Recipes for Week # 2

After returning from a wonderful weekend in Nashville, it's time to get back to my kitchen to cook. This week, I picked a handful of recipes (mostly Rachel Ray.... just can't get enough of this girl) and headed out to the grocery. Here are the yummy recipes in store for us this week not in any particular order.

#1. Provencial Tuna Melt (http://www.rachaelrayshow.com/food/recipes/provencal-tuna-melt/)

#2. Portabella Burgers with Watercress Pesto & side of Curry Carrot

(http://www.rachaelrayshow.com/food/recipes/portabello-burgers-watercress-pesto/)

#3. Melissa's Burger Recipe from Rachel Ray

#4. Aunt Christy's shrimp appetizer from Nashville this past weekend.

At the end of the week, I'll have pictures and results from our kitchen adventures! Until then, have a great week!

Missy

Time to get cookin'

The summer has begun and is well on its way! Therefore, I am not working. To 'earn my keep' this summer I am conquering a number of home projects but also taking on an innovative approach to dinner in the Ryan and Missy Smith home. My goal for the remainder of the summer is to cook a new recipe every night Ryan is home! Since our return from our annual beach week vacation with the family we have tried three new recipes. I am attaching the links to the recipes I used and a few pictures of our endeavors. So for the remainder of the summer, feel free to follow along, try a few recipes and share if you had any great recipes as well!

Our first night of home cooked goodness, we had a few guests to share the experience. After searching Rachel Ray's website I decided on this burrito recipe (http://www.rachaelray.com/recipe.php?recipe_id=2152),

yucca (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/simply-delicioso-with-ingrid-hoffmann/yucca-with-cuban-mojo-recipe/index.html) and uncle John's margaritas for a hodge-podge of Mexican/ Cuban delights. This was my first time cooking yucca and thought our dinner guest was trying to make a good impression by telling me how great dinner was. I was pretty pleased when she asked if she could have the rest of the yucca! Score!

Tonight I made Rachel Ray's Dollar Stretcher Dinner: Tuna, Tomato and White Bean Bow Ties.

It's quick, it's malleable and it's cheap! (http://www.rachaelray.com/recipe.php?recipe_id=3380).

Well, until next time! Happy cooking and whatever else you kids do these days.

Missy and Ryan

Work Hard, Play Harder!

Hello everyone! It's been a bit too long since I have added a post and I just have a few minutes to add a little something. Married life has been good to us and as the title suggests, we are having a great time! Here are just a few little photos of what we have been up to. Hope all is well and love you all!!

Just a random shot. Ryan is the lobster man in this picture. I believe he was out kiteboarding all day and that was the day he shredded his kite! Oh my!

This is us at our very good friends, Megan and Saul's wedding reception. It's so fun to be a guest at someone's wedding after your own! We had such a great time :)

Birthday Weekend...

I had an amazing birthday! Ryan bought us two kayaks... one for him and one for me... so he also got a present on my birthday... gotta love it! It's been a really great few days because the weekend started off with some celebrations and I have the entire week off for Thanksgiving break. I'm really looking forward to getting caught up on some school work, sending out invitations and having some fun. Too much work and no play is bad news...

Until next time...

little casa....

Hallway down to our bathrooms and bedrooms.

The view out of our kitchen.

Living room view towards the back of the house. Our laundry room and extra guest room is to the left. Our kitchen is to the right.

Our little casa...

Here is some of what Ryan and I have been up to these past few months. Having our own house has been so much fun! It allows for a lot of creativity! All of the colors you see in the pics (except the 'green room') we have done ourselves... after renting for three years we were both dying to get some color on the walls. The original paint color in the house when we bought it was a sandy brown. I think we had officially owned the house for 8 days before we applied our first brush of paint!

I don't know if you can really tell that well but this room is bright orange! Ha.. it has probably the best view into our backyard. You can see the ancient oak tree in the back ground. The squirrels are constantly running all along its branches and they drive Boone crazy! He has been waking Ry and I up at 2am to go hunting... urghhhh. Below is our 'green room'. I'm sure you could never guess why. You can see we still have a few boxes BUT it's coming along! We'll get to it eventually. We are lucky enough to have four bedrooms but there isn't much storage in this old 50's house. We're hoping after the wedding to get some storage containers and buy a few bookshelves to help out with that storage problem.

This is Ryan's favorite spot in the house, the Florida room. You can't see all of the windows here but it is completely illuminated by four huge windows.. it is a really awesome room, almost as great as my blue kitchen ;) Below are the counter tops in our kitchen. I honestly think this is what sold me on this house. To me, these are the coolest tiles ever. I'm not exactly sure what they are made out of but I know I love them!

This is our kitchen. When we were first putting this color 'blue burst' on our walls, Ryan and I both were thinking it was way too much. However, once it was all done, it looked great and now this is my favorite room in the house!

We still need to paint the hallways and our bedroom and after that, I think we might be done painting for awhile. I'll keep you all posted on our progress!

Until next time ...

"Ya Done Good"

Ryan and I bought a house! We found a place we can call home and stay in longer than 12 months. Our home purchasing experience was great thanks to all the help we had and our wonderful realtor Carol Fernandez. If you know of anyone looking in the Tampa Bay area, she comes highly recommended!

After looking at over 40-50 homes in the S. Tampa area, we found 'the one'. People have told Ryan and I that when you find your house, you will just know it's the one and it's so true! We had looked at eight homes already that day and as soon as we walked in, we knew we were home. We just hoped it could all work out. Obviously it did :)

We are so excited to be in the same place for the however many years and can't wait to have visitors. It's just such a cool experience building a life with Ryan. He constantly keeps me laughing and sharing all these great moments with him has been really special.

He's a picture of our new casa. I got the title for this post from Joe.. this was his take on our home buying experience.. haha.. he's hilarious! Looking forward to seeing everyone at the baby shower and celebrating birthdays this month. Love you guys!