Category: Stateside Cuisine

Mahalo…A Hui Hou

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We returned from Kauai on Sunday evening well-rested, sun-kissed and happy. It was a much-needed, relaxing, utterly beautiful and fabulous vacation. We’ve been fortunate enough to have taken many vacations over the course of our marriage, and even quite a few since the kids have been born, but I honestly don’t remember another time I came home this peaceful and relaxed. I didn’t even have my post-vacation “it’s over” sadness, just utter contentment. I suppose someplace as beautiful and magical as Kauai can do that to you.

Dawn of a new day.

Mr. N and Miss A even fully immersed themselves in the relaxation of this trip. With the exception of a few minor meltdowns from Miss A (which frankly were nothing in the grand-scheme of things – pretty remarkable for a three-year old) and a few initial protests about an activity from Mr. N, both of the kids were absolutely in-tune with each other, us and the vacation.  Continue reading →

Last But Not Least – Quest for the Best Banana Bread

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This is it! Our very last banana bread recipe for our quest, and it’s a special one. There were two things that prompted our search for the best banana bread, which started in early 2011. The first was our friend Doree’s recipe. We knew it was amazing and were quite sure it was the best ever, so we wanted to put it to the test. The second was today’s recipe – Big Bird’s Banana Bread – which I used to make with my dad when I was a little one.

And so while the kids are still adjusting to the time change here in Hawaii (we’ve been up since 3:45 a.m. this morning), here’s a recipe that’s close to my heart. Big Bird’s Banana Bread is a recipe from The Sesame Street Library books that came out in 1977. These books were a favorite of mine as a child, but were ruined in a flood many years ago. Fortunately, when Mr. N was born I was able to find the complete set on eBay. Since then, I’ve been waiting for the day my kids would be old enough to make their very own Big Bird Banana Bread.  Continue reading →

A Cowboy State of Mind

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Hopefully by the time you read this we’ll be well on our way to sunny skies and warm sandy beaches. So if you don’t see my comments around for a while, you’ll know why. I’ll be back and caught up on things after our return – hopefully nice and refreshed and with a bit more color in my face. Until then, we thought we’d share a recipe from our most recent state night dinner. As you may remember, we’ve been trying to keep things a bit on the lighter side. That’s why when we started looking for recipes from Wyoming, the Cowboy State, we wanted a nice warming soup.

We came across a recipe for Butternut Squash and Jalapeño Soup in Pamela Sinclair’s A Taste of Wyoming, which just sounded fabulous. The only problem with the soup – the original recipe called for two cups of cream. Now I’ve used cream in soups before, but never two cups of cream. Even my terribly sinful tomato cream vodka sauce doesn’t use that much cream. Then just for kicks I looked at the nutrition panel on the cream and calculated the calories and fat for two cups – ACK! I mean I knew cream wasn’t the healthiest of things on the planet, but wowzers! So here’s our adapted version of this Cowboy State delicacy, Butternut Squash and Jalapeño Soup. Continue reading →

Squashing the Calories

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Before we launch off on another one of our international adventures, we thought we’d share one of our favorite healthy, winter meals. We, like many others around the world, try to lighten the caloric loads after the holidays. Most of our meals are centered around vegetables whether it be salads, soups or light pasta dishes. It’s our way of making up for the holiday over-indulgences. This year, however, we have a bit of added pressure as swim suit season is coming a bit early.

Mike, through his research, has the opportunity to attend a conference in Hawaii next month (rough job right?!). His professional associations pick some mighty nice places to visit in the dead of winter let me tell you. Now typically the kids and I will tag every now and then, so as you can imagine, we’re picking this year to go! That being the case, we’ve been in healthy eating mode (well, for the most part) for the past month and this is one of our favorite go-to healthy, flavorful winter meals – Spicy Spaghetti Squash. Continue reading →

Quest for the Best Banana Bread – Mom Knows Best

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Tonight we continue on our quest for the best banana bread, which is actually nearing an end. In fact after today, we have only one last recipe (and it’s a special one) before the final taste test. I can’t even tell you how excited the kids are about lining up all the pieces of different banana breads for the final taste test. We don’t even know how many there are anymore, but they’re talking about it nearly every day. You would think it was Christmas again with their levels of anticipation.

But before we get to that special recipe and our final taste test, we had to try one more banana bread. It sounded too good to pass up. It comes to us from Dawn (actually Dawn’s mom) at First Look, Then Cook. If you don’t know Dawn, all of her recipes are delectable, but it’s her desserts that WOW me each and every time. She even makes me drool over chocolate (and folks that know me, know that’s saying something). Dawn has several delicious banana related desserts on her blog, but she swears by her mom’s recipe for banana bread, and how can you go wrong with a recipe from mom?!  Continue reading →

Here’s Johnny

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State night is back! This week Miss A is taking us to Utah. Utah has to be one of the most beautiful states Mike and I have ever seen. We spent a few days touring its many national parks on one of our cross-country trips before the kids were born, so we were happy to revisit some of those memories.

Surprisingly though, it was hard to find traditional recipes from the Beehive state. The state fruit is the cherry, but we covered those in Michigan; the state historic vegetable is the sugar beet, and you know how we feel about those (if you don’t here’s a refresher); and the state snack is Jell-O, but well, after Lisa’s post on its mystery ingredients, we can’t bring ourselves to eat it. Then we came across several recipes for the Mormon Johnnycake – done deal. We can do that and it just so happens it was a good match for a Nicaraguan dinner we’ll share later this week. Continue reading →