I had to run a few errands after work yesterday so I stopped by Pelly's Fish Market in Carlsbad for something different. I love Pelly's but it's not on my usual route so I don't make it there very often. The scallops were huge so I bought them as a special treat for Thomas. I brought them home and proceeded to sit on the stool at the counter while Thomas cooked away. How did I get lucky enough to find someone to make me porchini crusted scallops with a roasted red pepper sauce and a side of sweet potatoes on a monday night? Yeah, baby! Score one for Heather.

I hope you're enjoying Independence Day and that it's bright and sunny wherever you are. We have had perfect beach weather but we and all of our friends refuse to hit the beach (and freeway!) with all the tourists in town. We made our own fun at home with some yummy popsicles. These are melon pops and they're delicious! We used a galia melon which looks like a large cantaloupe but tastes like a honeydew.

To make the pops:
1/2 galia melon, cut into chunks
1/4 c sugar
1 lime, juice

Blend all the ingredients together in a blender until smooth and the sugar is dissolved. Pour into popsicle molds and freeze for at least 4 hours. Enjoy!

-- Recipe adapted from Pass the Sushi

So delicious! So easy. And the leftovers... so tantalizing!

For Christmas dinner we made this bleu cheese crust for our steaks and we had some leftovers that we couldn't let go to waste. Thomas came up with the brilliant idea of making ravioli, crab and bleu cheese stuffed ravioli. Yum! (He says ALL of his ideas are brilliant, I'm going to have to disagree and I totally can since this is MY blog! But I will give him this one, brilliant.) We started by making our own pasta, which is fun and easy especially if you have the pasta roller attachment for the KitchenAid mixer. We also made some roasted red peppers to tuck inside to give a little crunch. Check it out:



PASTA RECIPE:
3 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
4 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 tsp salt

Combine these three ingredients and knead for ten minutes. Add more flour if your dough is too sticky or a little water if the dough is too dry. Form the dough into a ball and let rest under a kitchen towel for 15 minutes. Divide the dough and run it through a pasta roller. Work until dough is thin, translucent and about 4" wide.



CRAB FILLING:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 lb crabmeat (lump is best)
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon chopped onion
5 1/4 ounces Boursin cheese
1 cup half-and-half cream
2 tablespoons parmesan cheese
1/4 cup bleu cheese, crumbles
fresh ground pepper

Heat saute pan to med-high. Add garlic and onions and cook for approx 1 minute. Add crabmeat and cook for approx another minute (until heated through). Add the Boursin cheese and melt slowly. Once melted, add the half and half and simmer on med-low until liquid is reduced to a creamy sauce (2-4 minutes). Add the parmesan cheese and bleu cheese. It will thicken nicely. Season with pepper as you like.

ROASTED RED PEPPER:
1 sweet red pepper

Turn on gas cook top flame, place pepper on grates and allow the skin to blacken. With metal tipped tongs rotate pepper until all sides are blackened. Place pepper in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Allow the pepper to rest for 10-15 minutes. Peel charred skin from pepper and rinse clean. Coarsely chop the pepper.
NOTE: if you don't have a gas cooking range you can do this step on the grill, or substitute canned roasted peppers.



RAVIOLI:
Cut the finished pasta sheets into 4" squares, drop 1 tbsp of the crab mixture on to each ravioli square. Add a few pieces of the chopped roasted red pepper, brush corners of pasta dough with a bit of water, fold dough over filling to form a triangle. Makes about 45 ravioli pieces.

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to the boil. Cook fresh ravioli for about 2 minutes or until the begin to float. Serve hot with a drizzle of olive oil and garnish with any remaining red pepper. Enjoy!

That's what we had with these toasty warm early morning cocktails. A little butterscotch schnapps, vanilla vodka and espresso topped off with a hefty helping of steamed milk. Maybe you should stop by our place before your next family dinner.

We do a weekly pizza night with our neighbor friends. We each cook two pizzas and then get together and chow down. Tonight was a fabulous find by Sortachef, a prosciutto with porcini mushroom pizza that will definitely be added to our list of favorites.

Yes, and every joke and rib-tickle is some how washed away when your husband wakes up in the morning and says I'm going to make seared sea scallops for dinner tonight. Um, OK! I can stand a couple more jokes, if I have to...

Remember when we built our raised vegetable garden? Well... It's working! I have food growing in my yard. I love it, a lot. The spinach plants are doing really well and I sampled a little leaf today. The broccoli has taken off too. The variety we have though doesn't yield the big heads of florets like you see in the grocery store. As a result we missed a bit of our crop because we were letting them get big, but then they went to flower and turned bitter. We read up on when to trim the broccoli plants and promptly went down there and chopped, chopped, chopped!



That's our harvest of broccoli and we cooked it up in a stir fry. Yum! Now I'm waiting for some tomatoes. Look at these beasts! Oh, my!

I love to cook and bake and blog about it so that led me to the idea of trying a new recipe a week. Hooray! Follow along, give the recipes a try and let me know what you thought of them. I love to talk about food and I want to talk to you about food. Let's take this as the leap into a fun food conversation!



Week 1: Rice Noodles with Shrimp and Cilantro
From: Fine Cooking April/May 2010



Rice Noodles with Shrimp and Cilantro
Serves 3 to 4

Ingredients:
6 oz 1/4" wide rice noodles (pad thai)
2 limes, 1 juiced and 1 cut into wedges
1 1/2 Tbsp packed light brown sugar
2 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp fish sauce
3/4 lb peeled and deveined large shrimp
3 Tbsp peanut oil
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 medium red bell pepper, cored, seeded, and finely diced
1 jalapeno, seeded and finely diced
1 large shallot, finely diced
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper

Instructions: Bring a medium pot of well-salted water to a boil. Add the noodles, lower the heat to a gentle simmer, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the noodles are just tender, 5 to 7 minutes. Transfer to a colander and run under cold water to cool slightly. Drain well.

In a small bowl, combine the lime juice, sugar, soy sauce, and fish sauce; set aside.

In a medium bowl, toss the shrimp with 1 Tbsp of the oil, the coriander 1/2 tsp black pepper, and 1/4 tsp salt.

Heat the remaining 2 Tbsp oil in a large non-stick skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering hot. Add the red pepper, jalapeno, and shallot, sprinkle with 1/4 tsp salt, and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Add the shrimp and cook, stirring until it turns pink and is almost cooked through, about 2 minutes. Add the lime juice mixture and cook, stirring, until the shrimp is cooked through, about 1 minute more. Add the noodles and half of the cilantro; toss until the noodles heat through and pick up the sauce, 1 to 2 minutes.

Serve sprinkled with the remaining cilantro, with the lime wedges on the side for squeezing.

Yum!

From my garden: Limes

We bought a 24 oz bag of lobster claw meat just so we could make lobster pot pie again, the best pot pie in the world. The recipe calls for half the bag so we had another 12 ounces of lobster meat sitting in the fridge and there is no way I was going to let that spoil. Together Thomas and I concocted these lobster lunch wraps and they're definitely a keeper. So I'm making them again tomorrow.

Delightful Lobster Wraps
Makes 2 servings

6 oz fresh lobster meat, cut into chuncks
2 good handfuls of fresh baby spinach
3 tbsp mayonnaise
1 tsp chopped fresh parsley
1 ripe avocado
2 burrito-size flour tortillas
salt and fresh ground pepper

In a large skillet warm a good glug of olive oil, add the lobster and toss until warm and heated through. Remove lobster from pan and put into a small mixing bowl. Set aside. Next wilt the spinach by adding another tsp of olive oil to your warm skillet. Toss spinach in pan until wilted.

In small mixing bowl with lobster add the spinach, mayonnaise, and parsley. Mix gently to combine. Add salt and fresh ground pepper to taste. Spoon half of lobster mixture on to each tortilla. Peel and slice the avocado and add it to the tortilla. Wrap tortilla and serve. Enjoy!

These are the kind of meals my husband cooks. Wanna come over some time? Thomas spoiled Pauline and me with a roasted rack of lamb dinner with bright green wilted spinach and mashed blue potatoes. Meals that look like this happen pretty often which means I am either very spoiled by this man or incredibly brilliant for choosing him to cook my dinners for me.

I woke up this morning wishing I could have a giant chocolate chip cookie with my cup of tea. There were no cookies of any kind, lemon, sugar or chocolate, none. So I decided I'd make waffles for breakfast this fine Tuesday morning. But waffles for me aren't a box of Eggos quickly grabbed from the freezer. Waffles are flour, butter, baking soda, eggs and more. While I'm up to my eyeballs in mixing bowls and milk, I call my sister for a quick chat. I recount my morning to which she just replies, "No wonder your kitchen is always a mess!"

Everything is something else. I can watch this animation short by PES over and over. I just love it. (Via Mighty Girl.)


http://view.break.com/534274 - Watch more free videos

Good, easy, fresh and tasty.

Marinated Salmon with Island Salsa

10 oz salmon fillet
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 clove garlic
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)
salt and pepper to taste
1 mango, cubed
1 small tomato, chopped
1/2 small red bell pepper, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil

Wash and dry salmon and cut into 5 oz portions. In a medium bowl combine soy sauce, garlic and next four ingredients. Add salmon and mix to coat the fish. Refrigerate for about 15 minutes.

For salsa, combine mango, tomato and red pepper. Sprinkle a small amount of spices used in marinade onto salsa and mix.

In a skillet heat olive oil over medium heat until shimmering. With skin side up, cook salmon for about three minutes on each side. Serve on brown rice topping with salsa. Serves 2. Enjoy!

I love waffles and it really helps that they're so easy to make. I have a "vintage" waffle maker that I found in my Grandma's things. It's called the Belgian Waffler. How great is that? It might burn the house down but since I'm in the kitchen the entire time it's on I feel it's safe enough to use. This is the recipe I always turn to, it's fast, easy and only requires basic ingredients I always have on hand. Then I slather on some butter and a touch of real maple syrup and my weekend is always happy.

My Favorite Waffles
1 3/4 c all-purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
3 large eggs, well beaten
1 1/2 c milk
8 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients. In a small bowl whisk together eggs, milk and butter. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients. Gently whisk them together, the mixture should have a pebbled look.
Yield: 4-5 large waffles
Adapted from Joy of Cooking.

Albeit a vegetarian meal, that does not mean as Thomas pointed out, low calorie, the Baked Cauliflower and Broccoli Cannelloni by Jamie Oliver was delicious. I am not versed at making baked pasta dishes even though they are some of my favorite foods to eat. After watching Jamie At Home this week I felt confidant enough to stuff my own pasta tubes, something I've never done.

We called the neighbors and said hey we'll be bringing you dinner at 7. Reluctantly they obliged the offer of a full Sunday night meal completely prepared and brought to their home. Served with some salad greens and a hearty glass of red wine, the Cannelloni got rave reviews all around. You can read my official review here.

I have a huge and underwhelming fascination with the idea of doing chores around the house. Laundry makes me crazy. The dishes can make me cry on any given day. And don't even talk to me about scrubbing the toilet. Did I mention I am known among family to have an immense hatred for the vacuum cleaner? I enjoy being at home, cooking and doing domestic hobbies but please, never, EVER accuse me of keeping a good house. I am not a housewife, a homemaker or other such female pejorative. I am allergic to housework. Violently.

Which leads me to my new website, Housework Rules! (to be said with the thickest sarcasm you can slather on). Go, check it out. Find new ways to avoid daily chores with inspiration and products from your favorite hobbies including knitting, cooking, gardening, scrapbooking, sewing and paper. I know I'm not alone. I know you hate housework too.

Today my lack of groceries had me digging through the cupboards to find something remotely satisfying for lunch. Here's what I put together.

Pasta Tapenade
Serves two

1/2 jar Trader Joe's Roasted Red Pepper & Artichoke Tapenade
3 Tbsp finely grated parmesan cheese
1 tsp curry powder
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)
black pepper to taste
8 oz dried shell pasta

Cook pasta following package directions.

In a medium bowl while the pasta cooks combine tapenade, 2 Tbsp cheese, curry powder, cayenne powder and black pepper. When al dente, drain pasta and add to bowl. Mix throughly and dish onto plates. Sprinkle remaining parmesan cheese even over each serving. Enjoy!

I made this pasta dish last night for dinner. It's from one of my favorite recipe blogs, 24 Boxes. I couldn't wait to try it, I love asparagus and most of all I love goat cheese. The sauce is very simple and the entire meal comes together quickly. (I will definitely apply the sauce technique to other meals in the future.) I think I'm going to add some roasted red pepper next time to give more color and some extra pizazz, because we all need more pizazz in our lives!

Click here to download the recipe.

Have you ever wondered if how all the organic food in the grocery store suddenly appeared overnight? A lot of the brands you see these days like Kashi and Naked Juice aren't just little independent companies trying to make a go of it. They're part of huge multi-company conglomerates like Kellogg's and Pepsi. GOOD magazine put together a chart to help you figure out who really owns your tofu and yogurt.