Our Bright Idea

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

In a Pickle

I love some pickled red onions and with some pork tacos I planned on making for dinner on Tuesday I thought these could be a fantastic topper!

First I used my OXO handheld mandolin to slice 2 red onions very thinly.

Once all were sliced I then separated the rings out.

I boiled a pot of water & quickly blanched the onions moving them into an ice bath to stop them from cooking any further after.

Next, in a pot I added in 1 1/2 cups of White Vinegar with 1/2 cup of sugar, 2 slices of fresh ginger, 5 whole cloves, 1 bay leaf, a cinnamon stick and a dash of red pepper flakes.

While it was starting to heat up I drained the ice bath from the onions and let the water drip out from them.

Once the mixture came up to a full boil I let it go for about a minute.

After the minute was up I turned the burner down & let the mixture simmer for 5 minutes.

Once the 5 minutes was up, I went ahead and added it all into a plastic bowl (don't use metal, it can end up making everything taste funny, something to do with reacting to the vinegar) and placed it in the fridge where it should keep for about a few weeks!

Here are the results, crunchy, tart & delicious!

Monday, August 8, 2011

Sunday Dinner, Part Dos

Here are all of the veggies we had with our dinner Sunday. With some edits I'll be doing all of these again!

I'll do the one I forgot to take pictures of first :)

Caprese Salad

First I put about a cup of balsamic vinegar on the stove to reduce, I brought it to a boil and let it reduce by half whisking the entire time (technically the whisking was Tim's job). Once it was reduced I pulled it off the heat and let it cool a bit. While Tim was whisking away I was cutting a container (all but 1/4c) of cherry tomatoes in half and slicing up a ball (is that is what its called?) of mozzarella to be the same size as the tomatoes. I drizzled them with some olive oil, added in some salt and pepper and poured on the balsamic reduction. After chiffonading (SAT word) the basil I added it in and mixed it all up. Here is the final result!

Baked Parmesan Tomatoes

First I sliced up two tomatoes into six slices and placed them into a greased casserole dish. I salted, peppered and garlic powdered them before drizzling with olive oil.

I stacked on about a tablespoon of grated parmesan cheese and added some basil before placing them into the oven with the chicken for about 15 minutes (at 475). I think next time I may mix the parmesan with a bit of mayo (its my inner Paula speaking) before placing on the tomatoes but they were still pretty good as is.

Stuffed Zucchini

First we washed the zucchini & chopped the ends off before slicing them in half.

Tim then scooped out the insides making sure not to get too close to the edges or the bottom and placed them into a greased casserole dish.

I chopped up the insides of the zucchini and mixed it with a 1/4 cup of chopped cherry tomatoes, 1/4 tsp of curry powder, 2 tbsp of sour cream, 1/4 tsp of salt, 1 tsp of thyme and a little bit of pepper. I think next time I'll up it to 1/2 tsp of curry powder and throw in a few red pepper flakes to give it a little kick.

I spooned the mixture back into the zucchini boats and topped it with parmesan cheese. I placed it into the 475 degree oven with the chicken for about 20 minutes. Here is the final product!

It was all pretty delicious and will be a repeat down the road!

Sunday Dinner, Part Uno

Ok, so technically its Monday, but here is what I made for dinner last night when Tim's brother, his wife & their 1 year old daughter came to dinner. We've planned out this week so that we can use leftovers for the lunch the next day and I'm really excited about my lunch today! Saturday included a big trip to Trader Joe's for the marjority of our food & Whole Foods for anything we couldn't find at Trader Joe's.

Tonight ended up actually being a combination of 2 meals we had planned for this week as we were asked to go to dinner at a friend's house on Wednesday. That actually worked out pretty well as I think we all would've been pretty hungry still had we just had the original meal I planned! The Bright boys know how to put down some food....

First up, Lemon Rosemary Roasted Chicken with Red Skinned Potatoes

First I washed the potatoes, super important step since you don't know who/what has touched them before you.

Next I chopped the potatoes, and half of an onion, drizzled about 2 tablespoons of olive oil and zested a lemon over them.

I chopped up about a tablespoon & a half of rosemary and mixed it all together

I placed it all in the bottom of my roasting pan & placed the rack on top.

Next I prepped the ingredients to stuff the chicken. I quartered the remaining half of the onion, halved 2 lemons & pulled out the rest of the pack of Rosemary I had purchased.

I stuffed as much of it as I could into the chicken (all but one lemon) and squeezed the remaining lemon onto the potatoes and the top of the chicken. (If this is your first time working with a whole chicken, please be sure to pull out the bag of giblets :) )

This was placed into a 475 degree oven for an hour and here is the final product! Just make sure to remove all of the insides before carving it.

The final potatoes & onions, delish!

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Recipe Box Shower Gift

So one of my oldest friends, Lauren, is getting married in about 2 months and the rest of the bridesmaids & I are throwing her a recipe shower at the end of the month. We're each getting a gift for her and since I'm doing the invitations (we're sending out recipe cards for people to fill out & bring to the shower) it was only fitting that I would get her a recipe box too. I think I'm pretty safe on posting this as I'm about 95% sure she doesn't read this blog. I've been searching for the past month and haven't found ANYTHING that I really like for her so I finally bought one that I was a fan of the shape but not as much of the look, which I can fix.

Its bamboo & kind of blah looking but when you flip up the lid it has a nice little ridge where you can put the card you are referencing while you cook.

I gave it a light sanding and went over with one coat of copper craft paint, it was the kind of paint that comes in the $0.50 tube at Hobby Lobby.

You could still see the wood grain so after it dried I added another coat of copper giving me the look I was going for.

I placed some stickers saying "LHK's Recipes" on the front to protect it from picking up the next color I planned to layer on top and lightly coated them with the copper color hoping to help prevent bleed of the paint.

I went over the top of everything with a very light sage green color. (the straight pins are placed in to keep the top from sticking to the rest of the box)

After that coat dried for a bit I added another coat to it so only light streaks of the copper were showing through and while it was still wet I started pulling off the letter stickers. (apologies for the terrible picture!)

After pulling off all of the stickers I found that I had a little bleed under the stickers so I let it finish drying.

Once everything dried up I touched up the parts where the green had bled into the copper. Here is the final piece, hope she likes it!

Monday, August 1, 2011

Butterflies in My Stomach

So I'm a little nervous. I've always thought about making things to sell but never really committed to it. You may remember this post of the Crayon Art I made for my cousin. Well it received such a fantastic reaction at the shower that I decided to finally just suck it up & try my hand at peddling my wares. Here goes nothing!

So here is a reminder of what you can get when you visit my shop:

See, they really do make excellent baby shower gifts! Or for that special teacher in your life? Please be sure to tell all of your friends so I don't feel like a loser. (did the guilt trip work? :) )

Thanks all!

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Where We've Been

So although the last few months have been filled with chemo, dr appts, work and lots of other not as thrilling things, we've also managed to pack in some really fun times as well.

We had a HUGE snowfall back in January that is the largest we've had in a very long time.

That turned into an ice skating rink on all of the roads that lasted for the next couple of days due to the state running out of salt...seriously (we don't have the manpower/equipment for snows like this down here!).

My office put together an incredible benefit for Tim at a local restaurant where the turnout was overwhelming to say the least.

Some girls on my team at work also put together a bake sale at the office on Valentine's Day. We've got some incredibly talented folks here who can also bake like nobody's business!