Dinner on a Hot Night...

This post has been brought to you by Multi-Tasking Mommy.

I don't know about you, but I cannot stand cooking dinner in this humidity! I don't want to run the oven because it will heat the house. I don't want to cook on the stove top because it will heat me and I certainly don't want to bbq because it will let heat in the house and I just cannot stand being outside in the humidity right now (I'm 27 weeks preggers).

Ok, enough whining about the heat....

The lesser of evils for me would be cooking on the stove top. I enjoy cooking pancakes with fresh berries and what better time of year to do so than right now.

Here is my pancake recipe that I love to make. You can even make it healthier by switching half of the flour for whole wheat flour.

Yummy Pancakes
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 Tbsp sugar
2 cups milk
2 eggs
fresh or frozen berries (I love blueberries in mine)

Mix dry ingredients and wet ingredients in separate bowls. Add them together and mix until almost smooth.

You know how to cook pancakes, don't you? The trick is to wait until you see bubbles forming on the top and that is when you know it's time to add your berries and flip!

I like to serve pancakes with yogurt and fresh fruit on the side.

Mmmmm....breakfast for dinner! One of my favs.

Hey Good Lookin, Whatcha Got Cookin?

I'm sure there are people out there that have more then a golf ball sized space left for their stomach....I don't happen to be one of them. I have NO space for food and let me tell you it is NO fun. It's no fun to make an entire plateful of s'mores in your toaster oven only to discover you can eat TWO before feeling STUFFED. You eat a third because you think "I'll make the room" but you don't and you end up with a stomach ache.

So the question I have for the group tonight is IF you had a golf ball sized stomach to fill what would you fill it with? We're talking ANYTHING here people - what you got?

Calling all helpers!

Cass and I are both teetering very close to giving birth; hence, why the site has slowed down its posting recently.

We're asking for guest bloggers out there to help us out a bit to keep things flowing. Have a fun summer recipe you want to share? Feel strongly about a particular food or health topic (for instance, I'm trying to cut out artificial sweeteners - easier said than done!)? Have any vegetarian recipes for the Summer O' Meat? Just love to talk about food? Have a food rant? Favorite restaurant?

Let us know! Email Us Here!

Irresistible Strawberry Muffins

This recipe has been brought to you by Multi-Tasking Mommy!

This time of year, many of us find ourselves overwhelmed by strawberries taking over our refrigerator after strawberry picking. This year, my 3 year old daughter and I went picking. We picked a huge bucket of berries (well, admittedly, she did most of the work as I am pregnant and wasn't loving bending over too much).

We got home and she helped me wash the strawberries and then we placed them on tea towels all over the kitchen to let them dry, WELL!

Once dried, we placed some berries on paper towels in layers in a rubbermaid container, we pureed some berries and we fast froze the rest on a cookie sheet, later to be transferred to a ziplock bag to be used for future smoothies or baking.

Oh, and we may have enjoyed a really yummy Strawberry Mocktail along the way :)

Anyhow, here is an amazing "dessert" muffin recipe to help you use up your strawberries. It is a yummy one--beware, the muffins won't make it into a container!

Irresistible Strawberry Muffins
2 cups All Purpose Flour
3 1/2 tsp. Baking Powder
1/2 tsp. Salt
1/2 cup Granulated Sugar
1 Egg Lightly Beaten
1 cup Milk
1/3 cup Melted Butter
1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
1 cup Chopped Strawberries

Preheat over to 375

In a large bowl, mix together, flour, baking powder, salt & sugar & chopped strawberries. Stir well.

In a separate bowl, combine the egg, milk, vanilla extract and melted butter. Mix well.

Add liquid mixture to the dry ingredients, stirring just until moist. If you over mix this batter, your muffins will turn out to be tough.

Sprinkle muffins with a sugar/cinnamon mixture.
Bake at 375 degrees for 20 to 22 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

All this time it was just a little flour?

Each week I try to introduce variety into our meals. 2 nights a week we have chicken, 1 night we have red meat, 1 night we go vegetarian with it and then 2 (sometimes 3) nights we'll have something in the seafood family and then we go out one night.

Whenever we go out the FH will usually get a piece of fish and usually it's pan seared and it's got this nice golden crusty outside. Now I'm good with seafood - I know my way around marinades and grilling but this pan sear I could not do. How did they get it to brown like that? How? So I cornered a chef friend of mine a couple of weeks ago and I said "Jordan, you must tell me HOW does this brown crusty pan seared goodness GET on the seafood". And because he's nice and not temperamental like some chef's I know he actually shared the secret.

It's flour.

No joke. Just a little flour. First you get your pan good and hot, THEN add a touch of oil - roll it around the pan so it coats the pan perfectly. Then take a little flour and season it with whatever you like and then coat your seafood with it and then add to your hot oiled pan. That's it. Crusty goodness - perfection browned. I've used this technique on scallops (seasoned with paprika, salt and pepper) and the FH was Wow'd then I did it with salmon and once the salmon was to it's perfectly medium-rare ish doneness I added some teryaki sauce and it carmalized onto the brown goodness so perfectly that I actually can't wait to eat it again tonight.

Am I the only one that didn't know how to do this? Was this featured the day that I missed Home Economics? Do they still teach home economics?

How I ate an entire Blueberry Coffee Cake

I have a very true love for the Blueberry. It's true and deep and fulfilling...everything love should be. So when I came across a recipe in Cooking Light for Blueberry Coffee Cake I thought that I may have just died a little because surly this is heaven.

Things about this recipe that I struggled with, changed or loved:

• Buttermilk. Okay, I went and bought it but they come in ONE size - what else does one make with Buttermilk. Please send ideas.
• I used my Whole Wheat Pastry Flour instead of All Purpose and I have to say it was a perfect swap and didn't change the texture or taste at all for the worse. I totally recommend this substitution to up the fiber.
• Turbinado Sugar - I'm sorry but I have no idea what this is - I used brown sugar...it did the job.
• It says a 9 inch round baking pan. I guess this is different then a cake pan - because it wouldn't have fit in a cake pan so I ended up using my large round pyrex and then a small round pyrex.
• I ate the small round pyrex in one sitting..it was just that good. And you know I'll admit to you that I used some butter on it. Not light butter either, none of this I can't believe butter - I went full on Paula Dean butter on this thing and it was worth it. The following picture is the only proof that the small coffee cake every existed.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• I'm freezing the large one for breakfast for after our baby arrives and we'll have people over and I can look like I have my shit together (hahaha, the illusion is so pretty).
• With my substituions on the flour it takes the Calories to 260 the Fat stays at 9.9 and the Fiber goes up to 4.5g. This makes this a 5 point breakfast

A Man's Meatloaf

Being on maternity leave affords me a few useless hours each day. I am not a "fluff" TV watcher, so if I'm not reading, I find myself flipping between TLC, the Food Network, and Discovery.

Last week, I saw Guy Fieri make a meatloaf that looked artery-clogging enough to be perfect for a Father's Day dinner - Cornbread Stuffed Meatloaf.

I won't lie to you - this meal took a lot of prep, especially if you use all fresh ingredients and don't buy the pre-chopped stuff. But, the end product was so worth it. It was moist and delicious, and the textures of the cornbread stuffing in the meat was fantastic. I didn't alter the recipe at all, but in retrospect, I would have used a little less thyme, and maybe a little bit of plain breadcrumbs in the meat mixture to hold it together better. Though incredibly tasty, the slices kind of fell apart once you cut into them.

What you need:



Stuffing:
2 large or 5 small corn muffins (2 to 3 cups), crumbled by hand
1/2 pound bacon, chopped
1 red bell pepper, diced
1 tablespoon seeded and minced jalapeno
2 tablespoons minced garlic
2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
Salt and pepper
1 egg, beaten

Meatloaf:
3 tablespoons olive oil, plus 3 tablespoons
1 cup diced red onion
1 tablespoon seeded and minced jalapeno
2 tablespoons minced garlic
2 pounds ground beef
1 pound ground pork
2 teaspoons sea salt
2 teaspoons freshly cracked black pepper
2 tablespoons chopped parsley leaves
1 tablespoon chopped thyme leaves
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1/4 cup ketchup
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
2 eggs
6 ounces sliced Cheddar

What you do:

Stuffing:
Preheat oven to 275 to 300 degrees F.

Spread the cornbread crumbs on a sheet pan and let toast for about 20 minutes, or until lightly toasted and dry. Turn oven up to 350 degrees F.

In a skillet brown the bacon until crispy. Drain. To the same skillet add the red pepper, jalapeno, and garlic and cook until soft.

In a bowl, combine the cornbread crumbs, bacon, and vegetable mixture. Add parsley and salt and pepper, to taste. Add the egg and mix thoroughly.

Meatloaf:
In medium skillet over medium heat add oil, red onions, jalapeno and garlic. Cook until caramelized, remove from heat and let cool.

In a bowl combine the meat, salt, pepper, parsley, thyme, mustard, ketchup Worcestershire, and eggs, cooled onion mixture, and thoroughly mix.

Divide the meat mixture in half. Shape 1 half into a rectangle, creating a canoe, and then loosely fill with stuffing. Do not pack it in.

Use the other half of the meat to fully enclose the stuffing.

Transfer to the oven and bake for 1 1/2 hours, or until internal temperature reaches 145 degrees F. Layer the cheese slices on top and bake for another 5 minutes to melt the cheese. Remove from oven and let rest for about 10 minutes. Cut into thick slices and serve.