Grilled Teriyaki Chicken and Vegetables with Brown Rice

For most people, the term "grill master" conjures up images of a 40 year old man standing over a flaming grill, whipping out perfectly grilled steaks. This is the image you see on TV and in movies, and I suppose this is probably fairly accurate for most households.

But not at our house.

In our home, grilling falls under the broad category of "cooking" and almost all things cooking fall under the category of "Tanya's responsibilities". Not that I mind. I enjoy grilling and like playing with fire as much as your average man.

More practically, though, I view the barbeque as a secondary cooking appliance, the equivalent of my kitchen stove and oven for the summer months. It is sweet relief on a sweltering day (you know, we do have 5 or 6 of those every year) to have a reliable means of cooking that doesn't heat up the house and results in food that tastes as good, and frequently even better, than your standard kitchen fare.

For the last 8 years I barbequed on an old gas barbeque we found at an estate sale. It worked. Kind of. I mean, it did alright as long as you like most everything well charred. We ate a lot of unintentional "Cajun style" meals. This spring as I manually lit the barbeque, struggled to correctly place the always-slipping-and-falling grill grate, attempted to rescue flaming chicken and then ate the resulting charred-but-not-done-in-the-middle chicken, I informed my husband that I was finished. As much as I loved to barbeque, I couldn't handle it anymore. No meal is worth the frustratingly near tears experience this barbeque evoked in me.

Then he reminded me of my upcoming birthday. He asked if I would like a gas barbeque for my birthday. Would I ever!

The search for the right gas barbeque began. Daniel and I are the type to thoroughly research what we buy. We are very frugal and like to get a good deal, but we also understand that it is sometimes worth making an investment for a higher quality product. We looked at gas barbeques in the stores, talked to salesmen, and then went home and read reviews online. We repeated that process again. In the end, we decided on a Weber. It seems like you just can't go wrong with a Weber gas barbeque. I mean, how many items have a full 5 stars on Amazon.com?

On Sunday, we bought one, brought it home and put it together. Last night I made hamburgers and grilled corn on the cob. I told Daniel that I still needed to figure out how this grill works. His response? "So, what are you grilling tomorrow night?"

I hadn't thought about it. I figured it might finally be time to get creative grilling.

Here is what I came up with:

Grilled Teriyaki Chicken and Vegetables with Brown Rice

I collected my ingredients: red onion, bell peppers, pineapple, and chicken marinating in Teriyaki sauce.

I preheated my nice new, fancy schmancy grill.

 Like how I improvised by using my vegetable steamer with the red onions?

Inside, I mixed some Teriyaki sauce (this is currently my favorite brand), some chicken broth and a little cornstarch together.

 

While the chicken and veggies cooked, I thickened this sauce to add to the deliciously finished meal.

Here are the results still on the grill:

 Here are the results chopped up and mixed together in a bowl:

And best of all, here is the finished product on my plate ready to be devoured:

And yes, it was delicious. Absolutely delicious.

I'm back! (And I have a new table!)

I find it hard to believe that it has been nearly a month since I have written a post. Yikes! It is amazing how fast time can go by.

Where have I been this last month? Well, mostly at home. You see, we had these super cute kittens and I just assumed that momma cat would do all of the work taking care of our precious kittens. Instead, she ended up getting very sick. She had a horrible abscess and was extremely dehydrated.

As a result, we spent a lot of time force-feeding Rosie (momma cat) and bottle feeding her kittens. They were very little and needed to be fed about every 3 hours. It felt like we had an infant again and we couldn't go anywhere!

In addition to that, I prepared for and taught the last teaching in our Bible study at church. (Curious? If you are really curious, you are welcome to listen to it here.)

Since then I have been preparing for the upcoming Women's Brunch at our church. I am new on this women's ministry team and am still figuring out all that goes into planning these events. Now I am also speaking at that event too. I am looking forward to that!

Other than these things, I have been very busy gardening when the weather has participated. I have moved plants, divided perennials, planted new flowers and planted many veggies, both seeds and starts.

This last weekend we bought a used outdoor dining set. I am so excited to have this now! We can actually all fit around the table with room for our plates and the dishes of food. Tonight we used it for the first time.

Look at that great table with some amazing food. Yum! The best part, though, is the loved ones sitting around the table. You can see Kylie and Ayla on opposite ends of the table and Daniel's hand working on some food. Also pictured are Daniel's mom, Alice, and her amazing fiance, Bill. I am looking forward to many more barbeques and outdoor eating experiences this summer!

Stay tuned! I am returning to this wonderful blogging world and even have another amazing giveaway lined up.

Homemade Pizza

I love pizza. But then again, who doesn't love pizza? I know there will be some deranged person out there who probably doesn't love pizza. If you don't love pizza, you must have some serious taste bud issues. Maybe hypogeusia or dysgeusia? I say, see a doctor.

As far back as I can remember, pizza has always been a treat. As a kid my favorite was kind was Canadian Bacon and Pineapple. There is just something delicious about the combination of sweet, salty, spicy and cheesy. It blends the best of all worlds into one tasty pizza!

When my husband and I were first married, we regularly had pizza delivered. It was quick, easy and, well, delicious. In a pinch, a frozen pizza curbed the craving. As we plunged into the uncharted waters of "single income family with kids", we cut back on our expenses. Sadly, eating out (which included delivery in) was almost completely eliminated.

Why not just stick with frozen pizzas at this point, you say? At first glance, that seems like a simple solution. The problem is that in my first pregnancy I had some cravings (Mexican food with all the fixings) and only a few aversions. The primary culprit: frozen pizza. There was just something about the smell of frozen pizza cooking that completely turned my stomach. I don't know what "they" put in frozen pizza, but I still have some residual aversion to this day. (I hear you, maybe I am the one who should be seeing a doctor.)

Around this time I also began to explore the possibility of making pizza at home. I started out using Trader Joe's Pizza Dough. I stored it in my freezer and defrosted it when the pizza urge hit. Next I found pizza dough at the San Francisco Street Bakery. Sometimes, though, their dough was sold mostly frozen and took too long to defrost for dinner. Soon I realized that it probably wouldn't take much longer than the defrost time to actually make the dough myself.

After trying out several pizza dough recipes, I finally settled on the one in my Betty Crocker's Cookbook. One thing I really like about this recipe is that the dough only needs to rest/rise for 30 minutes! It is still kind of time consuming, but totally worth the effort.

Homemade Pizza

Mix 1 cup of flour (I used fresh ground hard white wheat), 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 teaspoon sea salt and 2 1/2 teaspoons yeast (or 1 package) in a large bowl. I prefer that my large bowl be connected to my Kitchenaid mixer. Add 3 tablespoons oil and 1 cup very warm water. Beat on medium speed for 3 minutes. Or do like I do and beat it on medium speed for what seems like a reasonable amount of time. This method has worked for me so far.

Stir in enough remaining flour until the dough is soft and leaves the sides of the bowl. I never really measure, but the recipe call for 1 1/2 to 2 cups more.

This looked like the dough was sufficiently leaving the sides of the bowl, so this is where I stopped.

Place dough on a lightly floured surface. Knead 5 to 8 minutes or until dough is smooth and springy.

I like to use my kitchen table to knead. The height just works better for me. (I know, I am just asking for short jokes right about now.) Seriously, it is much easier and a lot less work to knead on the lower surface.

Cover the beautiful dough ball loosely with plastic wrap. I like to put my dough in a bowl greased with olive oil.

I may have gotten a little carried away with the olive oil this time. It looked like my dough was practically floating in the olive oil. I just figure, olive oil is good for you, right? It adds great flavor, right? And you know what else? My dough didn't stick to my bowl.

Set your timer for 30 minutes. While the dough is resting and rising, start the pizza sauce. Chop up some onion. I think I used a whole medium sized onion. In my opinion, it is hard to use too much onion. (Want to chop without crying? Check out this post.) Start that sauteing in some olive oil. Add in a generous amount of fresh garlic. I just had to show you this single huge clove from my garden. Amazing, isn't it?

After the onion and garlic is sauteed to soft perfection, add in a can of tomato sauce. For those of you who want specifics, this can was 15 oz. Stir in the tomato sauce.

Dump in your spices. I say dump because that is what I really do. I never measure spices. Never.

In the bottom right of the picture is my dumping of basil. The other large pile is a dumping of oregano. Bottom left is a small pile of crushed red chili peppers, which add a slight spiciness and make it truly taste like pizza sauce. Near the top is some fresh ground black pepper. I know it would have been twice as delicious if I would have used fresh spices, but I don't always have them on hand.

Stir the sauce. Let this concoction of yumminess simmer. The longer it simmers the more delicious it will be.

When the timer (which you set for 30 minutes) beeps, preheat the oven to 425°.
Grab your bowl o' dough and smile, enjoying how much the dough has risen in just 30 minutes.

Dump the dough onto your 15" pizza stone. I use my rolling pin and roll my pizza out the size of the pizza stone. Honestly, I am too scared of dropping the pizza dough to attempt throwing it. This makes a semi-thick crust pizza. (The recipe actually says to use it for 2 - 12" pizzas.)

Pop the pizza dough into the preheated oven. Partially bake for 7-8 minutes or until crust just begins to brown.

While the crust is baking, assemble your toppings. We enjoy many different toppings, but this time I went super simple. I just used pepperoni.

Applegate Farms makes my current favorite pepperoni. I love that it doesn't have any bad stuff (nitrates, nitrites, hormones, MSG, etc.) And it tastes delicious!!!

These pepperonis are very large, so I cut them into quarters.

Grate a nice big pile of cheese. Or ask your husband to grate it for you, like I did. Didn't he do a great job?


My favorite combination of cheeses is Mozzarella, Cheddar and Parmesan. There is just something about adding the Parmesan that makes the pizza so yummy.

Grab your partially cooked pizza crust from the oven. I like to set mine on a silicone trivet. It protects the counter and keeps the pizza stone from sliding.

Pull your pot of finished pizza sauce from the stove. (If you want pre-made pizza sauce, Trader Joe's makes some great sauce.)

Slather your crust with this sauce. This is either enough sauce for a very generous saucing on this pizza or enough to use half now and freeze the other half for when the next homemade pizza craving hits.

Add a sprinkling of cheese, a thick layer of pepperoni (or your toppings of choice) and a final nice thick layer of cheese.

Bake your pizza for another 10 or so minutes, or until the cheese is melted and sufficiently bubbly.

Now for the best part: eat. I enjoy watching my kids devour their dinner, making plenty of satisfied gulping and lip smacking noises. Yes, that is the real reason why I love making homemade pizza.

White Chicken Chili

Tonight, when my husband asked what was for dinner, I answered "White chicken chili." His response: "Ohhhhh, yum!" Yes, this recipe result in some seriously mouth-wateringly delicious chili. In fact, both of my kids gobbled it up. I wish you could see and hear my almost 5 year old saying "mmmm" while shoveling mouthfuls of chili.

How do you make this fabulous chili? Well, I will tell you. First, I will explain how I make it, then I will share the original recipe (not sure the origin of the recipe...).

First, I chopped a whole medium sized onion with my handy-dandy, much loved Food Chopper. As that began to saute in some olive oil, I chopped up a fairly large garden variety garlic clove with the same food chopper. I threw that garlic in as well and continued to saute the mixture until it was soft.

Next, I dumped in some homemade chicken broth (3 or so cups), 5 handfuls of frozen corn, and the rest of the chicken meat from a crockpot cooked chicken. Time for adding some flavor. I added 2 - 4 oz. cans of roasted green chili peppers, a generous sprinkling of ground cumin, some salt, 2 Tbsp of lime juice, and lemon pepper seasoning 1 Tbsp of lemon juice plus some fresh ground pepper.

After that came to a boil, I added some beans that I had soaked overnight and then cooked all day 3 - 15 oz. cans of great northern beans, drained. I cooked the beans until heated through it was boiling again.

Time to scoop up some chili and enjoy it! Now, to be honest, the best way to enjoy this chili is with a liberal amount of pepperjack cheese. Our family enjoys scooping it up with either some tortilla chips, bread or both, as was the case tonight.

What? You say you aren't a "dump cook"? Well, for those of you who prefer a more exact recipe, here is the original recipe:

White Chili

3 cups water (chicken broth just tastes better, though)
1/2 lb boneless, skinless chicken breast
1 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. lemon pepper

Combine in pot. Cook chicken. Cut up chicken and return to pot.

1 garlic clove, minced
1 cup chopped onion

Saute in small amount of vegetable oil. Add to chicken.

Add:
2 - 8 oz. frozen corn (or cans, drained)
8 oz. diced green chilies
1 tsp. ground cumin
2 Tbsp. lime juice

Bring to boil.

Add 2 - 15 oz. cans great northern beans, drained. Heat through.

Tortilla Soup

Nothing says soup weather like wind, rain and cold temperatures, which made today perfect. But there are so many soups from which to choose. Chicken noodle is always a favorite. I made both lentil soup and corn chowder not very long ago. What to make?

In this situation, I tend to fall back on my most reliable soup. Tortilla soup is much loved by my whole family. I know that when I make this soup, there will be no complaints, only requests for seconds and thirds. And, as you can see from this picture of my 4 year old, bowls will be cleaned!

I have discovered that most everyone loves this soup as well. It is always safe to serve to company, bring as a meal to a friend who has had a new baby, or bring to a potluck. The only problem might be that I won't bring home as much leftover soup as my family would like.

So here is my recipe, the way I make it. Feel free to experiment and modify according to your own likes. Enjoy!

Tortilla Soup

1 container Pacific Organic Chicken Broth
1 - 29 oz. can Hominy, drained (I used Juanita's - find it the Mexican section at the grocery store.)
1 - 4 oz. can Diced Roasted Green Chili Peppers
Spices to taste (I throw in chili powder, cumin, onion powder, garlic powder and oregano. Instead of spices you can throw in a can of enchilada sauce.)
1 chicken breast, cooked and cubed
1 quart sized jar of pinto beans (So maybe you don't can your own beans like I do; probably use 2 regular sized cans from the store. This is also really good with black beans.)
Several handfuls of frozen corn (I would guess 1-2 cups)


1. Add Chicken Broth, Hominy, Diced Green Chili Peppers and Spices to your soup pot. (This soup barely fit in my 4 quart pot.) Bring to boil then reduce heat and simmer 20-30 minutes, until Hominy softens.

2. Add chicken, Pinto beans and corn. (I have thrown in some cooked brown rice before as well.) Cook until heated through.

3. Dish up! We love this soup with cheese (cheddar or pepper jack) on top. Some people really like a good spoonful of sour cream too. Serve with tortilla chips either crunched up on top or used to scoop up the soup.

Chicken Tetrazzini

My husband is not a picky eater. In fact, he is generally perfectly happy to eat most anything for dinner after work.Very rarely has he ever criticized or complained about my cooking. This is quite a blessing to me except that it can make me rather lazy. Why attempt culinary excellence if my husband is completely content with culinary mediocrity?

At the same time, though, I go through stages of boredom, feeling like I am repeating the same old dinners over and over again. During one of these stages, desperate for a new recipe, I paged through my Betty Crocker's Cookbook. I stumbled across the recipe for Chicken Tetrazzini and it quickly became one of our family's favorites.

This recipe turned into one of my "go to" recipes. I have served this dish to many people and it has always received incredibly high ratings (indicated by the cleaned plates and returns for seconds or even thirds). Even kids love it!

So what is the recipe? Here is my version modified from Betty Crocker's Cookbook.

Chicken Tetrazzini

1 package (7 ounces) spaghetti, broken into thirds
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 cup chicken broth
1 cup whole milk (recipe calls for whipping cream, but I don't normally have that on hand)
2 cups cubed cooked chicken (I normally guesstimate and sometimes use yummy rotisserie chicken)
3/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Cook spaghetti as directed on package.

3. While spaghetti is cooking, melt butter in 2-quart saucepan over low heat. Stir in flour, garlic salt and pepper. Cook, stirring constantly, until mixture is smooth and bubbly; remove from heat. Stir in broth and whole milk. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Boil and stir 1 minute.

4. Drain spaghetti. Stir spaghetti and chicken into sauce. Pour spaghetti mixture into ungreased 2-quart casserole (I like to use an 11 x 7 Pyrex baking dish, except when making a double batch like tonight. Hence the larger pan pictured above).

5. Sprinkle with cheese. (This is key! The more cheese the yummier. The cheese makes a delicious crunchy layer on the top. Don't try and skimp on calories by skipping the cheese!)

6. Bake uncovered about 30 minutes or until bubbly in center.

Enjoy!!! This makes a perfect meal with bread and a salad. Yum!