Once summer was in full swing back in Connecticut, my mom used to pack us girls up into the car to go strawberry and blueberry picking with my Memere and Pepere. Needless to say we LOVED everything about these trips - from hanging out at our Grandparent's house to sneaking pounds of freshly picked berries as payment for our efforts. I am serious about "pounds" and use the term "sneaking" very loosely...if you have ever eaten dessert with me, you know what I'm talking about:
Mom, I am pretty sure Christa ate that chocolate cake...
My mom used to say that they were going to need to weigh us on the way in and the way out of the fields to account for all the fruit we ate while picking. I can think of worse things to be loading up on!
I have yet to come across a "pick your own berry" farm out here in Colorado. These days we settle for expensive quarts and pints of berries at the supermarket which definitely do the trick - but nothing beats fruit fresh from the fields. I guess I better get on planning that garden for next year!
On a recent trip to the grocery store I bought an enormous bag of frozen blueberries (for about 1 million dollars). On my first Mother's day all I really wanted were blueberry pancakes. My body knows no limit when it comes to blueberry pancakes - like pizza, cereal, and ice cream, I could eat them all day long and that "you are full" filter would never kick in. It is a problem. The great thing about an extra large bag of blueberries is that once the pancake batter runs out, you can whip up a batch of blueberry muffins. I made these muffins for dessert one night when we realized we were deficient in the sweets department. They are really quick to pull together and they make the house smell amazing as they come out of the oven. Fresh is always best, but once they are completely cool, if you wrap them individually in wax paper and put them in freezer bags, you can enjoy them a few weeks later and they are just as good! We have pulled out frozen muffins for quick snacks in the morning before heading up skiing or off to work and it is always nice to know you have something good on hand. I didn't get the greatest picture of them (it was kind of late and our kitchen lighting leaves a lot to be desired), but they certainly disappeared quickly in our house!
The weather was a little cooler the week that we made these recipes so it was not too bad to have the oven going in the house at night (these recipes queued up the week before we left on our trip). Our kitchen gets HOT in the summer. Between the inefficient light fixture that is like a heating lamp over the sink and the non-venting oven...we keep it toasty in that 1970's kitchen. When we moved in last year it was a warmer than average summer and I was pregnant. Normally my thermostat runs on the cooler side, however, last year I was a hot mess from the time we started cooking until I went to bed at night (with the windows open and ceiling fan on). I never drink ice water but our ice trays couldn't keep up with Dozer and I. Fortunately we had a lot of help with the meals right after we moved in thanks to our amazing families and the time they spent settling us into our new home. After that we used the grill as much as possible and ate outside every night - meal planning was a little less formal at that point!
Speaking of hot, our first meal, Savory Sausage, Spinach, and Onion Turnovers, flash me back to those microwaveable Hot Pockets we
used to enjoy growing up. My sisters and I really didn't have any
problem with chowing down on Hot Pockets (though I always burned my
mouth on them...).
These are pretty straightforward to make and there is no need to get hung up on the shape of the turnover. Our turnovers never come out looking like turnovers so just
shoot for getting the dough sealed up - circle, square, half-moon - they
all taste the same and you won't be disappointed!
One recipe that we are enjoying for the second summer in a row is Grilled Zucchini Caprese Sandwiches. All the cooking is done on the grill and it takes very little time to pull together these veggie filled sandwiches. I recommend getting some good bread for these as it adds a lot to the meal.
This week we welcomed back Mac n' Cheese alongside a Baked Cod Filet. For a quick grammatical interlude - as I was typing this entry I went back and forth between "Filet" and "Fillet" before resorting to my old friend, Google, to ensure that I was not misrepresenting the spirit of the meal. I came across a blog that indicated the terms can be used interchangeably (both mean "a boneless cut of meat") and that Americans and Canadians are the most inconsistent in their usage. I also happened upon this article published in the Boston Globe regarding the AP's guidance on food related words. I found it to be pretty amusing and if I ever go pro with my food writing I am going to have some serious studying to do - in the meantime, stash a few of these nuances away for trivia night!
Back to the food: the crumb on the fish is made from Ritz crackers (or Zips if you are like us and buying generic) and lends a nice buttery flavor to the fish. I cannot wait until Ellie can have Mac n' Cheese so we have a good reason to keep a few (more) boxes on hand.
The summer squashes are starting to pop up in the grocery store at "in season" prices, so we made Baked Ziti with Summer Vegetables. For the pasta connoisseurs out there, you will notice that those are penne in the picture - any short pasta will do for this recipe (we always seem to have 1/2 boxes of pasta hanging around). Dishes like this don't need a specific shape so cook up whatever short pasta you are looking to get rid of.
Finally, Chicken with Lemon Leek Linguine. I was skeptical at first about leeks and linguine coming together. It seemed too stringy to work, but the flavors are great and we both really enjoy the mild onion-y taste of the leeks with the pasta and chicken - it is a great summer-time meal. Keep it cool out there and if you are hanging out with a pregnant woman this summer, by all means, bring her a glass of ice water!
These days, the week prior to leaving on a trip is somewhere between circus and total chaos in our house. Hence - the blog post just did not happen last week. With a baby in tow it takes a minimum of 3 days to prepare for a vacation and when you throw in that baby being sick, work, school, mani/pedi (we were in a wedding - gotta have nice nails!)...time just really gets away from you! Congrats to Mark and Tara on their beautiful wedding weekend and I hope that they are both relaxing on a peaceful beach in Hawaii....ahhhh.
When can we go?
I assure you that these meals were worth waiting for and you won't be disappointed if any end up on your table this week!
Let's start off with Italian Meatball Sliders. We really loved these - this was a new recipe to us and it made enough for lunches during the week. I couldn't find slider buns at the store so we just used smaller hamburger buns and they turned out just fine (we made the patties a little bigger as well).
Our meatless meal was Vegetable and Rice Burritos with Cheese. These were nice and hearty for a veggie only burrito and we both agreed that this was a "keeper". I was very careful not to over-stuff mine (for the sake of taking a picture) but Flick got a little aggressive with the fillings on his:
I'm way to full...
His required a fork and knife - mine came out well but doesn't stand out much against our burrito-wrap colored plates...a better photographer would have anticipated this and had an array of beautiful bright colored plates to display these tasty morsels on...we are a one-type-of-plate family:
Camouflaged
Antipasto Style Penne made for some delicious leftovers at lunch one day during the week. I have made this both with the prosciutto crisped up and with it plain. Both are fine but I definitely prefer it to be broiled a bit. It is less stringy...I am a person who loves my bacon just to the edible side of "burnt to a crisp". Limp bacon doesn't do it for me and I think prosciutto falls into that same category.
We tried Coconut Curried Pork, Snow Pea, and Mango Stir Fry this week. This was a big hit with both of us - it is becoming apparent that we both really love curry dishes with a coconut milk base. Mangoes are in season now so it is the perfect time to try this meal (so get after it!). We have had this recipe in our book for ages and for whatever reason, I have always passed over it. I am so glad it is part of the rotation because it made for a delicious meal! We served this over a sticky, long grain rice (I made a big batch and we used the leftovers in the aforementioned burritos later in the week).
Onto our fish meal: Cornmeal Crusted Catfish. I never really had catfish until living out in Colorado but have come to include it as a regular player in our fish dinner category. We design this meal to fully embrace the southern-style preparation for this fish (served with baked beans, slaw, and corn on the cob). On a night with more time, we have cornbread too and it is just divine. If you are a little unsure of catfish - use another mild, white fish (orange roughy would work really well too).
Hopefully you find these meals to be well worth the week delay in posting them! It was great to catch up with everyone at the wedding and thanks to all who are following the blog. I loved hearing from you about it and it means a lot to me to know that you are enjoying the posts. Can't wait to see you all again soon! Enjoy!
One of our vegetarian meals this week did double duty for us - both as a pot-luck lunch and then as leftovers for dinner the following night. I love meals that you can multipurpose. Leftovers do not freak me out at all - they are essential in our house for those nights where unexpected things crop up making it tough to pull together a dinner. It happens.
So one of our double duty meals was Curried Couscous with Broccoli and Feta. This comes together very quickly and makes a pretty substantial amount of food so you can count on getting a few lunches or maybe another dinner out of this meal.
Another meal that we stretched to two nights was Cheesy Potato Soup with Ham Sandwiches. The ham sandwiches are entirely optional so you can make this a straight up vegetarian meal if you decide to forgo them. The fancy mayo that goes with the sandwiches is quite delicious so don't be afraid to make a little extra and use it on sandwiches for lunch!
Thai Chicken with Sugar Snap Peas is an old staple of ours. It is actually hand written into my first recipe book - if you have ever been to our house while we are cooking, most recipes are cut out of our Cooking Light magazines and put into sticky-back-page photo albums. Only our oldie-but-goodies and some family recipes make it into the hand written books. I think we first made this when we lived back in Boston - it was probably one of the first (and only) entrees I ever made that involved peanut butter :)
For fish we went with Pecan Crusted Tilapia. We had this on a business school class night so I made everything up (grits and corn on the cob) and cooked my fish and left some of the "crust" for Flick to use to make his once he was out of class. I know I just got done talking about how much I like leftovers...but leftover fish is not my favorite so I wanted Flick's to be freshly made rather than reheated.
Finally...another pizza :) This is Roasted Veggie and Ricotta Pizza. A really great vegetarian pie. The good news is that Ellie had cheese for the first time and seems to love it so we can count on her to help us polish off a pizza in the near-ish future...not that we have any problems doing that now on our own.
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!
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.
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!
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!
