Cooking Show: Lemons!!

My friend, Gayle, recently told me that she lived in California when she was a child and there was a lemon tree in her yard.  My reaction was like, GET OUT!!!

It was fitting that Gayle should join me for our recent cooking show!  Lemons were the featured ingredient in each recipe that we prepared.

Gayle also told me that they had an avocado tree as well.  Mental note: future show.

Okay, back to lemons.  We started with Limoncello & Raspberry Fizz.  So refreshing!

Next, we prepared salad with grilled lemon chicken and lemon vinaigrette.

Click here for the printable recipe for the vinaigrette.  It's loaded with fresh herbs and a little goes a long way!

Toss together a salad using your favorite fresh salad ingredients.  We used 4 cups of romaine, 1/2 English cuke (chopped), 1 cup of grape tomatoes, 1 avocado (sliced) and 1/4 cup of kalamata olives.

We also used my favorite Grilled Lemon Chicken in this salad. It's one of my summer staples!  I like to prepare a large batch of this chicken at the beginning of the week and use it in weeknight dinners.

It's a great addition to salads, sandwiches, pasta and as you're about to see--pizza!!

Yes, PIZZA. Specifically, Chicken & Broccoli Pizza with Lemon Cream Sauce.   All the recipes you need--pizza dough, grilled chicken, cream sauce--are included in the link!

If you like Bertucci's Silano pizza, this is my attempt to replicate it.  It disappeared quickly when we finished filming the show...I think it was a hit!

Finally, we finished up with a Lemon/Almond Tart.  Sooo good, and also gluten-free.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cooking Show: Spring Fever...or What to Cook When You're Wishing for Summer!

On our recent episode of the cooking show, we tried to come up with a menu that tastes like summer.

Chase those winter blahs away with grilled beef and tropical fruit!

We started with Pineapple Sangria.  

Actually, this picture was taken just as we finished.  Finished the second pitcher, that is.  

 Then it was time for Watermelon Salad with Seared Halloumi.

Have you ever had Halloumi cheese?  It has a very high melting point, so you can sear it until it's golden and crunchy. It makes a great salad topping! That is, if you and your friends (ahem--Kerry, Amy, Kelly and Christine--I'm talking to you!) can keep your hands off of it long enough to have any left to use for said topping.

Grilled Marinated Flank Steak

When you're trying to chase away the winter blahs, the only thing better than grilled steak would be summer itself.

Click here for the printable recipe.

And finally, Cookies n' Cream Cheese Cookies.  

With a little bit of cream cheese, for creaminess and fluffiness.  And Oreos®, because Oreos®.

 Chocolate Strawberry Oreos®, because we were trying to stick to the summer theme.

Farmers Market-Inspired Cooking Show!

Last week, we filmed an episode of the cooking show.

All of the recipes we prepared were inspired by our local Farmers Market.

My friend Amy cooked with me.

Gayle and Sheila watched from the sidelines, and provided lots of light moments off-camera.

Like when they discussed the short-shorts that Amy's husband wore in the early 80's.  Or when they pondered hot flashes.

When we went outside to grill the zucchini and summer squash, it started to rain, so Gayle and Sheila bailed on us and ran inside.

But then they provided lots of moral support by telling us that our now-wet hair looked fabulous on the camera monitor.

They were so sincere, I actually believed them.  I just adore my sweet, supportive friends.

While it rained, Amy and I cooked up a storm of our own!  

 Ravioli with Tomato & Basil Cream Sauce

The aforementioned Grilled Zucchini & Summer Squash.

There is no link to take you to a recipe, but it's so simple--here you go:

-Lop off the ends of four 6-inch zucchini/summer squash, and slice them lengthwise.  You should get 4 slices from each, aim for slices at least 1/4" but no more than 1/2" thick.

-In a medium bowl, whisk together 1/4 cup EACH of balsamic vinegar and olive oil, with 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder and a pinch of salt and pepper.

-Add the slices of zucchini and summer squash, and toss to coat.

-Grill on MEDIUM/HIGH, 2-3 minutes each side, just long enough to get great color and grill marks.  The squash should start to soften, yet still hold its shape.

Seared Sea Scallops with Sweet Vermouth 

Grilled Molasses-Marinated Flank Steak

Caitie and Sean went back to school last week.  It was wonderful to have everyone under one roof, if only for a month.

Boy, do I miss them when they aren't here.

 It was nice that they were able to spend significant time with Clyde while he is still a puppy.  I mean, it would be almost cruel for us to have a new puppy if they didn't get a chance to enjoy his puppyhood.  Is that even a word?  Puppyness.  Puppydom.  Hmmm.  I think you know the point I'm trying to make.

His puppy-ish-ness is fading fast.  He's 40 pounds and TODAY he finally decided he can walk down stairs by himself.

Yes, that's right, I've been carrying him.  Downstairs every morning.  I consider myself quite strong and capable, but as I'm approaching the end of my fifth decade I'd be lying if I said my bones aren't a little creaky when I wake up in the morning.  

One of the few good things I can say about the freezing temperatures today is that I am certain that all of my neighbors had their windows closed because of the cold, so they couldn't hear me enthusiastically praising him as he ran down the steps of our deck each time I took him out today.  "Yay!  Look at you! Good boy, going down the stairs all by yourself! Way to go!"  Of course, if they happened to be looking out of their windows, they might have been wondering why I was clapping and raising my arms in triumph.

Anyhow......I got the inspiration for today's recipe as I was making a batch of  Snow-Capped Molasses Cookies last week.  As I was pouring the molasses I was thinking to myself that it would make a nice marinade.  So I decided to give it a try, and it's a keeper!

Grilled Potato Wedges

I've never told you how I came up with the name of this blog.  I didn't even have to think about it.  Between my three kids, "Hey, Mom, what's for dinner?" has been the most-often asked question for the last fifteen years or so.  And by my three kids, I mean my son. 

I could usually expect that it would be one of the first questions of the day.  The memories are so clear:  Sean, at three years old, eating his cereal, talking with his mouth full, "Hey, Mom, what's for dinner?"  Picking him up from elementary school, and as he ran toward me he'd be yelling, "What are we having for dinner?"

Picking him up anywhere, and the first thing he would say when he opened the car door, "What's for dinner?"  And then when he got his license, he'd drive himself home but as soon as he'd walk in the door, "What's for dinner?" And then the 2.0 version of the question: "When are you starting dinner?"

Five days ago, we dropped him off at his college.  Now I'm the one asking the questions, texting him, "What did you have for dinner?"

With Caitie and Sean back at school, it sure is quiet around here.

Erin made a back to school cake today.  Chocolate cake with peanut butter-butter cream frosting.  I think she must have used three pounds of assorted Reese's cups/Reese's pieces decorating this.  I cut the teeniest, weeniest, skinniest slices I could, but I bet they still had about a gazillion calories in each.


Meanwhile, I'm trying to come up with a French toast casserole that doesn't have a million calories in it.
A while ago, a friend of mine made a French toast casserole and it was incredible.  It was Paula Deen's recipe for French toast casserole with maple syrup.  I googled the recipe and saw the ingredients--besides all the eggs and cream and maple syrup it had two sticks of butter in it--well, to make a long story short, I just couldn't bring myself to make it.

I mean, it's one thing to eat something when you are out somewhere and you think, "oh, this is spectacular!"  But when I'm preparing it myself I just can't bring myself to add two sticks of butter--not without envisioning a syringe plunging all those calories directly into my thighs.

This is what I made this weekend:

An overnight French toast casserole.  With only one tablespoon of butter in it.  It wasn't that good, so I'm going to have to keep tweaking it!

Sooooooo.........today I'm going to give you a recipe that has been my go-to side dish this summer.  Last week, I was talking with my friend, Alyse, and she said that she was having trouble coming up with ideas for side dishes.  On nights when you're going to be grilling your dinner, it's easy to throw these potato wedges onto your grill as well!

Grilled Marinated Flank Steak

A slab of beef cooking on the grill......is there any better smell at dinnertime?  Especially after the snowy, cold, snowy, long, snowy and snowy (did I say snowy?) winter that we just had.

I prep this steak in advance.  It needs at least 2 hours to marinate, but it's very forgiving, so work around your schedule and prep it at your convenience.

Pasta Salad & BBQ Sirloin Tips!

I love fresh basil.  Lots and lots of fresh basil.

What did I do with my basil this week?  I made pasta salad, to go with barbecued sirloin tips and fresh asparagus.

Very easy recipes, all.  They just need a little bit of prep work in advance.

The pasta salad recipe will fill a very large party-size bowl.  It's a family favorite and the leftovers are very welcome by my family of five.  You could halve the amounts of ingredients, or omit any ingredients that you don't like.

BLT/ Chicken Salad--Favorite Kitchen Tools, Part II

I thought I would continue with my series of posts about favorite kitchen tools.

I've narrowed it down to two, but I'm having trouble deciding which one gets top billing.

So I've made an executive decision to keep both tools as number two on my favorites list.  I even came up with a recipe that uses both! 

So, here are the favorite tools, in no specific order:

My citrus press.

No brand name, adorned only with a "Made in Taiwan" sticker, I purchased this almost twenty years ago from the now-defunct "Kitchen, Etc." store.

Before I had this juicer, I used either a hand-held reamer or a counter-top reamer or an electric juicer where you held the fruit on the reamer as it spun around. 

All of them made my hands icky-sticky.

And with all of them, the juice had to be run through a strainer, to remove the seeds.

Sometimes I would just halve the lemons and manually squeeze the juice out.  Which only served to remind me how weak the muscles in my hands are.

And then I got this baby.  You just halve your lemon/lime/orange, place it on the little round metal reamer, bring the lever down and the big dome comes down and squishes the juice out of your fruit.  The juice drains out the bottom without the seeds, which are too big to get through the little holes that the juice drains through.

I am always banishing the items on my kitchen counter to the dungeon (a.k.a. my basement) because I have no use for dust-collectors.  This item, I'm happy to say, remains on my counter 24/7.  Not only do I use it several times a week when cooking meals, it's very busy in the summertime making fresh-squeezed lemonade.

Next:

My julienne peeler.  It looks like a regular vegetable peeler, but as you can see in this close-up, there are tiny little teeth in the blade

Use it like a vegetable peeler, but instead of thick peels you get fine little julienne strips.

The following recipe calls for both tools.  If you don't have these tools, don't sweat it!  Use whatever method you would normally use for juicing the limes that this recipe calls for (or use purchased lime juice), and grate your carrots instead.