Happy Halloween! Trick or Treat?!

Happy Halloween!!

Today is Halloween but we dressed up and celebrated last night. A group of us dressed up and went to an ultra-lounge, Posh, and celebrated VIP style! I absolutely love Posh. The music is always good and there's always a huge crowd. Last night was no exception! The bottles were decently priced (unlike the $600 a Vegas club charges for ONE bottle), the music got better as the night went on, and our DD got us home safe and sound (thanks, Rick!!). It was an all-around extremely fun night.

As for tonight, I cannot wait to hand out candy to all of the Trick or Treaters! I hope they show up! We didn't get to hand out candy last year because we were in a third-floor apartment, and no one wants to climb those stairs...not even for candy. This year we're in a house, but we're still new to the neighborhood and don't really know what to expect for tonight. I hope the neighborhood is full of Trick or Treaters because I will be ready with my bowl of candy and the porch light will be on!

A few months back I twittered and facebooked about an awesome catfish recipe I had followed, and I'm finally posting the recipe on here. The name of the recipe is 'Blackened Catfish' although it should be titled something like 'Lemon-Infused Catfish.' It's not like any blackened catfish I've ever had, but it is ABSOLUTELY delicious, so, here it is...

'Blackened Catfish'
Ingredients:
Compound Butter, Creole seasoning, 4- 8oz fresh skinless and boneless catfish fillets, 2 lemons thinly sliced

Ingredients and Instructions for Compound Butter:
1/2 Cup (1 stick) unsalted butter at room temperature, 1 Tablespoon Creole seasoning, 1 lemon zested and juiced, 1/4 Teaspoon Kosher salt, 1/8 Teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper, 1 Tablespoon chopped chives. In a bowl, add the butter, Creole seasonings, lemon zest and juice, salt and pepper; mix to combine. Stir in the chopped chives and set aside.

Putting it all together...
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Preheat a large well-seasoned skillet over medium heat (I used my regular skillet I use for everything else!). Line the bottom of a baking dish with the lemon slices and spread compound butter evenly over the lemon. Reserve a small portion of the compound butter for serving. Evenly coat both sides of each fish fillet with Creole seasoning. Add the seasoned fillets to the hot skillet and cook 2 minutes on each side to just toast and brown the seasoning. With a spatula, carefully place the seared fish on top of the buttered lemon slices in the baking dish. Bake until fish easily breaks apart with a fork, 12 to 15 minutes. Immediately top each hot fillet with a spoonful of compound butter, serve, and enjoy!

I'm trying to make it a point to try a new recipe every week. Whether it's a side dish, entree, or a dessert, I'm making it a point to expand what I cook in the kitchen and make more 'homemade' dishes. I religiously browse through Better Homes and Gardens and Food Network online, and usually find some recipes that sound delicious. As I experiment with different recipes I'll post them on here if I think they're worth passing along. I'm trying a new chicken recipe this week. It looks easy enough to cook and it sounds like it'll be a good one, so I'll let y'all know how it turns out!

Below are a few pictures from the past month. Have a great week, everyone!

Rick was Yoshi and I was a Mobster for Halloween


Our Jack-O-Lantern


Rick and I in front of the Bellagio


Rick and I touring Downtown Las Vegas


Hoover Dam

Another Month Down

Wow, time sure does fly by in between my posts. It doesn't feel like it's been a month already but the calendar says it has, so it must be true.

So much has happened since my last post: Rick's Birthday, Vegas, my first pot of chili, PMA show in Florida, and our 1st Wedding Anniversary!! I had a lot going on, even on my designated "Sunday = Blog" day, hence the month time-span in between my posts.

Rick's Birthday and our trip to Vegas with the company all happened within the same week, and I had a hectic work week on top of it all. I was in Houston that week so we celebrated Rick's Birthday a couple of days early. I made him his favorite chicken tacos and rice, and a chocolate cake WITHOUT icing. He HATES icing...I love it...but it was his birthday so he won that one.

Vegas was nice and it was good to be back out there after two years, but it was stressful with a group of 19 people. That's a lot of people to navigate through an airport, at baggage claim, shuttle buses, rental cars, hotels & casinos, etc. We took a quick trip to Hoover Dam, which was nice because I haven't been since I was in Elementary School. We got to see the bypass bridge right before it opened and we took the dam(n) tour (insert obvious joke!). We stayed at The Orleans (huge casino off the strip and where Rick lost most of his money!), we partied at Blush at the Wynn (VIP baby!), we went Downtown (where I won $120 on nickel slots), we had a great dinner at Planet Dailies before we caught an awesome hypnosis comedy show at the Planet Hollywood, and we got to see the Pawn Shop that is featured on History Channel's Pawn Stars. This was Rick's first time in Vegas and I really wanted to show him more, but we didn't really have the time or freedom to do so. We didn't get to roam the strip as much as I would have liked and there were many other things that I wanted to see and do while I was out there, but it was a good trip and I'm thankful that we had the opportunity to go out there. I can't wait to get out there again!

The weekend after our Vegas vacation we had friends over for chili, burgers, hot dogs, and football. We snuck in a quick game of volleyball and a few games of washers. I made my first-ever pot of chili and it was fabulous, if I may say so myself! I love chili, especially in the fall, and I had never made it before. I always depended on my Mom to make it for me, or drive down the street to the Chili's and pick-up a bowl from there. Anyway, I made a huge pot of it and it was GOOD, and I'll definitely be making it again...when it finally cools down. All in all, that was a GREAT day with GREAT friends and I can't wait to repeat it soon.

The weekend of the 16th, my cousin and myself headed to Orlando for the PMA Fresh Summit show. It's a convention full of produce companies, packaging companies, growers, brokers, packers, re-packers; everything produce. We came across many opportunities to expand the business and I got to sample lots of food. We did lots of walking and talking, and I was super exhausted when it came to an end. I also got to eat at one of my favorites while I was out there, Maggiano's. It was delish, as always! We also stayed in an awesome part of town. It was definitely the tourist-area part of town. We were right around the corner from Sea World and Universal Studios, Disney World was only 15 minutes away...I was extremely jealous of those who were there for pleasure instead of business.

Finally, the best weekend in October, the weekend of the 24th, Rick and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary! We didn't do a whole lot. We didn't have any major plans. We spent the entire weekend together, we ate great food, had good drinks, hung out with some friends, and spent part of the day with my parents (they treated us to breakfast, thanks!!). We both nibbled from the top layer of our wedding cake. It wasn't too bad after spending an entire year in the freezer! Rick is a total hypochondriac though! He went into eating the cake thinking that his stomach would start hurting immediately after eating it, and according to him it did. I maintain my position that he made his own stomach hurt by thinking that it would after eating the cake. Even with the pseudo stomach ache, it was a great weekend for the both of us! I can't believe we've been married for a year already and I look forward to many, many more.

October has been extremely busy and we still have one weekend left. We're dressing up for Halloween on Saturday night and heading out for a night of fun in San Antonio. On Sunday, we'll be giving away lots of candy (hopefully) to little trick-or-treaters. This is our first Halloween in our new neighborhood so it'll be interesting to see how many kids come around to collect candy.

I plan on posting pictures from October within the next week or so, so be on the look out! Have a great rest of the week!