1/3 Cup Lime Juice

1/4 Cup Tequila

1 tablespoon minced Garlic

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Combine the liquids and garlic in a ziplock bag. Add the chicken. Marinate in the refrigerator 2-6 hours. Grill until done.

I wanted to take Porter and Taya out to dinner last night…the least I could do considering how crazy busy they are pulling the wedding together. Taya actually worked yesterday and had a ton of errands to run after work so that left Porter, David, and I.

We had a pow-wow to figure out what to get for dinner…I knew David was hungry for seafood, but if we were going to do that, we should have done it while were were still on the mainland. I mentioned that what I was hungry for was Asian food, and that caused me to remember that I’ve been wanting to try Pho, pronounced “fa”, and it is a Vietnamese noodle bowl. Porter said there was one in Poulsbo that he’d been wanting to try.

Off we went in search of Pho. I walked in the door of T and N Pho and left immediately at home…the aromas were delectable AND they had bubble tea which made David hug me in appreciation!! LOL

Lots of stuff on the menu sounded fantastic, especially the steak and shrimp vermicelli noodle bowl pictured above.  But…I went in for Pho and that’s what I decided to get. Man it was good. The broth was very flavorful, with steak, vermicelli noodles, steak, green onions, bean sprouts, fresh basil leaves, fresh lime juice, optional jalepeno slices I left out.  We also ordered egg rolls which were phenominal with this really different dipping sauce. It was so good I went back to try the noodle bowl pictured above, today.

I’m off to Amazon to see if I can find a Vietnamese cookbook so I can duplicate it at home…one of those noodle bowls would be SOOO GOOD on a snowy winter day!!! I’m just about drooling on myself thinking about it. LOL

It’s basically everything you would put into a Reuben sandwich dumped together in a soup…The best thing is when you bake a fresh loaf of bread to go along with it!

This is what we are having for dinner last night.  I threw 2 corned beefs in the crockpot yesterday with plans for one of them to be made into soup tonight.  I’m going to share the recipe below…give it a try sometime and let me know what you think.

Reuben Soup

4 cups chicken broth
1 pound corned beef, chopped
1 can (16 oz) sauerkraut, drained
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
2 potatoes, peeled & chopped
1 pound American-Swiss cheese
1 medium onion, chopped
3 cups half-and-half
Instant potatoes to thicken

Mix all ingredients except cheese and half-and-half and cook until vegetables are done. Cool slightly and add half-and-half and cheese. Heat until cheese melts.

• 2 whole chickens that have sat overnight in a lemon-herb brine
• Gravy
• Hashbrown Casserole
• Roasted Broccoli with Pistachios
• Mom’s Sausage Stuffing (in an pan)
• Jellied Cranberries out of a can…Brian insisted
• Roasted Yams
• Pumpkin Cheesecake

It was originally going to be just the 3 of us so there wasn’t any pressure to be terribly traditional.  Brother-in-Law, Kenny, will be joining us because his wife will still be out of town…when I found out he was going to be alone, I was glad to invite him, but did feel the need to warn him that it wasn’t going to be a “traditional” Thanksgiving dinner…I suspect with the wife gone for the better part of two weeks; any meal he didn’t have to make himself, is a good meal.

I know Brian and David are looking forward to our little non-Traditional Thanksgiving…I’m sure both will be helping out in the kitchen…I will be anxious to post my results.

Last night, before bed, I was hanging out on a message board and one of the posts was looking for a Sausage Balls recipe. I’ve never had them…but I must say that they sounded GOOD!

I had all the ingrediants on hand, so, I took out the bulk pork sausage to defrost over night. Who knew it was going to turn out to be the perfect day to turn on the oven!

Over night the wind picked up.  Our house sits alone on 5 acres so we have nothing to protect us from the raw power of the winds whipping across the prairie. The wind that did pick up is COLD, and it’s picking up every grain of dirt and sand available. It’s so bad you can barely see beyond the house. Thankfully we did get a bit of rain before the wind picked up so that succeeded in keeping the dust storm down a bit.

So, I’ve digressed.  I got up and made the sausage balls and while they are cooking I thought I would post about them and the recipe in case anyone else would like to try them.

Sausage Balls
1 lb. Sausage
1 cup shredded cheese
1/2 cup grated onions
1 Tsp Garlic Powder
1 Tsp Pepper
1/2 Tsp Salt
1 Cup Bisquick mix

Mix all into approx 1″ balls and Bake at 400 deg for 10 – 15 min on a greased cookie sheet. Mine are still in the oven so I can’t comment on them…YET.  The boys are standing by the oven, salivating, waiting for the timer to go off.

Edited to add: These were good! I had bulk pork sausage, not breakfast sausage. They tasted like a sausage and cheese biscuit all rolled into a bite size container. I made a recipe and a half, and it made 34  1.5″ balls…we plowed through them! There are 10 left and the boys are already fighting over who gets to eat them tomorrow.

Hamilton Beach Panini Press

This is the Panini Press Bri got me for Xmas last year. It’s been in storage and I’ve missed it!  Now that we are in the house, I had it readily available, but hadn’t used it.

I took it off the shelf today and created a new sandwich that was TO DIE FOR!!

When I was at WallyMart on Saturday, I noticed they had some whole grain Ciabatta rolls.  I really love the Ciabatta because it will get crunchy on the outside, but it’s still soft on the inside.  These whole grain ones looked yummy.

I was sitting at the table trying to decide what to make for lunch. After looking in the fridge I got a bright idea.  I cleaned a couple of Portobello Mushroom caps and placed them in the grill to pre-cook them.  I also took a couple of thin slices of sweet Maui onion and put them on the grill.

I sliced open the roll, and put some Green Onion Cream Cheese on each side.  Sliced some good, fresh tomatoes from Carrington.  I layered the mushroom cap on one half of the roll, with the onion and tomato and a touch of salt and pepper.  Closed the sandwich and placed it on the grill and closed it for about 10 minutes on med. heat!

WOW was it good!  I had to post it here so I don’t forget it. LOL! If you are a toasted sandwich lover…do yourself a favor and pick up a panini press…the make the best sandwiches!!!

Then, over the weekend I decided to make pizza dough from scratch.  I followed the directions to the LETTER!!!  But the dough wasn’t doing what the book told me it would…so I questioned whether it was going to work.  It did, but I don’t think it worked as well as it was supposed to.  Don’t get me wrong, it was still edible, if not plain good, it just didn’t rise as much as I think it should have.

Then, my darling hubby, sprouted a “boo-boo” lip whining about, when are you going to make Cinnamon Rolls.  So I did.  I got up, cleaned up the kitchen from the dinner of pizza, then started to “whip-up” a batch of cinnamon rolls.  This was the first recipe that did exactly what it was supposed to do!

Making the rolls reminded me of my Mom.  Way back when, she got her first food processor and that was one of the bonuses of a food processor, all the time it could save you in the mixing and kneading of bread dough.  After my Mom unpacked her food processor my Dad found the enclosed recipe book and immediately ordered a batch of cinnamon rolls.  Mom, dutifully, whipped up a few recipes of cinnamon rolls and never made them again.  I think Mom decided that even with the food processor, it was still too much work.

I could relate to Mom last night.  While I had all the ingrediants, it was easy to knock out a batch of cinnamon rolls, the challenge was in getting them done for breakfast this morning.  After the dough had raised the first time, I rolled it out and spread on the cinnamon/sugar mixture.  Rolled them up and cut them into rolls.  Well, I stuck them in the fridge at that point, and set the alarm on my clock for 4am.  These rolls still had to raise a second time…so they needed to set out for 3-4 hours before I could bake them.  At 8am, Bri woke me up and told me it was time to bake.  I could smell yeast and cinnamon all throughout the house.  Thanfully they didn’t take long to cook and the boys could have their “fix”.

While they were good, I am going to make some changes to the recipe for the future.  I may just have to make them again next weekend.  I think I better order some more of the really good cinnamon from Penzies, God forbid I run out! LOL!

Oh! For the record, these were really easy with my handy Kitchen-Aid mixer!  The longest parts were the waiting for them to rise.

I finally broke down and bought this book.  It’s a book that has been on my Amazon wish list for about 18 months.  I’m really glad I did pick it up…it’s taken a lot of mystery out of something that was very mysterious to me.

I don’t recall my Mom doing much if any bread baking.  I know my Grandmothers did, but I only vaguely remember it.  It’s something I’ve always wanted to try…it’s the carbaholic in me, I’m sure.

Anyway, I started building my Sourdough started today.  I should be baking nice, big poufy rounds of wonderfully sourdough bread by the end of the week! YUM!  I will post how it goes!  Wish me luck.

If you are from Southern California…you are probably painfully (pun intended) aware of Tommy’s and Tommy Burgers.  Tommy’s was started 60 years ago at the corner of Beverly and Rampart.  It was, and still is, a shack with wood 2×4′s put up on the surrounding buildings to make a “bar” where you could stand and eat your Tommy’s.

Tommy’s is most known for their chili.  I’ve never found any other chili even remotely like Tommy’s chili.  It had this kind of greasy, congealed quality that in just about anything else would be a huge turn-off, but this stuff just tasted soooo good.  My 30+ year old digestive system doesn’t tolerate Tommy’s like it did in my teens.  Now whenever I eat Tommy’s I have to make sure I stay near a restroom for about a half hour afterward, cuz it truly is a gut buster. It effects Brian differently…mostly really bad indigestion.  You forget all “cons” when you are stuffing your face with all that good flavor.

Since Tommy’s is only in CA, or so I thought, I went online to see if one of those “copy cat” chefs had maybe figured out how Tommy made their chili.  I was successful in finding a recipe online…and had to try it out for dinner tonight to go with some hot dogs, cheese, onions, ketchup, and mustard.  This chili was close, but not quite there.

While online hunting a recipe, I discovered that Tommy’s has opened two stores here in Vegas.  Both in the South end of town.  I have some errands to do in Henderson tomorrow, so I am off to get some Tommy’s chili and see if I can do a taste test and discover the differences.

All this so I can still have some of my favorites when I move out to my little corner of North Dakota.  I’m tracking down all kinds of my favorite recipes for the move.  Wish me luck.