Tag: food

Amamos a los Maestros and Mexican Food

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We love teachers! Amamos a los maestros! This week is Teacher Appreciation Week and in honor of the fabulous individuals that guide, teach and mentor Mr. N, we cooked up a few Mexican dishes for the PTA’s teacher appreciation lunch today. We also couldn’t pass up an opportunity to explore a few more Mexican recipes in honor of Cinco de Mayo. We once again consulted the book Mr. N gave me for Christmas, The “I Don’t Know How to Cook” Book Mexican by Linda Rodriguez for ideas.

As the primary appetizer we selected the Mexican Roll-up. It’s easy to serve whole, or sliced into appetizer-sized bites. The first step was to chop the jalapeno peppers and green onions. Then we combined all the ingredients, including cream cheese, spices and veggies, into a large skillet. Continue reading →

No Feast is Complete without Dessert!

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And last, but not least is our recipe for Easy Berry Mini-Trifle which we ate to round off our British Feast. (As if we didn’t have enough food to begin with!) After reading quite a few different trifle recipes it became clear that we could really customize this however we wanted. We left out the liquor this time and went the easy route and bought pre-made ingredients. Also, rather than making the trifle in one large glass bowl, we made several varieties in drinking glasses so that everyone could pick their own ingredients.

I would recommend using smaller, wider juice glasses if using this method. Sadly over the past 11 years of marriage all of ours seem to have broken or disappeared. So we made do with these. Continue reading →

British Feast Side Dishes Take Center Stage

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Our Sunday meal was perhaps one of our biggest undertakings yet. In honor of the Royal wedding we prepared a traditional British Sunday Lunch as recommended by Charles and Alison. And what a treat it was – I’m still thinking about it! In addition to the Roast Beef with Port Merlot Pan Sauce, we also made Roasted Potatoes and Yorkshire Pudding.

Let’s start with the delicious little spuds. We combined Alison’s roasted potato recipe with one we found on Epicurious. Miss A was on hand to help with the potato peeling.

We then chopped the potatoes and dropped them in cold water. After draining them, we placed them between paper towels and dried them thoroughly. Next, at Charles’ suggestion to make them authentically English, we incorporated the goose fat. Continue reading →

A Royal Feast

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This weekend we are diverting from our regular rotation for selecting international cuisine. I mean how could we pass up an opportunity to tour the culinary delights of Britain what with the Royal wedding and all! So, Dad agreed to push his pick off for next weekend in order for us to try a traditional British feast.

I was fortunate enough to visit Great Britain after I graduated college and even more fortunate to have arrived the day of the Queen’s Birthday Parade (which incidentally is not celebrated on her actual birthday)! Talk about a tourist delight – to see the Royal family parading by and I had a front row view! It’s something I will never forget…unlike the food, which I really can’t recall. I’m fairly certain for the two days we spent in London, I mostly ate fish and chips washed down with local lager. That’s why for tonight’s meal I consulted Charles, who is a Briton living in France and creator of the Five Euro Food blog, and Alison who comes from Northern Ireland and is the creator of Happy Domesticity about what to expect from a traditional British meal. Both Charles and Alison said the meal had to be a traditional Sunday lunch – Roast Beef with Roasted Potatoes. Two answers, exactly the same…we knew we had our meal plan.

We began the Roast Beef with Port Merlot Pan Sauce early this afternoon by cutting away the cartilage and excess fat from the top sirloin roast. Continue reading →

The Quest for the Best Banana Bread

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ChefMom hiking with her little sister and dad circa 1984-ish

While Mr. N eagerly awaits his prize drawing this afternoon, we thought we’d share our latest adventure. One of my earliest memories of cooking is with my dad. We used to make Big Bird’s Banana Bread from one of my old Sesame Street books. After Mr. N was born this memory kept resurfacing and I knew I had to find the same series of books (my old set was ruined in a flood years ago). I was fortunate enough to find them on eBay and acquired the whole set once again. I knew this was a recipe I wanted to share with Mr. N as he got older.

I made the recipe a few years ago and it didn’t quite live up to the hype in my mind. The memory is far sweeter than this particular version of the tasty snack. Then while we were living in Minnesota my friend Doree brought over her banana bread. Now this stuff tasted much more like my memory of banana bread! In fact, this was and so far still is the best banana bread I’ve ever had in my life. So since banana bread holds a special place in my heart we’re going to test out some new recipes as well as some old recipes until we find our favorite. Don’t worry dad, I’ll make sure to bring you a piece of each of them! Continue reading →

Don’t Miss Mr. N’s Raffle Prize (or this sandwich!)

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Who doesn’t love a good raffle drawing?! Mr. N loves winning raffle prizes. He recently won a paddle ball and you would have thought he won the lottery. It therefore came as no surprise to us when Mr. N insisted on doing a raffle on our blog after discovering that other bloggers also have various kinds of giveaways.

So tonight we present Mr. N’s Raffle Prize drawing. The process is simple: Leave a comment to this post with a suggestion for an up-coming Stateside cooking adventure. (For example you could say, “Illinois and Chicago Style Pizza.”) Each commenter will be entered in our random drawing and Mr. N will draw the name on Saturday, April 30th at 5 p.m. CST. You can also earn bonus entries by sharing our site with others via Facebook, Twitter, or via your own blog by leaving a comment letting us know you shared the post.

As for the prize, well it’s not a paddle ball or millions of dollars, but since Mr. N has become a big fan of slicing and chopping we found these festive pairing knives with cutting board and a colorful, three-compartment serving dish. Both are perfect for serving some fresh fruit or chips and homemade salsa on a warm summer day! Continue reading →