Category: Stateside Cuisine

Three Going on Twenty Three

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Birth Day 2008

We’ve got another reason to celebrate in our house – Miss A’s third birthday! Our little baby girl is growing up and way too fast for our liking. Some days it certainly seems like she’s three going on twenty three. Take her birthday meal request for instance. Here’s how the conversation went: “What do you want for your birthday dinner?” Miss A responded without hesitation, “Cookies.”

“Yes, honey, but what do you want to eat before the cookies.”

“Cookies.” (Gotta love her determination.)

“You have to eat dinner before the cookies – your special birthday dinner. You can pick any dinner you want.”

“Um. Something hard. A hard recipe. And balsamic.”

“Balsamic? You want me to make something that’s hard to make and use balsamic?”

“Yep.”

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Fast and the Furious

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Last night was a hectic one. I ended up having to work a little extra late, we had a meal to put on the table and we had to be ready for our annual family pictures – all within an hour. The results – a fast meal and a furiously, frantic mom rushing around trying to cook, snap photos, keep the kids clean and finally get us all dressed and ready to go. Fortunately everything looked pretty darn good by the end of the night. Even Miss A’s hair was cooperating. 😉

Since we were still cooking from California, we found another healthy recipe that was seemingly right up Miss A’s alley – Turkey Avocado Pita Pizza. The ingredients are simple and fresh. We started with some Compari tomatoes since they are on the sweeter side and extra juicy.

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Salsa – Almost as Much Fun to Say as Sriracha

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Miss A rollin’ in her signature laid back style – 2009

There’s a story behind this – every time we go to the grocery store and get to the Asian food aisle, Miss A starts yelling “Sri-chacha” – and I mean yelling. We can’t help but laugh every time, even while trying to shoosh her just a bit. Then she continues for the next few aisles whispering “Sri-chacha.”

While we didn’t use Sriracha tonight, it was Miss A’s pick for our stateside adventure. We asked her what state she wanted to cook from and without hesitation she said very matter of factly, “California.” Dad and I both turned and looked at each other in shock. You see she usually picks places we’ve recently talked about or visited, or even one she flips to in the atlas, but today was straight out of her own little mind. So even though we already visited California once before, we figured we’d give it another go because Miss A said so.

Every time we visit California we eat lots of fresh Mexican food – especially fresh salsa. And since we’re really full from eating desserts the past few weeks and weekends, we’re going to feature a healthy California side dish this week in its place – Pineapple Jicama Salsa. (Don’t worry…we’ll have another dessert soon. 😉 )

This recipe is courtesy of our good friend, Linda, who shared this wonderful dish with us last week after I devoured quite a bit at their house. We started by dicing some tomatoes, jicama and pineapple. Continue reading →

Fun with Florida

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How many of you guessed our Florida dessert for this week? I mean it was probably one of our easiest choices yet, with the only surprise coming from how easy it was to make. Are you ready….of course you’re ready – Key Lime Pie!

We adapted this recipe from Cooking Light simply because when you consume this many desserts in one week you have no other choice. We also chose an almond pie crust in place of the graham cracker crust thanks to some of the  kitchen tips Mandy posted over at The Complete Cook Book. It turns out the almond pie crust is much healthier than the graham cracker crust, and it holds up better at cold temperatures. Thanks for the tips Mandy! Continue reading →

Introducing…Shellfish

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A younger Mr. N enjoying Florida’s Gulf

To Miss A that is. We held off on shellfish for both of the kids until they reached the age of three. It’s a highly allergenic food to which we have a family history, but now that she’s nearing her third birthday we’re making the slow introduction of shellfish starting with dad’s stateside pick for the night – Florida.

Dad really wanted to make alligator bites tonight, but unfortunately (Read: Shwoo!), we couldn’t find alligator. So we decided to use this as an opportunity to give Miss A a taste of shellfish – something we dined on quite a bit in the Sunshine State. We wanted a tropical kind of selection too, so we chose Coconut Shrimp with an Orange Dipping Sauce (It’s Florida – we have to incorporate oranges!). The kids, both big fans of Florida even though Miss A’s never been there (except when she pretends she’s flying there in her Nana’s kitchen cabinet), were on hand and excited to help tonight, especially with the dipping.

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A Sweet End to Our Anniversary Meal

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I wanted to make something special for our anniversary dessert. I mean how else can you follow Champagne Risotto. Then when I came across a recipe for Fresh Cherry Cheesecake Bars in the July 2011 issue of Cooking Light magazine, I knew I had a winner. Plus I still had bags upon bags of cherries that I had bought when I freaked out that they were going out of stock.

I’ve adapted the recipe quite a bit. For starters, after reading the recipe, the crust sounded an awful lot like a shortbread bar crust. That being the case, I knew I had to use the crust from my new addiction.

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