Wednesday, August 24, 2011

School Shopping

Yesterday was a loooong day of school shopping for my super big first grader!! School shopping with her and my mom (and of course PJ) was so fun, Mikayla is into clothes and knows what she likes and what she doesn't.  She got so many new clothes (thanks nana!) and a new big girl lunch box! During our shopping trip to Target I thought Mikayla was shaking the door to the dressing room and kept telling her not to.... I kept saying "Mikayla, get away from the door!"... turns out it wasn't her and it was a 45 second earthquake!! Holy cow!!

When we arrived home last night I quickly got to work making BLT's.  I knew I wanted something fast and easy for dinner, and sandwiches oer the summer are always a favorite go-to meals.  I made mine into a salad, complete with roasted brussel sprouts in it and bleu cheese dressing

I love having kitchen scissors and usually use them instead of a knife, especially to make a "chopped salad".  Its so easy and you don't cut your fingers!

Pete had a BLT with a fried egg, and Mikayla had "Clam Soup", which would be New England Clam Chowder.  On today's agenda is lots of cooking, baking, laundry, and packing! Yay for family days spent at home!! Maybe I will even fix my camera today and finally begin taking decent photos.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Quick Shrimp Tacos

I forgot how crazy life is with a newborn!! No matter what I do, I'm holding PJ and spending time with Mikayla, so its impossible to find time to do anything! Blogging has really been placed on the back burner lately, but I must say I have made some amazing meals that I am planning to eventually write about. I'm also planning to beginning to run again, which makes me anxious. 
PJ is an absolute dream.  He is so so so good, and Mikayla is the best big sissy ever.  I just have two absolute amazing children, I'm so lucky.  Today we stopped by Nana and Poppy's house, where Nana fed me this amazing overnight french toast.  I shall ask her for the recipe and post it, because it was really good and would be great to serve for a brunch.
PJ and I took Mikayla to cheerleading, which she really enjoys.  I try to practice all the time with her, mainly because I think its fun and I think shes the cutest cheerleader ever! She is getting the hang of it, and her favorite part is going up on the pyramid.
When we came home we were all starving.  Cheerleading is just such an awful time, its 5:30 to 7, which is exactly time for dinner.  We came home and immediately began to cook shrimp my favorite way, and I decided to make shrimp tacos.  I also had about 4 pieces of cooked catfish in my fridge, so I reheated that in the oven as well.  I haven't ever bought catfish but decided to buy it at BJ's, so now we have a ton of it! (I do like catfish, and would definitely buy it again).
In the tacos were shrimp, Cajun catfish, re fried black beans, spinach, tomatoes, salsa, sour cream, cheese and sliced avocado... so so good!
The fam hung out while I quickly cleaned up dinner because the kiddies needed me to put them to sleep.
You cant see it in the photo but the puppies are hanging out too.  Pete is such a good dad, it makes me smile!

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Italian Swordfish Steaks

Sat night at my parents house I cooked dinner and made a few different things.  Its always nice to cook at my moms because I never have to clean up.


We had agreed on steak and something to do with zucchini.  over at Jenna's blog had I seen a recipe for cheesy zucchini pizza and decided it was a must-make for dinner.  I realized we didn't have any pizza dough but had some yeast, so I made my own pizza dough, which was super easy. (Recipe to follow).

while looking trough my moms freezer also found two swordfish steaks and decided to make those.

I actually recently told myself to start eating fish, and this was perfect. I jumped online and googled swordfish recipes, but most had you grilling, which I didn't want to do.  i came across a recipe for Italian swordfish steaks and knew most of hose ingredients could be  found... winner!

First, I soaked some raisins in warm water

and while those were soaking I chopped up about 4 tomatoes and placed them in a bowl. 

I also added sunflower seeds (we didn't have pine nuts... awww, nuts!) and capers.

 In a pan I added some olive oil, and sauteed the garlic and onion.  When that was finished sauteing, I added the rest of the mixture into the pot, covered, and cooked on low for 15 minutes.

When the sauce was finished I spread some olive oil on the bottom of a glass pan, placed the two steaks, and spooned the sauce on the top.

Then I baked the fish on 400 for about 20 minutes.




It was so delish, I will definitely be making the topping again and seeing what else I can put it on!

Swordfish Steaks
2 Swordfish Steaks
1/2 cup raisins
2 tbsp pine nuts (i used sunflower seeds)
4 tomatoes, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1-2 cloves garlic
1/4 cup capers
olive oil

Oven on 400.
1. Soak raisins in water for 30 mins. In a bowl, combine nuts, tomatoes and raisins (drained). 
2. Saute onions and garlic in olive oil in a pan on top of the stove.
3. Add mixture to the pan, cover, and cook on simmer for 15 mins.
4. Take mixture off stove and spoon onto swordfish steaks.
5.  Put in oven and cook for about 20 minutes.

We split 2 steaks between 4 people, they are so filling!


Saturday, August 13, 2011

Dinner at Mom's

I enjoy leftovers.  Especially ones I never actually made in the first place.

Whats this you ask?  A leftover taco salad from the beach.  I fried up two eggs and plopped them on top for a semi-healthy breakfast.  I also re-heated the taco meat and fed half of it to the dogs.  Salad for breakfast... is not weird in my book.
Especially when followed by a smiley baby boy.  (Hey, it was dark in my room)

LAst night for dinner I didnt have to cook.  I went to my parents house, and my mom made dinner.  Im here again today, but this time I will try to whip up something healthy using the ingredients my mother has in her kitchen - always a fun task!
Dinner last night was a zucchini quiche... afterall, it is zucchini season and my mother has a garden.
Sure, it fell apart when you dished it out, but it was because she had used fresh cheese.  and, it doesn't matter, it was still as good as ever.

It also consisted of a Chicken Couscous dish thingy, which was so delish I might make it at home.

This was filled with chicken, peaches, tomatoes and couscous.  I'm happy that I found another way to make couscous besides my shrimpy couscous salad, which we love over at the Vottis household.

Always followed by a photo shoot, because, hey, Im a mother.

Sleeping in M's Dora bed @ Nanas


What a great big sissy!!!

Zuccini Quiche
1 large zucchini, diced
handful mushrooms, diced
1 onion, chopped
4 eggs
1 cup milk
1 cup cheese
1 pie crust (or a homemade one here)

Preheat oven at 350.  Saute the onion in olive oil until soft.  Make a pie shell, or roll one out if you're lazy.  In the pie shell place the zucchini, mushrooms, and onion.  Whisk together the milk, eggs and cheese, and pour over veggies.  Bake in oven for 50 minutes, take out and let cool.  We used fresh mozz, so it didn't actually "set" but will if you use a cheese that's a bit more firm.





Tie-Dye Baking

Mikayla loves baking.  She especially enjoys baking cupcakes.  Throughout the blogging world, I have recently seen tons of rainbow cupcakes and tie-dyed cupcakes, and thought this would be a fun twist on a regular, old, boring cupcake.

First we made the cupcake batter... I don't have a recipe I enjoy, since I don't bake enough homemade cupcakes.  I wish I did a bit more research on the basic recipe.  Nothing I have ever tried tasted like it came from a box... in other words, homemade cupcakes are much more dense than the box kind.  At least mine are.

Once the cupcake batter was done, we divided the batter into 5 smaller bowls, mixing a different food color in each bowl and stirring well.  Using one color at a time, we spooned it into the bottom of the cupcake liners.  The first color didn't cover the bottom, but I didn't mind because we wanted to create tie-dye ones. We repeated for each color and then took a knife and swirled the colors together at the end.

They came out really pretty, but I would like to experiment for a fantastic vanilla recipe.  I don't particularly enjoy cupcakes, ever, so in order to eat and enjoy I need to find an awesome recipe.  Any ideas??

we just used a can of frosting with pink coloring in it to make them pretty.  this time she ate two.



Friday, August 12, 2011

Its a seafood kinda day

I found the time to blog this morning because of this:

My babies sleeping together, again! Mikayla just loves being a big sissy! Yesterday, our day was spent like this...
PJ enjoying the outdoors

Daddy on the sailboat

Mikayla catching...things

Our fav snack of the day... Roni, cheese and bbq chips

Mikay with the grossest bug ever
We decided to spend the day at Moreau Lake so Pete and his friend could sail.  It was a beautiful day out but quite chilly so we stayed out of the water.  When we got home (after cheer) I decided to cook up some seafood...





We bought some crab legs at the store the other day and tonight seemed like a great night to pull them out.  I boiled them for about 5 minutes, and they were super tasty.  We decided to skip the butter, because we actually enjoy the taste of our seafood.  Mikayla was super excited to eat crab legs, she really loves eating seafood.  The main dish was Shrimp Scampi but I decided to cut the sauce in half because I wasn't in the mood for a buttery dish.  Once again, it came out so tasty!
You cant tell but there is a doggie next to PJ... they are about the same size! I love my lil man and cant wait to spend the day with him.  My absolute favorite part of my day is when PJ wakes up in the morning, because he is all smiles and we just lay in bed together and "talk". Its even better when Mikayla joins in!

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

White Mountains

This summer has been totally crazy for me!! Not only do I have an infant, but in the past weeks I have been on trips to Moreau Lake, Maine, New Hampshire, and Lake Placid!! Holy cow!! I hope to catch you up on what my fam and I have been doing.

We went to Northern NH to go to one of Pete's childhood friends wedding.  Unfortunately I don't have any photos from the wedding, but the bride looked beautiful! The next day we decided to eat at a little place on the main road .  The inside was really cute, and it was the type of place you could actually open and run on your own.  The menu was written on two walls...

 I got the Robert Frost.
 And inside was nice and cozy, with a chess set and some couches.

 Unfortunately, since the place was totally hippie and organic, the food was only okay.  The bread was so hard, and I wasn't impressed what so ever. Boo.
 After eating we drove down the street to Cannon Mountain, and purchased tickets for the tram.  I don't remember ever being on a tram, but I'm sure I have before.  It was a quick 7 minute, packed trip up the mountain. If you've never been on a tram before it holds about 70 people, all packed and standing.
 Once off the tram the views were absolutely beautiful
 We took a quick, short hike to the top top of the mountain to the weather station.  The first hike we took I freaked out, because it was on the side of the mountain and I had PJ and Mikayla, so I forced us (along with the father in law and husband) to turn around.  Once we headed back we found the "short" safe trail directly to the top, no cliffs involved, so we took that. 



 I swear I will stop taking photos with my Blackberry soon.  since the tram leaves every 15 minutes, we had plenty of time for photo shoots...


 My special treat for myself at the end was..... rock candy!! I actually bought a four pack, because I'm crazy like that.
 I found this to be interesting

So, that was my journey to the White Mountains in New Hampshire.  Now that PJ is sleeping more regularly, I hope to blog more about my trips and amazing eats, since I've actually been cooking lately!