Steak Kabobs & Weekend Update

Last weekend when it was warm for a few days we decided to fire up the grill. I am behind on posting some recipes so I might post more than 1 per day. These were just our own mix. We used steak cut up, red peppers, and onions. We marinated the steak in soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and McCormick's grill seasoning (I think that's the name, but its the best stuff for steak and burgers). 

All grilled up and tasty. I can't wait for it to be warm and spring soon!

This weekend looked really warm out, but it was in the 50's so you really still had to bundle. I picked some weeds and enjoyed it a little bit, but Molly was the one out there a lot! Here is a photo of her enjoying the dead grass mix.

No crate update for Miss Molly: Starting Jan 1, we wanted to try and leave molly to roam the house and I am happy to say that we have not put molly's crate back up in the family room. We did have issues the first 3 weeks, but after that she has been an angel (knock on wood). She also has a dog door that she can go in and out from and right in front of it started to collect a lot of grass and dirt from outside. We were having to mop the floor more often. So this weekend we got her a nice entrance mat for her door and hopefully this will help. Sorry the lighting was bad so you can't see it that well.

 I also made homemade chicken salad and put it on croissants. I'll post the recipe later this week. Happy Monday everyone!

Chicken Giardino from Olive Garden

This recipe comes straight from OliveGarden.com. Jen over at www.codaandpaco.com told me that they had recipes right on their site. I was so excited to see this recipe on there. This was my favorite, and they stopped carrying it at the restaurant a while back. The recipe was not hard to make and it turned out JUST like it did at OG.

Chicken Giardino

Prep Time:	1 hour
Cook Time:	25 minutes
Serving Size:	4 8 12

Ingredients
Sauce:
1 Tbsp butter
¼ tsp dry thyme
½ tsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped
1 tsp garlic pepper
1 Tbsp cornstarch
¼ cup chicken broth
¼ cup water
¼ cup white wine
1 Tbsp milk
1 tsp lemon juice
Salt and pepper to taste

Chicken:
2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts, sliced width-wise into ½” strips
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 small rosemary sprigs
1 clove garlic, finely minced
Juice of ½ lemon

Vegetables (I didn't use all of them):
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
½ bunch fresh asparagus (remove bottom inch of stem; cut remainder into 1” pieces)
1 zucchini, julienne cut
1 yellow summer squash, julienne cut
2 roma tomatoes, cut into ½” pieces
½ red bell pepper, julienne cut
1 cup broccoli florets, blanched
½ cup frozen peas (I left these out)
1 cup spinach, cut into ½” pieces
½ cup carrots, julienne cut
1 lb farfalle pasta (bow ties), cooked according to package directions

Procedures
Sauce Preparation:

1. MELT butter in a sauce pan over medium heat. Stir in thyme, garlic pepper and rosemary. Whisk to thoroughly blend and cook for 1 minute.
2. COMBINE chicken broth, water, wine, milk, and lemon juice in a mixing bowl. Add cornstarch and whisk until cornstarch has dissolved and there are no lumps.
3. ADD liquid mixture to sauce pan. Whisk all ingredients together and bring to a boil. Season with salt and pepper to taste, then remove from heat.

Chicken & Vegetables Preparation:

1. COMBINE all chicken ingredients in a mixing bowl and blend well.
2. MARINATE for 30 minutes.
3. HEAT a saute pan over medium high heat. Add ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil.
4. SAUTE chicken strips until internal temperature reaches 165°F.
5. ADD all vegetables and sauté until cooked through.
6. ADD cooked, drained pasta and sauce to sauté pan. Stir until pasta is thoroughly coated with sauce.
7. TRANSFER to a serving platter and garnish with chopped parsley.

Finished product!

Top Three Thursday- Food

Our Top Three Thursday is about favorite foods! This one was super easy for me. I like real food mostly and would pass for dessert to eat an extra salad. I know, I'm weird. Anyway here is my top 3!

1.PIZZA- I could eat this every day. Even though most people know I don't like cheese, melted mozzarella is definitely the exception. Can't get enough of it.

 

2. PASTA! Call me Italian or something, but I love pasta. I could have it for every meal and it runs in the family.

  

3. SALAD! I don't put too many things in my salad, usually black olives, cucumber, bacon bits, Italian dressing and lettuce. The olive garden makes a great salad and I could get a refill on the bowl about 3 times.

 

This all made me really hungry and I'm thinking a trip to an Italian restaurant is in order soon! What are your top three foods?

So cute!

Last week we got to babysit Audrina, who is my good friend Amber's daughter. It was Amber's birthday and she wanted to redeem the babysitting coupon Michelle and I got her for Christmas. She even brought the coupon which she doesn't ever need and I hope we get to watch her again soon! Audrina was so cute and was bouncing on the couch playing with Molly when I got this picture.

Dinner Out with Groupon

I recently heard about the website www.groupon.com. They have it for various cities, so check to see if its in your area. They offer restaurant discounts and sometimes spa items or event discounts. I recently for $15 got $35 worth of food and drinks at Loca Luna in midtown Atlanta. David works in the big city, but I mostly stay put in the outskirts. We like to try to go explore some areas downtown at least a couple times a month so this was the perfect way to save some money eating out and try somewhere new.The catch with the groupon is that a group of people (get it, groupon) have to purchase enough of them for the deal to be valid. So even if you sign up for it by the end of the day you may not have receive it anyway.

This is some of the pretty skyline as we drove down (sorry bad quality, phone pic).

It is a tapas restaurant and after 9pm on some days it turns into a Latin salsa dancing club, we didn't stay for that. I was a little disappointed that we got sat outside on the patio (it was around 35degrees out that night). They had heaters, but they kept going out. We had chicken tacos, carne asada, black bean hummus, caesar salad, and caprese salad with a mojito and sangria for drinks. I think we went over by $3 so it was a great deal.

Here is a picture of us staying in the entrance to the restaurant.

 After dinner we drove around Atlantic Station and ended up at IKEA. I love walking around there looking for ideas. You can probably spend all day there easily. We also enjoyed a little dessert. David got the yogurt and I got a big cinnamon roll (for $1!). It was all very yummy. 

Top Three Trip Thursday!

This week our Top Three Thursday post is about trips we'd like to take. Let's get right started:

1.) Australia! I really want to go explore Sydney, Melbourne, Great Barrier Reef, the Outback, and much more.

  2.) Italy/Europe- I have always wanted to go there and see all the scenic sites that there is to offer. There is too many to list, but Florence, Rome, Tuscany, etc..

3.) California- Sonoma Valley Wine Country. To keep things maybe a little more practical, I've always wanted to go to the west coast. I have only been as far west as Texas. I want to see all the vineyards and go to all the wineries out that way. 

What are your Top Three Trip destinations? If you have been to any of these destinations and can provide tips and great places to go, just let me know!

Valentine's Day Fortune Cookies

I decided to make David fortune cookies for Valentine's Day. I kind of had a feeling this was going to be a challenge, but wanted to try anyway. The recipe comes from Our Best Bites blog and if you don't have patience then you should not attempt these. There are too many steps for me to try to explain so head on over to their blog to get the recipe. This one below is the first one that actually came out looking like a fortune cookie.

There are some good... and some bad! These ones I think I over cooked and they don't really resemble a fortune cookie, but they did taste good so I left these in the batch.

My Final Product! I covered some in chocolate and put red sprinkles on it for extra credit :) Sorry for the distracting plate.

I put them in this cute XOXO bag from Kroger.

These are my pretty roses from David. I love roses and all the layers that makes up each rose (I know I'm lame)

Hope you all had a great Valentine's day with people you cared about, let me know if you try these and how yours turned out. I'm curious to see if it was as challenging for other people. By the way, I ended up using just the baking sheet with PAM and no parchment paper. My dough stuck to the paper even though I put PAM on it.