Ugh......

I'm home alone for the next 3 days. Findlay has a flood warning and there is nothing I can do but sit here and wait and watch and worry!!! I've driven around town two times already to see how high the water is getting and then I come home, look out the window and pace. I have projects that I wanted to get done before Matt and Bailey get home but I can't concentrate on anything. I was invited to a prime rib and king crab leg dinner tonight for Gretchen's birthday but I'm worried if I leave I won't be able to get back to my house so I'm probably going to skip that. I don't like this feeling at all!! I'm throwing myself a pitty party tonight if anyone would like to join me! :(

Blue Buffalo Chicken Dip

Buffalo chicken dip is a huge success at any get together I've been to but it is in NO way healthy. I threw some stuff together last night and came up with a super healthy yummy buffalo chicken dip.

Ingredients:

2 Chicken Breasts cooked and chopped
1 small 5.3oz container of Plain Greek Yogurt (fat free)
1/4 C Franks Buffalo Wing Sauce (add more if needed)
1/4 C Blue Cheese chunks
salt and pepper to taste

Mix, heat up and serve with tortilla chips!!!

Florida Fresca

We made a stop at Harvey's Orchard to pick up some oranges and grapefruit! My mother-in-law introduced me to this drink when we were in Florida last year.

Ingredients:

Equal amounts of:

Fresh squeezed grapefruit juice

Tonic or seltzer water

Good vodka

and a splash of grenadine

Serve over ice!

Oyster overload!

Down the street and around the corner from our cousin's house is a fresh seafood market called Claytons! The first day we were there we stocked up on fresh seafood. Oysters, crab legs, sea scallops, grouper, flounder and rock shrimp. Nick manned the grill and we had a seafood fest! This was my first time having fresh steamed oysters. I've had them fried and raw but never steamed. We had melted butter, fresh lemon wedges, spicy cocktail sauce and Crystal's hot sauce as condiments. They were outstanding! We even had more to take with us on the boat trip Sunday and went through 1 1/2 boxes full of fresh oysters!

I can't wait to have more!

Grills Restaurant and Tiki Bar in Florida

This restaurant is great! Right on the water, simple seafood and delicious drinks!

The Hurricane:

The first time I had a hurricane was in New Orleans when we went for Mardi Gras! It's a good, sweet, and dangerous drink! When we were told it was their specialty we had to have one or two or.......

Appetizers:

We were hoping to have their rock shrimp but we brought too much warm weather with us and they only serve fresh seafood so the rock shrimp were out of season. We settled on cheese stuffed shrimp poppers, spicy tuna sushi roll and pepper seared ahi tuna!

Dinner:

After having a seaweed salad I ordered the appetizer portion of bacon wrapped scallops w/ a nice spicy sauce to dip them in. They were SO good!

(Not sure the picture turned out so good though! Oh well!)

Blackened Mahi Philly steak! Soft sub bun, melted cheese, blackened Mahi, sauteed onions, peppers and mushrooms. What's not to like?!?!?

Blackened Mahi Ruben! This is my new favorite sandwich....EVER!!! Grilled rye bread, melted cheese, blackened Mahi, sauerkraut and 1000 island dressing! Perfection!

Great restaurant! I will be back!

FINALLY home

After the day from hell that I just had there was only one thing that would make me feel better. Yep....a big bowl if rice noodles, spicy miso broth and veggies. Perfect!!!!

P.S. I made this again today for lunch. It is so easy and so delicious.

3 C water

2 T miso paste

Dash each of sesame oil, crushed red pepper and hot chili oil

1 star anise

2 T soy sauce

Chopped up veggies. I used cabbage, baby bok choy, edamame, green onion, mushrooms and yellow bell pepper.

Mix all together in a sauce pan, let simmer for 5-10 min., reduce heat to low and add 1 serving worth of rice noodles. Let noodles soften in the broth for about 10 min. Sample broth for seasoning. Add more miso paste or soy if you want more salty taste. Remove star anise and serve!

One thing I learned today.......

SONIC IS DISGUISTING!!!!

Roadside snack...

Boiled peanuts and gator and wild boar jerky! YUM!!!!

Kumquat

Picked fresh from the tree in Melissa's back yard. Bailey loves them!

Lump Crab Omelet

I had one of these about 9 years ago and finally again today! Delicious!!!

ON VACATION!!!!

For the next 5 days I will be in Florida! I will be soaking up as many cancer causing rays of sun as possible (with an SPF of at least 30 of course) and enjoying the 80 degree weather. I will be eating as much fresh seafood as possible. All of my post will come from my phone. I hope to get lots of food inspiration on this trip along with lots of freckles!!!! I will enter back into the real world at about 12:30 on Monday Feb. 21st! See you then!!!!!

I love her!!!

Bailey Elizabeth, my 5 1/2 year old daughter, is slowly and surely turning into a tiny mini-me-foodie! She is very adventurous when it comes to food. She will try just about anything if I talk it up and tell her that it is delicious. She loves to help me in the kitchen. Although I think she is careful, letting her use a knife kind of freaks me out. I found a "lettuce knife" at TJ Maxx for her. I got her her own cutting boards at Ikea and she is in Sous Chef heaven!

She really enjoys baking sweets! I do not like to bake at all. There are three reasons I don't like it.

#1 I don't like to measure.

#2 I don't like to follow recipes.

#3 I don't like to have sweets in the house because I would rather waste calories on savory seconds than dinner and dessert. I'm just not a big dessert fan!

Every once in a while I give in and do a little baking with her. It only happens a couple times a year. This was for Valentine's Day and she actually found the recipe online on NickJr.com, printed it herself, brought it to me and asked me if we could please make these for her classmates. I just couldn't resist! I could have copped out at bought a box mix, added egg and water and baked it but I didn't. I followed her recipe (after she got back online, found it and reprinted it because I lost it somehow...oops). We had fun and they actually tasted good and looked super cute!

I look forward to many, many years of fun in my kitchen with this little lady!!!

Spring Rolls

There is a really good Thai restaurant in Findlay called Jack and Jin's! The atmosphere is pretty poor but they make up for it with the food. One of my favorite things there are the spring rolls. The are light, healthy and delicious! After a couple tries on my own and watching my brother make them on Christmas Eve I was successful this time. And....Matt even liked them (or at least he said he did).

INGREDIENTS

Rice paper

Romaine lettuce chopped

Cilantro

Bean Sprouts

Cucumbers cut into sticks

Red pepper sliced thin

Rice sticks or noodles cooked

Chicken breast meat shredded & seasoned with soy sauce

Shitake mushrooms sliced thin

1. Use a cookie sheet coated with a small amount of sesame oil to roll on.

2. Fill a large shallow bowl with warm water. Place rice paper in the water one at a time until they soften.

3. Gently spread the rice paper out on the cookie sheet and layer the fillings up in the middle and roll up folding the sides in first, bottom up and roll to the top. Repeat as many times as you wish.

4. Cut the rolls in half and serve with dipping sauce.

I used the sweet chili sauce as a dip. I also served this with an Udon noodle and vegetable stir fry.

Enjoy!!!!

My food discoveries this week!!!

I was trying to diet this and last week. I'm not very good at that. But I must say I did give it a good shot. I thought that eating soup would work. Not really!! I need meat and carbs (noodles mostly) and anything else that I see that looks delicious. Anyways.....while trying to eat good I made a few discoveries.



This is all that you need to make a delicious soup broth. It is Miso Paste. This was one of the ingredients that I needed to make Miso soup. I spent 1/2 hour making a special broth, Dashi, that was required for authentic Miso soup. Once that was gone I wanted more so instead of going through all of the steps I dissolved about 3 T of this in 2 C of water and viola.....perfect miso soup broth. Add in any noodle, veggie, meat, fish or tofu desired and you are all set!!!




This is my new favorite condiment. I picked it up at the Japanese market to use as a dipping sauce for spring rolls that I made earlier last week. It is so good! I've used in in sauces on noodles, stir fry and salad dressing. It has a nice sweet flavor with a little bit of spice. YUM!!!!







Dark Chocolate should always be made with "a touch of sea salt"!

I CAN bake.....but I still don't like it!!!

and most importantly of all.............

.....I don't know how I lived almost 33 years without these!

All in all it's been a very educational week. Now if I could just find some time to type of some of my recipes for this week I would be all set!!!!

I am a horrible crash dieter!

I give up! 3 dayz to go....it's a lost cause!

So excited.....

I have been wanting new knives for a long time now. My brother is a chef and has been pushing for me to get one knife in particular. He said if I'm going to spend money on a good knife that I had to buy a Wusthof Classic Santoku 7". So I shopped around for this knife. IT WAS $149.00. That's crazy! For one knife?!? Over the past couple months I would find some sales on knives and call him to see what he thought. No matter how good the deal he told me NO everytime. He even called me when he was out shopping once to tell me that he found that knife on sale for $100.00.....still too much for me.

For the past week I've been watching an auction on Ebay for THE knife that came with a wooden cutting board. Retail price is $199.00.

I WON!!!! I got the combo for $66.00. Shipping was $12.50 so my total was $78.50. That is 61% off! Quite a deal! I even bought a sharpener to go with it. I can't wait for my new toys to arrive.


Here is a picture of my new knife>>>>>>>>>>







and here is a picture of the cool sharpener>>>>>>>>>








Watch out fingers! You are in real danger now!!!!

Why?!?!?

Why is it that I woke up so early this morning? It's Saturday.....I should be sleeping until at least 9! Nope, I was up at 6:30. And what was going through my mind? Food of course! What should I cook today for breakfast, lunch and dinner? Why did I agree to baking for Bailey's class Valentines Day party? I hate baking!! Oh well....might as well get up!!! Bring on the coffee!!!

OMG....I'm officially in food heaven!

I grabbed these at the market because they were low in fat! I can't even explain how good they are. Steam for 15 min. and bite into a pillow of awesomeness!!! I could eat the whole bag right now!!!

Tea Egg - Japanese Snack

I went to the new Japanese market that I found in Findlay to get all of the ingredients that I would need to make Miso Soup. She talked me into getting one of these. They are simmered in a broth made of Oolong tea, Anise and Soy Sauce. I was very skeptical.......it was DELICIOUS. I'm a huge fan!!!! I will be dropping in there on a regular basis!!!!

Appetizers Galore!!!!

Friday night, friends, and fun = finger food!!!

• Spicy Crab Dip

1 block 1/3 fat cream cheese

1- 8 oz. pkg. imitations crab or lobster chopped

3 T light sour cream

2 green onions chopped

1 T Sriracha

1 tsp. salt & pepper mix

Serve on crackers (I prefer Triscuits) or roll up in tortillas and cut into rounds!

• Faux Hummus

1 can Great Northern Beans juice included

1 small Garlic clove

1 T olive oil

1 dash sesame oil

1 tsp. lemon juice

1 tsp. salt n pepper mix

Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.

Serve with veggies, pita bread or chips!

• Salsa, salsa, salsa!!!!!

1 small or 1/2 lg. onion

1 garlic clove

1 small can Rotel tomatoes

1 lg. can stewed tomatoes

1 large handful of cilantro, large stems removed

1 T apple cider vinegar

1 tsp Adobo

2 tsp sugar

Serve with tortilla chips!

Ole!!!