She's alive! And she's eating tacos

OK. I have been a lazy blogger bum. Only not so much.
I have been blogging busily at work for the Mom Blog there.
You can read more by clicking here.

And if you are craving tacos, try this slow-cooker recipe for carnitas.
It's about as easy as they come.

Mint - it's not just for mojitos!

I love fresh mint. I think it is an unexpected flavor in a lot of dishes.
Not to mention how good it is in a mojito.

But in a pesto?
Sure! Why the heck not?

Paired with another favorite herb, mint-cilantro pesto is a nice addition to my sauce repertoire. It's easy, bright, versatile.
Try it on pasta, meat, veggies. Hmmm... maybe even swirled into a summer veggie soup.

Work, sleep, eat, work, sleep, eat

This is just the start of the dish. Looks good, huh?
Click through on the recipe to see the final product.

It has been an intense couple of weeks. Ben was supposed to have his surgery at the end of June, but then he got the croup and a sinus infection, so that was put off until early next week.
So there has been little energy for blogging.
The Man was also sick with a sinus/cold thing. It was not a fun couple of weeks.
Things seem to be improving though. Thank goodness.
Of course we had to eat through all of this, so at least I can glean a food post from the past couple of weeks!
The dish is called steak bun. But it does not involve any buns. In this case the bun in question refers to rice noodles.
I love the subscription my sister got me for Eating Well magazine. They also have a good website.
The dish for this post is from that. Of course I had to add my own touches.
It was a cool, fairly light dish. The steak made it very satisfying as a dinner and the base of the noodle salad was perfect at the end of a hot day.

OK. There is it. As for Ben and life and all the rest of it, I will work on being better about posting updates.
In the meantime, enjoy the food!

Stick-to-your-ribs ribs

I made some ribs.
They are really, REALLY tasty.
You should try them.

I bet this is my shortest blog post ever.

OK. Go eat.

So it's not exactly soup season, but...

Soup is one of my favorite meals.

My mom always made great soups when I was a kid, and I love making soup now.

There are so many easy and flavorful combinations.

A favorite of mine involves tomato, red peppers and bacon. It's hard to go wrong with bacon, right?

The bacon-y tomato and red pepper soup also has a touch of richness from goat cheese and gets a little thickening from beans.

All in all, a very good soup no matter what the season.

With a salad or a sandwich on the side, this makes for a very satisfying dinner.

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By the way... I do plan on blogging about something other than food.

Hopefully soon.

It's just been busy with work and baby and, well, all this cooking!

A night out - and paying for it later

I went out after work Saturday.
A friend was having a few other women to her house for wine and conversation. And food. Of course, food.
I had seen a recipe on the Whole Foods blog that looked like a good dish for just such an occasion.
It was girly enough, but still had some substance and nice strong flavors.

Of course, me being me, I could not leave well enough alone.

But my version of the fig and goat cheese tart with arugula salad came out so good, I don't think anyone minded my changes.

The only draw back to the evening was that I stayed out way later than my new normal bedtime of 9:30 p.m. and had a couple busy days after that. I don't think I really caught up on that lost sleep all weekend, making me one tired mama today.

Babies do not care that you stumbled into bed at almost midnight. When they want to be fed at 5:30, they really do not care.

My crock pot is my new best friend

And so are all those ingredients at the market that are already in some state of being prepared for me.
Sure, some of these pre-prepped ingredients might cost a little more. But sometimes the cost is minimal compared to the time saved.

Crock-pot braised short ribs with mushrooms and carrots get an easy assist from pre-sliced mushrooms and canned tomatoes.

After a little experimenting, I got this simple dish down perfectly. There is minimal prep for the main course. Chop an onion and smash some garlic. The rest is just a matter of dropping stuff into a crock pot and turning it on.

I get everything assembled and in the fridge the night before, then before I head out for work I start the slow cooker.

My day is much better when I know that such a fabulous dinner will be waiting for me when I get home.

It ain't easy being cheesy

Of all the things I have ever cooked, I have never made macaroni and cheese from scratch.
I am not sure how this happened.
I think somewhere in my brain I thought it was difficult.
Oh, how wrong I have been.
I was going to make mushroom-sage bread pudding for a work potluck, but that would have meant going to the store on the way home from work on a recent rainy and blustery day.
I took a mental inventory of the items in my pantry and fridge and realized that I had a lot of cheese and a bag of pasta.
Yeah, I can make something with that.
A quick online check of mac n cheese recipes and I tossed all the stuff together to come up with a potluck hit: jalapeno mac and cheese and cheese and cheese.
The recipe, as written, has three kinds of cheese. The one I made for the potluck had more like six kinds of cheese because I had a four-cheese blend instead of the cheddar in the recipe.
Either way, this will be YUM!
I will be making this more often, though not all the time since there really is a lot of cheese and butter in this.
But definitely it will be my first choice for the next potluck.
Anyone planning a potluck anytime soon?

Last night's supper

As a kid I was not thrilled with the idea of eating lamb.
As an adult, I have a new appreciation for it.
Especially for the little tiny chops that some call lamb "lollipops."
They cook fast and are very tender.

I did them last night in a blend of smoked paprika and garlic that came out really good.

I will call my experiment "grilled lamb chops with smoked paprika and garlic". Very inventive, I know.

You know the deal... click on the name of the dish to get to the recipe.

And, as always, enjoy.

Back to blogging about food

I have been cooking up a storm since having Ben. But there has been very little time for blogging.
Tonight we fix that.
Instead of waiting to post this (and then it never happens), I am posting right after dinner.

I give you... salmon with arugula and warm lentil salad.

This was awesome!

Manfriend even said he could make a meal out of just the lentils.

So this will be a good one to add to the regular rotation.

The "fun" snack

We started our childbirth classes last week.

As part of the deal, each couple is supposed to sign up to bring a snack.

Each week there should be a "healthy" snack and a "fun" snack.

Me being me, I signed up for a "fun" snack.

I was torn between a proven winner, oatmeal-pecan shortbread, and a new recipe.

Because I like to try new things, the unknown won out.

The choice? Another shortbread.

Lemon-cornmeal shortbread.

And despite the slight unexpected extra crunch from the medium-grind cornmeal, this was quite successful. The flavor was perfect. The only change I will make next time is to use a finer cornmeal. Or maybe even try a corn flour.

Anyway, there was not much of it left by the end of the snack break. And when the teacher/nurse asked the class if there were any questions, one expectant dad asked "Can I get the recipe for those cookies?"

I call that a success.

A well-planned week

After a successful first attempt at planning more than one dinner at a time, I decided to try it again.

This time with five dinners.

The week is laid out in front of me, I just hope those dinners sound good on the days I am supposed to make them.

I have my menus.

I made my list.

I went to the market.

I am set for the week, Monday-Friday.

I figure after five days of working and five nights of cooking, I get to go out on to dinner on Saturday.

First up: Monday dinner of pan-roasted pork tenderloin, steamed asparagus and lemon spaghetti.

It was a very good start to the week, and yielded leftovers for Tuesday lunches.

While I was getting stuff ready for Monday dinner, I also managed to get a head start on Tuesday and Wednesday dinners.

I wonder how long I can keep up with this. So far, it has been a fun change.

And I can already tell I am going to spend less since I am not going to the market every day, impulse buying stuff.

It's a lifestyle change

I will admit it: I am bad at meal-planning.

I tend to decide what I want to make for dinner on the way home from work and go to the grocery store on an almost daily basis.

This needs to stop. I know once the kid comes (and even before then as I get too tired) that going shopping every day will be out of the question.

So this week I tried my hand at meal-planning.

But I started small, with just three nights. It seemed to work OK. But it will be a big adjustment for me.

Night 1: Caesar salad (dressing made without raw eggs) with grilled shrimp and avocado; garlic toast


Night 2: Herb-grilled chicken with herb-yogurt sauce, above, (click on name for recipe)

Night 3: Grilled steaks, grilled Yukon gold potatoes and another little Caesar salad (this is for tonight)

It has worked out OK, this meal-planning thing. I went to the store one time for three meals.

What a novel idea.

Getting tarted up

So one of the many things I am trying to do as I get ready for baby is to organize just about everything.
I have cleaned out drawers and cabinets.
I have filled the recycle bins, been to the Goodwill with donations and started a yard-sale pile.

In this process, I found stacks and stacks of magazines. Cooking magazines.
The plan when I get those is to go through them and rip out just the recipes I might actually make.
One day last week was spent doing just that.
I was a little behind on this, and had some magazines going back to 2006. Oops!

One of the good things that came out of this endeavor was that I found a recipe for what looked like a very delicious raspberry tart.

Of course, not one to leave things well enough alone, I made some modifications to the dish. More chocolate? Yes, please!


So I have what I renamed Chocolate, cream and raspberry tart on almond shortbread crust.

The dessert was a bit labor intensive with its different layers, but none of it was particularly complicated.

And it was a big, very big, hit with the group. There was even enough left for the manfriend and I to enjoy some for dessert that night.

I am looking forward to making this again and again. And to experimenting with different versions of it.

That old familiar feeling

I recently had my 4-month prego checkup. Things are progressing nicely.

I was a little surprised (but relieved) that I had not gained any weight yet.

The belly is definitely changing shape, but I am trying to be careful about what I am eating so I can keep the weight gain to a healthy level.

But it has been weeks and weeks of not wanting anything but cereal or cheese and crackers.

But about a week or so ago it hit me: I am hungry again! Finally!

This is a very good thing.

I still am eating fairly small meals, but at least they are real food and not just shredded wheat.

The other good thing about this is that I can get back to the food blogging.

Over there now... Sweet-spicy peanut slaw.

I am also making some all-day ribs that have been brined for 6 hours and been roasting for 2-3 hours with a dry spice rub. I will then grill them to get some crispness.

Yum. I am so excited to eat again!

You know you want some

Chocolate-caramel crackers.

Really, do I need to say anything else?

Go check it out.

Pantry diving

I did a little culinary experimentation Monday night and came up with a winner.

A cool little cous cous dish that can be a great addition to a salad or work as a side dish for grilled meat.

I liked it. MF liked it. A couple lucky people at work got some samples, and they liked it.

Yup. A winner.

Go check it out: cool cous cous with edamame (and toasted almonds!)

Feeling crabby ... in a good way

Things have been crazy here when it comes to the manfriend. He has been working like crazy. It's been tough with his schedule and my schedule to try to find time just to hang out and do something chill.


We finally had a chance Sunday, a very beautiful day, to get out and get some fresh air and some fresh food. Seafood!



We headed down to Redondo Beach to get some grub at Quality Seafood on the pier. (For locals, this is on the side near the international boardwalk, the Fun Factory, etc.) MF stood in line and picked out a couple crabs for us and had them steamed.


I did my thing with the bivalves and got us an assortment of clams and mussels, also steamed.


While we waited for the food to be ready, we grabbed a couple beers, some lemon and a little cup of butter for dipping. Then we copped a spot at one of the many outdoor tables. It was busy, but not too crowded. Some days you have to wait a while to find a spot.



We spread out of fancy newsprint tablecloth and then it was about time for our clam and mussel appetizer to be ready.

Yes, hammers are indeed available in the beer department - for a mere $3 per hammer deposit.



The assortment I got was black mussels, some manila clams and some larger top neck clams.
We inhaled those pretty quickly, washed down with some cold Carta Blancas.

Next up was the main event: the crab.
This is a labor intensive meal.
The crab is cooked whole and served whole.

Which means dismantling it before eating.
I joked that it is a defense mechanism for the crab.
If they are going to be that tasty, they have to be a pain in the ass to eat to try to deter people from wanting them. It did not deter us in the least.


We cracked and whacked - with the hammers we got for a $3 deposit each - our way through the poor crustaceans.
The poor tasty crustaceans.

It was a lovely day to sit outside (in the shade, mind you) and enjoy the people watching, the food, and in an odd way even the roving mariachi band.

Almost tea time

After having so much fun writing the travel article about one of my dive trips, I decided to try my hand at writing an article for the food section.

Since I have put on many tea parties over the years, I thought it would be fun to write about that. My take on it will be how to put on a beautiful tea party while also keeping it simple.

In the past I would roast the chicken for the chicken salad sandwiches. I would make a roast beef for the roast beef sandwiches. I would make scones and a cake for dessert. One time I even made my own lemon curd and clotted cream. The only thing I never did was bake the bread for the sandwiches.

For the recipes in the story, I took advantage of the great precooked things my favorite grocery stores have to offer. The food was still delicious and beautiful, but I saved myself hours of cooking time and a lot of mess.

And, since I want this to be extra pretty for the paper, I also took advantage of having a professional photographer available to do the photos. We got to set up in the beautiful back yard at the home of the paper's garden expert.

I also got to use some of the lovely dishes I have collected over the years. Some I found at antique shops, some on eBay and some were my grandmother's. It was nice to be able to use them all to make a fun, eclectic set for the food.

It was a warm lovely day and the photographer from work, Leonard Ortiz, did a beautiful job.

But those are not the photos you get to see here. You are stuck with mine.

Once the article is published (scheduled for April 2), I will share his far superior work.

I did get to help him, be sort of the photographer's assistant, during the shoot. Which was fun and educational. I learned a few tricks about lighting.

And the recipes that have lived in my head for years? No recipes for now. Sorry. Those also will go up once they have been published in the paper.

But really... how cute are these little desserts canapes?

Mmmm... cupcakes

I did make cupcakes this week, but I want to work on that recipe a little more before I post it.

In the meantime, I can recommend these peanut mini cupcakes made by a colleague.

He posted it on his own food blog, Tofu Fighting, which I have added to the food files section of my links.