Ch ch ch changing

I decided to go with a more simple look and decided the blog needed a new name. I am not set on this yet but its a work in progress. Let me know what you think. First benefit....larger pictures!

Dessert of the Week

Sometimes, not every week, but sometimes I get a wild hair up my patootie and decide to make a dessert I haven't made before. One week it was Key Lime Pie. This week it was this extremely rich, but extremely naturally gluten free chocolate dessert! Sorry in advance for the double spacing. I didn't feel like retyping it. Oh and its good cold the next day too....or you can reheat it, I was too lazy too!

Chocolate Panna Cotta with Amaretto Whipped Cream (Recipe by Giada de Laurentiis)

Makes 4-6 servings

2 cups cold whole milk

1 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 packet unflavored gelatin

4 eggs, lightly beaten

1 (12-oz) bag bittersweet chocolate chips

1/4 cup toasted sliced almonds

1 cup whipping cream

1 tablespoon confectioner’s sugar

1 tablespoon almond liqueur ( I didn't have this but had almond extract so I substituted)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 2-quart casserole dish.

In a small saucepan, combine 1 1/2 cups of the milk, the granulated sugar, and the vanilla. Bring to a simmer and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Remove from the heat.

In a small bowl, sprinkle the gelatin over the remaining 1/2 cup of cold milk and let it dissolve for 2 minutes. Combine the cold milk and gelatin with the hot milk and sugar. Stir to dissolve the gelatin, about 5 minutes. (Heat the milk gently if the gelatin is not dissolving easily.) When the gelatin is dissolved, combine the eggs with the warm milk mixture, whisking constantly to avoid scrambling the eggs. Pour the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer into a large measuring cup or small pitcher.

Meanwhile, melt the chocolate over simmering water in a double boiler. When the chocolate is melted, gradually combine the milk and egg mixture with the melted chocolate, stirring between each addition to create a smooth mixture.

Pour the mixture into the prepared dish. Sprinkle the top with the almonds. Place the casserole dish in a larger baking pan or roasting pan and add hot water to the larger pan until the water comes halfway up the sides of the casserole dish. Place both pans in the oven and bake the panna cotta until the sides are firm and the center just jiggles slightly, about 1 hour. Remove from the oven and let cool for at least 30 minutes.

Just before serving, whip the cream to soft peaks in a medium bowl using a whisk or electric hand mixer. Add the confectioners’ sugar and almond liqueur and whip to combine. Spoon the panna cotta into individual serving bowls and dollop the top with the almond whipped cream.

Meal Plan from 2 weeks ago....sheesh I am behind!

Here we go again!

1.Grilled chicken and Califlower Gratin
I just marinated the chicken in Italian dressing and grilled.....no instructions necessary!
The gratin is a Giada dish and hers had broccoli, but when I got to the grocery, they were out of califlower but had broccoflower! I just used it.
(Adapted from "Vegetable Gratin" in Giada De Laurentis' book Giada's Family Dinners. Original recipe pg. 178.)
Ingredients:
3 T unsalted butter
salt
1 head of cauliflower, cut into large florets
1 head of broccoflower (or just two of cali or add in broccoli)
2 T all-purpose flour (any GF blend will do)
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
1 1/4 cups whole milk
6oz fontina cheese, shredded
1/2 cup plus 2 T grated peccorino romano cheese
freshly ground black pepper
2 T dried bread crumbs plus a tablespoon of dried oregano (Again, you don't have to use breadcrumbs if you don't have GF ones.)

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F.   Grease a 13 x 9 x 2 inch baking dish with 1 T of the butter.
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat.  Add the cauliflower florets and cook for 2 minutes.  Using a slotted spoon, transfer the cauliflower to the prepared dish. 
Meanwhile, melt the remaining 2 T of butter in a medium, heavy saucepan over medium heat.  Add the flour and whisk for 1 minute.  Whisk in the cream and milk.  Bring to a boil over medium-high heat.  Decrease the heat to medium and simmer until the sauce thickens slightly, whisking often, about 2 minutes.  Remove the saucepan from the heat.  Add the cheddar, edam, and 1/2 cup of the romano.  Stir until the cheeses have melted.  Season the sauce with salt and pepper.  Pour the sauce over the vegetables and toss to coat.
In a small bowl, stir the bread crumbs and oregano with the remaining 2 T of romano.  Sprinkle over the gratin.
Bake uncovered until the topping is golden brown and the sauce is bubbly, about 15-20 minutes.
2.Cajun Burgers and Texas Oven Fries
This recipe comes to us from this great little Taste of Home Grilling magazine my MIL picked up for me a couple of years ago.....it is now stained and wrinkled b/c of all the yummy recipes within!

Cajun Seasoning Blend:
3 Tbsp ground cumin
3 Tbsp dried oregano
1 Tbsp garlic powder
1 Tbsp paprika
2 tsp salt
1 tsp cayenne (or more if you like it hot!)

Burgers:
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1 tsp cajun season blend (from above)
1/2 tsp hot pepper sauce (franks or cholula is what we use)
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp dried basil
1 garlic clove minced
1 lb ground beef
Combine all ingredients, but don't overmix. Make 4 patties and grill. Top with Provolone cheese slice and serve on bun or not.

Oven fries are just idaho potatoes cut to texas size, drizzled with EVOO and sprinkle with whatever herbs you like. I used dried thyme and garlic salt. Bake in oven at 400 degrees until golden brown.

3. Taste of Summer Chicken with Cheesy Spicy Grits
Again from the grilling magazine....I'm not sure this is worth the other ingredients....it was good but nothing special. I did add some grilled pineapple slices to the top though.

3/4 cup Italian salad dressing
3/4 cup unsweetened pineapple juice
3/4 cup white win or white grape juice
6 boneless skinless chicken breasts

Combine all ingredients in a zippy bag and let sit overnight in the fridge.Grill chicken, discard marinade.Make grits according to package (instant or quick cooking) Once done, add 1 cup cheddar cheese and finely diced jalapeno pepper.

4. Rosemary Lime Pork Chops and Roasted New potatoes
This is also out of the same magazine (apparently I was lazy when it came to looking through cook books this week) and was originally intended for chicken, but I had some pork chops I got on sale.
4 pork chops
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 cup white wine or chicken broth
1/4 cup lime juice
2 Tbsps mince fresh rosemary
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
Marinate all ingredients overnight. Grill chops. Yum! I would never in a million years have paired rosemary and lime but i have to say, its a yummy combo.

Cut new potatoes into halves, coat with EVOO and Garlic and salt and bake in the oven until outsides are golden brown and crispy.

That's all I have written down for that week folks (ie: my sister, b/c I really think she is the only one using these meal plans!)
I did create a new little pasta dish tonight that I will post tomorrow with some pictures. Just to get you interested....it involved little meatballs, small balls of fresh mozzerella and all sorts of yumminess!

Meal Plan for.....oh I forget!

Its been a few weeks since I have posted these and my sister informed me today that she uses them and I needed to keep posting! (I am pretty sure she is the only one but here goes!)

1.Taco Night
Pretty self-explanatory.....I make taco meat with 1 lb ground beef and McCormick Taco Seasoning(its gluten free b/c they use Potato Starch instead of Wheat flour or MSG or icky stuff)
Corn Tortillas
Lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream, cheese...the usual suspects
Heat up some refried beans(check these for gluten ingredients too....I buy ones out of the actual hispanic section) add some cheese and hot sauce and keep on low

2.Chicken Cordon Bleu with Balsamic Glazed Carrots
Boneless skinless breasts-pounded out to 1/4" thickness
Deli ham and swiss
Dijon Mustard
Bread crumbs if you have them ( I freeze the ends of my GF bread when I buy it and process it in the food processor and keep the crumbs in the freezer)
Take chicken and place slice of cheese and ham in the middle and roll up. Put seam side down on a plate. Once all are completed, brush outside with Dijon mustard and coat in breadcrumbs.
Cook in tsp of olive oil in a medium skillet until chicken is cooked through or in a 350 oven for about 20 minutes.

Balsamic Glazed Carrots--I know the recipe calls for hazelnuts but I didn't want to buy those at the grocery so I skipped that step!

3.Asian Inspired Salmon and Quinoa
I honestly hope I remember what all I did with this one. I had a piece of nice salmon I got on sale so I just put some LaChoy Soy Sauce(GF) on it with about a tsp of ginger and then sprinkled brown sugar on the top. I let this sit while I got the quinoa ready.

I used the regular quinoa but red would work just fine. First, dice up 1/2 onion and a clove of garlic. Saute these until translucent, then follow the box directions. I used the package directions substituting Chicken Stock and soy sauce for water. DO NOT use more than 1/4 cup of soy sauce to 1 cup quinoa.....its wayyy too salty. Anywho....I also had a zucchini, so I diced that up and added to the mix at the end. I also cut some green onions on an angle and topped the whole dish with those.

The Salmon just got grilled until done.


Fortunately for me, my birthday was last week and we went to Outback on Friday. As for the other day.....I can't for the life of me remember what I made or if we just ate out. I think the latter might have been true. I've got another week coming though....not to mention this week, which I have to get to planning. Hitting the grocery store tomorrow night folks!

Meals for the week July 26-31

Again, I don't designate one of these for each day, instead opting to decide that morning what we are having.....or even that night if I don't need to defrost something for the meal. This is actually the plan from a couple of weeks ago, but that way I can let you know what was good and what wasn't and how easy it was!

Meal #1-Burgers and Oven Fries
This one is pretty self explanatory. I didn't do anything special with these burgers. Seasoned them up with grill seasoning and Worstechire sauce and grilled them. For the fries I just slice up Idaho potatoes Texas fry size and drizzle a little EVOO on them along with some finely minced garlic and bake them in the oven for about 20-25 minutes, turning a couple of times. They should get crispy and the garlic gets roasted. Yummy!

Meal #2-Tilapia Tacos and Spanish Rice
For these tacos I take a couple of fillets of tilapia and marinate in the following:
1/2 pkg of taco seasoning (McCormick is GF)
juice of 2 limes
Let that sit while you are making the other stuff
Combine the other 1/2 pkg of taco seasoning with 3/4 cup of sour cream
Dice up one mango
Make pico de gallo (or buy fresh salsa) and add one diced avocado.
Chop up fresh cilantro
Now place the marinated fish on a baking sheet and put in a 350° oven for about 15 minutes or until the fish flakes easily with a fork.
Assemble some of each ingredient on a warmed corn or flour tortilla. I find that soft ones work better for this recipe.
Oh, and here's the spanish rice to go along with. Be aware this recipe makes a ton so you might want to cut it in half.

Meal #3-Blackened Chicken and Mashed Potatoes
Mmmmm blackened....no that doesn't mean burnt....its a combo of seasonings. Here you go!
Oh, and my mashed potatoes don't have measurements but about 3-4 Idahos, peeled and diced, boiled then mashed with 1/2 stick butter and 3/4 cup sour cream and Tony Cachere's seasoning should do it.

Meal #4-Salmon Patties, Quinoa and Green Beans
Salmon patties can be a pain when using canned salmon b/c of the bones. Just make sure you carefully pull the fish out and open it and you can usually get the in one fell swoop. If you want to use fresh, be my guest too. I just tried to make these like my grandpa used to. On that note, they taste so much better if you fry them in a cast iron skillet. I don't know why, they just do!

Quinoa is a fairly new food to me. If you want to read up on it, by all means do. It has:
More protein than any other grain
tons of fiber
and is GF!
It is very similar to cous cous except much better for you!
Here's a yummy recipe using it.

Meal #5-Breakfast Waffles

There isn't much of a recipe here, just making it from the GF package. I do add in vanilla and cinnamon to mine. I also topped them with fresh blueberries and syrup.
We also made sausage to go along with the sweet waffles!
Jeremy and I both like brinner (breakfast for dinner) and being that it is usually a quick and easy dinner, I usually make some form of it once every two weeks. Sometimes more. As long as you don't get carried away with the sweets and remember to add in fruit and protein, it isn't too bad for you!

Bathroom Before/After

So, this was a very long drawn out process. I guess I will start. Makes me sick to my stomach to think back on all the headaches. Okay, really I am starting!
These are pics from our viewing of the house.

One of the first things was to tear out the icky moldy shower door. I am all for nice shower doors, but this thing was pnuemonia waiting to happen. Oh and that over the toilet thing had to go too.


I decided early on to try to work with the pink and burgandy instead of fight it. So pink flamingos it is! The yellow is a little "rubber duckie" but it worked....for a while.

But after a while, we decided it all needed to go....plus the faucet broke and we had no access to it. :) So started our month long adventure.

I thought tile would be easy, you know, just tap it a little and it comes off whatever it is glued to....just like on HGTV. Well, not in a 50 year old built to withstand hurricanes house. In our house tile is put up on top of 1.5" of concrete reinforced with metal lathe. Yep, I still have a scar on my hand from cutting myself trying to get this stuff off.

Oh, by the way, did I mention this is our only full bathroom in the house? We showered at the gym for a month. Fun! Now do you see why I get sick to my stomach thinking about this?

So anyways, here we have taken out all the wall tile. We think most of demo is done......wrong!

Oh this is just a fun "whats in your walls" shot.

I thought the walls were bad....the floor tile was on top of about 3" of concrete. Let me tell you, I can't say this house isn't well built! It was fun to pound on the floor.

So here we are.....absolutely cleared out. Oh, and see that hole in the floor? Its for the drain for the tub.....unfortunately, it also allowed all the dust, concrete, tile chunks to fall into the basement half bath. What....a....mess! I still find pieces of tile..2 years later.

Anywho....here is where we started putting up new greenboard....I know, its purple.....its called greenboard.....water resistant sheetrock.

And this is the durarock. the stuff you put the tile on. You do put up a moisture barrier behind this but I forgot that picture....besides this isn't a how to blog! Oh and I started the first row of new tile in this pic.

Skip ahead....all the tile is in....and yes, I have a plastic sheet duct taped around my window. It lived there for a while until I could get the edge pieces of tile in for the window. Something about them being backordered....blah blah blah. We used a stainless tile accent you can see better in a later shot.

This is the new floor tile. I felt like it needed to give a hint to the age of the house but still be neutral.


And here it is today. New Angela Adams rug and shower curtain, the smallest cabinet that HD carries without being special order and the new privacy window(that part we didn't do).

Did I also mention this room is only 5' x 6'6" including the shower space? Yeah, its tiny, but now its updated! And mark my words....I will never do this in a house that only has one shower again. I can't believe I didn't have a heartattack, or a hernia, or something stressful during this process.

Oh, and how can I forget! Remember me saying the house was built to withstand a hurricane? Well, I know we live in Ohio, but in the middle of this renovation, we actually had a storm that they called a hurricane. I think the wind was around 78 mph. I realize this is timid compared to stuff in Florida, but our trees (many of which are old) aren't palms. We lost power for about 5 days and lost our beautiful Bradford Pear tree in the front yard. Needless to say, it seemed like a cruel joke that this happened while we didn't have a bathroom. Haha, I guess at least I can laugh now!

Outside Before/After

So, yesterday's before/after was so fun I thought I would start doing the rest of the house. This is the photo from our house's listing 5 years ago. Original windows, original siding(painted...I think it was dark brown(ick) originally, and 3 (yep 3, people) layers of shingles...4 at the edges!

So I think this was our first Christmas at the house. Not much has changed. We planted azaleas in the front bed but everything else was still the same. Oh, we did rip down the falling apart (ie: disintegrating) railing on the front stoop.

Again, I was not very good at taking inbetween pics on this one but this is last year. We had the roof redone in 2008 along with the gutters. Then last year we had the siding replaced and the windows and shutters. Jeremy and I took one weekend Sunday afternoon and tore out the landscaping timbers and replaced them with these stones. We also have changed the plants in the front flower bed twice now but I think these are staying.

And now this is the new front doors we had put in about a month ago. (Sorry this isn't a picture of the whole house.) Notice how much the lilacs next to the door have grown since the last picture (a year ago)!
I always wonder if my taste is a little crazy....even though I don't really care if it is. Most of the houses in our neighborhood are brick and have white siding. Again, from the previous post.....not a fan of white. So when I went waaaay out on a limb (sarcasm) with this khaki color and green shutters and then the orange door, I kind of wondered what our neighbors thought. Well, apparently they like it! We had a yard sale and had multiple people stop and tell us they have admired what we have done over the years to the house! Yipeee! But we all know I was happy with it either way!