Thank you to my coworker's garden!!!!

A slew of cherry tomato and a couple zucchinis made this recipe. I was so happy with this dish I made it twice in 3 days.
Sauté the following in Olive Oil
1/2 red onion diced
2 cloves of garlic minced
Add
1 diced/sliced zucchini (small pieces so they cook quick)
Couple hand fulls of Diced cherry tomatoes
I had about 1 1/2 Cups of leftover rice that I added.
Then I added Chicken broth and parmesan cheese to make a creamy risotto type dish.

WC Platinum Chef Challenge

This was my first Challenge. The ingredients were *Grapes*Basil*Rice*Avocado*Black Beans.
I was excited for these ingredients. I had two dishes that are in my regular rotation that include these.
#1 Avocado Tomato Side Salad (I guess I should get a clever name for this). I have made this a few times and needed to tweak it a bit to include the grapes.
Makes 2 servings
1 avocado sliced
1 medium tomato sliced (I have used yellow tomato in the past)
dried basil sprinkled on top (We dry our own)
splash of balsamic (so how do I incorporate the grapes you ask?) So I just used the food processor to make a grape balsamic dressing. It was really tasty!












#2
Black Bean Burritos (Again this is something in the regular rotation)
1 can of black beans drained and rinsed
1 can of corn
1 packaged of frozen Trader Joe's Brown Rice
2 TBS of Shredded Cheddar Cheese
World Harbors Fajitas Seasoning
Put all ingredients into a sauce pan and heat until the cheese melts and the rice is rehydrated.
Scoop ingredients into Whole Wheat tortilla shells. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes.

Cookie Cookies Cookies

Here are the cookies I made
1. Bakingblondes wonderful coconut toffee cookies (with chocolate chips instead of toffee)
2. BBFCCC!
3. Snickerdoodles
4. Peanut Butter Oatmeal Rounds with Chocolate Chips
5. Chocolate Crinkles

This was the first time baking in my new oven. I used the convection setting. 1 and 2 turned out perfect. The BBFCC cookies are excellent! Bakingblondes cookies are fast becoming my favorite (even though I adjusted the recipe I will still give her the props).
Problems came with 3 and 4. Some how the oven turned off. I guess I need to figure out the buttons a little better. But what resulted was a very flat snickerdoodle and some slightly over cooked peanut butter oatmeal rounds. But I figured out the oven issue and the chocolate crinkles turned out pretty well.
LESSON LEARNED BUTTER CANNOT BE SUBSTITUTED FOR SHORTENING!!! (fine I get it!! ) This assisted the snickerdoodle spread.

My new Kitchen sink!!

This is a look at my new sink. :)

About the new house

We decided to buy a house that is new construction. The house was built up to the point of drywall and then the original buyers backed out. So the design of the house was set, but all the interior options were ours to make. The builder made it easier for us by having limited choices. I liked it better this way. I couldn't imagine making every decision from scratch.
We decided to buy a new bedroom set and a dining room table. Any other needed furniture will be down the road. The bedroom set is pictured below.
We close on 8/15. I am getting super excited. Most of the major things are complete (plumbing, counters, cabinets, floors). We are getting carpet tomorrow. Tonight we do the walk through with the builder.
Now it is time to get some landscaping done. I am getting some quotes this week.