My Kitchen

I found these pictures hidden away on my computer, so, I figured since I have no food to share; I'll share random parts of my kitchen. Above is my beloved KitchenAid mixer, bought two years by my sweet husband. I use it often and would find it very hard to function in the kitchen without one.



My other friend, my coffee maker. We spent a week researching to try to find the best and came to this conclusion. We have had it about a year and love it so far. It makes the best coffee.



This is my Wusthof chef's knife. I could not operate as well without it. While, not the best, or top of the line as far Wusthof's go, it is a LOT better than what I had before; a cheap Walmart set. As a result, my knife skills are improving.



My cookbook collection, and growing everyday. I have added probably ten more since this. I could probably blog everyday on just cookbooks. Maybe I will?



More of the collection...



...and more!



I would much rather have a walk-in pantry than a walk-in closet. Go figure...my mom thinks it's rather odd. Anyway, I love it. Complete with all staples as you can see.



And lastly, my refrigerator. Our last two homes had the tiniest refrigerator's you could ever imagine. So this makes me VERY happy!

Sorry...

I have nothing new to post since my hub is gone for 9 days and he took my beloved camera with him. I haven't done a ton of cooking and have been rather lazy as my 3 year old could care less if we ate macaroni and cheese or lobster. So I've been taking it easy, not to mention, we live on one meal for a few days since he is not here to eat it all. It's been nice. Nothing super impressive, I made taco soup, Rachael Ray's Macaroni and Cheese with Chicken and Broccoli, Tater Tot Casserole, typical kid fare. I am not in the mood for a battle as far as eating goes. I went to Firefly once and got their super awesome Tom Turkey Crepe(turkey, sprouts, cream cheese, cranberry relish, onion and lettuce wrapped in a crepe). By far my favorite thing they serve. Been going to lots of Bible studies and having people over for coffee/tea and biscotti. Just hanging on for dear life till he gets back. However, the amazing man he is, has been documenting his food he has eaten while in Vegas, so hopefully, I'll at least have pictures, and I will post them.

Poke and Shrimp Cocktail with Caribbean Sauce

My husband has a fascination with poke lately. Anytime we go to a restaurant and they have it, he will order it. I looked it up online to find out more about it and the word mainly means "to cube or slice." Apparently it originated in Hawaii as an appetizer. It is super easy to make and there is no cooking involved. You start out with a piece of sushi grade yellowfin tuna(see above). Isn't it pretty?



Cube it into bite sized pieces and I tossed it with lemon juice, soy sauce, sesame oil, nori komi furikake, and scallions. So easy, like I said and definetely yummy!


I also served shrimp cocktail along with this as this is another one of my husbands favorite. Just plain ole cooked shrimp with a sauce. The recipe is from Cook's Illustrated book, "The New Best Recipes." I highly recommend that book if you don't have it. Anyway, it is basically a jalapeno-ginger-lime flavored sauce. It packs a LOT of punch. We love it.

Coffee Almond Biscotti

This recipe is from a friend. I really love the flavor, the almond flavor is really strong with the coffee being more subtle. I like my biscotti really crunchy so I bake it super long. I have really enjoyed having this with chai and coffee.

Easy Foccacia Bread

This was a very simple recipe I made for lunch one day. It came from a Pampered Chef cookbook I had. Lately I have been trying to plan cheaper lunches that are filling. If I don't, many times we end up eating out. This couldn't get any easier, it is just pizza dough, garlic, mozzarella cheese, parmesan, tomatoes and oregano. Baked till done. It was very good, my hopes were so so for this but I found it to be full of flavor, quick prep, easy and cheap. Perfect for a weekday when I want something with little fuss.

Here is a close up photo:

Chocolate Chip Anise Biscotti

This is from Giada DeLaurentiis' newest book, Family Dinners. It was very good. I have never had anything, that I know of, with anise in it. I love the flavor I must say. I baked it for about 15 mins. longer than asked for because I like my biscotti hard. My only other complaint[s] was some of them cracked when I was cutting them and I would probably lessen the chocolate chips, it was almost too sweet. But I will defintely make these again.

Leaving on a jet plane, will return with peace offerings...

After four years of marriage, my husband is finally perfect at getting me gifts. He has always been great, only one, maybe two things I didn't care for. But he now finally get's the PERFECT thing[s]. He's learning what I like, which is probably ever changing.

He hated to go so far and leave me out of the fun. He got to get a mini vacation(good chai lattes EVERY morning), while I got pretty much the anti-vacation(having to handle a Daddy's girl and a newborn all on my own). He had no time to shop, so what does any layover ridden traveler do? Hit up the airport thieves, err...shops. On the way there, he bought me a copy of Rachael Ray's magazine(they don't sell it here) and a cookbook. On the way home, he got me this box of Japanese goodies, see picture above. I don't know what everything is, because I can't read Japanese. He said after looking through all of them, which had that infamous plastic Japanese sample food on display, he decided on this one. Either way, they are yummy. It was also wrapped beautifully. He's so sweet isn't he? I'll try to describe some of it the best I can, starting with the top left and going clockwise. The yellow things tasted almost like poundcake, but a lot lighter, next in the green, I haven't tried yet, then, in the pink, they were I want to say like rice something with soybean paste in the middle(I think these were my favorite), plum filled cookies, can't remember what that was, and finally little cream puffs filled with something sweet, but not your usual cream filling. If anyone out there knows more, let me know!! His plans to get me more were spoiled by the no liquid rule. Thanks terrorists!

Anyway, thanks to my sweet hubby!

Welcome back, Slotter!

This was Jason's homecoming meal I had planned for him. Since he came home at 3 AM, obviously we did not have it on his night of arrival. We were all delighted Daddy was home after what seemed to be a very VEEEERY long six days. The wedding was beautiful and he took the camera, so I have nothing to show for what I did happen to cook. I've determined cooking when Daddy is gone is pointless because a 3 year old could care less what I do. Plus you have TONS of leftovers and my friends wanted to go out or invite me over because I was lonely.

Anyway, Jason is a steak lover, as long as it's cooked perfectly to his liking. On island they have a tendency to overcook stuff, even at steakhouses. I'm not sure why. But both of us have developed a love for medium to medium rare steaks. We don't do steaks often, mainly because I never was great at cooking them and I hated to waste that much money on what turned out to be mediocre meat. I've actually figured it out finally! I'm not so scared of undercooking stuff, which I have discussed in previous posts. This results in a perfectly cooked tender beautiful steak. Yes I am bragging, see above. I did it on my Lodge grill pan. Let me just talk about these pans. I have a love hate relationship with them as does Jason. I hate it because: they smoke up your house even with the overhead fan running, they're a pain to clean(cast iron=no soap), it tends to stick sometimes despite being seasoned, and a few other various reasons. I love it because you get the results of grilled meat and you don't have to go outside[perfect for people with four seasons] and we don't have a grill. The more I use it, the more convinced I am on getting an actual grill especially because of where we live. But we've added it to the list of things that want/need to be bought. Overall, I'd actually highly recommend buying a grill pan.

So, on to the food, this was just a simple meal, marinated steaks, creamed spinach and garlic and chive smashed potatoes. No recipes, just good fun cookin'. I forgot dessert, however that's what my other husbands Ben and Jerry[ice cream, just in case you live under a rock!] are there for[they comforted me many a nights while Jason was gone]! We had Turtle Soup ice cream, which I highly recommend if you love cashews and caramel.