Pie for Dinner

What do you do when you are a first-time gardener and it's too much of a success?

Make pie!

There are some steps to it, but it's really quite simple and surprisingly delicious - as TOH already dubbed it...

Start out by baking your pastry shell.  Let it cool.  Put an even first layer of tomatoes down.  I used cherry tomatoes because I have an abundance of them in my garden.  It calls for plum tomatoes, but personally I love the bite-sizes....

Evenly sprinkle the green onions next.

Next, layer the rest of the tomatoes on top.

Sprinkle with the basil, salt and pepper.  Spread the mayo/cheese mixture next.

Lastly, sprinkle the bacon and Parmesan.

Even though it says it serves 8, if you're serving it as an entree, it's closer to 4 or 5...  However, it'd be a great side to something and THEN, yes, it would serve closer to 8 people!

Print the recipe here.

Happy Summer Cooking!

Chili & Cornbread

I renamed this to be called Marvelous Beef Chili.  I'm a chili lover and am absolutely saving this recipe forever.  That's all.

This cornbread was very moist.  Surprisingly.  It was the first recipe I cooked out of the A Taste of Oregon cookbook we I received for our wedding and, in Mike's words, "didn't taste like any cornbread we'd ever had before."  It's sweeter than most but the most refreshing part of it was that it didn't taste like you were putting a spoonful of dry bread crumbs into your mouth.  Yes, I'm saving this one, too.  Taste of Oregon, you are 1 and 0!

Print the Chili recipe here.
Print the Cornbread recipe here.

Crockpot Lasagna?

Who would have thought?

Admittedly, as much as I enjoy Italian food, the classic dish of lasagna has never been one of my favorites.  So when a bunch of us were getting together for a party and multiple people signed up for lasagna, I planned on having lots of room for dessert...ha.

When the night finally arrived and dinner was served, it was hard to resist trying a little bit of everything.  I served myself some of someone's lasagna...Um, was I just ravenous or was this the best lasagna I'd ever tasted?!  I think "B"!

Several weeks later, having obtained a copy of the recipe from my friend Heather, I HAD to break out the really nice wedding Crockpot!

By the way, we are just about all unpacked! Thanks for sticking with me!  I hope to be slightly more active on here again...

We had our first guests over a few days ago.  Needless to really say on this particular blog, I LOVE feeding people. :)  Plus, it was my family so I was really looking forward to having them over.  We'd only spent the last 8 months living in their basement, but I guess I wasn't too tired of them!  Nor they of us...heh.

Okay, all that to say - I plumb forgot to take final pictures.  I was just chatting away with my mom, planning to play a freshly unpacked game with my dad and sister and I was very distracted!

You will need these ingredients:

Chopped Onion (I used more than what the recipe called for just because I love it)

Minced Garlic

Ground Beef & Italian Pork Sausage (I used a little more than a pound of each)

S&P, Tomato Paste, Crushed Tomatoes

Lasagna, of course!  I used half whole wheat and half enriched "regular"

And one of the best ingredients...Cheese!

Like I said, I was too excited (or something..."spacey" comes to mind...) to take any more photos.  Now you will just HAVE to make this easy recipe that, so far, everyone I know has enjoyed.

Click here for the printable recipe.

A Variation of Mike's Hobo Dinner

After visiting my mother-in-law and her husband, Jackie & Jack, a few days ago, we left their house with an armful of tasty veggies from their garden!  I had never prepared anything with acorn squash before, so that was going to be the first thing I used.  I received a good tip from Jackie to microwave each squash for about a minute before trying to cut it due to its extremely hard shell.  She was definitely right - it helped a lot!  Yet, due to my bad left wrist, my little sister helped me slice it up.  Thanks, Roxanne!

They also gave us a bunch of mouth-watering halibut that Jack had just caught in Alaska a few weeks ago.  We were almost set for dinner!  I emailed the rest of the ingredients to my husband at work and he came home with the rest of the veggies to complete a great meal.

 Mike created a variation of his famous "Hobo Dinner."  Chop up all the vegetables and place the ones that will need to cook the most on the bottom.  (He first coated the foil with a little bit of oil spray.)  After the veggies were in place, he drizzled a small amount of Worcestershire sauce over it and sprinkled some Lawry's and black pepper, too.

Meanwhile, I was preparing the squash. I lightly coated the foil with spray oil, placed the squash on it, put a few dollops of butter around and sprinkled some brown sugar over it all.  We then wrapped both his and mine up like this:

Step 1: Only place food on one half of foil.

Step 2: Fold foil in half over food.

Step 3: Completely fold up both sides and then the end.

Now they're ready for the grill!

For the halibut, we created a foil "boat" and laid it in there after spraying it.  Add some butter, Lawry's, and black pepper.

I forgot a picture of the final product - the fish, squash, and other vegetables were phenomenal. Mostly due to Mike's expert grilling. ;)

Grilled Mahi Mahi

And just when you were thinking that all I cook anymore are sweet goodies...
presenting my first fish dish!

Seriously, that's how beginner I am...Besides tuna sandwiches, I have always had this strange fear of preparing fish.  Mike helped with the grilling while I prepared the mojo sauce to go on the fish when cooked, a tomato & onion salad I learned from my dear friend Valerie after eating it at her house a few weeks ago, Jasmine rice (my favorite), and asparagus!  Thinking over the dish, I needed more of a contrast to the flavors so I luckily found some canned peaches in the cabinet.  And there you go!

(Thanks, Mike!)