Fresh Green Bean & Fingerling Potato Salad & A Few of My Current Loves

A few of my favorite things right now:

1. The idea that fall is just a few weeks away! I'm so ready for fall.... particularly fall in California.

2. "So You Think You Can Dance" - One of the fun parts about summer! My favorites right now are Melanie and Caitlyn - I'm a week behind - so nobody tell me any recent results.

3. Toms - They are super cute, go with everything, comfortable, and best of all - they go towards a really good cause. The fact that they give a pair of shoes to someone in need when you buy a pair makes it truly awesome! These are my newest pair.... they called them "mustard yellow cords" on the web page. I renamed them "grasshopper green".

4. Estate Sales - They.... are... brilliant! I have been looking for a cute vintage bistro set for our back patio for a while, and couldn't find one that wasn't an arm and a leg. Well, just hop on over to your nearest estate sale - on the last day of the sale of course - and what do you know! Cute bistro set, table cloth and fun vintage milk glass dessert plates. And for an AMAZING deal. Way cheaper than I had found anywhere, and they even kept telling me a cheaper price. Think they might have given us stuff if we'd stayed a little longer! (Pardon the picture - it was taken with my iphone).

5. Printable recipes attached to my blog!! Thanks so much for all the feed back on my last post! I'm sorry it has taken me so long to respond to all of your kind words! It gives me hope that you are using the recipes! :) So, in light of the amazing responses I got... I've added a print recipe feature. I'm going to be playing around with it some to see what works best, so tell me how you like it, and what I can do differently to make it work for you all. For now, the print recipe link is directly under the recipe name below!!! Enjoy!

6. This Potato Salad - Full of flavor! You can have it hot or cold! Microwaveable!!! The whole recipe takes less than 10 minutes. Fantastic! Super yummy and healthy. Hope you love it too.

Fresh Green Bean & Fingerling Potato Salad (From: Better Homes & Gardens):

Print Recipe

ingredients:

1 lb fingerling or new potatoes, halved

1 cup fresh green beans, trimmed and cut into 2-inch pieces

1/4 tsp. salt

3 Tbsp. olive oil

1 shallot, chopped

2 Tbsp. white or red wine vinegar

2 Tbsp. fresh parsley

2 tsp. Dijon mustard

1/8 tsp. salt

1/8 tsp. freshly ground pepper

1/4 cup pitted Nicoise or kalamata olives, halved

preparation:

1. Place halved potatoes into a 2-quart microwave-safe casserole dish. Top with green beans. Sprinkle with 1/4 teaspoon salt. Cover and place in the microwave for 7-9 minutes or until vegetables are tender, stirring once. Drain.

2. For vinaigrette, in a screw-top jar or cruet, combine oil, chopped shallot, vinegar, parsley, Dijon mustard, pepper and the 1/8 teaspoon salt. Cover and shake well until fully combined.

3. In a small bowl, combine green bean and potato mixture, vinaigrette, and olives; toss gently to coat. Transfer to a serving bowl. Serve immediately or chill completely and serve cold. Makes 4 servings.

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Happy One Year Birthday To Me & A Giveaway to Celebrate

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I can't believe it's already been one year since I started this little blog of mine. I wanted to just thank all of you who come by and read, encourage me, and keep me motivated to keep trying out new recipes. As I've said on here before, I love this blog, because it keeps me sane. That's what the 'Vent' part of the "Cooking Vent" is all about. Through this blog, I've discovered so much more about myself, and who I really am. Not that I'm done yet, or have that whole thing even close to being perfected, but I've found a little bit more of the person God has created me to be.

As odd as it sounds, this little blog has brought me closer in my relationship with God - it's hopefully made me a better wife, a better friend, a better follower of Christ - and hopefully a better cook! :) "All of that from this simple blog", you say. Yep! It's amazing what doing what you love to do, and following what God tells you to do will bring about! Of course it goes deeper than cooking stuff and taking pictures, but that's for another day.

It's weird to look back at my entries a year ago, and see how different (read: bad) they were, and I'm sure I'll feel the same way about this one in another year.

In order to conclude the year of 2010, and recap my first year to blogging, I've compiled a little list of what I think were the best recipes I put together this year - 10 recipes for 2010.

Which one was your favorite?

Cookies:

1. Browned Butter Molasses Chocolate Chip Cookies 2. Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies with Peanut Butter Frosting

Cupcakes

1. Gooey Chocolate Cupcakes with Ganache Truffle Filling 2. Pink Champagne Cupcakes

Yummy Comfort Food:

1. White Truffle Oil & Cognac Cream Mac & Cheese 2. Beef Bourguignon 3. Two Cheese Risotto

Cakes:

1. Red Velvet Cake Brownies 2. Mini Chocolate Ganache Cakes...aka - the best Chocolate Buttercream Frosting you'll ever taste!

Refreshing Beverages:

1. Refreshing Blackberry Lemonade

And now for the fun part....

I'm giving away a fun little package to thank each and every one of you for reading! Saying it on here and having this giveaway really doesn't explain how much I really appreciate all of you guys - I wish I could bake you all a big ole' batch of cookies.

Unfortunately, I can't make them for everyone, but I can make them for one of you! :)

The giveaway includes:

1. Your choice of the above cookies - either the peanut butter sandwich cookies or the browned butter chocolate chip cookies

2. A Whoopie Pie Kit from Crate & Barrel/Sur La Table - How cute is this fun little kit.. I wish I had one too! (It includes a Wilton 12 pie pan from Sur La Table, Red Velvet Whoopie Pie mix, and the mini cupcake spatula's both from Crate & Barrel)

TO ENTER:

1. Post a comment here on this blog telling me what your favorite part of 2010 was and which cookie you would choose if you win

2. For an extra entry: post about this giveaway on your blog with a link back in your comment

Make sure to include your email address so I can contact you if you are the winner

Contest ends - Thursday, January 6th at midnight PST (which just so happens to be my REAL birthday, making it a great day to give away some fun treats!)

GOOD LUCK!

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Best New Thing Ever....

Have you tried these?!......

Amazing!!! Simply amazing! They grow on you! The first one or two, you think... "yeah, they're okay, they're pretty good". Wait till the 4th or 5th one... You will be addicted.

My husband's favorite snack is chocolate covered pretzels. He jokes frequently if he could have one thing on a deserted island, it would be chocolate covered pretzels. This met his requirements.

Go get some! :)

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Favorite Things

I have several kitchen and entertaining items that I LOVE. I thought I'd share. I'd love to hear from all of you what your favorites are too. I was thinking about making this a recurring series with a link up - doesn't have to necessarily be cooking gadgets - anything that's your favorite things that you want to share. What do you think?

This is probably my favorite kitchen/baking item! I LOVE my Kitchenaid mixer. My husband bought it for me for my birthday a year after we were married - back when we were BROKE and shouldn't have been spending so much on kitchen tools. ha. It was a special at William's Sonoma that year, and now you can't even get them. So if anything ever happens to it, I'll be so sad, cause I really love the color -terra cotta. But maybe I'll just have to replace it with a pistachio one to go with my one day vintage kitchen! This really does make a difference in the way batters come out. They are much smoother, creamier, and the end result turns out so much better than when I make it with my hand mixer.

My husband is affectionately known as the "cheese grater". I like to actually call him my sous chef because he does all the smaller tasks for me when I'm cooking. He was tired of using the small hand-held grater we had and cutting his fingers, so for Christmas, he bought me a cheese grater! :) I love it too!! It slices and grates - so you can use it for veggies as well as cheese.

I love milk glass! I think it's so classy and pretty. I don't have a lot of it, but a couple different serving pieces, including this pitcher and some tumblers. They make a perfect addition to a brunch, etc. I always look through the kitchen stuff at thrift stores (Goodwill, Salvation Army, etc) and find some great finds. I would love to add this!

This was my first "real" knife. It's so handy! I use it for just about everything.

I love this spatula because of the size - mini. It's perfect for getting out that infamously hard to reach first brownie from the batch, making it into corners on casseroles, and the like. It's so convenient, and I find that I can't keep it clean because I'm always using it. Definitely a must.

This is another must. This is not an ordinary ice cream scoop! Rather, it has a liquid inside the handle that reacts with the warmth of your hand and softens the ice cream when you scoop it. It doesn't melt it, just softens enough so it's not impossible to get out. GENIUS!!

No more smelly garlic hands! Enough said!

The best way to cut meat, herbs, anything you need. Another one of those items for me that never stays in the drawer because it's always being used.

Last, but not least...

You all know about my love for coffee. Oh you don't?! You can read about it here. :) Yes, I love it. And it doesn't get much better than when you have a coffee pot that will grind the coffee and brew it all in the same pot! Love that. I bought this for my husband a few years ago from Target. They don't have it there anymore, but you can sometimes find it online. I've also considered getting the Cuisinart model (so expensive!) because the top of ours is being held down by a piece of tape. Don't judge! I love my coffee!!!

Hope you all enjoyed this feature. I might be back with some favorite brands, more gadgets, etc!!

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