Back in Business

Hooray, we've moved!  Still getting settled and will be for a while but let me tell you, it is SO NICE to be cooking again.  Starting out slow, but after weeks of quickie dinners and lots of takeout, it is good to eat decent food.  Not that going out to eat isn't "decent," but it is nice to be cooking again.

The new house has a very nice kitchen, and cooking in the summer is a lot sweeter when you're "slaving at a hot stove" in central air conditioning!!!   Our first home-cooked meal?  Steak on the grill, with potato packets and canned green beans.  Gotta start somewhere.  :)

In the mornings Hubby is doing the kids' dropoff so I actually have time for REAL breakfast.  So here's today's meal: 

dropped egg on toast with leftover potatoes, and Cabot vanilla bean greek yogurt with some blueberries.  Delish!  I'd never had this brand of greek yogurt before and it's great  Lots of vanilla flavor.  Having "breakfast for dinner" tonight and I'm going to make smoothies for the kids with this yogurt and some frozen tropical fruit.

It feels SO GOOD to be back in business!

Hawaiian Chicken

Back so soon, you say?  We haven't moved yet.  it's been quite a stressful week with the house, but we're feeling much better about everything than we did a week ago.  We've also agreed that we are super-sick of takeout and blah food.  So, despite most of our kitchen being packed up, we made Hawaiian Chicken, courtesy of Pinterest.

It was incredible!  Though I do need to start reading recipes better and not discover that something that I want to make in the next half hour or so needs at least two hours of marinating.

Hawaiian chicken breasts, jasmine rice with saffron and peas, roasted asparagus and grilled fresh pineapple. Mmmmm.....real food hasn't tasted this good in a while!

Two Pastas

Last week, neither of us wanted to cook.  But we've been eating out a lot lately and basically Brian forced himself to cook.  Was I so glad....skillet lasagna is incredible!  And it's one of those meals that gets better with the leftovers.  So, so very good!

Later on, we had linguine with shrimp and scallops, with blistered grape tomatoes.  Another fantastic pasta, featuring two of my favorite things!

This is probably the last post from the kitchen at this house, packing up has already commenced.  And there's talk of stopping at BJ's today to get a huge bag of paper plates to cut down on how few dishes we need to do in the next couple of weeks.  See you soon from our new kitchen!!

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.  :)

Paprika Chicken

A Brian original:  Paprika Chicken.

Simply chicken breasts with a variety of spices, including (of course) paprika.  We're enjoying paprika lately....especially smoked paprika.  The chicken was done in the oven using a cast iron skillet, and last minute he decided to put the almost-steamed brussels sprouts in there too.  Delicious.

Unusual Toppings

Brian and I went to the home inspection of our new house on Saturday.  Since we went alone, does that qualify as a date??  :)  On the way home we were starving and decided to stop for lunch.  I wanted to go to this roast beef place in what would be our new town, he wanted to go to this place called "2 Ovens" in our current town.  He made an excellent point for his choice, that we'll be living in the new town for a long time and can go to the roast beef place anytime.  He's also never led me astray in restaurant choices, so off we went.

Was I ever glad that I acquiesced...this place was fantastic!!  They have a simple concept:  everything they feature on their menu is cooked in one of their (you guessed it) two ovens.  No fryolaters or heat lamps here!  We shared a roasted sweet potato appetizer, which was delicious.  Brian had their pulled pork sandwich and I ordered the second-strangest pizza that I have ever had....topped with ricotta, fennel and butternut squash. Say what??  It was incredible!

This restaurant is now officially one of the reasons that I'm sad to leave town.  Luckily though, we're not going so far that we can't come back!

Keeping it Simple

Guess what?  We sold our house.  Well, I shouldn't jinx it like that.  We received an offer on our house, and we accepted.  It took eight weeks to get it ready to sell.  It took TWO DAYS on the market to get an offer!

We've found a new house, two towns away.  Let me tell you, it's got a GORGEOUS kitchen!  Very big, lots of cabinets, and newer appliances with a lot more bells and whistles than my current ones.  Not to say that mine are crap, but I'm very excited about an ice maker.  

So meals have tended to be on the simpler side lately, as we have mortgage paperwork to hunt down at night or packing.  Oh lord, the packing.  We packed up about half of our stuff before the house went on the market and put it in storage but still have some more to go.  I haven't started on the kitchen and that is going to take some serious time and boxes.

Anyway, dinner tonight is an old Campbell's favorite:  chicken divan.  It was delicious!  The notebook has been a saver lately, with old favorites.