Living, Loving, Learning

We had the Lowbridge/Solise clan (minus Josh, lucky dog is at Bonnaroo) over last night for one our favorite summer dinner parties, a kebab bar.  Of course we had to have some good drinks, I made this delicious strawberry basil sangria . Everybody had a great time putting together their perfect kebab.  The offerings were marinated chicken breast, pork tenderloin, red, orange and yellow bell peppers, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, red onion, zucchini and squash.  Madeline was especially stoked...little chef in the making! Bruce was an amazing grill master and they were perfectly delicious! Add a super yum fruit salad and we were all happy that the summer produce is rolling in. After dinner we took a walk downtown where there was a little city event happening with live music, food booths and a few (very few) kids activities.  We decided to bring little Omar since he is finally fully vaccinated and we need to concentrate on socializing him....

At Herb Club last week, a friend gave me a bunch of fresh lemongrass from her garden. Bruce and I were excited to cook with it and Bruce found this recipe for Chicken in Lemongrass Sauce . So so so delicious and different. Our palates were getting weary and this spicy lemon flavor really picked things up!! Easy, healthy, tasty and Griffin loved it....meets all of our requirements to make it into regular rotation!!

We are having an amazing time trying new recipes out for our Meatless Mondays. It is giving us a chance to try out meals that highlight vegetables that we are not very familiar with. Arugula is one such vegetable. This recipe starts with an arugula based pesto-like spread on flat bread . We don't have so much time on Monday nights so for our first try of this recipe we just bought fresh flat bread . It ended up getting over cooked so next time we will definitely make this recipe on pizza dough. This meal was absolutely delicious. Bruce and I totally loved it. The kids were not crazy about it, but it was easy enough just to cook a few eggs up and some toast for them. I cannot wait to make this again!!! For those of you not ready to go meatless at dinner, this would make for an amazing brunch dish!

I got this recipe out of Martha Stewart's Food magazine. I love the magazine and also this citrus twist on roasted chicken. It is a super easy meal that you can just throw in the oven and forget about. I would change a couple of things. First, our chicken was undercooked even though I left it in long after the cooking time, so next time I will probably raise the baking temperature a bit. The other thing I would do is put a few of the orange slices into the body cavity of the chicken. There was a wonder orange flavor in the potatoes but not so much in the chicken, but I think my solution would help this. Best of all though, the kids liked it!!! I am always looking for new things for them!!

Lasagna Soup is super duper delish!! All the flavor and warmth with a third of the work. I highly recommend this soup, especially for cold days like today!!

Not only have I recently written a post about smoothies, but it seems to be trending right now, as I have read smoothie recipes on a ton of blogs lately. I though it might be worth sharing this idea. On alot of these snow days Griffin has asked me to make him a smoothie, but with only the 3 of us here to drink it, I had been dumping alot of extra down the drain. Then I had an idea to make smoothie pops. I poured the extra smoothie into a ice cube tray and put it into the freezer for a half hour. Then I pulled out the tray and inserted popsicle sticks into the semi-hardened cubes. A couple hours later I popped out the pops and tossed them into a ziplock and then back into the freezer. The kids love to have them as snacks and I love that they are getting more fruit and yougurt into their diet during a time of year when tasty fresh fruit is nearly impossible to get our hands on.

Still enjoying soupy Sundays over here. I have 5 different types of soups in the freezer now. Hmmm, think I just decided what we will have for dinner tonight. This is an amazing soup, Lentil with Spicy Sausage . Besides lentils and sausage it is stuffed full with carrots, celery, onion and spinach with a chicken broth base. I think you veggies could easily delete the sausage and use veggie broth instead and still have an awesome soup. Add a delish loaf of Bruce's home made bread and you have an amazing wintry night meal.

Last months Bon Appetit informed me, much to my dismay, that cupcakes are OUT, and whoopie pies and macaroons are IN. Being a sucker for dessert trends, I knew I had to try to make one of those. There were a few recipe items I couldn't get in this town for the macaroons so I decided to take a shot at the whoopie pies. I have never really had one before but I was somewhat familiar with them as they had just featured them on my beloved Top Chef. I made them with a peppermint butter cream and chocolate ganache filling . They were a little time intensive but not that much more than pretty cupcakes. I didn't think the cookie part was moist enough, but my eager taste testers assured me it was. The kids loved them and they are not nearly as messy as a cupcake. Not a dessert I would make often, but definitely a recipe I will hang on to.

So, I have been B.O.R.E.D. with them menu here at the Gasthaus , which tells me it's time to switch it up. I have been making a ton of new recipes and I will share some with you. We received a new blender for Christmas, YEAH, as we have a bad habit of blowing up blenders. What can I say, we like our pureed vegetable soups! ANYWAYS, Griffin loves smoothies so that was the first thing we blended up. We used this smoothie recipe , and we all, except Lucy for no understandable reason, love it. It's kind of our little taste of summer in the throes of January and a great weekend morning treat. Now, I am ready to move on to different kinds of smoothies, but I think that won't start in earnest until the summer fruits start becoming available. If you have a favorite smoothie recipe for us to try, leave it in the comments.

This is Monkey Bread....it is like taking Pillsbury cinnamon rolls to a whole new planet! Delicious. I got this recipe from a food blog that my pal, Hilary, suggested to me: Smitten Kitchen . I love the photos on this blog, her easy to follow instructions, but most importantly, her taste. I read a couple food blogs, but this one by far, most closely aligns with the kind of food I like to cook and eat! Either here somewhere, or on fb, I linked to her AHMHAYZING tomato sauce which has become a weekly staple at our house. How tomatoes, onions and butter could ever taste so delicious, I will never understand. Anyways, back to Monkey Bread. It wasn't too hard to make but my goodness, it takes like 4 hours! It ended up being our lunch on Sunday. We all really loved it and devoured it. We only ate about 1/2 of it, but I ran the rest over to our friends' house where the second half was enjoyed. Have a great weekend ya'll. I am looking forward to a weekend of banan...

*****I never posted this since that day veered off track pratically before it started. Thought I would still put it up as I love the snack idea and think some of you might too!*** Happy St. Patrick's Day! I have so many great St. Patrick's Day memories....like the year I made it to first call (6 AM) and last call (2 AM) at our local Irish pub. Let's just say there was a looooonnnnnggggg break in the middle, and yes, this was pre-Griffin. So, now, the more responsible minded me still wants to enjoy the Celtic celebration and bring it to a level my kids can enjoy too. I cut this idea out of a magazine awhile back and was excited to use it as Griff's March pre-school snack. So easy, yet nutritious and cute! First make a rainbow by layering strawberries, mandarin oranges, pineapple, kiwi, blueberries and plums in a clear cup. Top it off with a cloud (whipped cream) and some gold coins (golden raisins). It was a big hit!

Here is a new recipe recommendation for you guys. Ok, I know it sounds wierd but lasagna soup is totally delicious! There is a touch of crushed red pepper in it that gives it the slightest kick...beware if your kids are sensitive although both Griffin and Lucy enjoyed it with the red pepper in it. Griffin won't eat regular lasagna but he gobbled this soup up for dinner and requested it for lunch the next day. Only a few more weeks of winter, so if this sounds good, try it soon!

In an effort to expand my palate to include seafood, (I know I should have done this at 22 not 32!) Bruce has been putting some different items on the grill. My new favorite is tuna steaks. We just tried this AWESOME salsa - totally fresh and delicious. My favorite part is the use of mint. So many recipes put cilantro in any time they want an herby kick so it was cool to see something different. Also, in this climate of mango salsa mania it was great to use oranges. It was easy peasy to make, took very little time and added such great flavor and color to a summer time dish. (Sorry for the blurry photo - low light I guess.)

Hibiscus Mint Iced Tea Recipe can be found here . The color, the light minty flavor, what is not to love? Well, I guess what not to love is the tough time I had finding hibiscus tea bags. I finally found some at a health food store in E. Lansing, Food For Living. I have not checked a Whole Foods but I suspect they may also carry it. I love this drink so much that I've just gone ahead and ordered two pounds of hibiscus tea in bulk - so if you come by I will definitely brew you up a pitcher. Delicious!

OK...another new recipe for you! This one is called Pacific Pork Kebabs with Pineapple Rice...are you getting that I am in a "kebab" phase right now! You can find the recipe here at Martha's sight. It was soooo delicious and easy peasy. Next time I would add just a touch less ginger to the rice, I always seem to think ginger is overpowering. Bruce's only complaint is that it was totally messy on the grates and required some big time scrubbing before he could put anything else on the grill. I don't think that will stop us from making it again soon! I served it with greed beans but the flavors are so light and crisp you could pair it with almost any vegetable or salad.

I haven't given y'all a new recipe in a LONG time! That is mostly because I haven't been trying anything new, sometimes it is a struggle to just get any healthy home cooked meal on the table each night. We have been really good at sticking to our commitment to only eat one meal out a week (for health, family time and budget reasons.) Now that the grill is the favored method for cooking it was time to get to trying something new. Most of you know that we Gasts LOVE Middle Eastern food. In Pontiac we would go to our favorite Middle Eastern restaurant, Cedarland , at least twice a month and bring home enough leftovers for two more meals. We haven't found anything even close down here and dearly miss the smells and flavors of all those wonderful spices. I went searching on my favorite recipe website and was lucky enough to find an awesome recipe for Kofta Kebabs . This was an entree we often ordered and I was eager to try it on the grill. The recipe calls for ground lamb, ...

For the last year or so, on cold Sunday afternoons I have been making up a big batch of homemade soup. It is a great comfort food, mostly healthy, usually inexpensive ingredients and they freeze beautifully. With Bruce home on Sundays I have the time to make my own broth and cut up tons of yummy fresh veggies. I am usually able to freeze a big batch to pass on to a friend or enjoy on a busy Sunday and still have some leftover for lunches during the week. This week was a creamy turkey/veggie soup using the Thanksgiving turkey carcass I had frozen. YUM!!!! Here is the recipe I used: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/After-Thanksgiving-Turkey-Soup/Detail.aspx

OK...scratch Vermont...the hospital there is really small and after talking with them Bruce doesn't feel he will get the experience he's looking for. But, late last night we got another call from a hospital in Lynchburg, Virginia, the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Anybody been there? So we tried this awesome new recipe this week for lemon angel hair. We served with grilled chicken and fresh bread and green beans but we both agreed it would be fantastic with shrimp. When they say 1/2 cup herbs, they really mean it. That makes the whole dish. Hope you enjoy it.

So, I have gotten really into learning how to cook over the past year or so. Because of my ever so slightly obsessive personality (I come by this honestly, trust me!) I can only cook with the aid of a recipe. None of that little dash here, little pinch there, let's see how it tastes business for me. Anyways, it seems like I am always e-mailing or copying recipes for y'all out there so I thought I would change it up a little. I am going to start posting the "best of" as I continue to try new recipes. I thought of it a little too late, but in the future, I will also try to take a picture of my new creation. Hope a few of y'all try them from time to time, and if you do, come back and comment on what you think. So this tomatillo based enchilada recipe is excellent. Even Griffin enjoyed it - the green chilies are not spicy at all, so if you like some kick you should add it in. My only complaint about it is that there is a ton of kitchen gear required (pots, pans, blend...

So, it has been a tough week here for Mama Gast. Griffin has been sick all week and I took him to the doctor on Wednesday. He has the beginning stages of strep throat. So, 2 days and 2 prescriptions later, we are finally making the turn for the better. A sick temperamental 2 1/2 year old is not a beast I would subject anyone to!! On the up side, last weekend we converted his bed to a day bed with great success. He is sleeping well in it and has even gotten up in the middle of the night to go potty and went back to bed on his own. I am really enjoying all of these little steps toward his maturity and growth. We have spent a ton of time inside this week (his being sick and the - 10 weather outside) and have worked on learning to use scissors, making things with play dough (versus just balling up each color and then moving on to the next) and reading books. His latest favorite quote is "Run, Run, Run, as fast as you can...you can't catch me, I'm the stinky cheese man" wh...