Happy Friday!

Aaaahhh, the weekend.  I love Friday nights.  They are easily the best nights of the week.  No work tomorrow, the knowledge that I have two whole days to hack away at my to-do (and want-to-do) lists, and getting to spend some QT with Ellie and Flick that does not include rushing to and from daycare / work.  Bliss.

Another thing I love about weekends is the potential to maybe, just maybe, cook without pressure.  We are on a pretty tight schedule during the week (I know this is not unique to our family), so weeknight dinner can be an all out sprint to get food on the table as close to 6pm as possible.  Don't get me wrong, I love every second of it!  30 rushed minutes in the kitchen is a heck of a lot better than 30 minutes doing a lot of other things...if you are me that is.  But on the weekend...oh the possibilities.  I'll be honest, more often than not, Saturdays and Sundays get away from us and it is yet another mad dash at to pull something together that won't have us eating too late for Ellie to maintain some semblance of a normal bedtime.  However, there is at least a chance that I can get myself into the kitchen early enough to turn on the radio and calmly cook a meal...

With all this one-in-a-million talk (this should conclude the movie references) - I find recipes like the one for Shrimp Fettuccine Alfredo below to be indispensable when we need something quick, tasty, and appetizing for the whole family.  The ingredients for this are not all that far-fetched so you may find that you even have them on hand in case dinner sneaks up and you need something in a pinch (mushrooms can be subbed in easily for the shrimp too, by the way).  Ellie happens to be a shrimp-a-holic so this recipe is right in her wheel house.  I find that the frozen, already peeled and deveined shrimp-in-a-bag can be a little tougher than the "ez-peel" ones we get from the fish counter (deveined and the shell is split so it comes off super easy).  But by all means, if you are down with the bag, use it.  We certainly have!  TGIF

Shrimp Fettuccine Alfredo

Courtesy of Cooking Light

9 ounces of fettuccine (or linguine)

1 pound peeled and deveined medium shrimp

2 chopped green onions

2 minced garlic cloves

Olive Oil

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

1/3 cup half and half

3 tablespoons (or 1 1/2 ounces) cream cheese 

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Parsley for the finish (optional)

Cook the pasta according to the package directions.  Towards the end of cooking, scoop out 1/4 cup of the pasta water to use with the shrimp.

In a small bowl, combine shrimp, green onions, and garlic.  

Heat a large skillet over medium high heat.  Add olive oil and swirl to coat the pan.  Add the shrimp/onion/garlic mixture and saute for about 4 minutes or until the shrimp are done - remove from the pan and keep warm.

Turn the heat down to medium on the skillet and add the 1/4 cup cooking liquid from the pasta (if you forgot, no big deal, just use 1/4 cup water), parmesan cheese, half and half, cream cheese, and pepper.  Cook about 2 minutes or until all the cheeses melt.  Combine the pasta, cheese mixture, and shrimp mixture.  If you are opting to do so, sprinkle with parsley.  Best served not long after cooking but tastes fine as leftovers too!

Summer Lovin

We have been working a few new recipes these days so I think it is time to put up another blog post so that I can have them as part of my online collection!  The photographers of the beautiful food have been given their kudos in the corresponding captions.  I'll kick it off with the Lemon-Garlic Shrimp Skewers we made for dinner tonight.  These were delicious and a great way to broaden your shrimp horizons...that is, if you are like me and have never grilled them before!

Michael Weschler

Next we have Cheddar Turkey Burgers with Mashed Avocado.  MAN these were delicious.  Flick and I are not generally huge fans of turkey burgers since they have such a narrow "perfect" window when they are not too dry.  These are kept moist with some grated red onion and cheddar cheese.  These will completely change your point of view on non-beef burgers, give them a chance.

Marcus Nilsson

Catfish always seems to end up with a cornmeal coating in our family - and the catfish meal we had a week or so ago is no exception.  What makes it really awesome is the Quinoa Saute that we served on the side.  This is a perfect summer side and loads you up with good-for-you quinoa and a decent serving of veggies.

The next two recipes are nods to some of the great food we have acquired from friends who have done some hunting/fishing over the fall and winter months.  Our friends up in Steamboat provided us with some amazing ground elk and elk tenderloins.  We incorporated the ground elk into our Shepard's Pie awhile back, but had been saving the tenderloins.  We finally got to cooking them and did a really simple crock pot recipe that you could easily use for a beef tenderloin if game isn't your thing.  They came out very flavorful and not tough at all - and elk is a very lean cut of meat!

The last recipe is a glaze for salmon that we have been using just about every other week on the Alaskan-caught salmon filets we were fortunate enough to receive from one of Flick's colleagues.  Neither of us are huge salmon eaters, so when we came across this recipe we decided it was the best way to prepare this amazing fish so that we could thoroughly enjoy eating it.  Happy summertime cooking everyone!

Happy Halloween!

I really love this time of year.  I know I have already harped on how great the transition into fall and winter comfort food is, so don't even get me started on the Holidays.  It all kicks off by getting dressed up in a costume and collecting candy from perfect strangers.  I haven't quite figured out how we get Ellie to understand that on this one day, with Mom and Dad, it is okay to accept candy from a stranger.  Otherwise, run. 

We went down to Pearl Street this year for the Munchkin Masquerade.  It is the place see and be seen on Halloween.  There are some pretty amazing costumes (think an entire family dressed up as the Incredibles...) and all the stores hand out candy to the kiddos.  Needless to say, Ellie was completely overwhelmed but happily took it all in, held safely in Mom and Dad's arms.  She was a dinosaur this year (and really excited about it):

Slightly more ferocious than the ladybug costume she donned last Halloween:

Apparently she was so worn out from the sleeping and milk drinking at the Munchkin Masquerade that she fell asleep when we set her up for her post-Pearl Street diaper change:

Too cute.  Along with getting dressed up for Halloween, we always enjoy carving pumpkins.  Flick was traveling during primo pumpkin carving time this year, so my mom and I spent an evening carefully cutting away the perfect Halloween designs in our pumpkins.  It is a good thing that Halloween is over because the animals have been feasting on our artwork for the past few days and there is not much carving left to speak of.  They were cool while they lasted though:

The pumpkins may be done but we are still feasting on the roasted pumpkin seeds that we meticulously separated from the "goo" on the insides of the pumpkins while carving.  For tasty roasted pumpkin seeds, separate the seeds from the pulp.  Rinse thoroughly to get all the goop off and soak in a clean bowl of salted water overnight (just a few shakes should do it).  Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.  Drain the seeds and cover a baking sheet with foil; spray with cooking spray or rub some oil on the foil to grease it.  Spread the seeds in a thin layer on the sheet and sprinkle with a little more salt.  Bake for 10 minutes.  Using a spatula, flip the seeds and bake for another 10 minutes.  Allow to cool slightly before enjoying! 

If you are tough like we are, you can eat the entire seed, hull and all (yeah, so it is a little strange but that is where all the salt is!), otherwise, peel off the hull and enjoy the little green pepita inside!

We'll start our meal chat with Enchilada Casserole.  We have featured this meal before and I brought it out again while my parents were in town.  Since my dad is lactose intolerant, we used cheddar cheese in place of monterey jack (cheddar and muenster are fine for him!) and he seemed to really enjoy it, as did my mom and I.

Since the Enchilada Casserole only uses 4 wraps, Flick and I used the rest of them earlier in the week for Grilled BBQ Chicken wraps.  These are great on the grill year round and are so easy to make.  They are pretty kid friendly too so hopefully the whole family can enjoy them together.

Shrimp Fra Diavolo is another one of those solid meals that tastes more gourmet than the short list of ingredients and rapid cook time implies.  I love meals like this, they are real confidence boosters.  This dish doesn't pack as much heat as the name and ingredients imply.

I made Flick and I some Honey Cashew Chicken with rice for a good healthy dose of vegetables one night.  I really like this recipe and love that it uses edamame - something that we don't often cook with but that has a really good flavor and increases the heartiness factor of a dish in a very healthy way. 

Our vegetarian meal was Falafel Pitas.  YUM!  I love falafel and these were so easy to make.  You could easily make a double batch, shape the patties, and freeze them for future use.  Just take them out, defrost, and continue forth with pan-frying them for a quick, healthy, tasty meal on a rushed weeknight.  You will have to use your imagination on these because we wolfed them down before getting the camera out.  I really enjoyed the sauce that went along with them and Ellie actually ate it off the top of her falafel - so that gives you some indication of how delicious it was.  Hope you all had a great Halloween, happy cooking!

Flexibility

The recipes this week show just how much we are straddling the line between summer and autumn right now.  As hard as it is for me to make a nice chili during the summer, those summery, one-dish pastas just don't do it for me when the weather turns cooler.  Part of being able to cook easy, delicious, healthy meals, depends on your ability to adapt.  Whether you are adapting to a new schedule, the new variety of fresh produce at the turn of a season, or dietary limitations in your family - the more flexible you can be, the easier it is to cook at home.

Almost Meatless Sloppy Joe's (AMSJ) is a recipe that was posted awhile back.  AMSJ's are a delicious alternative to popping open a can of Manwich sauce and pouring it over some ground beef.  With this recipe, we manage to sneak in some vegetables and beans with the meat in order to make it a more well rounded meal.  Speaking of flexibility, instead of serving AMSJ's on rolls, for this meal we broke out some russet potatoes, pierced them with a fork, microwaved them for about 5 minutes.  We put them in the oven for 45 minutes at around 400 degrees.  Voila - AMSJ's over baked potatoes.  YUM!  We even managed to sneak in some cheese as a creamy topper because you all know how we feel about cheese.

Speaking of cheese (I don't think that is the first time I have said that), one of the meals that starts to show up a whole lot more during the winter months are Calzones.  Calzones are really not all that much different than pizza, however, there is something fun about having a cheesy packet of deliciousness all to yourself.  Calzones are really easy to tailor to the needs of your family - you can mix and match veggies and meats so that everyone ends up with something that speaks to their individual tastes.  We serve these with a side of marinara for dipping. 

Summer lemon vegetable risotto is about to be retired for the year.  This is one of my favorite summertime risottos and one of the few dishes that I am okay sweating over the stove in our hot-box kitchen for.  You really pay homage to the key summer vegetables in the form of zucchini, summer squash, snap peas, and asparagus with this meal.  If you have some finicky vegetable people in your family, hopefully they can find at least one "green thing" that they can enjoy in this dish.

Warm Pasta Salad with Shrimp is a meal that I was not so sure about when I decided to make the recipe.  Something about beans and pasta...it just didn't seem like it would work for me.  I was SO wrong.  This has become a year-round staple in our house.  The flavor runs deep and with all the beans, spinach, and lean shrimp - you are getting some great nutritional benefits from this meal.  We add more spinach than the recipe originally calls for (it cooks down significantly) and you could sub-in some whole wheat pasta for even more points in the "good for you" column.  I hope you decide to give this one a chance!

Christa introduced me to this Chicken Cordon Bleu recipe.  She made it out in Colorado and it is the best Chicken Cordon Bleu recipe that I have ever had.  Hands down.  Even if you have your own recipe at home, give this one a go - we have fully converted and not looked back since!

Family Style

Well - I got distracted by an amazing trip up to Breckenridge for the weekend (congrats Sarah and Luke!!) so I am a little behind on getting this out.  Keep your eyes peeled for another post later this week...then I should be right back on track.

I took a vacation day today and it felt great (it is Wednesday...it takes a few nights in a row to get these posts completely pulled together). I am not sure how most people spend their vacation days but mine included getting up at 5:15 for a little yoga, washing the floor, having a lunch date with my leading lady, Ellie, at Mod Market in Boulder, going shoe shopping for said leading lady, and washing Dozer.  Good stuff all around.  Doesn't sound like much of a vacation day you say?  Well, the fact that I don't have to stress about doing all of those things after working and putting Ellie to bed is enough of a relief for me to call this vacation day a success.

Ellie's new shoes :)

With all that in mind, I have to say that the best part of my day came at around 6:10pm when for the first time, Flick, Ellie, and myself sat down and had dinner together.  We have had plenty of meals where Ellie has been at the table with us, banging around a toy or sleeping in her bouncer, but this was the first dinner where she sat in her high chair at the table and had a mini version of our meal.  It was SO great.  It is hard to beat an awesome meal with your family, out on the back deck on a summer evening.  For me, this meal was the perfect cap to a productive vacation day and gave me a taste of a tradition that I can't wait to get going in the Colorado Flickinger household.  Enjoy the meals this week - we are making some serious headway in getting all those recipes onto the new site!

Grilled Zucchini Caprese Sandwiches

Lemon Pepper Shrimp Scampi

Maple Mustard Chicken Thighs

Honey Mustard Chicken with Roasted New Potatoes

Meatloaf...remember this guy?

Lake Eats

I've said it before and I'll say it again - we love food.  The reason it is so painless for me to spend time putting together a meal is because the end product is so satisfying.  Even when just Flick and I are dining together, dinner is no short ordeal.  We easily spend 45 minutes eating, talking, drinking - and that is on nights when we have a full agenda for the post dinner hours.

With company in town - plan for at least an hour and a half at the dinner table.  Love it.  We just went out and bought a bunch of tiki torches and citronella oil to ward of the mosquitoes and prolong the dinner-time chat out on our back deck in Boulder.  It is the same way at the lake.  When we saddle up for dinner we are going well beyond sunset into the hours of the night when I would normally be getting ready for bed.  How great is that? 

Instead of the normal 5 meals - here are two meal "events" that you can count on to provide you with a great medium for conversation at your next backyard get together.

The first meal is a bit of a one-pot-wonder: the Shrimp Boil.  My brother and sister-in-law have lived south of the Mason Dixon (which, when I Googled it, is not quite as far south as I had imagined, but regardless...) for long enough to be bringing a little southern flare to our gatherings.  They put on a delightful shrimp boil which was delicious and fun to eat (NOTE: if you are taking turns doing dishes, call dibs on this night...trust me).  The shrimp boil involves shrimp, corn, onions, potatoes, sausage, Old Bay Seasoning and a giant newspaper covered table.  Intrigued?  Give this a go - if you have easy going guests who are not afraid to dig in family-style, this will surely be a hit!

Getting ready to chow down!

The second meal was a bit more traditional (in the way it was served) but just as memorable.  We had a feast of steaks, salmon, broccoli slaw, baked potatoes, bread dipped in flavored oil, and strawberry torte for dessert.  Mmmmm.  

The steaks were grilled with a little olive oil, seasoned salt, and crushed black pepper.  We had sauteed mushrooms (slice mushrooms, heat skillet over medium heat and add some butter.  Add mushrooms and saute until softened) as a nice compliment to the perfectly grilled steaks.

The salmon was cooked on a cedar plank - soak the plank for an hour, rub the fish with a mixture of 1 tablespoon cracked black pepper and 1 tablespoon brown sugar.  Lay the fish on the plank and put the plank on the preheated grill (medium heat) for 15 or so minutes or until it reaches 130 degrees.  Serve with this horseradish sauce from Wegmans if possible! 

 

These recipes will be as great individually as they are all together - mix and match, borrow a marinade or cooking technique for a different cut of meat, and by all means, allow yourself some strawberry torte for dessert!

Broccoli slaw?  Yes please!

Strawberry Torte

Dinner, A-Team Style

You tell 'em Hannibal

I had to do a little extra planning for this week's meals.  Flick was gone with work for a few days so I needed to make sure that I chose meals that were either make-ahead friendly or quick to pull together.  It's all about the planning.  Some days work out better than others, but it always feels good to know that there is a nice meal just around the corner as I am scooting around the house after work trying to get everything done.

Perhaps one of the best summertime meals to fill this role is Penne with Corn, Roasted Poblanos, Avocado, and Tomato.  This recipe requires a lot of prep (read: make-ahead meal), however, it results in a pretty hefty amount of food.  We usually serve it as an entree (sometimes we add some grilled chicken to give it a little more umph), but it would make a fine side dish as well!  When roasting the peppers, make sure you give them time to really blacken up.  It makes the peeling process go much faster:

When it all comes together it is not only a tasty dish, but a pretty one too!

I had to run an audible on my fish dish this week.  I did not have all the ingredients for the recipe I was intending to make (despite sitting down with it to make my grocery list...these things happen), so I did a little experimenting.  The original recipe is Bombay Shrimp Curry with Coconut Rice; we have made this before and both really enjoyed it.  My ingredient snafu came with the rice so I made plain white rice and used the coconut milk in the curry itself.  I found the sauce to be a little too rich for my liking - the coconut milk was much better served as the cooking medium for the rice.  We will go that route for future editions so the recipe I am providing is the original "un-edited" version.

Moving on to the meat segment of the blog - we really worked the "other" white meat this week; pork chops and country ribs both graced our table for dinner.  The pork chop recipe is a very straightforward dry rub that you coat the chops with prior to grilling.  

We served them with rice pilaf and some of our sweet green peas.  Yum!  I was excited about the rib recipe because we do not have ribs very often, and we also do not use our slow cooker as much as we probably should.  It is really great to come home to a meal that is virtually ready to be eaten, however, there is always a little up front work to be done.  For me this means that I just need to do the "cooking" in the morning, rather than when I come home at night.  Despite the morning prep requirements, it is nice to be greeted at the front door not only by a giant Bernese Mountain Dog, but also by the mouth watering smell of BBQ ribs simmering in the crock pot. We had our ribs with some cornbread, slaw, and baked beans.  Our neighbors were having ribs on the same night so we brought over half of the cornbread for them to enjoy with their dinner.  It is nice to be able to share good food with friends and neighbors!

Last, but certainly not least, is another vegetarian dish: Vegetarian Stuffed Mushrooms.  These are flavored with Balsamic Vinegar - portobellos, tomatoes, cheese and balsamic - you really cannot get much better than that!  The recipe calls for Fontina cheese, which we do not often have on hand and can be expensive, so we sub in fresh Parmesan as a nice alternative.  Flick was home for dinner this night so he ended up pulling it together - the prep time is very reasonable and makes for a nice mid-week meal.

Colorful Plates

I am going to start right off the bat with one of our all time favorite (and SO simple) meals: Cilantro Lime Chicken with Avocado Salsa.  This continues my theme of summery meals since, although this can be made year-round, I swear it tastes even better eaten out on the back deck with a glass of wine and some corn-on-the-cob.  This makes a great meal to serve to company too because you don't have to spend tons of time slaving over it.  The salsa can be made hours in advance because the lime juice keeps the avocado from getting really brown (by the way, I just read that it is a myth that the pit of the avocado keeps it green...).  I actually had the salsa in a wrap with some deli chicken the next day for lunch and it still was looking pretty tasty.  Saffron rice is the side we always have with this and I HIGHLY recommend it.  It comes in a yellow bag in the rice section and is super inexpensive (unlike when you try to buy it in spice-jar format).

Moving right along - for the beef eaters out there, we made Enchilada Casserole with Spicy Black Beans.  This would be a good way to mix up taco night if you are feeling a little stale.  It is very straightforward to put together and makes for good leftovers.  I would imagine kids would like the Enchilada Casserole part as well - ours is just easing into peas so we'll have to wait a bit before we try it out on her.

Shrimp Cobb Salad is just as pretty to look at as it is to eat.  Flick did a stellar job of arranging the shrimp in an artistic manner for the photo.  We'll get a good look at what a "normal" plate of our food looks like in one of the recipes below since we generally don't work at presentation when we are just feeding ourselves.  This is a salad that eats like a meal - we had some sourdough bread on the side and thoroughly enjoyed every last bite of this dinner.

I made up some Cajun Red Beans and Rice on a night when Flick was just getting back from traveling so I was cooking for myself.  Depending on what kind of rice you are using, this comes together really quickly.  I used brown rice (not the instant kind) so that was definitely the time limiting factor in the creation of this dish.  Historically we have used the white rice in-a-bag which cooks up in about 10 minutes and seems to always come out good no matter what.  Love that.

We popped back out onto the grill for some Maple Mustard Chicken Thighs with broccoli and a baked potato.  You use part of the marinade for marinading and serve up the extra as a glaze for the chicken when it is time to plate up.  I have a new found appreciation for chicken thighs these days.  We try and buy our meat organic as often as we can and the chicken thighs are about 2 million times less expensive than the boneless skinless chicken breasts.  So, thighs it is!  Not to mention the fact that they taste really good...

Things are not always that neat and pretty come dinner-time at the Flickinger household - as promised, here is the "non-photo" plate - still tastes just as good:

BONUS: You'll notice that there are no vegetarian meals in the photo recipes this week.  Well, Flick was out of town at his brother's bachelor party and had the camera with him so I didn't get to take a picture of the Curry Spiced Noodles that I made while he was gone.  I'll include the recipe though as a 6th meal for the week.  As a heads up - there is a fair amount of chopping/prepping and I recommend doing it before you start cooking.  The cook times are short (2 minutes) before needing to add more ingredients and I had to pull the pan off the heat more than once since I wasn't done prepping when it was time for something to be added.  Also, the sauce was pretty thin for me when I put everything together.  Once the noodles are mixed in, try and let it sit for a few and then give it another mix - the sauce coats everything a little better once it has cooled a bit.  Enjoy!

Easing into summer

Once the weather warms up I want to fire up the grill every night - I almost feel guilty cooking indoors when the temps are in the 80s and the sun is shining.  I find it is really easy to fall into the "Mad Lib" (I used to love those things...) dinner routine when it comes to grilling:

"So what do you want for dinner tonight?"

"Hmmm, it's a nice night, let's throw some ___________________ on the grill."
                                                                            (meat name)

"Ok, we can have some ________________ and ___________________ on the side."
                                             (starch name)                                   (veggie name)

Are you thinking "well, that doesn't sound so bad...that is a really well rounded meal!"?  You are absolutely right, and I love those summery meals on the grill - but they are even better when they don't happen every night.  Kind of like having ice cream...actually, ice cream is pretty stinkin good every night.  Maybe it is more like going OUT for ice cream - what makes it so fun is that you don't do it all the time.  If you do, well then you are just lucky.

 
One of our "alternative" grill meals are Fish Tacos.  I order fish tacos whenever possible when we are out to eat - it as if I am on some sort of a mission to determine the best place to get fish tacos in land-locked Colorado.  I could have picked a more appropriate meal.  Anyways, I believe it was about a year ago that we had a delicious summer dinner on the back deck at our good friends' house and they served up some tasty fish tacos.  That meal has become a staple for us and we have been enjoying them at home ever since.  This week we had them with a side of beans and some cornbread...delish!

 
We had one new-to-use meal this week - Pork Chops over Couscous with Pistachio Lemon Vinaigrette.  I would like to say first-hand that it was absolutely delicious...but due to an ill timed stuffy nose my sense of taste was pretty dulled.  Flick said it was yummy though so we'll take his word for it!

Our meatless meal was Black Bean Patties over Pineapple Rice.  What is great about these little guys is that you can shape the patties and only coat the ones you will be cooking right away in cornmeal.  The rest easily go into the refrigerator for lunch or dinner on another night (just coat them prior to cooking and they are just as good as the first time around!).  Either way, they make a nice light meatless meal.

We did more than our average number of meatless/fish meals this week and made Lemon Pepper Shrimp Scampi one night - the fastest shrimp scampi you will ever try.  It probably has about 23 times less butter than the classic one that you might get in a restaurant which makes Flick and I feel not quite so bad about splitting a batch right down the middle.

Finally...Heavenly Honey Chicken.  Need I say more?
 

If you want a sure fire way to make tender, juicy, chicken - this is your go-to.  It is one of the recipes I wrote down from my mom's collection when I started living off campus in college.  We frequently make it for guests so if you find yourself with an invite to Casa de Flickinger for dinner - don't be surprised if this shows up on your plate!