The Return of Sushi!

Jayne had such a good time making sushi when she visited for Christmas that she put in a special request for another sushi night. So we called over our friend Cristal, who also loves sushi, for a night of good fun, good food and raw fish. Here are some of the pictures we took that night.

Catching Up...

Wow, it's been a really long time since I've posted any new meals to our cooking blog! We've had an amazing summer so far! Our good friend Craig visited from Scotland for two weeks and we had a blast showing him all of the sights here in Montana. The day after Craig headed home Jayne came up to visit from California. All in all, the whole friends and family summer vacation experience was two full months of non-stop fun!! Now that things have calmed down a bit I plan to get back to posting more regularly.

Here are a few of the many delicious meals we've had this summer:

Gwyneth Sauce

I'm not really one for celebrity worship, but one celebrity I really enjoy is Gwyneth Paltrow. She's classy, she makes pretty good movies, she's married to Chris Martin from Coldplay and I rarely hear about her personal life in the tabloids...all reasons why Gwyneth Paltrow is cooler than your average celebrity.

Anyway, Gwyneth has a really neat lifestyles website called "Goop". The website sends out a weekly newsletter on topics from food to fashion to reading recommendations and more. I have to admit, the recipes are probably my favorite. The recipe for Gwyneth's Simple Homemade, Never-Fail Tomato Sauce makes one of the best tasting pasta sauces I've ever had. Whenever I make it I alter the recipe to fit whatever I have on hand, which usually means that I used dried basil and jarred minced garlic instead of fresh. I also add a generous sprinkle of crushed red pepper to give the sauce a little kick, as well as some oregano. The original recipe is for a meatless pasta sauce, but I brown and add a pound of lean ground beef to make it thicker, chunkier and heartier. It's delicious!!

Here's a picture of how the Gwyneth Sauce turned out the first time we made it. It was just as tasty as it looks!!



We've made Gwyneth Sauce several times now and it's always a big hit with the guys. Here's a picture from the most recent time we made the sauce.



Tofu Rice Bowls

In recent years I've come to appreciate the taste of tofu, so much so that sometimes I will downright crave the stuff. The last time the craving for tofu set in I decided to put it in some simple stir-fry. So I stir-fried a bag of broccoli stir-fry veggies in a bottled General Chicken sauce, fried some firm tofu slices in a little sesame oil and served it over a bowl of basmati rice. Yum!



Zatarain's Chicken Jambalaya

Zatarain's boxed jambalaya mix is an awesome and budget-friendly meal for busy weeknights. One box of the jambalaya mix costs less than two dollars and feeds all four of us. You can add whatever type of meat you have on hand.

Though we usually prefer the Zatarain's Cheesy Jambalaya Mix with sausage, this time we had chicken on hand so we used that instead. It turned out amazing!



Spinach Cottage Cheese Omelets

This is such a great and simple recipe I found in a Martha Stewart Everyday Food magazine. You take a handful of chopped, fresh spinach and toss it into a preheated skillet sprayed with butter-flavored pan spray. Let the spinach wilt and then add about a half cup of Egg Beaters (or two whole eggs). Cook the eggs until cooked through and then slide on to a plate. Scoop some cottage cheese on the omelet in a strip down the middle. Sprinkle with shredded Parmesan cheese, fold over and enjoy. So delicious, so easy and so healthy too!!



Jayne's Birthday Dinner

For Jayne's 16th birthday we decided to go all out and make a crazy-awesome birthday dinner. Ty made lobster tail, and I made steak, mashed potatoes and a green salad. We were all pleased with how it turned out and it was an even bigger hit with the birthday girl!



For her cake we kept it simple with a box of Funfetti. I found these really neat butterfly gummy candies to put on top. Adorable, huh?



Matt and Jayne...they're crazy kids!



Matt, Jacob and Jayne...





Matt, Jacob and Jayne wiggling their hands over the cake. They're so goofy!!



Here's Jayne blowing out her candles.



Time to eat the cake!!



Royal Anne Cherry Chicken and Gorgonzola Pear Salad

I found a great chicken recipe on the back of a can of Oregon Fruit's Royal Anne Cherries. The recipe, which called for canned cherries, red wine vinegar and various spices turned out delicious!!



The Gorgonzola Pear Salad that I served alongside the chicken was also a big hit. It had Romaine lettuce, chilled canned pear slices, Gorgonzola cheese, chopped pecans and dried cherries. It was one of the best, most flavorful salads I've ever had. Here's a closer look...



BBQ Portobello Mushroom Burgers

We found an easy recipe for portobello burgers in a recent issue of Vegetarian Times magazine and decided to try it. The burgers were flavorful, juicy and thoroughly enjoyable!



Buffalo Chicken Pizza

Buffalo Chicken Pizza is one of our favorite recipes from AllRecipes.com. It's tasty, easy to make, and has been a hit with every person we've served it to. Don't take our word for it...try it for yourself! Here's a link to the recipe: Buffalo Chicken Pizza

Here are a couple pictures of Jayne helping out with the pizza creation process...





Homemade Black Bean Burgers

Homemade Black Bean Burgers are so much more delicious than the ones you can buy from the store. Not just that, but you wouldn't believe how proud of yourself you feel for making such an awesome vegetarian dish. Here's a link to the recipe on AllRecipes.com: Homemade Black Bean Burgers We usually follow the recipe pretty closely, but this time we decided to add minced red and orange bell pepper in addition to the green bell pepper the recipe calls for.

I was really hoping to take step-by-step pictures for this recipe...it's so fun to make! Unfortunately, our camera ran out of batteries after I took this single picture. Still, the veggies are beautiful, aren't they?



French Onion Soup

Ty has a great recipe for French Onion Soup in one of his vegetarian cookbooks. Thought we've made it vegetarian before, I prefer swapping the vegetable broth in the recipe for beef broth. Here's a picture of the delicious French Onion Soup (and the toasted bread I made to float in it) I made while Jayne was here.



Jayne's Delicious Brownies

My sister Jayne makes some great brownies by mixing up a box of fudge brownie mix and then swirling in peanut butter. Lately, she's started adding a chopped up Hershey bar to make the brownies even more irresistible!





Jayne's Farewell Dinner: Beer Lime Grilled Chicken, Corn on the Cob and Baked Beans

We wanted to make the last dinner of Jayne's Montana Vacation Extravaganza a special one so I decided to make this great recipe for Beer Lime Grilled Chicken that I found on AllRecipes.com. The recipe is easy to make, but tastes like you spent some time on it. It's actually quite delicious. This time, the beer I used was Bud Light Lime and the extra lime flavoring made the chicken even more delicious!

Here I am, taking off the corn husks.



Here's the finished product. Because our outdoor grill broke we had to grill the chicken on the George Foreman. Even so, the chicken turned out to be juicy and flavorful.

Grilling: The Adventure Begins

We live in an apartment building, so having an amazing grill is a little impractical. But we all love to grill so recently Ty decided that we had to get one, even if it was just a little one. So we went to Wal-Mart, picked out a little $35 propane grill and grabbed some hamburger and hot dog fixings!

Here's the grill Ty picked out, complete with accessories!



Ty made potato packets to go with our hamburgers and hot dogs. Delicious seasoned potatoes, onions and green peppers wrapped in tin-foil and cooked on the grill. They were really tasty!





I made hamburgers and grabbed the hot dogs, and then we headed outside!



Here's Ty, just grilling away!







Yes, they were just as delicious as they look!



Our grilling adventure was a major success! You'll be seeing a lot more of the grill throughout the summer months.

Thai Red Curry

We had a seasoning packet for Thai Red Curry in our cabinet for months and months. I found it a couple of weeks ago and thought it looked pretty awesome. I don't know why we waited so long to make it!

Here are the chicken and vegetables cooking together.



You were supposed to add coconut milk to the packet to make a sauce for the curry. I forgot to buy coconut milk so I used what I had on hand, which just so happened to be vanilla soy milk. It turned out just as tasty.







We served the Thai Red Curry over basmati rice. It was great and if we buy this again we won't wait so long before making it!

Proper English Cottage Pie

Cottage Pie was one of my favorite things I ate when I went to the United Kingdom in 2004. When AllRecipes.com sent me the recipe for Proper English Cottage Pie as a recipe-of-the-day awhile back I was excited to make it!

We made it a couple of days after Easter and because we still had leftover Colcannon I used that in place of plain mashed potatoes for the topping. It was great. The fried cabbage in the Colcannon really added something to the flavor.

Here I'm cooking the carrots and onions together.



Here it is right before going into the oven.



Here's the finished product, which was a savory, comfort food wonder! So delicious!!



Try it for yourself! It's guaranteed to please! Here's the recipe: Proper English Cottage Pie.

Easter Dinner

This year for Easter dinner I decided to cook my first whole chicken. I found a really great recipe on AllRecipes.com called Juicy Roasted Chicken. The ingredients were simple and the recipes had great reviews. One woman said she used this recipe for a chicken she submitted in a chicken contest and she won the blue ribbon. It sounded so wonderful we just had to try it!

Here's the before picture...



...and after.



The chicken turned out amazing! It was juicy, delicious and just fell apart! It was a big hit, and easy to make, so we'll be having it again. Here's the recipe if you want to try it for yourself: Juicy Roasted Chicken

For a side dish we made green bean casserole, which is a holiday favorite in our family. Even though I make sure to make a lot of it, it's always the first thing to go. It's delicious!

Here are the green beans cooking with the tasty maple bacon:



And here's the green bean casserole before I sprinkled on the crunchy onions and popped it into the oven.



Jacob had been pretty disappointed when I didn't make Colcannon for St. Patrick's Day, so I decided to make Colcannon instead of plain mashed potatoes for Easter dinner.

Here's the complete meal. It was delicious!