Skewers

Posted on September 7, 2009 by Denise

I haven’t forgotten about sharing what I did with the scallops Friday, but it has been a fun-filled weekend and I haven’t had a chance yet. 

We ended up grilling out both yesterday and today, which is very unusual for us.  Times may be changing though.  For years and years we’ve had a large propane grill and my hubby rarely grilled out.  Since we’ve gotten the boat this past May, we’d been on the quest to find a small, portable propane grill.  We found one back in July, and now we are grilling out all the time.  We started by taking it boating and grilling out at Peanut Island, and now we are using it at HOME!  Wonders never cease!!  I’m still a bit surprised. 

I wanted to try making skewers yesterday with shrimp and chicken.  I cubed up chicken breast & sprinkled it with sea salt and pepper.  I alternated putting chicken and shrimp on the skewers.  I didn’t marinate anything, but did want to recreate the honey garlic glaze we liked so much from Friday night’s scallops.  We grilled the skewers for about 10-12 minutes, adding the honey garlic glaze for the last few minutes of grilling time.  They turned out GREAT!!  I also made some fresh corn on the cob on the stove top. 

I was frustrated later when I realized I had forgotten to take a picture of the meal!  But they were so good that they were eaten quickly.  Ken kept saying something about nothing tastes better than meat on a stick and variants of that nature. 

After spending almost 4 hours at the beach today,

we came home famished and wanting skewers again!  This time I made them with steak and chicken.  And remembered to take pictures!  I used 1 chuck steak cubed and 1 chicken breast cubed.  Both days Ken wanted me to add the Coleman’s chicken meatballs from Costco on the skewers.  He really likes those meatballs.  The spices and herbs are they use are just too overwhelming for me.  So I made some without them. 

I marinated the chicken and steak in a Japanese marinade I had bought at Whole Foods back a few months ago, and some salt and pepper.  I cut the chicken small to make sure it cooked through and the steak a bit bigger to make sure it was still pink in the middle.  They turned out SO good! 

I have a feeling there will be a lot of skewering in our future.  I can’t wait to add vegetables and pineapple!  So much to experiment with. 

I also made a dip to snack on with those Food Should Taste Good chips that I bought at Costco last week.  We LOVE these chips!!  The dip I made was super easy.  I softened about 1/2 block of cream cheese in a small skillet.  I added in 1/2 can of Mexican Rotel and about 1/4 cup of shredded mexican cheese.  Stirred until it was all melted, and served warm with the chips.  So yummy!!

1 Comment

Smoke-filled kitchen

Posted on September 5, 2009 by Denise

We had to open up the front door & turn on the oven vent while I made these last night……

Honey garlic glazed pan-seared scallops

I bought fresh scallops for the first time yesterday since my hubby loves scallops.  We were having an at home “date night.”  I wanted these for our appetizers.  I wasn’t sure if he’d like the honey garlic glaze on them, but he loved it!  I’m pretty excited at my first attempt at them.  I’ll add the details in later….I have to run out and work tonight. 

2 Comments

Quest for the perfect poppy seed dressing….minus the poppy seeds

Posted on September 4, 2009 by Denise

Had another great salad today for lunch.  Yeah I know….I seem to be on a salad kick lately!!  I liked this one better than the one I had the other day.  I just recently started looking for a poppy seed dressing online.  A lot of the ones I’ve seen today had very similar ingredients to the zesty honey lime one that I made the other day. 

So I decided to take half of that dressing and jazz it up a bit.  I added 3 Tbsp of plain, whole yogurt, some more honey, another dash of horseradish mustard, couple dashes sea salt & pepper, and about a tsp of pure maple syrup.  Shook it all up in a small canning jar. 

It tastes really good, but one ingredient I keep seeing mentioned is orange juice so I can’t wait to add a bit of that.  Also……the elusive poppy seeds.  I just haven’t known where to look….anyone?  I’m going to do a google search. 

Salad ingredients today were:

Organic baby spinach
3 small clusters broccoli, cut small
1 T diced sweet onion
1 organic golden delicious apple, cut small
20 Newman’s own organic raisins (no I didn’t count!!)
1 T crumbled feta
1 T calamata olives, cut
1 T sunflower seeds
2 T maple sweetened & toasted walnuts (I did this myself in a skillet with butter and maple syrup)
3 T homemade NON-poppy seed dressing

I put all ingredients in a big bowl & added 2 T of dressing….put the lid on and shook to distribute dressing.  I tossed the salad onto the plate & added one more T of dressing.  It was the perfect mixture of sweet, crunchy, and certain bites had salty (from the olives & feta). 

I know this type of salad normally would be excellent with sliced strawberries or mandarin oranges, and I took a risk adding the greek ingredients (like olives and feta), but it really was AMAZING!!  It satisfied me for about an hour.  But I didn’t get super hungry, just ready for my afternoon Chai tea.  The taste lingered pleasantly though, and I could easily eat this for dinner.  Some extra protein would probably make it more filling…..chicken possibly?

Leave a comment

Something I threw together for lunch

Posted on September 2, 2009 by Denise

Yesterday I really wanted to try out that Feta cheese on a salad with the organic baby spinach I bought.  So to the spinach I added a ladle full of the white chicken chili I made Monday night.  I diced up some sweet onion & sprinkled with Feta cheese, a little sea salt and pepper. 

I was trying to come up with a dressing to add to the spinach first.  Found one online that sounded good….zesty honey and lime.  It didn’t turn out quite to be what I wanted, so I kept throwing things in to get it to the flavor I was looking for.  I was using a small jelly-size canning jar, and everytime I added ingredients I put on the lid and shook it up. 

These are the approximate amounts that I ended up with:

1/4 cup lime juice
1/4 cup safflower oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
3 T honey
1 1/2 tsp minced garlic
sea salt
pepper
squirt of horesradish mustard
a little bit of filtered water

shake in closed jar & chill.

I don’t know that I’m 100% thrilled with the results.  It was quite acidic at first, so next time I would cut back on the vinegar.  I looked it up online and found that salt will cut the acidity back, so I added more and it did seem to help.  Since it was zesty honey & lime dressing, I think I might omit the red wine vinegar altogether or cut it back to only 1-2 tsp at most. 

Anyone have a dressing similar & have ideas for what else I could add?  I did go ahead and use a tablespoon of the dressing and shake it with the spinach leaves in a closed tupperware container before adding the other ingredients. 

The end result was this chicken chili feta salad.  It was really tasty, but needed more FETA!! 

2 Comments

New Beginnings…….

Posted on September 1, 2009 by Denise

Fresh start to a new month…..and the best part is that my food budget is “full” again!! I love it! Every month I shop at Costco, Whole Foods & Publix. As the month is winding down & ending…I sometimes start to run out of staples in my pantry.

This is when I start constructing my food list for the following month. I know I’m bizarre in that I actually like doing this…I find it FUN!  I divide my list up into the 3 stores & also into 2 paychecks (1st and 15th). To further assist in sticking to my budget, I assign prices to everything so I can keep tabs on how much is being spent for staples. This allows me to see what I have left over for good deals on meat and the best part…..treats…..a few new food items to add to my kitchen!

Last night I was able to get to Costco ON MY OWN….without my normal entourage (my 3 daughters ages 19 months, 6 and 10). It’s amazing how much easier it is ALONE!

New ingredients to MY kitchen:

President Natural Crumbled Feta Cheese
The infamous NUTELLA
Parmigiano Reggiano Cheese imported from Italy
MaraNatha natural Almond Butter
Coleman all natural gourmet Italian Parmesan Chicken Meatballs
(no antibiotics or hormones)

I’m SO excited!! Though I’ve had Feta cheese before in a Greek salad…I’ve never bought it. Brought it home, tasted it….wow…talk about FLAVORFUL, TANGY and GOOD!! I’m excited to have this for my salads & any other dishes I want to add it too. I don’t like what I call “stinky cheese” and this definitely was not it.  It was moist and salty, and afterward it seemed as if I’d eaten a spanish olive.  Ken liked it as well.

and GASP….I’ve never had NUTELLA before. WOW!! Can’t believe what I’ve been missing. And the girls are getting ready to have it for the first time today. They are in for a treat!

We try to eat as “clean” as possible, so I try to feed us hormone and antibiotic-free meat. I usually get my meat from Whole Foods or Publix Greenwise meats, which they sell at our regular Publix. Costco has started getting more and more organic meat. Though I like making my own meatballs, I am excited to try something quick and easy like these Coleman chicken meatballs. We already LOVE their hot dogs which are nitrate and nitrite free, all beef. 

I had never had Almond butter and had been wanting to try it. It’s everything I thought it would be. Yummy!

And of course the Parmigiano Reggiano…always too cheap to buy it. Well I planned it into my budget this month, and am very excited about it. I’ve heard just a little bit packs a bunch of flavor, and this huge block should last me all month. Are there any secrets to how I should store it?

Still need to get to Whole Foods and Publix in the next 2 days. Can’t wait to have my kitchen fully stocked again & make some new creations! I also can’t wait to get some food pictures up on my blog. That is my favorite part of the food blogs I read. Stay tuned….this is a work in progress. I am working 3 nights at the restaurant this week, but I do hope to share some of what I am cooking & creating this week.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
4 Comments