Back Online & Loving It:)

Well, well, well...looks who back in town...well online anyway:)  That's right, it's meeeeee!!!  My trusty, or not so trusty, depending on how you look at it, computer is finally back in working order...her hard drive has gone to Techno Heaven and Aaron's friend Dave got me back up and running...at this point he is one of my true hero's in life...lol...how dependent I've become on my electronic devices.  

Obviously we haven't starved to death and I've still been putting time in the kitchen.  There isn't too much in the way of "new" in my 2nd home but I'm gearing up for some new recipes and some old favorites (especially on the grill) since it's officially...SUMMERTIME!!  Summertime also means some gardening and I'm starting to really jump on that bandwagon...one of the biggest reasons is that I love using fresh herbs when I cook so every year it seems that my herb garden is getting bigger and bigger.

My Herb Garden:)

Well...tonight was a Girl's Night, we did have a couple of "Dad" crashers though...lol, I think they just wanted to be fed.  There's nothing like getting together with your friends and family for a BBQ and since it usually includes a bottle or two of wine I'm always game for guests.  We had quite the feast tonight and I tried out 2 newbies...well 1 newbie and a variation so that makes it a semi newbie. 

Our Newest Members of the Girls Club

I've wanted to try doing a Chickpea Salad for awhile now but Aaron isn't a fan of that kind of stuff so I had to wait to have my girls over to give it a whirl.  It went over well, my taste testers liked it but we did come up with some additions & to me chickpeas are kind of bland so I want to find a way to perk them up a bit...I'm thinking instead of canned I might use dried and try roasting them first with my some of my Epicure spices...maybe the Greek, that's still up in the air though:)  

My First Attempt at a Chickpea Salad with Fresh Herbs from my Garden:)

My variation was for my Grilled Stuffed Chicken Breasts...I did a marinade first and then instead of just plain goat cheese, which Aaron doesn't like, I did a split of goat cheese with ricotta and used some different herbs from my garden...that was a crowd pleaser for sure, for my non goat cheese loving girls it wasn't too much and for my goat cheese lovers it still had that nice and creamy goat cheese flavour.  Unfortunately...we shoveled them in our mouths before I could take a pic...oh well...that's a good thing right:)

I think one of the next things on my list is trying to do something with Cous Cous.  Every time I have Cous Cous I say I want to try making something with it so I think it's getting to be time to bite the bullet and make something.  Spring brought an awesome Cous Cous Salad so I'm gonna have to bug her for her recipe...lol.  

Spring's Cous Cous Salad

Anyways...I'm off to do my thing now so I guess I'll have to leave you with some great advice I heard from my Mom when she was over for her 24th Anniversary of her 29th birthday...as I was grilling up some dinner she told me "If you're looking...you aren't cooking"...how very true that is:)