Month: September 2013

10 Things I’m Excited To Do In My New Denver Home

Lauren3 Comments

Well, we were all set to close on the 20th, but we got word that the very last piece of the puzzle, aka loan approval, had fallen into place, so our closing was moved up.  To Tuesday!  Commence seriously excited freak out.

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1. Knock down walls.

You can’t exactly do that living in an apartment.  One of the very first things we plan on doing after we get the keys, is knocking down the wall between the living room and the kitchen.  Open concept, baby!

2. Cook.

My mom had a gas stove when I was growing up and the whole “I can actually see a flame underneath my food!” thing is far superior to those ugly electric coils.  I didn’t do much cooking when I was still living at home so I can’t really say what the difference is between the two types of stoves, but I’m about to find out.

3. Check the mail.

Because my mailbox is attached to the front of my home.  No walking involved.  Okay, that sounds lazy.  When we first looked at our house, I noticed that the mailbox had a Fleur de Lis on the front.  I took it as a good sign.  Also, if anyone would like to be my snail mail pen pal, let me know.

4. Sit on the porch.

Please, Mother Nature, bring up some warm porch sitting weather so I can enjoy some weekend morning reading outdoors before that season that follows fall comes.

5. Have a housewarming party.

Again, please let there be enough warm weather in our future to host such an event.  Our house might be a tad on the small side… cough 877 square feet cough…but we have a big old back yard so unless we want to invite people over in 15 minute shifts, we’re gonna need some weather that allows people to be outside.

6. Decorate.

I do not have an eye for design.  Like none whatsoever.  But I am determined to try really hard to decorate our new home.  I have been obsessing over bedroom, kitchen and living room pictures on Pinterest for months.  Mostly in an attempt to keep myself motivated.  Lest I should be all gung ho when we move in, then fizzle out a month later and deem everything “good enough.”  Not that that’s ever happened before.

7. Greet trick or treaters and hang Christmas lights.

I’m crossing my fingers that our neighborhood is one where kids still go out trick or treating.  I mean, I don’t need hundreds of kids to stop by (I’ll leave that to my uncle’s neighborhood.  New Orleans just celebrates everything a little harder, don’t they?), but a few would be fun.  And wouldn’t you know, our front porch already has hooks for Christmas lights.  How perfect.

8. Garden.

Only half kidding when I keep saying I’m going to invite Joey’s mom over to take care of the veggie garden and my mom over to take care of the plants.  My whole life, I watched my mom tend to her garden religiously and vowed that I would never be a gardener, but now that we have a yard, I wanna garden so bad.  Go figure.

9. Park.

Two car garage, for the win!  Finding parking at an apartment complex is getting so old.  The previous owner had the roof of the garage fixed up before she sold it to us, so we’re good to go on adding a rooftop patio with a fabulous view of Denver, right?  Maybe one day 🙂

10. Leave it!

Okay, let me explain.  A lot of my desire to move to Denver was to enjoy all the things the city has to offer.  Restaurants, breweries, ice creameries and Coors Field!  I’m am beyond excited to leave behind the chain restaurants of the suburbs and explore a ton of unique restaurants that are minutes away.  We might even ride our scooter there.  Not even joking.

Closing, here we come!

Kale Caesar Salad

Lauren3 Comments

I am all about fun salads lately.  And by that I mean Cobb salads with bacon dressing, Buffalo chicken salads, and most recently, a kale Caesar salad.  Yes!  In addition to being “all about fun salads,” I’m all about telling myself that since I am ordering these salads at nice, non-chain, definitely-not-fast-food restaurants and since they are made with things like lettuce and kale, they are super healthy.

Kale cancels out Caesar dressing.

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I made this last Thursday night while Joey was out bowling and he seemed to think it was really weird when I told him I was going to massage some kale while he was gone.  I’d never massaged any kale myself, but figured I’d give it a try as it’s all the rage right now.  Turns out it takes kale from bushy and hard-to-chew, to tender and easier to eat, plus it’s kind of fun.  Can kale be considered tender or is that only a term for meat?  Anyways.  After all kale massaging, dressing blending and crouton making was said and done, I had a quite the salad on my hands, er plate.

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P.S. The dressing is completely anchovy-less.  I’m totally fine with knowing they’re in every Caesar salad I’ve ever ordered, I just don’t want to see or deal with them myself.  Sometimes you just need to distance yourself from the anchovy, okay?

Kale Caesar Salad

Ingredients:

  • 1 chicken breast
  • 1 head kale
  • 1 slice bread (whatever you have will work)
  • 1-2 cups chopped tomatoes (again, whatever kind you want)
  • 4 cloves garlic
  • 3 tablespoons Greek yogurt
  • 2 tablespoons parmesan cheese (+ more for sprinkling on top your salad)
  • 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
  • 2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
  • juice of 1/2 a lemon
  • 1/4 teaspoon each salt and pepper
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  1. Heat a pan over medium heat, brush chicken with olive oil, season with salt and pepper and cook until no longer pink, flipping halfway through.  (This took me about 15 minutes but I cooked mine over lowwww heat).
  2. Meanwhile, wash, de-stem and chop kale.  Place in a large bowl and begin to “massage,” aka gently rub it together until it just begins to soften and turn a deeper green.  (You can massage as much as you want, I wanted mine just barely softened).
  3. Chop your tomatoes (I used zebra tomatoes, they’re the coolest!) and cut your bread into big cubes.
  4. Remove chicken from pan, let rest about 5 minutes, then chop into small pieces.
  5. Make dressing by adding all ingredients except oil to a food processor or blender.  Once blended, slowly stream in oil.  Et voila.
  6. Preheat broiler, then toast bread cubes until golden.  (I like to let mine go a little long so they get all good and crunchy, as all croutons should be!)
  7. Assemble salad by layering chicken, tomatoes and croutons over the kale, then drizzle with dressing and some extra parmesan, then devour.

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Serve with some roasted corn if you are totally in denial that summer is quickly coming to an end.  And I so am.