Oh my. When I die and go to Heaven, shut-up you in the back, this is going to be served everyday.

Back in the days before I had to go gluten and dairy free this was one of my most favorite summer meals. I think out of all the foods I have had to give up, it is the only dish I truly miss. Read the rest of this entry »

This  past week at BlogHer I had the pleasure of meeting Stephanie who writes the blog, A Year of Crockpotting.  January of this year she made a resolution for the new year to use her crockpot every day for the entire year.  She recently was a guest on the Rachel Ray show talking about her blog.

One of my favorite things about her blog is that she does not hold herself out as a cooking expert. She is just a person who decided to stretch her cooking wings this year. To force herself to cook better meals for her family. (She also has a celiac daughter, so her recipes are gluten free. Don’t let that scare you, you can substitute in your glutinous products should you desire.) And since she is experimenting daily, she also writes about her failures, meals that did not taste good. Things that she will not make again…. Swiss Chard soup anyone?

Today she had a Blueberry Buckle recipe based on one of Oprah’s favorite things. Stephanie was able to adapt the recipe for crockpot cooking and bake individual sized ramekins inside her crockpot.

One of  her recent recipes, Crockpot Peach Compote with Brandy, reminded me of Delicious Peach Cobbler that I make sometimes.  Yes, Delicious is part of the name.  I love to make this for dessert, especially now that we are dealing with overlapping baseball and football seasons. We eat dinner really early, but then the kids are ready to eat something again before bed. This peach cobbler on top of some vanilla ice cream is a nice treat.

You will need:

1/3 cup buttermilk baking mix (I use a GF baking mix)
2/3 cup dry quick oats
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
4 cups sliced peaches (fresh is best, but you can use canned just not the kind in the syrup)
1/2 cup water

Grease your slow cooker. Really well. And then when you think you have it greased well enough, grease it some more.

Mix together all the dry ingredients, dump in crockpot.
Stir in the peaches and water, mix with the dry ingredients.
Cook on low for at least 5 hours.
Serve over vanilla ice cream.

So, go on over and check out Stephanie’s blog. I promise there is a recipe there for everyone.

What was it I said earlier this week about the best chicken marinade? This is the steak version.

For a long time I was very into using Montreal Seasoning.  I used it on every kind of steak-like meat that I made.  I think my family rejoiced when I decided to move on to something new.

You will need:

1 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
juice of one lemon
3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons Dijon-style prepared mustard
1 onion, sliced *
2 cloves garlic, minced *

*I was in a rush today and so I used dried minced onion and garlic powder. It came out just as delicious.

Dump all the ingredients into a large ziploc bag. Squeeze the bag to mix the ingredients thoroughly.

I did use fresh squeezed lemons though, my children wouldn’t have it any other way.

Put the steak into the bag with the marinade mixture. Put it in the fridge and allow to marinate all day. The acidic ingredients tenderize the meat. The longer you allow it to set, the more tender it will become.

Put on a hot grill and cook about 5 minutes on each side.

I served it with some crusty rolls and a side salad.  The photo is blurry because I had to take it quick before someone stole the food  right off of my plate.

(I will add photos later. I am still cooking my food for this weekend, but wanted to get the recipes up since I have had so many requests for the Fourth of July recipes. I am also cooking entirely on my outdoor grill. Have I mentioned here that we are in the middle of a kitchen remodel? We are at the point right now where we have no appliances. Woooo hooooo. Or something like that.)

Along with the potato salad it is a law that you must have pasta salad. Yes, really. I generally make more than one but this one is an old favorite stand-by that everyone loves.

It conforms to the trifecta of a good recipe:

1) Easy.
2) Can be made in advance, actually it is preferable to make it the day before so that the flavors can meld together.
3) Loved by everyone.

1 (16 ounce) package of pasta, I like to use the tri-color ones

can black olives, chopped
1 small yellow onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
16 ounces mozzarella cheese, cubed*
cherry tomatoes, halved
1/4 pound Genoa salami, cut into bite sized pieces
1/4 pound pepperoni, pizza style, cut into bite sized pieces

3/4 cup olive oil**
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar**
ground black pepper to taste**

(fresh mozzarella is delicious, but you can use the regular kind too)

(*you can substitute your favorite Italian dressing instead. Buy an extra bottle to leave on the buffet table for people who want to add a little more zing to their pasta salad.)

Cook the pasta.

Drain the pasta and run under cool water.

Toss all the ingredients together in a bowl.

Refrigerate until your guests arrive.

Fire up your grill. Grab your slabs of meat. Summer is here.

Does that chicken make your mouth water? All you vegetarians can just pretend it is some sort of chicken shaped tofu.

You will need:

2 cans coconut milk
2T curry paste (I only had powder so I used that instead and it was fine)
4 tsp orange zest
1 1/2 cups of orange juice

4 boneless, skinless chicken breast
2 mangos cut into 1 inch chunks (I cut up 4 mangos)
1 pineapple cut into 1 inch chunks (I used canned)
Mix of salad greens

Mix together the coconut milk, curry paste, orange zest, and orange juice together in a small bowl with a lid.

Take the chicken breast and fillet it. That means cut the thickness in half. If you don’t do this when you grill your chicken it will be raw on the inside and burned on the outside. When you reduce the thickness it will cook evenly and still be tender.

Put the chicken into a large ziploc bag. Pour about a third of the coconut milk mixture into the bag. Allow the chicken to marinade for at least 30 minutes. Mine actually sat in the marinade for over 24 hours since we had a huge thunderstorm roll through and I didn’t feel like standing out in the storm waving my grill tongs like a lightening rod.

The rest of the marinade you will reserve for dressing the salad. Cut up the mango and pineapple. Or open the can if you are also using canned. Dump these into the bowl with the marinade. The recipe I had followed suggested grilling the mango and pineapple and I tried that the first time I made this recipe and decided that it wasn’t really worth the effort.

Here is a fun trick for cutting up mango. Slice the mango in half to the pit and pull it part. Cut the mango in a criss cross pattern down to the peel, without going through the skin.

Then flip it inside out.

This is a great way to give mango to the kids to eat. They can eat it right off of the peel like watermelon. And doesn’t it look cute enough to serve at the breakfast table?

Cover the bowl and put it in the refrigerator.

When you are ready cook your chicken on the grill.

After it is done cooking, slice the chicken into strips.

Cut up the salad greens. Toss with the reserved dressing. Add the grilled chicken.

Delicious. The perfect combination of grilled meat and sweet fruit, perfect for summer. I serve this with a nice bread. My kids like to eat the chicken and lettuce on bread like a sandwich.

And best of all? The kitchen has not been heated up by using the stove.

I am almost embarrassed to post this recipe. Almost. But in an effort to keep it real I am going to anyway. Because I realize that there are just some days and nights that are so busy, cooking entirely from scratch is a near impossibility.

Right now we have entered baseball season at our house. To give you an idea of what this means, I had to get a dedicated baseball calendar because my regular calendar DID NOT HAVE ENOUGH ROOM.

Oh sorry, was I shouting?

On the practical side this means that night after night I have to come up with meals that are quick. I try to limit cold cuts to once a week.

Also, my children told me I should post this recipe because they love it. And I maintain that it has to be better for you than fast food. Read the rest of this entry »

My children love this. LOVE. There really isn’t much not to love about it as long as you like peanut butter. I have several different versions of this recipe, but this one is my children’s favorite and it is the simplest to prepare. A win-win situation of you ask me. Read the rest of this entry »

Do you ever think to yourself, “Man, I have an awful lot of vodka, what can I do with it other than drink it?” No? Well, now you will.

This recipe reminds me of my sister in law who died a few years ago. She loved vodka sauce. In fact when I was pregnant with my oldest child the restaurant where the shower was held served penne with vodka sauce as the first course and my sister-in-law loved it so much we had to return to that restaurant for every family occasion over the next couple of years until finally I asked, “Can’t we just make this at home and skip the two hour drive to the restaurant?”

Turns out we could and we did. It is an easy recipe that I love to pull out when I want to make something that seems a bit more fancy but have zero time or ambition. Also, I promise she did not die from my cooking.

Read the rest of this entry »

I have tons of people who email me asking for recipes that are gluten free, egg free, dairy free, etc or can be adapted for food allergies. Okay, so maybe a ton is an exaggeration, a handful of people. Okay, two. Whatever.

Do not fear all you non allergic people, I have a delicious fettucine recipe that will be up on Thursday. Even though I will be far away from home I will post it for you. Yes, just for you! You will love it. I promise.

I originally wrote about this recipe on my personal blog in the fall. I wanted to republish it so that people can see baking, and cooking, is not an exact science. It is perfectly fine to experiment. Add different ingredients. Leave some out, whether on purpose or because of motherhood induced Alzheimer’s. I also did away with the refined sugars in this version of the recipe, instead substituting pure maple syrup.

In spite of all the alterations to the original recipe, it is just as delicious.  Some may even say more so.

Read the rest of this entry »

I have posted this recipe in a different incarnation by cooking it all in the crockpot. Even though the ingredients are essentially the same, the result is a completely different meal. The chicken cooked in a crockpot can be shredded and used in tortilla shells or eaten with chips. The chicken in this recipe stays whole.  In grilling weather you can also put these ingredients in tin foil packets and cook it on the grill.

You will need:

Chicken: breast or legs, bone in or out
Salsa or picante sauce
2 cans of Black beans
Shredded cheese

First, pour your salsa or picante sauce into the bottom of your baking dish. How ever much you need. I wanted there to be extra so I could mix it in with the brown rice I was also cooking and have a spicy mexican rice to go along with the chicken.

Then I fillet the chicken breast, like I always do, to cut down on the cook time and the chances of the breasts getting dried out on the outside, yet still being raw on the inside.

Lay them on top of the salsa.

Put it in the oven at 350 for 25 minutes.

After 25 minutes, remove from the oven and pour your black beans in the baking dish. Pop it back in the oven for 10 minutes.

Don’t you love my pot holders?  One of my children went through a phase where he could not make enough of these.  He made them constantly .  And being ever so helpful he threw away all the other pot holders and mitts that we owned.

Take it out again and sprinkle the top with shredded cheese. Pop it back in the oven for 2 minutes or until the cheese melts. You can see my side of the dish over there on the left with no cheese. It is delicious without it.

Serve it over brown rice.