Engaged in, involving, or reflecting deep or serious thought.
I am very quiet when I am pensive and I like to be by myself. People assume I am sad or mad, but I guess that’s logical when I am usually loud and boisterous. Being pensive is not a new thing for me, but it is very infrequent.
Is it because I rarely take the time to slow down and think? Is it because of the latest tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary? Perhaps it’s because of the Christmas season I always seem to need a time to make sure my priorities are in order. . . I think this time around it’s a little of it all.
Regardless, it’s a time I rather enjoy. I’m much more of a do-er rather than a thinker, and in these rare moments where I do actually think it is always very enlightening. Whether it’s the Lord calling to me, or if it’s a time of re-evaluation, something good always comes from it.
So there it is world, Joel is pensive.
On another topic, I plan to get back into more of the blogging sphere. I am going to broaden the landscape of this blog to include new interests and other such awesome things like being in my first year of marriage!
So naturally I put those two things together and cooked.
🙂
A classic rainy day/comfort food meal in my book is tomato soup and grilled cheese. So to go along with that theme I decided to instead whip up some Tomato Basil Soup myself, ala La Madeline (of the DFW area).
Started with the ingredients:
Note: I tastefully put my basil in a little glass bowl for the picture. #Bigtime
The new thing I learned with this recipe was how to dice carrots, and let’s just say it was a big test of my patience/fine motor skills. But I think I pulled it off.
Reduce. . .
Simmer. . .
Blend. . .
And serve up a freaking good bowl of tomato basil soup with a lightly toasted grilled cheese.
From this experience I learned how to dice carrots, and hopefully figure out what size saucepans to use. . . three times I had to switch the soup from difference saucepans because of my poor judgement in size. It’s a great way to add more dishes to the sink, I guess that just adds to my proficient dish washing 😉
Now the biggest step was the music selection, I tried listening to some “rainy day” music and found that “rainy day” music + an actual rainy day + making the ultimate “rainy day comfort food” just made everything to. . . rainy dayish! So I instead cranked up the sound system with some Fun. And I will admit that I did put the first two songs on the album on repeat and listened to them 8 times, I like them.
It has been a way to long since my last post (way back in July), and I have many excuses as to why I have been absent, but being that I am a teacher and very much dislike hearing excuses I’m not going to give you any of mine. In truth though the fall is insane for me with marching band, high school football, and our school wide musical all occurring during the months of September & October and I thank the Lord (literally) for my wonderful girlfriend who took over some of the cooking while I was attempting to locate my life 😉
Ok on to the food & music. It goes without saying that since this is a post during the Christmas season musically we are going the Christmas route; so let’s get you started off with a little high energy Christmas music today from Toby Mac and his band Diverse City – The First Noel.
Now onto the food. . . I had been itching to get back into the kitchen and after a long day of working at the OU football game I decided on a rather simple (simple being a relative term for me) recipe for Homemade Chicken Pot-Pie. And in addition to that I had the idea to make some Hot Spiced Wine as Em and I traveled to Target for the ingredients. So the meal is Chicken Pot-Pies with Hot Spiced Wine (both recipes will be under the recipes link at the top of the page).
And of course Ella wanted to help and explore the new “toys” i.e. the ingredients. And along the way I will share pictures of Emily decorating as I cooked, she looks thrilled at my picture taking too. . . 🙂Ok on to the food, one of the issues I ran into this evening was that I should have done some prep work that I hadn’t, this could have been resolved by me planning more ahead, but come on folks, that just isn’t my style. So regardless I had to wait a while as I hard-boiled some eggs and cooked a couple chicken breasts. After those were done I layered them and some peas & carrots into the dish.
On top of that I layered some chicken broth and cream of chicken soup, and then a final layer of biscuit mix with butter drizzled over the top and then into the oven it went!
Now onto the hot spiced wine. . . ! We used to drink this in my neighborhood growing up as we went Christmas caroling, so it’s been a long while, but I thought that it sounded like the perfect drink for the cold/windy evening here in Norman, Oklahoma. We had to improvise on this one because I misread the recipe (surprise!) so instead of needing 1 cup of pineapple juice like I thought we actually needed 2 cups. . .
We never got the 2 cups we needed, so I just added more orange juice, and it still tasted great! Into the sauce pan I added orange juice, pineapple juice, allspice, cloves, a couple of cinnamon sticks, and some orange peel, and then brought to a boil.
Then the next step is to throw in the wine! I just bought an 8 dollar bottle of merlot and it worked like a charm for this recipe.
After I added the wine and the pot pie was lightly brown on the top we were ready to roll!
And time to enjoy!!!
And I will leave you with a picture of my house with Christmas lights on it, and my cat Miles really wanted to say hi. . . so I let him. I hope you all have an exceptionally awesome Christmas/holiday season and I look forward to posting more frequently!
Folks the summer has come to an end, it has certainly been a summer of ups and downs; there were times where I didn’t know what on the earth was going on, to times where, believe it or not, I was ready to start school (in June!). But alas the time is finally here, band camp has come and gone, first day of teacher meetings are upon us, and before we know it it’ll be Christmas break!
The music: blues artist, Robert Cray, may I suggest you click on the link and listen as you read, a bit of a mood setter.
Some of you know my Mother stayed with me this summer, but alas on Saturday she is off to Indiana. So last night my sister, her boyfriend, and Emily came over and we had a night of family and BBQ before she heads out. Now as much as I love grilling I just haven’t done much of it this summer, but last night I got to break out my skills again.
The meal consisted of dishes made by all of us, Jessi made the Sangria, Emily made a potato salad, my Mom made a fruit salad and bread, and I did the grilling of some BBQ chicken; it doesn’t get much better than having the family all chip in for a great meal and family time!
Em making her wonderful potato salad.
Jess mixing up a wonderful summer concoction, Sangria.
Magic in the making! (my backyard looks pretty decent here, huh)
The chicken came out amazing, I think I’ve gotten to the point where I have mastered the art of grilling chicken. Gone are the days were I have to check the chicken (cutting open the chicken to check really kills the juices :/), and because of this the juices in the chicken were just overwhelming sensational!
The spread!
Happy people 🙂
This was one of those times where the smiles, laughter, and time spent with family way overshadowed the food; although in this case the food certainly enhanced the family get-together.
Back to the music, and a little about the blues.
Robert Cray is a blues artist who I have recently been listening a lot of because of my Mom being here. Blues music in my opinion is a genre that gets overlooked a lot. The genre I think has lent itself heavily to the R&B world and I think people have a tendency to mix the two into one grouping, but I think this is a great injustice. Blues music has a soulfulness that I don’t think is matched by another type of music; the grit and dirt of the instruments, the raw emotion of the lyrics, and the pace of the music isn’t to fast, nor to slow, but just sits in a spot where the slow, emphatic bob of the head or tap of the foot comes so naturally. That’s the blues.
Get out there people, get that last BBQ going, have that last summer get-together, and find a little blues to enhance that end of the summer feel.
So it’s been just about a month since my last post, so just like my title says, I’ve been a bad blogger 😦
My lame excuse is that I’ve been traveling for the better part of 3 weeks and I only visited Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, and Texas, I know, pretty lame **sarcasm***. Through those travels I did my best to take some pictures at least of the meals I was eating (not necessarily cooking) to provide some evidence that this blog was totally not forgotten about over the course of my journeys.
The first stop was Colorado to visit my Dad & Rachel, and while we were up there we hiked up Mt. Evans, and yes, Emily did eventually forgive me for taking her up there 😉
While in Colorado we were treated to an amazing restaurant that is in the Warwick Denver Hotel, where Rachel works.
Best fried Calamari I’ve had, hands down.Might I say the Filey Mignon was. . . bountifully delicious!
From there I traversed to Kansas to experience the awe-inspiring Wheat Festival in Emily’s hometown of Wellington, KS. There I got a lesson in small-town life that as a suburbanite my whole life I was unaccustomed too; valuable lessons learned.
Then it was onto Branson, Missouri, a place I have never been before. A great time was had with my boss/pal Jim as we toured the city and got to see lots of shows and eat copious amounts of fantastic food. Side-note: I had very low expectations for Branson, but I am happy to say that my expectations were vastly to low, it is a great place to vacation with a family.
And finally after getting back from Branson Emily and I ventured down to good ole’ Bedford, TX, which of course is the place where I became the suave, sophisticated, lovable, tender, lean, and overall playa I am today. Wait a second. . . Anywho. We were there to celebrate the marriage of Erin & Chad with friends and family, needless to say we had a fantastic time. It gave me the opportunity to see my best bud, Chris (who is Erin’s brother) and wonderful friends and family of whom I had not seen in some time. I guess you could say we had fun. . .
Finally I will wrap up with a bit of food that I did indeed put together. I got this recipe from a wonderful friend, Jill Casper of the trendy blog Sincerely, Jill.
Monster Cookies!
I made these for the occasion of having dinner with some great friends, Catie & Jason, of which was a wonderful evening of conversation and good food! I’ll post the recipe on the recipe page, I would highly recomend you bake these cookies INSTANTLY 🙂
I love consistency as much as the next guy, I like to tell myself I like change, but in many respects change is hard. The prevailing constants in my life I am incredibly grateful for; I have friends who love me, I have family that is caring, and I have a sense of humor that gets me through a lot of things 🙂 And it goes without say that I have a relationship with my Father in Heaven and his son, Jesus Christ, that is far and beyond my everything. These few example have stayed true for me over the years and I can confidently rely on them. But it dawned on me last evening while struggling to do work and listen to some students that there is yet one final constant, music.
Music.
This is so cliche, but music has the absolute ability to take me away. Put on some Coltrane or Miles Davis and my problems at that movement seem to to drift past my current stream of conciseness. The problems are still there, but the silky melodies of the trumpet, or the pregnant pauses of the saxophone provide. . . comfort. And in a way music is confidence for me, God has provided me the opportunity to be around and in music for the rest of my life. I am good at music, and at times when things are not going well, music reminds me that I am indeed good at something and that God has blessed me so much, so much more than I can even imagine.
I will leave you with a little Coltrane, this is Blue Train.
Emily and I had the fortunate pleasure to have been invited over to friends houses two nights in a row this past week for them to cook dinner for us. It was a very nice treat, and was a wonderful time spent with friends.
The first night the Bassets of Adam, Danielle, and baby Mackenzie had us over for “Mexican Lasagna”. This also happened to be the night of the big storm here in Norman, but I don’t want to talk about that here. Anywho, the dinner was a neat twist on Lasagna and instead of pasta Danielle used tortillas and then various other ingredients that helped it make it more “Mexican” than “Italian”. After dinner we rounded up some cards and played a competitive game of Spades! Now spades is one of my favorite card games and brought back many a memory of basketball band trips with Team Trinity vs Team. . . (what ever Chris & Josh’s team name was, it doesn’t really matter because they never beat us 😉 ). This round it was boys vs girls and Adam and I prevailed in the end, it was close though.
Night 2 of dinner was with Brian & Jennifer, Brian is a Senior-to-be at OU and has worked with my marching band for the past year and Jennifer is his girlfriend, also a student at OU. Emily and I saunter over with a bottle of wine and enjoyed an evening of Lemon Broccoli Chicken, cous-cous, and a fine desert of Banana’s Foster. I remembered to take pictures this time!
Sorry for the wierd coloring, but Lemon Broccoli Chicken!
Eating, Japanese style 😉
Mmm, desert!Our wonderful hosts!
No music today, just some food adventures. Hope everyone has a wonderful Sunday, and remember to celebrate your Father today! I know I love mine.
For my first two blogs I used some “legit” recipes, for this meal I just used what I had in the freezer/pantry.
It needed to be a simple meal because it was kind of a crummy day in some respects. I got down to Lawton to ride the trail where the “12 Miles of Hell” bike race happens every year. I had attempted this trail several months ago but only got about 5 miles in, so needless to say I was really excited about this ride. Randy, a friend from work, and I started up the trail and the first hill is a doozy. We were pumping our legs and trying desperately to keep our balance amongst the sharp rocks we were riding over, when all of a sudden my legs started pushing with zero resistance. I look down and my derailer, the device that changes gears on your back tire, was hanging from my bike; the day was over. It was really disheartening, because I had trained for this and was really ready to accomplish this big goal I had set up, but oh wells. . . So after that Randy and I grabbed some Meers, which is a big deal in Oklahoma, and I was impressed.
Ok, to the meal.
I checked out the freezer and found a bag of frozen chicken tenderloin tenders and defrosted those bad boys; Emily just last week, when she was in Kansas City, picked up some grilling spices which I used on the chicken. I then raided the pantry and found some corn and green beans that had collected a tender layer of dust, and topped the meal off with some potato skins and a cold brew.
This meal doesn’t need much explanation, but I was quite proud because normally when I’m tired and slightly grumpy I rarely cook, but I rose up and stood in the face of grumpiness and put together this simple yet satisfying meal.
Oooh, seasoning!
On the grill!
Emily brought me a beer 🙂
Did I mention Emily is pretty? Because she is.
Finished product, the simple meal.
Music wise, it needed to be chill, the name of this album says it all and it’s a perfect title.
Pat Metheny – One Quiet Night
Enjoy, and here’s to the simple meal: may you always be there when the hours are not there to prep, when the battle between fast food and cooking is waging and cooking barely wins, and finally when you help clean out my freezer and pantry.
A lot of this blog is about music & food together, but occasionally I will do a music only post, and this is one of those.
If you are anything like me the urge to listen to music comes in many different forms: mood, weather, feelings, events, friends, seasons, and about a million other things; one of the bigger ones for me is music that is associated with seasons. Where I may listen to something like Death Cab in the fall, in the spring I may tend to listen to west coast big band (jazz) or something like The Polyphonic Spree or Mika. Now I will admit that in the last day or so I was not adamantly looking for “summer music”, but as soon as I purchased this CD it clicked in my brain as “SUMMER!”.
I will credit the discovery of this group to a student of mine, we did a project in my jazz class where the students had to bring in a song that meant something to them (regardless of genre) and then play it for the class, and this student brought in Straight No Chaser. Straight No Chaser is a vocal group made up of men who have a version of the 12 Days of Christmas that is very popular around the Christmas season, so I was quite surprised when this student brought some music from them that was “legit”. The whole album is fantastic I thought it to be so fantastic that I surprised my girlfriend with this CD and some roses (bf points ;))
So I give you Straight No Chaser – I’m Yours/Somewhere Over The Rainbow from their CD entitled, “With A Twist”.
Open the window.
Drive with the windows down, Sonic drink in hand.
Find a beach and soak up the sun.
Go for a walk as the sun-sets.
Turn on the sprinkler and run through it.
Find your music for the season and go enjoy not only the wonderful things summer has to offer, but with those moments let music accompany you as the memories are made.
I would LOVE to hear about what music you all associate with summer, so comment below and let someone discover something new.
So after that Randy and I grabbed some Meers, which is a big deal in Oklahoma, and I was impressed.
eats w beats 