France. (I got to watch the Olympics after all!) Adams Morgan is cool - it is like 6th street except with gangs.

Our God is Mighty to Save

The LORD your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness.

Zephaniah 3:17

More on big brother

Interesting write up in the New York Times today on Sarah Palin. The full article can be found here, but I wanted to highlight a portion that expounds on my previous post regarding library censorship. Truly fascinating.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The new mayor also tended carefully to her evangelical base. She appointed a pastor to the town planning board. And she began to eye the library. For years, social conservatives had pressed the library director to remove books they considered immoral.
“People would bring books back censored,” recalled former Mayor John Stein, Ms. Palin’s predecessor. “Pages would get marked up or torn out.”

Witnesses and contemporary news accounts say Ms. Palin asked the librarian about removing books from the shelves. The McCain-Palin presidential campaign says Ms. Palin never advocated censorship.

But in 1995, Ms. Palin, then a city councilwoman, told colleagues that she had noticed the book “Daddy’s Roommate” on the shelves and that it did not belong there, according to Ms. Chase and Mr. Stein. Ms. Chase read the book, which helps children understand homosexuality, and said it was inoffensive; she suggested that Ms. Palin read it.

“Sarah said she didn’t need to read that stuff,” Ms. Chase said. “It was disturbing that someone would be willing to remove a book from the library and she didn’t even read it.”

“I’m still proud of Sarah,” she added, “but she scares the bejeebers out of me.”

Thanks, but no thanks?

Interesting article in today's WSJ.

Big brother manifest

I was rapidly losing interest in the presidential race until John McCain announced his selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for his vice presidential running-mate. As you might have noticed, the last few days have been rocky for Gov. Palin, not to mention the McCain campaign and those poor souls that are running the RNC.

Of all of the fascinatingly scandalous stories that have come out about her in the past few days, I think this one is the most bizarre and interesting. According to reporter Laura McGann, when Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, AK, she reportedly had discussions with the city librarian about censorship of books in the library. The librarian was asked once to resign, but apparently was able to keep her job for unknown reasons. You can find the story at the link below.

http://www.washingtonindependent.com/4056/palin-to-wasilla-librarian-are-you-ok-with-censorship

Censoring books? Really?

This is gonna get ugly.

Vacation Part 1: Philadelphia

This is the first in a series of many posts about our vacation to the Northeast. We started our trip in Philadelphia, PA. Many have asked why we chose to visit Philly since we had so many (seemingly) more exciting cities on our agenda. There are a couple of answers to this. First of all, Southwest has a killer nonstop flight to Philly from Austin, so we ended up saving a lot of time and sanity by flying into there. Second of all, Travis's cousin, Joel, just moved to Philly to start medical school, so it afforded us a good opportunity to see him.

We spent less than 24 hours in Philly, which is not a lot, but we were able to learn several things about it before leaving.
1. There aren't a whole lot of "landmark" things to see and do there. Besides the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, and the Rocky steps, there aren't very many things to see for sightseers. (Not a knock on them at all, because you could definitely say the same thing about Austin.)
2. Philly is not such a safe place. If you wander too far outside of the center of the City, you could get yourself into some rough areas. Luckily, we did not learn this from experience.
3. We had cheese steak sandwiches at this one restaurant that was supposedly pretty legit, and Travis and I both agreed that Texadelphia does a pretty good job making its sandwiches "authentic" compared to the real thing. All in all, however, I don't really get the cheese steak obsession, because they are kind of heavy and gross. To each his own I guess.

Here are some pictures from our short stay in Philly.

The Liberty Bell. It took me at least 5 minutes to get a shot with no other people in it. Apparently it is pretty cool to pose in front of it.


Downtown Philly


Independence Hall