Eating Dinner With My Family

I am making my Easter dinner tonight since my mom will be here but is leaving Easter morning to drive home. As I am looking in my fridge that is bursting at its seams, I discover I haven't used my kale from Front Porch Pickings ! I love kale, how did I miss it?! I was worried it might not be usable since I got it in my basket a week ago Friday and greens aren't known for their long shelf life. But they were perfect. My mom even said what beautiful kale. Just one more benefit to getting local produce. Since it had only recently left the ground, the produce lasts longer. But I digress! I decided to make it a simple meal of ham, colcannon and salad. I used a bit more kale than was called for in the recipe and liked it so much, I will in the future too. We had had a late lunch and my mom pointed out that the colcannon was a starch & a veg so we even skipped the salad. It was a simple but very tasty meal. I am totally in love with the kale & potato combination of flav...

Round 2 of being extra nice to the hubby, making him a dessert.  Not being a dessert lover, I don't make them often nor do I practice the craft of making them.  I see this one as kind of cheating as it is so not from scratch, but he loves peanut butter and chocolate.  I accepted the cheating in order to give him something he likes and make it easy on me.  It was pretty good.  I skipped having dessert but I tasted it.  It is very rich and I think the boys felt a little ill after they finished.  Another recipe I found on pinterest.  Not as good as the chicken;).  Oh and just FYI, I try to keep my blog PG or cleaner, but the link to the other blog is more pg-13. Perfect Couple Pie   chocolate graham cracker crust peanut butter cream cheese Cool Whip Hot Fudge Topping Sugar Recipe and instructions here

My husband has had a rough few days at work so I decided to make something I thought he would love.  I thought this recipe looked and sounded awesome (and according to the site over a million views so...) but I am always a little nervous of pintrest pins most likely since the first one I tried was a failure. (no you can not make a light stick out of mountain dew!)  I was nervous personally since I generally don't care for sweet & savory.  Heck sweets in general.  I have enjoyed deserts from time to time but 90% of the time I would rather have an appetizer over dessert. I did alter it a bit.  I cut out 1/3 of the ground ginger.  I thought it was too much but I think it would I've been ok if I used it all.  I also only had 3/4 cups of honey left, so I used it but still kept the 1/4 cup soy.  I also added a few more cloves of garlic since I was using the press to mince them and it doesn't get the whole clove in the dish.  The result?  W...

I worked as a server in college at a Bob Evans.  Even though I think they are just a mini step above fast food, I still do like their sausage gravy.  My son LOVES it.  I decided to try an make a sausage gravy for him today.  Now, while I am from just about as south as you can get in the US, southern Florida is most definitely not 'the south.'  I didn't look up a recipe, I just kind of did what I thought should go in to a gravy, so if I made any cardinal sausage gravy sins, I apologize.  The end result was very tasty. I loved the flavor the wine & herb chicken broth gave the gravy. I am making this for my mom when she gets here with the other half of the sausage. Sausage Gravy 1 tbsp oil 1/2 Lb sausage 1//2 Cup broth (I used Wine & herb chicken broth and I think its what made the gravy) 1.5 Tbl butter (unsalted) If needed 3 Tbl flour 1/2 Cup heavy cream 1 cups of milk. (more if necessary to get the right consistency) Sa...

I thought this soup was wonderful!  But the amazing thing, my son who hates cauliflower, who used up one of his two veto ingredients on cauliflower, loved it too.  He rated it a 4!  Lets just let that sink in; the boy who gags when he puts cauliflower in his mouth, loved cauliflower soup.  Wow!  It was easy and fast to make, with most of the time spent largely inactive cooking time.  While it uses chicken stock, it could easily be made vegetarian with veggie broth.  With the chicken broth, does it count as meatless for meatless Monday?  I did have a bit of a problem with the Parmesan crisp.  It didn't break off the sheet of aluminium in large peices, it crumbled off.  Next time I won't spread it so thinly.     Silky Cauliflower Soup With Parmesan Crisps 1 head cauliflower 2 Tbl extra-virgin olive oil 1 small onion chopped 2 Clove garlic minced 1 Qt low-sodium chicken stock 1/2 Cup finely grated Parmesan Salt and...

Tonight I revisit the dish I thought was so close to perfection but fell slightly short Teriyaki Salmon with Sriracha Cream .  I think I must have had a bee in my bonnet that night and was harsher than I needed to be in my summation of the dish as is, but I really do like the changes I made.  I do think the fresh ginger makes a difference.  (at least to me, perhaps not to everyone)  Most importantly is to watch the cooking time.  The original recipe, I believe called for Atlantic Salmon, but I always buy wild salmon and all the Atlantic Salmon in my supermarket is farmed.  When I made it tonight, I used Coho and the fillets were pretty thick.  I updated the original post with the change I made in cooking time.  (bake at for 10 and broil for 2-3) To have a new recipe for tonight, I made Asian Ginger Carrot dressing.  While everyone liked it, I think the onion I used was way to strong for the dressing.  A mild, sweet onion, just might ma...

This recipe is out of Top Chef: The Cookbook .  I have made it before, long, long ago and really loved it.  It was still tasty this time too.  My biggest problem that happened, then and now, was the pasta just didn't get done enough.  Before, I used angle hair pasta as I couldn't find fideos, but this time, I spotted some in the store and thought I would try it again with the proper pasta and it will get done enough.  Wrong.  It was edible, and yummy at that, but seemed ill prepared.  I don't think this is how it came out when made by the chef.  And while I expect that they will make a dish much better than I could, I am perplexed as to how to work around this issue I keep having with out adding a lot more liquid and increasing the cooking time.  So while I wholeheartedly recommend you make this dish, I just want to give you a heads up on what to expect.  If you find the solution, please clue me in:)! Fideos with Clams & Saffron ...

Since I cooked something special for the boy last night, I asked my daughter what she would like for dinner tonight.  She said hamburgers.  Actually she calls them hang-ger- bergs which we think is really cute and the only "baby talk: we don't try super hard to correct.  Of course she ended not eating any hamburger even though we kept one plain for her.  It was alright.  We have had so many good burgers that we are kind of tough on them.  The boy ate two, so I know he loved them. (he said a 4 out of 5)  Both my husband and I were more like 3.5. Stilton Sirloin Burgers With Onion Jam   2 Tbl extra-virgin olive oil 1/2 large red onion thinly sliced Kosher salt 1 Cup dry red wine 2 Tbl red wine vinegar 2 Tsp honey 1 thyme sprig Freshly ground pepper 2 Lb ground sirloin 4 ounces Stilton cheese cut into 8 slices 8 mini brioche or kaiser rolls split 8 Boston lettuce leaves for serving 1. In a skillet, heat the oil. Add the onion and a p...

In a hole in the ground there lived a boy.  Some of it was nasty and dirty as it was inhabited by a tween and had an oozy smell, but it wasn't a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: (as there was a mom) it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.  If you can't tell we are huge fans of Tolkien and are also a bit nerdy. (and proud of it I may add:)  We noticed a while back that The Hobbit was coming out on DVD today and decided on planning an 'unexpected dinner' to celebrate.  So we have kept as quiet as possible that The Hobbit was coming out today, as we wanted to surprise the boy with dinner and a movie.  There was that moment when I was furiously fast forwarding through the commericals when he spied a commerical for it, but I blew it off, and he seemed to buy it.  I looked at a lot of sites for recipes and ideas.  I loved the old recipes I found (some from the 1600's) to make for this dinner.  I h...

It's meatless Monday again, and my plan was for veggie fried rice.  Then, I realize I haven't used the beautiful carrots I got from Front Porch Pickings this past week.  I hated to relegate them to virtual obscurity as a small part of the fried rice, so I pull up the to try file again.  There I see these Miso Glazed Carrots.  I have red miso in the fridge, so it seemed like fate;).  (I had 1.5 lbs of carrots so I halved the recipe)  I still made a fried rice with some shredded carrots I had from a while back, a half of red onion, some leftover spinach from a lunch salad, ginger and garlic, but I also made this recipe.  The mistake I made was I cut them wrong.  I did carrot coins on the diagonal not cutting them length wise in to long strips as I later was on the original recipe's picture and that may have caused my only complaint: they were overcooked to my liking.  Next time I make this, I would reduce the roas...

Well it is St. Patrick's day and to make it a bit of a celebration, I opted for an Irish dish.  I wanted to try making colcannon but I figured this would be better received by the family.  While I have never made colcannon, I did love these Blarney Cakes, so colcannon sounded delightful.  Most of my crew still is a bit leery of greens, so instead this Martha Stewart recipe.   I halved the recipe and I threw the large bones in while the stew was cooking, but those are the only changes I made.  The boys loved it!  I thought it tasted pretty good but it was a bit greasy for me Irish Stew   3 Lb small Yukon gold potatoes peeled 2 medium onions (about 1 pound), halved lengthwise and c 2 1/2 Lb lamb shoulder cut into 1-inch cubes 2 1/2 Tsp coarse salt Freshly ground pepper 2 Tsp coarsely chopped fresh thyme 3 Cup homemade lamb stock or low-sodium store-bought chicken stock 2 Tbl finely chopped fresh curly- or flat leaf parsley 1...

I decided to make a dessert for a change.  Crazy schedules and lots of leftovers made for a lazy mom in the kitchen.  My daughter adores strawberries and I almost never make something just for her.  So, I decided to make yet another of the thousands of pins I have.  Was this good?  Yes.  (It didn't look too pretty that's for sure.  You can tell by the picture)  Was it something I will make again?  Most likely no.  I think it was alright but not worth the calories.  I also wasn't a big fan of the whole strawberries.  It made the pie too chunky.  I will check out other strawberry pie recipes, but this one will quietly be forgotten in our house.  It came from another blogger so I am listing the ingredients and giving you a link to the recipe. Update: My husband has now tried the pie and declared it delicious, so I guess I'm keeping the recipe:) Strawberry Pie Pie Crust Strawberries Sugar Cornstarch Water Cream...

I am being lazy tonight. (cooking and post)  I let my husband make the potato latkes and cook the bacon in the oven while I made scrambled eggs.  I was going to skip the post tonight, but my husband thinks my scrambled eggs are really good and different so I will give a brief post just in case you are interested in it.  I first heard that we cook scrambled eggs on too high a temperature on, of all places, a Nero Wolf episode.  He had this long lecture on the heinous treatment of scrambled eggs at the hands of American housewives, however, at least he did grant that most of us don't have a half an hour to cook them in the mornings.  Later, while perusing Mark Bittmans wonderful book How to Cook Everything , he gives a recipe for cooking slow and low the eggs while constantly breaking up the curds as the form to produce a superior scrambled egg.  When first making these eggs, I thought I would try out the recommendation I saw for whisking the eggs with...

These burgers were to be made on Sunday, but I didn't leave enough time for the pickled onions.  As 8 buns come in a bag and I had all the ingredients, we are having burgers twice this week.  (oh darn;)  I was concerned that these were going to be a failure as I tasted the mayo and the miso sauce.  (oh I only found red miso at the local health food store and I wasn't driving all the way down to the Asian grocery to get the white miso called for in the recipe)  Individually they weren't great, but all together on the burger it worked.  Was it our favorite Asian flavored burger?  No that distinction goes to the Asian Style Pork Burgers .  However, they were pretty good. Two things to keep in mind, the wasabi mayo tastes better the longer it sits, so I would make it when you make the onions.  The other thing to keep in mind, the onions need to be made way ahead of time, the day before preferably so plan wisely...

This week for meatless Monday, I used some of my Swiss chard from my Front Porch Pickings basket.  I really loved this recipe.  My husband, who hates chunks of tomato and olives, wasn't as impressed as I was.  I did slightly change how I made it.  First of all, I had huge onions, so I only used one.  It was most likely just shy of two onions.  I also only had one bunch of chard.  Next time, I will make sure I have two.  I missed having more.  I was doubly impressed that I not only liked it, but it was reasonably low calorie. I think the nutritional information at the end of the recipe said 1/4 of it was just under 400 calories.  It was pretty quick to throw together too.    Whole-Wheat Spaghetti With Swiss Chard And Pecorino Cheese 1 Tbl olive oil 2 onions thinly sliced 2 Bunch Swiss chard trimmed and chopped (about 14 cups) 3 garlic cloves minced 1 (14 1/2-ounce) can diced tomatoes with juices 1/4 Cup dry white win...

These weren't the original plan for the burgers for tonight.  I wanted to make the burgers with the wasabi mayo and ginger pickled onions, but I didn't read the recipe, just the ingredients and the onions needed to pickle at least 3 hours.  OOPS! So I pull out another burger recipe from the to try file and made it instead.  Since I had all the ingredients for the wasabi burger, we will have to have burgers again this week. (Darn;)  Buns come in 8 packs anyways; it's like just good economics to eat them twice in one week.  (just not good health:)  This was just an ok burger.  No one complained, but I found it not that memorable.  So many better better burgers out there.  I will say, the dressing was pretty tasty.  I don't know what else it would taste good on, but for a family that isn't a fan of 1000 island type dressings or tarragon, we were impressed we liked it as much as we did. Cheddar Blt Burgers With Tarragon Russian Dressing ...

I really enjoyed tonight's dinner.  Was it an OMG?  Not particularly, but it was really great.  Why I loved it, was it was as fast and easy as making pasta and jarred sauce, and probably cost the same (or less if you like the higher end jarred sauce)  The family ate the 1/2 box of pasta with a salad and it was plenty.  It doesn't beat my all time favorite spaghetti recipe , but it was a million times easier!  The only advice I have for you is that was a lot of water you add, you might need to cook it a bit longer than the recipe calls for to prevent watery sauce. (I hate watery sauce!)  This recipe proves, that you don't need to spend a lot of time to make a meal from scratch.  Ok mostly from scratch.  I didn't make the pasta and jarred tomatoes have their own issues, but I haven't found any in glass yet so the occasional canned tomato will have to be used. Sauce-Simmered Spaghetti Al Pomodoro   1/4 Cup extra-virgin olive oil plus m...

Update to the original post that follows: I made this with fresh ginger, a slightly thicker piece of salmon than last time, baked it in a rimmed baking sheet for 10 minutes at 400 and then spooned some of the marinade it was cooking in over the top and broiled it for about 2 minutes and it came out perfect.  It was one of the most amazing meals.  We had company and everyone loved their dish.  5 stars all the way!  I also made extra of the sauce, which I adore, and found out the next day it makes a tasty salad dressing if you can handle the heat Tonight, I decided to dive into my thousands of pins on Pinterest and take the first step in my very long journey to get through them. I began this journey with some excitement but with a lot of trepidation.  My concern sprang not only from the infamy of Pinterest fails but as I read through the recipe I saw 2 things that boded disaster. The first of which was the amount of sweet things in the recipe. I was afraid th...

The boy and I liked this better than my husband.  It was tasty, but not stellar.  Actually I think we probably liked it the same but my son and I tend to err on the side positive when it comes to judgements.  The dressing was nice, and the meat was perfectly done.  It was super fast to cook and easy too.  For that, I can forgive its lack of perfection.  We didn't eat anything with it; we just dressed some extra lettuce with the dressing and called it a 'salad". Grilled Steak Kebab Pitas With Ginger & Garlic Dressing   1/2 Cup extra-virgin olive oil more for brushing 1 Tbs. finely grated ginger 1 Tbs. green Tabasco or other jalapeño hot sauce 2 Tsp cider vinegar 1 small to medium clove garlic finely grated or minced Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper 1-1/2 to 1-3/4 lb. 1-inch-thick -boneless beef strip steaks, trimmed and cut into 1-inch cubes 6 to 8 bamboo skewers (at least 8 inches long), soaked in water for at least 20 minute...

Well this one was kind of split.  The kids loved it and rated it highly.  My husband, who doesn't like white meat, said it was ok, and I agreed.  The meat was moist, and it looked pretty, but it didn't wow me.  We were worried that the fillings would ooze out and end up on the bottom of the grill rather than our plate, but the miracle of fresh mozzarella prevailed and it was melty but not runny so stayed put.  I did give myself some insurance in the form of soaked toothpicks that I used to hold the breasts together, and the breasts were pounded thin to help make sure they cooked through.  So, in the end, not deleted but not a repeater either.  (in retrospect, I should have taken a picture of it sliced, much prettier but you know what they say about hindsight:)    Grilled Prosciutto-Wrapped Chicken Stuffed With Fresh Mozzarella & Basil 4 medium boneless skinless chicken breast halves Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper 12...

This was going to be a rough night.  It started with me forgetting to mix in the herbs and the souffle was already in the pan.  (expletive!!)  Ok... I will just mix in the herbs gently in to the souffle base in the pan.  Ok it seems like it is going to work.  In to the oven it goes.  30 minutes in to the cooking time, it still looks pretty raw, so I go check the recipe again.  (expletive!)  It says cook at 375 not the 325 I had the oven on.  Ok... crank the oven up to 375 and add ten minutes on the timer.  Ok after 5 minutes, I smell the souffle and I check, it looks done, so I take it out.  Oh, and I noticed it was 2 tsp of tarragon not the tbs I put in.  I don't love tarragon, but in small doses I like it well enough.  I don't care how it turns out at this point, I hate the dish;).  Well, in the end, it was a tad underdone in the center, but still pretty tasty.  My husband loved it and the boy was for...

My husband wants to know what's up with this putting salad on pizza.  We have only done a few, and most of the time they are topped with arugula.  I don't really consider arugula a "salad".   I love arugula and it make my salad but it is more like spinach to me.  This pizza was very good!  I was afraid there wasn't enough of the garlic paste (and truth be told I would have liked a bit more) but it was really great.  The dough rolled that thin made it almost like a cracker, the garlic paste was heaven and I plan on figuring out other ways to use it so we can have it often, and every bite made me happy.  Even the boy loved it. (he ate 6 pieces!!) Roasted-Garlic Pizza With Bacon And Arugula   1 head of garlic separated into unpeeled cloves 3 Tbl extra-virgin olive oil 4 anchovy fillets 1 Tbl oregano leaves 1/4 Tsp crushed red pepper 3 ounces thickly sliced bacon cut into 1/4-inch dice All-purpose flour for dusting 1 Lb fresh or...

My husband does not like meatloaf.  The only meatloaf he has ever like is the Good Eats Meatloaf I made him try and now it is one of his favorites.  Not only does this recipe for meatloaf taste good because of the flavors in it, but it isn't cooked in the loaf pan so it roasts rather than boils, and it has three sides of glaze!  Any meatloaf recipe I try, I would cook like that, so I was happy to see that this recipe called for the loaf to cook the same way.  I got this recipe from one of my many recipe of the day emails I get; this particular one was from Chow.com.  I thought it looked pretty good and since it used some sausage, I thought my husband might like it.  Well, the issues began as I was shaping the meatloaf, or as my husband suggested 'meat clump'.  It wasn't too bad before cooking, but as it cooked, it morphed in to something very clump like.  In the end, it was alright.  I am not deleting the recipe, but I don't see it getting m...