Author: Girlmom

Lamb (Gyro) Burgers

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I am not a huge fan of ground beef, or burgers really. But, I recently had a lamb slider that was so good. I like lamb and I like gyros so that is what we have here. I did what I do and Googled about five different recipes and made it my own. So we have ground lamb, garlic salt, ground coriander and fresh mint for the meat. I slightly caramelized one sweet onion, bought Tzatziki from Trader Joes and grabbed some fresh arugula and brioche buns.

INGREDIENTS

1 lb. ground lamb.

1 clove garlic, minced

Pinch of garlic salt

1 teaspoon oregano

1 teaspoon ground Coriander

1 Tablespoon fresh mint, chopped

One sweet onion, sliced

Fresh arugula

Tzatziki

Hot sauce if you like it spicy. My preference with Gyros is Sriracha.

DIRECTIONS

Combine the lamb and the next five ingredients with a bowl. Your hands are the best tool for this. Form into four or five patties, depending on your preference,

Grill or pan fry the patties until cooked to your liking, I like mine medium rare.

Meanwhile, saute the onions in some olive oil until tender and starting to caramelized.

Spread the Tzatziki onto one of the brioche buns, add the onions and top with fresh arugula. Top all of that deliciousness with your lamb patty and voila~

So delicious.

SeaWorld

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To say that we have been taking advantage of our SeaWorld passes is an understatement. I think we have been about four times in the past two months and we have done it ALL. Food, shows, rides, drinks….you name it, we’ve done it. Averi has gone from afraid of rollercoasters to riding them on repeat. I knew that she had my thrill DNA somewhere inside of her. Now she is bummed because she isn’t tall enough for the scarier rides.

Averi’s favorite ride was the water ride.

Sound on.

However, once she braved Manta, the other roller coaster that she is tall enough for and it doesn’t have loopty loops, is now her favorite ride.

Between rides we take food breaks to watch a show.

The skyride is perfect for a cool down break.

Sometimes I say “yes” to games and face paint but in return they have to sit with me and listen to some music.

BUT….my most favorite thing to do at SeaWorld is riding Emperor. The front row is the best, shoes off is even better but it you want to feel like you are really flying through the air, eyes closed and hands up.

Here you go….

I have such a good time hanging out with my girls on those sunny, (okay so it hasn’t been sunny in weeks, sigh) Saturdays.

Appreciative and Relaxed

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The week before mother’s day was teacher appreciation week, and boy did I feel the love. Between catered lunches, candy, flowers, wine and gift cards, I was spoiled.

For the holiday weekend; Shawna and I ran off to the desert for some sunning, soaking and reading, three of my favorite things well four!

We spent the entire day in the sun and then had a mediocre dinner. We woke up on Mother’s day, went back out to the pool for a couple of hours and then headed to Temecula for some food and wine.

We went to a new winery in town, it only opened a couple of months ago, however this was our second go around.

I am not mad at the wine. I really enjoy their Chardonnay, I think it’s one of my favorites from that area.

Also, we must acknowledge that pizza in the picture. The pizza maker is Carmine (an Italian > New Yorker > Californian) and he has a traveling wood-fired pizza truck. Handmade sourdough crust, homemade fresh mozzarella… you guys, this pizza was so delicious. The one few that we ordered had a name, but I am terrible at recalling names…They had a base of San Marzano tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, slightly caramelized onions with fennel sausage, fresh basil and were finished with a drizzle of olive oil. (and maybe some hot honey at home)

A perfect weekend to recharge our mommy panels.

Spicy Honeyed Chicken Wings

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I tore this recipe out of a 2019 Fine Cooking magazine that I got from who knows where and who knows when, but I’ve had it on the refrigerator door for months just waiting to be made. The recipe calls for Bomba Calabrese hot sauce which I could not find anywhere local. However randomly in one of my Hello Fresh boxes were two packets of Calabrese hot sauce so obvi I had to finally make these wings.

This recipe was different than a lot of wing recipes I have seen, hence why I probably ripped out the page and saved it. The end result was really good, the anchovy paste gives it a depth of flavor that just hits differently but deliciously.

These wings twice cooked, once in the oven, finished on the grill and then drizzled with some of the remaining sauce.

INGREDIENTS

1/14 cups canned crushed tomatoes, preferably San Marzano

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup Italian hot sauce, such as Bomba Calabrese Hot Sauce

1/4 cup olive oil

2 TBS white distilled vinegar

1 1/2 TBS anchovy paste

1 packed tsp. lemon zest

1 packed tsp. orange zest

1 tsp. fresh thyme leaves

Kosher salt

Pepper

3 lbs. Chicken wings

1/4 cup canola oil; more for the grill if needed.

DIRECTIONS

Position a rack in the center of the oven and heat the oven to 400 degrees F. Place a large heavy duty rimmed baking sheet in the oven until it’s hot, about 10 minutes.

In a blender or food processor, combine the tomatoes, honey, hot sauce, olive oil, vinegar, anchovy paste, zests, thyme, 1 tsp. salt and 1/4 cup water. Purée until smooth, about 1 minute. If not using right away, cover and refrigerate up to 5 days.

In a large bowl, toss the wings with the with the canola oil, 1 TBS salt and 1/4 tsp. pepper. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and dump the wings onto the hot baking sheet. Arrange in a single layer with tongs. Return to oven and bake until the wings and oil begin to sizzle, 12 to 13 minutes.

Remove the wings from the oven, transfer to a large bowl, and toss with half of the sauce. Let stand 10 minutes.

Arrange the wings evenly on the hot grill. Grill until browned and charred in places, turning every 3 minutes for a total of 9 minutes.

As the wings finish cooking, transfer them to a large, clean bowl. Drizzle with some of the remaining sauce, and serve the sauce of the side.

This is 12

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Twelve years ago I had a baby and that baby is now a tween.

Kaili, used to love milk, fruit, music and her mama….now she loves water, spicy chips, music and her mama! Some things never change.

She is in deep with BlackPink and a few other Kpop bands, so in true fashion she requested a BlackPink cake and Korean BBQ for her birthday dinner.

The cake was a red velvet and cream cheese frosting and a dark chocolate ganache drip on the top.

The whole family gathered at a popular Korean BBQ spot and it was a hot mess of a meal. Kaili has decided that she doesn’t need to go back and I am fully on board with that decision. Definitely don’t want to cook my own food with small utensils and noisy children, adding in that everyone wanted to eat something different was just chaos.

Even though it wasn’t a relaxing meal, it is always fun to have us all together. Lot’s of laughing and love!

Happy birthday my K bear, I can’t believe it’s been 12 years since we started this journey together. I love you!

Spanish Tortilla

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The Spanish tortilla or Spanish omelet is an essential dish in Spain. I am sure if you’ve ever been out for tapas here or in Spain, then you’ve seen it on the menu.

My mom spent three months in Santander, Spain back in 1997 and when she came back she would make this for us, to rave reviews. It is delicious. It has been off my radar until I was watching either Top Chef or Ciao House where they were discussing the tortilla, I wasted no time texting my mom asking for her recipe. She didn’t have her original one anymore but she sent me a recipe that looked closest to what she remembered making.

I actually happened to have all the ingredients on hand..We’ll call that food fate.

I used this recipe.

In a nut shell…it’s easy to make and only calls for five ingredients, potatoes, eggs, onions, olive oil and salt.

Peel and thinly slice about a pound of potatoes ( I think I used four yellow potatoes), then do the same to one medium onion ( I used a sweet onion, which I think is better for this recipe). Heat the olive oil in a nonstick pan until it’s hot and then add the potatoes and onion. Cook for about 20ish minutes, stirring and turning them until they are soft. Meanwhile whisk four eggs in a large bowl and add a good pinch of salt (I also added a few grinds of fresh pepper). Next you’re going to add the potatoes and onions and stir to incorporate them.

Reheat the same pan and add some more olive oil. Pour in the tortilla mixture and swirl the pan as you would an omelet. Cook 6 to 7 minutes until egg is set.

Take the tortilla out of the pan and put the cooked side on a plate. Flip the pan and place it on top of the tortilla as a lid. Flip the plate and pan together to flip the egg in the pan. Cook the other side for another 6 to 7 minutes.

You can eat it right away or wait and enjoy it at room temperature. It’s good any time of day and I like to add a few dashes of Tabasco to mine, Tabasco and eggs are meant to be.

I hope you try it, you wont be disappointed.

I’m the Problem, it’s Me.

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The irony of my blogs name….Finding time to blog has become an art to say the least. It’s been 55 days since I last posted here, not that I’m counting. I will feel my guilt tug at me and consider sitting down to tell y’all about what we ate or how we are all getting older…. but then I start to feel more guilty and just don’t…I am sure there is a therapist reading this with BIG thoughts.

In reality, I am back in the classroom and just wrapped up DRDP (Desired Results Developmental Profile) to prepare for conferences.

And now that is done, and I am ready to catch you up. Even though it’s been some days since we last chatted, I do remember saying that I was going to make a few of Jet Tila’s recipes out of his cookbook….and I did.

Obviously it was delicious as we knew it would be.

Shawna turned the big 49 and we took ourselves to Vegas to celebrate. Casey and Aileen gifted us a stay at the Golden Nugget so that is just what we did. We LOVE Downtown Vegas. Sure the big hotels with the fancy shit and $25 buy-ins might look nice, but dammit it’s not worth it. (insert Ted Lasso’s voice) They are great for certain shows and concerts but I promise you, the fun and the food is just as good downtown. The end.

Fun story happened minutes after this picture was taken. We were sitting at a great table outside ready to watch a country (cover) band that we quite enjoy. A man approached our table and said “I’ll give you $300 for your table.” Shawna replied with a “fuck you.” I mean it’s Vegas you guys….Then he pulled out $300 and she said, “babe, grab your shit, we are moving!” And that is how I saw my first ever bubbly vending machine.

We took that money and ran….to a pool table and sipped some bubbly with someone who could have been Lil’ John, and didn’t do half bad on the Roulette table.

Oh, I almost forgot Dancing Chucky, you’re welcome.

We also saw the Padre’s play, they lost but the food and weather were winners.

The girls like to make TikTok videos…. but just for us (no they don’t have SM or post this shit..over my dead body.) Anyhow, they liked this one.

We spent Easter Sunday at SeaWorld, we have SoCal passes and can go back and back and back until Averi conquers a roller coaster, little scaredy cat…Definitely not my DNA.

The only plus is that she holds all our stuff while we ride the fun ones.

It’s a phase right?

I think that brings us up to April. I hope to see you guys sooner than 55 days…Cheers!

Snow Day

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Winter is not my jam. Snow, cold, rain, wet, all of the above, I don’t love….you know? However, the girls are fond of the rain and especially the snow. So to get it out of their systems, we had a snow day.

We drove far enough East until we hit snow and we let them run free.

After some snow angels, little snowmen and a lot of exploring….

A couple of hours later, they had had enough.

Perfect little snowy escape.

I much prefer to sit in the sun with a book…cat sometimes included.

Oh and off topic, if you are looking for a new cookbook that you’ll want to cook your entire way through, this is it.

Another one that I am obsessed with right now is this.

The girls are on a Korean BBQ/Bulgogi/dumpling kick so this book has done the work for our weekly dinner plans.

I am making a few of Jet’s recipes this week, I will report back.

46

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Consistency is not my strong suit when it comes to this blog, I’m sorry. I have excuses, are they good, probably not so I wont bother with the whys.

I went to an ECE (early childhood education) beach retreat and it was a really great experience. There is no end in learning how to create new and challenging learning environment.

I also had a birthday, sigh. Turns out I am older than I thought. 46 WTF?

I was spoiled with pressies, cake, balloons….and tacos!

We went out to dinner and had a nice meal, cake pop for the win!

Not about food:

The girls are new aunties to two pups. Let me introduce to you Tony and Frankie, brothers rescued from TJ who now live their best life in Coronado.

And have dog sitters willing and waiting.

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Gosh, aren’t they getting too big? Make it stop!

Crispy Baked Boursin with Hot Honey

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Has this recipe been taunting you on social media like it has us? Hello food porn. Boursin, good…crispy, good. hot honey, gooood…all together, sensational!

Super simple to throw together, this would be perfect for a quick appetizer, or for dinner. We had it with sliced French baguette, some toasted with evoo and some not. It was delicious.

Hot honey can be found on shelves anywhere these days, because it’s so good… on everything. But for this I just heated up some honey and red chili flakes so I could control how spicy I wanted it and I wanted it HOT!

Ingredients

Boursin cheese (garlic and herb)

2 Tbs flour

1 egg, beaten

1 cup panko breadcrumbs (seasoned with salt and pepper)

salt and pepper

TO SERVE-

Hot honey

Bread or crackers of your choosing

Directions

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Place the flour, the beaten egg and seasoned panko breadcrumbs into three separate bowls.

Coat the Boursin first in the flour, and make sure that the cheese is completely coated. Dust off any excess flour and then dip in the egg, once again ensuring it’s well coated. Finally coat in the panko breadcrumbs.

Place the crumbed cheese on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

Place in the preheated oven and allow to bake for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown and crisp.

While the cheese bakes, make your hot honey with honey and diced chilies, or honey and crushed red pepper or your favorite store bought hot honey. Whatever way you go, just heat it up in the microwave or a small sauce pan. Also, prepare your French bread for serving. Thinly slice the baguette and place on a baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and bake until crisp and golden on both sides. 

Once the cheese has baked and looks golden brown, remove from the oven.

Serve on a plate, drizzle with the hot honey and toasted bread. Serve additional honey on the side because you will want more!

Enjoy!