What’s for dinner?

If I’m not careful this is going to become a food blog. It’s just because I haven’t had time or energy lately to do any of the other things I usually like to do. The only sewing I’ve done are the new curtains and an embroidered tea towel for a friend who was moving. But I have almost enjoyed cooking this week. Quite a stretch for me!

Source: onceuponachef.com via Beth on Pinterest

I made dinner again tonight. This time it was for the entire family. Steve had been traveling all week and Sarah just returned from her trip to Italy. It was so nice to have everyone together again. I made the above pictured Asparagus and Feta salad. This was the first time I grilled vegetables and I did an okay job. Steve's grill has a few issues and I didn't want to burn the spears. But the combination of lemon juice and feta cheese was delicious.

Source: food.com via Beth on Pinterest

For the main entree I made a nice juicy pot roast. To me, nothing says homecooking like pot roast. It is the ultimate comfort food. The best part is that I started with a frozen solid chuck roast this morning and tossed it in the large crock pot with the seasonings and by dinner is was perfect. Bonus is that the house smells yummy too!

I also made the same brownie bites recipe that I made for Sarah's graduation party as a special treat. But I tried something a little different this time.

Source: bakedperfection.com via Beth on Pinterest

When I made them for the party I made them like the recipe said with the melted peanut butter and chips. But I thought I could get the same effect by using a mini-Reese peanut butter cup. They are good but not as good as the originals. It may also be because the brownie mix I used the first time was just some plain brownie mix, nothing fancy and this time I used a Deluxe Extra Moist mix and the brownies are really sticky.

It must have been good because all we left behind was a bunch of dirty dishes!

*All photos courtesy of the original posts/pins on Pinterest. I was too engrossed in eating the food I made to take any photos tonight.

Summer Nights

Because I was feeling so good and went to the store, I decided to make a healthy “real food” dinner for Emma and I last night. Al fresh ingredients, nothing from a box or premixed.

I started with Farfalle with Mushrooms & Spinach. Super easy and very tasty. A bonus was that as I was finishing it Emma looked over to the pan and said that it was very pretty and looked good. The only modifications I made to the recipe was that I didn’t have any onions (we had about 6 huge onions in the pantry a week ago but I guess Steve found a use for all of them after all.) and I added a few chopped up sundried tomatoes for added flavor and color. I think this would make a nice lunch entrée or light dinner on its own if I added some grilled chicken breast strips.

For a main dish I made Baked Pesto Chicken.

Also super easy and really delicious. Next time I make this I may just make rice or egg noodles as a side dish and use the pesto-y juice as a sauce.

We rounded out our healthy summer meal with a helping from the HUGE bowl of fruit salad I had cut up earlier in the day. I also had a carton of big juicy blackberries but Em and I munched on those while I was cooking and there aren’t a lot of them left now.

A bonus to this is that I now have just enough leftovers to take to work with me today for lunch. I may cut up some of the chicken and toss it in with the pasta for a salad and take a small container of fruit for a sweet treat  instead of raiding the work candy bowl. (Who am I kidding, we have Snickers in there, I will be raiding it!)

I ended the night with a visit from my friends to watch the final audition round of So You Think You Can Dance and a pitcher of Beergaritas. I don’t use a published recipe for my Beergaritas so I’ll just tell you how I make them. It seems that everyone makes them a little different. I sometimes have to change up my recipe depending on what I have on hand. Last night I used this formula.

• 1 can (12 oz.) Frozen Limeade
• Fill can with Cuervo Gold Tequila
• 12 oz. 7up soda – the 7up I had was flat so I used Mountain Dew. Made it very sweet but yummy. I’ve also used Sprite, Ginger Ale or plain Club Soda.
• 1 beer – in my experience brand or style doesn’t really matter. Last night it was a Bud Light. Corona of course makes a great beergarita. I wouldn’t use any heavy beer like Guiness though.

Still everything together and add ice. If you are being all fancy you can get out the nice glasses and salt the rims and add a real lime. I will tell you that after a few of these many people do think they can dance so drink responsibly!

Ahhhhhhhhhh,

This morning was like a long sigh of relief. May was crazy busy with preparations for Sarah’s high school graduation. (Almost got one post written about it but it was getting too sappy so I didn’t publish it.) And the beginning of June has been really hard on me physically. I don’t know if it was all the work and stress of graduation or if something else is going on but I’ve been in a really rough place for the past few weeks. But this morning I woke up actually feeling refreshed, my body didn’t ache from head to toe, and I felt like my brain was as clear as the beautiful June sky.

I immediately started thinking of all the things I wanted to do today now that I had the energy to do them. First thing I did was strip my bed. I even toyed with the notion of running to Menards to buy a retractable clothesline and installing it on the side of the shed so I could have fresh line dried sheets but figured that may be pushing it. Then I started a shopping list and perused Pinterest for some light, summer dinner ideas.

When I was ready to go to Jewel I couldn’t get Maizey to come in the house. Actually I couldn’t find her, I think she was deep in the woods eating mulberries. So I grabbed my pruners and leather gardening gloves and took a few minutes to prune my roses. Then I remembered that the Nikko Blue hydrangeas in the front yard were blooming.

These hydrangeas were planted by the previous owner and only once in the 15 years that we’ve lived here have they bloomed and that time it was only a blossom or two. They bloom on old wood and usually our winters are too harsh for them to survive unless they are in a very protected location. Ours are right out on the edge of the driveway and get frozen hard every year. But this past winter was one of the mildest on record so they didn’t die back completely and this summer are covered in blossoms. The other thing about this type of hydrangea is that the blossom color is determined by the acid/ph levels in your soil. We have a lot of oak trees in our yard so ours tends toward acidic but we add a lot of compost and mulch so sometimes that neutralizes it. The amazing thing is that while most of the blooms on these shrubs are blue, there are some pink and lavender blossoms as well.

Sometimes I don’t like to cut bouquets from my garden because I prefer to enjoy them out there. But I figured having enough pink and blue hydrangeas for a real bouquet may not happen again so I might as well. So I cut some of every color plus some of the white classic Annabella hydrangeas by the back porch.

I put them on the table in the screened porch. Nothing says June like a screened porch, wicker furniture and a bouquet of hydrangeas. I then went to the grocery store and bought the makings of a big fruit salad and some other light summer foods. When I got home and was unpacking the bags I caught a glimpse of the porch through the window and it made me happy.

A day in June

“In June as many as a dozen species may burst their buds on a single day. No man can heed all of these anniversaries; no man can ignore all of them.”

                                                               Aldo Leopold