Roasted Corn and Red Pepper Quesadillas

Usually during the summer I honestly don't like cooking that much. I'm not sure why exactly either. In the winter I'm much more prone to cook--maybe because the oven warms the apartment. The good thing about summer, however, is the abundance of fresh vegetables. As a vegetarian, I appreciate the fact that I can go to the grocery store and find a ton of fresh veggies on sale. One of my favorites right now is fresh corn (at Kroger it's usually 3 or 4 for $1). I was trying to decide what to make for dinner and awhile ago I made veggie enchiladas with fresh corn. This time I went on a different route...

So last night I cooked a really delicious meal for Mark and I thought it was "blogworthy." I wish I had taken a picture of it but we ate it up too quickly. Next time I'll take a picture! We were going to make enchiladas, but we decided last minute to make quesadillas instead. They had roasted fresh corn, red pepper, onions, and cheese. They were amazing! If you have a panini maker they make exactly quesadillas in a shorter time than on a griddle pan. I had leftover corn, pepper, and onion mixture but you can use it to make a ton of other stuff. Try using it in soup, on a panini, or in pasta.

Ingredients:

1) 3 husks of fresh corn (I used the bicolor)

2) 1 red pepper (any color would taste fine)

3) 1 medium yellow onion

4) minced garlic

5) olive oil

6) margarine

7) 1 & 1/2 tbsp. rosemary

8) 4 whole wheat tortillas

9) shredded cheese

       Directions:

Remove the corn from the husk by cutting it with a knife. Saute some garlic (however much you like really) in olive oil in a saute pan. Add the corn with a tablespoon of margarine and chopped rosemary (fresh rosemary tastes the best). Stir until the corn is tender, about 5 min.

In another saute pan add olive oil and saute the peppers and onions.

Put all your veggies in one bowl and let set for a few minutes to let the flavors blend together.

Assemble your quesadillas by adding your cheese (however much you'd like) and veggie mix. Cook on the panini pan until done and enjoy!

Sorry that I don't have the accurate measurements on a lot of the ingredients. I don't measure anything when I'm cooking, only baking, so it's really up to your how much of something you want. Mark gave them a thumbs up too!

Good Times :)

Things have definitely been looking up for the Hacketts this week! I'm happy to report that I no longer work at Starbucks anymore and I am officially employed by Morgan  Keegan! I will be working in the accounts department, though any other details or descriptions about my job is still unknown to me until I start on Monday. I'll tell you the story of how I got the job:

A few weeks ago my sister  Andrea submitted my resume to her superior because their was a job opening. I didn't get that job so I honestly just forget about Morgan Keegan. After around 4 more job openings/potentials that I was still waiting to hear back from, I get a call one morning when I was eating breakfast with a friend of mine. I had been waiting to hear back from a tutoring job so when I got a call from an unknown number, I assumed it was them. It turns out that it was a man who worked at Morgan Keegan asking me if I could come in THAT day for an interview. I "suited up" (if you watch How I Met Your Mother, you'll get the reference) in my best interview suit and drove downtown an hour early so I wouldn't get lost. I ended up getting to hang out with my sister and see where she works and meet so really nice people she works with. I interview--think it goes well, and don't hear back that week. I get really discouraged and simply assume that I didn't get it. Then I get a call and it turns out I got the job!

The best part of this job so far is that I've gotten to buy what I call "big girl clothes." I've shopped at Ann Taylor for the first time and a sweet girl who works there helped me put a few outfits together. Blazers, slacks, and heels are such a nice and refreshing change rather than black polos and pants. So goodbye Starbucks and hello to the corporate world of salaries, paid vacations (eventually), federal holidays off, weekends off, and the return to church on Sundays. :)

In other news, my parents bought a new car a few days ago and gave their old car to us. Typically my parents gave of the kids a financial gift after getting married. Instead of taking the money, Mark and I opted for the car once they bought a new one. So goodbye to Mark's old Pathfinder (aka "the failfinder") and hello to a 2003 Toyota Camry that won't fall apart!

Yay!!!

Hello all! Sorry it's been so long since our last post. We are happy to report that we have purchased Mark's new laptop and I am picking it up today at the front office where it got delivered. We'll miss having Stephen's temporary desktop mini in our study though. Since the purchase, Mark and I have been cooking dinner every night so we can try and save money rather go to restaurants. We are trying to use up the majority of our food so the next time we go to the grocery we can restock and not waste anything.  Aren't we just so economical? haha

Not much has gone on this past week. I have been spending time with Mary Rachel, one of my old high school best friends who is living in Memphis again. Mark had a flat tire the day we bought his new laptop online, so my natural reaction wasn't too great. Thankfully Mark's dad had some connections and was able to get the tire repaired without cost from us!  To return the favor Mark and I cooked him dinner and I made a chocolate chip pie. Here's the recipe from Bakerella:
* Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie… Oh My! *
It was pretty delicious, but I ended up throwing the rest away because it's not good for me to keep baked goods in the house. :/ Hence the reason my work gets a lot of brownies and such.

This Saturday Mark is showing a documentary called Worse Than War at First Evangelical Church at 4:00 pm. Everyone is invited! When he first made me watch it, I was honestly really skeptical because the word "documentary" to me means really boring. This film, however, keeps your attention more than most movies can for me.  For people who do not know very much about genocide, it objectively paints a great picture as to what genocide is and where it's happened across the world. Probably the most interesting parts of this film are when the actual criminals who committed the act of genocide are interviewed. The film's narrator/protagonist really aims to get into the mindset of these criminals, and what you find out is shocking and not what you would expect to hear.

Speaking of movies, last week we were out with a few friends and ending up talking about movies and such. This led us to two films that we watched of the weekend: Se7en and The Hunting Party.  Se7en (made in 1995) is a movie I told Mark that he's been needing to watch and he finally did. The Hunting Party is one that he wanted me to watch and I recommend  it to anyone. Go watch a trailer for it! We went and saw Inception too, which is definitely one of the best movies I've seen in a long time. Also, on my final note: if you want a cute little coffee shop to go to, there's a place called Square Beans Coffee located in the Collierville Historic District Square that's really cute and has a good selection of coffee drinks. :)

Next Week

Hi! Mark and Olivia here! Here's what we got going on next week!

Olivia is:
going to lunch and a movie on Monday with friends to celebrate her birthday :)
working nonstop until next Friday :(
being amazing :)
watching the bachelorette on Monday night. Mark is not.

Mark is:
speaking at the Hope Experience Youth Conference on Thursday night
working nonstop until eternity
hopefully a double date with some friends
returning to OBS after a week off

We recently got cable! Mark is not used to watching TV so it's a new experience for him. Olivia likes to exercise in front of it and then go ride her stationary bike. The cats don't ride the bike.

Kitty Update from Olivia:
Nutmeg has gotten quitter at night but hyper-needy when we get home. He also likes to sleep in the bathroom sink...
Cinnamon is a little nicer than he used to be but still doesn't like a lot of attention. That's good, Nutmeg is like having a 2 year old around.

Keep Us in Your Prayers

Mark here. Olivia and me are both having issues with work (mine are particularly frustrating) and they don't appear to be getting better anytime soon.

Thanks to all of you for helping during this time:

Stephen for giving me a computer to use for OBS since mine is dead.

Paul for simply asking how I am doing and encouraging me to keep moving forward. 

My core staff at work (primarily Brittany, Amy, and Flexer) for being so great.

Olivia's parents for buying us a new garbage can

For my activist peers around the nation who are helping me prepare to transition OBS into an official non-profit.

Anna for giving us a cable plug.

Our cats for being quieter at night (even if we've forced them to be)

Olivia for being perfect :)

Love you guys. By the way, if anyone feels like donating me a $1,000 Macbook Pro for OBS that'd be wonderful. If you want to throw a few bucks towards it I'll give you a hug. 

New birthday update

As of recently Mark and I haven't been having the best of luck, especially with work. Although I'm not going to go into details, work has been a series of stressful situations one after the other. The last event, however, has changed my birthday donation to charity: water idea unfortunately. Yesterday there was an accident at work involving spilt water on Mark's laptop. Thankfully his hard drive was saved, but his computer was not. :(

We're trying to find the most economic and affordable means of alleviating the problem.  Although we would both love for Mark to be able to purchase a new laptop, that would be too much money.  As of now he is using his brother's old Mac Mini desktop computer, but it's only temporary. The only alternative that we can think of right now is to purchase a Mac Mini desktop that has been refurbished and let him use my laptop for the majority of the time (though it's not in the best of shape it will work). Because of our unfortunate luck, it doesn't make much sense to take donations to charity: water when he can't even do any work for them without a computer.  Getting to my point, for my birthday any money would be so gratefully accepted towards purchasing our desktop computer. 

Here's to hoping that our luck improves and things start looking up. 

My birthday is next Thursday!

The weather has finally cooled off thanks to a mid-afternoon thunderstorm that was much needed.  It decided to start thundering as soon as I was taking up the groceries from my car, but thankfully nobody was electrocuted and the bag with the eggs did not drop.  We have finally developed and put our wedding pictures in albums and frames! The wedding seemed like so long ago!

We spent the last two days celebrating a late Father's Day with my dad and his dad.  Unfortunately we weren't able to make it to either family function on Father's Day (you can thank Starbucks for that). After a wonderful marathon of working 9 days in a row, today is my first day off in what seems like forever.  What your parents fail to tell you when you're growing up is that when you get older and marry, summers don't include sitting around watching tv or reading all day.  Oh the past days of no responsibility when all that mattered in the summer was knowing what time the good tv shows came on. Now as an adult (well, hardly an adult really), summers now mean that work still takes up the majority of your time.  Then when your long awaited day off comes, you realize that you don't even have cable and a multitude of cleaning, laundry, and errands await you. 

All these things aren't bad of course, it's just part of the process of growing up I suppose.  I think you know that you are getting older when you have price tag shock with anything above $20 and no longer even look at the clothes section in stores anymore.  If I go into a store other than a grocery store, it's on a mission to get one item and  I'm headed to the sale/clearance area first--something my mother thankfully taught me. 

Now that it's been a good month coming from the honeymoon, I can finally say that I think (think...not positive yet) that our apartment is decorated how I like it.  Before I got married, decorating was just not an interest whatsoever.  It's funny how fast your tastes can change when it's your own place.  I'm still trying to get a feel for what specific style Mark and I have; right now I would say it's more of a modern/contemporary feel maybe?

My birthday is next Thursday and for anyone who loves me enough to get me a present, this year I'm donating my birthday to charity:water. You can donate $22 for my 22 birthday by clicking here!
 :)

I figured it would be kind of nice for a few people to have a chance to drink some water you know? I just know that not every person in the world gets presents on their birthday, but not even being able to have something to drink on your birthday makes me really sad. So yes, that's that. I am, however, slightly selfish and only want one thing for my birthday--a mountain bike! I want to be able to ride a bike on the trails at Shelby Farms. Now I know that nobody is going to get me a bike and that's perfectly fine, but sometime in the future I'm going to buy a mountain bike. People without water though are just more important this year. :)