EEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKK LOBSTER ON THE LOOSE!

Oh, dinner tonight was sooooo much fun! Frenchie and I are cooking throught the 50 states. Maine is steamed lobster. YUMMMMMMM! But first, you have to be a murderer! I'm not kidding! I walked into Martin's and told the seafood guy "I'll take those 3 lobsters." Of course he talks to them the entire time... Puts them in a styrofoam container, where they are fighting and dancing... Everyone gives you advice and warnings, through the entire store! The cashier was afraid to turn them upside down to scan them. (honey, turning them upside down isn't going to hurt them, I am going home to drop them in a pot of boiling water!) I bring them home and open up the container, and they start moving! I start screaming! The kids are loving this! We put a little Black Eyed Peas on the stereo, and the lobsters start dancing to the beat. I call my friend and tell her she has got to come watch this! She is here within minutes. I drop them in the boiling water... Everyone is standing around taking pictures of this moment! 16 minutes later, they are ready to be shelled. This took forever and we had very little meat, but it was very worth it! We served it with some baguettes, spinach and strawberry salad, French butter and a few leftover crab cakes. YUM!!!! Here are some fun pics from our lobster experience. Yes, my son is wearing the antennaes on his head...

Wow!!!

Ever have company and the meal is soooo good that you all just stand around the serving plate and eat??? Last Thursday I made this amazing grilled chicken. As soon as it was pulled off the grill we all just stood around my chopping block and nibbled! The chicken was soooo easy too! Mix the marinade, marinate all day, grill and you are all done!!! Gotta love it! Course in my life you have to have more than just chicken... So we served Idaho stuffed baked potatoes and sauted zucchini. It was very good!
At the mention of the Idaho stuffed baked potatoes I am reminded that I haven't told you about Frenchie and I's new adventure. I know that I have told you she is a wonderful cook. She loves to read cookbooks just like me. She had a cookbook with 50 state recipes. We decided that we needed to cook all of them! (Can you tell that I am reading Julie & Julia?) So we are cooking our way through the states. So far we have done Idaho, Michigan (terrific cherry pie) and Iowa (very interesting corn casserole). Tomorrow night is Delaware! I'll tell you how that turns on tomorrow!
I am hoping that you will all try this chicken recipe! It is truly amazing! I first had it on vacation last summer. It was "Aunt" Mary's turn to cook and she made this with the Delmonico potatoes I blogged last week and fresh fruit skewers. Great meal! Very memorable and simple!
Summer Brown Sugar Citrus Marinated Chicken
6 chicken breasts (I am not a huge fan of breasts, so I used a mix of breasts and thighs)
1/4 cup dijon mustard
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp. pepper
2 tsp. salt
1 lemon, juice only
1 lime, juice only

1. Mix all marinade ingredients together and pour over chicken in baggie.
2. Marinate all day!
3. Grill until done!
To my BFF Laura, I know this is more than 3 ingredients, but it is sooooo worth it!!!!

Stuffed to the gills...

Alright, I feel like today has been an eating free-for-all! I wanted to introduce Frenchie to Shipshewana, Indiana... and you can't go to Shipshe without going to Das Essenhaus for a family style broasted chicken dinner with all the fixings! (at least I brought my pie home to eat later! I wasn't a total pig like the rest of them!) Then for dinner we had great leftovers from our lunch yesterday. Yesterday we went to Uptown Kitchen for lunch. I had a roasted mushroom (though I ordered a roasted marshmallow, it just wouldn't come out of my mouth right!) pizza. Frenchie had a quattro fromaggio pizza with pesto, and my son had a mushroom, parmesan and pepperoni pizza. My daughter was the odd man out, she had blueberry pancakes, huge sausages and then 2 slices of pizza... There was enough left over from that meal to feed my family of 5 for dinner tonight with lots still left over!!!!!!!! It was such a nice day to know that I could enjoy my 3 kids and not worry about coming home and cooking a meal!

I am posting a couple of pictures of some cakes that I have done recently! One was for my daughter's 7th birthday (bug themed) and the other is my hubby's 35th birthday yesterday! Hope you enjoy!

Easter fun!!!

Easter weekend was pretty fun! It was our last weekend before our "other house" went on the market, so there was lots to do. I also had a cookie order for our friend's new church. (Epic Church of Mishawaka is awesome!) So, Saturday I spent the day baking, cleaning and cooking... though I did take the time to get a pedicure. It felt great! In the afternoon a friend stopped by just as I was helping the kids get started on decorating eggs. I set them up on the kitchen table and headed downstairs to have a drink with the men. When I came back upstairs I found that the kids had managed to also decorate our kitchen table... I have tried everything I know, but I think we are permanently decorated for Easter! It's art work that we will have forever! Hahaha!
Sunday we were having some friends for Easter dinner. That included one of our friend's parents. It was great! Since losing my parents holidays are difficult, but my friends are doing a great job helping me with that!!!!! Our Easter dinner was a joint affair. My favorite kind of meal!!!! We had a Honeybaked Ham, Delmonico potatoes, deviled eggs, fresh asparagus with Frenchie's vinaigrette, veggie and fruit platter, green bean casserole and Sue's spaghetti salad. YUM!!! We also had a great bottle of wine from the Lemon Creek winery. The meal was followed up by fresh rhubarb pie and Frangelico Cream! I don't think I have ever been that full! The beautiful Spring day made everything taste all the better. After our meal we were able to go outside and watch the kids (and Run) play football! I think my daughter is ready for the Rockets! She is tough! It was a nice day!
Each thing that we had brings back to me wonderful memories of past meals in my life! Love that! I will share the Delmonico potato recipe. It is wonderful and I am hoping that Mary won't mind. She shared it with me on our South Carolina vacation this summer. What a great meal!
Delmonico Potatoes
9 medium potatoes
1/2 lb. sharp cheddar, grated
1 tsp. dry mustard
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 pint heavy whipping cream
1 cup milk
dash pepper
Boil potatoes until not quite done. Cool- peel and grate finely into a 1 1/2 quart casserole dish. Heat cheese, mustard, salt, pepper, cream and milk until cheese melts. Pour over the potatoes. DO NOT STIR!!! Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour!
Happy Dyngus day to all of you! Tomorrow maybe I'll share our Dyngus Day meal with you!!!! Thanks for reading!

Lessons...

Lessons can be fun. Frenchie is teaching me plenty! There are so many that it is hard to decide which one I would like to share. I think I would like to share an evening that we had last week. This will get around to food, in a very roundabout way! Last Thursday night my son was competing in the school district's Spell Bowl. This was a huge honor and we were sooooo proud of him! He is so smart, but sometimes I have to wonder if spelling is his thing! HeeHee! His spelling partner was a very good friend of his who is an excellent speller. They were given 5 words, and the audience doesn't know which one of them misses which word. At the end of their 5 words I knew that one of them had missed the word "beet". I totally figured it was my son... but come to find out, he got them all right!!!!!! That's my boy!!!! Ok, I have bragged enough! Back to the subject. This night I had not really planned dinner. There were 2 crabcakes left over from the night before. So Frenchie and I put together a wonderful salad and she was going to eat the 2 crabcakes. Yum! Afterward she says to me... Do you want to learn how we eat cheese in France? "Ummmm... Do bears poop in the woods????" I want to learn everything about French foods! Especially if it has to do with cheese! So she takes a loaf of sourdough bread and slices 2 pieces... Asks me what kind of cheese I want to use.... and takes me on an incredible journey. She is doing hers with blue cheese and I am having camembert. I take the camembert and start to put it in the microwave to soften it a bit. She yells "what are you doing? NO!" She slices thin slivers and puts them on the bread. She spreads the blue cheese on her bread. Tells me that it is actually bad manners to spread it on the bread, but for our purposes, this is what she does. We then stand around the chopping block, eating our cheese. Loving it, eyes rolling into our heads, enjoying! I have 3 1/2 more months to learn sooooo much!!!! LOVE IT!

Ohhhhh MY!

Have you ever made one of those meals that makes you moan with delight??? Let me tell you about last night's dinner. I will start by saying, there was nothing healthy about it, but you occassionally have to have these types of meals. I found this recipe in the Deen Bros Good Cooking magazine and it was called Company Shrimp and Mushroom Pasta. It was a meal that had my daughter going to get a spoon to make sure that she got every last drop of the cream sauce... It was awesome!

Company Shrimp and Mushroom Pasta
1/2 cup butter
2 cups sliced baby bella mushrooms
1/4 cup chopped onion
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups heavy whipping cream (I warned you!)
1/2 cup white wine
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 1/2 lbs medium shrimp, peeled
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper
1 cup fresh spinach (we'll talk about this later)
1 (16 oz) package penne pasta, cooked according to boxes directions and kept warm
1/2 cup shredded 6-cheese Italian blend cheese

1. In a large skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Add mushrooms, onion and garlic. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring frequently, until mushrooms are tender. Stir in cream, wine, lemon juice and oregano; simmer for 8 minutes or until slightly thickened. Add shrimp, salt and red pepper; cook, stirring frequently, for 3 minutes or until shrimp are pink and firm. Add spinach; cook for 1 minute.
2. In a large serving bowl, combine shrimp mixture and hot cooked pasta, tossing gently to coat. Sprinkle with cheese.

We all loved this dish. It was pretty and tasted wonderful! I know that it calls for the spinach... I forgot to buy it, so we steamed some asparagus. Served the asparagus with Frenchie's wonderful vinegarette, but then cut up the leftovers and added them to the pasta. It was perfect!

I want to cry... but I may drink instead!

I am a procrastinator! There, I admit it! Hello, my name is Kate and I am a procrastinator... Being a procrastinator gets me in all sorts of trouble too. Here is a great example. Sunday we are having a 7th Birthday party for our daughter. Tomorrow I am having an all day crop at my house. Tonight I decided that I should start my daughter's bday cake... Of course that was after 8pm. So I am preheating the oven... My hubby walks into the kitchen and at the same time we both smell gas... Then hear a loud poof and we have a small (thankfully) explosion in the oven. This is the second time that this has happened with this oven. I am all for buying a new oven, but he says I need to get it fixed AGAIN. It isn't even 4 years old. I of course in the heat of the moment tell him "Fine, let them fix it again. But when it blows up for real and takes me with it, make sure and sue them!" I could just sit and cry.... So I just loaded my unbaked cakes (4 layers) into my van and sent them with my hubby to bake at his friend's house, while they drink in the driveway. I don't have high hopes for this turning out well. To anyone who knows my husband... you understand.

Happy baking and creating everyone!