Bonus - Dessert!

I thoroughly enjoy cooking - but when it comes to the kitchen, may heart really lies in a homemade apple pie or a plate of fresh from the oven chocolate chip cookies.  Baking is my culinary passion.  I know that it may not seem as creative as cooking (what with all the precise measuring that takes place), but since when has someone been forced to sit at the table for an hour, staring down a brownie because they couldn't leave until they finished their dessert.  Never.  Fresh baked goods make people happy and I love to see someones face light up over a batch of cookies, warm banana bread, or fruity cobbler; and to know that I made that person happy...well that makes me feel pretty darn good too.

Here are two recipes to get the dessert section of the blog started up.  We'll start with the classic chocolate chip cookie.  These are always number one requests from my Dad and from Flick (so he is probably happy that there is a batch kicking around the house right now).  My tricks are to use Crisco instead of butter, refrigerate the dough, and spoon them out using a half-tablespoon (bet you didn't even know they had those out there!).  I think that I'll go have one now as a matter of fact...

Next is an apple coffee cake that is nice for both brunch and dessert.  I have made this twice so far and gotten rave reviews both times so I am considering it a keeper.

Hope this tides you over for awhile - just to note: for those of you baking below 5,000 ft, these recipes are all adjusted for baking at altitude.  I am not sure what they will do unaltered at a lower elevation but I will include the "low altitude" adjustments whenever possible.  Now that is a change of pace!

Just Like Mama Makes It

Last week, Ellie, Dozer and I were fortunate enough to have some company staying with us while Flick was out in Tahoe for work.  My parents and grandfather were in town with us for just about a week.  We had a fantastic time and it was really special for my Grampy to spend time with Ellie - it's not every day that you get to spend a week with your great-grand-daughter!  Flick and I were also able to go out for a date night which we really appreciated!

With my mom in town, I was treated to some home-cooked mama meals. Mmmmm - I love cooking but it is definitely nice to get a little break now and again and to try some new dishes that are staples in someone else's kitchen.  Two of these recipes have slightly longer cook times then some of the weeknight meals we usually feature but they are well worth the wait if you can come home, put dinner in the oven, and get other things done for 50 minutes while it all comes together.  If not - they make great weekend meals too!

Our first meal was a Stuffed Pork Tenderloin.  We served the tenderloin with mashed sweet potatoes and corn.  I ate enough tenderloin to warrant sideways glances from my dad and the four of us came one slice away from polishing off two small tenderloins.  Had to save some room for dessert!

The next meal was Honey Mustard Chicken with Roasted New Potatoes.  This comes together as a nice one dish meal since the potatoes and chicken all cook together.  We had some steamed asparagus on the side.  I was lucky enough to have some leftovers for lunch after they left and thoroughly enjoyed it the second time around as well!

Our fish meal was a Baked Cod with Mango-Pineapple Salsa.  My parents are a very short time away from retiring down to Florida (yea!) and they are more than ready to embrace the Florida lifestyle.  This tropical meal will make a regular appearance down there where they have access to an awesome fresh fish market (that makes some killer key lime pie).  Be as liberal as you like with the refreshing salsa and enjoy with some white or brown rice and maybe some fresh broccoli on the side.

The final mama meal was a Beef and Vegetable Skillet.  This was another great one dish supper that had plenty of vegetables to balance out the meat.  Flick enjoyed this as a left-over lunch once he was back in town and gave it very high marks. 

After everyone headed out of town, I pulled together a Monterey Jack, Corn, and Roasted Red Pepper Risotto as our vegetarian meal for the week.  I know what you are thinking: "Risotto, on a weeknight?  Doesn't that require a lot of time...and stirring?".  The answer is yes, and not necessarily!  I have found that with risotto, you do need to stir it frequently, however, you can put down the spoon and take a breather every now and again.  Maybe do a few dishes, chop up some veggies, pour a glass of wine.  Using a non-stick sauce pan certainly helps but we have used our Le Creuset and been just fine.  Don't fear the risotto - just be patient, add the liquid per the instructions, and give it a taste towards the end to see how the rice is doing.  I ended up with 1/2 cup of liquid that I did not need because the rice was done before I added it.  You've got this one!

Mulligan!

Things are really busy in the Flickinger household these days.  Between work, daycare, Dozer, Flick's MBA classes, and all the recreational stuff we like to do - there is rarely a dull moment.  In order to keep things moving smoothly we try and multi-task as much as humanly possible.

For instance, this week our fish dish is Blackened Tilapia served with a remoulade (don't worry, that is just fancy talk for a jazzed up tartar sauce...if you are still nervous, think fish sticks dipped in mayo with a little relish in it...there, now you can breathe again).  This is a quick meal but I figured I would go ahead and make the remoulade while I was getting Ellie's bath together and Flick was changing her diaper.  So I whipped it together and stuck it in the fridge to serve along with the fish later that evening.  Needless to say, the remoulade never made it to the table - out of sight out of mind.  I had checked it off my mental to-do list and there it sat, in the fridge.  The fish was delicious without it so we did not even notice until I went to get the salad and it stared me in the face.

Where is your delicious remoulade?

We chuckled at how much of a time saver it was to make it early - and then went on to have the exact same meal the next day so we could try it with our fancy sauce :)  You just have to roll with it and call a mulligan here and there.  For those of you who are wondering what we served our fish with - that is good ole' Pasta-Roni - not gonna lie, they make a nice quick side on nights when we either haven't thought about what to do for our starch or don't have anything else on hand.  Those are frozen peas and broccoli too.  You could easily make a rice or use fresh veggies - this is just what we chose to use.

Ahhh, there it is.

We did a little breakfast for dinner one night with Monte Cristo sandwiches.  I love breakfast.  The traditional Monte Cristo has both ham and turkey nestled with some melty cheese between two golden pieces of french toast but our version only uses the ham.  Real maple syrup for dipping is a must in our house but I am sure Aunt Jamaima works just as well.  A nice fruit salad and some cottage cheese would be good sides for this meal.

Oooo la la!

The vegetarian dish was a Fall Veggie Curry.  The veggies in this dish work great year-round so don't feel as though you are restricted to when you can enjoy this one.  I usually serve this over cashew rice but didn't have any cashews on hand.  We did have shredded coconut so I added that to the rice and it was really good!  From now on we will serve it over cashew coconut rice as I think the flavors work well together.  It is a really mild curry so for those of you who are not to sure about curries, consider this your training wheel recipe.  The flavors tend to develop the longer it sits so for those of you who desire a stronger taste - leftovers are delicious!

One more thing to add to the list of foods I love...pizza.  What is better than bread, cheese, veggies and/or meats, and a nice sauce all in one bite.  YUM!  We had Sausage, Pepper, and Mushroom pizza this week.  You could easily omit the meat in this or use chicken sausage if you don't do pork.  We used a refrigerated hunk of dough from Safeway for the crust and it really came together nicely.  We have gone with Boboli crusts in the past and they work just fine, but this crust was a game changer for me.  Really inexpensive, tastes great, and only required a few extra minutes to stretch it out to put on the pan.  Way worth the effort in my book.

Why does pizza have to be so darn good!

Finally, Chicken Stroganoff.  This is a major comfort food dish (but still healthy!) that we really enjoy.  It came to be one night when Beef Stroganoff (the traditional version of my made up meal) sounded really good but we were lacking the beef - kind of a major component.  I subbed in chicken and tweaked it a bit and we had a winner!  I made this last week on the first night that my mom, dad, and grandfather were out visiting and it went over really well.  My dad is lactose intolerant so this batch was put together with lactose free sour cream (love that they have options like this out there!) and the taste was just as rich and delicious.  Happy cooking!

Hand Held Meals

As I look through the meals for this week I realize that there are a lot of dinners that don't require much silverware (or plasticware, whatever works for you).  Happy hand held coincidence?  Who knows - I just pick whatever sounds best to me at the time I am pulling together my list.

We had 3 new dishes this week that were previously un-tested by the Flickinger clan.  I whipped up a Sausage Spinach Rice Bowl while Flick was out of town.  It was pretty good for a quick little meal.  I would say it is like a fast risotto - per the usual, I was pretty liberal with the cheese and I wouldn't recommend leaving out the red pepper since it will be lacking in flavor.  I also used regular brown rice instead of the pre-cooked kind (mostly because it is a lot cheaper but it does take longer).  I was able to get a lunch meal out of this so it is definitely good re-heated.

Sausage Spinach Rice Bowl

Also new to us was Bacon and Broccoli Mac n' Cheese.  I LOVE mac n' cheese...I don't think you understand, I mean I REALLY love mac n' cheese.  Kraft in particular - yep, that blue box with the orange powder....bring it.  I'll take it down.  This was slightly more sophisticated in that it was homemade and had some nutritional value (in the form of veggies and real cheese).  Flick was in charge of this meal and he seemed to handle it just fine - we made an extra big batch (and added more broccoli than the recipe called for) so this one is easy to multiply.

The Happy Chef

Bacon Broccoli Mac n' Cheese

Our vegetarian meal for the week was Grilled Veggie and Hummus Wraps.  Yum!  I consider our meatless meals to be a victory if Flick is really diggin them and he thoroughly enjoyed this one.  This is also the first of our 3 hand held meals.  It came together really quickly and is great on a nice night when you want to fire up the grill since the veggies all get some time on the coals.  We use our grill year round though so this will make an appearance no matter the season.  I neglected to take a picture of this one so you will have to use your imagination.

Easing back into the meat thing, our next meal is Almost Meatless Sloppy Joes.  This is a personal favorite of mine.  The recipe comes from a collection of recipes put together for Cooking Light by Mark Bittman - his piece in the magazine is called Less Meat More Flavor - we have gotten some very solid recipes c/o Mr. Bittman.  Back to the meal...Flick was the first to introduce me to sloppy joes, which finally brought the whole lunch lady scene from Billy Madison full circle:

My first sloppy joes were of the Manwich variety - and don't get me wrong, they are tasty as hell but these are slightly more refined (like the aforementioned mac n' cheese).  They are also delicious as leftovers so don't be afraid to make a bigger batch and re-heat for a nice little lunch or dinner later in the week.  The recipe calls for red beans but I used kidney and pinto in my last batch and they came out just fine!  We served this up with some chips and a salad but usually also have some cottage cheese on the side.

Almost Meatless Sloppy Joes

Finally, one of our all time favorite recipes - Cheddar Burgers with Red Onion Jam (aka: Michelle's Birthday Burgers).  Though it meant I could never bring cupcakes to school on my birthday during grade school, one of the benefits to a summer birthday is that it is conducive to grilling and hanging out on the patio - things which I find to be highly enjoyable.  A few years back, we had a couple of friends over for dinner on my birthday and Flick pulled together a batch of these burgers with mac n' cheese (the Kraft kind - see, told ya I love that stuff).  They were a hit - and continue to be one of our go-to summer meals.  I am so happy to have them back in the rotation for the season!  As I mentioned, usually we have these with mac n' cheese but since my sweet hubby divided a pound of ground beef between the two of us - we settled for some nice green beans with our 1/2 lb burgers.  Oddly, we were not overly stuffed when we were done...and apparently I was so excited for mine that I forgot to get a good picture before a bite was taken out of my burger.  The post-bite photo just doesn't do it justice so I am going to pass on posting it.  If you make them and take a good photo - pass it along!

Getting Started

Welcome!!!!  Let's get right down to business (be sure to check out the other pages for some light reading about what we are trying to do here with EZ Peas-Z).

We started this week with a ridiculously easy Shrimp Vodka Pasta dish that tasted divine and took virtually no time at all..seriously.  With so few ingredients I really did not know what to expect but we were both pleasantly surprised and had a hard time not going back for more after we cleaned our plates.  We then moved on to the good ole standby, Meatloaf.
 

Who doesn't like a little meatloaf in their lives?  Our version adds a layer of cheese and is served with mashed potatoes, brown gravy (from the little packets in the spice aisle), and a green veggie (we are partial to frozen peas...is it weird how much we love peas?).  Just like Mom makes it...yum!  Before you get lost reminiscing of stiffly slow dancing at your 8th grade social to "I'd do anything for love", let's give the vegetarians in the crowd a little love with our third meal: Chipotle Bean Burritos.

In general, we try to eat a meatless meal at least 1 night a week and a fish meal at least 1 night a week.  If we can work in more fish/beans/veggies and less meat, we do.  We love our meat though so it doesn't always work out.  With that in mind, we also tried this Spring Pasta (vegetarian) recipe but were not totally enamored with it (I am including the link to the actual recipe from Cooking Light).  They warned that the pasta soaks up the sauce quickly and it definitely does.  If you are feeling experimental, give it a go - and if you make some adjustments that knock it out of the park for you - please share!!  Maybe make more sauce to balance out the absorbancy of the noodles?  Instead, I would replace that meal with the solid comfort food style Tuna Noodle Casserole.  I love this recipe - pretty easy and tasty.  Finally, we rounded out the week (and all those meatless/fish-centric dishes) with some Parmesan and Sage Crusted Pork Chops, served with a side of grits and some veggies.  We tried using bone-in pork chops instead of the pork loin chops but would recommend going with the loin chops if you have the option.  In summary, these are the recipes that graced our table this week:

Shrimp Vodka Pasta
Meatloaf
Bean Burritos
Spring Pasta or Tuna Noodle Casserole
Parmesan and Sage Crusted Pork Chops

Depending on how heartily your family eats, you could easily end up with some leftovers from these meals for lunches or maybe to fill in on a night where cooking is just not an option.  Don't forget that freezing leftovers makes for a quick dinner on nights when you don't have more than a few minutes to pull together some food (I like the option of re-heating leftovers when Flick is traveling and I am on both baby and dog duty).  I hope you enjoy these meals as much as we do!