Christmas card 2010

Charming Collage Christmas Card

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Anniversary Dinner

Today is my 15 year Anniversary and I'm lucky enough to have my mom here from Sweden cooking dinner for us tonight. We are having leek and potato soup with herbs and diced salmon for appetizer and then an exotic pork tenderloin with coconut sauce and rice. Yum. Can't wait.

Need inspiration

John's at work and I need some inspiration or it will be left overs for me (mmmm yummy salmon) and Mac and cheese for the kids. Not exactly healthy:)

Salmon with wild rice and mango salsa

Last night we had one of my favorites! Salmon with wild rice and mango salsa.

I make my salmon wrapped in foil in the oven mostly because my kids don't like any kind of "crust" on it but also because it turns out so moist and delicious. I season it with some salt, pepper, garlic powder, lemon juice, parsley and a little olive oil. Wrap in foil and bake at 350 till its nice and flaky. About 20-25 min.

With it I make mango salsa:

2 tomatoes

1 mango

1/2 red onion

cilantro

lime juice

salt

pepper

olive oil

You can put a jalapeno pepper in to give it a kick but my kids would not eat it for sure so I leave it out:)

Mmmmmmm. Good!

Chicken Salad

Today's lunch:

A salad with mixed greens, tomatoes and cucumber with Olive oil, lemon juice, garlic powder, salt and pepper.

On top a skinless chicken breast from the Foreman grill seasoned with salt, pepper and a squirt of lime juice. Yumminess:)

Cream of Wild Rice Soup

Ok, so I made the Rice and Chicken and while it looked great and smelled great it did not taste great so I will not be sharing that one:(

Instead a true and tested wonderful soup that Lisa Stephens passed on to me:


Cream Of Wild Rice Soup

3 cup cooked wild rice
1 large onion, diced
2 to 3 carrots, diced
2 to 3 celery ribs, diced
1-1/2 cups diced cooked chicken (or ham)
1 stick butter
1 cup flour
8 cups chicken broth
1 cup milk (or half and half)
Salt and pepper to taste.

Prepare wild rice first. In soup kettle, saute onion celery, carrots and chicken in butter until vegetables have softened. Sift in flour a bit at a time, stirring until well blended. Do not let brown! Slowly add broth, stirring with whisk until flour/vegetable mixture is well blended. Add rice, adjust seasonings. Heat thoroughly. Add milk and reheat gently. DO NOT BOIL.

This is one of my favorite cold weather soups. It also freezes nicely in soup size portions. Super easy and I always have the ingredients on hand.

Basmati Rice and Chicken

On the menu tonight is Basmati rice and Chicken. I will post a recipe and hopefully a picture later on.

I'm always trying to find new things that my picky kids will like. We do not eat out often with the kids and it amazes me that when we do the kids menus are disgusting! Pardon my English. How can we go to a restaurant and enjoy a nice piece of fish or meat and stuff our kids with chicken tenders or any other wide variety of fried food? No wonder the children of America are obese. I'm sorry but I think it's so sad. What are we teaching them? How hard is it to serve a piece of grilled chicken and not fried. With that said, I'm sure there are some great places out there with better options. For all my friends that like to go out to eat, here is a website that could save you some money.
www.kidsmealdeals.com It shows you where kids eat free in your area on any given day.