2 years ago today...

2 years ago today the love of my life told me he loved me (for the first time) and I said it back. We have been inseparable ever since. I guess Central Park in New York City is as good a place as any to do something like that :)

To celebrate we're spending a few days in Santa Cruz at a lovely bed and breakfast,

oh how I am in love.

boysenberry pie

These wonderful berries are out of my family's garden, which I just love.

For an 8-9 inch pie

Pie Crust Recipe:
2 c. flour
½ t. salt
¼ c. sugar
2/3 c. shortening
8-9 T. cold water

For detailed directions of my pie crust.

Boysenberry Filling:
4 c. berries
1 c. sugar
2 T. flour
3 T. cornstarch
1/4 t. salt

If you don’t have to wash the berries, don’t; they tend to hold a lot of water in them, but if you must, dry them well. In a separate mixing bowl, mix the sugar, flour, cornstarch, and salt. Gently mix in the berries. Add the berry mixture to the empty pie crust, and spread evenly to the edges.
Cover pie with top rolled out crust. Roll the edges in to seal in the berries and design the edges however you prefer. The top should have some kind of an opening to allow air to be released, use any design you prefer for that as well, with a knife, just deep enough to cut the crust.
Bake at 375 for about 50 minutes. The edges of pies have a tendency to burn, so you may need to use a pie crust saver, or just foil will work fine. You can cover almost the entire top and edges with foil, just as long as you cut a hole in the center, to allow air to flow. The pie is done once the filling begins to bubble through the cut made in the crust.

the 300 cupcakes

Yes, that is 300 cupcakes.

Brady and Raquel, love you :)

Congratulations

Our very first harvest!!!

This past week I have noticed the green beans growing wonderfully in our garden, and today I decided we had enough for serving! This may not seem very exciting to you, but we have been working so hard to get our garden going. After weeks of just yard work and clean up came the weeks of digging and tilling and buying new dirt, and more digging and ughh, it's been rough. But then came the planning and planting and now the watering, and finally.. something for all of our efforts. Oh how I love gardening.

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{My grandma beck used to always have me help her in the garden. I don't talk about my grandma much, because just thinking about her makes me tear up (like now). She was my best friend for a majority of my childhood and I miss her so much. I owe my love of gardening to her (and my dad, but obviously we know where my dad got it, so we both owe it to her).}

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With this, I give you.. our dinner.

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The next post :)

My kind of dinner...

I love to cook, whether it be recipes from a cook book or magazine, ideas from a cooking show or just creating something off the top of my head. People that know this about me often ask what I eat myself at meal time, and usually my response is a far less exciting one than expected. If I'm cooking for a special occasion or a luncheon or dinner my mother has "hired" me for, I obviously go all out; for two reasons. Reason number one; if it's for my mom, she's paying, so I can buy things I wouldn't normally be able to afford for myself. Reason number two; if the meal is for company, I'm out to impress, so I'll spend a considerable amount of time in preparation, which I don't usually do for just me.
Because of the exciting first harvest in the garden, I was set on making dinner at home tonight. (With it being just the two of us, we get asked to dinner at our parents house often, and it's amazing, we rarely have to take care of own meals. Or we have leftovers, and again because it's just the two of us, that usually will do. Or we just go out, which Martin loves to do, because it's just so easy, and we usually share something.) So, I wanted to make dinner, but haven't been to the grocery store in a few weeks, and all I had to start was a small handful of vegetables from the garden. We had to make a trip to target, so I picked up some frozen chicken breasts, which I love to have on hand. And when I was over at my parents, I picked up a potato, extra squash (they had a bunch from their garden), a leftover chocolate chocolate panera cookie, and a little bit of icecream (shhhh, don't tell anyone).
I came home, threw two chicken breasts on the george forman grill, washed the potato, poked some holes in it, and threw that in the microwave (they only take about 5 minutes in the microwave, as opposed to an hour in the oven). In a saute pan I put in a few tablespoons of butter, the green beans, sliced up pattypan squash (weird name I know, I think my dad got it from a friend's garden, they're delicious) and with salt and pepper, sauteed them for about 5 minutes. Added the tomatoes (they only take a minute or two to cook) and served them to our plates. When the potato was cooked through I sliced it open, added salt, pepper and butter, and a few thin slices of cheddar cheese and popped it back in the microwave for a minute. I had little bit of leftover alfredo sauce (from a jar) that I had used a week or so before, and I added that to the pan that had previously had the vegetables (I didn't wash it out of course). Put the chicken breasts in with the sauce (they take around 15 minutes on the forman) and let them warm up to the sauce and then.. dinner was ready. Placed the chicken on the plates, spooned the sauce over them, then added a little bit of fresh basil and shredded parmesan cheese and oh my goodness. Wonderful.

{I know that this doesn't look like much, because of the horrible camera phone picture, and the lack of presentation, but it was amazing, and either way, not the point. The point is how easy it can be to whip up a meal! It really only took me about 20 minutes!}

This meal consisted of pretty much random things that you just might have in your own kitchen. And the point of sharing this mess of a recipe, is so you can see how easy it is to cook without a recipe, and just use what you have in your kitchen. Often times all I eat for dinner is a can of tuna over some mixed greens, or a grilled chicken breast with a side of steamed vegetables; tonight just happened to fall into place a little better than we could've planned. But it can be this easy. Instead of leftover alfredo sauce, I was considering using leftover pesto, which ended up being all gone, or you could make a quick gravy (if you know how to do that, either broth or milk based). Instead of vegetables from your adorable garden you could use frozen, or canned, or whatever you have in the fridge (broccoli is one of my favorites, because it's so healthy and so easy). Potatoes are so easy and so healthy too. I always opt for a potato instead of pasta (healthier and not processed). If you wanna go all out healthy, skip the carb and throw in a salad. If you want to make things a little more gourmet, grill up some salmon. On the forman a salmon steak or fillet would only take about 10 minutes, possibly less.

Weird little squash, but they have such a delicious flavor. I'm not sure if I've ever seen them in the store, but I'm definitely gonna try and find some seeds so I can plant them in my garden.

Happy cooking everyone! Please ask questions or for suggestions if you ever need any help. I'm working on getting my new house together so hopefully soon my kitchen will be more equipped to cook and I'll have new recipes all over the place!

with love,

Kristin Ann :)

My 2 favorite people..

{This picture was taken at an A's game a few weeks ago. Jen had just mentioned that week how much she wanted to go to an A's game, and we were lucky enough to get last minute free tickets from Martin's boss, and so with out any hesitation we surprised her at school and took her out for the rest of the day and went to the A's game! At first I didn't think she was having much fun because it's hard to follow baseball games and I don't know how much she soaks in, but after singing "take me out to the ballgame" she exclaimed that it was "the best day ever." Martin has a way with making things more fun than they really should be, and he does his best work around Jen. We just love her.}

My husband and sister are my 2 favorite people in the whole wide world. And lucky for me, no one can argue or feel bad because they're not one of the top two, because there is just no argument here. My husband and my sister, the two people who I see most.
I have more confidence and love in my life than I have ever had before thanks to my sweetheart. I'm not the absolute easiest to work with day in and day out, this I know. Often times, I let myself become overly stressed and this can just turn me into a different person. The tone and sass that comes out of me is more than I would wish upon anyone and martin takes it in stride and somehow still has the desire to make me feel better. He never quits, and I adore him for that, among a million other reasons. Even though it doesn't seem fair, I feel as if he makes it his daily and weekly goal to keep me happy, and he does a very very good job. For what reason I deserve this, I have no idea, but I am thankful non the less. My heart swells with the thought of how good my husband is to me. I'm a lucky girl :)
Jennifer is the light in my life. I spend every day with her, literally every day. I pick her up from school and most of the time spend the rest of the day with her, with my husband as well (one more reason why I think he's amazing). Jen is my shopping/errand partner, kitchen helper, snuggle buddy, back scratcher, hair brusher, movie companion, and best friend. Unfortunately because I spend so much time in Jen's life I have filled a Mom-type role, and so that's often times how I am treated. And although it would be great to be loved the way she loves new members of the family (new sister-in-laws, or cousin-in-laws) I still know that she loves me, and in a way different from all the rest. She asks me to sleep over every night, which lately has been sad for me to turn down (since I got married), but it means a lot to me that she still wants me with her. Even though I make her straighten her room, and help do dishes, and brush her hair and teeth more than she would like to, and change her clothes when I don't think she matches, she still loves me. Growing up Jen always slept by me. I sleep like a rock and so her moving and kicking doesn't wake me up, and even when we were in different rooms and all the boys were gone so we all had our own space, Jen would still sleep in my room by me. We call her the heater because she keeps you so warm at night, and during the winter at our house, that is a wonderful thing. I miss sleeping by her, but I love that I see her every day. I love that Martin is now best friends with Jennifer and would do just about anything for her. Hopefully one day she'll get to live with us when we have our own house, and we won't ever have to go too many days with out having her in our life.

{This late night ramble is due to the fact that my husband is at work, and I miss him dearly, Jen fell asleep early while I was over, so I went to my own home earlier than normal, and my poor head is just having major issues tonight; the tmj/neck/face/head problems are on and off, but tonight, very very on, it's horrible, and I can't sleep. My late night ramblings don't have much purpose, except maybe to make more aware the special things in our life. I try very hard not to forget, even after a long frustrating or uneventful day, I try to let my husband and sister know how much I love them}

Fudgies!

my only no bake cookie recipe... and they are literally Martin's favorite thing in the whole world right now... thanks for the recipe mom :)

1/2 c. butter
1/3 c. milk
3 T. cocoa
2 c. sugar
1 t. vanilla
3 c. oatmeal

In a medium sauce pan, combine butter, milk, cocoa, and sugar. With a wooden spoon, continue to mix over medium heat until the mixture comes to a boil. For 5 minutes you will continue to stir will boiling. Take the pan off the heat, add vanilla and mix in, then add oatmeal. Mix till combined. On and ungreased cookie sheet, test one cookie, by using a spoon and dropping a spoonful of the mixture onto the pan. The cookie should keep its form and the chocolate and oatmeal should stay together. If the chocolate oozes down and spreads, you will need to keep the mixture on boil for another minute or so.
I make rather large cookies so I only have about a dozen, if you make them a small spoonful, you should have 2 dozen.

Pretty ideas

I just had to show you some of these pictures I've collected. I love fruit trees, especially citrus, and have always been excited of the thought that I may actually have my own. At our house we have a lovely yard, after lots of work, and with plenty of room for lots of things, but if you don't have the yard, here are some ideas. Aren't they just so cute!? Well I just had to show you that even with limited space and lack of yard you can still have fruit trees (I picked mine up at orchard supply for about 24 dollars.. I have spent more than 24 dollars on much more frivolous of things).