Western Flair, Rocky Mountain Air, Let's Cook
My two Webers are definitely front and center stage this weekend. I plan to grill, then I’m going to grill and then I think I’ll grill some more. Let’s take a look at this grilled shrimp recipe.
First out of the chutes is Glazed Grilled Shrimp. I wanted to keep it light on Friday evening, as lunch that day was a big old heavy ham and pumpernickel sandwich. So serving up a side of my leftover Pasta Salad and skewers of Glazed Shrimp sounded PERfect.
This is a wonderful pot luck, crowd pleasing Summer pasta salad. Salty bacon and sweet onions…always a winner, chewy cheese tortellini with a fresh crunch of broccoli, colored with red tomatoes, with a creamy sweet and tangy vinegar dressing = yum.
Los Olivos Cafe Chicken Couscous Salad…made at home. Have you seen the movie “Sideways”? It’s one of those movies that you either love or hate.
We happen to fall into the “love it” category so a few years ago we headed to the Santa Barbara area for combination bird watching and wine tasting trip. Yup, we did the Sideways Wine Tour that led us through the Santa Ynez Valley and beyond.
Whenever I go back to Kansas to visit family, you can bet I find time to visit Smith’s Market Hutchinson, KS.
Located on historic South Main Street in Hutchinson, warm and welcoming, Smith’s market is so unique that I don’t even know where to begin. Smith’s Market is a contemporary version of an old country market and one can definitely spend a lot of time browsing as it is chock full of unique items from floor to ceiling, nook to cranny…and there’s cranny to nook.
In addition to its beautiful produce aisle, and array of specialty foods, there’s guaranteed to be a surprise around every corner. I took lots of eye candy photos, so why don’t you join me for a photographic tour of a great little store.
It’s time to showcase some of those great recipes I’ve found by reading your blogs. Again, so many bookmarked, so little time. :-) Hurrah for bloggers and thank you for sharing your delicious and tempting offerings. It’s a great lineup…so let’s get started.
First of all, I found this Mexican style chicken burger over at MOTHER RIMMY’S. Kristi, this looked wonderful and I couldn’t resist giving it a try. Afterall, its list of ingredients was calling our names. You can see her original post for this recipe HERE. With a name like, Spicy Mexican Chicken And Avocado Burger…it automatically made its way to our table. Thanks for this recipe Kristi…it is now in my database.
Stephanie over at PLAIN CHICKEN is constantly tempting us with wonderful dishes and as soon as I saw her post for these sticky buns, I knew I had to give them a try. Good-gaaaREEF is this good. Stephanie, thanks so much for sharing this wonderful, melt in your mouth, ooey gooey goodness treat. Can’t wait for brunch guests to swoon over this one. For her original post take a look HERE. This is now in my database as Steph’s Over Night Sticky Buns. Thank you my dear.
How about Fried Goat Cheese on Bibb Lettuce with Lemon Poppyseed Dressing…let me repeat myself, “how about fried goat cheese on bibb lettuce with lemon poppyseed dressing” I mean c’mon who can resist such a wonderful sounding salad. I made this the very night I saw it posted over at CINNAMON SPICE AND EVERYTHING NICE. I have only one word for this…Fabulous! To take a look at the original post and a great photo take a lookHERE. I served this with some Tequila Lime Shrimp skewers. YUM. Thank you for this Cinnamon Girl!
And last but not least, how about a Strawberry Pie? Big tease Larry over at Big Dude’s Eclectic Ramblings has been waving torturous photos of a wonderful Strawberry Pie at us for over a week. I made time to give it a try. I adore this Summery easy dessert. You can take a look at Larry’s original post here. This is a traveling recipe making the trip from Mary’s blog DEEP SOUTH DISH, to LARRY’S BLOG in Smoky Mountains and finally to my Denver kitchen. This will be a great “go-to” dessert when company is scheduled for dinner.
Now for the winner of my cookbook 1st blogiversary give away. Using Random.org and assigning everyone a number…the resulting winner is Beren over at Roti-n-rice. Please send your snail mail address to lannisam at gmail dot com. I’ll get that Colorado cookbook in the mail.
Hurrah For Bloggers…a standing ovation…
Thanks For The Great Dishes
Fried Chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy with a side of green beans. This is the first meal I ever learned how to prepare.
I know my chicken frying. A third-generation Kansas farm girl, I grew up on my mother’s family recipe for fried chicken. On the farm, my father would kill a chicken, my mother would dress it, cut it up and promptly place it in a large pot of salted water to brine for a coupe of hours. This ended up on our dinner table several times a week during wheat harvest when we had a table full of hired hands helping my father with the farm work. By the way, dinner was the meal served at mid-day, supper was our night-time meal.
One year ago, on May 16, I said, ”Hello world”, clicked the “publish” button and Mangos, Chili and Z entered the world. I was nervous, I was excited and I remember checking in about every 15 minutes to see if anyone out there had read imy initial post.
Finally, my good friend Carol Grape noticed it gasping for its first breath, slapped it on the back with a view and a comment, and that’s all it took to get the madness moving on fast forward.
I’ve had more fun with this blog. Thanks to all of you for following me, all the comments and all the inspiration from your great blogs. With 150 posts under my belt, I most certainly look forward to year two!
Post #1 content involved a spring bird watching trip to Northeast Colorado and coincidence has it that we headed out to the Pawnee Grasslands on the same date this year.
I know this doesn’t look like much, but please believe me, this grilled lamb salad recipe is “much”!
Remember your first bicycle? I think it must have been about 3rd grade when I received my beautiful purple Schwinn. I remember how uneasy I felt the first time my dad let go of the handle bars while running along side of me, for my first solo trip without the training wheels. I remember my mom watching nervously and wringing her hands. Of course I promptly fell in the dirt, and with the help of Band-Aids and determination eventually became a bicycle riding fool adding flashy purple tassels on the handle grips and clothes-pinning baseball cards in the spokes to make a lot of racket when I went real fast.
So what does this have to do with food?
Dinner last night was supposed to be skewered grilled shrimp and tilapia finished with some jalapeno butter for dipping, but at 6:30 when I decided I was starving and had better start dinner the recipe instructed that I marinade the seafood for at least an hour. Don’t you hate when that happens?
Plan B: Dig around in the refrigerator, fry up some corn tortillas, top with some warmed up green chili and nestle a poached egg in on top.
I had just started my 2nd glass of wine and feeling a false sense of security, threw caution to the wind and decided to ditch the egg poaching pods.
That’s right, no more training wheels. I boiled some water, added some vinegar, got the water swirling like a tornado and slid in the raw egg. It worked like a charm and I didn’t even fall in the dirt. No Band-Aids were necessary.
Bye Bye green silicone egg poaching pod training wheels. Bye Bye odd-shaped poached eggs…forever!
Don’t they even kind of look like training wheels?
As you can imagine, I’m completely tickled with myself. So tickled that I have to post way too many unnecessary photos.
So with all that said, Happy Mother’s day to all. I feel a perfect celebratory weekend has already begun. The wine we opened last night was a delicious Joseph Swan Russian River Valley Pinot…yum! After my poached egg victory we watched The Blind Side. What a great movie to kick off Mother’s Day. LOVED it.
We’re brunching out this morning with the kids. Tonight I’ll start the marinade early enough to have my grilled shrimp and tilapia skewers. It couldn’t have worked out better since yesterday was chilly and predicted temperatures at grilling time this evening will be in the 70′s
For fun, in the comment section, why don’t you share a bicycle “incident” memory. Whether it be a proud decoration, or a stunt that brought mom running with Band-aids and kisses.
Salute to Moms everywhere, and may your poached eggs be perfectly swirled and runny.
A BLT Cheddar Burger in the middle of the week? How do I justify that? I usually save such indulgences for the weekend, serving healthier fare during the week.
Justification #1: Serve it with a beautiful Citrus Salad (recipe below). By the way, that upper left pink stuff is an overly-ripe grapefruit that I mangled trying to get it sliced.
