Cookie Touchdown!

I hope everyone had a fun Superbowl Sunday! We had a couple friends over and the house was full of kids playing and all of us watching the game and eating some good food! This was my little idea I had for a dessert. I wanted to make some homemade Oreos and I decided I was going to try and make them look like footballs. Instead of rolling them into balls and baking, I rolled them into logs and pinched the ends a bit to make a football shape when they were done baking. I then put the frosting on for the stitching on top and they turned out great! Fun and yummy! One of the little boys that was here said "Hey, there's footballs over there you can EAT!"

Things are growing here at the Gray's!

OK, I don't want to say this and jinx myself, but somehow we must have figured out how to grow things here in the desert! It's taken us almost 5 years but we've done it! (Now that I've said this, everything is probably going to start dying!)

So this year, I decided to expand my horizons and plant some veggies in our little planter box Aaron built for me a couple years ago. I used to just do flowers in it. The Bedonts did a little salsa garden in their yard and had some extra red onions, so we took those and I decided to add some more to it to do a salsa garden of our own. With this pregnancy, I have been eating chips and salsa like a mad woman. Maybe our little Bambino is part Mexican! :) Anyway, they won't be fully grown until the summer time so I can't enjoy them now, but it's doing so well and I'm very pleased with myself!

Here's what it is in case you're curious. Starting closest to us: cilantro, the onion sprouts, the larger leafy ones on the right are anaheim chilies and the smaller ones on the left are jalapenos, and in the back corner I did some zucchini. I wasn't going to attempt to grow tomatoes so those I will just have to get from the farmer's market to make our salsa.

I also got a big surprise when I was out watering this morning. I looked at our dwarf lemon tree (aka bush) and look what I saw:

The previous owners of our house planted this tree in the yard and we actually moved it twice since we have lived here. Aaron was pretty sure it was going to die both of those times (it was a lot smaller then) but miraculously it survived! And now it is thriving. We got big, sweet smelling blossoms this year and now after the blossoms fell off we got these little baby lemons! There's actually a lot of them on the tree. Is it weird that I almost jumped up and down with excitement when I saw these?

And finally, the other thing that is growing here at the Gray's:

A kind of profile shot of our second boy! He was not very cooperative so this wasn't a total profile shot but whatever. This is, of course, the most exciting of all of these things! So far everything is growing well and in another couple weeks I'll have a follow up to check on everything they couldn't quite see as well as they would like. Yay!

Yummy Salad!

So I made this salad for dinner last night. I've made it several times before and we always eat it so fast because it is so good! It is not a creation of my own, but a copy of something else. It's a copy of the Caribbean Chicken salad from Chili's that they no longer have on their menu. Sad :( So that's why I had to make my own at home because I love it so much and I can no longer get it!

I told a couple people about it and they wanted to know what was in it so here it is:

Lettuce, pineapple, mandarin oranges, grilled chicken, pico de gallo, honey lime dressing, tortilla strips.

First, I marinate and grill the chicken. I used a Mrs Dash garlic lime marinade but any kind of marinade with a citrusy flavor would do and then grill it on the grill (actually Aaron does the grilling part!). Slice it up and put it on the lettuce.

This picture of the chicken looks funny because it is on my black cutting board-I'm not a very good food photographer! :)

Here's the rest of the ingredients with a little more detail--

Any type of lettuce or greens you like-I used a spring mix with all kinds of mixed greens and baby spinach

Pineapple (I used fresh last night because I had it but canned is fine too)

Mandarin Oranges

Pico de Gallo -- 2 tomatoes, 1 jalapeno, 1/2 of a red onion all chopped into small pieces and a big handfull of chopped cilantro (this is actually my own recipe I made up but pico is pretty much about the same right?)

Doesn't that look so pretty? It's really yummy too!

Then you drizzle it with the dressing (I looked it up on some website online) which is a honey mustard/lime dressing. 1/4 cup honey, 1/4 cup dijon mustard, 1 TBS sugar, 1 1/2 TBS cider vinegar, 1 1/2 TBS lime juice (I usually put a little more than that)

The other topping that makes it so good is tortilla strips. But at the store yesterday they did not have the ones I usually get-the mini little tri-color ones. They are the best, but last night I substituted some bigger tortilla strips and just kind of broke them into smaller pieces.

Here's the finished product!

It makes me want to eat it all over again! Hey-there's still some leftovers in the refrigerator........... :)

Sorry, my food photography is not the best but I hope you get the idea. I am in no way a food blogger but I do love food so I thought I would share a good and healthy dinner idea! Who doesn't need that???? Enjoy!!!! (I sure did!)

Doesn't this look delicious?

How beautiful is this?????

My friend Wendy told me about this program called Bountiful Baskets. You order a basket on Tuesday or Wednesday and then pick it up on Saturday morning. They get it from the growers and you never know what you're going to get from week to week (that's why it's cheap) but the food is delicious and fresh. It's like $50 worth of produce for only $15! They have it in baskets when you get there but you transfer it to your own basket to take it home in.

So because it is so much food, Wendy and I are splitting a basket because we have small families so it will work out nicely for us!

In this basket we got 16 peaches, 8 pears, a pint of strawberries, a pint of raspberries, a pint of cherry tomatoes, a bunch of bananas, 2 stalks of celery, a bunch of lettuce, a bunch of spinach, 2 heads of broccoli, a bunch of green onions and a bunch of radishes.

I am so excited to eat it all! (Well our half of it anyway!)