WOW.  I cannot believe it's been a year since we first started posted our recipes!  I mean can you believe it?  I can hardly believe it (say that like an old man from Long Island and then tell me what movie that line is from!).

For our 1st anniversary we thought it would be fun to have a virtual progressive dinner at each of our houses, since we wish we could actually do that in real life!   So we are  going to start with drinks and apps at my house in Michigan (Rachel), then move to dinner at Emily's in New Jersey, and finally finish the night with dessert with Mandy in New Hampshire.  We hope you enjoy having dinner with us!

For these fresh and sweet treats you will need:
1/3 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
1/3 cup fresh squeezed lime juice
3 Tbs granulated sugar (plus more for sugaring the rims of your glasses)
3 cups of cubed watermelon (I like to freeze the watermelon first so your drink is automatically cold when you blend it!)
1/3 cup water
1/3 cup tequila
Club Soda (enough to fill each glass 1/3 of the way)
Strawberries and limes for garnish

Run a lime wedge around the edge or your glass and then dip into a plate or bowl of sugar to sugar the rim.  Cut a strawberry and a lime and garnish on the edge of your glass.

Put all ingredients EXCEPT CLUB SODA into the blender.  If your watermelon is not frozen, add a couple ice cubes and leave out the water.  Blend until creamy.

Fill your glass 1/3 of the way full with club soda, then top off with your blended mix.  Give a little stir and enjoy!

This bruschetta is so delicious...I served it with thinly sliced french bread (I know, I should have used Italian since it's Italian food - but French is smaller and more sturdy!).  I also served marinated fresh slices of mozzarella cheese (marinated in olive oil, basil, oregano and S&P).

For the bruschetta you will need:
6-8 roma tomatoes, chopped
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes, packed in oil, chopped small (I did this in my food processor)
3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed 
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 Tbs balsamic vinegar 
1 cup loosely packed fresh basil, chopped
1/2 tsp salt (or to taste)
1/2 tsp fresh cracked pepper (or to taste)
1/2-1 cup fresh parmesan, shredded
1/2 red onion, diced (about 1/2 cup)
1 lemon wedge
1 French baguette, cut in 1/2 inch slices

The prep is super easy - just chop it all up nice and tidy and then squeeze the juice from the lemon wedge over the top (just a spritz otherwise it will taste lemony!) and then serve with the baguette slices.  Thanks for coming over to my house!!

For the scallops you will need:
20 jumbo scallops or about 40 regular sized
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 tsp grated lemon zest
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp minced fresh oregano
1 tsp minced fresh flat leaf parsley
sea salt and fresh ground pepper

Using a paper towel, brush a little olive oil on the grill grates so the fish doesn't stick when grilling.  Preheat grill to high.  

Rinse and pat dry scallops with a paper towel.  In a small bowl, combine garlic with lemon zest and juice.  Add 1/4 cup olive oil and whisk for 1 minute.  Stir in oregano.  Set this aside to spoon atop grilled scallops.

Brush scallops on both sides with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.  Grill about 2 minutes on each side.  Arrange on serving platter and spoon sauce on top, then top with fresh parsley garnish.

For the tuna you will need:
1 1/2 - 2 lbs fresh sushi-grade tuna
1 Tbs fresh ground pepper (this is important for a really peppery taste)
1 Tbs sea salt
1 tsp paprika
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 lemon cut into small pcs to serve with tuna

Same as for scallops; using a paper towel, brush a little olive oil on the grill grates so the fish doesn't stick when grilling.  Preheat grill to high.  

Grind your fresh pepper  (you can grind whole peppercorns in a coffee grinder or mini cuisenart, or just use a table pepper grinder and try to measure out a Tablespoon before your arm falls off).  

In a bowl, combine ground pepper, salt and paprika.  Rinse and pat dry tuna with paper towels.  Cut tuna into long thick strips, 1 or 1 1/2" thick.  Roll each pc in the pepper mixture and set on a plate.  Drizzle tuna with 1/4 cup of the olive oil and grill tuna about 1 minute on each of the 4 sides - just until seared.  (see below ***) Set on a plate for a few minutes before checking.  Then cut tuna into equal sized cubes.  Drizzle with remaining olive oil and serve with lemon wedges.

***4 minutes of total grill time should give you medium rare tuna, but cook to your liking. Mine is cooked through in the pics but ideally you want pink centers. 

Now don't eat too much, otherwise you will fall asleep on the ride to Mandy's house like they little cuties...

Our dad is a huge fan of strawberry rhubarb anything.  A few years ago I wanted to make him a delicious dessert but couldnt find a recipe anywhere for what i was picturing, so I came up with this.  I make it multiple times every summer now and have even made it with different fruit combinations.  

For the shortbread crust you will need:
1/2 cup butter (1 stick) room temp.
1/4 cup confectioners sugar
1 cup flour

For the fruit middle you will need:
1 1/2 cup rhubarb stalks chopped into 1/2 inch chunks
1 1/2 cup chopped strawberries
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1/2 cup sugar
2 Tbsp cornstarch

For the crumb topping you will need:
1 cup flour
1 cup oats
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/4 tsp baking soda 

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350.  Grease 8x8 inch baking pan (or a pie plate works).  Combine crust butter and conf. sugar in mixer until smooth.  Add crust flour until JUST BARELY combined- overmixing it makes it difficult to spread in pan.  Mixture should still look pretty floury.  Press dough evenly into bottom of pan and bake for 20 minutes or until lightly browned.

Meanwhile, heat rhubarb and strawberries in saucepan over medium heat, mashing and stirring it so it gets juicy and doesnt burn on bottom, until tender and juicy.  Stir in the 1/2 cup sugar.  Whisk cornstarch and lemon juice together until smooth and then add to the fruit and boil 1 minute until it thickens slightly.  Set aside. 

Mix all topping ingredients except butter in a bowl.  Then pour melted butter over that and toss with a fork until combined and crumbly.  When shortbread bottom is done, pour fruit over bottom crust.  Pour crumbly topping evenly over fruit.  Bake in oven for approx 25-30 minutes more or until topping is slightly browned and fruit is bubbling.  Cool completely before cutting into squares.  You may make a drizzle for the top with 1/2 cup conf. sugar mixed with 1-2 Tbsp milk if you want (makes a glaze icing).

We really hope you have enjoyed our progressive dinner as much as Remy (above) is enjoying her berry crumble!  It's been a really fun and busy year of creating and cooking and sharing...thanks for visiting and trying our concoction out!  

And a special thanks to my sisters Emily and Mandy for doing this with me - I love you both so much and have had so much fun!  I cannot WAIT to see you both next week!

That reminds me, next week is our family reunion at our parents cabin, so even though we probably won't be posting anything new while we are there, we will be sure to come back with some pictures and new recipes to share after! 

Enjoy your day, week or however long it is until we post again! 

My great friend Jess and her husband came to visit and help ring in the new year this past weekend, and when I get to see her I am guaranteed to eat well, talk a LOT, and be left with a sore belly from laughing so hard.  I think you will get the picture...needless to say, we had a great time and came up with some great recipes! 

Jess really challenges my creativity when it comes to cooking because while I tend to rely on cheese and meat to make things really hit the spot, she is lactose intolerant and a vegetarian!  You would think this would ruin a meal for me, but honestly, I am shocked at how delicious our meals always are when we cook together...

The menu for New Year's Eve was Maple Glazed Salmon accompanied by Local Fixin's (which is her new project of bringing local Illinois farm products to the people of Chicago - it consists of black beans, wheat berries and an incredible seasoning mixture) sided with mixed greens tossed in a dijon vinaigrette.  If the picture doesn't cut it (mine never seem to) do yourself a favor and trust me on this one and make this for yourself sometime...DELICIOUS!

Local Fixin's take a bit longer than your average side dish to make, so we started early.  We soaked the black beans and wheat berries in water for about 6 hours.  This sounds time consuming but it's not at all...just takes some good old memory (or your phone alarm).  Seriously though, how hard is it to wake up, cover the dried stuff with water and then not think about it until 2 hours before dinner - piece of cake.

Once those suckers were good and soaked, we rinsed them off and put them into a 6 quart pot with 3.5 cups of water.  Jess was super smart in creating this little goodie jar because the mason jar has measurement lines on it and doubles as your measuring cup - how convenient!

Then we added the contents of the spice pack and stirred.  After bringing this mixture to a boil, we lowered the heat and simmered for about two hours, or until all the water was absorbed.  Again...cake!

While that simmered we cracked open the bottle of vino that she brought us wrapped up in this hilarious little monkey suit...the monkey got a little tipsy too. 

While sipping our monkey wine, we marinated our salmon by combining all the ingredients below and sitting the salmon skin side up in it for about an hour.  If you make this, you should marinate for at least 10 minutes but not longer than an hour or so just in case the vinegar breaks down the salmon.

Maple Salmon Marinade:1/2 cup balsamic
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup maple syrup (thank you Miranda for my New Hampshire Maple Syrup!!)
Dramatic drizzle of olive oil over top everything
S&P

Now for the mixed greens.  We made a simple vinaigrette by mixing up the ingredients below, tasting along the way until it was what we wanted.  Tossed with a bunch of mixed greens, this made a light and easy side for our dinner.

Dijon Vinaigrette:
Two heavy squirts of Dijon mustard
A large splash of apple cider vinegar
Double the amount of vinegar with olive oil
Season with S&P 
Add a dash of maple syrup 

After a few more laughs and a wine refill, we set the oven to broil and took our salmon out of the fridge.  We put the salmon skin side up in a baking dish with about a 1/4 inch of the marinade in the bottom of the pan and broiled for about 10 minutes.  Then we flipped it over and broiled until the salmon turned from shiny orange to matte peach, about 10 more minutes, depending on the size of your salmon pieces.  The top gets a little candied and is delicious! 

While that broiled, we chopped up some fresh ingredients from the fridge to mix with our Local Fixin's.  Here is what we used...   

Black Bean and Wheat Berries with Veggies:
One Jar Local Fixin's (black beans, wheat berries and seasoning)
Carrots, cut real thin for easy eating
Edamame, steamed and removed from pods
Cherry tomatoes, chopped
Sun-dried tomatoes, just a couple, chopped
Red onion, just a touch, finely chopped
A heavy sprinkle of feta cheese for on top

One bottle of wine and lot of good laughs later...everything is ready, monkey man is happy, and we are ready to dig in!  

Cheers to good friends, good food, and monkeys who hide wine bottles!

NOTE: If you aren't able to get your hands on Local Fixin's for yourself, you can try to recreate them by cooking black beans with wheat berries and a combo of dried basil, oregano, marjoram, parsley, dill, mint, onion, black pepper and mustard.   

Still pregnant, and still eating lots of Salmon....this one is more like a sesame ginger soy, similar ingredients but there's more going on here AND lots of scallions.  I LOVE scallions for dipping sauces with seafood.  This would also work well with tuna steaks and say, coconut basmati rice (which is easy to make: just sub some of the water needed for the rice with coconut milk).  Mmmm...

You'll Need:
1 lb - 1 1/2 lbs of salmon
1/4 cup soy sauce (I use low sodium Kikkoman)
3 Tbs vegetable oil
3 Tbs real maple syrup 
1 tsp sesame oil
3 scallions diced up small
juice from 1/2 a lemon
1/4 tsp ginger powder (or you can use fresh)
1 Tbs sesame seeds

To Make:
Whisk all ingredients together in a medium sized bowl.  Then submerge your rinsed and paper-towel-dried (raw) salmon into the bowl of marinade and cover with plastic wrap.  Refrigerate for 2 hrs or so before dinner, or up to a day in advance before baking/grilling with all the marinade juices. 

Notes: When grilling, sometimes I make a little "boat" with a few layers of foil; curling up the edges of the foil so the marinade stays intact and doesn't spill, causing a grill fire.  Yes, I'm speaking from experience... we've had 2!).  You can also freeze the salmon in the marinade for a quick dinner in the future.  Double up a large zip lock bag or use thicker freezer bags and make sure you let the air out as much as possible.  I would let it thaw for a day in the fridge before cooking.  

I'm pregnant so my fish of choice these days is salmon because of mercury yadda yadda.... I happened to use Wild Alaskan Sockeye when I came up with this marinade so I'm stuck on getting the same now every time I make it. I'm sure it would taste good with other types of salmon, and even other fish like fresh tuna or swordfish.

You'll need:

For the rub:
1 1/2 lbs of salmon fillets
zest from 1 lemon
garlic salt
pepper

Whisk together:
1/3 c. soy sauce (I like Kikkoman low sodium)
1/3 c. (real) maple syrup (if you don't have maple syrup, you could use brown sugar)
1/4 c. vegetable oil

What to do:
Rub the zest, garlic salt and pepper over the rinsed salmon (no need to dry the fish first).
Pour the whisked sauce over top of salmon with rub, cover and put in the fridge for at least 2 hours. If you can let it marinade longer, of course that's better.

When ready to grill, place salmon piece(s) on top of a sheet of foil and throw away the remaining marinade. Place skin side up and grill for 5-7 minutes, then flip carefully and cook another 5-7 minutes or until opaque or to desired temp. I am not a grilling expert but this method of using foil worked for me to avoid a mess on the grill or in a pan. 

Hope you like it!