Minneapolis, Minnesota

Our first baby free vacation in more than two years and we went to Minneapolis.  Yes, Minneapolis!  Not my first choice for an excited vacation spot.  But my husband needed to go there for some business and I decided to tag along for some child free fun.

And fun we did have.  Soon after we arrived, we sought out some lunch. We happened upon a little pub called Brits Pub.

This was a good find.  We ended up returning there for happy hour, late night happy hour and late night drinking every night.  Can you tell that we have not been baby free in more than two years? 

The highlights from our trip included a Twins game.  We saw the Twins take on the Detroit Tigers.  The Twins lost, but we still had a great time at the newly built Target Field.

We also made a visit to the Minnesota State Fair.  It was a sight to be seen.  It was more crowded than Disneyland.  We were entertained by the parade, featuring large animals and fried food.
The Twins also stopped by for a photo op.

Keeping on the sporting theme.  A Vikings game was in order in the newly fixed Mall of America Field.  I have never been to an NFL game before.  I did not realize that they were so campy.  The songs and the flag boys celebrating every touchdown.  The Vikings lost.  We were two for two on the home teams losing.

The last stop on our tour was the Mall of America.  I was unimpressed.  Perhaps if it had been 20 below outside, I would have had more of an appreciation for it.  So we went to the movies, something we cannot do with Joey, unless we want to see a cartoon.

While I missed our little guy, it was lovely to sleep in and stay out late.

Staying Above Ground

The last two nights have featured ground turkey as the star. On our trip, I picked up a copy of Family Circle magazine.  Yes!  It is official I have turned into a mom and I read Family Circle.  It was a great magazine.  Good enough that I brought it home with me so that I could try a few of the recipes.

I found feature on 10 different ways to make ground beef.  Now I do not keep a lot of ground beef in the house, but I do keep ground turkey.  I figured they were one in the same.

Last night we had Jamaican Beef Patties.  They were really like little beef pies.  I thought they were super yum. Now, I have the picture from the magazine here, mine however did not look so pretty. But they tasted just the same.

 

Want the full recipe, check out this link: http://www.familycircle.com/recipe/jamaican-beef-patties/

Tonight, I thought I would continue the theme and make Korean Rice Bowls.  I was a little wary of putting ground turkey in a rice bowl.  But I thought I would give it a whirl.  I am not much of an Asian cook, but this recipe really made me think that I could do it.  I am sure some purist would cringe at this idea.  But I have to say the results were pretty good for the amount of time it took me.  I am not sure that I would make this again with ground turkey, but would probably be super yummy with chunks of chicken. 

 

Want the full scoop?  Here you go: http://www.familycircle.com/recipe/korean-rice-bowl/

We will see what I make with ground turkey tomorrow night.

What's for dinner?

This question is posed to me almost nightly by my husband.  Some days, I have a great plan, other days, not so much.  I always want to have an answer to question, but some days get out of control and I cannot think about dinner or fail to take something out of the freezer.

Last night, I actually had an answer and had spent part of my afternoon getting the elements ready for that long simmered taste.  So, what's for dinner you ask?

Pasta and Meatballs.  No not just any pasta, but pasta with fresh tomato sauce.

Hey, I had to use up the rest of the Tanaka farms tomatoes before my crop of tomatoes is ripe.

The first step in making the sauce to is to remove the skins from the tomatoes.

I have to say this is one of my least favorite kitchen tasks.  Once the skins have been removed you crush them by hand, which is fun.  Come on, don't you love to play with your food.

The sauce consists of the deskinned tomatoes, onion, garlic, basil and white wine.  You can leave the sauce chunky with the tomatoes.  My husband prefers his sauce to be a little smoother, so I look my immersion blender to the mix.

The recipe called for the sauce to simmer for 10 to 15 minutes. I personally like long simmered sauces if you have the time.  So I let mine simmer for 2 hours.  I periodically taste tested to ensure it was not becoming over reduced.  I salted it toward the end of the cooking time.  I also added a tablespoon of sugar to bring out the naturally sweetness in the tomatoes.

I served it over pasta.  It was delish.  I brought some to my neighbors and they returned the empty dish and asked that age old question "What's for dinner tomorrow night?"Unfortunately, I did not have an answer for them.  I suppose I should think about it.

Now, I could not just serve pasta. So I paired it with some yummy meatballs.  I used ground turkey, since it was what I had on hand.  But it is really up to you on the type of meat.

Ground meat, bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, Italian seasoning, garlic, and eggs.  What could be better?  I baked them in the oven and served them as a side dish.

You could throw these into the sauce and let them simmer away, that is what grandma would have done.

Fresh Tomato Sauce

3-5 lbs fresh ripe tomatoes
1 bunch basil leaves (removed from the stems and finely chopped)
1 tablespoon oregano leaves (finely chopped)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion (finely chopped)
8 to 10 cloves of garlic (minced)
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 tablespoon sugar
salt and pepper

Place tomatoes in a large pan with water to cover. Cover and bring to a boil over high heat. Cook until the skins crack, about 4 to 5 minutes. Drain in a colander. Rinse with cold water.  Then squeeze the pulp out of the skins (or just peel) into a bowl. Crush by hand and set aside.

Heat a heavy-bottomed sauce pan over high heat Add the onion, garlic, basil and oregano and saute 3 to 4 minutes. Add the wine and cook 1 to 2 minutes. Add the tomatoes and sugar.  Salt and pepper to taste. Continue cooking over moderately high heat for 10 to 15 minutes.

Meatballs

2 lbs. ground chuck (or turkey or pork, any meat of your choice)
2 eggs
1 cup bread crumbs
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
2 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
2 cloves minced garlic

Mix all ingredients together and form into round balls. Put on a greased cookie sheet. Bake 20 minutes at 350 degrees. NOTE: If you use a lower fat meat like turkey, add a tablespoon of olive oil.

Bruschetta

On our visit to the farm, we bought some awesome looking tomatoes. 

Now what to do with such fabulous tomatoes.  Bruschetta of course.  And it was the perfect app to take to Movies in the Park.

The fresh tomato and basil came out perfect.  This recipe is a mixture of two different ones I found in the box.  And it came out perfect.

So the time has come for me to share my first recipe with you.  Use it wisely.


Bruschetta Pomadore

4 ripe tomatoes
2 tablespoons fresh basil
1 clove minced garlic
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt and pepper
1 loaf french bread

Cut the bread into 1/4" slices. If desired, broil until golden brown on both sides.

Seed and dice tomatoes. Mix tomatoes with garlic and oil.  Chop basil.  Add to tomatoes.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

To serve, spoon tomato mixture over the sliced bread.

Watermelon Tour

I wanted to have a family outing.  We have been spending a lot of our family time at home working on the yard.  While that is fun and rewarding, I thought that we need to have some family time away from the house.  I had read about a watermelon tour and thought that sounded great.  Watermelon after all is one of our favorite summer time treats. 
So off we went to Tanaka farms in Irvine.

We did not make the 9:30 tour, so we had a little time to kill before our 11 o'clock tour.  They have an awesome farm stand, with the freshest produce around.  We decided upon sunflower seeds for now and wanted to shop for produce after the tour.

The tour was incredible.  Joey loved that we were on a tractor riding through the farm.  The tractor stopped at various points on the farm and they give you fresh picked produce.  Since they are an all organic farm, you can eat the produce directly from the field.

The first stop was carrots and tomatoes.

The most surprising thing about this tour was that Charles actually tried all of the produce that was presented to him. 

Joey was not as into the veggies, but he was only a Watermelon Picker in training. So he has a little ways to go.

  

Joey favorite part of the tour was the fresh watermelon.  It was so sweet.  Did you know that watermelon is 92% water and 8 % sugar?  That is a fast fact from out tour.

The most surprising produce was a yellow watermelon.  I have never seen anything other than red watermelon.

The final element of the tour was a walk through the watermelon patch and then you get to take home a watermelon. 

 

This was a great way to spend our family time and introduce ourselves to some fabulous produce.

Wanna visit Tanaka Farms: http://www.tanakafarms.com/   

Stay tuned we will go back for their pumpkin patch in October.

Tigers, Giraffes, & Gorillas! Oh, my!

I took a break from cooking today and took Joey on a little adventure.  We decided to go to the LA Zoo in Griffith Park.  Joey was so excited about seeing all of the animals that he reads about in his books.  We meet my friend Megan and her little girl for some fun at the zoo.

Joey loved the tiger.  I think if I had let him, he would have climbed right into the tiger's habitat.  He keep going tiger, ROAR.  

There were lots of different types of monkeys, chimpanzees and gorillas at the zoo.  I particularly liked this one that decided to take a nap while clinging to the fence with his foot in his mouth.

The giraffes were a sight to be seen.  Joey knew exactly what they were the moment he laid his eyes on them.  "Mommy, giraffe, look mommy"  He was so excited by all the animals.

Our last stop was to see the gorillas.  These guys were just hanging out.  Not very active, but it was hot, who could blame them.

The zoo was an awesome adventure.  One, I am sure we will repeat again soon.

Pasta alla Nicola

This recipe is one from Zia Amalia in Italy. I had a hard time deciphering the Italian to get to the technique and ingredients in this dish. Here is how I gathered this dish is made. Onion, Carrots and celery sauted in butter. This is a great start, how can one go wrong with that. I threw in some oregano from the garden, the recipe called for parsley, but I forgot to pick some up. After letting the veggies soften, I added sausages with their casing removed. And cooked until the meat was cooked through. I pureed the mixture adding some chicken stock, alfredo sauce (recipe called for panna, which is an Italian cream sauce) and parmesan cheese.
I mixed the sauce with a pound of rigatoni. This was the result.

This was my lunch today. Not a bad lunch. The flavor was amazing. It just ended up a little mushy. Lacking texture. Flavor yes, texture not really. My father suggested that I puree the veggies, but not the sausage. That would add texture, but still give the effect of the pureed sauce. All in all yummy.

Italian Love Cake

Italian Love Cake ... I thought this cake just had a wonderful name and it made an obvious choice for today. I need some love. Joey was up early.

This simple to prepare cake was a great choice. Here are the basics, you take yellow cake mix, prepare per the package directions and pour it into a 9 by 13 pyrex. Then you mix ricotta with sugar, vanilla and eggs and pour on top. When all is said and done, you end up with something that looks like this.

After baking for an hour and 20 minutes, this was the result.

I was not really sure what to expect when I cut into the cake. It was rather interesting, the ricotta became more of a filling, settling to the middle of the cake.


I brought this to lunch with my parents today. They were just thrilled by my cooking project and have volunteered to be my taste testers any time. They also had some commentary about the dish.

It was a lovely cake. It was just a little heavy. The slice I picture here, really is about two servings. I think that I need to cut the ricotta mixture by 25% may be even half. The flavor was absolutely lovely. I could have been sitting in a little cafe in Rome sipping some espresso with this cake.

My Inheritance

After my grandmother passed away earlier this year, my mother came upon this box. She handed it to me and said "Joanna, this is your inheritance, use it wisely."

Oh what could this simple box contain, well just as it says on the front recipes. They were all the recipes that my grandmother made on a regular basis, those from her family, as well as those she tore out from the newspaper or magazines and those that she traded with neighbors and friends.

The contents were written on random bit of paper, index card, tear outs from the paper. It drove me nuts to look through these bits of paper. So I decided to organize them and eventually create a family cookbook. As I was looking through, I realized that there were 5 versions of some recipes and that means recipe testing. Trying to figure out what are the correct portions to create the best version of the dish.

So I plan to write about each of the recipes here as I test them.

My first trial is lemon sorbet. I thought I would start with something easy and I wanted to test out the new ice cream maker my mother in law gave us.

So here is the result of the lemon sorbet. I picked about 5 lemons from our tree, yes it is finally producing lemons. I zested and juiced them. I mixed that with a little simple syrup. And threw it in the ice cream maker. After 40 minutes this is what I came up with:


My first impression of it was that it tasted like the frozen lemonade you get at the ball park. It is fluffy and light. I simply loved the lemon tartness. I think I need to adjust the recipe to either reduce or eliminate the lemon zest. I think it detracted from the texture. But recipe is a keeper.

Garden in Bloom

We are well on our way to a great harvest in our garden. I have never really been a successful gardener before now. My husband often jokes that I have a black thumb. After this summer I would say that it is turning brown and well on its way to green.

Last summer we successfully grew two of the cutest little pumpkins. This year, I think we are going to win the prize for the most sincere pumpkin patch and will be visited by the great pumpkin on Halloween night. We have one lovely pumpkin that is growing up a storm. I would say this one might be a carveable one. It has hints of orange popping through.

Our second pumpkin is not quite so perfect. It seems that no matter how many pumpkin seeds I plant and how many plants grow, I end up with two pumpkins. I have hope for this one. It is a long way off from Halloween, so it has a long time to grow as big as its fellow pumpkin.




I also planted some heirloom tomatoes. I am just waiting for these cherry tomatoes to vine ripen. I have been harvesting tomatoes here and there and they are wonderful in salads and on sandwiches.
For my birthday, my husband built me this planter box. It houses my herbs. I also planted cucumbers, radishes and green onions for my second harvest. This fall, I am going to channel my heritage and try my hand at growing garlic. I have high hopes for this planter box.
Now, what is a little boy supposed to do while mommy is tending to his garden, well I suppose he could go for a drive. He calls out "GOODBYE MOM" and off he goes. Climbing in his cozy coupe, really and truly the best gift he has ever gotten. I will be sad when he out grows this toy.

HI MOM! HI DAD!

Joey loves to yell Hi Mom, Hi Dad! Here is telling us just that. He is off to gandma's with his backpack and football.
Joey

Stanley Cup

So here we are walking through Curry Village in Yosemite and what to our wondering eyes do we find. None other than the Stanley Cup. That is exactly what we expected to find on our Yosemite adventure. And to top it all off, they took a free picture with it. What an interesting find.

I love Summer!

I absolutely love summer. The food is awesome. We have a vegetable garden in our back yard. Our little plot is a work horse. The zucchini is tender and sweet. The squash is fab. And the tomatoes are unlike anything that you can find in the stores. We also have pumpkins growing. Pictures are forth coming. This is the harvest for the day. I cannot wait to make dinner tomorrow night.