Livin it Up

The boys went to visit their grandparents in PA for a week before the four of us headed to Virginia for vacation.  Sadly, both parents had to work that week.  But night can be fun, especially when there's no kiddie restrictions to dinner!

We stopped at the grocery store on our way back and picked up some live lobsters and fresh corn on the cob.   So delicious, and yes, I'm convinced now that steaming is better than boiling.  The plate doesn't get all waterlogged while cracking for lobster meat.  So, so good.

On Monday,  we fixed Brian's "I've never had a margarita" problem by heading to Mezcal in Worcester.  Upon hearing that held never had a margarita, the bartender asked to make us something special off-menu.  We were not disappointed!!!  Add some tuna tostada, chicken mole and steak chimichanga, and of course, their famous homemade guacamole and it was a great night.  No "ew, what's that" or tears.  Just full bellies and happiness. 

Tuesday was some of the biggest stuffed chicken breasts that I've ever seen.  Filled with spinach and feta cheese, they were dinner for TWO nights.  Thursday brought us to pork lettuce wraps with veggies, ginger, garlic,  housing, spicy peanut sauce, along with almonds for crunch.  Oh, and the second trip for ice cream that week.  Followed by a ton of packing for the trip.

On Friday, we began the drive down. But as a last hurrah, we went back to a special place:  Paul's Pasta in Groton, CT.  We hadn't been on about six years, and some of our early dates were there 18 years ago.  Still delicious, relatively inexpensive and so tasty.

So, our week of Food Comas was complete, including a few trips for ice cream.  It was worth it.  

Meatless Mondays

We're trying to embrace Meatless Mondays in our house again....one night a week we eat a vegetarian dinner.

The past two weeks have been quite good:

 First, a pasta with butternut squash, feta cheese and pecans.  Awesome, and I ate the leftovers for days!

The the other night was Wild Mushroom Farfalle, out of the October issue of Cooking Light.  I liked this too, with the spoonful of ricotta cheese on top that you stir into your plate.  The only thing I missed was something with a little crunch.  Like maybe toasted walnuts.  Just to give it a little texture.  (When I read that I feel like a Food Network judge on a cooking show, by the way.)

Also, I'd like to add that while we (meaning we the parents) are trying to adopt a meatless meal once a week, the kids have no problem doing it more often.  Meaning:  neither kid would touch this.  Still doesn't stop us from trying, though.

From (My) Plant to (My) Table

Ta-Da!  Pesto, made from MY home-grown basil!

It wasn't bad for my second try.  I'll tell you....using a food processor makes all the difference.  Anyone who tells you that you can make it in a blender is crazy.  This is actually the first time I ever used the food processor myself.  And man, did it show....I couldn't get it running and Brian had to show me that I had it assembled backwards!

This called for half a cup of pine nuts, three cups of packed basil, a couple cloves of garlic, half a cup of grated fresh parmesan cheese and half a cop of olive oil, along with salt and pepper to taste.  Three cups of packed basil is a lot more than I thought, it wiped out more than half of my deck box:

The recipe also said "The more the merrier" when it came to garlic, so I used four cloves.  Two of them were huge though, so I'd say that it was closer to six.  So I'd politely disagree, that's a lot of garlic.  Didn't stop us from eating it though, we're no strangers to garlic and love the taste.  It's a good thing that we both had it, though.  :)  It might be different if you roasted the garlic the night before you assemble the pesto, but I'm not sure what that would do to the oil and other ingredient ratio or if it would work.



Now I'm off to find out if you can freeze pesto....because if you can I know what I'm putting in the freezer for this fall and winter.

Weird Cooking Methods

Last week we made a shrimp and pasta recipe that was.....not good shall we say.  It was out of a healthy eating cookbook and featured lemon, red pepper, cream cheese and whole wheat pasta.  First of all, it took forever to make.  That is likely because you are supposed to put the shrimp and cream cheese into the sauce OFF the heat, stir a bit, then cover for seven minutes and let the shrimp "cook."  I took the lid off the pan and found mostly-raw shrimp and cream cheese melted into this unattractive "hunks."  Brian put the whole thing back on the stove and got it made, but the lemon juice (from two large lemons, way too much!) with the red pepper was just overpowering.  We put the leftovers in the fridge, and threw them out a week later.

I guess that not every meal can be a star.  This one certainly wasn't!

First Meals of 2015

The holidays have passed, and now we're happy to get back to a routine.  And also, cook some healthier, less rich food.  Not that we don't love the rich stuff, because we do.

Brian got a new 30-minute meal cookbook for Christmas put out by America's Test Kitchen.  So far we've had three recipes from it and have plans for more.  Like most things ATK puts out, everything has been good so far.

First dinner:  Salmon with lime and spice, with rice and broccoli.  Nothing too fancy...

Saturday night: white chicken chili.  This was definitely more than 30 minutes, more like 45.  It probably has more to do with the fact that dried hominy was used instead of the canned hominy that the recipe listed...but oh well. Hominy was a new ingredient to us, and took a little getting used to.   Leftovers yesterday weren't quite as chewy, and the flavor was really good.  It's weird eating chili with no tomatoes or beans, I definitely prefer the other way better.

I roasted a chicken on Sunday, and we had baked potatoes and roast carrots and parsnips.  The whole dinner in the oven, yeah!  Roast parsnips are so delicious and sweet.

last night:  meatless Monday!  Tortellini with asparagus and peas, in a tarragon cream sauce.  Yeah, I said healthier and less rich.  Total lie tonight, but no meat, so it's a trade?

Tonight's dinner is scallop risotto with tomatoes.  I'm dying to see if the "thirty minute recipe" is the real deal or full of lies.  We shall see.

Mixed Reviews

Two meals from last week:  cheesy ravioli bake and meatloaf "cakes."  I thought that they were pretty kid-friendly.  I was apparently wrong.

The first one, cheesy ravioli bake, seemed like a slam-dunk.  Both kids adore cheese ravioli, especially Will.  I figured this was cheese ravioli with a little bit of veggies and some cheese on top, for the win.  Brian and I loved it!  The kids?  Notsomuch.  Will picked at the ravioli and Sean cried that it looked "terrible."  Later on Sean told me that he likes ravioli, but next time don't make it with the "leaves" and tomatoes if I want him to eat it.  Leaves are baby spinach, by the way.

Then on Tuesday or Thursday (all my nights run together after a while) Brian made a "meatloaf cake" recipe that I had found on Pinterest.  Now, I am not a big meatloaf person.  I have never had a meatloaf at home that I've really liked.  A bread pan with a "loaf of meat" with a big fat slick on top just isn't delicious.  Not so with these.  They were perfectly cooked and didn't resemble martian food, very flavorful.  And the slick of fat?  Nowhere to be seen.  We served it with egg noodles and canned green beans.  (aka STILL the only vegetable these two will eat without a fight)  The meatloaf was a big old No Go.  I threw in the towel and acquiesced to their request for peanut butter and jelly.

All this meant that there was more leftovers for us.  Later on in the week Brian made loaded mashed potatoes to go with the meatloaf cakes when we ran out of noodles.  We had a lot of potatoes in the house, and these were awesome.  Obviously, we will continue to soldier on, to get these boys to eat new things.

If you're interested in the meatloaf "cakes" recipe:  here it is.  We omitted the sriracha to make it more "kid friendly."  Hahahahahahaha!  :)

Homemade Meatballs 'n Sauce

In an effort to be more health conscious, we've been eating more fruits and vegetables, drinking more water and reading labels at our house.

One of the biggest eye openers?  How much sugar is in everything!  Places you wouldn't expect it, either.  Ketchup, salad dressing.  And the biggest surprise:  jarred spaghetti sauce!

So Brian decided to give making some a whirl.  Not even from canned tomatoes, but fresh.  I always thought that tomato sauce, though worth the effort, took a ridiculous amount of time.  Not so.

We made it on a Thursday night, from "The Joy of Cooking."  And it was wonderful!  Served with homemade meatballs that had been in our freezer, and substituting a bit of the spaghetti with spaghetti sauce.  The sauce was a bit thin, which is another big surprise.  Why is jarred sauce so thick!  The thinner sauce was much more flavorful, and savory over sweet.  Delicious!

I'm not saying that we'll make homemade all the time.  Because I know that with two working parents, some prepared foods are necessary at times.  But this was well worth the effort, and the expense.  So much in fact, that we're doing it again on Tuesday.  :)

Butternut Squash Pasta

This was a meal that we had in February that I've been meaning to post about.  It was on the cover of "Good Housekeeping" and sounded intriguing.

Butternut Squash and Cavatappi with Bacon.

It just sounded good!  Typically I'm the only one in the house that likes butternut squash, and by "like" I mean love.  But Brian agreed to try it and it was incredible.  The squash gets made into kind of a sauce, and the bacon really goes well with it.  It looked slightly dry, so we decided to add a heaping spoonful of ricotta in it and that made it a little richer.  But not overbearingly rich...like Goldilocks and the Three Bears and "Just right!"

It made for great leftovers, and in looking at it, I kept forgetting it wasn't mac n cheese!  My brain was tricked continuously.  This one is a keeper.

A Cheesy Day

Today's recipes are courtesy of my trolling around on Pinterest.  Cheesy Potato Soup and Spinach, Chicken and Pasta Casserole.

First up:  the soup.  The first instruction is to cook a pound of diced bacon.  OH YEAH!!!  The chopping was almost theraputic today, onions, celery and garlic and then, potato all having a turn on the cutting board.  Brian got a new peeler set for Christmas, and I didn't realize until today just how DULL our old one is!    It took forever to cook the potatoes because I didn't cut them up small enough, making our lunch a very quick one at that because we had movie plans.  It was delicious though, and there's enough for leftovers AND the freezer.  Hooray!

The casserole was good, but a bit of a pain to make.  The only reason it was a pain was our lack of planning, though.  Brian browned red onion in the oven while I defrosted chicken and frozen spinach.  And I'm making a decision:  no more frozen spinach in casseroles.  Or maybe at all:  why would you put yourself through squeezing all the moisture out of it with paper towels if you don't have to?  Peeling chopped spinach out of a paper towel is tedious, next time I'll just wilt some fresh spinach in a skillet and add it later.  The cheesy part of this casserole that I liked best was adding 8 oz of chive and onion cream cheese to the pasta, chicken and spinach.  It melted beautifully and combined with a can of diced Italian-style tomatoes to make a thick "sauce."  And the mozzarella cheese melted on the top was pretty fantastic, too.

He Likes It, He Really Likes It!

A few weeks ago, Will spent April Vacation at his afterschool place.  They serve a hot lunch to the kids every day, but you can still bring lunch if you don't like what they're having.

Will is a picky eater.  I'm sure that if you've read this blog, you are not surprised.  Unless it's a dessert, it's difficult to get this kid to try new things.  So whenever he's going to spend a full day at this place, we review the menu together and see if he's going to eat that day's entree or take a soy-nut butter and jelly sandwich.  (Ewww...I know.  But no peanut butter allowed.  I got him to eat this simply by not telling him that it wasn't peanut butter.  By the time he realized he had been eating it for almost a whole summer and just let it go)

One day's meal was American Chop Suey.  He insisted on a sandwich, and the in-house lunch packer (aka Daddy) made his lunch.  That night when he came home, he said "Mom, the lunch today was American Chop Suey.  I tried some.  And I liked it!"  He then asked if we could have it for dinner some night.  So we did, a week later....and he ate a whole plate!

Later on that same weekend, we were in Ikea, looking at furniture.  On the way out, we stopped for a snack.  I got a frozen yogurt cone.  It was vanilla, which....eh.  Now, Will usually despises ice cream because it's "too cold."  He shocked me by asking if he could try my cone.  And then proceeded to devour most of it!

I'm thrilled, because I love chop suey and that's one more thing we can cook that everyone will eat.  That makes me the happiest of all.  :)

Chicken n' Shrooms

Meal #2 this week featuring pasta ( no red sauce or meatballs all week!). Chicken with mushrooms and garlic wine sauce.  Brian's been using a lot of mushrooms in his cooking lately, and I love it.  Served atop egg noodles....with more of that yummy shaved parmesan.  And this is a Cooking Light recipe??  i find that hard to believe, but it's true.

Day Fourteen: Spaghetti Night

I have yet to meet someone that doesn't like spaghetti and meatballs.  Now that I've put that out there, I'm sure that someone will step up, but seriously, I don't know anyone.  This house eats it once a week, it's the go-to meal when we're looking to eat a meal together without argument or don't know what to have.   I've followed my mom's example of serving it on Christmas Eve to cut down on the chaos.  And we all usually have seconds, 'cause everyone loves it!

I used to make my own meatballs, but there's no time really for that anymore.  BJ's has a good selection of frozen ones, which is what we usually eat.  And someday I'd like to make my own sauce from scratch.  Jar sauces are fine though, that's just the overachiever in me.  :)  I grew up in a Prego family, Hubby is from a Ragu family.