Hot soup on a hot day...

... Cools you down? It's been really hot here in the RGV. Surprise, surprise. The 3-day weekend was great, but in our opinion way too short. For our friends in Brownsville and San Benito because of the tropical storm, they were able to extend their vacation until today. Unfortunately, they used up their bad weather day, so they will not be off in October... but we will!!!

School has been business as usual. Kids being kids and teachers trying to make it until 3:45 pm. This week, after an amazing weekend of eating, we were inspired to make a good meal for two. On today's menu: Chili Spiced Chicken Soup with Stoplight Peppers and Avocado (we posted the recipe a couple of months ago), and bruschetta with fresh baked bread, pesto, goat cheese, zucchini, and grape tomatoes.

The ingredients for the bruschetta are as follows:

1 french baguette (I was able to make some with the dough from my baking book)

Goat Cheese (we used the crumbles)

Pesto, homemade or store-bought

Grape Tomatoes

1 zucchini

olive oil or canola oil

1. Preheat the oven to 350. Slice the baguette diagonally into thin slices, about 1/2 inch thick.

2. Spread a couple of crumbles of goat cheese on top.

3. Bake in oven for 7-10 minutes

4. Saute zucchini until tender, about 4-5 minutes

5. Cut grape tomatoes into halves

6. When baguette slices are baked spread the goat cheese around, add a layer of pesto and arrange zucchini and grape tomatoes on each slice.

7. Enjoy!

This meal was much needed. The bruschetta was inspired by a meal we had at Whole Foods. Eating it almost transported us back to Austin. IT WAS SOOOOOOOO GOOD YOU SHOULD TRY IT! (Chelsea talking now) Seriously, this bruschetta is to die for, as is the soup. Four stars.

Buen provecho!

Labor Day in Austin

Last year on Labor Day we were teaching- trudging through the first few weeks of school. This year, our wonderful employer gave us the day off!!!!!! As it should be. Seeing as I had to take the GRE in San Antonio on Saturday, we decided to make a weekend out of it.... Not that we needed any arm-twisting- we get out of the valley every chance we get!!

On Friday night Edwin and I drove to San Antonio. We had dinner at The Cove, a restaurant I had seen on the Travel Channel awhile back. It's kind of a dive (fitting, as I had seen it on Diners Dives and Drive-Ins), but had great food. They feature sustainable, local and organic meats. Edwin had a lamb burger and I had a bison burger. Yum!

On Saturday I took the GRE. It sucked, but I think I seem to have gotten the score I needed for education programs. It's a good thing I don't want to be an engineer though, as my math score was less than stellar. While I was beating my head against a computer screen, Edwin saw a movie- something about the girl with a dragon?? He liked it. After the test we drove to Austin, the promised land as far as Texas is concerned. Soon after arriving at the hotel, we set out for Whole Foods. Some of you may remember from past posts how we feel about Whole Foods, but it bears repeating. IT IS PHENOMENAL. At this "grocery store", we had dinner, wine-tasted, bought freshly ground chocolate peanut butter and local honey. Can't beat it folks. For my dinner I had DELICIOUS bruschetta: pesto, goat cheese, tomatoes and zucchini. Edwin and I are going to attempt a recreation on Wednesday so stay tuned for pics. Edwin ate pasta which he felt was pretty good.

On Sunday we set out in search of street food. I am fascinated by street food (i.e. food being sold from a truck or trailer on the side of the road), and Edwin has even dreamt of starting his own taco truck. Austin is also known for fabulous street food. Sure enough, we hit the jackpot. We found a few dessert trucks that were featured in various tv shows and magazines (sadly, we did not indulge) and a delish taco truck. Come visit us and we will take you to Austin for these culinary gold mines!

Sunday afternoon we went to see The American, with George Clooney. It was bad- don't go. VERY boring. At night we recovered from our wasted 2 hours with George C. and went to dinner at Stubbs, which is a famous BBQ place. I believe my fam has a bottle of their BBQ sauce in the fridge at home. It was lip smackin good!

This morning we went out for one last meal (the last breakfast, you could say) before returning to the Valley. We went to Polvo's, which apparently is well-known. The food was delish- check out Edwin's breakfast!

I had migas, which are eggs scrambled with tortilla chips, swiss cheese, tomatoes, onions and jalapenos. I have discovered them since setting up camp in Texas and they are awesome. After breakfast we hit the open road and came back to the Valley. Apparently there is a tropical storm set to hit Brownsville tonight, and the schools in those towns have already been canceled for tomorrow. We shouldn't get any effects here, but we'll keep you posted! Happy Labor Day!!

SWAMPED!!

SWAMPED!!!

We received a complaint from an anonymous frequent reader that it has been several weeks since we've posted. Every time we post, we are apologizing for our absence. Alas, we are mustering up energy to update you on life and food. (We are so exhausted we accidentally posted on Chelsea's old blog. Look there for a repeat post!)

School has been hectic. Chelsea's mornings are nearly flawless, while the afternoons provide challenges with defiant children. Funny enough, those challenging children were once my kindergarten students (dodged a bullet there!) However, despite those two afternoon classes, Clase de espanol es muy bueno, amoebas. Chelsea has been doing pilates and making super sweet lattes. She's also been working really hard planning for her school year and studying for the GRE. BTW, THAT'S THIS UPCOMING WEEKEND! We are leaving The Valley tomorrow to go to San Antonio and Austin for the Labor Day Weekend. We will stop in San Antonio Friday and Saturday because Chelsea takes the GRE on Saturday. We are confident that it will go well. She is currently out for the count (our principal has subtly implied that female teachers should wear uncomfortable heels because they are more professional than flats. Her feet hurt.) But the lattes are getting her through!

5th grade has its ups and downs. We've taken a quiz and a test and the results weren't pretty. One student, when given the definition for "Physical Properties", instead of using the words in the word bank to match with the definition, he decided to write in "SCIENCE"... definitely not one of the choices. They do, however, enjoy experiments and we've done the acetone/styrofoam cup experiment which they loved. Overall, they're better than the little ones.

On to food matters. I have gone back to making bread. After a month and half hiatus I finally found the time to make some dough and bake some bread. As you may recall, the last attempt was ok, but "kneaded" (get it!) a lot of work. There's actually no kneading involved, BUT I took Mary's advice and added an 1/8 cup more flour and the dough was no longer sticky and easy to work with. SUCCESS!!! I'm still trying to get the outside to brown a little and since Sunday, I've made 2 loaves, one of which I took to work and had my co-workers try. They liked it, one thought it was too salty which I agreed with. Here are some pictures!

Tonight, Chelsea found a sweet recipe on Cooking Light's website for one of our favorite dishes: risotto. It's a recipe for risotto with fresh mozzarella, basil, and grape tomatoes. We tweaked it by cutting out the basil (we couldn't find fresh basil) and we used parmesan cheese instead of mozzarella (it's kind of pricey), as well as spinach. What we ended up with was very delicious. It tasted like something that should be unhealthy, but with the ingredients we used, it turned out to be relatively healthy. Anyways, we dropped the ball on the pictures, but here is the recipe.

• 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 4 1/2 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
• 2 tablespoons extravirgin olive oil, divided
• 1 1/2 cups Arborio rice or other medium-grain rice
• 1/3 cup dry white wine
• 1/4 cup half-and-half
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 cup halved grape tomatoes
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
• 5 ounces parmesan cheese

PREPARATION

Place vinegar in a small, heavy saucepan; bring to a boil over medium heat. Cook until slightly syrupy and reduced to 1 tablespoon (about 4 minutes). Set aside.

Bring broth to a simmer in a medium saucepan (do not boil). Keep warm.

Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat.

Add rice; cook 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Stir in wine, and cook 1 minute or until liquid is nearly absorbed, stirring constantly.

Stir in 1 cup broth; cook 5 minutes or until liquid is nearly absorbed, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to medium. Add remaining broth, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring constantly until each portion of broth is absorbed before adding the next (about 25 minutes total).

Stir in half-and-half, salt, and pepper; cook 2 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in tomatoes, basil, and cheese.

Place about 1 cup risotto into each of 6 shallow serving bowls; drizzle each serving with 1/2 teaspoon balsamic syrup and 1/2 teaspoon oil.

Et Viola, a delicious recipe. Until next time friends!

New Beginnings...sort of

So the school year has begun!!! We have been MIA from blogging for the past weeks due to professional development and training sessions. Our trip from Wisconsin to Texas took 3 very long days. Our first stop was West Memphis, AR. Not a whole lot of exciting things going on in West Memphis, but the hotel was nice. The following day we trekked through Arkansas and Texas to stay in Houston. We got a chance to see my dad which was nice, but called it a night pretty early since the following day we would be making the slow journey down to the Rio Grande Valley. We made it "home" around 2 p.m. only to find that my house had been re-arranged by my landlord's wife, our cable was out, and that my car wouldn't start. Luckily the car just needed a jump.

The following days were filled with professional development, getting used to the heat, and joining gyms. We are happy to report that not only have we joined gyms, but have been attending them somewhat regularly. The first day of school was fast approaching and before we knew it, Thursday had come!!! We were both excited to a certain degree, with the hope that this year would be better than the last. Things went pretty smoothly. Chelsea had 18 students in each class and reports to have had a good first day. Transitions were a little off, but overall much better than last year. The first day of 5th grade turned out ok. Compared to last year, no one cried, no one had a bathroom accident, and best of all everyone called me Mr. Ochoa or Sir. My homeroom class is filled with good kids with one or two chatters and one student who I know will be my challenge. My afternoon class got a little testy, but armed with the power to give detention this year, they shouldn't be a problem.

As far as cooking goes, we have made great meals, but unfortunately because of our crazy schedules we haven't photographed any of it, or many any of it together. :( Chelsea made a great black bean soup (recipe from Cooking Light) and I made turkey tacos. My favorite was Chelsea's soup. It had flavor and lots of good fiber.

Tomorrow begins the first full week of instruction. We are being optimistic about the first week and hope to celebrate next weekend with a trip to the beach to our favorite beach side restaurant. On the agenda this week: getting students reacquainted with Spanish and getting them invested in learning Spanish, learning place value, decimals, lab safety, and magnetism... We are both sure to learn a whole lot after this week.

Create your own visitor map!

Door County

So our last adventure before reality sets in was in Door County, WI. We started our trip last Thursday from Eau Claire and 4 hours later we arrived in Door County, where we stayed in a beautiful cabin! It was a huge house that looked like a chalet, only with way more taxidermy. It had a lot of space and best of all, a really big kitchen. (I'm not sure why the text is underlined...) Here is the photo story of our weekend!

The Master Chefs! Edwin made a fabulous chicken taco dinner for us on Friday night. Mom was his top sous chef.

On Saturday night we celebrated Andrea and my birthdays! What a treat :) The cake was a delicious surprise courtesy of Dan and Nancy!

No trip to Door County is complete without a meal at Wilson's. Brady hasn't yet fully realized the glory that is Wilson's ice cream. Don't worry, B-Man, your time has almost come!

Sitting down to a fabulous taco meal

Brotherly Love

We climbed to the top of the Observation Tower in Peninsula State Park!

Brady is not afraid of heights!

B-Man was very helpful in the kitchen

The group! I'd say Tim wins the award for tallest in this photo ;)

We had a fabulous time in Door County. Staying together in the cabin was a great way to maximize our time together! We played 500 and "Things", stared at Brady's every move, went mini-golfing, shopping and ate fabulous food! Thanks fam for a great weekend!

5 Year Reunion and Bayfield

After our trip to Minneapolis, we've fallen off the face of the blogosphere. By that we mean we haven't updated in a LONG TIME. We felt comfortable since we see most of our readership on a daily basis, but we recently found out our fans are more than we thought. Ergo, this post. So much has happened since Minneapolis so we'll fill you in on a couple of events.

The first was Chelsea's 5 year high school reunion. Here's Chel to give you the scoop. Hey guys- I'm tired so this is brief: We went to the Express baseball game, which got rained out in the 7th inning, and afterwards out to a few bars. It was fun to see people and catch up!! Pretty informal, but a good time!

After the reunion we've lounged around Eau Claire, doing pilates once in a while, playing catch, and watching A LOT of television. Anything to keep our minds far away from teaching. Unfortunately, we've caved in and begun doing some work for school. Chelsea has been working to get her classroom library funded (www.donorschoose.org/cbarnes) and I've been looking at math and science learning objectives. (This year I will be teaching 5th grade Math/Science... quite the change from Kindergarten).

Not to worry however, we haven't been working too hard. In fact, we've taken two trips to beautiful parts of Wisconsin. I've been to great places outside of Texas, and our trip to the east coast was wonderful, but I have to say that Bayfield and Door County have been memorable and I am lucky to have visited both. First we'll talk about Bayfield... you'll have to stay tuned for Door County!!

Bayfield was small, near a body of water, picturesque, and best of all full of great restaurants. We arrived on a Friday with hopes of having a good weekend. We started off at Ethel's, a small restaurant with lots of New Glarus brews, great Whitefish and delicious pizza. After we ate we made our way to Big Top Chataqua, a big tent filled with music and stories. It was great to learn about Bayfield's origin and culture throughout the years. It did not disappoint.

Our second day we squeezed in a lot of activities. We went to the Egg Toss restaurant for a great breakfast. We then went to Hauser's which is a berry farm that sells great blueberries, wines, and flowers. In the afternoon we took a boat tour of most of the Apostle Islands. It was incredible to be out on big water. Our day ended at Maggie's restaurant where we enjoyed yet another great meal. In fact we stumbled upon the birthday party of the owner of Maggie's and Egg Toss. She decided to hold her pre-party right outside our condo, making it perfect for people watching! Our final day we went back to Hauser's for some blueberries and wine, then to Washburn for a small breakfast and finally home. We had a great time and were ready for the next adventure: Door County!!

STAY TUNED