Food

Food - who doesn't love food? I know I do. I use to cook all the time and I loved it. Over the years it seems I get busier and busier and do less cooking, and since I've been married even less. Our schedules the last two years have been crazy. Leave at 5:30am and get home at 9:00 a lot of the nights. My poor new husband didn't get many home cooked meals. However, now that I am retired and a mom and house wife cooking is in site.

Lately we have had some delicious meals. I have spent some time looking through my 100 cook books for some new recipes and have also done a little experimenting of my own.

Orange Tilapia and Rice
Tonight I decided to experiment with some fresh tilapia. I put some extra light virgin olive oil in to my stainless steel skillet along with some butter, chardonnay (which we usually have on hand because Rick makes the best risotto in the world with it), fresh garlic, orange zest and the juice from a fresh orange. I placed the tilapia in and simmered it all together until the tilapia was cooked. I then put some orange zest into my rice cooker and made some basmati rice with a kick of orange. We placed the fish and the left over sauce from the pan over the rice. It was delish!

Italian Meatloaf
I typically don't like meat loaf but I found a recipe that looked pretty good so I attempted to make meatloaf for the first time. The recipe called for ground sirlon and ground veal (you don't have to use the ground veal) instead of ground beef - much more flavor. You add all the seasonings and fresh herbs to the meat and then lay it out like you would cinnamon rolls. You then cover the meat with procuitto and provolone cheese. Then you roll it up into a log or loaf and bake. The meat loaf had swirls of goodness in it - procuitto and cheese. It was full of flavor and very tasty for meat loaf.

Ham & Asparagus Calzones
My Williams Sonoma pizza cook book had a great recipe for pizza dough. I combined a calzone and pizza recipe into one and came up with a ham and asparagus calzone. I put small chunks of asparagus and chunks of ham with fontina cheese into the calzone and baked it. No sauce. The fontina cheese is so creamy and moist that you don't need the sauce. It was delish!

Hawaiian Meatballs
I made a quick and easy Pampered Chef recipe that had ground turkey, red peppers, green onions, pineapple and teriyaki sauce. It was simple and flavorful.

Shrimp Scampi
Shrimp scampi is always one of our favorites and so easy to make. The part that takes the longest is boiling the linguine. While the pasta is boiling you melt butter, lemon juice, garlic, fresh parsley and red pepper flakes and then add shrimp and cook for a few minutes. So simple and so delish!

Blueberry treats
Have you tried the new Kellogg's Blueberry special K cereal? It is fantastic. The other night we decided to use it to make marshmallow treats. Instead of rice krispies we used the blueberry special K and it was great. We ate it right out of the sauce pan.

Ever since I have been a stay at home mom I have made Rick lunches. The great thing about cooking dinner is you have left overs. We haven't always been the best at eating left overs but now I can put them in Rick's lunch. It saves a bundle and I have a happy husband. The other day he came home and thanked me for his lunch. He said, "I feel like I am eating a gourmet lunch each day." That day he had shrimp scampi & french bread, camembert cheese with toasted pecan wheat crackers, and fresh strawberries. Also, I put an adult gummy vitamin in his lunch each day to keep him healthy. He likes eating his gummy vit each day. I'm happy he likes my lunches.

If you haven't checked out my last post with my easter eggs, you should. It's fun.