moroccan chili

Got this recipe from my friend, Erin.  All of her kids eat it and so do all of mine.  That's 5 kids' thumbs up for this recipe, so I say it's a keeper!  Also, every time we've made this we've only eaten about 1/2 of what the recipe makes, so we put the rest in the freezer and have an extremely easy meal ready for another day.

Moroccan Chili

2 Tbsp. olive oil

2 pounds ground beef

2 Tbsp chili powder

1/2 Tbsp cumin

1/2 Tbsp paprika

1 Tbsp coriander

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1 bay leaf

1 large onion, chopped

1 green pepper, chopped

2 cloves garlic, diced

2 Tbsp Worchestershire sauce

1 can tomato sauce

zest of lemon

Brown meat and drain.  Return to low heat.  Add seasonings and stir.  Add onion, pepper and garlic.  Cook until onion is soft.  Add lemon zest, Worchestershire, and tomato sauce.  Simmer for 30 minutes.  Serve with pita bread and couscous.

simple roasted asparagus

This is the first way I ever made asparagus.  It's so easy and so good.  I didn't think I liked asparagus until I roasted it like this.  Well, I didn't think I liked it because it just looked weird to me.  It didn't fit into any of my meat and potatoes and starchy vegetable categories so I assumed it was nasty.  I was wrong.

Simple Roasted Asparagus
(adapted from a Southern Living recipe)

1 pound fresh asparagus
3 Tbsp. olive oil
1/2 tsp. sugar
1/3 tsp. sea salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground pepper

Preheat your oven to 400.

Snap off the tough ends of asparagus.  Line a 15x10 ince jellyroll pan with aluminum foil (for the easy easy cleanup at the end).  Put the asparagus into a large ziploc bag.  Add the olive oil.  Zip and shake to coat the asparagus with the olive oil.  They don't need to swim in the olive oil.  Just be coated with it.  Otherwise they'll taste too "oily".

Arrange the asparagus on the jellyroll pan.  Sprinkle with the sugar, salt and pepper.  Roast in the oven 10-15 minutes and enjoy!

shrimp lemon pepper linguine

I promise to add a picture later, but I wanted to get a few recipes on the blog for a friend who asked for them.  This one is really tasty.  I even marked "very very good" beside it in the recipe binder :)

Shrimp Lemon Pepper Linguine
(adapted from Allrecipes.com)
1 8oz pkg linguine pasta
1 tbsp. olive oil
6 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup water or chicken broth
1/2 cup white wine
1 lemon, juiced
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
salt to taste
4-5 shakes of freshly ground black pepper
1 pound fresh shrimp, peeled and deveined
1/4 cup butter
3 tbsp. chopped fresh parsley (or 3 tsp. dried parsley)
1 tbsp chopped fresh basil (or 1 tsp. dried basil)

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil.  Add pasta and cook for 9-13 minutes or until al dente; drain.

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat and saute garlic about 1 minute.  Mix in chicken broth or water, wine, lemon juice, lemon zest, salt, and pepper.  Reduce heat and simmer until liquid is reduced by about one fourth.

Mix shrimp, butter, parsley and basil into the saucepan.  Cook 2-3 minutes, until shrimp is opaque.  Stir in the cooked linguine and continue cooking 2 minutes, until well coated.

still in love....

You thought there would be a picture of Brian or the boys, huh?  I do love them, but I was reminded today about how much I love this mixer.  I saved up money from birthdays and Christmas last year and got a great deal on Black Friday on the mixer.  I've used it several times and really can't imagine not having it now!

visitors

We spent most of this past week with this fun family!  We had a full house and loved every minute of it.  It was fun to watch the kids all play together so well.  They really only see each other once a year at the most, but it didn't seem like that watching them play.  And having a toddler around again was really fun!  We tried to show them the best of St. Louis (and saved some so they would come back sometime, too).  This was at the zoo, but we also hit the Arch, the Farmer's Market at Soulard, and a few local things here in LSL, O'Fallon and Chesterfield.  I even got to go shopping for organization things with Lynda - be still my heart!  Someone may as well have told me I won the lottery.  Well, maybe it wasn't that great, but it was pretty awesome.  Mostly the kids just wanted to play together - they didn't care much where it was. 

The house is very quiet now.  We miss them. We're so glad they came all the way here to see us!

it's baseball time again

florida

This was such a fun trip.  We had the nicest weather I think we've ever had on a spring break Florida trip.  Warm breezes, warm water to swim, very little humidity, no rain, sunshine....ahhhhhhh.  And we got to spend a lot of time with Brian's family - so thankful for that!

 entertaining ourselves during the very long car ride

 Spent the night with the Martins in Atlanta

 Wave pool at Typhoon Lagoon.  The boys LOVED this!  They had been wanting to go to a water park down there for about 3 years now.  It has always been too cool before, so they were very very excited to get to do this.

 Ethan and Brian swam with the sharks at Typhoon Lagoon.

 We always try to get to Cocoa Beach while we're there.  We love the beach.  The water was too cold for Beth, Rick and I, but Brian was an awesome dad and went in with the boys.

 The annual building of the sandcastle. 

 The boys thought they were awesome to be able to get up on the Lifeguard stand.

 One day the girls took a little shopping trip to a place called "The Barn" - very very fun!  So the boys went and created their own monster truck and hot rod with PaPa and Brian.

Chatting the afternoon away on the lanai.  I can still feel the warm breeze and sunshine.