Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Peking Duck Pizza

For years I have been bummed that CPK (California Pizza Kitchen) stopped making their Peking Duck Pizza. I figured it must be a pretty easy recipe and decided to google it. I came across a recipe and decided to try it, but with my own spin. Here is the link to the one I found: http://www.kikkomanusa.com/foodservice/onthemenu/recipedetail.php?rd=1321
In case anyone doesn't already know, my husband LIVES to hunt. He is super passionate about that as well as deep sea fishing. Well, he "caught" as I like to say, a couple of ducks awhile back and they were sitting in our freezer waiting to be cooked. It was the perfect use and the pizza turned out exactly how I remembered.


It was super easy to make:

Adam cut up the duck breasts into little tiny tiny strips and we barely seared them in a pan with a little coating of hoisan sauce. I always buy the Pillsbury pizza dough in the can (thin crust)  and I cook it a few minutes on each side before doing cheese and sauce because I like a crispier crust. You don't have to do it that way if you like a softer crust. Anyways, after the crust was golden brown I took it out and put hoisan sauce, mozzarella cheese, the duck, wontons (which you find in the salad aisle, not the Asian food aisle, I learned) as well as some green onion. Pop it in the oven until the cheese is all melty and the crust the way you like it and you are done! It was amazing!! Need to make it again!

*I am guessing this could easily be just as good if made with chicken if you don't like duck. I may try this as an experiment to see how it tastes.*




Saturday, May 19, 2012

More garden and Sadie's clothes

Thought I'd post some updated shots of the grapes. Sadie is really enjoying watching the grapes grow. In fact, she made up a song called, "The Grapes are growing." It's really cute.
She also really enjoys picking out her own clothes. I don't care if she matches- I prefer to let her exude her independence and choose what she wants to wear. Tonight she came out of her room and said, "I want to wear my cowboys shirt." She still refuses to wear shorts or pants. It is really funny. She chose a Christmas plaid skirt to wear with her Cowboys shirt. :)

Enjoy these photos!










Thursday, May 17, 2012

Grapes and the garden

Last summer we planted grapes in our courtyard. It yielded one tiny bunch of maybe 6-7 grapes. We decided against trimming them back over the winter season and are glad we let them be. They came back with a vengeance this season! It has been really cool to watch the progression. We started seeing little bunches pop up everywhere at the end of March and early April. About 3 weeks ago they started looking a little bigger and are now even bigger than that! I haven't taken any photos of them this week but here are some from April 1st and then about 2 weeks ago.

 Sadie likes sitting in this bucket that I use for photo shoots. You can see how tiny the grapes were then. Look closely and you will see the little bunches right by her head!


 Checking out the grapes
 Lately she has been pretending to be a baby and does that silly thing with her tounge-it drives me crazy!

The shots below were taken the 1st or 2nd week of May


 These bunches are just everywhere! It's so cool!

Can't believe how massive they are!

Dinner for 8

As many of you know, I love to entertain. Adam thinks that I think I am Emeril or something to that effect. Not really, but I do enjoy cooking and socializing so I do my best. At a recent church get together I brought a salad that everyone liked and they all said that I needed to have a dinner party. Twist my arm! So, I looked at the calendar and realized that with my shooting schedule it would be about 5 weeks out, which was fine. Sent invites to a great group of friends and started planning. The menu was: Roasted garlic with french bread, Spinach artichoke dip (made my my friend Taylor) Fried calamari with a tomato avocado cream sauce, spring mix salad with sun dried tomato, Parmesan cheese, slivered almonds, and a vinaigrette dressing. For the main menu we had individual beef wellingtons, roasted red potatoes, and cauliflower polonaise. My friend Melisa brought an amazing white chocolate raspberry cheesecake for dessert. It was a very fun evening! We have decided we need to do it every couple months and it will be called the "fancy feast." :)







Day on the farm

 Our next door neighbor has become like family to us. She loves Sadie and Sadie especially loves her. She asks to go over to "Aunt Nancy's" on a daily basis. I have had to tell her that "Nancy is at the gym, or shopping, or wherever" because let's face it-she has things to do too, lol!  Well, Nancy told us several weeks ago that a couple of the horses at her parent's house would soon give birth. One did a couple weeks ago and they so graciously invited us to come see the new horse. What an amazing experience! Sadie was in such awe the entire time. She still talks about when we got to go see the pony and how we rode on the "tractor" to get out to where the horse was. What a great memory that we got to make! Can't wait to go back after another horse has a baby any day now!