vacation

So I'll be gone for a little while... have fun playing with colr.org. Hope you pass it along to your readers, I'd love to have a bunch of entries. Feel free to enter as many times as you want! Pray that our airplane flights with Peanut will go well...

TGI Friday's "Cedar Seared Salmon on Field Greens"

Just thought I'd pass along a recipe I stole / made up... The other day, we got takeout from TGI Fridays (they have a new reduced portion size section of their menu, which we wholeheartedly approve of, so we're trying to support them.) I had this fabulous salad, which I enjoyed so much that I decided to try making it at home. It was great. So much so that I'm passing along the recipe... It's salmon and portabellos served on mixed greens with a mild balsamic dressing. First off, here's the recipe for the salmon. It's to die for hot, and was really good cold. I recommend getting thinner pieces of salmon so that the flavor can permeate...

Ginger Glazed Salmon

1 tbsp. brown sugar
1 tsp. dijon mustard
1 tbsp. soy sauce
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper or crushed red pepper flakes
1 salmon fillet (about 1 1/2 pounds) (we actually use individual pieces from Sam's Club...)

Preheat broiler to high. In a bowl, combine sugar, mustard, soy sauce, ginger and pepper. Coat a broiler-proof pan with non-stick cooking spray. Arrange salmon fillet in pan and make shallow cuts diagonally across the salmon. Brush with sugar mixture. Broil 6 inches from heat for about 10 minutes, or until fish flakes easily with a fork.



While you have your salmon cooking, grill up a portobello or two - I had marinated it overnight in balsamic vinegar, olive oil, a little sea salt and a crushed garlic clove. When your salmon and mushroom(s) are done, put them in the fridge until cold.

When the salmon is cold, it's very easy to peel off the skin, if your piece had skin on it. Prepare your salmon like that, and then slice the mushroom into skinny pieces. Arrange mushroom slices in a star pattern on top of a plate of greens, then place a portion of salmon on top of the mushrooms. Top with this balsamic dressing and serve:

Balsamic Dressing ala moi

balsamic vinegar
mayonnaise
brown sugar

I have no idea on the proportions - you just want it to be mild and a bit creamy. It takes a while to whisk out the mayonnaise clumps, but it was really worth it...


We served the salmon and mushroom both cold, but agreed that it would be delicious with the mushrooms cold and the salmon hot... let me know if you try it and what you think!

(insert dreamy grin here)

i have a major new girl-crush on her.... for revamping my wardrobe for next to nothing!

drool over kangaroodle / the fourth of july

There's a contest going on over at sophistishe that introduced me to a delightful website called kangaroodle with all sorts of super fun stuff for babies, like:

this lamb artwork for baby's room... i'm a sucker for anything that has lambs on it!

this diaper bag that is just so pretty. much prettier than my man-friendly one!

and of course any of these to feed my addiction grow my stash!



i'm going to be on vacation, so i won't be able to enter all of these, but 5 Minutes for Mom is hosting a slew of contests to celebrate the independence of both Canada and the Good Ol' U S of A... go check 'em out!

Menu Plans for a while!

Sorry I didn't post last week's menu - life's been crazy around here. We're going on vacation soon, which means that I spend the month before that like a chicken-with-my-head-cut-off getting ready for it! This will be our first extended vacation with Peanut around, so I'm new to the whole "packing for 10 days thing - is that TWENTY outfits I need?"

Menu Plan for Week of June 18:
Monday:
breakfast - scrambled eggs, fruit and bacon for the Mister / raisin bran for me
lunch - sandwiches
dinner - steak fajitas

Tuesday:
breakfast - skinny omelettes, (SOOO GOOD!) bacon and fruit
lunch - sandwiches
dinner - chicken salad with rolls

Wednesday:
breakfast - oatmeal
lunch - frozen calzones. mmm.
dinner - Chicken on a big green salad. Leftover rolls?

Thursday:
breakfast - scrambled eggs, bacon and fruit
lunch - sandwiches / leftovers
dinner - stir fry, rice, spring rolls

Friday:
breakfast - poached eggs on toast, fruit
lunch - sandwiches
dinner - maple ginger glazed salmon (i'll put this recipe up some time this week - fabulous!) over greens with grilled portabellos (i totally stole this idea from TGI Fridays - have you tried their new smaller-portion sized meals? they're GOOD!)

Saturday:
breakfast - pancakes, bacon, fruit
lunch - burgers on the grill, veggies and taters
dinner - ??

Sunday:
breakfast - quiche. my Mister loves quiche. aren't I lucky?
lunch - ??
dinner - quesadillas, veggies


Menu Plan for Week of June 25:
Monday:
breakfast - scrambled eggs, fruit and bacon
lunch - sandwiches / leftovers
dinner - ?? my last night at home - so maybe we'll do something fun

Tuesday:
breakfast - skinny omelettes, bacon and fruit
lunch - Mister will be taking Peanut and I to the airport
dinner - (Mister) chicken fried rice

Wednesday:
breakfast - (Mister) eggs and bacon
lunch - (Mister) leftover fried rice
dinner - (Mister) brat on George

Thursday:
breakfast - (Mister) eggs and bacon (he knows how to make those!)
lunch - (Mister) frozen calzone
dinner - he'll be driving up to Chicago, so probably a Big Mac. I know him. :o)

From here until after the day after the Fourth, we'll be in Texas / Chicago, so no planning for me! I'm on vacaaaation!

tweaking...

so i am TOTALLY procrastinating. i have so much work to do around here, and to get ready for vacation soon. we're going to texas. when you live in central illinois, you think it's hot in the summertime. so we're going to texas for vacation just so we can realize how good we have it.

honestly, though, we're going to dallas for a wedding and san antonio for some r&r. sounds like fun to me!!

i threw my back out yesterday... don't really know how, but i'm propped up on pillows on my bed right now with the laptop warming my thighs. i know it's warm out, but the AC is just so delightful that the warmth of the laptop is appreciated. so instead of working (which i should be doing - and also involves the laptop), i'm tweaking my blog design. here's the result of 10 minutes of work. it's "aight, dawg" in the words of Randy Jackson, but it has a ways to go. wish me luck! any ideas?

wfmw - for firefox users

Hello all there, fellow Firefox users that also hang around Rocks in My Dryer!

Here's a tip to make your Firefox usage even that much cooler. You already know that you can open up multiple tabs and read a bunch of WFMW tips easily - but did you know that there are shortcuts for all that opening? I would sit there and right-click-open-in-new-tab over and over... until I found an extension that would do it for me!

Snap Links makes that a breeze. I right click and drag, creating a box over whatever links I want to open - and it opens them ALL in new tabs. If you do it on a page like Google results, it'll only open the main links returned, not all the "cached / open in html" options, so you'll get each one to open once.

Beautiful.

netflix, movies and contests...

Mister and I are firm Netflix lovers. We just love watching movies, and to have them delivered to your door is just the bomb diggety. 5 Minutes for Mom is giving away some 6-month subscriptions, and while we wouldn't use it for ourselves, my brother and sister-in-law would be thrilled to death to receive that. They're moving in a couple of weeks so he can go back to school. He was working as a musician for a church, but it's awfully hard to support a family on that income, and without degrees in music, he had no possibility of ever making more than that.

So he's going to be a chiropractor and join my dad's practice when he graduates. I'm so proud of him - it's a major step that will hopefully pay off in the long run. But that means for the next few years, he and his wife and babies will be on a MAJORLY shoestring budget. As opposed to the "church musician" budget. While they've had no money for fun stuff, now they'll just be scraping by. 6 months of unlimited movies would be a dream for them. I know he won't have much time, with studying and working, but still... to be able to crash and relax every once in a while would be wonderful.

It's so easy to be comfortable with what we have that we forget those who have to worry about money. I am so blessed to have a husband with a good, secure, well-paying job that means we don't have to worry. But I remember those nights where I was wondering how all the bills were going to get paid.

But. Back from my tangent. Go over to 5 Minutes for Mom and enter the contest! Just a warning - they'll want to know what your favorite movie(s) is/are. I put Mrs. Miniver and Batman Begins.

What are yours? And to my closet readers... you can go ahead and respond, too. I know you're there. :oP

Tackle It Tuesday - a day late

So... I didn't post my Tackle It Tuesday project because I was busy helping a friend move into town... but it was (finally) the organization of my fabric stash. It looks beautiful. Mister even repeatedly commented on how a) nice it looked and b) nice it was not to be tripping over it anymore.

Now that I have it all organized, I found a contest today that is giving away a $25 gift card to JoAnn's fabric. 'Cause she who dies with the most fabric wins. Or is it yarn? Or is it baby stuff?

Menu

Menu Plan for Week of June 4:
Monday:
breakfast - fried eggs, berries and melon and bacon for the Mister
lunch - sandwiches
dinner - Grilled chicken marinated in a little white wine and fresh herbs - we're having friends over, and they're bringing the salad and dessert. Maybe I'll make some rolls. Mmm.

Tuesday:
breakfast - salsa eggs, bacon and fruit
lunch - leftovers
dinner - Fish tacos

Wednesday:
breakfast - oatmeal
lunch - sandwiches
dinner - Kabobs and a big green salad. Leftover rolls?

Thursday:
breakfast - scrambled eggs, bacon and fruit
lunch - sandwiches / leftovers
dinner - Fajitas and salad

Friday:
breakfast - poached eggs on toast, bacon and fruit
lunch - sandwiches
dinner - Mister's parents will be here. I'll need to plan these next few meals separately.

Saturday:
breakfast - The lovely in-laws will be here...
lunch - In-laws
dinner - They'll have left, but I think we'll have people over / or I'll ask Mister to take me out

Sunday:
breakfast - omelets
lunch - Grilled Turkey Breast, grilled sweet potatoes (never tried these, but they looked really good), a fresh batch of rolls
dinner - cheese & crackers, fruit, popcorn

I'm in food heaven right now...

Can I just say that I'm in a food-induced state of bliss?

We picked 12 pounds of strawberries yesterday (it looked like a dauntingly big pile in my container, but is rather a small little stack of frozen baggies in my freezer), and I'm enjoying some of those over this fake ice cream and some pound cake.

Have you tried this stuff yet? PHEN-omenal. Seriously. And for less calories than my normal yogurt. With live and active cultures. It's the best frozen yogurt I've ever had. You know how most frozen yogurt has that weird tangyness to it? This DOESN'T! I had Mister pick up some vanilla yesterday to go with our berries because although I'm a chocolate lover, chocolate frozen yogurt is usually rather gross. Now I'm dying to try the chocolate... or the chocolate fudge brownie... mmm....

This post is brought to you by my state of nirvana, and has in no way been compensated by Edy's. Although I wouldn't mind if they did.

CONTESTS!

I am taking a break right now... I'm exhausted! We saw ten houses today (Sundays are great for open houses!)... and I'm just beat.

But contests always make me feel better. Want to enter some?

Adventures in Babywearing is having a contest to win funky and practical Vincent shoes. I have to admit I'd never heard of them, but I'm falling in love...

5 Minutes for Mom is giving away a Belly Band. I'm not pregnant but I'd love one of these for the next time... But I have a friend that's pregnant that would love one of these, I'm sure... it's her second baby, and the belly is a bit stretchier the second time around, I've heard.

There's more contests out in bloggyland, but that's all I have the energy for. :o)

EDITED TO ADD: Swooning. Seriously swooning. There's an apronpalooza going on...