3 Pinterest Meals I've Made and Liked

I've been in somewhat of a food rut recently so I've turned back to my Pinterest board for inspiration.  Pinning recipes on Pinterest can be very hit or miss.  I've had some epic fails where I made a point to delete that pin afterwards so as to never mistakenly make the meal again.  There have been many a mediocre meal where it wasn't great but was satisfactory enough.  I usually keep these mediocre ones pinned but usually never have the desire to make them again.  And then there are those recipes that you keep coming back to and want to share with others because they have made your family life better.

I sifted through my "Main Dishes" board yesterday and thought I'd share three of those Pinterest meals that we keep coming back to.  I've even printed them out and added them to my recipe binder, which is the true test of if I like something or not!  So here they are, my tried and true Pinterest meals...

1. Bombay House Chicken Tikka Masala by Mattawa Mum

We have been making this meal for 3 years now and LOVE it.  I have tried several other Chicken Tikka Masala recipes and Butter Chicken recipes and they are never as good.  Originally I cut the jalapeno and red pepper in half to cut back on the spice but now I just do the recipe as is because we are liking more heat these days.  If you like Indian food and especially if you like Provo's Bombay House then you should make this. 

2. Summer Peach and Balsamic Pizza by Love and Olive Oil

Goodness, we love this sweet pizza.  Nothing is better than ripe summer peaches, so when you couple them with goat cheese, balsamic vinegar reduction and basil you get pure heaven.  To carry this meal into Fall, we swap out the peaches with butternut squash (I just peel and cube the squash and then boil for 5 minutes before adding to pizza).  Try it!!

3. Creamy Tomato Basil Soup in 30 Minutes by Chris Loves Julia

I love that this is a simple, easy, quick approach to tomato soup.  Much better than canned tomato soup you can buy and rivals the tomato soup from Costco that I love.  I make this recipe with grilled cheese sandwiches for a go-to meal on a crazy day.  

Happy cooking!

*Images via Mattawa Mum, Love and Olive Oil and Christ Loves Julia respectively :)

Cooking for the Whole Family: One Meal, Two Ways

When possible, I try to have Eleanor eat what Aaron and I are eating for dinner.  There is an art to preparing one meal for everyone, an art that I am still learning (and may never truly master) but I have come across a couple of meals that work really well for us.  And I figured that when you find a meal that is fast, easy, healthy and tasty (even to kids) then it must be shared with the world.  Cause cooking daily for your family is hard enough without people to share recipes with.

Before I share the meal, I must praise my friend Jessica who is the original source of this goodness (the adult version of the recipe).  She came up with this sweet potato/spinach/egg concoction on her own and then made it for us when she visited San Jose almost a year ago.  It has since become my go to meal for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  I wasn't able to actually see Jess prepare the meal back then so this is just my best attempt at recreating her delicious meal.  So here it is, one of our meals with an easy tweak for the kiddos too!

The Adult-Friendly Version:

 To prepare: Peel and chop the the sweet potatoes.  Toss sweet potatoes in a bowl with olive oil, chili powder, cumin, salt and minced garlic (I just eye ball it but you just want to have just enough spices/oil to lightly coat each cube of sweet potato).  Bake in the oven at 400 for 25 minutes (or until soft).  Top with chopped spinach and an over-easy egg (or poached egg if you are more talented than me!).  Drizzle with a touch of melted butter.

It's so good!  I love the taste of the runny yoke with the sweet potatoes.

The Kid-Friendly Version:

To prepare: Take the baked sweet potato you already cooked for the adult version and cut up them up into smaller pieces.  Scramble two eggs with finely chopped spinach added in.  Throw it all on their high chair tray and smile with joy as your child gobbles it down.  Does your baby love sweet potatoes? I can always depend on them for Eleanor.

Hope this helps in the meal planning department cause goodness knows I need all the help I can get!

Happy Friday and have a great weekend!

a very mini birthday party for a very great older brother

Blair, Chelsea and the kiddos came to visit this weekend on their way to Disneyland!

We loved having them for a night and getting to show them Fresno but most importantly, loved getting to celebrate Blair's 29th birthday.  Supposedly, Blair isn't all that into birthday celebrations, but we couldn't help but make a birthday cake (or two) and subject him to our own round of the birthday song.  We asked him over dinner if he has achieved all that he hoped to achieve by 29 years, and his response was something along the lines of "Yes, even more actually.  If you had told me ten years ago that by 29 I would have two great children, a good job in the Bay Area and a home and the most beautiful wife in the world then I would have been shocked."  I think that's a pretty great way to go into your 29th year, loving where you are in life and with many more great things still ahead.

Happy Birthday Blair!  You really are the best older brother I could have asked for!

And thanks Blair and Chelsea so much for coming to visit us!  We can't wait for your next visit (hint, hint ;))!!

P.S. If you're looking for a really good, moist chocolate cake recipe then you should use this Italian Cake one .  What makes it so moist, you ask? Ricotta Cheese! You can't taste the ricotta at all but it sure brings the cake the perfect level of moist-ness :)

Recapping Halloween 2013

Despite kind of downplaying the Halloween season this year, we actually pulled off a rather fun Halloween day.

Aaron went to work (he got to help a little with recruiting BYU students to PwC--so crazy to be on this end of the recruiting process) and I started out the day with good, healthy choices (oatmeal breakfast, power walk, smoothie for a snack, etc.).

It all went down hill health-wise though when I went to take the routine test to find out if you have gestational diabetes.  Drinking a water bottle full of sugar water definitely kills any health vibe you may have had going.  And boy, did this baby girl love the sugar.  She was flailing those arms and legs like crazy inside of me soon after I finished the drink.  No sugar for this little one when she is growing up!

I then decided to be festive and actually pulled off baking pumpkin cupcakes while making our very low-key, last-minute costumes.  I found the cupcake recipe here and I think they turned out pretty well.

Aaron came home from work earlier than expected (meaning at 7 pm instead of 10 pm) and I surprised him with our costumes.  I was beyond pleased with myself and Aaron was kind enough to go along with it.

We headed over to the Beans (what would we do without them?  So glad our BYU friends turned Bay Area friends live so close) for Halloween festivities.  They got us all pizza, we got to enjoy the trick-or-treaters that trickled in, we posed for pictures on their porch and then we ended the night with watching Warm Bodies.  A weird zombie apocalypse movie turned romantic comedy is the perfect way to spend Halloween, no?  Actually, it gave me really bizarre dreams that night, ha.

And now for our costume pictures (and mine and Aaron's rendition of awkwardly posed couple maternity pictures).

^^Get it? The wilson volleyball, the fed ex box, the beard...Cast Away! They are hilarious.

^^Our little batman family. I'm 29 weeks along!

Baking breads as of late

I used to be super intimated by any recipe calling for yeast, but after reading this list of tips a couple of years ago I have always I had success with yeast.

With extra time on my hands as of late, I have been making different kinds of bread at home to go with our meals and have loved it.  What I love most about making bread is that I naturally have all the ingredients on hand, which makes buying rolls or buns or things at the store kind of silly (granted, the money can definitely be worth it when you factor in the time it sometimes takes for bread to rise).  

In the spirit of sharing what's worked for me in the hopes that it could work for someone else, here are three recipes I have used often and really like!

**Note: The rolls/buns/naan are way better tasting than they look in these pictures.  I just snapped these photos quickly with my iPhone in not ideal lighting.  So don't let me photos deter you. 

World's Best Dinner Rolls. 

^^The one roll missing was because I couldn't wait until dinner to have one^^

These dinner rolls are delicious.  I think my Grandma Raty's (and therefore the ones my mom makes) may be the world's best but these are sooo good too.  

Here are my thoughts on the recipe in case anyone wants to make them:  

--I follow the recipe exactly.  The milk mixture needs a significant amount of time to cool though so plan in cooling time for that (If I'm short on time, I transfer the milk mixture out of the hot pot and stick it in the freezer to speed up the process).  

--I usually plan on 3 1/2 hours of prep time for these so yes, they are time intensive but yet still simple to make. 

--Every time I make them I end up using about 7 1/2 cups of flour and they turn out just right.  (I get stressed by recipes that say to add flour so that it becomes sticky but not too sticky or other vague things like that.  7 1/2 cups has worked for me though. I think this does depend on where you live/temperature/etc. but it's been the same for me in Provo and San Jose.)  

--The recipe makes 24 rolls, which is too much for us (actually 12 is way too much for the two of us too!).  I cook one glass dish of 12 rolls and then freeze the other dish of 12.  I followed the directions at the bottom of the recipe for how to freeze them and they turned out well.  I did the method where you freeze them before they do the second rise.  

--They are best eaten fresh out of the oven for sure (as evidenced in the photo above :)).  We had a lot left over after dinner though so for the coming days, we would stick the roll in the microwave for 30 seconds, put some strawberry jam on them and they were pretty darn good then too. 

Hamburger Buns.

^^Sloppy Joes may be just about the least photogenic food in the world.^^

I've made these 40 minute buns for hamburgers before and I just made them to eat with Sloppy Joes.  And Aaron, lover of all things BBQ, gave these his stamp of approval.  

I don't have too many thoughts on these except that they make 12 pretty small hamburger buns (the size of sliders to maybe medium buns).  If you want a bigger bun then just divide the dough into 8 buns in stead of 12.  I love these because they really just take 40 minutes to make, start to finish, and they taste way better than store bought.  

Homemade Naan. 

Aaron and I love Indian food.  We've been making this Chicken Tikka Masala recipe a lot this last year, which is super easy.  So easy that maybe people from India may scoff at it but we think it tastes seriously good and rivals Chicken Tikka Masala that we've had in restaurants.  (If you make that recipe, I always half the red pepper and jalapeño because it was just too darn spicy for us.)   Anyways, making naan with that meal just makes it that much better. 

My thoughts on the naan recipe: 

--Follow the tip at the bottom and roll out each ball of dough right before you cook it.  It also does work best to use a heavy bottom skillet.  These two things will help you get even, golden-brown spots throughout the whole piece of naan.

--We spread each with butter, garlic salt and cilantro after taking it off the skillet. I'm sure there are way more advanced varieties of spices you could add to this but we've kept it simple so far because it's just easier. 

--They are pretty dense so we usually just eat one each.  If you are just making this for two people then I would definitely half it (although you have to get tricky with beating up the one egg that the original recipe calls for and then halfing it).   

The naan is Aaron's domain.  I prep it and get it rising but he is usually in charge of rolling out the dough, cooking and seasoning these while I finish up the rest of the meal and he is quite the pro at it.  I always like it when we are both preparing food in the kitchen. 

Another good recipe is this one for Rosemary Focaccia Loaves (just like Macaroni Grill's!).  I haven't made it in a while but I want to soon :) 

I'm not a major cook but these recipes are all do-able and delicious.  Give them a shot if you so desire. 

Brownie Cookies with Salt Caramel Creme Filling. Need I say more?

While Aaron was working late one night, I decided to make these bad boys.  I came across the recipe on Pinterest (where all good recipes are discovered) and thought "Brownies AND salted caramel...I think YES!" I don't know what it is, but ever since I read The Help, I've had the desire to perfect everything "salted caramel."  I have a long ways to go, but I'm getting better.

These were delicious--will be a definite crowd pleaser (although this first batch is reserved for Aaron, me and our expanding waist lines). The recipe for these lovely sweets that I used is already very informative (so just use this link), but here are my two cents...

-The brownie/salted caramel filling make for a very RICH dessert.  Definitely use dark chocolate for your brownies as the recipe suggests (I naturally go towards milk chocolate so I need this reminder).

-Make the brownie cookies small (less than the suggested 2 tbs.) because they puff up to twice the size in the oven.  They are so rich, you'll be satisfied after only one small one.

-You could easily make the brownies ahead of time and refrigerate and then whip up the filling when you're ready to put the whole sha-bang together.

-I loved the homemade salted caramel tutorial the recipe gave.  Definitely recommend it.

-Oh and I like them refrigerated.  The brownie part is still gooey and they are just better cold I think :)

Aaron gave these two thumbs up so they are officially on our dessert list from here on out.