Welp, Google just made my day! They have gone and released Google Music! You can buy music or upload your current library. One of the best things about it is you can listen to your music anywhere! The web, your Android enabled device! That means no more syncing, no more losing your music because your hard drive crashed. Although if you have a music library greater than 20,000 songs, you're out of luck for now, Google has 20k as the limit right now.
I just got the Music Manager application installed on my computer to start adding my music library and told it I use iTunes to manage my music. It surprised me, it found ALL of my songs and is currently uploading them! And I just downloaded the App for my Android phone so I can't wait to try it out as well!
So if you have a Google Account you should definitely check out Google Music! If you want to watch the release presentation you can view it on YouTube Here. The first part of the video is just music with swirly lines :P so you might want to skip 29:30 into the video ;-)
NOTE: Google Music will not upload your songs that have DRM protection!
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Friday, November 11, 2011
Grain/Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies
We all need to have some treats sometime or another, we can't eat healthy 100% of the time, can we? Here is a recipe my mother-in-law found for Grain/Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies, and they taste amazing, almost like regular "unhealthy" chocolate chip cookies! The original recipe is from http://thisprimallife.com
1 ¼ cup almond flour
1/8 tsp baking soda
few shakes of salt
5 tbsp melted butter
3 tbsp Honey
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup dark chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix dry ingredients in a bowl, set aside. Mix wet ingredients in a separate bowl, add to dry ingredients and mix until well combined. Fold in chocolate chips. Spoon batter onto parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake for 10-13 minutes until set and slightly toasty. These will firm up as they cool.
Yield: 12 cookies
Double Chocolate Chip Cookies: Add 2 tbsp of cocoa powder to the dry ingredients.
One change to the original recipe is we like to use Honey instead of Agave Nectar. And instead of Almond Flour we like to use "Just Almond Meal" from Trader Joe's
We also don't mix the wet and dry ingredients in a separate bowl. We just mix the dry ingredients, then add the wet ingredients and mix them all together. I hope y'all enjoy these cookies as much as I do! ^_^
Note: Pretty much all pictures used on here are my own :-) (I can't think of any I've used so far that weren't, but just in case anyone was wondering)
Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 ¼ cup almond flour
1/8 tsp baking soda
few shakes of salt
5 tbsp melted butter
3 tbsp Honey
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup dark chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix dry ingredients in a bowl, set aside. Mix wet ingredients in a separate bowl, add to dry ingredients and mix until well combined. Fold in chocolate chips. Spoon batter onto parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake for 10-13 minutes until set and slightly toasty. These will firm up as they cool.
Yield: 12 cookies
Double Chocolate Chip Cookies: Add 2 tbsp of cocoa powder to the dry ingredients.
One change to the original recipe is we like to use Honey instead of Agave Nectar. And instead of Almond Flour we like to use "Just Almond Meal" from Trader Joe's
Note: Pretty much all pictures used on here are my own :-) (I can't think of any I've used so far that weren't, but just in case anyone was wondering)
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Spanish-Style Quinoa
My brother-in-law was coming over to hang out this evening and I was planning on making some grilled chicken and needed a side dish to go with it. I remembered I had some Quinoa (pronounced keen-wah) on hand because I've been wanting to try it for a long time. I didn't have the guts to eat it plain for the first time, that would just be weird :P , so I Googled me up some recipes!
There are many great sounding recipes for Quinoa out there, but I needed one that I could make with what I had on hand. I stumbled upon a recipe on Allrecipes.com for Spanish-Style Quinoa, and I had all of the ingredients except green bell peppers, which works for me since neither my wife, brother-in-law, or me are too crazy about 'em, and it's simple.
Spanish-Style Quinoa
Heat the vegetable oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir in the quinoa, onion, garlic, and green pepper. Cook and stir 5 to 10 minutes until the onion is tender, and the quinoa has lightly toasted.
Stir in the tomato sauce and water, then season with the chili powder, garlic powder, and cumin. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until the quinoa is tender, and the liquid is absorbed, about 30 minutes. Stir the quinoa occasionally as it cooks.
It turned out really good! It reminded me of the rice you get when you go to some of these Mexican restaurants, just without all of the vegetables in it. And the texture of the quinoa itself was very much like rice, to me anyways. I might try and play around with this recipe a bit next time, but it's definitely a keeper! And the quinoa itself is a keeper as well! I look forward to trying out some more recipes soon!
There are many great sounding recipes for Quinoa out there, but I needed one that I could make with what I had on hand. I stumbled upon a recipe on Allrecipes.com for Spanish-Style Quinoa, and I had all of the ingredients except green bell peppers, which works for me since neither my wife, brother-in-law, or me are too crazy about 'em, and it's simple.
Spanish-Style Quinoa
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 cup uncooked quinoa
- 1 medium onion, finely chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 small green bell pepper, chopped
- 1 (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
- 2 1/2 cups water
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
Heat the vegetable oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Stir in the quinoa, onion, garlic, and green pepper. Cook and stir 5 to 10 minutes until the onion is tender, and the quinoa has lightly toasted.
Stir in the tomato sauce and water, then season with the chili powder, garlic powder, and cumin. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer until the quinoa is tender, and the liquid is absorbed, about 30 minutes. Stir the quinoa occasionally as it cooks.
It turned out really good! It reminded me of the rice you get when you go to some of these Mexican restaurants, just without all of the vegetables in it. And the texture of the quinoa itself was very much like rice, to me anyways. I might try and play around with this recipe a bit next time, but it's definitely a keeper! And the quinoa itself is a keeper as well! I look forward to trying out some more recipes soon!
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Grilled Chicken
Yep, Grilled Chicken was for supper! And yeah, I know you're jealous! :P
Grilled Chicken is one of those go-to meals that are simple, easy, and taste great. When cooking chicken you want to make sure the inside is completely white, no pink! If you like to be specific, the internal temperature should be above 165° F.
There are many variations of seasoning/marinating you can do with chicken, they possibilities are practically endless! When marinating chicken you get the best flavor if you let it marinate over night. If you're in a pinch with time, marinate it no less than 1 hour. But the longer the better!
Some of my favorite ways to grill chicken are marinating the chicken with Italian Dressing, Balsamic Vinaigrette, and Bethany's favorite, Lawry's Seasoned Salt.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Homemade Turkey Sausage
Well this morning I finally decided to make some homemade Turkey Sausage! The recipe I used is from http://heavenlyhomemakers.com
Homemade Turkey Sausage
1 lb ground turkey
3 Tablespoon minced onion
¼ teaspoon cumin
¼ teaspoon marjoram
¼ teaspoon ground pepper
¼ teaspoon oregano
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
¼ teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon dried basil
½ teaspoon thyme
½ teaspoon sage
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 egg
Mix all ingredients. Chill for about an hour. (If you forget to chill this ahead of time…it cooks up okay anyway!) Form into patties. Saute in butter.
They turned out really good, although I did not have any marjoram or cayenne pepper. So this is one of those recipes where you can just add what you have on hand and it should be pretty good! (key words: should be) :P
I ended up using about 1 1/2 pounds of ground turkey because that's all they had in the packs, and all of the sausage patties still had plenty of spices in them.
There's one spice though that I'm not too crazy about, it's either the Basil or the Oregano, I can't tell which, or maybe both. It seems to over power the other spices.
And next time I make theses I will be sure to have some cayenne pepper, because I think it would make a huge difference in the taste. I also want to try this with ground beef, instead of turkey, because the texture of the turkey is kind of weird. :P I like ground turkey in recipes, it's just different by itself.
Homemade Turkey Sausage
1 lb ground turkey
3 Tablespoon minced onion
¼ teaspoon cumin
¼ teaspoon marjoram
¼ teaspoon ground pepper
¼ teaspoon oregano
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
¼ teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon dried basil
½ teaspoon thyme
½ teaspoon sage
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 egg
(only some of the ingredients :P )
Mix all ingredients. Chill for about an hour. (If you forget to chill this ahead of time…it cooks up okay anyway!) Form into patties. Saute in butter.
They turned out really good, although I did not have any marjoram or cayenne pepper. So this is one of those recipes where you can just add what you have on hand and it should be pretty good! (key words: should be) :P
I ended up using about 1 1/2 pounds of ground turkey because that's all they had in the packs, and all of the sausage patties still had plenty of spices in them.
There's one spice though that I'm not too crazy about, it's either the Basil or the Oregano, I can't tell which, or maybe both. It seems to over power the other spices.
And next time I make theses I will be sure to have some cayenne pepper, because I think it would make a huge difference in the taste. I also want to try this with ground beef, instead of turkey, because the texture of the turkey is kind of weird. :P I like ground turkey in recipes, it's just different by itself.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Baby Shane is Here!!!
After 9 long/short months of waiting, he is finally here! Shane Michael was born yesterday afternoon! He weighed 6lbs 11oz and was 19 1/2 inches long! Both mom and baby are doing really well!
Bethany's water broke at 1:38am, and Shane was born at 12:10pm. So it was a long night for everyone :)
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Roller Coaster
You know how when you're on a rollercoaster and sometimes all you can do is hang on? ...well yeah, that's my life right now
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