Cheesy Broccoli Twice Baked Potatoes

Over the past couple of days we've been eating your typical easy BBQ foods: hot dogs, hamburgs, macaroni salad, chips etc. It seems this time of year holds a lot of birthdays in my family so we've  been celebrating by of course BBQing. I did manage to cook something other than hot dogs: Cheesy Broccoli Twice Baked Potatoes. I love twice baked potatoes! I try different recipes all the time. I received inspiration from a magazine to try this new variation.

Cheesy Broccoli Twice Baked Potatoes

3 large white potatoes
1 head of broccoli
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp flour
1/2 tsp garlic salt
1 cup milk
3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Clean and scrub potatoes. Pierce potatoes with fork and microwave for 10-12 minutes or until potatoes are fully cooked.
Meanwhile boil broccoli until tender. Drain water from broccoli and set aside.
Once potatoes are cool enough to handle, cut lengthwise in half. Scoop out insides of potatoes, leaving 1/4 inch around skin. Add scooped out potato insides to a bowl with cooked broccoli, set aside.
Heat butter in a small pot over medium until melted. Add flour to butter and whisk for 2 minutes. Add 1 cup of milk to flour/butter mixture and continue whisking until sauce thickens. Add cheddar cheese and garlic salt, stirring until cheese is all melted. Remove from heat
Add 3/4 of the cheese sauce to potatoes and broccoli and mash with a potato masher or hand-held electric mixer( I prefer the electric).
Scoop broccoli mixture back into potato shells and top with remaining cheese sauce. Bake potatoes on greased baking sheet for 15 minutes at 400 degrees.

Chicken Noodle Soup

The other day I had a craving for chicken noodle soup. It was a strange craving considering I am not unwell or pregnant and it's now June. Oh well, I made soup anyways haha.

Chicken Noodle Soup

2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion
2 stalks celery + leaves
2 carrots
3 cloves garlic
8 cups chicken broth
2 bone-in skinless chicken breasts
1/2 tsp thyme
1 tsp oregano
2 bay leaves
2 cups cooked egg noodles

Finely dice onion, celery leaves and garlic. Chop celery stalks and carrots. Heat olive oil on medium low in a large stock pot. Add onion, celery stalks and leaves, garlic and carrots. Sweat vegetables for approximately 10-15 minutes until onions start to become translucent.

Add chicken breast to pot and cover with 4 cups of broth or until broth is just cover chicken. Add thyme, oregano and bay leaves. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 1 hour.

Remove chicken breasts from pot. On cutting board, remove meat from chicken breast, discard bones and place meat into pot. Remove bay leaves from pot. Add remaining chicken broth and egg noodles. Heat until desired temperature has been reached; approximately 10 minutes.

Enjoy!

Blueberries and Baby

The other night, while making dinner, my fiancé called to me to come look at our son's poop.( I know, what a way to start a blog post.) I left dinner to go examine this strange looking diaper. It was almost BLACK! So I did what most people do in this day and age and ask my good friend google about it. And the results.... Internal bleeding. I started to panic. It looked like coffee grounds so that's what I googled. The poop was very dark and left specks on his bum that were very hard to get off. I informed my fiancée of the information I found and we proceeding to get ready to go to the ER.

At the ER the triage nurse asked us a series of questions and I showed her the pooped filled diaper we were carrying around. One of the questions she asked: what did he have to eat today? Oh man he had blueberries, but I started reasoning that he has had blueberries before and this has never happened.

So the 3 of us settled ourselves in the waiting room for what will be a couple hour wait. Once comfortable I reexamined the diaper under the fluorescent hospital lighting. SHIT! Those little "coffee grounds" now look like seeds. Did I feed him too many blueberries this morning? I shared my epiphany to J(fiancé). He reexamined the diaper as I pointed out the seeds. Slowly I could see the look on his face as it dawned on him as well. CRAP! Are we now looking like some overly neurotic parents carrying around a shitty diaper, with a baby out past his bedtime?

We decided to stay and wait it out. We finally saw the dr and he agreed that the poop did look quite weird. He took a swab to test for blood but was hopeful my son just ate too many blueberries. (The doctor was very nice about everything and reassured us we weren't being silly). The results came back... Negative! Of course I was absolutely thrilled the only thing that was wrong was my son ate too many blueberries but I couldn't help but feel a little silly.

photo credit: Mr. T in DC via photopin cc

Tried and True Recipes

I love trying new recipes! I mean lets face it dinner would get pretty boring and tedious if I were to use the same recipes over and over. I also love trying new variations on recipes I have yet to perfect in hopes of finding "the one". This post, however, is about the recipes that are perfect <3. They are recipes I will make over and over again because they are absolutely delicious and leave nothing left to be desired. Now this is not a complete list of all the amazing recipes I have tried but a short version of the recipes that have become staples in my kitchen.

Roast Sticky Chicken-Rotisserie Style

The first time I tried this recipe my fiancé exclaimed "this is the best chicken I've had!" and I agree. This is my go to recipe for a whole chicken roasted in the oven. It is flavourful and so tender and moist. The grocery store chickens can't compare.

California Chicken and Vegetables

Now this recipe has become a staple for a couple reasons. The first reason... It's delicious! This recipe is also super simple, quick and versatile. I change the vegetables in the recipe to whatever fresh vegetables I have in my fridge and it always turns out perfect!

Peanut Butter Bars

Mmmmmm what a perfect combination chocolate and peanut butter is that it's no wonder it is so popular. These bars never last long in my fridge. They become a breakfast snack, a lunch snack, a supper snack and a midnight snack. Knowing neither of us can resist every time we open the fridge, I only  make them when I know company will help us eat some.

Fried Chicken with Creamy Gravy

I tried this recipe for the first time almost 10 years ago (wow I can't believe it's been that long). Even with my lack of cooking experience then, this recipe turned out great. In the past few years I have tried many different fried chicken recipes but I always come back to this one.

Sunday Dinner on the Grill

The smell of this dinner cooking on the grill is beyond words! I swear my neighbours must've been drooling as well. This is my go to recipe when I really want to impress my guests. It is without a doubt the best pot roast I've had.

Frosting That Will Get You Hugs

This is the frosting recipe I've spent years trying to find. Traditional buttercream is too sweet for me so I was always on the lookout for a frosting that is lighter tasting but still has that wonderful creamy texture. After reading the recipe, I was a bit hesitant but upon tasting it for the first time I was in love.

Cilantro Lime Pork Chops

In my household we eat a lot of chicken breasts so I try to incorporate different meat in our meals. Tonight I grilled Cilantro Lime Pork Chops. I love lime! I even love the smell of it. Weird... I know.

Cilantro Lime Pork Chops
Makes 4 servings

4 pork chops
3 limes, juice of
1/2 cup canola oil
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 tbsp cilantro, minced
1 tbsp parsley, minced
1 tsp chili flakes
4 green onions, diced

Combine all of the above ingredients in a ziplock bag. Refrigerate for 4 hours. Remove pork chops from marinade and cook over medium heat for 15 minutes or until they are done. Enjoy!

It's a Baby Sleep Miracle

So my son's sleeping habits have been like a crazy never ending roller coaster ride. Some days I wake up feeling refreshed and with a bright new outlook on life and then there are the other days where I wake up feeling like I didn't get an hour of sleep all night. It all started when he was about 4.5 months. Up until then he had been gradually sleeping longer and longer. But then it all went crazy.

My poor bum was hospitalized (that's another long story). That's when his sleeping habits went from good to downright horrible. While we were in the hospital I was completely understanding as to why he was having trouble sleeping. It was a scary time, there were strange people checking on him at all hours of the night, we were in a strange place and some nights he was unable to breastfeed which really upset both of us. We finally were able to come home and weeks passed and there was still no improvement.

Christmas Eve came and we went to bed early, knowing we were in for a long night. Christmas Day I woke up refreshed... What happened?... He slept 8 hours!!!! It was a Christmas miracle! Without a doubt the best Christmas present I received.

Since then his sleeping has been up and down. Sometimes I start thinking things are looking up and we are back into a great sleeping routine and it's all smooth sailing from here. Hahaha! How hopelessly naive I can be! Just when I start believing my optimistic hopes, my baby boy starts waking up every two hours again. When I think he's asleep and put him back in his crib he wakes back up crying the second his back touches his mattress. .:cry:. I could pull my hair out those nights. I now know why people use sleep deprivation as torture.

So the miracle tonight?.... I don't do much in the way of sleep training. I brush his teeth, go upstairs and try to nurse him to sleep. I use the word try because it usually takes two tries. The first time he refuses and decides its playtime upstairs. In order to obstain from the screaming that could follow from repetitively trying to nurse him or putting him in his crib, we go back downstairs. We play until I know he's absolutely tired and we try again.

I am getting the point I swear! So tonight we waited an half hour later for bedtime (it was too hot upstairs). Again he refused to nurse insisting on play time instead. I put him in his crib and let him "play". Well mid "playing" he would lay down for half a second like he was going to sleep. That gave me hope so I let him continue to monkey around in his crib and he did without fussing(he usually starts crying to get out). Well eventually the laying down got longer and longer until he laid his head down and FELL ASLEEP! No nursing, no rocking, nothing! He fell asleep in his crib on his own for the first time in his 10.5 months of life! A BABY MIRACLE! Oh how I love to celebrate the small victories! I hope this story gives all the desperate mothers with bags under their eyes hope for the future.

photo credit: Jug Jones via photopin cc

It's BBQ Weather! Hawaiian Grilled Chicken

Wowza it's another hot day! It's 28 degrees, 34 with the humidex. It's full blown summer weather in May! It leaves me kinda thinking about turning on my central air... but I refuse to so early in the season.

The heat is giving me a good excuse to let my son run around sans clothes. What's cuter than a naked baby with all their chubby little rolls?

In this heat kinda heat I rarely turn my oven on. I make a few exceptions for recipes I have to try and favourites but that's only if my central air on. So it's time to try new summer grilling recipes!

Tonight I have made Hawaiian Grilled Chicken from Six Sisters' Stuff . They have fantastic family friendly recipes.

I started with the marinade. I will only be marinating 3 chicken breast so I cut the recipe for the marinade in half. I combined 4 chopped green onions, half a cup of low sodium soy sauce, half a can of coconut milk, 3/4 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup water, 3 cloves of garlic and 2 tsp sesame oil. The original recipe calls for 1 tsp but I love sesame oil so I added lots. I left out the white onion because I didn't feel like only using 1/4 of an onion. I combined all ingredients in a large ziplock bag and then added the chicken. Even with cutting the recipe in half there was still plenty of marinade.

Marinating chicken breast doesn't look too appealing but trust me the end result is fantastic!)

I marinated the chicken breast for about 5 hours. I cooked the chicken on low heat on the bbq. I kept the breast on one side of the bbq and had the heat on the other side on high. I like to grill certain things this way in order to ensure the inside is fully cooked without making the outside too crisp. That method works perfect for this recipe because if the direct heat under the chicken was too high the outside would burn due to the sugar in the marinade.

I cooked the chicken until it was no longer pink inside. I wished I timed it for everyone :-( sorry! I would say no longer than 20 minutes. And.... The the end result.....

It was fantastic! The recipe is definitely a keeper!