Guests for Dinner: Mexican Night {Recipes #80-82}

I love having dinner with friends!

Our first apartment is tiny {been wondering why there aren't any pictures? ;)} so we haven't had very many people over.. but each time we do we have so much fun hosting!

Our good friends Kendra and Nate had us over to their first house earlier in the fall so we returned the gesture by having them over for a Mexican Fiesta and Card Night. Of course neither the Mexican "theme" nor the Card Night part had been determined prior to the week. It worked out well though, and we had lots of fun catching up with them!

I decided to make several recipes from Pioneer Woman's cookbooks. I made Tequila Lime Chicken & Mexican Rice and then I made up my own Black Bean recipe.

We also started the night out with my FAVORITE guacamole recipe and chips. Always a hit! It's SO good!

Mexican Black Beans

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

Canola oil

1 Tsp. minced garlic

1/4 cup or less of finely chopped onion

2 Cans of black beans, mostly drained

1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp. garlic salt

1/2 tsp. cajun seasoning

1) Put the oil, garlic and onion in a sauce pan over medium-high heat. Saute the garlic and onion until the onion is translucent. Add the drained black beans with a bit of the canned liquid. Add the spices to taste or as recipe states. Cook until warmed through. Serve with your favorite Mexican dish or as I did with Pioneer Woman's recipes!

What is your favorite meal for entertaining?    

All for now,

Alexandra

Apricot Chicken Paninis {recipe #43}

This is a recipe that we found in Pioneer Woman's newest cookbook. It sounded strange, but for some reason I wanted to try it. Plus, I had just found a jar of organic apricot preserves on clearance at Target. So we went for it! Thank goodness we did! This recipe was AMAZING! :)

Apricot Chicken Paninis

Ingredients:

Chicken Breasts (flattened if you'd like and cut to a good size for your bread)

French Bread

Mayo

Apricot Preserves

Fresh Sage Leaves

red onion slices (thin)

Oil

Butter

1) Pan fry chicken breasts in oil. Fry the fresh sage leaves also, take out before they turn brown.

2) mix mayonnaise and apricot preserves to make a spread.

3) Cut up the bread into slices. Spread with mayo-apricot mixture. Put the fried sage leaves on one side and the onion slices on the other. 

4) Put the sandwich together with the chicken in the middle and spread butter on both pieces of bread. 

5) Put in panini press, grill pan or skillet. We used our cast-iron grill pan with a smaller cast iron skillet on top. It worked out great! If using the grill pan or skillet. Flip and cook on other side as well.

6) enjoy this messy messy DELICIOUS sandwich! :)

Enjoy!

What is your favorite panini recipe?

All for now!

Alexandra

Snapshots of Fort Worth // Spring Break // March 2012

Day 1 of Texas Roadtrip

While planning our Texas road trip Ft. Worth was really just a place to stop. I honestly didn't think that it would be very cool. But it ended up being one of my favorites!

On the way there:

We went to the Ft. Worth Water Gardens, hands down one of the coolest places I have EVER been! Thank you to Kathryn for the recommendation! :)

The active water pool from above.

Halfway Down.

View from the bottom looking up!

It was SO cool!

Mountain

Aerated Pool

Quiet Pool

The sign as you leave

We went to the Yucatan Taco Stand for dinner as recommended by fellow blogger Suze. It was FANTASTIC!

Chips, Salsa and Guacamole!

Kyle got some type of tilapia that came with chipotle mashed potatoes and asparagus! YUM! He definitely ordered better than I did :)

My HUGE burrito :)

One really wonderful margarita!

On the way home we stopped at the Stock Yards for lunch and some shopping :)

I bought this and I am SUPER PSYCHED!

If you do not know who Pioneer Woman is.. RUN don't walk to her website link here. She is a cooking/recipe goddess! :)

All for now,

Alexandra

P.S. Stay tuned for other Texas Cities!