10.29.2011

Cheeeeeeeeese

Who says you can't have macaroni & cheese for dinner???  This easy recipe didn't require much outside of what we already had at home.  As long as you have things like boxed macaroni, breadcrumbs, and flour in your pantry, you should be pretty much set.  Oh and cheddar cheese too!  I even dug up some bacon that I cooked up, crumbled and added into the dish - I highly recommend it.


We had some garlic bread from a previous spaghetti night, toasted that baby up and voila!  The meal itself is pretty rich so you will definitely have leftovers but it's pretty greasy and oily.


Next time, I'm definitely going to try adding in some ham or crab/lobster meat

Kabobs & Friends

When you get home from work at 6 and you have friends over for dinner, you really need to just whip together a delicious yet quick meal.  On this night, the answer was kabobs.  Luckily, my husband was on call to slice and dice everything up including the eggplant, squash, white onions, mushrooms, and chicken then once I got home, I mixed it all together with some lemon and italian seasoning.  To cook it, I placed the kabobs in the oven for about 15 minutes to give it a head start, then I took it out and grilled in on my lovely Griddle.  Pretty, right?

The yummy sauce at the bottom of the photo is a Greek yogurt-based Tzatziki Sauce.  The main ingredients are plain yogurt, cucumber, and dillweed - pretty easy stuff.

10.23.2011

Quiche

Well, I really couldn't think of a good title for this one.  A quiche sure does sound fancy, but it's so easy to make!  Mix together some spinach, random assortment of shredded cheeses, eggs, and mushrooms then pour it into a pie crust and voila!  You get this......


Tip - Be really patient and wait for the quiche to harden.  Leftovers are also really good and for 2, you'll have plenty of leftovers! 

10.19.2011

House Tour!

Hi everyone. We were recently featured on Apartment Therapy with a full house tour! We were really excited to get on the House Call a few weeks before but when the editor at Apartment Therapy gave us the chance to do a full tour, we jumped at the chance. Being featured had been something that we always wanted to do from the moment we got the keys to the place and bought our first piece of furniture. Enjoy!

Enter House Tour

10.16.2011

Sushi in Japantown? Sure!

As residents of Japantown, we sure do love our share of sushi.  I remember returning from our pasta-filled Italian honeymoon and literally eating Japanese/Sushi 5 days in a row.  It was magical.  


Making sushi rolls was never something I truly cared for and especially now living in Japantown, it was easy to just walk across the street and grab a bite.  We wandered to a local Arts & Wine festival where we discovered the Maki Sushi Ki booth.  After viewing a quick live demo, we were easily sold that making sushi was a simple process and that we should embrace our love for it.  


And so the journey begins.  Our grocery trip totaled ~$25 which included sushi rice, sushi vinegar, seaweed, tuna, and salmon.  Already, that's about the price of a dinner for two at Kazoo down the street, but I had to consider that the rice and seaweed would last several meals.  Making the rolls was actually a lot of fun and easy as expected.  Since the fish stays raw, the only long process is cooking the rice and mixing and folding it over so it dries and cools completely.  To add, I was determined to make a special orange sauce to drizzle on top of my rolls and thank goodness I found an easy recipe with only 3 ingredients.  Even though it's time-consuming and expensive, it was a fun meal and definitely good team work with my husband.  


If you're ever interested in make rolls at home and don't care for those other sushi schemes with the messy bamboo mats, definitely check out this kit.  You can buy both a small and large sushi maker for $30 on their website.  Have fun!

10.14.2011

Fiesta Friday

In honor of this happy Friday, I wanted to feature a recent taco night we had.  I love taco nights.  It's quick, it's easy, and it's delicious!  We also love Chipotle so we're always equipped with a bottle Tabasco Chipotle sauce.  Yes!


I also got a little experimental and made this with our scoop chips.  Great idea for an appetizer platter!  Excuse the dirty nails, blah.

10.10.2011

This one time, in Seattle...

...I had a late night snack at a random hole-in-the-wall named Po Dogs.  Now I still can't remember if it was my level of intoxication that made me do it, but I ordered the PB Dog and I can easily say that the decision was a good one.  It was your classic hot dog topped with peanut butter, sliced banana and chopped peanuts.  All the flavors mixed so well together; I just wish I had more.  


The reason I write this post is because I was sitting at my hair salon about a month ago and going through the latest People magazine when I stumbled upon this page featuring 4 unique hot dogs, one of them being the one and only PB Dog from Po Dogs!!  I was so excited I knew I had to feature it on the blog and give them some well-deserved props.  So if you're ever in Seattle, check out Po Dogs near/in Capitol Hill and give one of their popular hot dogs a try!


Po Dogs Website


Yelp

10.09.2011

To Be Italian...

If you didn't know, Peter and I went off to Italy for our honeymoon.  Our meals pretty much consisted of pizza or pasta and always a glass of wine.  Once we came back home, we decided to skip Italian food for a good while, but not just because we were sick of it, but because we knew it couldn't even compare.  The day came when we finally craved a simple pepperoni and mushroom pizza, also known as "salame e funghi" even though we copped out and actually used pepperoni and not salami.  


I knew I had to start out by making the crust from scratch.  In this case, I wanted a quick recipe that I wouldn't have to refrigerate for hours before adding the toppings.  It was indeed easy but noticed it was just too sticky but I guess it made the dough easy to spread and stay in its pie shape.  After that was in place, we added the sauce (Trader Joe's), cheese (just 1 pack of shredded Italian cheeses), sliced portobello mushroom, and pepperoni.



The recipe calls to bake it for 15-25 minutes although we let it sit and continue for at least 30 minutes.  End result: it was too soft and doughy and definitely not thin enough.  Next time, I might go for a recipe that doesn't require yeast and probably just go for a more complex recipe then go the whole refrigerate-for-4-hours route.  I do have to say that we toasted the leftovers the next day and it tasted way better, as if it was actually fully cooked this time.


10.02.2011

All You Need is Jack

Jack Daniels, that is.  Before I slathered some original Jack Daniels BBQ sauce all over the rack of ribs, I marinated the meat with some salt, pepper, seasoning salt, dried oregano, and dried parsley.  This ended up being pretty important to have both a dry rub and the BBQ sauce cuz it gave it an extra yummy kick once you licked all the sauce off!  The meat was also really nice and juicy which I realized was because I wrapped the rack in foil otherwise it would eventually dry up in the oven.  About 1.5 hours into the cooking, I unwrapped it from the foil then let it continue sitting for another 30 minutes, so approximately 2 hours total.  Perfect time and perfect marinade which got me the thumbs up to make this dish again!  We added a side of broccoli and potato salad for a delicious Sunday dinner.