Egg Coloring Extravaganza / Deviled Eggs

Can you call it an extravaganza when you're only coloring a dozen eggs?

For the last several years we've colored Easter eggs with our nieces or with the nieces/nephews/small children of friends. This year, none of the aforementioned children were available so Ty and I decided to color Easter eggs by ourselves while Matt caught up to where we were in "Big Love" (we've been power-watching it, it's amazing).



Since there were no kiddies present, Ty and I decided to invite our good "friend" Captain Morgan to color eggs with us.



This is where it gets hilarious... Ty, for reasons unknown, thought it would be really funny to use the "magic crayon" to draw boobs on the first egg he colored. He went for a totally different interpretation of boobs than I would have (maybe because he doesn't have them). I had no idea what he was doing until he pulled the egg out and said, in a very disappointed tone, "Oh, they don't look like boobs at all! It just looks like a W." Sure enough, he'd gone for a frontal interpretation of bosoms that was nearly indistinguishable from the letter 'W'. Personally, I would have gone with the "fried egg" interpretation of boobs, but that's just me... Anyway, we had a good, long laugh about it and Ty may be trying to live down his "boobs" Easter egg for many Easters to come.

If you look closely, you can see Ty's W/boobs on the egg...



We colored the eggs a couple days before Easter so that come Easter morning, the eggs would be all ready for their transformation into deviled eggs.

Ty loves deviled eggs, they're one of the holiday foods that we make that he most looks forward to having. Being the awesome husband that he is, he loves to help me make them. He not only helped make them, this time he even remembered to grab the camera and get some pictures.

Here's me, getting ready to tackle Easter dinner. Because Jacob had to work he let me borrow his cool black apron so I wouldn't get food all over myself (thanks again, Jake). I think it looks quite nice!



Here's a look at the little lovelies before they were converted to deviled eggs. The orange egg in the first row all the way to the right is the infamous boob egg. I turned it around for the photo so people wouldn't ask why we just put a W on one of our eggs.



Alas, beauty is only skin-deep, or in this case, shell-deep...



Here I am filling the eggs with tasty, deviled egg mixture...




Ty sliced some Spanish olives to garnish the tops...



Here's the finished product. Ty loves them so much that by the time I'd washed my hands to handle the camera he'd already eaten several! I don't blame him, they were delicious!

Tandoori Chicken

As part of my quest to continually expand our culinary horizons, I wanted to introduce the deliciousness that is Tandoori to Ty. Matt, Jacob and I had Tandoori years ago when my parents picked up a big shaker of it from a natural foods store. For the short time that we had it, I sprinkled Tandoori on nearly everything. Then, when it was gone, it was, well, gone. Recently, the deliciousness re-entered my mind and I made it my mission to find it...which was fairly hard to do in "Big Sky" country.

For those who have not yet had the opportunity to experience the deliciousness of Tandoori, let me tell you a bit about it. Tandoori is a blend of Indian spices named for the oven, called the tandoor, that is traditionally used to cook this particular type of Indian foods. The spice itself is a blend of a variety of spices including ginger, coriander, cumin, paprika, pepper, turmeric, nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon.

Tandoori Chicken, as I've recently learned, is actually a Punjabi dish that dates back to the time of the Mughal Empire in Central and Southern Asia. It's made by marinating the chicken in a mixture of the Tandoori spice blend and plain yogurt.

Though I wasn't able to find dry Tandoori seasoning here in Great Falls, I was able to find a Tandoori paste at 2J's. There was a simple recipe for Tandoori Chicken on the bottle so we decided to use it.

As per the recipe I mixed eight tablespoons of the Tandoori paste with six tablespoons of plain yogurt and marinated the chicken for 24 hours. Then we baked the chicken in the oven for about a half an hour. It was delicious!!

Before I forget to mention it, as good as the Tandoori was, the real star of the show was the Basmati rice I made to go along with it. Basmati is a fragrant, long-grained rice that smells and tastes a bit like popcorn. It's so different from the typical white rice and an amazing treat. It goes really well with dishes like Tandoori Chicken.

The night we made the Tandoori Chicken Ty was working late to finish an album review and both Matt and Jacob were either working or otherwise engaged. So, because I made the dinner by myself I, regrettably, don't have any photos of the cooking process. I was able to snap a few photos of the finished product.



I think there's some kind of unwritten rule that every time I bring out the camera Matt has to do some kind of crazy pose...as evidenced by the following two photos...




Here are a couple of photos of Ty, looking cute and enjoying my food!




Because we still had half a bottle of Tandoori paste, another carton of plain yogurt, three thin cuts of steak that needed to be used and left-over basmati rice, we decided to make Tandoori Steak the next night. Not only was it good, but it was about ten times better than the Tandoori Chicken...which was mouth-watering! Definitely a keeper!

Fast and Easy Chicken Fajitas

We found this delicious recipe for homemade fajitas in an issue of Martha Stewart: Everyday Cooking. Ty and I were so happy with how they turned out! We had restaurant-delicious chicken fajitas in under 30 minutes...start to finish. It just doesn't get better than that!

First, we cut an onion, one red and one yellow bell pepper into thin strips. We threw them into a bowl and tossed them with some olive oil and various seasonings.



Next, we sprinkled three chicken breasts with seasonings and put them in the oven to broil for five to ten minutes. I kept the oven open a slight crack so I could keep an eye on them while they cooked...the broiler is a dangerous beast and I didn't want it getting the best of me! The chicken turned out beautifully and the actual broiling time for our chicken was around eight minutes.



After the chicken came out of the oven we used a sharp knife to cut it into thin strips.

The vegetables went into the oven next. The recipe said to broil them for six to eight minutes, or until tender and slightly charred. After eight minutes the peppers still weren't tender enough so we cooked them for around ten minutes instead.



Here's a look at the finished product...




The recipe was a big hit with everyone! I'm sure we'll be making it again sometime soon!

Weekly Meal Plan: April 6, 2009

Ty and I sat down over the weekend and came up with our meal plan for the week. We had everything just about the way we wanted it when we realized that we'd completely forgotten that Easter is on the 12th. So we reworked the meal plan and this is what we came up with...

Fast and Easy Chicken Fajitas

Because of my new-found love for bell peppers we decided to try out a recipe for chicken fajitas that we saw in one of our Martha Stewart: Everyday Cooking magazines. I'll give you a hint...we already made it and it was fabulous! Photos and more to come!

Turkey Cranberry Sandwiches

Simple turkey sandwiches with cream cheese and cranberry sauce...always a good time. We usually have these on a busy night with a soup or a salad.

Tandoori Chicken

I found some awesome Tandoori paste at 2J's that I just couldn't resist trying! We're going to have the Tandoori Chicken with the Onion-Roasted Sweet Potatoes that the guys have been asking for and basmati rice. Yum!

Shake and Bake Style Choplets

These are always a fast, easy meal that we can make entirely of things we already have in the pantry. With the big Easter dinner this weekend we thought we'd go with something mindlessly simple.

Easter Dinner Extravaganza

Last year we decided to try something other than turkey for Easter and this year we're continuing on that theme. I found a great recipe for a whole chicken that we're going to try out...it looks mouth-wateringly delicious so we'll see how that goes!

For side dishes I had several requests from the guys... Jacob was still upset that I didn't make Colcannon for St. Patrick's Day, so I'm making Colcannon instead of regular mashed potatoes. He and Matt both also insisted that I make their favorite green bean casserole. Ty's big request was for Deviled Eggs...he loves them. That's about it!

Chicken and Peppers with Balsamic Vinegar

Another new recipe we tried from AllRecipes.com this week was Chicken and Peppers with Balsamic Vinegar. This was kind of a test recipe for a curious craving I've had lately for bell peppers.

A little backstory... I've never cared for bell peppers, especially green ones. For as long as I can remember I've thought they were pretty gross. But because I'm a big believer in expanding one's culinary horizons I've tried them periodically over the years to see if my tastes for bell peppers had changed. Until now they hadn't.

A couple of weeks ago I saw bell peppers at the store and thought they looked "good" instead of just "pretty". But I knew I didn't like them so I didn't buy them. Then Ty's parents took us out to dinner at Chili's and Ty ordered fajitas and, surprisingly, the bell peppers smelled good. I decided it just might be time to give them another try. So I looked on AllRecipes.com and found this recipe for Chicken and Peppers with Balsamic Vinegar.

Here are the red, orange and yellow bell peppers, and onions sauteing in olive oil...


Here are the peppers cooking with the thinly sliced chicken breasts...


And finally, the finished product...



The recipe was amazing, a big hit with all of us! Jacob mentioned that the sauteed bell peppers were especially tasty and, strangely enough, I thought so too. Now that I have a new-found appreciation for bell peppers I'm thinking of trying my hand at homemade fajitas sometime soon!

This recipe was great. We highly recommend! Here it is if you'd like to try it for yourself:

Chicken and Peppers with Balsamic Vinegar

English Sausage Rolls

One of my favorite meals this week was English Sausage Rolls. Ty and I made them using a really simple recipe we found on AllRecipes.com and they were delicious!!

I'm not a fan of regular ground sausage so we used Gimme Lean ground veggie "sausage" instead. For people like Jacob who feel I need to explain EXACTLY why I don't like regular sausage, my reasons are as follows... It's really greasy...every time I eat it I feel like I should shower afterward because it feels like there is grease EVERYWHERE. The other reason is because every time I eat regular sausage I end up chomping down on something hard and disgusting. I don't know what it is, but it's gross. The experience is what we at Mahalo call a "stop error"; an error so terrible that you simply cannot continue reading, or in this case, eating.

There are a lot of benefits to using the Gimme Lean in recipes. Most importantly, there aren't any weird, crunchy, hard things. It won't leave you feeling greasy either. It's definitely better for you than regular sausage, and it even tastes good.

Because I wasn't using traditional sausage I added two teaspoons each of sage, onion powder and garlic powder to make sure that my veggie sausage would be as tasty and flavorful as regular. Other than that, we stuck pretty close to the recipe.

I was so excited when we pulled the Sausage Rolls out of the oven! They looked and smelled heavenly! A lot of reviewers had mentioned that the Sausage Rolls were too greasy and that the grease had soaked through the bottom layer of breading. Because I used the Gimme Lean veggie sausage it completely eliminated that problem. Ta-da! So our Sausage Rolls were golden brown and crispy all the way around...delicious!

Our camera was running out of batteries so I only had enough "juice" left to get a single picture of the finished product. I served them alongside a simple garden salad. Aren't they beautiful?!



These were delicious and really easy to make. Here's the recipe if you'd like to try them for yourself:

English Sausage Rolls