Food, Glorious Food

With the wonderful condition of being sick almost endlessly, *seems that way anyway* Blake and I don't get to go out much.  By the end of the day, the last thing I want to do is move from my comfortable spot on the couch and go navigate my way through jostling people.  However, for Mother's Day this year I managed to convince Hubs that as I have a growing baby inside me, I deserve to get some special treatment.  And, lucky for me, the day before Mother's Day I actually felt mostly decent and could go out.
Now, in the raging free spirited artistic loving realm that is Utah...*quilting, etc. not included* .. there aren't many novelty food hot spots.  Yes, I love my Leatherby's and Iceburg and the likes, but it's just not Quite the same as Max Brenner.  Now if you're lucky enough to frequent Philadelphia or Broadway in New York, then perhaps you have seen a Max Brenner!  Have you ever stopped at one?  I have passed the one here quite a few times and never really felt the desire to go.  You see, the novelty that is Max Brenner is chocolate.  I might offend a few of the female kind by saying that I would prefer some fresh fruit to chocolate, but the last thing I have on my mind is eating anything of the processed sweets category.  However, it is a very 'hip/cool/in' place to go, so we decided that would be my Mother's Day treat.

Mine

Blake's

   Um.... yeah it was good!  I probably couldn't have downed my belgian waffle without all that fresh fruit, but it was SO good.  Blake's was a chocolate souffle that was so rich he had to keep stealing my fruit to help it go down.  Now that I've gone, would I go back again?  Unless baby starts craving some serious chocolate, I'll stick to one of the dishes that has something other than chocolate as it's base and add some fruit for good measure, but yes.

On another food note, I have gotten a little sick of the pop and pour dinners that are pretty common around here, *Hubs has been doing the cooking and it's one of the quickest meals to prepare so he can get some school work and contract work done* so I challenged him to make me something from a recipe instead.  I personally think he enjoyed creating something like he did.  Maybe I'll get recipe meals more often?

Dinner last night

Up close

It was prosciutto wrapped lamb with mozzarella, sweet potatoes, and garlic bread.  First time I have really had a meal with lamb or prosciutto and it was pretty good.  I'm not sure he's making me want to get back into the cooking shoes if he can pull out some dishes like this one. :)   I think we'll have to start taking turns once I can stand the smell of cooking again.

*Sorry for the camera phone pictures.  We wanted to eat and didn't want to try and find the real camera.*

Cold and Frothy, I mean Frosty...

Blake and I went to this Italian restaurant to celebrate surviving the last 6 months together and I got a fantabulistic drink!  It was rather addicting (and they don't have free refills) so I decided to figure out how to make it for myself.  Talk about sugar rush, but it was very very close to the restaurant version, so here you go. :)

Lemon Granita
3 lemons (or a bottle of lemon juice works, just not quite as fresh)
2/3 cup water
1/2 cup sugar (I'd cut this down to at least 1/3 if not to 1/4, but it is supposed to be sweet....)
Zest the lemons and put in with the water and sugar in a saucepan and heat until simmering.
Strain and cool to room temp.
Add in the juice of the 3 lemons (or a Tbsp of juice per lemon) and put in the freezer.
Check on the mixture every so often and if it starts freezing, blend it and throw back in the freezer.
Keep doing this till the mixture is nice and slushy.
Makes about 12 oz or so, so it was a nice small treat for us, but I'd double it next time for more joy

*Now for how I did it....
zested 1 lemon and added a tablespoon of lemon juice to the sugar/water mixture
strained as well as I could with a colander...  put in the lemon juice while still hot and put it in a metal bowl in the freezer
stirred it with a spoon every 20 minutes or so until it started freezing and then used the blender
**I also did it with raspberries the other day, but I used about 1/3 cup of sugar and put some whole raspberries in the pan to boil
I then put some raspberries in an ice tray, covered with water, and froze.
Once the mixture had cooled in the freezer, I put it in the blender with the raspberry cubes
Also a very tasty treat (a little better with some lemon juice mixed in too...)

So, for all of you freezing your tooshes off, sound good?  I'll make sure to enjoy it for all of you too cold to give it a shot. ;)

And by the way, aren't the flowers so perdy?!  I love lilies, so he did good.

Shakin' It Up A Bit

Today, for us, is Friday. Normally on a Friday we head on down to our local Pizza Hut and get a Hawaiian for me and a Spicy Pepperoni for the hubby. It's a great chance to spend some time talking together as it takes about 10 minutes to walk each way, plus it's pretty cheap considering it generally lasts us 2 meals. This month, however, we have a smaller than usual fast food budget, so because of this (and the fact I forgot) I made dinner tonight.

I am glad I did too. This week has had some ups and downs for me and I felt like crap for 2 days and did.... well.... pretty much nothing. I loved that my hubby took care of me, but he is also pretty stressed with work right now and I wanted to help him out. As a result, yesterday and today I've felt like I have accomplished Wifedom. Cleaning the apartment, doing dishes (which I HATE and he generally does), making meals, cleaning up after..... yeah, I will admit it made me feel pretty good. So, in one of my spectacular Wifedom moments, I decided to make us one tasty meal for dinner. It goes as follows:

Bacon wrapped chicken with cream cheese stuffing

Salad greens with raspberry basalmic dressing

Seasoned rice with.... seasoning?

Above meal received some very satisfied compliments and grunts followed by a food coma (he's just sleep deprived right now though), so ladies, here's how to make above meal. ;)

Chicken-

partially cook bacon in frying pan, still want it flexible

pound chicken breasts till thin, around 1/4"

mix cream cheese with herbs of choice, I used some garlic/onion powder/chili flakes/and a tich of basil

spread cheese filling across chicken, roll, wrap with the bacon, skewer with spagetti (you don't have to worry about removing it like a toothpick and don't even notice while eating), and toss in the oven

cook for about 35-45 minutes at 375 till the chicken is done

*I know I didn't include measurements, but this is truly up to your taste. I used a little less than half a package of cream cheese for a chicken breast cut into about 3 pieces and probably about a half teaspoon of each herb, give or take a little*

**I also want to try it with sour cream instead of cream cheese**

Rice-

chicken broth instead of water

garlic

oregano

chopped onion

butter

and of course, rice

I just threw them all into my rice cooker and it turned out well. :) It looked like the bottom was burnt, but didn't taste it, just a little brown from the broth cooking down.

Salad-

I just had packaged greens and then made the dressing as follows

1/4 cup olive oil

1/8 cup basalmic vinegar

1/4 tsp onion powder

sprinkling of salt

1 heaping tablespoon of raspberry jam

mix with fork till smooth and OH SO GOOD!

It was one of those meals you kind of expect for something fancy, but really not very difficult to make as each leaves you plenty of time to do the next while it's cooking. I started at about 4:15 and finished cleaning up same time as the chicken finished at about 5:40 or so. Give it a shot and I hope you like it!

Sinfully Delicious

After much practice, creativity, and love by the mouthful........ the idea to open a dessert shop called Sinfully Delicious came to mind. As you may have noticed, I like to cook. Moreso, to bake. The other day Blake was craving hot fudge and I was craving chocolate cake, so I went online. Allrecipes.com is a big friend of mine. I was just looking up hot fudge recipes, but what came up was hot fudge cake. Well, now I couldn't resist that. I threw the first batch together and... well... it was gone quickly. It's best to cut the recipe in half if you're only making it for 2 though. This is a picture of a full batch.

So, to fill our "shop," we would create cleverly named sins to represent banana cream pie, cinnamon rolls, lemon rolls, hot fudge cake, and lace pancakes filled with strawberries/raspberries (or a little raspberry jam)/and cream. Any takers? :)

As we continue to keep a steady schedule with our gym downstairs, we'll be adding to the menu. If you have any suggestions of things to try, let us know.

The Way to a Man's Heart is His Stomach

The past couple days have been a ...quest... to my man's heart through food. On Sunday, I needed to make cinnamon rolls for my primary class as we were making a birthday gift for one of our missing girls, so I made a half batch and half sized rolls. In otherwords, 1/4 sized rolls. They were a pretty fun size and leftovers were very much desired and enjoyed by the family.

He then also wanted to make an impression on the boys at work, so I made another batch today for him to take back to work. However, half was lemon and half normal so we had to make sure they tasted good and he didn't want to take any to work. So, he took enough for the guys around him and I "hid" the rest. Hopefully they'll actually last a little while.

The other night we watched Masterchef; which is like Top Chef in America, and saw a pretty awesome dish. It was a lace pancake/crepe that you ate with shredded up curry chicken. It didn't receive the very highest rating, but it was the most normal dish and something unique. Therefore, it was dinner tonight. :) Making the pancakes was pretty fun, albeit a little messy. Eating it is also a tich messy, but not bad. You tear up the pancake and grab some meat and eat it with your hands. We also thought it would be amazingly good with chocolate flakes in the batter with fresh berries to grab... To warn you, it takes just as long to make as crepes and is a bit more messy. I used an icing bag, but I'm sure there are other ways as well. Looks pretty good don't it. :)

By the way, this was Blake's latest challenge. Orange, Pink, and Purple, with the theme "Good Luck". First thing that came to mind was Little House on the Prairie when Laura painted the little house pink and purple.... It turned out alright though.

New Spice in our Lives

Before we got married, Blake was on his own to register for us here in Aussie land. I sent him some pictures, gave him some guidelines, but he had to do it himself. When we received one of these items, we were in for a surprise. It was a nice spice rack... that contained the spices!!! Yay for spices!!! However, there are a few I am familiar with, but have never used as I've never owned them before. New to me are the Rosemary and Chili flakes. Not foreign cooking elements, but new flavors to me, so I wanted to share a recipe I made with the chili flakes. For those of you worried about heat, I'm not a big heat person so I scraped the flakes off my piece after cooking and there was just a little flavor zing, so give it a shot. :)

*warning (or side note anyway...): the measurements below are from approximate guesses at what I used. You can add/subtract anything you'd like.

Chili-Lemon Chicken

1 or so cups cubed chicken (enough for 2 people)

1/2 cup olive oil

2 T lemon juice

1 tsp chili flakes

1/2 tsp garlic powder

salt to taste (1/4- 1/2 tsp)

pepper to taste

Mix olive oil, lemon juice, and spices to make marinade. Place chicken in marinade, turn to coat, and refrigerate for approximately 1 hour (mine was a little less, but still had absorbed the flavor). Grill or cook on stove. Great with creamy mashed potatoes, especially if you're worried about any heat.

Let us know if you give it a shot and what you think. :)

btw... made it last night with cubed potatoes, mixed both in the sauce, and put them on a cookie sheet to cook. Amazing!

My First Baking... Experience...

So far, everything that has been cooked in this apartment has been on the stove, so yesterday, I decided to mix it up a bit. Blake has been begging for a banana cream pie and I was in the mood for chicken garlic pizza, so time to pull in the big guns and use the oven.

First roadblock: there is no such thing as shortening here, only cooking margarine. This comes in a block about twice as big as a normal block of margarine, but is also about as hard as if you froze the block. After stabbing myself with a fork, I successfully managed to scrape enough off for my pie crust.

Second roadblock: nobody here knows what a pastry blender is. I searched high and low in every store that sells cooking utensils with no luck, so out came the fork and a knife. Again, reminding you that the margarine is hard and in nasty clumps. After a little blood, sweat, and tears, my crust was in the pie pan and looked pretty tasty for an uncooked crust.

Third roadblock: the oven. Now first off, everything is in celcius. Not too difficult to look up online to figure out the conversions. However, they don't have a dial that says bake, broil, etc. What is depicted around the dial are little boxes with different pictures. First shows a light bulb, okay-that's for the light. Second shows a fan with two drops of water below. Third shows a fan with a circle around it. Fourth shows triangles coming down from the top of the box. And last, but not least, shows the triangles coming down with the fan. Now I'm not a major in hieroglyphics, so I put it on the last option and crossed my fingers.

After the allotted time I checked on the crust and to my dismay, there were black spots all over the inside of my crust. Luckily most were the upper layer of a bubble so we pulled them off to try and salvage what we could.

By this point in time, I had already finished kneading the pizza crust and was letting it raise (the margarine kneads in much easier when put with the warm water and yeast than the cold water in the pie crust). I had Blake's help to cook the topping ingredients of the pizza, so I put the dough in the pan and made the pizza. Unfortunately I was so distracted by the burn pie crust and worrying about the pizza that I forgot the cheese... On a pizza! How do you forget the cheese?!? We threw the pizza in the oven and Blake said that at his mom's, they always bake on the setting with the fan in the circle, so we tried it on that setting. After about 5 minutes, the top was all golden brown, but it was supposed to take 25 to cook... We pulled it out and indeed, the bottom was still uncooked dough, so it went back in on the lowest rack possible and we went to the computer to look up those darn symbols.

Fourth roadblock: Australians don't believe in baking with their ovens. After searching many sites, we finally found one that showed the correct hieroglyphics with explanations of each. None of the five settings we have on the oven are for baking! The first was the light, second was defrost (? in the oven?), third was constant fanned heat (used most commonly), fourth was static grilling, fifth is grilling. Suddenly a light clicked in Blake's head. His sister makes cakes and other such goodies all the time, but she always puts them on the bottom, with the setting on the fan in a circle, and leaves them in there forever.

The pizza came back out of the oven to avoid completely burning the top and was cooked enough on the bottom to no longer be doughy. To our joy, it tasted just fine (cheese wasn't discovered missing until half-way through the pizza). The filling for the pie is cooked on the stove, so that also turned out fine. A few bites had a slightly toasted crust taste, but overall, the night turned out alright with some pretty good lessons in Aussie baking learned.