Itty bitty basil sprouts in my new GrowBottle.

Happy new year, everyone!  Wow – it’s been a whirlwind couple of months, and I’m so happy to be back at the laptop with you all. The fam and I had a wonderful holiday season this year, and things are finally getting back to normal (whatever that is!)…

Thought I’d share with you the super cool gift my hubby got me for Christmas… my own indoor herb garden using GrowBottles (from UncommonGoods). We have a little herb and veggie garden out back, but the Texas heat just brutalized our little greens last summer, so when he came across these little guys, he knew we had to have ’em.

We’ve started with four: mint, basil, parsley, and, to be honest, one I can’t remember (and I already threw away the packaging)… We’ll just have to wait and see what sprouts! I’m loving the concept of the GrowBottle – the bottles are recylced, reusable, and pretty cool to look at to boot.  The kits are super easy to put together, and so far idiot-proof (while I’m decent in the kitchen, I’m not known for keeping plants alive).  I started the basil before we left for the holidays, and we’ve got some cute little sprouts coming up.  The others I tackled today, so hopefully we’ll start seeing some green soon!

My new indoor herb garden.

Well, hello everyone!  Forget me?  I know it’s been ages since I posted. Apologies!  Life’s been a little on the crazy side for the past month – we’ve either been traveling or had house guests every weekend, and I just completed our annual big conference at my day job – an enormous amount of work, but a great success!  I’ll admit, when I’m in crazy-busy mode, I revert to my fall-back staple recipes and pretty much end up eating the same thing every day (roasted turkey and chicken, cast-iron steaks, LOTS of salad, etc.), so my culinary exploits have suffered just a bit.

My beautiful new spice management solution.

Now that I have a little time to breathe again, I’m back in the kitchen and back on the blog. It feels good to be back! 😉  I’ve spent the last few days cataloging more than 100 recipes that I want to try/adapt/Paleo-itize, so you’ll be seeing lots of fun stuff to come!  I’m thinking maybe some special Thanksgiving-inspired posts are in the near future.

As part of my “get back on the wagon” efforts, I spent the last few days organizing/cleaning out my kitchen. My favorite project? Tackling the MESS that was my spice drawer. There were spices in there that must have been 10 years old (ugh)… A bunch were my husband’s before we moved in together (more than three years ago). Plus, all these crazy, unusable spices were taking up a ton of valuable space in our not-so-large kitchen.

So… I went to the Container Store. I love that store and will be spending more time there over the coming weeks as I organize like a fiend. This time around, I found these awesome magnetic spice canisters that I can stick to the side of my fridge! Plus, I got to use my handy-dandy label maker, so it was a win all around. Love it! Easy to see what I have, everything’s at arm’s reach, perfect. More on the way for this week – have a fabulous day and stay tuned!

I have the best hubby in the world.  After about two months of my not-so-subtle hinting that I was dying for a sous-vide machine of my own (love you, Richard Blais!), my lovely husband hooked me up with the oh-so-gorgeous SousVide Supreme. Plus, my wonderful mom and dad completed the package with a counter-top vacuum sealer. Behold.

My Brand-New SousVide Supreme

Cooking sous-vide (or “under-vacuum”), is method of cooking wherein food is vacuum-sealed in plastic bags and then dunked in a (precise!) temperature-controlled water bath for extended periods.  This method allows you to cook food at the exact temperate at which you’d like it to end up (i.e. 134 degrees F for a medium-rare ribeye). Because of the slow cooking time and constant temperature, foods are cooked evenly all the way through to a precise level of “doneness.” Foods, such as animal proteins, can then be finished with a pan sear or kitchen torch to give it that additional flavor and texture that we all love.

More about my first sous-vide experiment after the jump!

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