Sick & Tired

Today I woke up and was so excited about it being Friday. Then reality checked in, it's only Thursday. I find it hard to be positive on Thursdays. Actually I find it hard to be positive on most any day. I'm no Pollyanna.

I got to work today and things actually started to turn around. I am having a really good morning. Every Thursday myself and a couple of my friends update our Facebook statuses and call it Things I Love Thursdays. This idea was taken from the blog iCiNG written by Gala Darling.

Every Thursday she makes a list of things that she loves. I find it difficult sometimes to come up with my list. How sad is that? My life is pretty awesome. In a time when most people are worried about job security, I know I have a job and I will have that job for a long time. I have a car that is paid for. I have a wonderful apartment that I own. I have a family that I love. I'm never worried about when my next meal might be, though I do drive my one sister nuts by always wanting to know what those meals might be days in advance. I am blessed with good friends, and overall good health. Yet, I can find 100 things to complain about.

I was scouring through some other blogs, and I came upon this real estate listing. I love this house. If I had 3 million dollars I would be moving to San Francisco tomorrow. (Anybody who has an extra 3 mill kicking around... feel free to pass it my way)

The listing can be found here:

How sick is this house??? Look at the fireplace, no house these days has that!!!

If you get a chance I recommend looking through all the pictures included on the listing. This house is insanely wonderful, and it has a crazy history. The owner of this house bought it as a part of a partnership. Her and the other buyer ended up hating each other and went through a vicious court battle over the house. The owner has been sued by her family, and people she rented rooms to as well. It's been rumored that even the Rolling Stones have partied in this house. San Francisco has declared it an official landmark. I love this house, I really do...

Last night I had a friend over for dinner. I made smoky beef tacos from the Everyday Food magazine.

I did a couple things differently. Instead of making it in the oven, I placed all the ingredients in my slow cooker for the day. TIME OUT. I love my slow cooker. As a joke I call it "the wife". (I recommend you stop reading this if you are offended by sexism) I call it "the wife" because it always has dinner waiting for me when I get home from work.

The recipe calls for 1 cup of water to be added into the pot, and since I was using a slow cooker I only added half a cup. (Slow cookers tend to create a lot of moisture on their own, unlike baking in an oven which draws out moisture) This was also excessive, next time I wouldn't add any water.

Any of you who checked out the recipe would see that it calls for chipotles in adobo sauce. THEY ACTUALLY DO EXIST! My friend Angela from Adventures of the Homemaking Mommy, knows someone who sells them and she picked some up for me. Very exciting!

The tacos are the perfect heat. You can still taste the food, and there's a lingering heat in your mouth, but the heat doesn't overwhelm the taste of the beef. Perfect.

Everyday Food recommends 3 different toppings for the tacos. One was an avocado and red onion relish. I was going to make this, but upon opening the avocados I discovered they were a hideous brown color and they had to be discarded. Another topping was a corn and tomato dish but I didn't make it because I have an aversion to corn being part of a dish. I love corn on the cob, I even like corn as a side dish, but I do not like corn in salsas, chilis or the like. The last topping was a lime crema, which was a mix of sour cream, lime juice, and cilantro. It was perfect on the beef. It was super refreshing.

This was a very easy meal to put together. The picture above includes: the taco filling in the slow cooker, in the saucepan is some Mexican rice (made by Old El Paso), the lime crema, red onion and tortillas

Now I must talk about "the wife" a bit more. I love love love this slow cooker. It was a gift from my mom. My old slow cooker wasn't used a lot because it was rather small, and the liner wasn't removable which made cleaning very difficult. My new slow cooker is the Ferrari of slow cookers. Not only can you remove the liner, which makes for an easy clean, you can BROWN THE MEAT IN THE LINER! This is so magical. There is no need to take out a skillet to brown the meat/veggies, and then transfer them into the slow cooker. Why is browning the meat in the liner way awesome? The browned bits from the meat will stay in your meal, which enhances the flavor. And there is one less dish to clean up. I love this slow cooker!

I also made dessert for after the meal. The recipe comes from my own mind. I took mini angel food cakes from the bakery section and topped them with a berry sauce and whipped cream. The berry sauce was made from taking about a cup of frozen four berry mix, sprinkling sugar on top, pouring Cointreau on it and letting it thaw in a bowl for a couple hours. I then pureed the mix in my mini food processor and strained it into a small saucepan and heated the mix just a bit. The whipped cream idea came from one of my aunts. I chop up a Skor bar and mix it into some Cool Whip. Delicious.