Who Dat?!

I’m sorry I haven’t been blogging over here very regularly. I do blog frequently over at my 3-day blog, so be sure to check things out over there!

Football is not an altogether important sport to the Louisiana Johnstons. Jarrod does love his Cowboys and I am from Philadelphia and thus cannot cheer for anyone but the Eagles. In spite of these facts, somewhere over the past few months, we’ve become Saints fans. The Sunday of the last play-off game Jarrod wore a black dress shirt and a gold tie to church. Courtney and I purchased Saints shirts a few weeks ago in preparation of having something to wear on Superbowl Sunday to church. We have been anxiously awaiting the Superbowl in hopes that this year is the year of the Saints!

Last night Courtney, a friend, Jarrod, and I made snack food and cheered on the Saints as they beat the Colts! It’s an exciting time to be in this area and we’re thrilled to share in the magic. Our allegiances are still in Dallas and Philadelphia, but for now, we are Saints fans!

We’re thrilled that our first Mardi Gras as a married couple (and Courtney and my first Mardi Gras in NOLA!) will be the first year the Saints won the Superbowl. The next couple of weeks are sure to be fun! My friend Robin is coming to visit for Mardi Gras and we are planning to take a few trips to the French Quarter, see lots of parades, and have a great time.

 

Fundraising Friday!

I had such an incredible experience doing the Komen 3-Day for the Cure the last two years that I’m going back for more. One person is diagnosed with breast cancer every three minutes in the United States. In the time it takes you to read this letter, at least one more person will experience a diagnosis. In order to create a world without breast cancer, I have decided to walk again in 2010. The Susan G. Komen 3-day for the Cure is a 60-mile walk over the course of three days that raises funds for breast cancer research and community programs. Because of gracious donations from friends and family, I have raised over $4,600 in 2008 and 2009.

This year I was compelled to take a bigger step in finding a cure for (breast) cancer and will be walking in TWO 3-day events in 2010. That means I will walk 120 miles over two (separate) weekends this fall and will raise $4,600 between now and November. My first walk is in Atlanta on October 22-24, 2010. Just two weeks later, I will travel to Dallas to walk with my team, The Rack Pack. I will continue to walk until breast cancer is no longer a threat. During the toughest parts of the walk, I am inspired by those who have battled, are battling, and those who have lost their battle with (breast) cancer. I also invite you to send me the names of loved ones that I can remember and honor as I walk.

Please consider making a donation to help me reach my goal of $2,300 for each event. You can do so by going to my website: http://www.the3day.org/goto/LeanneJohnston. Many companies have matching gifts programs, so please ask your employer if they will double (or triple!) your donation with a matching gift.

If you have any questions or want to hear more about what I’m doing, check out my blog at http://leannethewalker.blogspot.com. I will be writing about my 2010 journey to 120 miles throughout the year. You can also read about my experiences in 2008 and 2009. That website also has all the information you will need to make an online donation, learn about matching donations, and register to walk with me.

Thanks for all of your support.

Love,
Leanne Johnston

 

Portobello Pizzas

Jarrod and I used to love pizza nights. Either Thursday or Friday nearly every week we would make our own pizza. Each week it was something different… We’d use left-over chicken, alfredo and a cheddar blend or mushrooms, marinara, and mozzarella. We always looked forward to pizza nights. We’ve tried the gluten-free pizza dough but it’s just not the same. Since we learned of Jarrod’s gluten-intolerance, pizza nights about died….

Until we saw Rachael Ray make Portobello Pizzas! She made them as an appetizer, but we decided we could easily make them as a meal and reinstate pizza night! (Although not as often as mushroom caps are more pricey than pizza dough!) If you want to see what Rachael did, click on the above link. If you want to see what Jarrod and Leanne did, keep reading. We made a few minor adjustments to fit our life.

• 4 large portobello mushroom tops, stems removed and gills scraped and reserved
• Extra-virgin olive oil, for liberal drizzling plus 1 tablespoon
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 pound turkey sausage (not in casing)
• 3 roma tomatoes
• 1/2 cup half & half
• 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup frozen spinach

Directions

Preheat broiler.

Dress the mushroom caps with liberal drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Broil the portobello mushrooms 5 minutes on each side until tender.

While caps are broiling heat 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil in a skillet over medium high heat, add sausage and brown and crumble the meat, then add spinach, garlic, mushroom gills, and tomatoes to skillet and cook another few minutes. Add half & half to skillet and reduce 2 to 3 minutes more. Remove the sausage from heat. The original recipe did not include the gills or spinach. We loved the tastes that both of these ingredients added. It also made the sauce go that much further. We had lots of extra!

Fill mushroom caps and top with cheese, place under broiler to brown 2 to 3 minutes.

Absolutely delicious. If you like mushrooms, this is definitely a great recipe. If you don’t like mushrooms, don’t add the gills to the sauce.

My plate of deliciousness.

 

Breakfast for dinner

I haven’t shared a recipe in a while and thought now would be a good time.

A few weeks ago Jarrod and I decided to have breakfast for dinner. We always have left over Egg Beaters (usually the seasoned variety) and breakfast meat at the end of the week. Our plan was taken up a notch when we saw Paula Deen make a breakfast casserole with hash browns (read: gluten free!) as the crust. Jarrod bought a potato to shred and we were good to go!

Johnston Family Breakfast Casserole

• 1 potato
• 1 small carton of Egg Beaters
• shredded cheese
• breakfast meat (ham, bacon, sausage, turkey, whatever!)
• a little butter

Shred the potato and drain. We use the food processor to easily shred our potato. If you don’t have one, I’m sure store-bought hash browns would work just fine. Once the potato has been drained, cook it up in a saute pan with some butter. It doesn’t need to crisp and brown, but it does need to cook thoroughly. Once the potatoes have cooked, press them into the bottom of a greased 8×8″ pan. Put the potatoes in the oven at 350 for about 10 minutes.

While the potatoes are in the oven, cook up your breakfast meat. We have used sausage and ham, but anything will work. You can also use veggies if you’d rather. We’re going to add spinach tonight!

Take the potatoes out. Layer on the meat. Mix some cheese (I use a handful of shredded cheddar) with the egg beaters. Pour this on the meat. Top with cheese. Bake at 350 for 35 minutes or so. The eggs will fluff up incredibly, so watch them.

Delicious! Healthy (especially if you add more veggies!) and EASY!!!

Enjoy!

 

Toothbrush

A few months after Jarrod and I were married we both needed new toothbrushes. I bought two packs of two toothbrushes to last us a while. I thought it made sense to get 4 different colors so we’d always know which toothbrush was which. (Jarrod’s new, Jarrod’s old, Leanne’s new, Leanne’s old.) Perfect.

The first pack contained one pink toothbrush and one blue toothbrush. Easy. His was blue, mine was pink. We’re totally not into gender stereotypes, but this just made sense for us. We were set for many weeks.

After a bout with the flu, I decided it was time to change toothbrushes. The second pack contained one yellow toothbrush and one green toothbrush. Jarrod is yellow and I’m green…Which is very hard to remember!

About once a week for the past month or so, we’ve gotten confused about who is yellow and who is green. I’m sure there are couples out there who don’t mind sharing toothbrushes. We aren’t that couple. It’s not that we mind, it’s just gross.

The next pack of toothbrushes I buy will be exclusively blue and pink.

 

Hello 2010!

I rarely resolve much of anything on January 1st. Rather, I resolve throughout the year whenever I’m unhappy or disappointed with the way my life is turning out. Call it my internal locus of control.

In honor of 2010 being our first FULL year of marriage, a few weeks ago Jarrod and I put together some goals for the year. In honor of my incredibly neurosis, I made lists and charts to make sure that we actually met the measurable goals. For real.(PS today is our 6 month wedding anniversary. WAHOO!)

Here are our goals:

• Work out regularly
• Work out together
• Go out with same sex friends more
• Try new recipes
• Pay off debt
• Read more books
• Have more date nights
• Watch less TV

These goals are not really measurable…at all. So I took them and made measurable goals and divided them by 12 so that we could have easy, measurable goals for each month of 2010. Here are the revised monthly goals:

• Leanne – work out 20 times a month
• Jarrod – work out with Leanne 8 times a month
• Leanne – 1 girl night a month (Jarrod gets one too, it’s just not written down!)
• Try 2 new recipes a month
• Pay off $*,***.** in debt each month.
• Leanne – read one non-fiction book a month
• 1 date “night” a month
• 4 “no TV” nights

So far we haven’t done any of these, but we’re on track to pay off debt in our January budget, have some date ideas out there, and are finding new recipes to try. We’ll see how the no TV nights work. I’m hopeful, but not overly optimistic. I promise to keep you updated with our progress! For now, I leave you with a picture from New Years Eve and my sweet friend’s wedding:

 

Goodbye 2009

Obviously 2009 was an incredible year for Jarrod and I. We planned a wedding. I got my masters degree. I moved to Slidell, my sister moved to Slidell, and Jarrod and I moved to our own place. We got engagement shots taken, had wedding showers, and enjoyed spending time with people we love. I walked 60 miles again and switched jobs. Jarrod did incredible things musically at church. We traveled to Dallas many times. Jarrod stopped eating gluten.

It was an excellent year but I know that we have many many many excellent years to come. 2010 will bring date nights, new recipes, new friends, travels, and lots of love.

Here is our year in pictures…

 

Happy Holidays from the Johnstons!

 

Awesome – Not Awesome

Today we’re going to play a little game that I like to call Awesome – Not Awesome.

It’s awesome when Sophie-the-cat gets herself into the closed bathroom cabinet in order to escape from the chaos of Lucy-the-dog.

It’s not awesome when Sophie-the-cat climbs all the way into the toilet.

It’s awesome that I changed the light bulb for the headlight in my car all by myself today.

It’s not awesome that from the moment Jarrod left the oil change place last Friday, my car alarm has been going off at random times throughout the day and night. It went off twice between 2am and 3am this morning. The second time it wasn’t even armed. Yeah, decidedly NOT awesome.

 

My New Job

In the spirit of privacy, I’m not going to share *too* much about my job(s), but I will share interesting things from time to time. Here are your facts for the day…

• I got a holiday bonus from my church job. Which means I’m getting a new bookcase for Christmas! (the far wall of our dining room is the perfect width for 3 IKEA bookshelves. We have 2…and they are crammed with books. No where for knickknacks.  Naturally I’ll put the 3rd bookshelf in the middle and FILL it with knickknacks.)
• My 3-day job is totally awesome. The people are awesome. The material is awesome. The preparedness is awesome! Tomorrow I’ll be put to the test and do some phone shadowing. I’m totally nervous. But thrilled to have a job that is changing the world. I sit at my desk in my jammies making us one step closer to a world without breast cancer. (you’re welcome)
• Having a home office would be WAY cooler if we had a larger place or more space between the TV and the office. It’s a struggle for everyone. Will definitely take some getting used to.

Happy almost close of the advent season!

I promise not to put the knickknacks all on one bookshelf. I promise we’ll rearrange and organize our books based on subject and author’s last name. Never fear!