easy recipe – Page 7

Fears, Writer’s Block, and Iced Coffee

May 13, 2014 by Asharae 4 Comments

I sat down to write this post last night. And the night before. And nothing would come to me. My mind went completely blank. The fear started to set in. The lies began whispering in my ear that I have nothing to say, that no one cares what I say anyway. I began to wonder why I even started this blog. I went back and read my first post to remind myself – but it didn’t help. Still no words. I re-read my About page – maybe that would help? Nope.

I wanted to be profound and eloquent, but I am naturally neither of those things. I finally closed my laptop, the screen still blank, muttered a few words to Tim about feeling discouraged, and shuffled off to brush my teeth and throw myself into bed (with dramatic sighs I’m sure.) He crawled into bed next to me a few minutes later, and with sweet and gentle words, tried to encourage me. I was too busy being selfish and self-focused and acting out the exhaustion I was feeling to hear much of what he had to say, but this morning I remembered him telling me to be honest.

He reminded me that I didn’t create this blog to be a perfect place where I share our perfect little days when I feel I have it all together and figured out. (Those days are all too rare anyway that I’d never write if that was the case.) He encouraged me to write truth and honesty, rather than wait till my words are polished and perfect. So here I am. Feeling broken, imperfect, weary, and incapable.

I’m carrying the weight of big things like our NC Weddings for Freedom chapter – Tim and I are hosting a meeting next week for any wedding vendors interested in joining our fight against human trafficking. Fear whispers in my ear that no one will show up to our meeting, that no one cares and nobody’s going to stand with us. I’m clinging to the fact that we are simply vessels for God to use and that I’m incapable of doing this on my own. That’s the whole point isn’t it? We can’t do this on our own. That’s what joining this community together is all about.

I worry for my mom who is in a job that demands too much of her. She works harder than anyone I know, offering creative and innovative solutions for her students and teachers, working late into the night and early in the morning, rarely even having time to eat during her busy school days. I see how much she pours herself out and lament how little she gets back in return.

I wear myself out over making sure our clients are happy. I struggle with the balance of sticking to my creative voice versus making sure they’re happy. It’s a dance of crafting what I believe is beautiful and giving our clients an experience that we have spent years developing, versus the voices that claim “what you do is just a service, you’re just there to make the client happy.” I’ll be honest – I don’t balance that well. Everything within me wants to reject those words and trust my creative voice wholeheartedly. We struggle and strive toward drawing our couples closer to one another through how we photograph and film them. Obviously we hope that makes them happy and we hope they’re happy with the photos they end up with. Where is the creative balance though? It’s something we’re constantly learning and growing in.

And then there are the little things. They’re little worries that gnaw at the back of my consciousness, and when added all together tend to overwhelm me a bit. Our car is in the shop right now – how much is it going to cost this time?? What’s for dinner tonight? When am I going to get around to painting our front hall? How am I going to grow this blog in my free time (free time? what’s that?!) When are we going to have our student loans paid off? When are we going to have kids? How are we going to pay rent this summer while Tim’s paycheck is no longer coming in? How long are we going to stay in this house? Where will we go next? I should probably stop, huh? I can just see Tim shaking his head later when he reads this, telling me I can’t carry all of these things. And he’d be right. They’re not mine to carry.

What are you trying to carry today? What fears, worries, hesitations do you have? What do you need to let go of? Let’s let go of these fears together.

There’s really no recipe needed for this iced coffee. Since the weather is quickly warming up here in North Carolina, I’ve found this is my go-to afternoon caffeine source. Whenever I have leftover coffee in the pot, I pour it into the ice cube tray in our freezer. Using coffee ice cubes rather than regular ones ensures your iced coffee doesn’t get watered down at all! You can pour hot or cold coffee over your coffee-cubes (just use more ice if you’re using hot coffee obviously.) I prefer mine with a little caramel macchiato flavored creamer and some milk, but you can drink it plain if you’re into that sort of thing. I worked at Starbucks for a brief period of my life while we lived in Seattle (before I realized how much of an introvert I am and how little I enjoy serving obnoxious, demanding customers), and despite that (or more likely because of it) I’ve never enjoyed drinking coffee black. I’m over it. Give me some sugary creamer and I’m a happy camper.

Also, just a side note. It’s ridiculously difficult to accurately pour creamer into a cup of coffee with one hand while balancing a heavy camera with the other hand, looking through the lens, focusing, trying not to block your own light with the one hand, and trying to get a steady photo of the creamer ever-so-gently pouring into the glass with the other. Tim wasn’t home to help assist the day I took these photos, so I’m pretty proud of that singular in-focus creamer shot.

Simple Breakfast Tacos

May 5, 2014 by Asharae Leave a Comment

Happy Cinco de Mayo you guys! Hope you had a wonderful weekend full of adventures! Tim and I had our first weekend off since March, so we spent it up in Raleigh and Durham visiting friends, going to the Handmade Market, eating good food, and going to a Durham Bulls game – we couldn’t have asked for better spring weather to spend all weekend outside!

We’re also (finally) getting a start on our garden here and we spent yesterday afternoon picking up additional flowers and veggies for our front porch and raised-bed garden. We brought them home, did a little research on Smart Gardener (highly recommend for anyone starting a garden or wanting to learn more!), and carefully placed each tomato and pepper plant in the soil. I’ll be honest – the main reason I have a garden is to be able to make salsa all summer long. Salsa and bruschetta and tzatziki. That’s pretty much it.

This year we’re adjusting what we’re growing to exclude the peas and beans that we never got around to eating last year (they’re still in our freezer) and include a few new veggies that we haven’t tried before – namely zucchini and eggplant. We’re trying a few new tomato varieties that we’re pretty excited about, and we even planted marigolds and basil next to the tomatoes to test out the theories that marigolds help tomatoes grow better and basil makes them taste better! Who knew? (Lots of other well-seasoned gardeners, that’s who. Not us though – we’re learning as we go!)

We’ve still got some extra space in the garden and we haven’t yet figured out what we’ll plant. Have you grown veggies in the past? Anything in particular that is easy to grow and produces tasty veggies? Anything we should shy away from that’s difficult to grow?

In honor of Cinco de Mayo I’ve got a simple recipe for breakfast tacos – who says tacos can only be for lunch and dinner?? You already know that I’m more of a savory breakfast person than sweet, so I absolutely love meals like this one for breakfast! Feel free to add your own flair to this recipe – add some salsa or jalapeños, brown some breakfast sausage and toss that in, slice up an avocado and include it in your taco.

This would make a really fun brunch for a group of friends – you could set up a make-your-own taco station with tiny bowls for each ingredient, brown some sausage and cook up a large batch of scrambled eggs, and have everyone assemble their own tacos!

Simple Breakfast Tacos

Asharae Kroll

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Prep Time 5 mins

Cook Time 10 mins

Total Time 15 mins

Course Breakfast/Brunch

Cuisine Mexican

Ingredients

Eggs 2-3 per person
Small Flour Tortillas 2-3 per person
Cheddar Cheese or queso fresco if you have it!
Your choice of red onion cilantro, tomatoes, salsa, avocado, lime juice etc.

Instructions

Whisk eggs together with a splash of milk and a dash of cumin, chili powder, a little salt and some pepper. Scramble over medium-low heat in a greased pan.
Heat tortillas and serve topped with eggs, cheese, and your choice of red onion, cilantro, tomatoes, salsa, avocado, a spritz of lime juice, or whatever other goodies you'd like to add to make these breakfast tacos your own!
You could also add browned sausage or cooked bacon to give these tacos a little something extra!

Strawberry Banana Peach Smoothie

April 30, 2014 by Asharae 3 Comments

You guys. I love spring. I don’t just mean I like it, or that I simply enjoy having warm weather again. No. I LOVE spring. I’m one of those people who are strongly affected by the weather – long endless cloudy days can put me in a weird funk if I’m not careful. The year we lived in Seattle was the cloudiest they had on record in 50-something years and I felt it. I constantly longed for blue skies and warm sunshine!

My roommates in college laughed at me when we were choosing our apartment for our final year at Wheaton. My only request was that we choose an apartment with South-facing windows. Winters in Chicago can get pretty gloomy and I’d already lived through three of them, so I figured the least I could do for our sanity our senior year was to ensure we had enough light in our apartment through the winter. Weird, I know. But I’m pretty certain we ended up with the absolute best and sunniest apartment on campus – on the top floor looking South over the train tracks and the Prairie Path. It made such a difference on those sunny-but-frigid winter days to have warm light filtering in past the pine tree outside our window, rather than the cold damp light reflecting off the parking lot on the other side of the building.

All that to be said, I’m incredibly thankful that spring has arrived in full-swing here in North Carolina. First of all, that means more light. And second of all, more color. Over the past several weeks, our yard has transformed from a barren brown wreck to a lush green jungle, budding and blossoming with new life. The birds are nesting under the eaves of our porch and in the helmet of an old metal knight that rests against the side of our house, a relic from the days my mom used to teach Medieval history to her sixth graders. Last fall my parents scattered grass seeds in our back yard before they moved into their new house. Now that they’ve moved and taken their menagerie of rescue dogs with them to the new house, our two pups have room to run and the seeds my parents spread last fall have just taken root and begun to carpet the backyard in spurts and sprouts of green.

We’re late getting our garden planted this year, but we’re excited about the little potted veggies we bought the other day – they’re sitting on our front porch waiting for their place in our little garden plot. Tell of crazy thunder storms this week made me hesitate to plant them right away – I imagined the delicate little tomato and jalapeño sprouts bending and swaying in the wind, getting buffeted about by the torrential downpours we’ve heard so much about. So there they sit, watching the garden from the porch, waiting for their turn in the sun.

We’re fast approaching strawberry season, and this smoothie recipe is a great way to use a few of those juicy red berries you may have in your fridge. If you’re lucky enough to have a pick-your-own strawberry patch nearby, you need to get on that. We have one just a five minute drive from our house and I plan on stopping by there the moment I hear there are strawberries for the picking. OH the heavenly smell when you pull over at the little road-side stand and hop out of your car – the warm, sweet aroma of strawberry heaven. The sun on your skin as you meander up and down the rows of carefully planted berries. You wander about, looking for the perfectly ripe berries, “taste-testing” a few along the way, the sticky juice running down your chin and arms. That is spring to me.

One of the keys to making the perfect smoothie is using at least one frozen fruit. By using frozen berries or peaches, you don’t have to use any ice in your smoothie – this will chill it and ensure it doesn’t get watered down! Be sure to thaw your frozen fruit slightly though so you don’t destroy your blender. We had an ugly avocado-green blender in our kitchen growing up and it would jolt to a stop and groan under the pressure of having to blend anything frozen – I’m always shocked at how scary-powerful our blender is now. That being said, it’s better to be careful and not have a small appliance disaster on your hands.

I know I’m always telling you to adapt my recipes to suit your preferences, but I really do mean it! I’m more of an artist than a scientist, and I’m learning that my preferred recipe style reflects that. I enjoy making things with an open mind, adding a little of this and a little of that, rarely making it the same way twice. This smoothie recipe is no exception – sometimes I add frozen raspberries and blackberries, a different flavor of yogurt, or use milk instead of orange juice for a smoothie that tastes a little more like a milkshake. Make this your own and let me know how it goes!

Strawberry Banana Peach Smoothie

Asharae Kroll

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Prep Time 5 mins

Total Time 5 mins

Servings 2

Ingredients

1 banana peeled
2 c frozen peaches slightly thawed
1-2 c strawberries hulled
Several heaping spoonfuls of plain or vanilla if you want it sweeter Greek yogurt
A large splash of orange juice or milk

Instructions

Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until combined.
Taste and adjust to your preferences.
Add more orange juice (or milk) to thin if need be.

Baked Eggs with Mushrooms and Garlic

April 29, 2014 by Asharae Leave a Comment

Tim and I have been on the go for most of April – every weekend we’ve had somewhere new to be. Filming and photographing a wedding in Wisconsin, giving a photography workshop for some fabulous Chapel Hill students, a bridal session on Pawley’s Island, an engagement session in Winston Salem, another wedding in Detroit.

This has been one of those months where I keep putting one foot in front of the other, all the while trying not to think too much about all the things I need to accomplish, the places I need to be, or the people I need to please. We were so grateful that Tim was on spring break last week so we had a few days to catch up on work and a few slow mornings to enjoy being at home together. One of those mornings I made this baked egg dish and it was too simple and delicious not to share. It’s perfect for a Sunday afternoon brunch or Saturday morning breakfast! I’m more of a savory breakfast kind of person, so this hit the spot!

You could certainly add other vegetables, cooked sausage or bacon, or mix up whatever kind of cheese you want to use. I’d love to hear how you plan on making this your own!

Baked Eggs with Mushrooms and Garlic

Asharae Kroll

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Prep Time 15 mins

Cook Time 13 mins

Total Time 28 mins

Course Breakfast/Brunch

Servings 4

Ingredients

1.5 c sliced mushrooms
1 clove garlic minced
1 Tbs butter
1 c grated cheddar or cheese of your choice
2 Tbs grated parmesan
6-8 eggs

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F
Melt butter over medium heat in a saute pan. Add sliced mushrooms and cook until softened (6-8 min) Add garlic and cook for 2 more minutes, stirring constantly. Salt and pepper to taste, stir, and pour into a greased gratin dish.
Add grated cheeses on top of the mushroom and garlic mixture.
Crack eggs over the top. I wanted my yolks to be a little runny, so I cracked 6 eggs over the top and then whisked two more and poured them in the gaps that the whole eggs didn't fill in. Alternately you could whisk all the eggs and pour them over the top if you'd rather have a fluffy egg bake with a more consistent texture.
Bake 10-13 min, until eggs are cooked to your liking.