Grilled Tomato Skewers

If you are friends with me on facebook I'm sure you have seen the pictures of my boys and I picking tomatoes from my mother-in-law's garden!  She has CRAZY amounts of tomatoes, I have never seen anything like it.  We pick hundreds at a time and there are still a ton left!  So with all these tomatoes around the house I have come up with some tasty ways to enjoy them!  Today, I just have a couple of minutes so I will share a quick recipe that is as easy as they come, but look beautiful for your family dinner at home or your next party!  I hope you try these, they are super yummy!!

What you need:
Skewers
Cherry tomatoes
Olive Oil
Salt&Pepper
Smoked Paprika

In a large bowl combine tomatoes, olive oil, salt, pepper and paprika.  Toss until the tomatoes are well coated.  Now, its time to skewer the tomatoes.  I try to have tomatoes that are the same size on each skewer, but will mix different varieties. If you have a tomato that is much larger than the others, that one will get grilled but it will prevent the smaller tomatoes from reaching the grill.  Place on a well heated grill and turn while cooking to get some beautiful grill marks on all sides of the tomatoes.  Let them cook until the tomatoes start to pop!  Then they are ready to eat!  These are perfect on their own, or to be removed and stirred into a rice or pasta dish.  Enjoy!

Jambalaya

Tonight I made a jambalaya simple enough for a busy mom, yet tasty enough for a chef!  That is always my goal when cooking, big flavors, tasty ingredients and easy :)  One of the best things we did when planting out back was to put in a Laurel Tree, there is a never ending supply of bay leaves!!  I just send out the boys and say I need a cooking leaf and they pick it and throw it in the pot.  It adds so much flavor...yum!
There are tons of recipes out there fr jambalaya, this is what I came up with  a while back from researching other recipes.  I hope you enjoy it!

Ingredients:
1 onion, diced
1 bell pepper (any color...I used green today), diced
3 ribs celery, sliced
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 bay leaves
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
8 oz andouille sausage, sliced
3/4 cup long grain rice
3 cups chicken stock
Salt & Pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil

Start with your olive oil in a pan and turn heat to high.  Add in onion, celery and bell pepper and saute until caramelized and they start to get soft.  Add in garlic and continue to saute.  Season with salt and pepper, also add in bay leaves, cayenne and paprika.  Make sure it is combined well and stir in sausage and rice, cook for about a minute and then add chicken stock.  reduce heat to medium and cook for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Then when liquid is absorbed and rice is tender you are ready to eat!!

SpEGGtacular Tomato Sandwich

Being married to a chef means there are few times where we have dinner as our family of 5...but it does mean that we get lots of breakfasts together!  So, I make all the regular breakfast items (normally I'm too sleepy to be too creative) and every once in a while I will make something special or fun.  Today when I asked Casey what he wanted for breakfast he said an egg sandwich.  So, while I was tempted to make the regular, same old plain sandwich I normally make (scrambled eggs and a little mayo on sandwich bread)  I thought I would spice it up today :)

Ingredients:
Sourdough bread
2 thick slices of tomato
2 eggs
basil
butter
salt&pepper

Melt a tab of butter in a non-stick pan.  While the butter melts heavily salt and pepper both sides of sliced tomato.  Put the tomatoes in the hot pan.  It should sizzle :)  Sear it for about a minute and then flip it over to sear the other side.

Take your tomatoes off the heat and set aside for later.  Wipe out your pan and add another tab of butter so you can fry your eggs!  When the butter has melted crack 2 eggs into your pan.  Grind pepper and add salt to your eggs and turn the heat to medium low.  I have a hard time flipping my eggs so, I do it my own way....do it how you do it best :)  When my whites start to get firm I use my spatula to separate the two eggs, then I slowly flip each one over.

I like my eggs with the whites cooked, but the yolks runny.  While the eggs are finishing up throw your sourdough bread in the toaster.  Put a thin layer of mayo on your bread and then add your tomato slices, next the eggs and finish with a basil leaf.



See how beautiful this looks??  Put the slices together and pick it up and eat it if you dare!!  Its going to be messy!!  Or, eat if with a fork and knife like I did!  Either way you are going to love how the yolk oozes all over the tomato and bread and coats it with its warm, yellow goodness!

Grilled Corn on the Cob

I'm back!  Things have been crazy the last few weeks!  First the whole family was sick, then Casey and I went on a little trip...plus we have been enjoying SUMMERTIME!!  So, the blog has been neglected :(  That doesn't mean I have stopped cooking, I have been cooking a bunch and have about 10 blog posts running around in my head right now!

I just thought I would share a quick tip on making the MOST delicious corn on the cob ever!  A lot of us will be barbecuing this weekend and this is such an easy way to make corn on the bob taste soooo good and you can just throw it on the grill with the rest of your food!  Better yet, prep it outside, and you have absolutely no mess in your kitchen!

Ingredients:
Corn on the Cob
Olive Oil
Salt & Pepper

So simple...start by peeling back the leaves of the husk.  You don't want to remove them, just peel them away so you can get rid of the silk (hairy stuff).  Once you get all the silk removed rub the cob with olive oil.  I put some some salt and freshly ground pepper in  a little bowl and then rub your salt&pepper mixture heavily on the corn.  Next, pull the husks back over the corn. 

This is what it looks like in steps: 1.corn, 2.husk peeled back and silk removed, 3. olive oil, S&P, 4. Husk pushed back up

Then you throw it on the bbq and let it cook.  I put mine on for about 10 minutes (it was pretty high heat), but you need to leave them on until tender.  This corn is seriously delicious!  It gets steamed in the husk, yet has a yummy charred bbq flavor!  This is our favorite way to eat corn at our house!