Panera Eat Your Heart Out

Panera's got some pretty tasty stuff on their menu (have you tried their new Power Chicken Hummus Bowl? Whoa its good).

I like so many things there, but an old favorite on a cold day will always be their French Onion Soup. We decided to try a copycat recipe, and serve it up with a good helping of Caesar salad.

This version was good, but not exactly identical. I thought it had too much black pepper. Serving it with croutons, a crusty roll and shaved Asiago cheese is definitely recommended. And ironically after being reheated for day 2, that it was too oniony. The flavor was still ok but enough broth was either eaten or cooked off that it felt like just eating sautéed onions.

Valentine's Day 2014

Yes yes, I realize that Valentine's Day was two weeks ago. Better late than never.

This year, like last, we really didn't get to plan a traditional date or celebration of Valentine's Day. Last year, we were with Ava in the hospital so we got her a cute Vday bib, and stayed by her side.

This year we were again scheduled to be in St. Louis on Valentine's Day for doctor's visits. But if you've been reading this blog, you know that sickness postponed that visit. So we stayed home on Valentine's Day and worked on recuperating. We did however go buy a steak, and an impromptu pair of lobster tail's to fix for dinner the next night after Ava had gone to bed. And I have a confession...both items were purchased at Aldi's (discount grocery store). We have started buying 90% of our groceries there, and we thought we'd give it a try. The steak was a steak. Not the best I've had, not the worst. It was no Harter House tri-tip. We did try out a new cooking method where you get a cast iron skillet piping hot, add steak, DON'T TOUCH for 3 minutes (or 4 depending on thickness), then flip and repeat. Seriously no peeking. After your 6 minutes are up, you remove steak to a cooling rack to rest for at least 10 minutes. This method yielded very pleasing results and cooked the steak nicely. I'll do it again.

But back to those lobster tails. They.Were.Amazing. I am not kidding. You heard me right. Aldi's frozen lobster tails were super yummy. We just boiled them. I couldn't believe it.

Ya ya, I know my food photography skills are pretty lacking.

How was your Valentine's Day? I hope it was full of fuzzy warm lovey feelings. Speaking of, I also recently received my main Christmas gift from Wynston. He purchased me a bracelet I'd been coveting on Etsy; it's just a simple bar bracelet stamped with her first name and date of birth. Simple and lovely. I wear it almost everyday. Love <3

Pleasant Surprises (in the kitchen)

Sometimes I get a little adventurous in my recipe "pinning". Something may look delicious on the computer screen, but when it comes to trying out the recipe my bravery sometimes fades. However, this week I took on a new recipe that was pretty far outside of my domestic comfort zone...a Thai inspired dish. Last night I made this Thai Penaut Quinoa Salad, with a few twists, and I LOVED the result.

source

Here's my changes: I didn't have quinoa on hand for once (we're quinoa fans in this house), so I swapped that with some couscous I had in the cupboard. I don't do cashews, so we subbed in some chopped peanuts. I omitted the basil. I think I added more than the recommended 1 cup of chopped cabbage and just eyeballed how much couscous I added. And the kicker...I sauted some shrimp in soy sauce and garlic powder and added that to the salad so it had the protein we were missing from the quinoa. This was really good. Ava even enjoyed it...I think she especially liked digging her fingers into that couscous. I was so anxious for leftovers, that I may have gotten into them before 11 am today. :)

We've also been working our way through large amounts of garden produce that we have been lucky enough to be given throughout this summer. This week, we put some of the zucchini towards some brownies! While the concept is similar to zucchini bread (replace egg with zucchini for moisture) I'd never tried this in brownie form. And this household loves it some brownies. We tried out this recipe two nights ago, and it hits the spot! They taste totally decadent.

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Not all my kitchen adventures are successes, so I'll count these two as wins and add them to my cookbook!

Rustic Dinner

I'm not sure "rustic" is 100% correct for this dinner, but it seemed fitting last night.

I mentioned earlier that I was really missing cooking. Well this week we've finally returned to the grocery store and cooked dinner all week. We've had nachos for dinner, fish and lemony zucchini pasta, shrimp cakes (which were surprisingly good , very dense and filling) with baked potatoes and broccoli, and last night was Kale and Goat Cheese Pizza with Chickpea Soup.

I really wasn't sure what to expect with our Kale Pizza and Chickpea Soup. It was one of those "this is either going to be great or gross" dinners. Turns out it was great!

Instead of making my own pizza dough (I've had very limited success there) I used Pillsbury Whole Wheat Artisan Dough. Totally worth the splurge, since we normally buy generic pizza dough. I repeat TOTALLY WORTH IT. We put a whole bunch of kale on that pizza and I thought "whoa, waaaay too much". Not true at all. It was the perfect amount of kale. One lesson we learned was to crumble and spread out that goat cheese. We had pretty big "discs" of goat cheese spread throughout the pizza, and coin sized bites of goat cheese can be a bit much.

As for the chickpea soup, I would be interested in blending this up a bit next time, but Wynston liked the texture. I also wasn't sure about the bread in the soup, but Martha doesn't disappoint. :)

Both food dishes last night were also a hit with Ava. She was busy munching on chicken, broccoli, noodles and black beans. But she enjoyed our shared bites of chickpeas, pizza crust with goat cheese and kale we gave to her. That girl will eat just about anything!

I Miss Cooking

It's true. I miss it. I haven't had the time to cook more than 1 or 2 real meals a week in so long. Life has just been crazy. It's been full of takeout, freezer meals, "search the fridge for leftovers and throw something together" and egg sandwiches. My waistline is probably reflecting these recent events.

Here's what I HAVE been able to make recently:

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Little individual garlic monkey breads. These were easy and crazy good. Make these!!

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Lightened up General Chicken. This was NOT good. Well...it wasn't awful, but it wasn't General Chicken. It was too tomato-y.


Ava's been munching on whole wheat elbow macaroni tossed in either pesto or tomato paste, chicken, edamame, sweet peas, green beans, blueberries and strawberries. That girl hilariously gravitates toward anything green.  During a recent trip to Trader Joe's I picked up the CUTEST tiny ravioli for Ava. It's so adorable.

My Pinterest Fail - Falafel Pie

Wow, my dish could NOT have turned out looking any different than the one on Pinterest. Not sure what I did wrong...they didn't provide a baking dish size, so I used a 9 inch round ceramic baking dish. I also used regular Greek yogurt instead of soy yogurt (which in my opinion should've produced thicker sauce on top, not runnier sauce on top). Hmm. Who knows. Still pretty tasty. If we make it again, I think I'll use more hummus as well. You can never have too much hummus!


Original Recipe



My recreation. Hilarious, no?!



Ava's First "Momma-made" Dress!

Looking for a project that I could take on to keep Ava and I inside during our pre-surgery "quarantine", I began digging through my old pins. Lo and behold I found this Reversible Criss-Cross Pinafore that is just too cute. It's a cute little dress that can be worn alone, or layered with a onesie or a cute diaper cover. It's supposed to be a good beginner sewing project. Honestly, I agree! This was a good challenge, but not too hard. My biggest obstacle was my own lack of planning....which means I ran out of white thread, and had to finish this off with orange thread (all on inside seams so not visible) and clear thread.

The original pattern (which is free!) is for a 6-12 month size. I wanted this to be big enough to grow into this summer, so I added 2 inches to the bottom hem. The result is definitely a dress which is bigger on Ava right now, but has room to grow!

Please look past the wrinkles!

I am pretty pleased with the results of this dress, as long as you don't look to closely at my stitching! I've already purchased more fabric to make another one. I found fun mermaid and rickrack-y fabric! Very colorful. I'll be working on making the shoulders slimmer next time.  Oh ya, I also bought more white thread. :)

Five Food Reviews (say that three times fast!)

Healthiness, Convenience, Affordability. These are all top priorities in my (cook)book. And while I may not always hit all three, I try.

Here is a round-up of some recent recipes we've tried, and how they turned out:

Freezer Breakfast Burritos:
We assembled these (over two nights because we ran out of tortillas) recently. I've been wanting to add something more nutrient dense than coffee to my mornings, so breakfast burritos it is!

Goat Cheese Stuffed Black Bean Burgers:
Anything "stuffed' intimidates me. This may be the easiest thing I've ever stuffed though! And the recipe left me feeling stuffed. HAHAHA hardyharhar. Sorry. Anyway, even Wynston warmed up to these meatless entrees after the first bite. A little time consuming to make, but worth it on a night you're not in a hurry. Good texture, creamy goat cheese inside, very filling. We skipped the avocado slices the first night we had them, and used pita's instead of buns. I smeared avocado all over my pita last night when having these for left overs and oh my. So good.

Lemon Quinoa Avocado Cilantro Chickpea Salad
Umm is that a recipe title or a grocery list?! While the very descriptive name sounds enticing to me, this recipe was a dud. Dare I say "too much avocado"?! It just didn't have enough texture, it's the wrong season for grape tomatoes. I don't know. She prepares her quinoa differently than I do (a presoak, then boil/simmer). Maybe that led to mushy quinoa. Not sure, but this isn't a keeper for us.

Baked Mozzarella Sticks
This was a "use what's in the freezer" items. We had left over wonton wrappers (still do), so I grabbed four part-skim cheese sticks at the store, and wrapped away. I cut my cheese sticks in half since I had wonton wrappers not eggroll wrappers. I didn't even need the water she mentions. I just nonstick sprayed my pan, wrapped, placed in pan, lightly sprayed the tops with the nonstick butter flavored spray and baked. Flip halfway, bake some more. Enjoy easy cheesiness after 15ish minutes. Yes, I cooked mine longer than called for, and they were still delicious and gooey. .

Zucchini Ribbons with Lemony Bread Crumbs
Sparkpeople is an awesome online healthy living community. It's got trackers (calorie, workouts, etc), tracker apps for your phone, recipes, workouts, forums, and more. Pretty cool. We are big fans of zucchini in this house and enjoy all sorts of cooked zucchini recipes (like this one), but thought we'd try something new. Those lemony breadcrumbs were such a nice surprise. This really turned out better than we expected.

You Win Some, You Lose Some - Pinterest Recipes

Win:

Baked Ranch Chicken

http://pinterest.com/pin/155444624609442558/

Baked Breaded Mushrooms

http://notecook.com/side-dishes/breaded-mushroom-recipe-2/

Fail:

Crockpot Orange Chicken/Turkey

http://www.examiner.com/article/orange-chicken-the-crockpot

The failure of the Orange Chicken/Turkey was my fault. I spent Tuesday evening prepping two dinners as Wynston played super dad and played with Ava. The ranch chicken and mushrooms were both really good. I also threw some sliced zucchini topped with a little parmesan into the oven, and we had a nice meal all around. I thought I was doing so well prepping that orange chicken (again, we used wild turkey) for the next night. I was working in the office all the next day, so I'd just throw this in the crockpot and be done! But the next morning, I reread the directions...only 4-6 hours on low!! My crockpot never needs the full amount of time a recipe calls for, and I go to work at 7! So if I needed, say 5 hours, my meal would be done by noon, then sit on "keep warm" for another 4 hours! Afraid it would burn up, I decided to add water. Ha....HAHA!  This turned into a soupy, watery, nasty looking mess. Lesson learned. I still want to try the recipe, without my amazingly genius chef skills added in next time. (end sarcasm)

Pinterest Sweet and Sour Baked Chicken

I'd like to use this blog to also document some recipes and meals we try. We like to try new recipes often. Pinterest has only fed this kitchen monster. Some recipes we've tried have been good, others not so much. So here's what we tried last night:

Pinterest Sweet and Sour Baked Chicken with Fried Rice...except I used wild turkey from my dad instead of chicken. He gave us several bags of wild turkey, and it's been really good and noticeably tender this year (wild turkey can often be pretty tough). We've been on a freezer clean out kick, so this recipe is one I thought I could easily swap turkey for chicken on.

The review: The turkey was good. You coat your chicken/turkey in cornstarch, THEN egg. We'd never tried that before, and it resulted in something like a tempura batter. We will be trying this method again next Spring when the morel mushrooms come back up. I also added some vegetables to the mix: snap peas, broccoli, carrots, mushrooms, water chestnuts. I snuck in brown rice instead of fried rice, but left out the peas and carrots. The turkey was good, the sauce okay, the fried rice was great. Neither of us are huge sweet and sour sauce fans, so I'm not surprised we weren't blown away. But the rice! That's the best fried rice I've ever made...with no butter needed to boot!

Please note: This is not my picture, but one from the original website.

I'll continue to use my dad's wild turkey in some Pinterest asian recipes. Wynston thinks the sauce is a keeper, if I cook the vegetables seperate next time. I'll keep the batter and fried rice recipes for sure.

Pinterest Baked Sweet and Sour Chicken