Grilled Vegetable Basket

In case you missed this when I shared it over at Tales of a Ranting Ginger...here it is for you!

We eat a tonne of vegetables at our house.  We are incredibly fortunate to live in a region that produces a lovely variety of vegetables for us, and we are able to purchase all a nice variety of vegetables at our local supermarkets - it seems we always have great selection to choose from!

One of our most favourite things to do, especially in the summer - though we do use our BBQ year-round, is grill vegetables.  We have a grilling basket for our BBQ that I think is the absolute best thing we've ever purchased for our BBQ.  We've bought these grilling baskets for people as gifts, we just LOVE ours that much!

Every time we do a Grilled Vegetable Basket, our "recipe" changes.  In fact, there is no real recipe, just "guidelines".  Or, more like, "What vegetables do we have on hand to chop and grill?".  Here is an example of one of our recent grilled vegetable baskets:

Cut up your vegetables into nice chunky pieces.  Here I used:

Red Pepper
Onion
Snap Peas
Orange Pepper
Gren Pepper
Zuchini
Yellow Pepper

Place your vegetable in a bowl, pour olive oil on top (just enough to coat, no need to overdo it), and sprinkle Montreal Steak Spice (as much or as little seasoning as you desire).

Preheat your grill, place your grilling basket on the BBQ.  When warmed, pour the vegetables from the bowl into the basket.

When the vegetables are cooked, pour them from the grilling basket into a serving bowl.  Be careful, that grilling basket will be VERY HOT!

And now, they are ready to serve!  And BEAUTIFUL!  Great colours, great taste - and like I said, one of our favourite ways to prepare our vegetables.

Did you know that you can also follow me on Facebook and Twitter?!

Pesto Pasta Salad

I'm a big fan of pasta salad...for a number of reasons.  I love salad, but getting my hubby to eat salad regularly is a bit of a chore (sorry hun...but it's true!) and so this is my compromise.  I also like that a little pasta salad goes a LONG way...very good on the budget (things I will need to be mindful of, especially as our BOYS grow...they already nearly eat us out of house and home!).  With my fresh made pesto (check out the recipe!) I decided to make it a Pesto Pasta Salad this time around...here is what I did!

1 cup multi coloured rotini
1/2 cup cucumber, sliced & diced
1 cup cherry tomatoes, cut in half
1/4 cup onion
2 tablespoons pesto

Prepare the pasta according to package directions.  Drain, rinse and cool.  Pour into your serving bowl.

Wash and slice cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, and onion.  Add to serving bowl.

Add 2 tablespoons of pesto (or to taste, as you prefer) and mix well.

VERDICT:
This was a great change to our usual pasta salad!  This made enough for us for two meals, so we got to have the leftovers the next day, and it still was just as delicious!  Love the fresh vegetables, it was a nice mix with the pasta...especially those red, orange and yellow cherry tomatoes from our garden :-)

Did you know that you can also follow me on Facebook and Twitter?!

Guest Post with Peace Love Recipes!

My friend Courtney from Peace Love Recipes asked me to write a guest post for her this week.  I am SUPER EXCITED about this honour - and to top it off, I'm her first guest!  And I'm also excited about the recipe...pop over to her blog to check in out!  In the meantime, here is a little teaser picture!

Check it out at Peace, Love, Recipes!

Thanks so much Courtney for the invitation!

Mini Pizza Party

Hello to my friends from Okanagan4Kids!  I hope you enjoyed the article on Greening Up Your Grocery Shopping!

Now, on to the PIZZA PARTY!

Recently my oldest son hosted his first sleepover!  His cousin came over last weekend for 24 hours of playing, running, eating and sleeping.  It was a huge success, the boys both had so much fun and our son was pretty exhausted by Sunday evening!

I wanted their Saturday night/sleepover dinner to be a fun time, after all, this was my son's first hosting gig and I wanted it to be extra special.  So I figured, "Hey, what kid doesn't like pizza?"  (Actually I must admit, my brother and I both didn't like pizza when we were kids, but we soon wised up!)  Anyways, I decided that we were going to have a "MAKE YOUR OWN MINI PIZZA NIGHT" for supper, and it was a huge hit!  Here is what we did:

Ingredients:

Bakestone Brothers Multigrain Thin Bun (found at Costco)
Pizza Sauce (in the squeeze bottle = more fun!)
Olives
Red pepper
Green Pepper
Yellow Pepper
Orange Pepper
Onion
Fresh Pineapple
Mushrooms
Fresh Tomatoes
Deli Meats (pack from Costco - Hot Capicolli, Pepper Salami and Hot Salami)

Mozzarella Cheese

Process:

Heat oven to 350F.

Split a thin bun to make two pizza "crusts".  Squeeze on some pizza sauce, spread with a spoon.  Add your toppings, as many as you'd like.  Top with cheese.  Place mini pizzas onto a large cookie sheet and bake in the oven for approximately 7 minutes, or until the cheese has melted.

VERDICT:
As my nephew would say, they were "deeelicious" and both boys gave the pizzas "thumbs up".  My husband and I both really enjoyed them too.  So easy to put together, lots of fresh vegetables, even a little fruit!  Lots of fun colour, and the best thing, the kids had FUN!

The mini pizzas were so popular that my boys asked that we have them for dinner the next night.  So we did.  I happened to have a mango on the counter which we added to our list of toppings, and both my husband and my son loved that addition!

If you would like to read my April article over at Okanagan4Kids, please click here! It's full of tips about greening up your grocery shopping!

Would love for you to "like" me on Facebook and vote for my blog at the voiceBoks

"Top 10 Foodie Blog 2012" contest by clicking this link and voting for Addicted to Recipes (just two little clicks for you, easy breezy, and will really help me out!) THANKS so much!

Chicken Vegetable Soup with Homemade Noodles

When I made or meal plan for this week I decided I wanted to try to make another soup from scratch.  Since my Hearty Ham & Split Pea Soup went over so well, I figured, let's try round 2 with a new one!  I've been wanting chicken noodle soup, so I thought about what I would put into it, researched how to make my own noodles, and here is what I came up with.  The egg noodle recipe I found at allrecipes.com, the rest of it, I made up as I went along.  Here is the recipe:

Chicken Vegetable Soup

Oil

2 Boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cooked and cut into small pieces
3 slices of bacon, cooked crispy and crumbled
1/2 onion, sliced
2 carrots, peeled and sliced
1 stalk of celery, sliced
1/2 cup cauliflower, cut into small florettes
1/2 cup broccoli, cut into small florettes
1/2 cup green beans, cut in half (ends cut off)
4 cups chicken broth
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon parsley
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
Fresh homemade egg noodles (recipe follows)

In a frying pan, coat with a small amount of oil.  Heat, and cook chicken until cooked through.  Remove chicken from frying pan and set aside.  Add bacon to the pan and cook until crispy.  Remove from pan and set on paper towel to remove excess grease.

While the chicken is cooking, in a large pot, coat witha small amount of oil, heat over medium, and add onions, carrots, celery.  Cook until they start to soften.  Add in cauliflower, broccoli and beans.  Continue to cook, around 5 minutes.  Add in chicken broth, chicken, garlic, parsley and pepper.  Simmer at medium-low for 10 minutes.  Add bacon and continue to simmer for 5 minutes.  Add fresh pasta and simmer until pasta is cooked to your liking (approximately 5 minutes).  Serve, and enjoy!

Homemade Egg Noodles

2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup milk
1 tablespoon butter

In a large bowl, stir together flour and salt.  Add the eggs, milk and butter.  Knead together until a smooth dough is formed, about 5 minutes.  Sit in bowl, covered with a tea towel, for 10 minutes.

After the dough has rested, roll it out to your desired thickness.  Cut into lengths (or shapes).

Leave the noodles to air dry after you've cut them.

*Notes 
- I made my egg noodles around 10 am and left them to sit on the counter until I started making the soup at 12:30 pm.
- I found that this recipe made enough for 3 batches of noodles, so I have packaged up the other 2 batches and will freeze them until the next time I make soup.

VERDICT:
Of course the baby decided he was hungry just as I was about to serve the soup.  So I dished up bowls for my husband and our oldest, and they ate while I fed the baby.  My husband's first reaction was "This is SO good".  He ate his bowl of soup really quickly and went back for more.  Our oldest wasn't in the taste-testing mood, he was tired after a busy day yesterday (swimming lessons, birthday party, babysitters so that Mom & Dad could go out for a grown-up only dinner) - so he didn't actually try the soup, he went for a nap instead.  Finally, I got to try the soup, and it was declicious.  I really enjoyed it.  The variety of vegetables, the fresh noodles, oh my.  It was yummy!  This is a keeper in our books!  To top it off, we have two nice sized servings leftover, already packaged for lunch tomorrow...can't wait!

Would love for you to "like" me on Facebook and vote for my blog by clicking:

Taco Tuesday - Taco Seasoning

This week we had "Taco Tuesday"....not sure why it is, but when we have tacos, it always seems to be a Tuesday :-)

In the back of my mind, I've always wondered/worried about the taco seasoning that we use for our tacos, up until now we have usually gone the store bought, pre-packaged route.  And always the seasoning has been salty and the ingredients a little unclear.  When it says "spices" that's not really telling me much!

I found a recipe for homemade taco seasoning...why I didn't try this before I don't know!  It's so easy and I have everything in my spice cupboard.  Here is my slightly revised version of the allrecipes.com recipe:

3 tablespoons chili powder
3/4 teaspoon garlic powder
3/4 teaspoon onion powder
3/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
3/4 teaspoon dried oregano
1 1/2 teaspoons paprika
4 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 1/4 teaspoons sea salt (we use Epicure's Chili Garlic Sea Salt)
3 teaspoons black pepper

In a small bowl, mix together all ingredients.  Store in an airtight container. 

Use 2 tablespoons of seasoning with 1 lb of ground beef (or to taste).

VERDICT:
My husband and I both enjoyed this new version of taco seasoning and I will be making a big batch to store for future use.  It wasn't too spicy and not too salty, and best of all, we know exactly what is in the mix!

Be sure to follow me on Facebook! http://www.facebook.com/AddictedToRecipes

Kung Pao Pork

When it rains, it pours.  I've been reading so many old and new recipes lately that I'm getting quite the stockpile of new ones to try.  I'm *almost* getting worried that when I go back to work I won't have the time to be cooking all these recipes.  I guess I covered my bases when I made my resolution to try ONE new recipe a week, and on those weeks that I am able to try more, I will be blogging more.  Plus I'm pretty organized, so I'm hopeful that I'll continue with multiple blog entries each week!

Last night it was time to try Kung Pao Pork.  We love stir fry and trying variations of stir fry...and this one caught my eye.  I've adapted it to suit our taste. 

Here is the recipe:

1 pound pork (I used pork loin), cut into 1-inch pieces

1/4 cup reduced sodium soy sauce

2 tablespoons fresh ginger, peeled and grated

1 tablespoon cornstarch

2 cloves garlic, minced (separated)

1 cup chicken broth (I used organic)

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 onion, thinly sliced

½ cup fennel, thinly sliced

1 medium red pepper, seeded, cut into thin strips

Snow peas

Broccoli, chopped

In a small bowl, make marinade by whisking together soy sauce, fresh ginger, cornstarch, 1 clove of the garlic and the chicken broth.  Add the sliced pork to the marinade, toss to coat.  Marinate for 1 hour in the fridge, stir occasionally.

Over medium-high heat, warm the oil in a large saucepan.  Add onion, pepper and fennel; cook, stirring constantly, until tender, about 3-4 minutes.

Add remaining 1 clove of garlic and cook, stirring often, another minute.

Add broccoli and snow peas to the saucepan and cook, stirring frequently, approximately 4-5 minutes.

Reduce heat to medium-low and pour pork and marinade into skillet and cook, stirring often, until pork is no longer pink and sauce is warmed through and thickened, approximately 7-8 minutes.

VERDICT:

LOVE LOVE LOVE. This was delicious! We served the dish over fried rice noodles, which was a nice change from our usual rice.  From the first bite we were all in love.  The pork was soooooo tender, it nearly melted in our mouths.  The flavour was awesome, and my husband said right from the start that there wouldn't be any leftovers.  We liked it THAT much!  His only complaint was that there should be more broccoli (he loves broccoli).  That's an easy addition! I might throw some cashews into the mix next time, just to give it a try, but really, we enjoyed the meal just as it was!

Linked to   A Little Nosh  The King's Court 4     This Chick Cooks     Not JUST a Housewife     Chef In Training     Mom on Timeout     Eat Pray Read Love    Tip Junkie