Green Chile Corn Pudding

Well another event where I have to bring food to work means another recipe for you all. Today was our office thanksgiving pot luck. We were each asked to bring a side dish to accompany fried turkey and brisket. Yes that's right they fried turkeys at the office. It was the first time I had ever tried and I think it was ok but no better than regular turkey. For my side I decided to bring in something my grandma makes every year,a classic dish with a New Mexico twist, green chile corn pudding. It is yummy and easy to make which I'm all for. At the end of the lunch the entire dish was gone so I took that as a good sign.

What you Need:

• 3 cups creamed corn
• 1/2 cup corn meal
• 3 eggs
• 9 TBS oil
• 1 TSP garlic salt
• 2 cups shredded cheese
• 1/2 cup green chile (mild I would use less with a hotter chile)

1. Preheat oven to 350
2.Beat the eggs and mix in the oil
2. Stir in the remaining ingredients minus the cheese
3. Pour half of the batter into greased pan, top with cheese,
    pour in the other half and top with cheese
4. Bake for 45min- 1 hour
5. Enjoy

I hope this will make a great side dish for your families Thanksgiving and they enjoy it as much as mine!

Visitng the Dallas Reunion Tower

The Reunion Tower, a staple in the Dallas skyline (many may know it as the "light up ball") recently reopened its observation deck. I was eager to check it out and was very happy we did. Being new to Dallas it was a great experience to check out the city and one of its popular sites. From the observation deck you could see 360 views of the city, they were pretty incredible. Below the observation deck they also having a revolving restaurant that turns while you eat to give you the same 360 views without you having to move from your seat. Now that we know this I think we will be back to check it out. I highly recommend visiting the tower if you are a Dallas native or a visitor, its a fun experience. It also makes for a great date night.

Once we got up to the top of the tower the first thing they did was take our picture and let us choose our favorite backgrounds, all Dallas scenery. These were our favorite

  

These are the view of the tower from the outside, it was a slightly foggy evening which made for some cool pictures

 

And of course the awesome city views

 

 

 

 

 

DIY Chalkboard Frame and Lettering

I feel like chalkboards have recently made a comeback, but not in the traditional sense. Lately on Pinterest I see tons of pins about DIY chalkboards for events and for the home. I always liked the idea and finally decided to make one for myself. I thought now was a great time to make one for my apartment so that I could decorate it for the upcoming holidays. Overall it was a simple and fun process and I’m happy with the end result.

 

What you need:

·         Large picture frame of your choice
·         Glass chalkboard paint
·         Spray paint for frame
·         Chalk
·         Printed lettering (optional)

 First step I removed the glass from the frame (fun fact I actually broke the glass on my first frame and had to go buy another, so be careful) Then I spray painted the frame gold, you don’t have to do this if you like the look of your frame I just bought a basic one and wanted to make it a little fancier.

 

Next paint the chalkboard paint directly onto the glass from the frame. I ended up having to do about three coats to make sure none of the glass showed through. My suggestion would be to use a roller to paint it on rather than a brush like I did to avoid striping.

 

Once the paint is dry it’s time for the fun part, decorating with your message.  I was always curious about how all these people had such flawless handwriting on these chalkboards, thinking there was no way I could pull that off. Then I found a tutorial that showed an easy was to transfer words and designs onto the chalkboard. You start by printing off your desired lettering off the computer. You then coat the back of the lettering in chalk, a lot of it. I then cut out the wording and taped it to the chalkboard. Next take a pencil and trace the lettering from the print out. When you remove the paper the chalk should’ve transferred where you traced, like this.

 

Then you just go over it with another coat of chalk and clean up the edges. I found that a wet Qtip worked perfectly for cleaning up that extra chalk dust around the letters.

 

I did the same steps for each word and for a clip art picture of a leaf. I then put the glass back in the frame and there you have it a fun fall themed chalkboard for the season. I look forward to updating it again at Christmas time.

Apartment Hunting

As many of you know my new job has been a huge adjustment for several reasons the main one being my commute. I am from a decently small city, where you could basically get anywhere in about thirty minutes so I'm not used to heavy traffic or commutes. When I got this job I didnt think the drive would be too bad, of course I interviewed in the middle of the day when no one was on the road. I quickly learned I needed to give myself between forty-five minutes to an hour each day for the drive in the morning and it easily took an hour to get home each evening. Oh and did I mention that I have to be at work at 7:00? Yes you did that math right that means I'm leaving the house at about 6:10 every morning Naturally this driving and traffic has not been working for me so it is now time to move a little closer to the office. Plus the extra sleep in the morning will make all the difference.

So since this weekend was the first free one in awhile we decided it was a good opportunity to go look at a couple places in the area we were considering to see if there was anything we liked. On Saturday we went and looked at four places and we very happy with what we saw. We looked at all apartments this weekend but will also consider rental houses in the area if there is something available. After looking at each of the places we sat down and wrote out what we liked and didn't like about each place. We quickly realized that the first one we looked at was our favorite.

 

One of the biggest selling points... this kitchen. What is not to love here? The apartment was brand new and the unit we would rent has had no previous tenants, which would mean we would be the first to live in it, a large plus for apartment living. It also had hard wood floors, big rooms and big closets.I quickly noticed that the places I liked the most tended to have a few things in common.

1.       A modern look

2.       Nice kitchen

3.       Big bath tub and plenty of bathroom storage

4.       Hardwood floors in the living room

5.       Apartment doors inside the building instead of outside (more secure) 

A fireplace would also be nice but most places didn’t have them. Also I’ve had one at my last two apartments and never used them so I’m sure that pattern would continue. Overall the hunting process was a fun one and got me very excited to move after seeing the great options and was a big fan of the area as well. Fingers crossed we can make this happen very soon!

Happy Monday!

-E