Apricot Bourbon Glazed Salmon

I always love when I make a recipe and my husband raves about it.  Makes me feel good.  Especially since so many of our meals are just routine and I do what I can to get dinner served quickly before I need to get out the door to ball practice or a game.

Tonight I scored a winner.

Apricot Bourbon Glazed Salmon

8 4-oz salmon fillets

1/2 cup real butter (1 stick)

1/2 cup dried apricots (soaked in warm water for about 30 minutes), drained & diced

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup bourbon

2 heaping teaspoons dijon mustard (I prefer the grainy kinds)

Melt  2 Tbsp of butter in a large cast iron skillet.  Add salmon fillets (I could only cook 4 at a time).  Cook on one side until you see the color start to change 1/2 way up the meat, then flip and cook for a few more  minutes on the other side.  Remove salmon to a plate.  Cook the remainder of the fillets if you need to, adding more butter as needed. 

In the same skillet, melt 4 tbsp butter then add apricots. Saute until the apricots start to get a bit translucent and soft.  Add the brown sugar and cook for about 2 minutes over medium heat.  Add the dijon mustard and bourbon. Cook until just starting to thicken.  Add back the salmon fillets, flipping them over in the sauce until completely coated.  Cook for another 3-5 minutes to glaze the fillets.

I served this with a wild rice and salad.

*NOTE:  I am going to do some more experimenting with this recipe.  Hubby would like to try it made with chicken or pork so he could make it at the station for cheaper.  I am also going to try this with some canned apricots, apricot jam/preserves, and/or frozen (or fresh, depending on the season) apricots.  

Enjoy and let me know what you think. 

Jambalaya

I really do love the ease of my La Chamba pot.  For me, I dump the ingredients in, place it in the oven and then go get done what I need to.  Usually that involves some sort of ball practice since we have those 4 days a week.  I made Jambalaya recently.  I know this probably isn't authentic, but it is good.  The husband and I use a creole seasoning on ours at the table to spice it up.

Jambalaya

2 cups raw rice (I used brown rice)

4 cups water

3 chicken breasts, uncooked, cut into 1" cubes

1 lb smoked sausage, cut into 1/2" pieces

1 med onion, chopped

1 green bell pepper, chopped

1-2 cans diced tomatoes

(I prefer mine with 2, but you can use 1 if you like less tomatoes; can also use Ro-tel for some added heat)

Mix all ingredients together in the La Chamba pot.  Bake in 325 degree oven for 2 to 2.5 hours.

That's it.  Simple, huh?  I really need to start remembering to take pictures of my creations to share.

Lazy Day Lasagna

I spent several days on a quest trying to find recipes to cook in my Chamba pot. I kept coming across the same few recipes. Therefore I had to get creative and adapt some recipes to work in my beautiful Columbian pot.

Lazy Day Lasagna

(or in my case, busy day)

1 box of lasagna noodles, uncooked

1 lg (or 2 regular size) jar spaghetti sauce

1 lb bulk sausage

1 onion, chopped

1 bell pepper, chopped

1 32 oz carton cottage cheese

fresh baby spinach

fresh button mushrooms, finely chopped

2 cups shredded mozzerella cheese

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

In a large skillet, brown the sausage, add the onions and peppers, cook until onions are clear. Add the mushrooms, cook about 5 minutes.


In your Chamba pot, put a couple large spoonfuls of spaghetti sauce on the bottom to cover. Break up 3 or 4 lasagna noodles and cover the bottom. Put a few spoonfuls of sauce over the noodles, again make sure they are covered. Now a layer of meat mixture, some mozzerella cheese, and more sauce. Break up 3 or 4 noodles and cover the sauce. Next layer is sauce, cottage cheese, spinach leaves, sauce. 3 or 4 broken up noodles and then repeat the meat layer.


Keep layering until you either run out of room or out of the stuff for the layers. Finish up with a layer of noodles on top and the remaining spaghetti sauce. Put the lid on your La Chamba pot and place in the oven.


I baked mine in a 300 degree oven for just over 2 hours. In the last 10-15 minutes of baking, I sprinkled cheddar and more mozzerella cheese over the top and replaced the lid to finish it up.




This won't come out in beautiful little squares, but the flavors are all there. All of my kids LOVE this. I only have one that picks anything out and that is a stray onion or pepper that she might catch.

The Love Dare - Day 3

Love is not selfish

Be devoted to one another in brotherly love;

give preference to one another in honor.

~ Romans 12:10

Today's challenge:

As well as refraining from any negative comments, I was to buy my spouse something that says I was thinking of him today.

Not too terribly hard, right?

I figured it was perfect since he was back at the station today. I was going to go get him a butter pecan shake and take it to him. Just a small treat to say I love you. ONLY...... he got sent to dispatch. On those days I have to take him down something to eat since he isn't allowed to leave. OK, so I can still take him his ice cream. But when I get down there with his dinner, he is so busy he can't even leave the boards to come out and get it. Poor thing, he had to send someone else out to get it.

I am trying here, but I don't know if these little things are out of the norm for me to be noticed.

I continue on!

And just for the record, I told him I was exercising daily for Lent. Only I am doing REALLY bad on that one. He doesn't know that I am doing The Love Dare on him.

The adventures of my La Chamba pot

What started as a quest to find a bean pot to make some authenic Boston Baked Beans, resulted in a trip to Williams-Sonoma and the purchase of this awesome Columbian La Chamba pot. Is this newly aquired La Chamba pot the same as the bean pot I was seeking? No, but it was as close as I could find that would help me get dinner on the table that night.

Just to keep it all straight and to give proper credit to what started all of this. The recipe that I wanted to make was The Pioneer Woman's Boston Baked Beans. If you click on her link, you will see the beautiful bean pot that she used near the bottom.


As an avid cook, I decided I NEED one of those. Not next week. Not tomorrow. Today. Like NOW! Like it already needed to be in my oven simmering away. So my 1st step was to call my mother-in-law and ask her if she had a bean pot. Yes she did and she even told me where I could find it so I could borrow it.


Yes it was a clay pot. Seemed more like ceramic, and it didn't have those high sides. Plus it didn't look very big for my pot full of mouth-watering beans. But I did take it, just in case.


I saunter into Williams-Sonoma, after the obligatory stop at Godiva to fulfill my cravings of good chocolate, and ask for a bean pot. And the guy just sort of stood there and blinked at me. Oh come on! Surely everybody knows what a bean pot is. After all I just learned about one that very morning!! (Not entirely true, I did see an episode of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives where Guy went into some small restaurant and made beans in a bean pot.) So the clerk had to call in some help. Now I am explaining to an older lady what I am looking for. She takes me over to the shelf full of these gorgeous black clay pots in all shapes and sizes. And I fall in love and I buy the round one that most closely resembles my desired bean pot. At this point I really have no idea anything about this pot other than I wanted it.






I come home and wash out the pot and start my beans to cooking. Then I hit the world wide web looking for information about my new pot. Oh and some more ideas of what to cook in it to justify the purchase. Because the little baby was not the cheapest thing to buy and if I just planned on cooking beans in it, the hubby might have been putting my ashes in it.




Here is what I learned:

La Chamba pots are made in a village in Columbia. The same village that has been making them for the past 700 or so years. Almost all of the villagers are involved in this. They are all handmade and fired. Oh and did I mention it's gorgeous?

The Love Dare - Day 2

Love is kind.

Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other,

just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.

~ Ephesians 4:32

Today's challenge was to continue with not saying anything negative as well as doing one act of kindness.

Again, this one was easy. It is very common practice for me to do acts of kindness - bringing him a drink, making him his lunch, making his plate at dinner, etc.

Love Dare - Day 1

Happy Ash Wednesday!!!

Be completely humble and gentle; be patient,

bearing eith one another in love.

~ Ephesians 4:2 NIV

Love is patient.

Today's challenge was to demonstrate patience and to not say anything negative to your spouse.

This one was an easy one for me. OK well maybe not the patience one, but I usually try hard not to say anything negative. But for today this was an easy challenge. Of course it helped when Mark was at work all day.

Basically this one wasn't a challenge for me. I am sure these will get harder the farther into the challenge I get.

My Lenten Resolve - The Love Dare

I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do this year for Lent. I had just finished reading Fireproof again and thought doing The Love Dare would be perfect.

For those of you that don't know, The Love Dare is a 40 day challenge to help improve your marriage. Just for the record, my husband and I are happily married (for almost 16 years). But I figured it could never hurt to try and improve it.

I will document my 40-day Lenten Love Dare journey. Jump in and join me if you choose.

Now these three remain:

faith, hope, and love.

But the greatest of these in love

1 Corinthians 13:13

Oh me oh my! That year sure flew by!

I don't really know how it happened, but somehow, someway, my baby girl turned 1.

Her first year was a complete whirlwind and was gone in a blink. The problem with a whole houseful of children, is that it is very hard to just sit and cherish the little moments with the younger ones that I got to enjoy with the older ones.

It saddens me to know that sometimes the little ones have had to be put off for a few minutes so I can deal with an issue with the older ones. The older ones got what they needed, when they needed it and very rarely had to wait. I know, I know, it's not harming the littles and it is teaching them patience, but it still makes me sad to here them cry out for me and I can't be there immediately for them. I guess that is just the mommy in me.

Sorry, got off track there for a second. Back to the baby's birthday.

Like I was saying, my little princess has turned 1.

The 1st year is such a huge leap for development. Think about it. When a babe is born, they sleep, eat, and poop. As the days, weeks, and months progress, they learn to hold up their heads, bat at their toys, roll over, sit up, beg (oh wait that was the dog, sorry), crawl, stand, walk, and talk. They go from being a snuggly lump of baby goodness to being a walking, talking child in a matter of 12 months.

My little ToriBeth is walking. She has 5 teeth (OUCH!). She says hi and dadadadadadadada (nonstop). She can sign bunny, light, and more. She is a charmer and loves everybody.

I know she wasn't in our original plans for our family, but she is a blessing that we never knew we needed until she got here. She makes my heart smile.