May 20th, 2010

You know that appetizer with the Hot Pepper Jelly over Cream Cheese that is served with crackers?  I love am obsessed with that lately and serve it all the time for dinner parties.  So easy and a crowd pleaser, rarely any leftover. 

My favorite jarred hot pepper jelly is the one from Eckert's.  It’s fantastic and not gloppy like the one above.  But I digress… I wanted to figure out a way to incorporate it into an entree of some sort.  Not sure why, but I thought it would be brilliant.  So I roasted some chicken and basted it with the jelly and then mixed the cream cheese and jelly together as a spread.

I also roasted some radicchio for a salad.

So then I toasted some Naan and put the cream cheese spread on it and topped it with the chicken.

And yes, it looks random and tasted random.  Big flop.  Should have just served the cream cheese, pepper jelly, and wheat thins for dinner and saved myself an hour.

Thankfully the radicchio salad came out tasty. 

In the kitchen I have messes and successes….this one was definitely the former.

May 18th, 2010

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.  I love eggs for dinner.  They are like a little blank canvas and you can add anything to them from veggies to cheese to meat that you have leftover and it’s dinner.  I’m kinda obsessed with this recipe that I’ve blogged about last month, but it’s really is good.  Oh, and I added a piece of bacon on top because we had some leftover and that’s how I roll with eggs.

Cooking Light's Open Faced Ricotta and Egg Sandwiches

May 16th, 2010

More rain and more outside activities planned.  But we soldiered through with our original plan to go to the annual Priory Alumni Picnic at Grant’s Farm and the rain stopped just long enough for us to enjoy the whole thing nice and dry.

The girls love the picnic, especially getting their faces painted.  It’s the first thing they do there.

The second thing they do there is make a request from the balloon animal maker.  The choice this year was “magical wands.” 

Trent’s favorite thing is to get a tour of the Busch home.  It’s absolutely spectacular.  This year we even got the tour from Billy Busch, pretty fancy!  Can you imagine the entrance you get to make on those stairs?  16 year old Jenny would have loved that on dance nights….well to be honest 34 year old Jenny wouldn’t mind it either. :)

For dinner I made Rachel Ray's Pasta with Trees.  It’s really just pasta with broccoli and ricotta cheese, but in her childhood her mom called it pasta with trees to get her kids intrigued enough to eat it.  My kids didn’t fall for it one bit.  But it’s a really easy meal to make and it’s easy on the pocket book too.

I boil the broccoli and pasta in the same pot of water.  I break up the ricotta with some pasta water for the sauce and then toss together.

Rachel Ray tops it with raw cherry tomato halves, but Trent won’t eat raw tomatoes unless it’s in a salsa, and even then he’s not happy if it’s chunky salsa.  So I skip that step, but I bet it would be good.  I was actually pretty distracted at dinner because I knew what was looming after dinner….bath time and washing the face paint off.  As I thought, there were dramatic tears.  But it’s still worth it, they had a whole day of pretending to be “enchanted princesses” with their faces painted instead of just regular ol’ everyday princesses.

May 15th, 2010

Rainy rainy Saturday and we had planned to go strawberry picking.  Plan B?  Build a Bear!  When Lauren was Sydney’s age she got her bear, Tulip Daffodil Bond, and we thought Sydney was due to get her bear…..at least we thought she’d pick out a bear…it’s called Build a BEAR.  Not so much, in Sydney’s mind it was Build A Over-the-top-gaudy-golden Pony. 

Trent tried for a solid 5 minutes to talk her into something else, but the heart wants what it wants and just look at that face.  So now we have fancified pony who was properly named by Sydney “Olivia Chandelier Bond.” 

Olivia’s first bath.

Lauren brought Tulip to get a new dress for her….she picked a pink one.  Shocker.

See the white and gold dress right above Sydney’s head?  That’s Olivia’s current outfit.  The girls had a blast and I didn’t have to spend the afternoon preparing and freezing tons of strawberries. 

Erin was staying with us for the weekend and Markham invited all of us to come over for dinner.  The boys all had a poker game planned in the basement, so us ladies and children hung out upstairs while the men were happy with pokering with a big spread of superbowl fare involving meat and cheese.  The ladies dined on Grilled Chicken Breast Sliders and Pasta Salad.  It was a fun night and then Erin and I took the girls home, put them to bed complete with elaborate story time (Erin even does voices for all the characters), and decided to tackle much talk and wine for the rest of the night.  Typical us.

May 12th, 2010

Family Circle Chicken Tagine for the slow cooker.  It’s easy and good!

Ingredients

• 1-3/4  pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
• 2  large onions, thinly sliced
• 1/2  cup dried apricots, coarsely chopped
• 1/3  cup raisins
• 1-1/4  cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 2  tablespoons tomato paste
• 2  tablespoons lemon juice
• 2  tablespoons flour
• 1-1/2  teaspoons ground cumin
• 1-1/2  teaspoons ground ginger
• 1  teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2  teaspoon black pepper
• 2  cups cooked couscous

Directions

1. Place chicken, onions, apricots and raisins in slow cooker bowl.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together chicken broth, tomato paste, lemon juice, flour, cumin, ginger, cinnamon and black pepper. Pour over chicken in slow cooker. Cover and cook on HIGH for 2-1/2 hours or LOW for 5 hours.

3. Serve over cooked couscous.

I used 2 cut up chicken breasts instead of thighs and also added some garlic and used whole wheat couscous (which the girls loved, I get so happy when that happens!).  I really liked it, but Trent wasn’t a huge fan because he doesn’t like onions or dried fruit.  Looking back I don’t know why I picked this recipe.  Probably because it sounded good to me and I just hoped Trent wouldn’t notice most of the ingredients on are his “please don’t feed this to me” list. 

May 9th, 2010

Mother’s day!

Me and the girls by the dogwood tree.  Trent took the girls to mass and I went to brunch at Brasserie with my mom and Julie.  It was quite good, I had the quiche du jour with a salad.  When I got home we all worked in the yard.  I planted a row of beets and some sunflowers in containers.  Lauren and I went to get pedicures during Sydney’s nap and then I grilled steaks and corn on the cob for dinner and we ate on the patio.  The weather was perfect and the girls played in the hammock while I made dinner.

In my opinion, steaks and blue cheese go hand in hand. 

The ice cream truck went down our street 3 times within an hour.  On the third time Lauren caught on that she could stop him and he would give her ice cream, luckily I had cash in my purse, even enough for Trent to get some.  I passed since I’m not a huge ice cream fan.  Although if they ever came up with a brownie or cookie truck, I’d be on board with coin purse in hand.

May 8th, 2010

Nice mellow Saturday spending time outside, love it!  So far, the garden is coming along (knock on wood).

The peas are up and starting to attach to the little trellis I made for them.

Despite putting them in way too late, the potatoes are also up!  We’ll see if they mature in time, but I’m hoping.  See all those helicopters in the soil?  They are all over our yard thanks to the huge maple tree that makes zillions.  My current hobby is weeding out all the tiny maple trees growing in the flower beds and veggie garden, even the girls know what they look like and pull them up for me.

The white and red onions are up too.  I still can’t believe I planted stuff in the ground and now it’s growing.  I know historically that’s how it’s worked since the beginning of time, but I’m still giddy about it.

For dinner I made Buffalo Chicken Salad from Family Circle with whole wheat biscuits. 

It was an easy recipe and turned out pretty good, in fact I just had the leftovers for lunch today.  ;)

May 1st, 2010

The night of Lauren’s father daughter dance at her preschool.  Trent got Lauren a corsage for the dance and Lauren was over the moon excited, she thought it was very fancy.

My parents invited Sydney and I to eat at The Roadhouse, where they go most Friday evenings to have dinner and listen to the band. 

Sydney wanted to “wear a pretty dress like Lauren.” Done.  I was just glad she didn’t “want a pretty corsage like Lauren.”  That request would have been tricky to pull off.

Lauren all dressed up for the big dance standing in front of our tacky front doors from the 60’s with the peeling paint.  It’s on next year’s house list…

April 29th, 2010

My mom was raised on a tobacco farm, so the farming gene is in the family.  I think that’s why shucking is one of Lauren’s favorite things to help me with in the kitchen.  She loves shucking corn…I just wish she also loved eating it…what kid doesn’t like corn?  Mine.

She’s teaching Sydney how to shuck away.  Sydney was a fan too, but she will happily participate in anything that involves getting to stand on a chair.

When I was in the 4th grade I got braces and had them for 4 years.  The orthodontist gave me a list of things I could not eat so I wouldn’t damage anything and corn on the cob was one of those.  For whatever reason, I still slice the corn off the cob when I eat it.  I guess I just got used to it that way.  I read in Real Simple a couple years ago that a bundt cake pan is perfect for getting corn off the cob.  It really is.  (I can never say the word Bundt without thinking of that scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding and the mom exclaiming “There’s a hole in this caaaake!” and then she puts a potted geranium in the hole.)

For dinner I made chicken bratwurst with sauerkraut and roasted corn and asparagus.  This is actually Trent’s plate because of the insane amount of mustard on it. 

 

April 28th, 2010

It all started with Emeril Lagasse and a package of Naan, but isn’t that how it always is? 

So Emeril was on The View on April 15th.  I love Emeril, but have never, ever made one of his recipes.  Way too many ingredients and steps.  But During his interview on The View's couch, I saw he made little crostinis with ricotta and pea puree.  I had leftover ricotta from Tuesday night and always have a bag of frozen peas in the freezer to add to things.  And then I remembered buying

Naan at Sappington Farmer’s Market.  Whenever I eat at Indian places, I am subject to eat much Naan, I love it!  So I made a ricotta and pea puree and put it on the Naan. 

I am almost certain Emeril’s was way better on that couch, but I appreciate the inspiration.  I tried to find the recipe on The View’s website just to see if I did anything close to Mr. Lagasse, but no dice.

I also roasted a turkey tenderloin breast and made a salad.  Presto!  Dinner!

April 27th, 2010

In the morning I’m not usually very hungry and normally have a small bowl of cereal and a glass of milk.  I’m really weird about soggy cereal, so I drink my milk with basically dry cereal in a bowl.  Trent and I have been together for over 12 years and he still makes fun of me on this one.  But I love breakfast food, so I like doing breakfasty stuff for dinner here and there.  I made Cooking Light's Ricotta, Arugula, and Fried Egg Open Face Sandwich.  It was from the May 2010 issue of Cooking Light and the first time I made it…but I’ll be making it again!

Oh and I used up all our arugula, so I had to substitute spinach.  And I added a couple tablespoons of edamame I had leftover too.  But if you follow the directions and keep your eggs runny (another thing I’m weird about, no runny eggs), they should look more like this:

Happy Dinner!