Love me a little bit of gourmet cooking

I meant to post this a while ago but couldn't find the time. For anyone who likes to cook, there are a few awesome recipes I discovered over the past few weeks (all thanks to my fav cooking blog/cookbook Our Best Bites. I decided to be a little daring and try a tortellini bake, grilled pizza, and chicken cordon bleu. And they were delicious!

So I figured it would be easier to post the first two step by step recipe links because they of course could explain it much better than I could because they were their recipes, but I will post the pics of how they turned out when I made them (but for some reason I didn't take a pic of chicken cordon bleu, but it was still a keeper. It looked and tasted fantastic!). And I typed the recipe for the chicken cordon bleu because it's not on their website.


http://www.ourbestbites.com/2011/04/tortellini-spinach-bake-in-creamy-lemon/

For the tortellini, when the author said that you don't have to put as much lemon if you aren't such a big fan of it, you can listen to her. I personally like lemon but my mom wasn't too fond of the extra lemon taste.) but it was surprisingly not too hard to make.

Now, you may think, "Grilled pizzas? Huh? That sounds...interesting?" But oh. my. they. are. now. one. of. my. favorite. foods. Please give them a try. I actually used a different dough recipe (please make it from scratch it makes them even better) than what was on the website, but I did use their homemade sauce and their tutorial on how to grill a pizza. (And I used one of those handy lean mean grilling machines)

So here is the dough recipe I used:

1 cup warm water
2 tsp. yeast
1/3 cup oil
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
3 cups flour

Stir water, yeast, oil, and sugar together. Let rest 5 minutes. Stir in salt and flour. Turn onto lightly floured surface and knead 4-5 minutes. Take a lightly floured rolling pin and roll them out. *On the blog it talks about how the pizzas don't have to be perfectly round. They were just fine. Roll them out to keep a little bit of thickness and about 9 inches in diameter

Now for the sauce, I used the basic marinara one from our best bites. I didn't have tomato paste, so I just used sauce and simmered it for a few minutes. It was still a little watery of a sauce but still had a great taste.

http://www.ourbestbites.com/2008/06/pizza-sauce/

Here is how you actually cook the pizza:
http://www.ourbestbites.com/2009/06/tutorial-bbq-grilled-pizza/

You pretty much just take the dough and lightly spread olive oil on both sides with a pastry brush and let it cook on the grill. After the grill lines begin to appear on the dough and it seems likes it's cooked alright, you quickly add the toppings and put the grill top down. It takes about 5-10 minutes to cook. You will start to see the grill marks on the pizza. You would think the cheese would stick to the grill (at least the lean mean) but it scraped off well with a rubber spatula. And for toppings I used ham and pinapple, and not everyone likes pineapple on pizza but it sure tastes great grilled!

Finally, here is the chicken cordon bleu. I don't think I will make it that often because even though it's not that hard, it gets really messy and is a little tricky (like when you have to hammer the meat and roll the chicken in the batter). But trust me it is still great even when the unfinished food looks messy.

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (use frozen, but defrost it first)
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp seasoned salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 cup shredded mozzarella, provolone, or swiss cheese
6-12 slices thinly sliced ham (ok, when I made this all we had were thicker ham slices. It was the main reason why it was more difficult for me to make because I had to shred the ham and so just use the normal deli ham)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup panko bread crumbs (i used crushed corn flakes and it was still great. You can also use crushed rice krispies)
1/2 cup freshly shreaded parmesan cheese
1 1/2 tbsp butter, melted

1. preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray.

2. Place a chicken breast on a cutting board and place your non-dominant hand on top of it. Using a sharp knife, cut each breast completely in half horizontally. Place each piece between two pieces of plastic wrap and, using a meat mallet, pound until each piece is about 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick.

3. Combine seasonings and sprinkle evenly over one side of each chicken piece. Divide shredded cheese among all pieces, layering on top of the spices. On top of each cheese, layer 1-2 pieces of ham (remember to use deli-style). Roll each chicken piece up and secure with toothpics. (When I made it, it didn't look perfect at this point. So unless you are entertaining, don't worry about it looking perfect because it will still turn out well).

4. Place flour in a shallow bowl, eggs in another bowl, and both panko bread crumbs (or cereal crumbs) and parmesean cheese in a third, and stir the cheese and crumbs to combine.

5. (Here is the messy part) Working with one piece of chicken at a time, dredge in flour, rolling the chicken around to cover the whole piece, then in eggs, and finaly in bread crumb mixture. Use your fingers to press bread crumb mixture in on all sides of chicken.

6. Place chicken on prepared baking sheet. Drizzle melted butter evenly over chicken. Bake for about 25-35 minutes or until internal temperature reaches 164 degrees F.

7. Cool for 10 minutes, remove toothpics, and enjoy! :)

Back In Texas

So this past week I had the opportunity to visit Arlington, Texas for the first time since I moved about six years ago. I can't believe the only time we had to go was in the middle of July, so people thought we were crazy, but it was still worth it. My brothers left about a week ago with our aunt and uncle while they were in Utah, so my dad and I drove down to meet up with them.

It was a very long 24 hour drive to and from, but on the way there my dad and I stopped at the four corners area.

I decided to do hop in the bandwagon and do one of those plank pics :)

                                         
After the long drive, we finally arrived. I was able to stay with my younger cousins and finally saw Josh and Brandon for the first time in a couple of weeks so it was good to see all of them. Here is a schedule of what the short trip was like:
Tues: I did some swimming and shopping with the girls and my aunt.
Wed: My dad took us to Six Flags. We got there before noon, and it was one of the hottest days. We felt disgusting as we were out in about 105 degree heat all day, but they have some of the craziest and best rides like...

This rocket ride that swings back and forth, but that's not all...

This rocket swings you all the way around and holds you in the air and repeats itself a few times. I refused to go on it because I did not want to be sick for the rest of the day, but Josh and my dad were in this very picture.

But I discovered that one of my all time favorite rides is the (New) Texas Giant. Supposedly they opened it up just this last April so I am very glad we had the chance to go on it. It used to be a large, rickety wooden roller coaster, but they renovated it to create a smoother track as you speed down a drop at 79 degrees and a 90 degree turn too. They have tunnels you go through as well where lights flash past you, kind of like at Space Mountain at Disneyland, but at night during the 90 degree turn fire flashes around you. Usually roller coasters have a lap bar in front of you or a harness to pull over you, but this one only had a saddle-type thing in between your legs to secure you in your seat. This meant that when you go down the drops, you start flying up in your seat. It sounds dangerous but really was a very fun experience!

Josh and my dad's hair was sticking up pretty well afterwards. You can't really see it in this picture, but you can see the drop in the backgound

            

This is the 90 degree turn :)







Another ride that I really enjoyed was this bobsled ride. There was no track and you speed through the slide, sometimes feeling as if the ride is going to fall off. But when the ride ended the car in front of us had a metal part come off during the ride, so we had to wait while they put it back on haha

There was one called the flashback where you feel as if you are part of a slingshot. First you are slowly pulled backwards as you are facing forwards, and then you are launched forward as you do several loops, then you are put in reverse as you are facing pulled forward, but do the loops backwards. It was a crazy ride! But I did feel a little sick after.

Now I usually do ok on roller coasters, but I can't handle too many one after another, especially with loops and corkscrews. So since I felt queasy after the flashback, I had a feeling I could not handle the Batman ride. But of course I decided to go on it anyway because it looked wild and my brothers and dad went on it. But I did get so queasy after the batman ride that I was done for the rest of the day.

So that was a summary of Six Flags.

The next couple of days we spent a little more time around Arlington, checking out where we were raised. We went to our homes we lived in, our elementary schools, parks we went to, and more.

back at good ol' Dunn Elem (the finest school in the metraplex)

 We then eventually saw a few friends from our old ward, the Fullers and McPhees. Maddy M and I had a little too much fun for our own good with fake moustaches we bought out of the vending machine at Cicis Pizza. Mine was being annoying and kept falling off while trying to get a picture, and we were having a giggle fit. But there was a guy growing a moustache giving us a weird look at it was pretty funny :)

That night was also a very very exciting event I had waited for many years to come. I went with my cousins to see Harry Potter 7. At this theater they showed parts 1 and 2 back to back on a screen that reached from the ceiling to the floor. We enjoyed Jamba Juice and Pizza while waiting in line to get our seats. But once we walked in the theater room we discovered almost every seat was taken, so it sucked because we had to all split up for better seats. I was sitting next to a few girls about middle school/high school age who didn't seem to care about Harry Potter so I was annoyed, and therefore I was laughed at during the movie when I cried. So then I really missed seeing the movie at Jordan Commons because I thought this place would be similar and filled with Harry Poter activities, food, etc and but unfortunately there wasn't too much. But there was Kearns' High School's own Quidditch team all dressed up!!! Can you believe it?? Isn't that the most legit thing ever?! A high school quidditch team!

 But other than that if anyone reading this has seen the movie, they may agree that it was an incredible movie. It may sound weird saying this about a Harry Potter film, but the one word that came to mind to describe it: beautiful. The actors did such a fantastic, beautiful job and it was beautifully done!

I left my costume in Utah because I thought it would be too hot in Texas and it would be too much to pack. I did regret leaving it, but I did make this shirt to make up for it :)

with Bellatrix

haha that costume was kind of creepy but so clever!

and the Patil Twins

An extra from the movie (and he is Draco's stunt double) also came to talk to us about the movie before it started.

The next day we saw our hometown some more. First I saw my CF doctor. She was very suprised to see me healthy and as well as can be and I was very glad to see her!

And you know you had the coolest pre-school teacher when you are excited to see her at age 18 haha. She still teaches at her cute yellow school and we stopped by as she told us hilarious stories of events in her life. And incredibly enough she still remembered all of us!

The yellow school we went to

Later that night we spent more time with our aunt, uncle, and cousins as we had some serious giggle fests as we jumped on the trampoline, played games, and enjoyed Bluebell Ice Cream. I miss them already and it was an awesome trip!