We have had a lot of great dinners during our trip. We are celebrating our last night with a delicious ribeye steak that John cooked on the grill. I took care of the tater tots and salad. We are already planning our next year’s adventure. We are so fortunate that both our adult children love to spend time with us and create memories.
Well, this worked out much better than our previous try! We found some sliced chicken breast that John floured and pan-fried. We kept the chicken pieces warm in the oven while I rustled up the rest of the dinner. First I rehydrated the noodles in some chicken stock and added broccoli florets. In the pan that the chicken had cooked in I added some butter and chopped onions, capers, and garlic. Then I added white wine, a half lemon’s worth of juice, and some of the noodles chicken stock. I was hoping that the chicken stock had picked up some of the starch from the noodles. I reduced the sauce briefly and then plated the noodles and broccoli combo, followed by the chicken, and then the sauce. Some parsley garnish finished the dish.
Wow, it was astonishingly good! I think I will make it again when I get back home.
In exciting lunch news we found a restaurant in St. George that makes banh mi. The service was really slow but the banh mi were acceptable but not quite as good as Lee’s.
My contribution to fancy dishes for dinner was shrimp in a Pernod cream sauce with rice. I made extra sauce, as you can see in the swimming pool of sauce above, because it is so delicious. Although there was a lot of chopping to get the vegetables (onion, garlic, celery, fennel, and red bell pepper) ready for cooking, I was really glad that I had gotten the prep out of the way before cooking. So tasty!
We are in Southern Utah enjoying our vacation with our son. In between all the golfing we spent a day sightseeing in some of the less visited part of Zion National Park.
After exiting the east side of the park we traveled down to Kanab, Utah for lunch at Escobar’s where we tried some lunch specials.
We tried something new for dinner. We had found some very thinly sliced beef. The pieces were top round but looked well-marbled. Jon did a quick pan-fry and we served the meat piccata style with noodles and broccoli. Unfortunately the meat was very chewy and basically tasteless. We have lots of leftover noodles that we will try serving with chicken piccata on Friday. Hopefully that will work better.
This is Jonathan’s go-to dinner for special occasions. It is so delicious! I was his sous chef busily cutting up the vegetables and getting the prep done. He was the cook braising the leeks in butter and a little water, mashing the potatoes, sautéing the asparagus and mushrooms, searing the scallops, and preparing the sauce. It was a fabulous vacation-worthy dinner.
Jonathan cooked on Monday. We had originally planned on scallops but there were none to be found at Harmon’s. We were promised that they would be available tomorrow. I helped out by chopping the onion, garlic, and mushrooms. Jonathan manned the stove. We did a blind tasting of red wines, one less expensive and the other twice as much. Actually we enjoyed both!
For our first cooking night in Utah John made probably the most delicious burgers ever. Rosy pink on the inside and nicely charred on the inside. We had tater tots and a small green salad along side.
Every Fall we take a week’s vacation with our son, Jonathan, to St. George, Utah where we used to have a vacation home. We sold it a few years ago and although we miss it a lot we don’t miss the expense and worry. Once a year we rent a condo for a week and it is a fine substitution. We love the scenery and Jonathan has a great time playing golf at all the courses around here.
We also love cooking and shopping together. Jonathan and I have a long history of food shopping. He was the most obliging of babies and was always happy to go shopping with his Mom wherever we lived. Near to where we are staying is a beautiful Harmon’s grocery store. Jonathan and I plan on going there most days.
We have our traditions associated with this trip and one of them is to get sushi from Harmon’s on the first night we are here. It takes about 10 driving hours to get here, so really 11 hours accounting for stops. Obviously we are not going to be doing a lot of shopping and cooking the first night we arrive. We pick up the essentials for our dinner and breakfast in the morning and collapse exhausted on the couches with our sushi.
Since we are going away tomorrow I wanted an easy dinner and one that would use up the tomatoes we have left. The chicken wings come prepared and frozen so all we had to do was bake them at 425F for 25 minutes. I had some pre-washed lettuce so I cut that up, added a lot of cherry tomatoes and banana pepper rings, and topped the salad with packaged fried shallots. Quick and tasty!
Tonight was Sarah’s night to cook and she took the shortcut route. With the help of Barilla spaghetti, Rosina’s frozen meatballs, and Rao’s vodka sauce dinner was ready in a flash. I make diners with shortcuts occasionally so I am in no position to throw stones. The bowls she served us were garnished with olive oil, Parmesan cheese, and a slice of garlic bread. Yum!
Omnivore 