March 28th, 2010

I had a package of wheat berries in the pantry from our CSA for months.  My sister is in love with them and cooks wheat berry salads all the time.  I thought they were one of the Superfoods, but they aren’t (which is good since I have been highly deficient and depriving my family of their benefits).  Anyway, I saw a recipe for a Wheat Berry salad in Cooking Light and thought it was time to man up and cook the darn things.

This is what they looked like once I drained them.  I’ve seen yummier looking things in my life…

This is my wheat berry salad.  You’re supposed to top it with goat cheese, but it was still hot and I didn’t want the cheese to melt. 

I also roasted chicken with salt, pepper, and lemon zest.

And made a spinach salad with peas. (spinach is a superfood by the way, I just found that out too, yay learning)

So there it is altogether.  I think my thing with wheat berries is they have the texture of rice that hasn’t been cooked long enough.  A few years ago, my thing was my rice was never cooked enough (crunchy rice is never fun) or it was mushy, so whenever I eat wheat berries I think I messed them up, but I’m told that’s how they are supposed to be.  Once I get over that, I think I can have a meaningful relationship with them.  The girls were not fans, even when I pointed out they had raisins and nuts in them.  But it took me 34.5 years to give them a good natured try and I’m still on the fence.

March 26th, 2010

I love Tuna Nicoise salad. 

Whenever Trent and I are traveling (the rare, rare chance we’re traveling…..rare), I love going to French restaurants for lunch to order one.  It was lunchtime and it was lent.  I had tuna in the pantry and leftover olives in frig.  I wasn’t in the mood to boil eggs and get all crazy, but I came up with a fun and easy recipe salad inspired by the Nicoise in a random-ish kinda way.

Tuna & Bean Salad

1 can cannelini beans

1 pouch of tuna

1/2 cup of kalamata olives, chopped

1/2 cup of artichoke hearts, chopped

1/4 cup of chives, chopped

1/4 cup of parsley, chopped

handful of spinach, chopped

juice of one lemon

tablespoon of olive oil

salt

pepper

Combine all ingredients through spinach, toss in a bowl, add the lemon juice and olive oil, stir, salt and pepper to taste.  I ate it with a toasted English muffin or you could put it in a wrap or over lettuce. 

For dinner we went to a fish fry with the Lamons & Rivoltas at our church.  I don’t know what it is about Fridays in Lent, but I always end up craving a big juicy beef burger…and I rarely crave burgers.  Something about knowing I can’t have something just makes me want it more.

March 26th, 2010

It’s boneless wings Thursday for Trent.  He loves to go to

on Thursdays with Ryan and Kevin.  It was also March Madness, so he was one happy man.  I decided to take the girls to go swimming at the YMCA.  But first

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quesadillas for Lauren & Sydney for dinner…they LOVE quesadillas.

 

They also love swimming. 

I love being able to give them a shower and put on their pajamas for bed right afterwards. 

So snuggly and cute! 

Once we get home and I get the girls in bed, I get to enjoy one of the absolute highlights of my week.

Real Housewives of New York City.  I’m hopelessly and utterly obsessed.  Really obsessed.  There, I said it.  Trent got his greasy chicken & basketball, the girls got to go swimming, and I get my cat fights and petty drama.  All is well.

March 23rd, 2010

Pasta is a good thing.  It’s inexpensive, easy, forgivable, and a crowd pleaser.  I always make a pound of pasta at a time and hope for lots of leftovers for lunches.  I was at the grocery store the other day and had a craving for arugula (our normal grocery store doesn’t have it, so it feels like a treat).  I decided to make Cooking Light's Peppery Pasta with Arugula and Shrimp. 

That’s cooking light’s picture.  I substituted chicken for shrimp because sometimes I’m just not in the mood to depoop devein the shrimp…

So there’s my chickened up version (or it would have been good with no meat at all). 

There’s Trent’s dinner!  Those are my mom’s daffodils, they make me so happy!  I love flowers and daffodils are one of my favorite because they are so cheerful and fragrant.  They also calm me because once the daffodils arrive, then all the other flowers will follow suit and there will be a vase of flowers to be had outside the front door. 

March 21st, 2010

Friday’s weather was spectacular, sunny and in the 60’s.  The girls and I decided to go for a walk around our neighborhood after lunch in search for spring flowers popping up.

They loved this big bunch of dried ornamental grass in one neighbors yard…

and found lots of crocuses all over the neighborhood. 

We were inspired and also got out the Easter decorations.

Then the weekend came and it was cold, windy, and wet.  Yuck! Happy 1st day of spring to St Louis from Mrs. Passive Aggressive Mother Nature.

Come Sunday night I decided to go with comfort food.  Pizza bread!  Whenever my parents would get a babysitter, Julie and I got either frozen pizza or frozen Stouffer’s pizza bread for dinner, so it makes me think of fun nights in my childhood (oh and we also got to drink SODA!!).  I made caponata pizza bread and a spinach salad with edamame. 

Oh, and of course wine, the ultimate comfort!

I’ve been into caponata’s lately, not sure what that is about.  But I’ve always been into wine.

March 18, 2010

Trent absolutely LOVES Chinese food.  We also happen to have a great Chinese delivery place (don’t even get me started on their crab rangoons….so deliciously evil!).  I go through phases with Chinese food.  My big problem with it is I like all the bad for you stuff and after I eat it, I feel greasy and like I need to shower.  So I try to make Chinese food at home and it’s never the same.  Never.  But it does buy me some time until Trent starts whining asking to order Chinese takeout for dinner.  I saw a recipe for Moo Shu from Cooking Light, which is actually my parents absolute favorite thing to order at their local Chinese Restaurant. 

And I have no idea what “Mandarin Pancakes” are and we had flour tortillas in the freezer, so they became my version of Mandarin Pancakes.  Oh, and I substituted chicken for pork.  I also made an asparagus and spinach salad

All in all, it was fine and relatively healthy, so yay for that.  It’s still my same dilemma…not as good as the crab rangoons and everything fried rice (my go to order, I know, it’s gluttonous).  But I didn’t feel like I had to go to Chinese binge eating confession either.

March 17th, 2010

Don’t those look yummy!  I love me a warm chocolate chip cookie (and by 1 I mean 2….and by 2 I mean sometimes 3).  Lauren was having her BFF over for a playdate and I wanted to make cookies for them as a snack.  I had a big to do list that day, so I bought some sort of organicy break and bake cookie dough.  This is the important element…THEY WERE BREAK AND BAKE.  All I needed to do was to break the dough, bake it, and then present yummy cookies and be cool playdate mom with the warm cookies.  Yeah, not so much…

That is the angry, angry cookie sheet after I spent at least 5 minutes scraping the darn cookies off the cookie sheet.  And yes, I checked, the directions said “UNgreased” cookie sheet.

Soapy water was the cookie sheet’s home after the brutal and violent scraping session.

And there’s my plate of chocolate chip cookies.  Definitely a big hot pathetic cookie mess.  The girls didn’t notice and happily ate them, but I think they were just excited I didn’t make them take off their dress up outfits to have their snack.

March 15th, 2010

Trent doesn’t like fruit in a main course or heated side dish (and that includes dried fruit too).  He likes fruit, just not “hot” fruit (and that includes all pies, tarts, and cobblers).  I know, I know….

But I decided to be tricky branch out a bit and not even mention his fruit thing when I made

Roasted Jerk Chicken over green rice with beans and PINEAPPLE….I’m talking craziness and rule breaking!

Guess What?  He loved it and never mentioned a word there was pineapple in it…and I didn’t bring it up.  Until now. ;)

March 15th, 2010

Who doesn’t love a meatball?  Well, I do!  My dad was on spring break and I invited him over to make c0pius quantities of meatballs.  We decided to make Mario Batali’s Polpettone di Tachino.  Doesn’t that sound so shee shee?  Really it’s just turkey meatballs that should look like this:

We made a huge batch to freeze raw so we would have several dinners stocked in the freezer for pastas, meatballs sandwiches, calzones, etc.

We froze them on cookie sheets sprayed with cooking spray.  Then once they are frozen, pop them off, and put them in your desired amount in freezer storage bags or containers.

And there you have it, tasty Polpettone di Tachinos waiting for you when you need them.  And I do mean need…it’s a meatball for heaven’s sake!

March 14th, 2010

This picture makes me very happy.  I love everything about gardening, even the bugs bites and the disappointment because it means it’s summer and I’m outside playing in the dirt.  Our backyard is full shade, which means I have a VEEERY dinky little herb garden in a little corner that has a bit of afternoon sun.  However things are in motion…..

Meet our side yard that has full sun.  This is the preliminary plans for a fenced vegetable garden!  I can’t even think about it because I’ll get too excited too early.  We still have to present our plans to our subdivision trustees (whom we don’t remotely know) since our plans are a big no no according to our subdivision rules circa de 1968.  So I’ll keep you posted and will be so excited to show you pictures like this

and say “I grew that in our own yard!”

Oh, and for dinner we had Grandpa Coco and my parents over for Sunday night dinner and I made Rachel Ray's Caponata Pasta with Ricotta.

Maybe one day I’ll be able to make it with eggplants from the garden.  Holy Moly do I like the sound of that!

March 13th, 2010

What in the world is Ben doing?  Any guesses?  Big pot of corned beef and cabbage?  Doing laundry?  Disinfecting?  New technique for cooking a turkey?  No…. here’s a hint:

Ben and Pat spent Saturday afternoon/evening making beer, so Trent and I took Sydney over to see what it was all about and have dinner.  Wow, did they make beer, I had no idea how beer got into a bottle as beer, but now I have some idea.  I learned stuff!  We ordered Pho Grand, which was yummy stuff.  The kids played and took a bath together. 

There is just something about kids playing in the bath that makes me grab my camera every time.  Hopefully I’ll stop doing that when it becomes questionable.