Hello All!

Well yet again I have fallen behind on my updates so hold on here we go...

I can't believe that Mia will be 3 in three months! How times fly's! She is know in school everyday for 3 hours a day. She loves it and she is starting to really blossom. Everyday she is saying and learning something new. She loves all her new friends.
She seems to know that her little sister Emma is in mommy's belly but, we don't know how well she really comprehends it.

My pregnancy is going well so far. I'm 33.5 weeks pregnant and counting. I am starting to get tired a lot faster these days. I'm carrying so much lower with this pregnancy then what I did with Mia. It's definitely taking a toll on me. In about 5 weeks I will get an ultrasound to try and estimate how big little miss Emma is. Depending on those results, they may or may not induce me early. (I'm not holding my breath but, it sure would be nice!)

School is going well for me. I only have 6 classes left and I will finally be done! THE END IS IN SIGHT!!

Kevin started his school in June and is doing really well so far. He is doing a great job trying to juggle everyday life, work, his family, and his school work. We appreciate him and all that he does for us. He really has been working his tail end off lately.
He has also had a lot of new business coming in for websites and stuff. That's something he has to juggle as well. Sometimes it gets a little overwhelming for him because people demand things done at certain times and they don't get the fact (or they just don't care) that he has another job. Hes doing very well with it all.


Well, I think that's about it for now. Until next time....

4D Ultrasound Pictures

Hello Friends and Family,

Here are the 4D Ultrasound pictures of Emma. She looks a lot like Mia but we are still trying to figure out who she looks like between Kevin and I....

3 Cheese Tortellini with Meat Sauce

Ingredients:

3 Cheese Tortellini with a Meat Sauce
I'm cooking up a pretty simple dinner tonight, and I thought I'd let you in on it. It's 3 cheese Tortellini with a meat sauce. The sauce is from scratch, the tortellini is store bought. It's a very simple dish, it's just a little time consuming.

1 Yellow Onion
2 Celery Stalks
About 1 small carrot
2 28oz cans of whole peeled tomatoes
3 cloves of garlic
Red Pepper Flake
Oregano
Basil
Herbes de Provence
Cumin (not pictured)
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1/4 cup Balsamic Vinegar
85/15 Ground Round
Buitoni 3-Cheese Tortellini
1/3 cup Sugar (not pictured)
Salt & Pepper, of course


Step 1:

First things first, I drain the tomatoes. I'm saving the juice, however. If I just used this juice in the sauce, it'd be watery. So I'm going to reduce it down with some other flavors and use it as the base. At this point you may be notice that this recipe looks an awful lot like Alton Brown's Pantry Friendly Tomato Sauce. I guess great minds think alike. Mine's a little different though, plus it has meat.


Step 2:

Next, seed the tomatoes. Just bust them open and swipe out the seeds with your fingers. Seeds go down the sink. Tomatoes go into a separate bowl for now. I'm not anal about getting every single seed, but I do take my time with this. Seeds make a sauce bitter.


Step 3:

Let the tomatoes sit for a minute. More juice will seep from them. Add that to the pot.
To this, I add 1 dash of red pepper flake, 10 dashes of dried oregano, a healthy pinch of herbes de provence, 1/4 cup balsamic, and 1/3 cup sugar. Turn up the heat and let it reduce. This will take a while.

Step 4:

Meanwhile, I chop up my veggies. 1 Yellow onion, 3 large cloves of garlic, 2 celery stalks, and some carrot. This goes into a pan with a little EVOO on LOW heat. I'm just sweating it.

My wife hates chunks of carrot, and I tend to keep little baby carrots around for snacking. So I'm just taking those and thinly slicing them with my peeler.

It'll get the flavor in there, but will practically melt into the sauce. She'll never even know they're in there.


Step 5:

Veggies in the pot...


Step 6:

Sweating...


Step 7:

OK, that's going, now it's time to brown the meat. A little EVOO in a hot pan, and in goes the meat.


Step 8:

1 dash of cumin just for the hell of it, and plenty of herbs de provence (seeing a patern here?).


Step 9:

While that's going, I get my wife to crush the tomatoes.


Step 10:

After they're crushed, I add them to the veggies.


Step 11:

Cook some of that water away.


Step 12:

I had turned off the base reduction a few minutes ago. It's done reducing when the bubbles start to stack on top of each other. It's still plenty hot. Time to turn it back on now and add all these veggies.


Step 13:

I don't want it this chunky, so I get the stick blender and get it down to a smoother consistency. I left some veggie chunks, but not too many. Now, in goes the meat.


Step 14:

Close-up.


Step 15:

I'll let that cook together a bit while I boil this tortellini. It should take less than 10 minutes.


Step 16:

Serve the 3 Cheese Tortellini with Meat Sauce.

Linguine with Vegetable Medley

Ingredients:

We're going to make a cool pasta with veggies. Cut up 1 tomato, 2 small yellow squash, and 2 small cucumbers.


Step 1:

In a mixing bowl toss the vegetables with 1 tbsp white wine vinegar, 1 tbsp parsley, 2 tbsp freshly chopped basil, 1 clove of finely chopped garlic, and 2 tbsp olive oil. Adjust olive oil and vinegar to taste.


Step 2:

Mix together thoroughly, sampling as much as possible to...uh...make sure it taste right. We're shooting for a taste that runs parallel to the tomatoes, with an accent of cucumber sweetness to pick up the pasta with olive oil.

Stir everything together, cover, and let cool.


Step 3:

Boil fresh pasta for a few minutes. Really, use fresh pasta. Not to say that Buitoni or whatever is fresh, but try your best. Fresh is tastier.

Step 4:

Strain the linguine pasta and stir in olive oil or butter to coat. Top with your veggies.

The linguine pasta with veggie/fruits was very light when mixed together. The cucumber taste outweighed the tomato, but yet kept the whole side fresh.

Breadsticks

I don't know about you but, I LOVE BREADSTICKS! My all time favorites are from Olive Garden and Pizza Hut. So, I have finally found the receipes to make them at home and I thought I would share them with you.


Ingredients:

Hardware:
stand-mixer / bread-maker
food processor
baking sheet
brush

Ingredients:

Olive Garden: butter, flour, sugar, salt, yeast, kosher salt, garlic powder

Pizza Hut breadsticks: same + grated parmessan, black pepper, herbs

Pizza Hut cheesesticks: same + mozzerella

Olive Garden

In your stand-mixer or breadmachine, mix together:
1 1/3 cups of water
4 tsp soft butter
4 cups of flour
2 Tbsp sugar
2 tsp salt
2 tsp yeast


Step 1:

Then, roll it out into a log and divide it into 16 pieces.

Roll these pieces into cigar-shaped sticks of bread.
Arrange on a baking sheet.


Step 2:

Cover, and let rise for 45 minutes.


Step 3:

Preheat your oven to 400*F.

Use your brush to butter each stick, saving some butter for later. Sprinkle with kosher salt.

Step 4:

Cook for 15 minutes.

Remove, then brush twice more and add another sprinkling of kosher salt and a light sprinkle of garlic powder.

Tada! Olive Garden breadsticks.


Step 5:

What about Pizza Hut? Do this:
in a food processor, mix:
1/3 cup of parmessan cheese
1 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp herbs (it's for the green, I used Italian Pizza Seasoning)
1/2 tsp garlic powder


Step 6:

Then shake these onto your breadsticks to your liking (don't overpower the sticks though)

Cheesesticks? Sprinkle shredded mozerella onto the tops, then pop under the broiler until the cheese bubbles and burns a bit. Good stuff.

Want to make it LOOK, not just taste, like their sticks?


Step 7:

Dip ideas: marinara, ranch, or honey.

Stuffed Shells with Marinara

OK, I'm a pasta junkie. Although it was invented somewhere in Asia, nothing is better than a big fattening italian dish. With that being said, here's an awesome stuffed shells recipe. It serves four, but I was serving 8 so while the amounts are for a single recipe, the pictures are of a double recipe.

First start by making the marinara. You'll need the following:
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion
6 garlic cloves
1 pound fresh mushrooms
1/2 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
1 28-ounce can tomatoes, chopped, juices reserved
1 15-ounce can tomato sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons dried basil
3/4 teaspoon dried oregano

For the shells you will need:

One box of jumbo pasta shells
3 tablespoons butter
2 ounces prosciutto
2 large shallots
8 ounces cremini or button mushrooms (about 3 cups)
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
1 tablespoon dried basil, crumbled
Step 1:

Picture of shell ingredients:


Step 2:

First, prep your fresh ingredients. I like the garlic in thick slices, since it simmers for awhile and it will be nice and soft. Slice up your mushrooms and finely chop your onion. Then wish you had a food processor. It made this whole step take about 2 minutes, if that.


Step 3:

I've heard before that you should never use tomatoes in a cast iron skillet, but I don't care. I've been doing it for years, and the Lodge website even has tons of tomato recipes for use in their skillets. You can use a regular skillet, though.

Step 4:

Saute your onion in your olive oil over medium heat for about 5-10 minutes until soft and very oniony. Then add your garlic and cook for about a minute more. You should be stirring your ingredients around this whole time.


Step 5:

Add your mushrooms and crushed red pepper. It will seem like a lot, until they start to cook down. Cook like this for about 5 minutes, or until it looks like the second picture.


Step 6:

Second picture showing it cooked down:


Step 7:

Add that big can of tomatoes and it's juices, and stir around. Cover, and let cook on low for 15 minutes. If your skillet is like mine and doesn't have a lid, a cookie sheet works wonders.


Step 8:

Cookie sheet instead of a lid:


Step 9:

Uncover, and add your can of tomato sauce, sugar, basil and oregano.


Step 10:

We're reaching a critical mass here! I had to do the only logical thing after it started dripping down the side:


Step 11:

Cover again, and cook for another 15 minutes. Uncover, and season with some salt and pepper. I like kosher salt, but table salt is fine. Let simmer for about 5 minutes uncovered, until it's thickened up some. About this time, you should start boiling some water, and add your jumbo shells.

So now you have your shells in the water, and your marinara simmering to thick greatness.

Boil the shells according to the boxed direction, and drain. Throw them back in the pot to keep warm and flexible, and set aside while you make your stuffing.


Step 12:

Chop your shallots, mushrooms and prosciutto. The prosciutto will want to stick together, but it will seperate as it cooks.

Heat your butter in a skillet over medium-high heat and toss your shallots and prosciutto in. Cook, stirring the whole time, for about 4-5 minutes.


Step 13:

After 4-5 minutes it will look like this:


Step 14:

Toss in your mushrooms and cook until most of the mushroom juices have evaporated, about 8-10 minutes.


Step 15:

In a large bowl, mix the previous with your ricotta and basil.


Step 16:

If you plan on making this now, preheat your oven to 350F. If you plan on stuffing them now and baking later, that's fine, too. They can sit for about a day before baking. Regardless of how you're doing it, pour most of your marinara into your baking dish, and stuff your shells thusly:


Step 17:

Repeat until full:


Step 18:

Top with some parmesian, and bake for about 15-20 minutes, until your cheese is melted. Serve with some more marinara spooned over and some nice crusty garlic bread. Nummy.

Cuban Chicken

1/2 cup lemon juice
1 tablespoon crushed garlic (more if you'd like)
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons ground cumin
Salt and pepper
1 small purple onion peeled and chopped
1-2 cups Mojito Marinade
3 cups rice cooked
1/4 cup vegetable oil vegetable
3 chickens, halved or cut up (1-2 inche cubes)

Mix all the ingredients except the chicken. Add the chicken and marinate in the refrigerator for 1 to 2 days. (I usually marinate in a large ziplock bag)

Grill chicken over hot heat until cooked through.
If you do not want to grill you can fry it all up in a pan.