Yummy Recipes - Best Broccoli ... EVER

I handed hubby his dinner plate last week along with a disclaimer. I said, "I know the broccoli looks a little burnt, but trust me, it's really delicious." Luckily, hubby is an adventurous eater - there's not much he won't try. He took one bite, his eyes lit up, and he said, "WOW! This is the best broccoli ever." He then proceeded to finish his generous serving of broccoli before even moving on to his main meat course.

I started roasting vegetables about seven months ago when our beloved steamer broke. I used to steam veggies almost every night. I took this as a challenge to get more creative with preparing veggies and I was also being cheap and didn't want to buy a new steamer. So I turned to my favorite recipe blog, For the Love of Cooking, where Pam introduced me to veggie roasting. I roast almost all veggies now. I have adapted her roasted broccoli recipe (which was already delicious), and came up with this:

Roasted Broccoli

2 large bunches of broccoli
Olive oil
Sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper, to taste
Fresh garlic, minced
Lemon juice (optional)
Parmesan cheese (optional)

Preheat the oven to 425*. Line a baking sheet with foil. IF you wash your broccoli first, make sure that you dry it thoroughly. Not everyone thinks it's necessary to wash produce or even meats before cooking in a high temperature oven. In theory, that kind of heat should kill any harmful bacteria. But if it makes you nervous, just dry it obsessively.

Cut the broccoli into florets and place in a single layer on the lined baking sheet. Toss with olive oil, salt and pepper. Sorry, no exact measurements ... I just eyeball it. If I had to guesstimate, I'd say 4-5 Tbsp. olive oil and 1 tsp. each salt and pepper. Make sure the broccoli is coated with oil, but not dripping. Now add about 5 minced garlic cloves evenly.

Roast in the oven for about 25 minutes, until crisp-tender and some of the tips are browned. When done, remove from oven and squeeze a little lemon juice on top, and sprinkle with some parmesan cheese. Sometimes I skip the lemon and cheese, because I'm so anxious to dig in, and it still tastes so yummy.

Broccoli can often get squishy when you cook it. Not this broccoli. It develops an amazing brown crust in some spots. The key is roasting at a high temperature until it caramelizes.

I find myself craving this during the day. I want to throw each little floret in my mouth like popcorn, and just snack on them. If my mom had prepared broccoli this way when we were growing up, I guarantee that there wouldn't have been a struggle at the dinner table. In fact, I would have begged for more!

Try it. You won't be disappointed.

Five years ago today ...

... Kent proposed. We had gone tubing that day, and sun + water always wears me out, so I took a nap at his apartment afterwards. It was almost dark when Kent woke me up and asked if I still wanted to go to the fireworks show at the park. I did, so we headed out.

He brought a blanket and some sparklers, and we found a nice spot under a big tree. We lit some sparklers while we were waiting for the show to begin. Kent was having some trouble lighting them with the lighter that he'd brought. I told him not to worry about it, but he was persistent! The fireworks display started, and Kent was still messing with the sparklers. I told him that they weren't a big deal and to just enjoy the fireworks with me. He eventually did, but I could tell that he was still annoyed about the sparklers.

When the finale was over, I started packing up our stuff to go, and he said, "Do you want to stay and finish the sparklers?" I was thinking, 'Geez, what is UP with him and these sparklers?!?,' but I said, "OK, sure." We were successful in lighting the remaining sparklers. When my final sparkler burnt out, I turned to look at Kent who still had one burning. At the base of the sparkler, I noticed something shiny. It was a ring! He told me that this was the REAL finale, and asked me to be his wife.

The next year, some friends threw us an engagement party over the July 4th weekend, complete with a personal fireworks show on the lake.

And for our wedding send-off, all of our guests held extra-long sparklers while we ran under them to our getaway car. (Our photographer holds the rights to that photo, darn!)

So today is very special to us! Happy 4th everyone!

Wordless Wednesday

Yummy Recipes - Salad Dressing

I've been cooking up a storm this past week. Making up for lost time I guess. My sweet mom brought Kent and I many dinners during our mini-remodel so that we didn't have to take time out to cook and could just continue working. But after not cooking for so long, I felt like I had a lot of catching up to do. Last week I made: salsa, jalapeno bread, cinnamon rolls, banana pancakes, veggie quiche, oatmeal-peanut butter cookies and salad dressing, in addition to regular dinners. I've been really into making my own salad dressings lately. You just need to have a few staple ingredients on hand, and you can make a wide variety of dressings. Plus it's a great way to avoid preservatives and save money. Here are some of my favs:

Balsamic Vinaigrette
from cooks.com

1 cup olive oil
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
3-5 gloves garlic
3 Tbsp Parmesan cheese
Sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper, to taste

Whisk together vinegar, garlic and grated cheese. Gradually add the olive oil. Salt and pepper to taste.


Lemon Garlic
from For the Love of Cooking

6 Tbsp olive oil
Juice of one lemon
1-2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tsp red wine vinegar
Sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper, to taste
1/4 tsp dried oregano

Whisk all ingredients together until thoroughly combined. Taste and re-season if needed. Toss the salad with the dressing and serve. Enjoy.


Fran's Simple Vinaigrette
from For the Love of Cooking

1/2 cup canola oil
3 Tbsp rice vinegar
1 Tbsp red wine vinegar
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp sugar
Sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper, to taste (lots of pepper)

Combine all ingredients and mix thoroughly before tossing on your favorite salad. Enjoy.

Day of the Dads

Father's Day was so fun. I really enjoy having everyone over to our home. The first time I volunteered our place for a get-together a few years ago, I was nervous about fitting 12+ people in our less than 1500 sq. ft. house, but no one ever seems to mind. Luckily we all like each other and don't mind sitting close! And a big backyard helps, too. We grilled brats and had lots of other yummy food and played ladderball, even though it was scorching out. What a great day!

Down to the Wire

Whew! We completed our flooring redo with just minutes to spare. Did I mention that we had a deadline of a week and a half, because we were having 13 family members over on Father's Day? Oh yeah, minor detail.

Kent was still grouting the last room less than 24 hours before our get-together, and I was still hauling leftover tile, tools and junk out of the house, oh about two hours before our company was due to arrive. Yikes! But we did it, and we're thrilled with the results. I feel so much more productive in our "new" office, our master closet seems bigger and the new tile in the bathrooms give the rooms a richer look. There's still some minor finishing work to do, like the baseshoe, but the hard part is done. Check it out:

How about those new toilets, huh? They're flush-riffic! (Yes, we realize that we are a little too excited about our new high-efficiency porcelain thrones. It's not normal, but we're OK with that.)

Huge props to my hubby! I'm so lucky to have such a handy guy!

If you give a mouse a cookie ...

We're in the middle of our mini-remodel, I can't help but think of the children's book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie as we go along. If you haven't heard of it, it goes something like this:

"If you give a mouse a cookie, he's going to ask for a glass of milk. When you give him the milk, he'll probably ask you for a straw ..." and the requests go on and on.

We started out just wanting to replace our damaged floors. But the tile we picked clashed with the existing paint color in the study and hall bathroom. So I repainted both rooms to match. Now a dresser in the study doesn't go with the newly painted walls as well. So I painted it black. Since we're tiling both bathrooms, the toilets had to be disconnected and removed. Might as well just get new toilets then, right? Now we want new bathroom countertops to go with our new floors and toilets. But our bank account needs a break!

So just remember ... if you give a girl new tile, she's going to want to remodel the whole house.