Week 58: Garden Goodies!

Check out this basket of goodies our garden yielded yesterday!  We stayed overnight near Augusta, GA on Friday because Alain ran a Tri the Parks triathlon on Saturday and came back to all of this yummy stuff ready to eat in our garden!  He ran a great race and the overcast day made it really pleasant to be an observer!  The storm came just as we were leaving, so that was great for us (not so great for the organizers of the race).  :(

We've been going non-stop in this house for a week and my hubby and I are about to take our first vacation away (alone) in 9 years!  We celebrated our 12th anniversary last week, so we are taking a trip to Oregon primarily to meet our new niece, but with a side trip to celebrate our anniversary on the Oregon coast!  We are really getting excited!

Since I won't be here for the week, I'm making a menu for my sweet FIL who will be watching my children.  I can't guarantee he's going to stick to it, but at least I'll provide everything he needs to make dinner while he's here.

Week 58 Menu

Sunday - Thai basil shrimp, cabbage, asparagus

Monday - Grilled chicken legs, yellow rice, steamed broccoli

Tuesday - Beef stroganoff, egg noodles, steamed green beans

Wednesday - Hamburgers or Italian sausage, baked potatoes & sweet potatoes

Thursday - Leftovers

Friday - Grilled salmon, pan seared asparagus

Saturday - Out to dinner

There are so many weekly menus that pass where I don't get to everything on my menu!  It happens more often than not, but I always feel better if I've made a menu.  It's not stressful at all if I choose to veer from the menu.  Anyway, I hope you all have a wonderful week! 

Happy cooking and menu planning!

Sarah

Week 57: Grilled Pizza!

Grilled pizza has always been in the back of my mind since I saw a show on The Food Network years ago demonstrating how the whole thing works.  So, today was my sweet Emilie's 6th birthday and she adamantly begged to have homemade pizza for dinner.  I tried to explain to her that our oven is broken, but that really doesn't mean much to a 6-year-old birthday girl!

This is the photo before it went on the grill.  We ate it so fast that I didn't get any pictures after it came off the grill!  ;)

Wow!  I can't say enough amazing things about grilled pizza!  It tastes just like it does cooked in a stone oven!  It was just the perfect crispness on the crust and perfectly browned.  Each bite was heavenly!  Alain and both felt like we were tasting pizza perfection!  We're such food geeks!  We've made our own pizzas before, but only in the oven and they were always good, but this just really took it up a notch.  The kids made their own pizza and Alain and I made ours (side 1-pesto, pulled pork, artichokes mushrooms, and buffalo mozzarella; side 2-red sauce, sausage, mushrooms, buffalo mozzarella and basil).

Emilie's 6th Birthday!

Week 57 Menu

Sunday - Homemade pizzas

Monday - Mexican beef, black beans, white rice

Tuesday - Leftovers

Wednesday - Thai basil shrimp, cabbage, green beans

Thursday - Chicken stir-fry, broccoli, white rice

Friday - Grilled salmon, pan seared asparagus

Saturday - Out to dinner

I'm hopeful that the oven will be fixed this week!  I was cooking this weekend and I heard this awful "POP" sound come out of the oven and it looked like there was a fire inside!  I quickly turned off the oven and took out the food, but the heating coil on the bottom seems to be damaged.  So, I tried to keep our menu out of the oven this week!  

Happy cooking!

Sarah

Week 55: Jalapeños!

We have some beautiful looking jalapeño's growing in our garden right now!  I have 5 still sitting in my fridge, so I have to make some serious salsa this week and break out my favorite Mexican cook book, 1000 Mexican Recipes by Marge Poore to be inspired!

One of our first jalapeños from our cul-de-sac garden!  

Weekly Menu #55:

Sunday - Rotisserie chicken (this is becoming a pattern), green beans, roasted cauliflower
Monday - Angel hair pasta, pasta sauce with ground beef, zucchini noodles, asparagus
Tuesday - Pork sirloin roast, green beans, roasted potatoes & sweet potatoes
Wednesday - Out to dinner

Thursday - Beef tacos (didn't get to these last week. . . )
Friday - Leftovers
Saturday - Grilled salmon, mango salsa, yellow rice and some veggie. . . 

Have a great week, everyone!  Eat well!  :)

Sarah

Gluten-Free Brownies

OMG!  These are way better than I ever imagined they could be!  I have a friend who recently found out she cannot tolerate gluten and dairy.  We are going to her house tonight and I've been itching to try a GF recipe for her.  I bought a bunch of ingredients to make my own all-purpose GF flour a month ago, so I finally had the opportunity to make it for these brownies!

Let me just say that I LOVE www.kingarthurflour.com!  They really do have amazing flour and amazing recipes!  I go there time and time again for great recipes, so I found a recipe for the GF flour and these brownies with great reviews!  As I've mentioned before, I really love fudge brownies.  When I first started baking back in High School, I always opted for cake-like brownies, but my tastes have changed as I've 'aged.'  Although I have an appreciation for all brownies, I much prefer the fudge kind that are still a bit gooey!

I doubled the recipe so that I would have enough for both of our families, so the recipe makes enough for a 8x8 pan, but I used a 9x12 with double the batter.  I adjusted the brownies to make them dairy free as well as GF.  The brownies turned out very thick, moist and they had a nice crunch from the chocolate chips.

Gluten-Free Brownies (Original Recipe from KAF)

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup oil

1/4 cup applesauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon gluten-free vanilla extract
3/4 cup Dutch-process cocoa or baking cocoa
3 large eggs
3/4 cup King Arthur Gluten-Free Multi-Purpose Flour or brown rice flour blend
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup chocolate chips, optional
1 cup chopped nuts, optional

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease an 8" square pan.

In a microwave safe bowl, combine oil, applesauce, sugar and salt and heat for 1 minute on high.  Mix and transfer to a large mixing bowl.

Now, blend in the cocoa powder and vanilla extract and mix until the batter is smooth and well blended.  Add eggs one at at time until fully incorporated.

Pour the flour and baking powder into the mix and mix on low at first, then move to medium speed. Stir in the chips and/or nuts, if you're using them.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan, spreading it all the way to the edges.

Bake the brownies for 35 to 38 minutes.  Check with a toothpick and make sure that a bit of crumbs comes off.  I started checking it at 35 minutes, but I had to add an extra 4 minutes and then it looked great.  These puffed up quite a bit, but stayed a bit gooey in the center.

Remove from the oven and cool for about 15 minutes before cutting. Store on the counter or they also taste yummy in the refrigerator.

Yield: 16 brownies.

Guacamole

I really don't understand why anyone would buy the pre-packaged guacamole mix in the grocery stores! It's full of sodium and who knows what else and guacamole is super easy to make!  There is this great Mexican restaurant in Fort Collins, Colorado that mixes the guacamole to order for every table.  At the table is a small card with a checklist to check the items that you would like in your guacamole!  I loved this and you could even make it a bit more tropical with strawberries and other goodies!  Options were limitless and it was SO tasty!

Good, ripe avocados make all of the difference in the world for good guacamole, so make sure they are ripe when you are about to use them in your guacamole.  They should just give a little when you push into the skin.  If they are too hard or soft, it just won't make for good guacamole!

Guacamole (adapted from Rachael Ray's Garlicky Holy Guacamole)

Ingredients:
2 ripe avocados
1 lime, juiced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 of small yellow onion, minced
1 jalapeño, seeded and chopped
1/2 bunch cilantro, rinsed, dried and copped
1 small plum tomato, seeded and chopped
1 tsp. salt

Directions:
Half the avocados around the seed, remove the seed with a knife and use a spoon to take out the flesh to put into a Tupperware container or bowl.  Squeeze lime (more may be needed if the lime doesn't give off enough juice) into bowl.  Add garlic, onion, jalapeño, cilantro, tomato and salt.  Mash us the mixture with a fork to desired constancy.  I prefer a chunky guacamole, but others prefer smooth consistency (just mash for longer to make it smooth).

Serve with tortilla chips and enjoy!

Week 54: Pesto is SO yummy!

We always plant lots of basil in our cul-de-sac garden, so it's finally big enough for us to begin really enjoying it.  I crave this time of year because I'm totally and completely addicted to basil-walnut pesto.  I eat it on everything: eggs, potatoes, shrimp, chicken, fish, asparagus. . . the list could go on and on!  So, I made our first batch this weekend and we ate dinner with one of our neighbors to enjoy one of the first feasts from our community garden!

My hubby got me started on pesto with scrambled eggs and it's really amazing!  All we do is lightly scramble a few eggs with salt and pepper, then add the pesto once the eggs are on the plate.  Mix the eggs up in the pesto and you have a wonderful new zip for your scrambled eggs!  Pesto is SO easy to make!  You just have to try it!

This is our awesome basil!  It really does make me smile!

Weekly Menu:

Sunday - Rotisserie chicken, steamed green beans, corn on the cob
Monday - Sirloin pork roast (one of my favorites), roasted cauliflower & asparagus, couscous
Tuesday - (Annabelle's 9th birthday, so she chose the menu) Beef stroganoff, egg noodles, broccoli
Wednesday - Leftovers
Thursday - Salmon with sautéed mango-pineapple chutney (from Rachael Ray's 365: No Repeats), yellow rice, roasted carrots & cauliflower
Friday - Out to dinner?
Saturday - Burgers, baked potatoes/sweet potatoes, grilled zucchini, salad


Happy cooking this week to everyone!  Remember that I'm not picky about what you list on your menus, but just excited to see what you all cook in your homes too!

Sarah

Week 53: Last Week of School!

This is always a strange week for me because I'm excited for the change in routine that summer brings, but I'm also a bit resistant to the change in the schedule I've established over the last 9 months!  Overall, I think I'm more excited for the change than anything, but I feel this rush to get as much done as possible while the girls are in school all day!  Since I grow to be a greater procrastinator each year, that makes every year a little bit more difficult.  Is that why time seems to fly faster each year?

All of the kiddos (Annabelle, Emilie and Zach in front of our cul-de-sac garden)

I'm not sure if I've mentioned our cul-de-sac garden yet on this blog, but we have started hosting the community garden in our cul-de-sac every Spring and it's SO awesome!  Alain is really the gardener in the family.  I kill every plant that's given to me, so my hubby always takes care of any plants that are given to me as gifts.  Anyway, we have 5 houses in our cul-de-sac and everyone contributes to the garden each year.  Each year we try a few new things, but this year we have tomatoes, basil, jalapeños, zucchini, radishes, green beans and I'm not sure if that's all, but it sounds like a lot to me.  We all share the harvest and it's a great project that brings us all together!

Oh, he's so cute!  Love that little man of mine!

The last two weeks of school are crazy busy around this house.  There's a few parties this week at school and swim team started last week, so we've been out practicing every night with the girls!  It's fun, but I'm looking forward to swim team practice in the mornings after school is out so that we'll have the rest of the day free to play!  

Weekly Menu #53:

Sunday - Roasted chicken legs, corn on the cob, broccoli

Monday - Thai shrimp with basil, cabbage, white rice (didn't get to this last 2 weeks, so I'm really craving it this week)

Tuesday - Mexican beef tacos, black beans, white rice leftovers (this is crock pot meal, so I'm hoping this will be easy while I'm packing the night before we leave to go out of town)

Wednesday - Leftovers

Thursday - out of town

Friday - out of town

Saturday - out of town

Have a great week!  Let's see your menus now!  I'm out of town this weekend, so menu probably won't be going out until late next week!

Sarah