7 Days of Thanksgiving...Day 6

I am SO thankful for all of these people:

Extended family, friends, in-laws, they are all amazing! Even if they make weird faces, can't dance in a very coordinated fashion, and wear man short shorts. They are literally all over the world and I don't get to see them nearly as often as I'd like, but they are still my besties. I am also VERY thankful for things such as Gchat, iChat, and email that let me stay up to date with what's going in their crazy and amazing lives. Thank you for being so wonderful!

7 Days of Thanksgiving - Day 4

Unfortunately, I don't have many embarrassing photos of these people to share with you, but that is only because I do not have my camera with me every minute I am with them...trust me, they are very weird. This group of people have made our life here in Oklahoma SO incredible. They have been with us on the med school roller coaster since before the first test block, and they are amazing. They bring us food when we are too stressed out to cook, make us roll on the floor laughing with their randomness, give us awesome role models for that FAR OFF day when we become parents, send us weird and inappropriate videos, call us out when we need some tough love, hold us when we cry, laugh for an hour about weird plastic evil rats, care about other people and show love to those who don't get it enough, bring us desserts every day for 4 days before board exams, live out their faith every day in an incredibly authentic way, let us kidnap their children and take them to Chuck E. Cheese, and basically walk through life with us hand in hand. Oh and also, they are all AMAZING COOKS. That is really why we are friends with them. They even listen to Scott's random rants and don't run away when he shows them disgusting pictures of operations and human organs and such. That is love.

Seriously, I am so very thankful for our amazing church community, especially our house church (small group). They are some of the best friends we've ever had, and they are literally like members of our family. We would do anything for them, and they have been there with us during the great times and the unexpectedly heartbreaking times in the last three years. We all know I was less than thrilled about moving to Oklahoma, but I truly believe that these people are the reason we ended up here. They have literally changed our lives, and I don't know what Scott and I would do without them!

I Like...Food Parties

We had the perfect Saturday this weekend: sleeping until we felt like getting up, breakfast and coffee, bought Rock Band for $57, poured through cookbooks, did some leisurely grocery shopping, cooked, and had a fantastic outdoor dinner at the home of some great friends. We cooked up a trio of dips to go with grilled French bread and roasted garlic, and Scott made some of his delicious risotto to go with the pork tenderloin, grapefruit & avocado salad, and sangria that J-Lo made. It was fun to have a variety of apps to snack on, and I thought I'd pass along the recipes:

Lemony-Tarragon Crab Dip

This is an easy but elegant, tasty, and cool summer recipe. Definitely use fresh crab if possible or else the yummy dill, pepper, and cucumber overshadow it.

- 8 oz. fresh crabmeat, well-drained

- 1/4 cup cream cheese @ room temperature

- 2 tbsp mayonnaise

- 3 tbsp chopped red onion

- 3/4 tsp dried tarragon

- 2 tsp chopped, fresh dill

- 1/4 cup chopped cucumber

- 1 tbsp plus 1 and 1/2 tsp fresh lemon juice

- 1/2 tsp lemon zest

Combine cream cheese, red onion, mayonnaise, lemon juice and zest, and chopped herbs in a bowl. Stir in the crab and cucumber. Season with kosher salt, pepper, and additional lemon juice to taste. Note: I added quite a bit of pepper and some extra dill and cucumber to make it extra delish. Chill, and serve later with bread, bagel bites, or salt and vinegar potato chips.

Recipe courtesy of one of my very favorite cookbooks.

Charbroiled Eggplant Dip

Kind of like baba ganoush, but not. A little more summery, especially with the peppery, blackened flavor you get from grilling the eggplant beforehand.

-1 tsp cumin

-2 tbsp olive oil

-1 large eggplant

-1/2 cup plain yogurt (we used Greek yogurt and it was delish)

-juice of one lemon

-2 scallions

Slice the eggplant and coat both sides with cumin and olive oil mixed together, along with salt and pepper on both sides. Grill eggplant until blackened/charred but not burned (duh). This can also be done in the oven/broiler, but the smokey flavor from grilling is yummmyyyy. Mix eggplant (works best if it has cooled down a bit), scallions, lemon juice, and yogurt together, add any extra seasoning you need, and serve on toasted pita.

Recipe from Easy Appetizers.

Artichoke and Green Onion Dip

A yummy twist on traditional artichoke dip...I added extra onions and lots of Parmesan to make it even more flavorful.

-2 cans (14 oz each) water-packed artichoke hearts, well drained, chopped

-1 and 1/2 cups mayonnaise

-1 and 1/2 cups finely grated high quality Parmesan cheese

-1/3 cup, plus 2 tbsp sliced green onions

-2 tsp minced garlic

-1 and 1/2 tsp chopped fresh thyme, or 3/4 tsp dried thyme

-1/4 tsp kosher salt, plus more to taste

-1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper, plus more to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine artichoke hearts, mayo, 1 cup of parm, green onions, garlic, thyme, salt, and pepper in a large bowl. Adjust the seasonings if necessary. Transfer the mixture to an 8-inch square glass baking dish or a ceramic dish similar in size. Sprinkle with the remaining 1/2 cup of cheese. Cover and bake until heated through, 10-15 minutes. Increase heat to broil and cook until top is bubbly and golden brown, 2-3 minutes more. Garnish with green onions.

This recipe also courtesy of one of my very favorite cookbooks.

Eat with yummy bread or other carb and ENJOY!

I Like...San Antonio

So lately I've been feeling some unexplained nostalgia for Texas, particularly San Antonio and the hill country. It all started about a month ago when I was driving down to Dallas to meet Scott and hang out with my family for a few days, and I felt the urge to blast "Southbound 35" for old time's sake. Since then, I've been quite out of my normal (i.e. indie/hippie/songwriterpotsmoker) music zone and have been on a pretty hard core Pat Green kick. There's just something about his music that transports me in a second back to the carefree days of college when our biggest thing on the agenda was planning the next float trip or theme party. Jen and I were reminsicing about breakfast tacos at Taco Riendo, the somewhat sketchy, completely delicious taco place where we were almost always sure to be the only non-Spanish-speakers in the place. So, here is my ode to San Antonio:

There are so many great memories of that town, such as everything that took place here:

Retreats in the hill country:

Amaaaazing BBQ:

Fiesta and NIOSA, San Antonio's Mexican [and much tamer] version of Mardi Gras:

BREAKFAST TACOOOOOS:


$2 Margs at Panchito's:

Of course, tubing on the Comal in New Braunfels:

And eating at the amazing Grist Mill afterwards:

And who could forget college night at Far West (aka Cowboys) Dance Hall:

I'm no country girl, but I sure do miss San Antonio sometimes. In honor of that, here is some good ol' Texas country for your listening pleasure:

Wave on Wave - Pat Green

Crazy - Pat Green

Carry On - Pat Green

I Like...Learning

Here are some interesting tid-bits I learned this weekend:

1) The Harry Potter game for Wii is not as cool as one would think (at least not the Order of the Phoenix one). Yes, you get to do spells, but we played for 20 minutes and all that went on was moving some clothes into a trunk and walking around the castle aimlessly. Not fun. Where's the Quidditch?!? And YES, I realize I'm a huge nerd.

2) Somehow, when one makes gin and tonics at home, they are much more potent than at the bar.

3) Sitting around with friends making drinks and making fun of each other playing Wii is SO much fun. Okay, I knew that already

4) Non-scheduled Saturdays are extremely important.

5) Just because I am awesome (and I mean AWESOME) at Wii bowling does not mean I am awesome at actual bowling. In fact, I'm terrible. Like 78 terrible.

6) I forgot how competitive I am and how I really reeeally dislike losing! As Lisa put it, it's a miracle we all play games together and we're all still friends. Lots of Type A med students + me and Hannah and James = yikes!

7) Piano bars and Colorado Bulldogs are a fantastic cure for post-losing-funk. Especially when they play Don't Stop Believing and the whole bar sounds and you dance a lot.

8) That song NEVER gets old.

9) Blaring the show choir version of that song from Glee while driving around eating ice cream never gets old either.

10) Enjoying a lazy Sunday morning for the first time in a while is more important than writing papers. Yup.

That's it for now. Oh, and p.s., if you couldn't tell, I loved this weekend.

I Like...Weddings

As I posted about yesterday, we had a blast last weekend celebrating our friends' wedding, and lots of fun was had. Here's what took place:

Some rehearsing and eating downtown

An adorable bride and groom celebrating

More awesome dancing

A "fresh-faced" picture before Journey sing-a-longs to the iPod because the COVER BAND did not know "Don't Stop Believing!!"

Some intense disco-ing

Some...of this

Happy friends after dance-a-thons

Self-picture taking, always a necessity whilst dancing

Old friends :)

All in all a great night, and I must say that Scott did a great job sticking his hand in the air and taking random shots. This was the first wedding since ours that we have both been really involved in and gotten to witness up close through the whole process, and it definitely brought back some wonderful memories of our own (and of course made some great new ones). Yay marriage, yay weddings.

I Like...Dancing

This past weekend, Scott's BFF-partner-in-crime-roommate-best-man-all-around-crazyperson Rob married his longtime girlfriend (and good friend of ours) Jen. Seriously, these boys have been friends since the fifth grade when Rob invited Scott to stay for dinner after working on a school project, and they have pretty much been through everything in life attached at the hip ever since. They are COMPLETE opposites and yell at each other a lot, but their friendship is pretty adorable. So the weekend was full of toasts and parties and food...and dancing! We had a fantastic group of dancing fiends on the floor at the wedding, and it was a BLAST. I love dancing, and I really really really wish I could do it with any inkling of talent, but this is what I look like when I do it:

Apparently me dancing = awkward facial expressions and lots of pointing?

Oh well. We can't all be professionals.......like these people:

(SMOOTH TRANSITION, eh?!?)

Last night's episode was pretty blah until the final three routines. I will say that while I appreciate the sentiment and while the intent of Tyce's piece about breast cancer was touching, it didn't grip me or move me like Mia's Addiction piece did. I think a huge part of it was the song, but it felt more contrived and "Beaches"-ish than raw and heartwrenching like it could have been...But it was still a beautiful dance. Here are my two favorites:

Kayla and Jason dancing a Shane Sparks hip hop routine (loved the Thriller references)



Brandon & Jeanine dancing a routine by Laurie Ann Gibson (yes, the crazy choreographer from Diddy's Making the Band awesomeness).

I think Brandon and Jeanine are my favorites at this point, with Janette coming in a close second. I'm calling Evan or Jason and Melissa or Kayla for elimination this week. If Melissa stays it will be because she happened to draw the tearjerker of the week. Also - I'm not gonna lie, I'm pretty intrigued to see if Katie Holmes can actually sing and dance tonight. Innnnteresting.

And this is where I shall end the post of endless rambling.