Sister-in-Laws, Babies & Easy Apple Crisp

Sorry I've been MIA the past few days! We've been busy bees with a houseguest, the arrival of a friend's new baby and the celebration of a friend's daughter's 1st birthday. Here we go with a little {long} recap:

WEDNESDAY:

Wednesday night we had a houseguest: my sister-in-law (a.k.a. Alex's sister)!!

She was passing through our part of Texas on her way to meet up with her boyfriend in San Antonio so she stopped in for the night. It was a quick visit but it was a lot of fun to catch up with her. She lived with me last summer when Alex was deployed and interned at my job so we have become close.

She's also a loyal Cupcakes & Combat Boots reader so she insisted that I take a picture of her to make it on the blog. In turn, I insisted that if this was to happen, it needed to be a photo of her eating. She agreed to my terms. :)

Chomp!

And yes, we ate dinner on the couch, even with a houseguest. We're casual like that. ;-)

So what did we eat? Well, it's a dish that's been seen on Cupcakes & Combat Boots before but it's certainly worth repeating.

Cajun Chicken Ranch Sandwiches

w/ sweet potato oven fries

Yummmmm. The flavors just go together so well!

As a military-related side note, my sister-in-law's boyfriend is also in the Army and he is deploying to Afghanistan next week. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers as he sets off on this journey. Also, please pray for peace for Andrea that she can remain calm during this deployment (it's the first she's had to deal with, besides her brother's of course) and that it goes by quickly.

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THURSDAY:

One of my very good friends, Connie, had her baby on Wednesday evening (!!!) so on Thursday night we headed out to the hospital to visit her and meet little Max.

Hubs with Max

Me with Max...he was so awake and alert...I was shocked!

Look at that big yawn! He's so adorable!

So since we had to drive 45 minutes each way to go visit Max & Connie, we were planning on just grabbing dinner along the way somewhere. When we spotted a Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburger we knew that was where we were eating.

We had both had Freddy's before in Wichita, KS (which is where the Hubs is from and, incidentally where the Freddy's chain began) and loved it.

I didn't take any photos of our dinner, but just trust me, if you ever have a chance to eat at Freddy's DO IT. It's a retro-esque burger & custard joint that specializes in super-thin "steak burgers" and delicious custard treats. The shoestring french fries are also TO DIE FOR.

I enjoyed a burger, fries, and a mini-Reese's concrete {basically a Blizzard by a different name}. It was sooooooooooo good and so absolutely worth the splurge in calories/fat/etc.

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Friday night we went to a 1st birthday party for our friend's daughter but I didn't take any photos. They served hot dogs, chips & queso, potato salad, etc. It was a fun night but I was so very tired by the end of the night.

SATURDAY:

Saturday night we had another repeat dinner while hanging around the house watching football.

Seared Skirt Steak with Balsamic Cherry Tomatoes (click link for recipe from Men's Health)

w/ Roasted Potato Wedges

{I'm so annoyed that it's getting dark sooner at night now. It makes it almost impossible for me to get good natural light photos since we are post-7pm dinner eaters usually.}

We really like this recipe. It's easy, quick and super tasty. We had a few "issues" while cooking it tonight though so it wasn't our best work. ;-) The meat was extremely undercooked when we cut into it so we tried to cook it a little more but it ended up being rather tough. Also, we almost smoked ourselves out of the kitchen at one point...beware the searing! :)

For the roasted potato wedges I just coated yellow-skinned potato wedges in olive oil and then sprinkled with kosher salt & pepper. Then I spread them out on a rack placed on top of a baking sheet. Baked for 20 minutes at 425 degrees until crispy and browned. They were really good!

Then for dessert, I made an Apple Crisp!

We had a sack of little baby Gala apples in our fridge so I figured I'd use some of them up in a delicious, fall dessert!

Gracie at Girl Meets Health posted the recipe for this apple crisp earlier this week and she swore it was amazing so I decided to give it a whirl.
She was absolutely right! It was SO good! The best part though was how stinkin' easy it was to make. I seriously whipped this up in 10 minutes and then all I had to do was wait for it to bake. That's dangerous because now I'm going to want apple crisp all the time and I'll know that it's not hard to get it! Uh oh...

I'm posting the recipe the below with my slight alterations but I basically followed it exactly.

Easy Apple Crisp

Ingredients:

• 4 apples, peeled and sliced {I used 6 small apples and cut them into small chunks, instead of slicing. I also left the peel on because I like it.}
• lemon juice {juice from 1 lemon}
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 stick cold butter, cut into tiny pieces
• 3/4 cup old fashioned oats

Preheat the oven to 375 and spray a shallow pan (I used a square pan) with cooking spray. Spread out the apples evenly along the bottom of the pan and sprinkle the lemon juice on top.

In a large bowl, combine all the rest of the ingredients and use your hands to work in the butter. In the end, you should have tiny pieces of butter throughout. You still want some chunks for optimal streusel.

Spread the streusel on top of the apples and bake for about 25 minutes {35 minutes for mine}. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or fresh whipped cream.