Recipe Nommms, Enjoy!

Happy, happy Monday!! I hope you all had a great weekend! Mr Tan Lines and I spent the majority of our weekend on our feet; we took down all of the Christmas decorations and did a little New Year cleaning around the house! We ran some much needed errands and took advantage of the warm weather and exercised outside! I also made some really delicious food this weekend, definitely not the healthiest ones in my arsenal but hey, like they say, life is too short to skip dessert!

The fist meal I made was for Friday night, I made a delicious steak, mashed potato and brussels sprouts dish!

Here’s what I used:

2 4-5 oz. small sirloin steaks

1 lime, juiced

2 tbsp chopped parsley

1 tbsp chopped basil

1/2 tbsp pepper

1/2 tbsp salt

2 tbsp Worcestershire

1/2 tbsp garlic powder

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

3-4 medium sized yellow potatoes

1/2 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup light sour cream

2 cusp brussels sprouts (I cut the large ones in half)

Here’s what I did. For the steak marinade blend the lime juice, parsley, basil, Worcestershire, garlic powder, extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper in a blender or food processor.  Coat the steaks on both sides and let marinate for 4-5 hours. We grilled ours on our gas grill but stove top is okay too. Before cooking, rest the steaks on the counter and bring them up to room temperature. It took about 12 minutes to cook the steaks on our grill.

Peel and chop the potatoes, boil until super tender. I used my kitchen aid mixer but a hand blender works great too! Throw the potatoes, heavy cream, sour cream and butter in the blender, mix until smooth. Add a few pinches of salt and pepper to taste.

Place the brussels sprouts in a single layer on a baking dish. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, extra virgin olive oil and a heavy dose of garlic powder. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

Serve and enjoy!

The second dish I made was for breakfast on Saturday morning, I’m expanding my southern cooking skills ya’ll! I made a yummy and surprisingly easy dish which also happens to be one of Mr Tan Lines favorite; biscuits and gravy!

Here’s what I used:

1 package of Pillsbury buttery biscuit rolls (bake according to directions)

2 1/2 cups of heavy cream

1 cup skim milk

1/3 cup flour

2 tsp pepper

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1/2 cup pork sausage (it’s what I had on hand but you can use any meat product you like)

Here’s what I did:

Pour the milk, flour, salt & pepper and heavy cream into a large pot and cook on medium for about 20 minutes. You don’t want it to boil, you want it to cook slowly and thicken in the process. The time will depend on your stove; just make sure to keep stirring it with a whisk to eliminate any flour lumps! When it’s ready it will easily coat the back of a spoon.

Cook the sausage on the stove until brown. Once the biscuits are cooked cut them in half and place them on a plate, spoon some sausage on top of each biscuit. Smother with the gravy. Grab a fork and dig in! Doesn’t this look great?! I also cooked up eggs for us and put those underneath the gravy.

For Saturday night I cooked one of our favorite dishes, shrimp and grits! I used a recipe I found online and per usual modified it to my liking!

Here’s what I used:

1 lb fresh gulf shrimp, peeled and deveined

2 cups grits (cook according to directions)

2 tsp kosher salt

1 lemon, juiced

1/2 cup andouille sausage, sliced

4 slices of bacon, chopped and cooked until crispy

1/2 green bell pepper, chopped

1/2 white onion, chopped

3 garlic gloves, minced

1/4 cup butter, melted

1/4 cup flour

1 cup chicken broth

1 tbsp worcestershire sauce

1 cup cheddar cheese

Here’s what I did!

Cook the grits according to the package. Keep warm on the stove, right before serving add in the cheddar cheese and mix well.

Place the shrimp in a bowl and marinate with the lemon juice, garlic and a few sprinkles of salt and pepper.

Brown the bacon and set aside in a small dish. Brown the andouille sausage in the same pan, remove and set aside in another small dish.  Into that same dish add the chopped bell pepper and onion, cook for 15 minutes on medium heat. Add the shrimp, chicken broth, worcestershire and salt to the pot. Stir well and cook for 5 minutes.  Add the sausage and bacon, stir well.

In a separate dish combine the butter and flour to form a roux. A roux is essentially a thickening agent that will make your shrimp sauce creamy. Once the butter is melted pour in your flour and mix very well. The roux should be a dark yellow color. Pour into the pot with your shrimp, sausage and bacon.  Cook on medium heat for another 15-20 minutes. Serve over your cheddar grits and enjoy! This one came our really, really good. The andouille sausage is critical to this dish, I remember attempting to make this once in Virginia and I couldn’t find it anywhere, if you have a hard time I would try a specialty butcher shop! You can also ask your local grocery store, some of them will special order meats for you, all you have to do is ask!

After enjoying our delicious meal Mr Tan Lines and I played a few rounds of Life, because who doesn't love board games?! Mr Tan Lines had actually never played before and really enjoyed it!

We also started watching Orange is the New Black, and obviously we are now huge fans and obsessing over it! We were having some issues with our Netflix but finally got it working again this weekend, so naturally we started watching some brand new shows. We also got into Pretty Little Liars which is way better then I anticipated. I read the first book a few weeks ago because it was available for free via iBooks. I really enjoyed it but was sad to see that so far there are 13 books in the series! I enjoyed the book but wasn’t committed enough to purchase the 12 that followed. So far the first season is off to a great start and followed the first book pretty accurately!

Sunday morning we woke up early in hopes to beat the rain and got a great run in at a river front park downtown! It’s such a beautiful place to run with the river views!

Sunday afternoon was spent pretty lazily, Mr Tan Lines napped and I decided to watch a scary movie on Netflix, I decided on Dark Skies which starred Kerri Russell and Kadan Rockett. I was expecting this movie to be a lot scarier, it was produced by the same people who did Paranormal Activity, Insidious and Sinister. If you’ll recall Insidious and Sinister were on my top 10 favorite scary movie list! Perhaps it’s the topic but I just don’t find aliens all that scary, yes spoiler alert it’s about aliens! The “greys” as the film refers to them have latched onto the Barret family and begin leaving clues that they have been watching them, so strange things start to happen. Finally they go to an alien expert and he tells them that eventually the greys are going to abduct one of their kids for good. The film had a few moments that made me jump but I would not recommend this as a scary movie night go-to.

Finally, Sunday night I decided to use some of the left over food I had and made my very first attempt at gumbo! I went for a shredded chicken and andouille sausage version and it turned out delicious! I found a recipe online but didn’t feel it had enough flavor so I ended up adding in my own!

Here’s what I used:

2 1/2 cups sliced andouille sausage

1 chicken breast, boiled and hand shredded

7 cups of light chicken broth (I used the same water I boiled my chicken in)

1 can petite diced tomatoes, no salt added

1 tbsp kosher salt

1 tsp pepper

1/2 white onion, chopped

1 small green bell pepper, chopped

3/4 cup flour

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 tbsp butter

Dry mustard, a few dashes

Coriander, a few dashes

1/2 tsp cumin

2 servings of cooked jasmine rice, I use the Trader Joe’s brand

Here’s what I did!

In a dutch oven (or heavy bottom pan) pour the olive oil and butter, mix until butter is melted, add in the flour to make a roux. Mix well with a whisk to avoid lumps and bring up to a medium boil. Add in the chicken, sausage, onions, bell pepper, dry mustard, coriander, salt, pepper and cumin. Cook on medium heat for 2 hours. Add in the can of diced tomato, cook for an additional 30  minutes. Serve over the rice and enjoy!! For my first attempt we both agreed that it was highly successful, it was a delicious dish! My only problem is that it wasn’t the deep red color you usually see in gumbo, however the majority of the recipes I found didn’t call for tomatoes or anything else that would attribute to the red color, I added those in because I thought the dish needed a little more tang. I plan to do some more research and figure out where I can improve the recipe! Stay tuned!

And last but certainly not least…it’s BACHELOR MONDAY!! I am so excited one of my favorite tv shows is back! Tonight we begin the journey with Farmer Chris aka Chris Soules to find love! He was one of my favorites from Andi’s season so I am excited to watch him! He was such a sweetheart and I really hope this works for him! I made a turkey lasagna last night that is currently sitting in the freezer, I can’t wait to get home, thaw then pop that thing in the oven! Yay for tonight!