Esquire Jambalaya

Posted on June 13, 2011 by ben

Jambalaya


Date: June 8, 2011

Recipe: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/food-for-men/jambalaya-recipe-0211

Modifications: I cut this recipe in half because it was huge. I didn’t use the parboiled rice, I just used basmati that we had. The pot already had quite a bit of moisture so I added around 3 cups of broth for the 2 cups of dry rice that I used. I cooked it in the oven for 20 minutes and it turned out great. I didn’t have quite enough chicken, so I threw some pulled pork in there to make  up the difference.

Time to table: 30 minutes prep, pre-cooking, 20 minutes in the oven

Servings: Two adults, one toddler, with enough leftovers for another four adult meals.

Ben: Love

Erin: Like

Annie: Love

Notes: I’ve been wanting to make this recipe since I saw the February 2011 issue of Esquire, and since we had leftovers from the grilled beer butt chicken and the grilled pork shoulder, I thought it was an opportune time.
Jambalaya

Posted in andouille, celery, chicken, garlic, green onions, green pepper, one dish meal, onion, pork, rice, tomatoes | Comments Off on Esquire Jambalaya

Pineapple Chicken Salad

Posted on June 9, 2011 by erin

Pineapple Chicken Salad

Date: June 6, 2011

Recipe: http://annies-eats.com/2008/08/06/pineapple-chicken-salad/

Modifications: Used some chopped fresh pineapple instead of a can. Shredded the carrots instead of cutting into matchsticks. We used leftovers from the beer butt chicken for this.

Time to table: 15 minutes

Servings: 6 adult sandwiches

Ben: Like

Erin: Love

Annie: Hard to say, since she had an epic meltdown over her inability to properly use a fork that colored the entire dinner experience.

Notes:  I have made this before, for Mindy’s baby shower – this is an awesome food for summer entertaining. This is a really REALLY good chicken salad – probably my favorite that I have ever had. I love that you don’t even really need a side dish with it – veggies, protein, dairy and carb are all in there. Yum!

Just so we remember – Annie was already cranky (wanted to be held while we were making dinner, just overall in a pissy mood) so when I gave her a bowl of the chicken salad and a fork she just started bawling after getting one successful bite in. I tried taking the fork away – but that was clearly not what she wanted. Major tears. I tried helping her eat. Not happening. She wanted some bites of my whole sandwich, which she liked. I gave her the entire sandwich, and then it fell apart. It was as if the world had ended. Ben and I TRIED to hold in our laughter but eventually we just gave in and laughed so hard we cried. Annie had stopped crying by this point and was happily eating the bread and a whole raw spinach leaf, so she even smiled a bit through her snot and tear stained face. She then tried to push the chicken salad over the edge of her high chair tray, while staring us right in the face as we said no – so I offered my hand and she instead focused on filling it up with the chicken salad. Skips the step of me picking it up off the floor! It was an interesting dinner, to say the least.
Putting the chicken salad in mom's hand

Posted in carrot, celery, chicken, fruit, lunch, one dish meal, onion | Comments Off on Pineapple Chicken Salad

Grilled pork shoulder

Posted on June 8, 2011 by ben

Barbequed Pulled Pork

Dry rub applied on Thursday, three days before cooking day.

Barbequed Pulled Pork

Date: June 5, 2011

Recipe: http://www.crumblycookie.net/2011/05/13/barbecued-pulled-pork/

Modifications: None, actually

Time to table: 20 minutes dry rub prep, 10 hours on cooking day

Servings: A LOT, we fed eleven adults and still had about six cups of leftover pulled pork.

Ben: Love

Erin: Like

Annie: Like

Notes: I love, love, love pulled pork and this was a really fun recipe to make. Like the original recipe says it gives you an excuse to hang out by the grill all day. Don’t start drinking too early or you’ll screw up the pork by forgetting to do something.
Barbecued Pork Shoulder
Adding more charcoal, I added 5-10 briquettes every hour or so.

Barbecued Pork Shoulder

Barbecued Pork Shoulder

Food!
Big bowl of pork, beautiful

Barbecued pulled pork
The final product

Posted in grill, pork | 1 Comment

Grilled beer butt chicken

Posted on June 8, 2011 by ben

Chicken, asparagus and potato salad

Date: June 4, 2011

Recipe: http://www.yesyoucangrill.com/beerbuttchicken.php

Modifications:  I didn’t put any seasoning inside the bird and I grilled this inside an aluminum pan, which turned out to be a good idea because it tipped over halfway through cooking.

Time to table: 20 minutes prep, 2 hours grill time

Servings: Two adults, one toddler, with about four cups leftover shredded chicken.

Ben: Love

Erin: Love

Annie: Like

Notes: This is Erin’s favorite “plain chicken” recipe, so it got a rare “love” from her. We put the asparagus in foil and cooked that on the grill with some lemon juice.

Beer butt chicken

Posted in asparagus, beer, chicken, grill | 1 Comment

Chicken Taco burgers

Posted on June 7, 2011 by ben

Chicken Taco Burgers

Date: June 3, 2011

Recipe: http://ellysaysopa.com/2011/03/15/chicken-taco-burgers/

Modifications:  This was for four adults and two toddlers, so we upped the chicken to two pounds. We topped the burgers with avocado and a sour cream/adobo seasoning mix.

Time to table: 20 minutes prep, 20 minutes grill prep & cooking

Servings: 7 patties

Ben: Like

Erin: Like

Annie: Like

Notes: This was the inaugural meal on the new Weber grill! Served with a black bean/corn/red pepper salad.

Chicken Taco Burgers

Annie eating chicken taco burgers and black bean salad

Mia and Annie eating dinner

Posted in chicken, cornmeal, garlic, green onions, parsley, sour cream | Comments Off on Chicken Taco burgers

Sweet potato chili

Posted on June 6, 2011 by ben

Sweet Potato Chili

Date: June 1, 2011

Recipe: http://tastykitchen.com/blog/2011/03/chipotle-spiced-sweet-potato-chili/

Modifications:  Used a little less chipotle pepper than called for and I used crushed tomatoes instead of whole.

Time to table: 45 minutes

Servings: 4 adult dinners, 1 toddler dinner

Ben: Like

Erin: Like

Annie: Like

Notes: The barbecue sauce flavor came through too much for my liking, this is definitely a recipe that can be modified to your heart’s content.
Sweet Potato Chili

Posted in beer, black beans, corn, garlic, onion, sweet potato, tomatoes, vegetarian | Tagged | Comments Off on Sweet potato chili

Baby frittatas

Posted on June 6, 2011 by erin

Baby Frittatas

Date: June 5, 2011

Recipe: http://weelicious.com/2008/06/18/baby-frittatas/

Modifications:  I didn’t have any tomatoes, so I just used more asparagus. 3 eggs didn’t seem like enough, so I used 4. It would have been enough though, so just stick to 3 unless you want more than one mini-muffin pan.

Time to table: 10 minutes prep, 15 minutes to bake

Servings: 12 mini-muffin sized frittatas

Ben: Like

Erin: Like

Annie: Like

Notes: I have made it my life’s mission to get Annie to voluntarily consume asparagus. She didn’t eat much of it, but she did pick up a few bites and put them in her mouth on her own for the 2 meals when she had these. That was enough of a win for me. She might have liked them better with tomatoes in there too.We had gotten the asparagus from the farmers market the day before, and I chopped it up tiny to increase the changes of Annie eating it.

These totally stuck to the mini muffin pan, despite a liberal spraying of olive oil, so grease the heck out of them.

Annie eating frittatas

Posted in asparagus, breakfast, cheese, eggs, vegetarian | Comments Off on Baby frittatas

Meaty Lasagna

Posted on June 4, 2011 by ben

Lasagna

Date: May 29, 2011

Recipe: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/06/the_best_lasagn/

Modifications:  We cut the beef down to 1 pound, still made plenty. I think this actually worked out well because this recipe is a tight fit in a 13×9 pan to begin with, so removing 0.5 pounds of meat made it fit a little better.

Time to table: 45 minutes prep, 30 minutes bake

Servings: 6 adults, 1 toddler. 2 adult meals leftover.

Ben: Love

Erin: Like

Annie: Love

Notes: This recipe is seriously so good and makes so many portions, it would be a great freezer meal.
Annie eating lasagna

Posted in cheese, cottage cheese, eggs, garlic, ground beef, italian sausage, one dish meal, onion, parsley, pasta, tomatoes | Comments Off on Meaty Lasagna

Breakfast Casserole

Posted on June 3, 2011 by erin

Breakfast casserole

Date: May 30, 2011

Recipe: http://weelicious.com/2010/12/09/breakfast-casserole/

Modifications:  I doubled this, since we were feeding 6 – we’ve made the original recipe twice and it is JUST enough for 4 adults and 1 toddler. We had a few leftovers. I used: red pepper, broccoli, red onion and corn for the veggies. I chopped the veggies REAL small to try to get the maximum amount hidden into each bite since Annie has the habit of picking out the egg and bread pieces and leaving the vegetables.

Time to table: 30 minutes prep, 1 hour to bake

Servings: 8 adults

Ben: Like

Erin: Love

Annie: Like

Notes: This is a really good basic breakfast casserole recipe that you can change to suit your fancy. I also baked Lemon Blueberry Scones to go with these.

Veggies

Breakfast casserole

Annie eating breakfast

Posted in bacon, breakfast, broccoli, cheese, corn, eggs, one dish meal, red pepper | Comments Off on Breakfast Casserole

Stuffed green peppers

Posted on May 25, 2011 by ben

Stuffed green pepper

Date: May 25, 2011

Recipe: Inspired from many sites when searching this morning.

  • 1 green pepper
  • 1/2 cup diced sweet potato
  • 1/2 cup diced red onion
  • 1 stalk diced celery
  • 1 cup black beans
  • 3 cloves diced garlic
  • cumin, chili powder
  • 1/4 cup sour cream
  • 1/2 cup shredded cheese
  1. Cut the top off of the green pepper. Cut out the stem of the top and dice the remaining top part
  2. Saute the diced green pepper top, sweet potato, celery, and onion until the potato is soft, 5-7 minutes
  3. Add the garlic for 1 minute
  4. Add the black beans, cumin, and chili powder for a few minutes, until the beans are hot
  5. Transfer the mixture to a mixing bowl
  6. Add the shredded cheese and mix until the cheese is melted
  7. Add the sour cream
  8. Fill the topless green pepper with the mixture, refrigerate leftovers
  9. Put the filled green pepper on a baking sheet and bake at 400 for 15 minutes
  10. Remove from oven and cut down the middle to eat

Time to table: 15 minutes prep, 15 minutes baking time

Servings: 1 adult lunch, 1 toddler dinner (Annie is having the leftover mixture for dinner tonight).

Ben: Like

Annie: Dislike

Notes: This was pretty good, would have been better with more cheese. I also like roasting the pepper over the grill better than baking. Annie was a fan of the black beans, at first, but then devolved into her just being angry at the world. She was in an odd mood tonight, so who knows?

 

Green pepper stuffing

Posted in black beans, celery, cheese, garlic, green pepper, lunch, onion, sour cream, sweet potato, vegetarian | Comments Off on Stuffed green peppers