summertime.

Hello again!

I'm so sorry I haven't been blogging as regularly as I should.

Summer has arrived (thank goodness!) and we've been busy spending time on our balcony, playing softball, and seeing our family and friends.

This past weekend I had the chance to see Randy Travis in concert. My Mama and I headed over to the Emerald Queen Casino near Tacoma, and celebrated her birthday with a girls' night.

It was a blast and Randy's still got it!

This week is full of adventures.

One of my best friends in the whole world is flying all the way to Portland from New York for a visit. Maya and I met freshman year of college when we both joined the swim team.

Here is a tribute to our friendship.

From it's very beginning...

...until now...almost 6 years after we met!
We will definitely need to take some new pictures while Maya is here...we look approximately 15 in all of these.

Oh college, I miss you!
I can't wait to show her (and share with all of you!) everything the Pacific Northwest has to offer.

Maya and I have been shooting emails back and forth with ideas for her trip and so far it looks like we will be doing a bit of hiking, heading out to the St. Paul rodeo, and eating and drinking our way through all of Portland's amazing restaurants and breweries.

If anyone has any Portland must do's leave me a comment!

With all the craziness the past couple of weeks I've had less time to share with you what I've been doing in the kitchen. The past week it seemed like we had friends over every night for dinner and there's just something a little odd about pulling out the camera and taking pictures of your guest's dinner before they're allowed to eat it.

But I promise I'll try to make it up to you with some great recipes this week!

Last night Jeremy and I had Chicken Pot Pie.

Not your typical chicken pot pie, but a delicious version I discovered on Joy the Baker.

This one was made in a long casserole dish and had homemade chive biscuits on top.

I've never had pot pie quite like this one and it turned out to be worth the time/effort...

Jeremy said it was Top 5 meals I've ever made material!

Chicken Pot Pie with Chive Biscuits
Inspired by Joy the Baker

What you'll need:

Biscuits--

2 1/2 C all-purpose flour

1 T baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 tsp granulated sugar

1 tsp coarsely ground black pepper

1/4 cup chopped fresh chives

1/4 cup (2 ounces) unsalted butter, cold and cut into cubes

4 ounces (half of a brick) cream cheese, cold

3/4 cup buttermilk, cold

Filling--

4 T unsalted butter

1/2 C all-purpose flour

2 C low-sodium chicken broth

1 1/2 C whole milk

4 ounces (half of a brick) cream cheese

salt and pepper to taste

the juice from 1 lemon

1/8 tsp fresh ground nutmeg

3 C shredded chicken meat (from a rotisserie chicken)

2 T butter

1 small onion, diced

1 small garlic clove, minced

1 1/2 cup thinly diced carrots

1 1/2 cup frozen peas, thawed

What you'll need to do:

Biscuits first.  In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar, black pepper, and chopped chives.

Add butter and cream cheese to the dry ingredients.  Use your fingers to combine butter, cheese, and flour. You want to keep mixing it together with your fingers until you have small pieces (pebble size or smaller).

Make a small well in the center of the dough and add the buttermilk.  

Using a fork, combine the wet and dry ingredients.

Dump the shaggy biscuit dough onto a lightly floured work surface.  Knead together until dough forms a disk about 1 1/2 inches thick.

Use a round, 1 1/2-inch biscuit cutter to cut biscuits (or use a 1/4 C measuring cup like I did). 

Place biscuits on a small cookie sheet and place in the fridge until ready to bake.

Now for the filling. Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Dice onion, garlic, carrots, and thaw the frozen peas.  Set aside.

Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat.  Whisk in the flour.  (Mixture will be very thick.)  Heat for 1 minute.  Turn flame to low and add the chicken stock.  Whisk until no flour bits remain.  Whisk in the milk and add the cream cheese.  Heat over medium low heat, stirring often, until cream cheese has melted.  

Add chicken, lemon, and nutmeg.  Stir.  Add salt and pepper to taste.   Remove mixture from heat and set aside.

In a medium skillet over medium heat, melt butter.  Add onions and saute until translucent, about 3 minutes.  Add minced garlic and saute for one minute more.  Add carrots and peas.  Cook for about 3 minutes. Remove from heat and add vegetable mixture to the creamy chicken mixture.  Stir to combine.

Spoon filling into a 9×13-inch pan.  Remove the biscuits from the fridge and place them on top of the filling.  Brush the tops of the biscuits with heavy cream, buttermilk, or egg wash.

Bake for 20-23 minutes, or until biscuits are puffed and golden, and the sides of the pot pie are bubbling.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly before serving.

Enjoy!

brussel sprouts.

Happy Wednesday!

I have a very special treat for you today.

I know I'm always experimenting with weird (disgusting to some) ingredients in the kitchen...but this time even I was shocked at the tasty outcome.

I did it.

I made and liked brussel sprouts.

I didn't think it could be done.

Let me share with you the brief history of my relationship with these little green demons.

Experience #1: circa 2003. I was in high school. Laura's mom, an amazing Italian woman who cooked for us kids non-stop, had us over for dinner. Zelyne, Laura, and I sat around the table excitedly awaiting the arrival of what we were sure would be a mountain of pasta and meatballs.

Enter the plate of brussel sprouts.

You might not believe it, but up until that point I had never had a single brussel sprout in my very long 15 years of life.

They smelled like a fart. I put one in my mouth.

Long story short...tasted like a fart too.

Experience #2: circa 2011. Earlier this year I went on a trip to Lake Tahoe with some friends. I had successfully avoided a recurrence of the brussel sprout episode of 2003 up until this point. But when our good friend Andrea offered to cook up dinner with her boyfriend Zeph, how could we resist?

Enter the bowl of brussel sprouts and bacon.

I don't know what she did to those little sprouts, but with the addition of bacon they suddenly became edible. Enjoyable even.

Experience #3: circa Monday. I'll admit...even after the successful brussel sprouts and bacon experience I was nervous. But I figured there's no time like the present to tackle the seemingly impossible. I gave myself a little pep talk, promised Jeremy if they turned out disgusting I'd never make him eat another brussel sprout again, and began cooking. I found this delicious recipe on The Little Red House blog and since nothing Sheena (author) writes about ever tastes anything but delicious...I gave it a go.

This was the result.

It was amazing and delicious and I didn't even need to add bacon.

Here's the really simply recipe:

Mix up brussel sprouts, 1 or 2 T olive oil, salt and pepper. Place on baking sheet and roast for 20-25 minutes at 400 degrees. You want the sprouts to be a little brown.

Add roasted sprouts to salad greens. Put in a little avocado, onion, a fried egg on top and voila!

If you'd like to add some dressing. Mix up a honey mustard dressing or use your favorite store bought. I mixed honey, white wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, and olive oil.
Plus some S & P.

Shake it up in a jar and pour over salad.

Yum.

Last but not least, serve it with whatever else you like. In our case...that happened to be steak with blue cheese crumbles on top!

Delish in a dish.

Hey Good Lookin'

Hey good lookin', whatcha got cookin'?

How's about cookin' somethin' up with me?

Each week I assign myself the fun job of coming up with the week's grocery list.

Some people really can't stand grocery shopping, but honestly for some odd reason Jeremy and I love it.

We look forward to our weekly excursion...discussing which market to go to, what we need to pick up, and then carefully and slowly working our way through each aisle.

Maybe it's because we both love shopping and we both love food. So I guess it makes a bit of sense that this "chore" is one of our favorites!

For me, grocery shopping begins with the list. I rarely go into the store empty handed.

I like to be prepared.

Everyone has their own list making style, but I like to break mine down by day/meal.

For example:

Monday

Flank Steak and Roasted Brussel Sprouts

-flank steak

-mixed greens

-brussel sprouts

-avocado

-eggs

This helps me to plan out what I'm going to cook during the week ahead. And since I usually try out new recipes each night, I hold on to my list to remind me what I had planned as the week unfolds.

So what's on the menu this week?

You'll hear all about each recipe in the coming days, but so far this is what I have planned!

Monday: Flank Steak and Roasted Brussel Sprouts

Tuesday: Dinner out for my Mama's birthday (mmm Podnah's Pit!)

Wednesday: Chicken Sandwiches, Sweet Potato Fries, and Heirloom Tomato Salad

Thursday: Fish Chowder and Soda Biscuits

Friday: Matzoh Ball Soup pre-softball game, something yummy and bad for us after!

I'll let you know how it all goes as I try out each recipe!

For now, I'd like to leave you with something we actually made up last week for dinner.

Greek Tuna Salad

(inspired by 5 Ingredient Fix on the Food Network)

What you'll need:

2 albacore tuna steaks (you can use Ahi, but it's much more expensive)

3 lemons

1 C red grapes, washed and halved

1 C plain Greek yogurt

1/2 C toasted walnuts

What you'll need to do:

First, toast your walnuts by placing them in a skillet over a medium-high heat, stirring until you can smell them.

Then, preheat oven to 350.

Thinly slice two lemons and lay out the slices so they overlap on a piece of parchment paper. You want to create a bed for your tuna steaks. Then salt/pepper the steaks and place them on top of the lemon slices. Zest your third lemon and sprinkle zest on top of the steaks.

Now, wrap up your steaks by folding the parchment around the tuna. Tucking the ends of the parchment under like an envelope. You are trying to create a little package for your tuna to bake inside.

Place in the oven and let bake until the tuna is no longer pink and you can flake the fish easily. (The original recipe said 18-22 minutes, but I found this took closer to 40 minutes--must depend on the thickness of your tuna.)

Remove from the oven and open the parchment. Let cool until you can handle it comfortably.

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl, including flaked tuna.

Add the juice of that third lemon and salt/pepper to taste.

We ate our tuna salad as a lettuce wrap for dinner, then on bread for lunch the next day.

This is a delicious and unusual alternative to traditional tuna salad.

The best part?

No mayonnaise or unhealthy ingredients!

Olé, Olé!

Ever since our salmon taco night a couple weeks ago I've been craving more.

More Mexican food.

More salsa.

More spicy deliciousness.

The other thing I love about cooking Mexican food...it can be pretty darn easy.

Take the quesadilla for example.

Too often people believe the quesadilla is nothing but a tortilla and some cheese.

Well, let me fill you in.

It can be so much more.

Stuffed and Grilled Quesadillas

What you need:

flour tortillas

grated extra sharp cheddar cheese

1 big heirloom tomato, chopped

1/2 red onion, diced

juice of 1 lime

1 jalapeno, deseeded and diced

1 avocado sliced

2 T cilantro, chopped

salt and pepper

Toppings:

guacamole

sour cream

the pico de gallo you prepared

What you'll need to do:

1. First make your pico de gallo. This will be used as a topping and as stuffing for your quesadillas. In a small bowl mix together your chopped onion, heirloom tomato, lime juice, jalapeno, cilantro, salt and pepper to taste.

2. Slice your avocado lengthwise.

3. Use two tortillas. Place one flat on a plate. Lay out the avocados, pico de gallo, and then top with grated cheese. Cover it up with a 2nd tortilla.

4. Place your quesadilla on the grill. When the cheese begins to melt flip it. This won't take very long...2-3 minutes on each side.

4. Enjoy! We served ours with the extra pico de gallo, fresh guacamole, sour cream, and some lime juice, plus some grilled corn on the cob.

Wednesday's Bonus Edition

I wasn't sure how to fit peanut butter in with the bachelorette party entry.

So, here's a bonus entry for today!

Last night I decided to make some peanut butter and I think you should try it too!

What you need:

3 cups peanuts*

food processor

*I bought bulk organic peanuts from Whole Foods, already deshelled and ready to go!

Can you believe that's all you need?!

Directions:

Put the peanuts in the food processor and turn it on! It'll need to run for a little over 5 minutes. But if you just let it work it's magic and have a bit of patience...you'll end up with your very own homemade peanut butter!

You can even add a little salt if you'd like.

Now you know how easy it is.

No more excuses for buying Skippy...and all that hydrogenated oil...

Going to the chapel...

Dani and Jared are getting married!

Yay!

But as everyone knows, there can't be a wedding without a bachelorette party.

And what better place to celebrate Dani's last days of singledom than Catalina Island?

The island of romance, romance...

This gem of a spot off the coast of Southern California was the perfect spot.

Jeremy graciously offered to captain the Morning Star for us, 26 miles across the Pacific.

Here we are. Me-Dani-Lauren-Christin.

We look festive right?

Here's Dani a few hours later.

The classic bachelorette.

Sash,

inappropriate necklace,

drink in hand.

She had her party pants on!

There was dancing, karaoke, and lots of laughter.

aka: memory making!

We even got a bit of exercise.

Biking our way up through a canyon to the top of the Wrigley Memorial.

You got that right.

We are hard core.

And then there was floating.

And beautiful sunshine.

And a boy named John,

where did he come from?

As you can see it was an amazing trip. Full of amazing food, margaritas, jet skiing, mild seasickness...all making for an incredible pre-wedding island getaway.

Okay Dani, now you can get married!

A preview of what's to come...

This is Dani....

 Our incredibly adorable bride-to-be.

This is us in Catalina.

(Minus Christin, the 4th member of our crew.)



And here's a preview of the awesomeness that was Dani's Bachelorette Extravaganza.

Details and more pictures to follow...

Dear Blog Readers,

I will be on a mini-vacation starting tomorrow and won't be able to update,

but please don't stop checking back here!

I plan to be back blogging on Monday with lots of fun bachelorette party pictures.

Enjoy the rest of your week and have a wonderful weekend!

xoxo

Classic Cooking

Up there next to roasting a chicken, making homemade jam has always seemed like something you just must know how to do.

I know, I'm ridiculous.

That being said, last night I made strawberry jam and it was so easy and so delicious.

Way better than that store-bought stuff!

Strawberry Jam

All you need:

4 C strawberries, washed, diced and mashed

1 C sugar

pectin

Follow the recipe included with your pectin, but basically you just bring the mashed fruit to a boil, add the sugar and pectin, then bring it back to a boil. Remove from heat and voila!

Let it cool and you've just made jam!

I had a problem last night though. Once the jam was made and jarred, I realized we didn't have any bread to put it on.

So I whipped out my delicious Paula Deen The Lady & Sons Savannah Country Cookbook and made some delicious Southern Tea Cakes.

The perfect solution to my jam dilemma.

Here's the recipe.

Southern Tea Cakes

Ingredients:

4 C all-purpose flour (I used unbleached white)

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsps baking powder

2 C sugar

2 eggs

1/2 C buttermilk (can substitute 1/2 C milk + 1/2 T vinegar)

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl sift flour, soda, and powder together. Add remaining ingredients and blend well. Dough should be soft. Roll dough out onto a floured surface until approximately 1/4 inch thick. Cut dough into desired shape and bake on a slightly greased sheet for 10-12 minutes.*

*I used parchment lined baking sheets and I also noticed I needed to add additional flour. The dough was too sticky at first.

This recipe will make around 4 dozen tea cakes. I shaped mine with a 1/4 C measuring cup. Just press down to cut out shape and roll away excess dough.

Delicious!

Also thought I'd share with you some photographic evidence of our totally awesome softball skills.

See Jeremy pitching?

And there I am catching and batting!

Proof.

And P.S. I got my tooth fixed this morning :)



Welcoming Summer to Portland

What a weekend!

Temperatures in the 80's,
amazing sunny skies,

and lots of summer fun.

Here's a little recap of the weekend, in highlight form.

Friday

Friday means softball. Our team, Prestige Worldwide, took on the David Douglas Day Care team.
Sounds intimidating, right?

We played like champs though and did our absolute best to defeat our opponents.

Unfortunately we lost both games and I took a ball to the jaw and chipped my tooth.

Awesome.

I'll be calling the dentist now.

Saturday

Saturday was spent enjoying the beautiful sunshine.

After waking up and watching the world go by with Buoy on our patio, I went over to the gym and squeezed in a spin class before Jeremy woke up.

When I got out of spin I saw I had an email from Foodbuzz.com congratulating me for making their Top 9!

Check it out by clicking here.

I was so excited! My recipe was in the top 9 out of thousands of entries!
Guess everybody loves fish tacos this time of year :)

Later in the afternoon, Jeremy, Buoy and I met up with our friend Matt and his adorable pup for lunch at the Lucky Labrador. Definitely a perfect spot on a sunny day.

Food, drinks, and dog-friendly!

Sunday

Sunday was spent helping Dani prepare for her wedding by doing a bit of shopping at Ikea. Then destressing by heading over to the City Fair and riding the carnival rides until we all felt like throwing up.

Matt and his girlfriend Carrie met up with us for dinner and then we headed back over to the fair. It ended up being an amazing day/night. Too bad it was a Sunday, makes for a tough Monday morning!

I hope all of you had an amazing weekend too! I will be updating sporadically over the next couple of weeks. Dani and Jared are getting married and I'm lucky enough to be involved in a lot of the pre-wedding excitement. Starting with the bachelorette party this weekend!

See you all back here tomorrow! xoxo

Family Taco Night

Who doesn't love tacos?

Last night we fired up the grill and made fish tacos.
They were perfect.

Here's how to make the easiest/most delicious fish taco dinner in the world.

What you'll need:

2 salmon fillets

1/2 head of cabbage

3 tomatoes

1/2 an onion

1 avocado

3 limes

cilantro

salt and pepper

corn tortillas

black beans

1. Make up a bowl of toppings. This wasn't exactly salsa (we had some fresh salsa on the side), but this was great for beefing up your tacos. I cut up some of the leftover cabbage from last night's dinner, diced 3 tomatoes, 1/2 of an onion, 1 avocado, 1 TBL cilantro, added the juice from 1 lime and a bit of salt and pepper.

2. Take two salmon fillets and place them each on a square of foil. Fold the foil up around the salmon, forming a boat. Pinch the ends. Add a drizzle of olive oil, the juice of half a lime, salt and pepper. Then seal up your foil and place on the grill for about 10 minutes. You want your salmon to be light pink and flaky. I've had a lot of trouble getting salmon cooked just the right amount, whether grilled or baked...but grilling it in the foil turned out perfectly!

3. When your salmon is all done, build your tacos! Corn tortilla...topped with some black beans, the cabbage/tomato/avocado mix, some extra cilantro, lime juice if you like and extra salsa if you have it on hand and want some extra spice.

We ate ours with some grilled corn on the side. It was a perfect summer dinner and we will definitely be grilling our salmon this way in the future!

Time to get back on track...

I don't know about you, but Memorial Day weekend always seems to mean hamburgers. Even with the weather being pretty lousy this past weekend, Jeremy and I managed to squeeze in some mini adventures and lots of yummy food.

Saturday we took a little trip out to Sauvie Island. Located just a few minutes outside of Portland, this little island is full of farm land. In the fall Portlanders head out there for corn mazes and hay rides...this time of year we enjoy lots of farm produce stands and the pretty little beaches. I definitely recommend taking the drive out there if you want a very close escape from the city.

I also had the chance to try out and play around with a new Challah recipe. I highly recommend it and with all the leftovers you can make amazing french toast for breakfast the next day!

Challah
Recipe adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients:
1 1/2 packages active dry yeast
1/4 C honey
1 TBL plus 1/2 C sugar
1/2 C olive oil or vegetable oil
5 eggs
1 TBL salt
7 1/2 - 8 C unbleached white flour (or all-purpose)

Directions:
1. In a large bowl, dissolve yeast and 1 TBL sugar in 1 and 3/4 C warm water.

2. Whisk oil and honey into yeast. Then beat in 4 eggs, 1 at a time, with remaining sugar and salt. Gradually add flour and mix together. When the dough holds together you've added enough flour and it's ready to knead. I did all of this in my stand mixer which helps a lot, but I still kneaded the dough after it was mixed by hand to make sure it was nice and smooth.

3. Put in a greased bowl and cover with a damp dish towel. Place in the oven to let rise. I turn on the oven light to make the oven a bit warmer. You can also turn on the oven to 150 degrees and then turn it off. Let rise for 1 hour, then punch the dough down and let rise for 30 more minutes.

4. Take your dough and divide it in half. Braid each loaf. I did a traditional 3 part braid. For each loaf you will need to divide the dough into three balls and roll out into 12 inch strands. Pinch together the three pieces at one end and then proceed to braid. After braided put the dough in the fridge and let rise for another 3 hours. If you're in a rush you can put the dough in a warm spot (the oven) for another hour.

5. Whisk the remaining egg and paint onto the loaves. Make sure you get all the nooks and crannies. Challah is supposed to have that nice thick golden crust.

6. Bake at 375 degrees for 35-40 minutes. Make sure the loaves are a dark golden brown before removing from the oven. Let cool for 30 minutes, slice and serve!

 So that was Saturday in a nut shell! 

Sunday we embarked on another adventure. As a kid my family would always take our summer vacations in the Northwest. Driving, camping, and hiking our way through the state and national parks that spread throughout Oregon and Washington. One of my favorites was Mt. St. Helens.

 The mountain and surrounding forest is incredible to see, but what makes Mt. St. Helens so unique is its recent history. The volcano erupted in 1980...taking out almost 250 square miles of forest and spewing ash that covered cars all the way in Southern California.

Jeremy had never seen the volcano so we decided to head up there. In shorts and sandals we took off, but as we climbed the mountain we began to realize we had definitely miscalculated. Starting around 2,000 feet elevation the fog was so dense you couldn't see 50 feet in front of you. Not to mention the 3 feet of snow that still covered the ground.

Unfortunately we couldn't even see the mountain that was right in front of us. I guess that means we will have to go back if summer ever comes to Portland!

Monday, on our last precious day of the holiday weekend, we headed up to Angels' Rest with our neighbors Matt and Carrie. As soon as I get the pictures from Carrie I will add them to this entry. It turned out to be the most perfect day! Sunny and beautiful, when we reached the top of the hike we had a panoramic view of the entire Columbia River Gorge. I highly recommend this hike!

All in all it was an amazing weekend. Only problem...we stuffed ourselves so full of food that Jeremy and I have had to hit the reset button on our healthy eating this week. I have lots of veggie-packed meals planned for the coming days, starting with our meal last night inspired by my favorite blog The Little Red House.

Here's the recipe for these delicious Chili and Lime Bowls. You must try these...best part is you get to build them yourself! Makes you feel like you're 5 years old, but who doesn't like playing with their food?

Chili and Lime Bowls
Recipe from The Little Red House

Ingredients:

1 TBL soy sauce

1 TBL lime juice

1 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp dried oregano (or fresh if you have it)

1 tsp olive oil

2 medium sweet potatoes or yams, peeled and cut into 1 inch cubes

1 15 oz. can of black beans

1 cup grape tomatoes, sliced in half

1 cup edamame

1 avocado, diced

1 head of cabbage, leaves washed and removed

1/4 cup sliced green onions

lime wedges

Directions:

1. Put together your Yogurt Lime Dressing. Mix 1/2 C plain low-fat yogurt, 2 TBS lime juice, 1 TBS soy sauce, 1 TBS chili powder, 1 clove minced garlic, 2 TBS chopped cilantro, 1 TBS chopped chives. Whisk in 1/4 C olive oil until combined.

Put in fridge until ready to use.

2. In a small bowl, mix together soy sauce, lime juice, chili powder, oregano and olive oil. Toss with sweet potatoes and then roast in oven at 425 degrees for 35 minutes.

3. Put all your veggies out and then build your own lettuce bowls! Place the green onions on top, add the fresh lime, and drizzle on some of the dressing!

This was a delicious meal and ended up being surprisingly filling! I recommend using The Little Red House if you ever are looking for some healthy recipes full of yummy fresh ingredients. Thank you Sheena for a great dinner idea!

Stay tuned...tomorrow I'll be back to fill you in on Taco night.