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 →

Toto We’re Not in Maine Anymore

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Actually, we’re quite far from Maine with this cuisine as we’re still cooking recipes from Hong Kong, but this recipe features one of our family favorites – Lobster. Now you might recall we had many adventures this summer in Maine with our live lobsters. We tried boiled lobsters, grilled lobsters, lobster risotto and lobster rolls. Every time, the lobster was a hit. So I had a good feeling going into this recipe for Cantonese Lobster Stir Fry. (Cantonese food is often served in Hong Kong…)  Continue reading →

Eggstatic

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It’s time for our next international cooking adventure with Mr. N as our guide. He is again taking us to his favorite part of the world, or so it would seem based on most of his picks, Asia. Not so long ago we received a postcard from a long-time friend of mine who was visiting Hong Kong. Incidentally this same friend spent several years of his teenage life living in Hong Kong, a fact which fascinates Mr. N. So naturally, as soon as the card arrived in the mail, Mr. N said, “This is my next pick!”

Miss A is also quite excited about our culinary visit to Hong Kong. She too remembers the postcard (I don’t care what they say about snail mail, kids still LOVE to get things in the mailbox!) and excitedly exclaimed, “I love that girl. She plays with me.” She’s referring to my friend’s daughter whom she got to meet and play with this summer. So already both of the kids are ready to begin this adventure which we are kicking off with the Hong Kong Egg Tart.  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 →

Chim Chim Cher-Ee

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Whenever I hear the word chimichurri I always think of the song from Mary Poppins. It’s such a happy little song and who doesn’t love Dick Van Dyke – the man exudes happiness.

But chimichurri obviously has nothing to do with sweeping chimneys, rather it’s a sauce used with grilled meat that originated in Argentina. It can also be found in Uruguay, Columbia, Mexico and…Nicaragua!

So for our last Nicaraguan recipe we bring you a delectable steak recipe featuring the chimichurri sauce for what we’re calling Nicaraguan Tenderloin. We started by preparing the sauce using Italian parsley, olive oil, red wine vinegar and garlic. Continue reading →