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2 stolen recipes and some frozen corn

One of our favorites this year has been Major Grey’s Chicken.  I posted about this earlier…maybe?  I can’t seem to find the post now.  I will link to it if I find it.

It is a delicious, creamy, mango-filled pile of deliciousness.  The recipe we use is stolen from one of Matt’s co-workers, and I usually add some fresh mango to the mix because we have some on hand.  It’s actually usually the mango that inspires us to make this dish, since it’s a failsafe use for the fruit.

We also stole another recipe from a coworker of mine…Kale Pesto!  We’re both wary of dark greens in general, and have had some bad luck with them in the past.  Kale is no exception, and I’ve consistently avoided adding it to my salad in our cafeteria at work.  But I heard rave reviews about this kale pesto—the bitterness is cut with a few handfuls of basil, but the healthy kick of kale is still blended in.

We used a huge package of basil (the kitchen smelled AMAZING!) and a whole bunch of Kale that came in our CSA box.  Matt was in charge of adding everything to the bowl, so I’m not sure of the exact amounts, but garlic, salt and olive oil all went into the mix.

Then….we realized we really need to invest in a food processor soon.  Where will we put it? No idea.  Maybe in our imaginary cupboard with the stand mixer, pressure cooker, waffle iron and rotisserie cooker (this one’s just for Matt). 

Anyway, we got it blended in tiny batches and then mixed all together. Tossed with some tri-color pasta. Yum yum yum.

These two seemed a little mismatched, but I figured the bitter of the kale would pair well with the sweet and creamy of the chicken dish.  What kind of side could make this even more strange?? Some frozen corn, of course!  The only other option in our freezer was cheesy broccoli, which I thought was way too out there.

It was a little all-over-the-place, but still delicious, and Matt has been eating leftovers this week while I’m on the road 🙂

In the spirit of fun fall stuff, here’s our decorated mantle for the season! Very exciting—notice the real life candlesticks…I’m pretty pleased with how grown up these beeswax taper candles make me feel.  Plus, the adorable mini-loaf pan that I turned into a candle holder.

We used that loaf pan a couple weeks ago to make some amazing banana nut bread for a party, and now it’s clean and full of pumpkin spice scented candles!  Spectacular!

   

Also, this is how Santana sits while I cook.  She’s so dainty and genteel, huh?

Back to Basics

I’m currently blogging from the lovely Red Roof Inn just outside of Charlotte’s airport.  We spent the long weekend in NC with my aunt, grandma, brother and his girlfriend.  Extremely relaxing and just what I needed.  We did absolutely nothing…sat around, watched tv, made fun of each other, and ate lots of grandma’s delicious food.  Love it.  We’ve been spending lots of time watching the US Open….Matt is a huge tennis fan, and I am catching on. 🙂

Santana spent the weekend at the PetSmart PetsHotel….I felt like a mom dropping my kid off at school for the first time.  It was rough.  I called to check on her once this weekend, and the guy I talked to said she has been having a great time, playing with other dogs, and really enjoying the extra vanilla ice cream treat we paid for.  I can’t wait to see her!

Anyway, before we left, there wasn’t much to blog about food-wise, since we spent the week using up the stuff in our fridge.  Not only did we pull out some of the leftover frozen chili (mostly so that I could make cornbread and make another strata!), we also used a bunch of our fruits and veggies from the CSA in really easy, hearty and satisfying dishes that just got tossed in the oven to bake.  It was nice having things that were so quick and simple.  I love being able to just add a little oil and seasoning (or sugar and cinnamon in the case of fruit), throw the pan in the oven and have a tasty dish that brings out the best qualities of the produce.

Here are a couple pictures of our roast vegetables (pre-roasting and finished product).  We always love these, and I think in the winter we’ll do it a lot more.  It’s hard to justify heating up the apartment with the oven mid-summer.  This batch had freshly dug red potatoes, beautiful striped beets (they lost their stripes while they roasted!), local carrots and a couple green bell peppers.   Tossed with some olive oil, smashed garlic, salt and pepper.  We served it with some butter lettuce dressed with a bit of parmesan herb dressing.  We had some salmon burgers from the store we planned to add on top, but they were not tasty at all, so we just omitted.  It was still delicious and I had the leftover veggies the next day for lunch!

I love the way the veggies get crisp along the edges and all of their sweetness comes pouring out with a little bit of coaxing.  

The second was a fruit crisp.  We got a ton of blueberries in our box (and had some leftover from when Matt’s mom and aunt were in town), so we grabbed some raspberries and peaches from the store.  Tossed with a little sugar, cornstarch, and a couple other things. The mix filled a huge baking dish.

These colors are amazing together.  I didn’t manage to get a picture of the finished crisp…we were too hungry…but it got topped with a streusel-type topping and baked away.  Gooey and warm and perfect for topping some vanilla ice cream.  My coworkers got the leftovers of this one.

A week of delicious reminders that sometimes it just takes a tiny bit of prep to create some wonderful flavors from produce. 

We get home tomorrow afternoon and then head out Thursday morning for a long drive down to Berkeley for a wedding.  Another week with very little cooking.  We’ll see what comes the following week and then I’m on the road for the last week of September and most of October/November as well.  Maybe Matt will have to guest post with all the fun things he is eating while I’m travelling for work. 🙂

The summer is flying by!

So I’d like to say that I have been off on some amazing adventures and that is why I’ve been absent from the blog for so long (almost a month!), but that is definitely not the case.

I have been busy with normal every-day things along with visitors, work events, hot weather and generally lots of stuff to distract me from new recipes and setting aside half an hour to write a blog post.

I do have a recipe almost ready to post from mid-July…since then there has been lots of comfort food, old recipes, hodge-podge dishes and eating out…LOTS of eating out.

A few food-related things to bring me back into blogland:

-        Julie & Julia

• Matt very wonderfully agreed to go see this with me.  I have been a huge fan of Julia Child since elementary school, when sick days meant I could lay in bed with my Grandma and watch Julia Child and Graham Kerr on PBS.  Not only do I love her story and her food, but her attitude cracks me up…every time I catch her on TV I can’t help laughing.  If you aren’t familiar with her background, the movie does a good job of the events leading up to her cooking fame.
• The Amy Adams portion of Julie & Julia was done really well.  It’s a great comparison of the cookbook/food television/celebrity chef pioneer in Julia Child and the food blogging/internet celebrity pioneer of Julie Powell.  The two stories butted up against each other nicely and Adams and Chris Messina portray a really uniquely intimate couple with an amazing and fun relationship to food and the role it plays in their lives (even before Julie sets out on the year-long blogging endeavor).
• Of particular importance…the FOOD!   There are plenty of times in movies and books when the food looks or sounds so amazing that I need to go out and find a recipe…there were several points in Julie & Julia that I felt this urge.  The most was with the bruschetta near the beginning of the movie, when Julie and her husband come to the conclusion that she should write a food blog.  The fried bread topped with the juicy pile of cherry tomatoes soaking in looked AMAZING. I may have to make some of this very soon.
• Beyond all this, Meryl Streep as Julia Child blew the movie out of the water.  She was insanely amazing.  If Julie Powell’s story was made into its own movie, I might go to see it…would definitely get it from Netflix after it was on DVD.  If the Julia Child portion of the movie stood on it’s own, I would be all over it.  Not only because Child’s story is so interesting, but because Meryl Streep did an unbelievable job of portraying such a unique and iconic figure in our culture.  She got the voice, the mannerisms, the humor, everything down pat.  Loved it.  I spent a lot of time laughing, and a few times crying along with Julia (in both happiness and sadness).
• Bottom line, the movie made me HUNGRY!  Good thing we had dinner plans afterward… 🙂

-   As a part of the Tastemaker program with Foodbuzz, I had the exciting pleasure of getting a box full of goodies from Emeril a few weeks ago!  With a chicken spice rub (yet-to-be-tried), a large box of organic chicken stock (HOORAY!), Emeril’s Original Essence Seasoning (fun!) and specialty kicked-up horseradish mustard (brown mustard that we used in recreating this dish and Veronica used on her sandwiches for lunch during the two weeks she was visiting), I had a very very Emeril-filled kitchen for a while.  The seasonings are still in my cupboard, since they’ll take a while to get through, but the stock got used up quickly in a few different dishes and the mustard was perfect in the Maple Pork and Apples.  Delicious!  Thanks Foodbuzz and Emeril (who I’m not a huge fan of, but who makes some pretty delicious products and recipes)!

-    I also have some coupons from Nakano Seasoned Rice Vinegars which I hope are still good…I haven’t redeemed them yet, but am excited to try some out with the recipe book they included! There are a bunch of flavors on their website. I’m not sure which I want to try!  The garlic and pesto sound yummy, but I am also a big balsamic fan, so I may have to go that route…we’ll see what our grocery store offers!

Goals:

1 – Post the blog that is sitting there waiting for me to add pictures and hit “Publish”

2 – Find some Nakano vinegar and create something yummy to share with you

3 – Get back on track with new food adventures and blogging regularly

Wish me luck!

(Matt’s mom & aunt are in town this weekend! Exciting! But, probably not a ton of blogging will be done…stay tuned!)

Vacation!

So I have been fairly delinquent with posting lately.  Aside from the recipe for the Lettuce wraps and eggrolls that I just posted (which I actually wrote last week, but for some reason never actually put up?), it has been busy and relaxed all at the same time, and it has left me with very little push to blog.  We just got back from a mini-vacation to Packwood (just south of Mt. Rainier National Park), and I thought I’d share some pictures!  We had a great time just relaxing with Santana, goofing off and enjoying the gorgeous weather and scenery.  You’ll notice that just like when we’re at home, laughing at Santana is one of our favorite things and we spend a good amount of time just taking pictures of her being hilarious. 

As we packed up, we managed to take more stuff than we would have needed for three weeks away.  It filled up our entire trunk!  Santana helped, of course and then got impatient in the car, waiting for us to join her….

It was a long long drive, and Santana was exhausted when we got there.  In fact, she slurped down an entire bowl of water in about 60 seconds….and then threw it all up on the floor.  Great start to the weekend!  Here are some pictures of Santana (and Matt!) checking out the giant king-size bed in our room.

  

We got ready to go swimming and I took advantage of this time to snap a picture of Matt’s short hair….I cut it  myself!  We decided $25 spent on a hair trimming kit for guys would quickly make us glad he wasn’t spending 10-15 dollars every time he wants his hair cut.

   

Dinner on our first night (well….and our second) was a complete splurge.  We were on vacation!  Just up the street in the tiny town of Packwood there was one pizza place.   Since we’ve been out here together, there are only 2 or 3 pizza places we’ve ever visited more than once.  We usually try a new place every time!  Nothing beats NY pizza, but we’ve found a couple that come close.  This one had OK crust and sauce, but the cheese was SO stringy and delicious!  We also go breadsticks, which was a great choice since they were AMAZING!  Despite our best vacation efforts, we didn’t finish all of this food in one sitting.

We agreed to NO TV for the trip, even though there was one in the room.  We also didn’t bring our laptops despite free Wi-Fi at the lodge.  This meant lots of reading, talking and cards!  Matt reminded me how to play Rummy 500 and Santana watched while we played!

   

For breakfast the next day I made red potato mini hash browns with onion and random seasonings.  Plus a red scallion and tomato scramble.  We split a banana and I had a Sobe Lifewater (I am addicted to these) and Matt made some black black black coffee.  Yum!! (Sunday I turned similar ingredients into a breakfast sloppy joe of sorts, with some ground beef we had planned to use for burgers and some cheese we had brought along.  It was…interesting.)

We planned a hike to Sand Lake for Saturday morning. It was supposed to be ridiculously hot and we thought it would be a nice swim at the end of the hike.  Little did we know, we picked the trail where all of the mosquitoes in Washington live.  I think I’ve found up to 40 bug bites on my arms and legs since coming home.  We made it about halfway through the hike (covered in bug spray) and then decided we’d rather just relax.  We got Santana some water at the trailhead and then headed back to the lodge, stopping at a scenic viewpoint on the way.  Since dogs are not allowed in Rainier National Park, we stayed just south of there.  But you can see the mountain peeking out all over the place.  Gorgeous!

 

We were all a bit squinty facing the sun, but I remembered my sunglasses!

We also got a couple with all three of us, but Santana couldn’t keep her eyes off the mountain!  

After our dusty, muddy, buggy hike, Santana got a mini-bath and wasn’t very happy about it.

 

She did, however, find my sunglasses on the bed at some point, and we decided they would be cute on her.  It’s clear that we had too much time on our hands!

 

The pup was beat, and so were we.  We crashed pretty early on Saturday night, slept in on Sunday and drove home with a couple mini stops along the way.  Sunday was a really lazy day of running a couple errands before the workweek started back up and we were in bed early early early. 

Hopefully I’ll be back to regular posting over the next couple weeks…and then we have some really fun summer visitors here for most of August, so I’ll probably be missing for a while again!  I hope everyone is having a great summer!  We miss vacation!!

Summer!!

I have been wildly delinquent in posting because we have been enjoying lots of sunshine and just generally staying pretty busy.  I have a few really yummy recipes to post.  Today, just a couple quickies.  For 4th of July lunch, we grilled up some bbq chicken on our stovetop grill pan and got some wonderful char marks!

We had this with thin-sliced grilled potatoes and grilled corn succotash.  The succotash was really simple and delicious with our chicken and potatoes.  I wasn’t a huge fan of the leftovers, but I made a ton of it, so I ate it a couple more times for lunch and snack.

Grilled Corn and Edamame Succotash

• 4 ears shucked corn
• 1 cup frozen edamame
• 2 cups green beans, washed and trimmed
• 1 cup chopped onion
• 1 clove minced garlic
• 1.5 Tb butter
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes
• 1.5 Tb lemon juice
• 1 Tb balsamic vinegar
• Salt & Vinegar

1. Grill corn for about 10 minutes, turning often to get lots of grill marks all the way around.
2. Boil 4 cups water and cook edamame and beans for about 3 minutes to par cook.
3. Drain and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking process.
4. Melt butter in a pan and sauté onion and garlic until lightly brown.
5. Add the corn and cook for a couple minutes.  Add bean/edamame mixture and cook for another couple minutes.
6. Remove from the pan to a large bowl and add tomatoes, lemon juice, balsamic, salt and pepper.  

Super easy and really fresh!

 

Matt and I don’t eat a lot of fresh fruit as snacks, so when our CSA box comes with new fruits that we’re not used to eating out of hand, I try to come up with somewhat healthy ways to use them and get as much fruit into our diet as possible. 

This past week I made another pie.  The last pie I made was a bit fancier, much prettier, and probably quite a bit healthier.  This pie, however, was amazingly wonderful and we finished it by Thursday night.  I didn’t get many pictures of the actual pie-making process, and the slice of pie that I have a picture of is a mushy mess, but this is what made it so delicious. 

Cherry Pluot Custard Pie Heaven

• 1 pie crust (Pillsbury for this one)
• 1 box Jell-O Pudding custard mix (I should have used two…it was a pretty thin layer of custard.  And the next time I make a pie like this, my plan is to actually make the custard.)
• ~1 cup fresh cherries, pitted and cut in quarters (I never liked fresh cherries when I was growing up, but now that I’m in Seattle, I’m finding that fresh cherries in Washington—which they offer up as samples while you walk around farmer’s markets—are a really wonderful summer snack)
• 4 pluots, peeled, pitted and chopped
• Cool whip galore

1. Prepare custard according to directions for thick pie filling.
2. Cook fruit over medium heat until it gets nice and juicy and wonderful.  I added a tiny bit of sugar to the mix.
3. Line pie plate with pie and blind bake until it is nice and brown.  You’ll notice in one of my pictures there is a big glob of white chocolate in one slice of pie…this is where I poked a hole in the baked crust.  I mended it with white chocolate chips melted into the space to prevent the custard filling from oozing out.  Matt did not object to a giant piece of white chocolate with his pie.
4. After the fruit has cooked down quite a bit, strain mostly solid parts from the liquid sweetness.  Save this! (I drizzled a bit over our first piece of pie, and the rest I shook up with some limeade for a sweet summer drink)
5. Mix the strained solids with the prepared custard (after it has rested like the package says).
6. Spread the custard mix evenly in the pie crust and top with cool whip.

Is there any question that this was delicious??? The tangy tart bite of the fruit mixed spectacularly with the thick rich custard, and a giant serving of whipped cream never made anything worse.  So satisfying!