Pinterest Recipe Success!

please excuse my sad iPhone pictures. My lost the charger to my camera. 

I have to share this with you.
I made this recipe tonight.

Chicken and Sun Dried Tomato Sauce

And it was AMAZING. 

Even Eveyln liked it! Which is awesome because she's been very picky this week. 

The only thing I did different was I added about double the garlic, and I used home made turkey stock instead of chicken broth. And I may have used a little more butter than the recipe called for. 

Served with fresh crunchy bread and steamed veggies.
I will make this again for sure.
The sauce would also go good with pork chops, or Paul suggested on pasta. 

Again, Check her out:

Damn Delicious: Chicken with Sun Dried Tomato Cream Sauce

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Gin Mule (or Gin-Gin Mule) Recipe

In today's installation of Operation Empty the Pantry, I bring you the gin mule. 

There are lots of recipes for this drink when you google it. If you found me through google I hope you like what you see here. 

It's a pretty simple drink, and quite refreshing. I would call it a summer drink, although I discovered it's parent drink (the Moscow Mule) the winter. 

I got a little artsy with the photography

1 1/2 oz Gin

1/4 squeezed lime

6oz of Cock & Bull Ginger Beer 

ice

combine in a rocks/higball glass and enjoy

I have seen most recipes add muddled mint and simple syrup, but I think those make it too complex. This is simple, flavorful, and goes down easy. It's not too sweet, the gin is very subtle. 

Maybe without all that shit mine isn't a real Gin Mule, but it's delicious, and I suggest you at least try it before you add more sugar and the mint. 

Just as good (maybe better) thank the vodka drink it's modeled after.

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Okinawa Candy

During our time on Okinawa we did lots of sightseeing, and lots of eating candy and treats. One of our favorite places for both was the Nago Pineapple Park (official link). It was a lot of fun for visitors, I have a very brief post of pictures here, but more or less you go through the pineapple farm on a remote driven car and you listen to a short lesson about pineapples, and then you enter into the winery. You walk through the winery and you can taste wine and vinegar all made from fresh pineapple. You follow into a little store with cosmetics and then into a room with fresh pineapple, to buy and eat, and pineapple cakes, candies, all kinds of candies not just pineapple ones, lots of touristy stuff, bags t-shirts, stuffed animals. And that leads me to the point of this post. On of our favorite candies while in Okinawa was Shikuwasa Hi Chew. So shikuwasa is like a key lime, sort of.

Photo Credit: Naturally DIY

They go great on just about anything. They are a bit sweeter than limes. When in season they are used frequently in Okinawa, and even out of season you can find them bottled in juices all over the island. 

But we are here to talk about candy. So back to the Pineapple Park ( OkiHai link), well this was the only place Paul and I ever saw Shikuwasa Hi-Chew, so every time we went we bought enough to last us until the next time.  Hi-Chew is a chewy candy, like starburst.

Photo Credit: Ilubgrub

Since we are not making bi-yearly trips to the pineapple park anymore, it has been YEARS since we have had this candy. I have frequently put feelers out to get some, but not many people frequent the pineapple park, especially long term residents like most of my friends over there. Recently a SoCal blogger and her husband moved over there. Perhaps you have heard of her, Elizabeth over at The Young Retiree, if not go check her out! Well I mentioned the candy to her one night, and she knew what I was talking about, she had picked some up at a local mall! I was so excited! I asked her if she could send me a couple boxes, and she so kindly did!

Happiness doesn't even begin to describe the excitement of having these candies again. Thank you so much Elizabeth, you are awesome! This is truly the best flavor. We are rationing them now. Hopefully when we run out Elizabeth will send me more!

Baked Avocado egg

I have seen this all over pinterest and a couple facebook friends have made it, so I thought I would give it a try. Avocado and Eggs, two of my favorite foods, what could possibly go wrong? 

I read these two recipes for my inspiration: All Recipes Baked Avocado Egg and Fit Sugar Baked Egg Avocado. They were the first two hits on google, and really I was mostly looking for baking temp and time. 

So I prepped my avocado, put in my egg, and popped it in the oven. 425* for 15 min (my egg actually took about 18m to set) 

topped it with Mortons seasoning salt, pepper and sriracha

Meh. 

It wasn't good. I think my problem was the warm avocado. That was kind of gross actually. I tried all the hot sauce in the world and I still struggled to choke down the warm avocado. 

I think I'll stick to For The Love Of Cooking's tried and true Mini Frittatas when I want baked eggs.

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CoCo Ichibanya!

Before we even arrived in California, I had plans to head to Irvine, CA to go to two awesome places. The first I'll tell you about is CoCo Ichibanya. 

This is a curry joint that we frequented while in Okinawa. I am not sure what the draw of CoCo's is, we used to joke that they put addictive drugs in the curry. A lot of people don't really like it, or at least don't love it the first time, but you find yourself craving it later, and like that you are hooked. While we lived on Okinawa it was usually hangover food, or "i really don't feel like cooking and I want something spicy we can pickup and bring home" 

I think I am the only person who doesn't like these things, pickled radish or something

Cuttlefish Curry
(It's actually squid in the states, but we called it cuttlefish in Japan)

Yummy! 

she loved it so much I couldn't get her to hold still

If you are in the area of Irvine, California, or around the LA area, you should step in for a bite! 

http://www.ichibanyausa.com/location.html

High Altitude Corned Beef & Cabbage

I loved Corned Beef and cabbage, no matter what the holiday. It's one of my favorite meals. I like to buy a couple right after St. Patricks day and freeze them for later in the year. I am a bit sad that this year I will not be able to stock up because we are getting ready to move. 

We were well above sea level when we moved to Montana, but only the last year that we have lived in Butte, have we been "High - Altitude". We about 6500 feet in the hills above the city. I have found cooking has become quite the pain in the ass. Everything takes longer, and most everything is dry. I don't think I have made a successful roast since we moved here. Even in the crock pot things dry out faster because the air is thinner up here. 

A couple corned beefs ago I did a brown sugar/mustard dry rub and it was amazing. I modified it a little this year because I don't have any mustard in my fridge, only dry mustard. 

(all ingredients are estimates, you can do more or less depending on the size of your corned beef)

3 1/2 pound pre-packaged corned beef

rub-

1/4 cup of brown sugar

1 tbsp pepper

1/2 tbsp dry mustard powder

dash of celery salt

packet of stuff that came with your corned beef

mix all the above ingredients in a bowl.

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees

Place corned beef in a baking dish fat side up

squeeze about 2-3 tbsp of honey on the fat side of your corned beef and then sprinkle your rub on top of this, and then pat it down. You want to cover almost all the fatty tissue with your rub, you can go over the edges if you want, I didn't. 

after 2 hours I reduced the temperature to 300

cover your dish with lid or foil and place in oven for 3 1/2- 4 hours.

at 3 hours I added some small potatoes and raised the heat back to 325.

at 4 hours I added come cabbage wedges and placed back in the oven until they were soft (about 15-20 minutes)

Moscow Mule Drink Recipe

Well Operation Empty The Pantry has commenced. And we are working our way through numerous bottles of obscure liquors on top of our staples so we don't have to move alcohol when we pack up for Cali. 

So that brings us to todays drink of the night: Moscow Mule.


I learned of this drink visiting family that lives in Moscow, Idaho. That's why the name sticks out for me, I seriously thought, every time I heard it, that the drink was named for this town. But it's not. It's named from Russia, where vodka originates from. Some bartender, trying to get vodka to be the new thing in the 40's named the drink. But it's a damn good drink, no matter what it's named after.

I learned to love the drink when I found it served at our local distillery tasting room here in Butte, Headframe Spirits. It's a yummy little tasting room in uptown Butte, Mt. They distill the alcohol in a room adjacent to the tasting room, some days you can even watch the bottling process. All of the alcohol they sell are named from headframes that were once active in Butte's rich mining history. In the tasting room they offer a small number of mixed drinks from each different alcohol. Limit is 2 drinks a day, which is a shame because I could easily spend all afternoon there if I were allowed.

The Moscow mule is traditionally served in a copper mug, at least here in Montana. "Some say it's because the ingredients react to the copper making it more tasty, some say the copper makes it colder" (-box my copper mug came in) The cup sure does make it colder, and super delicious. I strongly recommend you find one if you are going to be drinking these. 

Moscow Mule:
1 1/2 oz Vodka

juice from 1/2 a lime (about 1/2 oz)

6oz of Ginger Beer ( I like Cock 'n Bull)

add to Copper Mug filled with ice and enjoy!
You can get a copper mug here
(if you can't find a copper mug, this is also great in a rocks or highball glass)

Baby Led Weaning

The other day I touched on Baby Led Weaning. I wanted to elaborate a little more on that. Many months ago we started our journey with baby led weaning (BLW) with asparagus.

Pretty much the basis of BLW is to let your child feed herself. They decided how much to eat, and when they are done eating. Part of the reason we went this way is that it is supposed to help grow kids with better eating habits, they like a wide variety of foods. They learn to feed themselves, they learn to stop when they are full, and they (supposedly) will be more apt to try new foods.

We rarely ever spoon fed Evelyn, for a short while we would feed her when she was eating pouched food, but now we just hand her the pouch and hope for the best. She is now pretty good with a spoon and shovels her yogurt into her mouth with only a little mess. Quite an improvement from when we first handed her the spoon and the bowl of yogurt.

much less mess, although the bowl and spoon have both been thrown to the dogs

 I also liked the idea because we didn't have to buy baby food (but we still keeps some pouches on hand). You feed the baby what you eat. Early on this was hard, how are you going to feed a baby a hamburger, or chicken noodle soup? Things have gotten easier with time, also our dinner choices are a little better, I think, because I take into mind the things that Evey can't  or shouldn't eat. The other day we had pizza, Evey had pizza too, if we have spaghetti, so does she. Sometimes we will still make poor meal choices, or we will eat something that she has no interest in, and those nights se will get a pouch of pureed food.

There is tons of information on BLW, and I am not an expert, If you are interested I strongly recommend the book Baby Led Weaning . There are also several facebook pages and websites out there with more information, and precautions you should take when feeding your baby solid food.
So far I am really pleased with her progress, even before she had teeth she has been eating things like chicken and veggies. She loves fruit, and recently discovered kiwi. She's not really a picky eater, one of her favorite meats is fish, of all shapes and sizes, halibut, cod, shrimp, yummy! I can't wait to get her out to California where we will have so much more food to choose from.

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Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

I love banana bread. I can easily eat the whole loaf in one day. Just banana bread, no butter, no anything else, just the bread. Yummm. 

Just a side note:

You know what's sad, those bananas, in the photo above, aren't the ones I used, they aren't over ripe. I collect mine in the freezer and I didn't have any "fresh-over-ripe" bananas when I made this, so my bananas are really ugly. Not photogenic at all. I used yellow ones in the picture because I was embarrassed at how ugly my bananas are.

seriously over ripe-previously frozen bananas

3-4 over ripe bananas

1 stick (1/2 cup) of room temp butter

2 room temp eggs

2 cups of flour

3/4 cup of brown sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp vanilla 

1/4 tsp cinnamon 

As many chocolate chips as you desire, I used about half a bag. 

(optional: a handful of white sugar for topping)

Preheat oven to 350*

Mix/mash your bananas and eggs together, add the butter and mix well. Next add brown sugar and vanilla. 

In a separate bowl combine  your dry ingredients, flour baking soda, salt and cinnamon.

Slowly add your dry ingredients to your wet, like a 1/2 cup at a time. You can just add all the dry but you risk getting flour all over your kitchen. 

Finally add your chocolate chips and put in a greased loaf pan.

Optional: sprinkle the top with white sugar to get a nice sugary crispy top.

Bake for about an hour (I am at high elevation so my cooking time is more than an hour, close to an hour and a half)

It's done once a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. 

sprinkled with sugar,
see the bananas I didn't really use

delicious yummyness 

and done!
on my cute little Japanese animal plate.

Most Embarrassing Moment

I'm Co-Hosting! Go Link Up! 

My most embarrassing moment of my life, unfortunately came after two too many beers. 

The lesson of the story is don't drink too much when you first arrive in a foreign country or you'll make an ass of yourself. 

So let me set the stage:
Paul and I arrived in Japan and the bases were almost immediately put on lockdown because some service member screwed up really bad, and then another one did, and then another. So we were all grounded and not allowed to go to off base establishments, like restaurants.  Shortly before we were put on lockdown though, we had the chance to experience eating out Okinawa. Paul and I decided to walk out to the nearest main street and find somewhere to eat. We found a lovely place that served Yakiniku. They also had pretty cheep beer. We were new to Japan, and this was one of our first times eating off base, we were also alone, no other friends who were more familiar with dining Okinawa were with us. 

Among all the new things we were discovering, there was this round egg shaped thing on the table. 

Me being the curious girl that I am, I started to play with it. 

This is very similar to the one I was screwing around with. Source

The more I drank, the more I wanted to know what this thing was, so the more I played with it. 

Anyone who has lived in Japan is either cringing or laughing because they know where this is going. 

It took me my whole dining experience to realize that when I squeezed this, it made a ding overhead, this ding sent a server to our table. I had squeezed it about a gazillion times. Each time turning the server away, I am sure I was thinking the service was amazing because they returned to the table every 5 minutes to see if we needed anything. 

I tell myself that the staff probably laughed at me later because I am a silly American, and I didn't know what the thing did, and that I didn't piss anyone off that night. I hope that's the truth. 

I found the actual post from that night, with pictures and all.
You can read it here: What's it like to cook your own food

Shrimpy Salad

(I could come up with a better name)

1lb of medium cooked, peeled, de-tailed shrimp
1-2 avocado cubed
2 tomato cubed
2 limes, juiced
1-2 jalapeno, seeded and diced
1 handful of cilantro coarsely chopped
1/4 red onion diced
2+ tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

combine all ingredients in a bowl, stir, season to taste. eat with spoon straight from bowl you made it in because it's that good.
I also like to use an avacado that is really soft, because it seems to blend into the lime juice and make a sauce that is just wonderful. 

As with most of my recipes, if you don't like something, leave it out, if you want more (like I think I'll use more avocado next time) then put it in. 

You could also cut the shrimp into smaller pieces and eat this with chips.
Would be good on top of shrimp enchiladas, or inside tortillas as cold tacos.

The entire recipe is 22 weight watchers points! But that's a lot to eat in one sitting...

Adapted From -
http://www.skinnytaste.com/2011/05/zesty-lime-shrimp-and-avocado-salad.html

I would also like to mention I have been nominated for Voice Books Top Military Mom Blogs I would love to have your vote. The top 10 blogs will get a spot on the website http://voiceboks.com/top-50-military-mom-blogs-of-2013/ Thank You for your support! 

Awesome dinner recipes (links)

I just wanted to share my yummy dinner tonight

Crock Pot Ribs

Only thing I did different was I didn't add any BBQ sauce while it was in the crock pot, I added it at the end before it went into the broiler. 

Sautéed Cabbage and Bacon

I added paprica and garlic salt, I also doubled the recipe 

The red beans and rice were a packaged mix that I got at the grocery store ages ago and I wish I had made them sooner because it was awesome! Red beans and rice for everyone! 

Lots of leftovers for lunch tomorrow! Yummo! 

Unpinned

Go link up with Joslin

We all love pinterest and Joslin has a link up where we can share a successes and failures from Pinterest! 

In the last week I have had my way with two recipes from pinterest.
First:

Source: mogwaisoup.blogspot.com via Alana on Pinterest

This was freakishly amazing. The only mods I made was instead of cream of celery (which I just didn't have on hand) i subbed cream of mushroom. And I also used one can of chopped green peppers and one can of chopped Jalapeños. This meal was a total success. We ate it as leftovers for a second night with...


Second:

Source: theobsessivechef.blogspot.com via Alana on Pinterest

Again, another success. I made a few modswith this one, I didn't have dried ancho chilies so I used powdered. And I threw in a few handfuls of shredded mexican cheese to thicken it up. Totally delicious.

Both these recipes will stay in my book for future use.

Go find Joslin

Have a lovely day, and remember to find me on Facebook!

-Alana