Eating Dinner With My Family

I forgot to put the basil in the filling, so we put it on top. Meh!  I didn't read the reviews of this dish because it was from Giada De Laurentiis  and her recipes almost never disappoint, this one wasn't so great for me.  I did add some garlic to the Béchamel and I think the sauce was ok, but there was a ton of it for the amount of pasta and the cannelloni was just alright.  I didn't pop for the really expensive crab that I would have had to shell myself because we are covering it with at ton of sauce and that would have been a waste, but I didn't by the cheapest crab either.  It was an expensive plate of blah.  I wouldn't mind playing around with the dish,  so I deem it fixable.  I think loosing the seafood and replacing with veggies would make me like it more.  So we will see if I ever get around to playing with the fixable recipes;). I did forget to put the basil inside the filling, so we put it on top.  The basil was needed!...

I got the most beautiful tagine as a gift from my MIL.  I have been wanting one for a long time.  Now I am not timid in the kitchen, but I was a little nervous about using the clay vessel with the glass top stove, so after a bit of poking around on the Internet, I ordered a heat diffuser and a cookbook about cooking in these clay vessels.   The heat diffuser was recommended by the makers of my tagine but didn't say required, but I figured for 12 dollars it was worth the insurance.  I should have checked to see if my tagine fit inside my cast iron skillet, but too late:).  This is my first recipe out of the cookbook I ordered Tagines & Couscous .  If this recipe is the only one we like, the book was worth it.  We had some wonderful friends over, who didn't mind being guinea pigs to our first attempt with the tagine as well as the recipe;).  The only ingredient that I couldn't find at my local publix was the ghee.  The cookbook ...

I have been wanting a juicer; at the very least I wanted to make healthier juices for the kids, but I was also hoping to add a good bit of fruit and veggies to my diet. I know people become absolute fanatics about juicing, but I can't see that happening to us:). So this is my first "juice" I made. It was touted as good for beginning juicers. It was a bit odd and a bit to strong in the celery (I left out 1 stalk too!), but on the whole, not too bad.  The funniest thing was a little bit after drinking it, I looked over at my husband and said, I feel weird.  He said he did too.  The best description we could come up with was we felt like we were slipped some kind of drug. (Or slammed one too many red bulls:)  I asked him if this was what healthy felt like, and we both got a good laugh out of it.  I will update you as our experience progresses. Mean Green 2 granny smith apples 3 stalks of celery 1 cucumber 1 thumb of ginger 6 leaves of ...

My son got to choose dinner tonight and he picked another recipe from the lovely and talented Nillawan.com .  It was another awesome dish, and surprisingly easy to make considering just how much flavor it delivered.  I think I cooked the tomatoes a bit longer than she did, but my husband has issues with chunks of tomato.  I didn't think this would be his kind of dish as feta and tomatoes aren't his favorites, but he wasn't going to be home for dinner. He got home and tried it reheated and declared it delicious!  (despite the fact of his less than favorite ingredients and it being reheated!!!)  As with all the recipes I try from my fellow bloggers, I give you a link to their site. Salmon Feta Pasta Roma tomatoes garlic basil Smoked salmon pine nuts feta Recipe and instructions here

I am going to have a hard time accurately judging this recipe.  The biggest impediment to impartiality is the fact that while the stew was cooking, one child was asleep and the other playing quietly, so I poured my self a glass of wine, read my book and reacquainted myself with the pleasure a piece of baguette and real butter can bring, so I wasn't exactly starving when the meal was finished. The other thing that may skew my perception, was that I tailored this to fit some ingredients I had on hand.  Those being acorn squash over the easier to peel butternut and the tiny, albeit delicious, but infinitely harder to chop yum yum peppers I had in my Front Porch Pickings basket.  My only valid complaint was that there wasn't much in the way of liquid and I thought the stew a bit too dry for me to think of it as a stew.  I also substituted flounder for the halibut as there wasn't any at my local publix.  Even with all that against it, I still tho...

My son requested steak tonight, so I obliged him. To make it a "new" recipe, I looked for a compound butter to top it with. I found this blue cheese butter from Bobby Flay. It was nice. I loved that it gave you the flavor of blue cheese but it wasn't overwhelmingly blue. Since the recipe this week is so quick, I thought I would share my steak cooking technique. I achieve consistent results and as my husband once said, his manhood felt a little threatened that I was better at steak cooking than him. (lol)  It is surprisingly simple to do.  It isn't anything secret, it is just a collection of things I have read concerning steak cookery.  We like our steak medium rare, and that takes 4 minutes a side for this size steak.  I would lose a minute a side for rare and add a minute for medium.  Ideally, a thicker steak would get more caramelizing on the out side, but I haven't found any already cut that thick at Publix, but that would require me to trial and error find o...

Well tonight's dish was no wow. However, I feel honor bound to round up 1/2 a star on pure healthiness.  So it gets 3 stars.  I used a wild salmon and I think that I should have broiled it, but I hate to diverge from a recipe the first time I make it.  I picked this dish for it's lightness as we are all heavier and bloated from all the food we ate on vacation.  The flavors were ok, but like I said, not a wow.  The thing we liked the best was the Lemon Chia Seed dressing for our salad!  It was really amazing, and it went well with the fish.  In fact, I think a plain piece of broiled Salmon with this dressing would be better than the following recipe.  Of course the dressing has oil in it where the fish recipe doesn't.  If you are looking for a decent low cal recipe, than this will fit the bill, but if you are looking for really tasty food, go with a different salmon recipe, eat less of it, and fill up on salad. Salmon With Sriracha Sauce...