Adventures in Cooking - Volume One

Earlier this year we bought a TV and Direct TV DVR for the kitchen. Little did I know that would take Mike's cooking adventures to a whole new level.  

Ever since he started staying home with the boys he started taking on more of the cooking.  He was definitely inspired by my Dad who has been cooking great things for years. This past Christmas when Dad and Evelyn came to visit, Mike even asked my dad to supervise his first turkey on the grill.  They had fun and the turkey was great (almost as good as mine) Ha!

After the TV purchase Mike started recording several shows on the Food Network and we have been eating wonderfully,  At times we have to get creative with recipe modification. We started Weight Watchers in the middle of April, and I have managed to still lose about 2 pounds a week while eating all this yummy food.  I am really learning portion control. 

Sometimes I send him recipes I find like this one from Zesty Cook for Garlic Basil Cheeseburgers

Or maybe an idea from Cooking Light Magazine for pizza on the grill.  This one was for the kiddos, I guess I forgot to take one of the salmon pizza we had that night.

But the cheese pizza was a hit for Nicholas, who loves to be served milk and food at the BBQ bar.

Then there was Mother's Day when I requested fajitas.

And I made this Mojito Melon and Mango Salad to go with the fajitas.  I was trying to replicate something similar I had eaten at Chelsea's Kitchen in Phoenix )while seated a table away from Danica Patrick, who is quite tiny by the way).

Then there was the weekend we went out to Schnepf Farms and picked peaches and Nicholas had a ball.

And Jackson, my wild boy was a bit shy

But all was good because we had a ball that day and went on the train...

and then we had peaches to make this delicious peach and tomato salad (that is now a favorite).

that went perfectly with Jamaican Jerk Chicken, corn on the cob and a bit of wine.

Then Mike decided that the grill wasn't just for dinner.  And he made breakfast.  Bacon on the pizza stone, an idea from Becky Higgins blog, I figured if it worked in the oven, it would work on the grill.  And we finally figured out that the flat part of our grill could really be used for something...pancakes.

And I do think the scrambled eggs are better when cooked over the grill then on the stove.

We still had peaches so the next weekend we made, grilled chicken tacos with peach avocado salsa.

So now that you are probably hungry for some yummy food, I will end this installment of Adventures in Cooking.  I have lots more to come, since Mike comes up with at least one new thing every week.

This Weekends Cooking Adventures and Other Ramblings

It is hard to believe it is Sunday evening already. So catching up from earlier this week, I did get this page done to commemorate Nicholas's achievement this week. We have had one more success, so I am holding out hope it won't be much longer and we can say goodbye to diapers for one boy in this house. Mike asked me if I was going to take a picture of the toilet to scrapbook, but I didn't have to I had these from a few months ago. LOL!

 Studio Calico January Kit and Add On's (October Afternoon, Basic Grey Studio Calico PP, Bazzill CS, October Afternoon Rub On's letter stickers; American Crafts Thickers; Jenni Bowlin Die Cut; Maya Road Chipboard Scallop Oval; and vintage "N"), plus Fiskars and EK Success punches, Keller Creations chipboard star, Maya Road Cherry & Blue Raspberry Mists American Crafts Slick Writer and Making Memories Paint.

Thursday Mike met his parents at the park.  Nicholas had a ball playing and running all over, Jackson on the other hand is not as adventurous, Mike had to hold him or push him in the stroller the whole time. As adventurous as little J is at home, he is quite intimidated by new situations when he is out of the comforts of home.  Mike e-mailed me this picture of Nicholas from the park, and although he didn't even think of it at the time it will be a perfect photo to use to document one of Nicholas's favorite book, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus (coming soon).

Saturday morning Nicholas and I went out to pick up a few birthday presents for Mike and to Michael's to get some kids craft stuff. Nicholas's report from pre-school this week was that he needed to work on cutting with scissors. We didn't have any kids scissors, so I figured we should get some. We spent a couple of hours Saturday afternoon doing crafts.  We practiced cutting shapes with his scissors and decorated an egg with glitter glue and stickers.  I found this paint with water book (I loved these when I was little).  He kept asking to paint yesterday and made 3 of these. 

The biggest part of our weekend has been Adventures with Food.  Earlier this year we bought a TV for the kitchen and Mike has been DVR'ing some cooking shows. One of the bonuses I ended up with after Mike became a stay at home dad was that he started doing a lot of the cooking. Now he loves to cook and experiment with new recipes.  I happily support this hobby and that was part of the shopping Nicholas and I did Saturday was buying Mike a few cooking tools for an early birthday gift.

He really has liked Tyler Florence and his show Tyler's Ultimate.  Last week one of the shows was called Ultimate Sunday Dinner and this week it became our Saturday night dinner.

• Pot Roast with Vegetables
• Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Honey Butter
• Herbed Butter Parsnips
• Chocolate Cracked Earth (Flourless Chocolate Cake)

I took on the Flourless Chocolate Cake and Mike was in charge of the rest.  The Pot Roast took about 3 hours to cook, so he got that started first:

Lots of yummy vegetables and herbs in this and the house smelled wonderful while it was cooking.

After he got the Pot Roast going I got started on the Flourless Chocolate Cake.  It was actually quite simple to make, and absolutely full of rich (aka fattening) ingredients.  

First you melt a pound of dark chocolate with a stick of butter in a double boiler.

While the chocolate is melting, separate 9 eggs.

The egg yolks are whisked with sugar, and the egg whites are beaten until they make a meringue.

Chocolate is melted (doesn't that look yummy)

The chocolate is first mixed with the egg yolk mixture and then folded into the meringue mixture.

Pour into a spring-form pan and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve with whipped topping.  The recipe called for making your own whipped cream from heavy cream.  But we aren't whipped cream fans much, so I just got fat free cool whip. The only thing stopping me from devouring the whole thing was knowing how much fat and how many calories this had in it. 

While my cake was baking and the pot roast was simmering, Mike was back to work on the side dishes.  He got to play with one of his new birthday presents, a Cuisinart 11-Cup Food Processor. Mike loves to cook, but chopping and anything that requires using knives, he's not so much of a fan, so this is going to be quite a good tool for him. He was all set after watching the how-to DVD that came with it.  Slicing parsnips was quick work as was the fresh herb mixture that went on them.

Parsnips on the stove in his new chef's pan in his herbed butter mixture.

Next was the Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Honey Butter. I am not sure where the butter came in, I saw him using honey and olive oil and topping them with cinnamon and salt and pepper.  

And shortly afterwards we had this beautiful dinner that tasted so very good. 

Although I decided I was not a fan of parsnips, I did like the herbed butter they were cooked in.  The roast was tender and flavorful. The sweet potatoes were pleasantly sweet and the flourless chocolate cake was decadent. And now we have leftovers for the week.

It was a fun evening, just cooking and hanging out. With 2 little ones we have only recently been able to start doing this again. This is definitely one of the things I missed from our pre-kids life, although now it is even better, because I don't have to do all the cooking.

You would think Mike had enough after that meal he made last night. We all slept in (with Nicholas in our bed) and Mike got up and made us Melt In Your Mouth Pancakes, it's basically a recipe from the Bisquick box that adds baking powder, lemon juice and sugar to the recipe and it really gives an added fluffiness to the pancakes.

While he was making pancakes I wandered out to the yard and picked some oranges from the abundance we had on the orange tree.

Sliced in half, ran through the juicer...

and a few minutes later we had fresh squeezed OJ to go with our pancakes.  It took 11 very juicy oranges to make that little bit of juice.

After breakfast I hung out with the boys while it rained outside. We played and I was even able to get a few good pictures of them.

While I was playing with the boys Mike was still the busy chef making this Pico De Gallo to go with Beer Marinated Grilled Skirt Steak for tacos tonight. Both recipes were from from Food Network's Mexican Made Easy show.

And just to leave you with a little scrappiness, I framed this cool paper from Graphic 45.  I cut out the middle and popped it up, but otherwise used the paper as is.  I made one for us and another for my MIL for her birthday. I am probably going to antique the frame a bit with some cream paint and crackle medium.  I love when a paper is so perfect you can frame it.

When I got the mail today I had two fun packages, a box of books from Amazon and my March Mosh Posh kit with lots of new American Crafts Dear Lizzy and Cosmo Cricket Material Girl. So I am off to play this evening.  I know I won't get any scrappy time next weekend, since we will have Mike's brother and his family here. Instead we will have a full weekend of Spring Training baseball, the zoo, and Mike's birthday to keep us all busy.

Have a great week.

How's that for Photo Freedom

And really loving your pictures so much you want to sleep with them. :)

I am repeating Stacy Julian's Library of Memories class at Big Picture Scrapbooking, which is based on the book Photo Freedom (which is sadly out of print). This time around I decided to go back through the parts that I had previously completed to see how well I have been doing on keeping my library flow.  I went through all my chronological binders to move them to 3 ring binders, which was a result of my huge mistake in buying the wrong kind the first time around. I cleared out tons of pictures I just don't feel enthused to scrap anymore.

I ended up with piles of pictures on the floor by me.  Nicholas came over and started looking through them and naming everyone and everything in them.  So we took one of my old binders and made this for him...

He now has his own photo album that we can add to as I have pictures I have no use for.  He doesn't care if the shot isn't perfect, he just likes to look at his family and places we go and things we do.

It's a rainy Sunday here in what is usually sunny Arizona.  Last night I made this Marmalade French Toast Casserole I found at myrecipes.com. It was quick to cut up the bread and mix together the ingredients:

Pour the mixture on top and stick it in the refrigerator overnight.

Sleep in this morning and stick this in the oven for 45 minutes and we had this yummy stuffed with orange marmalade French Toast for breakfast.  We skipped the walnuts the recipe called for because Mike doesn't like nuts and I don't need the fat in them.  Next time though, I will sprinkle some cinnamon on top. The nutmeg wasn't quite enough for me.

While it was baking our impatient guys had to have breakfast, while Jackson ate pancakes and cereal....

Nicholas stood by the window and watched the raindrops hit the pool (pancake in hand):

And to leave you off with a little scrappy fun...last night I found this layout in the Studio Calico gallery by Stephanie Howell and I lifted it to make this one with a favorite photo of my dad and Nicholas at Christmas.

Hope you have a relaxing Sunday.

When Life Gives You Lemons....

It all started out innocent enough. We have several fruit trees in the backyard and they are full of lemons, oranges, limes and grapefruit. So, I took Nicholas out to pick some fruit so I could make some fresh lemonade.

After digging in the back of the cabinets to find the juicer, I whipped up some delicious lemonade. Not too sweet, not too sour...

With a couple of lemons left over I hunted around in the freezer and found a pie crust and came upon this Paula Deen recipe for Lemon Meringue Pie. And I had all the ingredients, it had to be fate.

A quick mixture for the filling...

The new KitchenAid came in handy for the meringue...

Layer it together...

A short time in the oven...

And about an hour after we picked fruit from the trees, we had this yummy pie for dessert...

So when life gives you lemons...make lemonade...and lemon meringue pie.

Pasta with Pumpkin Sauce

***Updated with picture.

Last night we had a crop at our house. I'll share the pages and make and take we did in a later post after I get pictures taken. But I made Halloween shaped pasta with Pumpkin Sauce since our crop was Halloween and Fall themed. It is one of my favorite fall recipes so I thought I would share.

The original recipe calls for gnocchi I made it last night with some Halloween shaped pasta and it was just as tasty. This recipe is adapted from a Weight Watchers Simply the Best Italian cookbook. I don't follow recipes exactly when it comes to measurements, it takes too long, but the amounts are approximate. I would suggest adjusting the spices and amount of pumpkin to your tastes and desired sauce thickness.

I used canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling), because it is faster and available year round. You could use a whole pumpkin, one pumpkin = about 1 cup of canned according to the cookbook (see note below on modification to recipe**).

I also just use dried spices because I always have them around. I have had it with fresh, and honestly didn't notice to big of a difference in the flavor.

Gnocchi with Pumpkin Sauce

1 15 oz can of pumpkin 3-4 large shallots minced (or up to 6 if they are small) 2-3 garlic cloves minced 3 T olive oil

2-3 T fresh thyme chopped or 1 T dried thyme 2-3 T fresh sage leaves chopped or 1 T dried crumbled sage 1 1/2 - 2 cups of chicken broth

1/2 tsp cinnamon ground 1/2 tsp nutmeg ground 2T brown sugar 1/4 c shredded Parmesan cheese

Heat oil and saute pumpkin, shallots and garlic until shallots are golden. Add broth, thyme and sage. Stir frequently until the sauce is absorbed. Then let simmer about 20 minutes.

To make the cheese mixture, mix in a separate bowl make the cinnamon, nutmeg, brown sugar and Parmesan cheese.

When sauce is done pour desired amount over pasta or gnocchi & sprinkle with the cheese mixture and toss. Garnish with sage leaves and Parmesan cheese.

I just toss it for us, but if you wanted a nicer presentation, just pour the sauce over the pasta and sprinkle with the cheese mixture. o

Depending on how much pasta you are making you will probably have extra. It can be refrigerated a few days or freeze for longer. It is also a good make ahead sauce.

**Note - If you use fresh pumpkin you will need to put the sauce through a food processor or blender, add water 1 T at a time as processing to get desired sauce thickness.

I forgot to take a picture of the final product, so you will have to use your imagination. But it is yummy.