February 9th, 2012

We are getting serious and organized here on all things Valentine’s Day!  I made a batch of red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting for Trent to take to work (and enough for Trent and the girls to enjoy at home for the week).

  Then the girls worked on their valentines for their friends at school. 

I took a chance and bought Hello Kitty Valentines at Target hoping the girls would agree to give them out.  The girls decided on Hello Kitty Valentines. 

In Sydney’s class the kids just had to sign their name and then each kid was assigned a valentine’s mailbox number, which is what Sydney had to write in the “To” section.  Made the 4 year old valentine addressing so much easier!

Dinner was Chicken Curry with lentils topped with greek yogurt and chives with roasted garlic cauliflower.  Kids were not impressed, but I really liked it.  Good thing, because the leftovers were my lunch for the rest of the week.  Happy Valentine’s Day to me curry style!

February 3rd, 2012

Continuing in my effort of trying new recipes, specifically different kinds of soups, I found a recipe I was excited to try. 

The whole family loves pot stickers/dumplings, so the soup sounded perfect (and way easy!).  I omitted the nori because it wasn’t at our grocery store and I wasn’t in the mood for an errand to fetch 1 sheet of seaweed.  But I did add bean sprouts.

I steamed the pot stickers before adding them to the soup.

I also garnished with tons of chives.

Simple to make, delicious, and healthy.  I will be making this again.

Another favorite in our family is the beloved Crab Rangoon.  I have a recipe I make for parties, but you fry the Crab Rangoons and the house smells of canola oil for days.  Also there’s the whole fried cream cheese aspect of the dish that doesn’t help my figure in any way.  I saw these at the grocery store and decided to give them a try.

So I made the filling of a 1/3 less fat 8 oz cream cheese, 6 oz can of crabmeat (drained), about 2 tablespoons of diced chives/green onions, teaspoon of garlic powder, salt and pepper to taste.  You could also add a dash of soy sauce or Worcestershire sauce. 

At this point you could even put in a baking dish, heat until bubbly, and serve with crackers (I ended up doing that with the little bit of leftover filling, it was good!).  I filled my little cups up, baked at 375 until slightly bubbly, and served.

It was a fun Friday night meal and it all came together faster than placing a delivery order would have taken.  AND the kids (well, mostly Lauren) were fans!  Let the weekend begin!

February 1st, 2012

I have 2 words for you.  Oreo Balls.  It all started this last December.  A friend of mine gave me a cute little thing of assorted Christmas cookies.  There were these truffle looking things and I was going to give them to the girls for their dessert, I’m not a huge truffle person.  But I took a tiny bite of one intending to give the rest to Sydney.  Yeah, that didn’t happen because they were beyond delicious.  I did give one to Lauren and Sydney, but with hesitation.  I asked my friend what in the world they were and she said they were Oreo Balls and found the recipe on Pinterest.  Thankfully I follow her boards and was able to get the recipe.  I decided to make them for a dinner party, as my contribution to a Superbowl party we were going to, and also bring them to KC to give some to Trent’s parent.  To say Trent’s mom has a sweet tooth would be like saying Sophia Vergara is okay looking. 

Oreo balls are crazy easy to make and only 3 ingredients.  One package of oreos, one package of cream cheese, and chocolate to melt.  I used chocolate chips.

Cutie Patootie helper is optional.

I put the oreos in my food processor until they were cookie crumbs.  Then transferred to my mixer and put in the cream cheese.  I doubled the recipe, so 2 packages of oreos and 2 packages of cream cheese.

Process until it comes together and looks like fudgy batter.

Shape into balls on parchment paper.

Then melt your chocolate and dip the oreo balls in the choclate.  I had some white chocolate chips too I melted and drizzled over the dark chocolate. Then let dry on parchment paper. 

You could mix it up by using mint oreos, mint flavored chocolate, almond bark, peanut butter chips, whatever combination sounds good.  My recommendation is to make them for something and not just have them around the house because they will all end up in your belly.

January 24th, 2012

Still on my quest for trying lots and lots of new recipes.  I had a dud (in my opinion).  It was a Mushroom Stroganoff.

Bland, brown, and too mushroomy.  That’s all I got to say about that.

I really thought I had another night of a dud, especially when I saw the finished product.  Definitely not a wow factor or ta da type of presentation. Trent came home, looked at dinner, and had to suppress a stinky sock face.

It is a lentil and spinach soup with cumin.  It came from a cookbook without pictures.  If it had pictures, I might have skipped over it.  Now my lesson is learned, because it was pretty tasty.  Even the kids liked it and ate 75% of their serving without begging, coaxing, bribing.  I served it with greek yogurt and tons of chives.  Crushed tortilla chips would be good on top too.  Apparently this is a fairly popular Lebanese/Middle Eastern type of soup. 

Here’s the recipe, easy stuff.

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 onions, sliced

4 garlic cloves, sliced

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon cumin (I doubled that)

1 pound of green or brown lentils

5 cups vegetable stock (I used chicken stock)

6 1/2 cups spinach

freshly squeezed lemon juice

salt and pepper

green yogurt and chives to serve

Heat the oil in a large saucepan.  Add onions, garlic, and spices, cook about 10 minutes until softened.  Add the lentils and and stir for 1-2 minutes to mix everything.  Add the stock, bring to boil, then simmer for 30 minutes.  Add the spinach and stir until fully wilted.  Use emersion blender and puree.  You can puree the whole thing or half, just what you prefer.  No emersion blender?  Transfer half of the soup to a food processor and return to saucepan.

I pureed the whole thing so I didn’t have to answer too many questions about what was in the soup to the kids, which actually worked.  Both of my girls love chili, so they thought it was some variation of that when the house smelled like cumin.  I think Trent was pleasantly surprise, but had LOW LOW expectations.  I liked it and would make it again, mainly because it’s so darn healthy, meat free, and the entire family ate it without torturous looks.

January 13th, 2012

Friday the 13th!  For Christmas Julie, Ben, Trent, and I gave my parents a dinner out for all 6 of us to The Good Pie near SLU’s campus.  We were fancy and got babysitters for the kids and everything.  No french fries, crayons, or chicken fingers needed at this table.

I have never been there before and was excited to try it.  I’m not a huge pizza person (by pizza I mean Dominos or Imos), but I love fancy trendy pizza places with and also love the yummy salads that fancy pizza places normally serve.

The Good Pie also has a big wood burning pizza oven.  It was quite the thing to watch them man that grill!

The place is cozy (cozy meaning small) and doesn’t take reservations.  But we persevered (kids were at home mind you) and got a table in good time considering it was 6:30 on a Friday night at a good pizza place near a college campus that is small and doesn’t take reservations. 

It’s quite possible we might have had some cocktails and an appetizer plate while we waited for our table. 

Drinks, Talking, Appetizer, Table, Drinks, Menus, Salad, Talking, Pizza, Talking, Pizza, Coffee, Talking….in that order.

How is it in the middle of January and my dad still has a tan?  So not fair.

Fun way to spend a cold January night out with family and a nice wood burning oven that happens to make your pizza too!

January 9th, 2012

In my ongoing attempts to kick off the new year with new meals, I’m trying another new recipe.  This one I felt was an easy risk.  Trent and I both love Reuben sandwiches.  I really love anything that gives me a reason to eat sauerkraut.  Trent loves pizza.  I found the recipe in Rachel Ray’s Magazine online.

Rachel Ray's Reuben Pizza

This is what the picture looked like.  I made it like a regular pizza with the thousand island sauce on the bottom like you would do a tomato based sauce for a traditional pizza.  I also drizzled yellow mustard on it when it came out of the oven.  That was for Trent, he is a mustard guy.

I served it with a mixed green salad.

The lighting in our kitchen this time of year is throwing me off with my camera settings, but I’m working on that.  I have this good friend who knows her stuff.  We met for coffee last week and she let me pick her brain a bit….and loaned me a lens.  So my hope is to do a little playing with it this weekend.  I will have good subjects, we are going to Kansas City to visit family, for a basketball game, an ear piercing, a birthday party, and some good food.