back from Las Vegas!

Kinda on a whim we decided to take a trip to Las Vegas this past week. We wanted a trip that could be quick, easy and fun and Vegas fit the bill. I always thought it was a tacky / trashy place because I didn't know a whole lot about it besides its reputation for gambling and prostitution. But after looking into it I learned that it's actually an amazing city that can really be whatever you want it to be. But one thing it is not is a place for a family with young children! I know some parents out there couldn't dream of taking a vacation without the wee ones, but since Owen's idea of a treat is to stay with Nana and Papa, and my parents are over the moon to care for him it's a win-win all around. Plus, couples need time to reconnect outside of the routine and there is nothing like spending quality adult time. So we spent our time doing what most parents of small children find quite a luxury such as going out to eat and drink, sitting by the pool and walking - a whole lot of walking. 

A lot of people told us that it takes a long time to walk the strip, but you don't realize it till you're there. At first I had no trouble breezing up and down the flights of stairs and skywalks (that take you over major intersections probably made to avoid drunk pedestrians from wandering in front of traffic). But after a while we just bit the bullet and started riding the bus to get to our restaurant reservations on time.

So I can't sum up this trip in one entry, so I think I'll just take it day by day until I've documented everything. Vegas is pretty much a restaurant mecca concentrated on one street (the strip). And, unlike most of  the flagship locations, Vegas restaurants aren't as difficult to get into. 

When we first arrived in Vegas we walked to Paris and stopped at Mon Ami Gabby, a french bistro situated across the street from the fountains of Bellagio. This gave us time to relax on the patio and not have to elbow for a view of the fountain. The food here was great. I had a chicken, brie and green apple sandwich which was fantastic and Nuno had an open face tuna melt. 

I'd highly recommend eating here. They really catered to everything we requested and were super attentive. The strangest coincidence is that this was our first stop once we arrived (having got up at 4am to catch a 7am flight - flying for 4 hours and then arriving in Vegas at 10am). Being on the other side of the country it was very strange when the hostess who seated us at the restaurant asked where we were from we stated,  "Toronto area". She said she was originally from the area, but a small town outside, Welland (where I grew up!). Pretty trippy.

Another restaurant we made it out to was celebrity chef, Mario Batalli's, Otto inside the Venetian hotel. This hotel was beautiful, but the novelty wore off quickly. 

It was pretty dark and difficult to navigate through and extremely crowded in narrow hallways because of the river that runs through it. Otto was a total bust and I'm totally disillusioned by Mario Batalli stamping his name to this. The bread served was day-old crusty bread and our pizza wasn't anything but equal to frozen pizza. We paid too much for this disappointment! Big, giant "GRRRRRRRRRRRR". 

We moved onto the Public House also located inside the Venetian, Nevada's only beer 'cicerone', which is basically what a sommalier is to wine. After explaining we were there for drinks and were not ordering dinner, our waiter dropped our flight without even explaining each sample and not touching base with us again till it was time to settle the bill. Not cool when the place wasn't even busy.

This place as a major bust. Luckily with those 2 experiences behind us, everything else was incredible, so stay tuned for more Vegas fun!

lighter pulled pork sandwiches

This is the Lighter Pulled Pork Sandwiches from Everyday Food Light.

Using a tenderloin and a quick cook time seems to fly right in the face of how a traditional pulled pork sandwich is made and what we are all accustom to. Yes, this dinner is very light with a topping of cabbage (we used red to help use up the extra from the Fish Tacos) it looks a little strange but the flavour is great! They are very different, but really nice. It was a great surprise! I was all ready to douse in bbq sauce, but these really work just simple on their own.

fish tacos

This is one of our all time favourite dinners. We haven't indulged in Fish Tacos in years, most likely because of Owen, but I blogged about it a few years ago with my own recipe. This recipe from Great Food Fast is a different take with a red cabbage slaw and I really feel it's superior to the way we've made it before.

After having these I forgot how much I love fish tacos and miss them terribly so I think we'll be having these again because they are the prefect flavour of summer.

easter recap

I hope everyone had a great Easter. Ours was filled with lots of food, family and fun. We went to 2 Easter dinners, Owen had 4 Easter egg hunts and after all is said and done he's made out with more loot and chocolate than any 2 year old should be allowed, not that he's complaining.

It started with Owen's daycare fundraising bake sale where we made my grandmother's famous fudgy brownies with icing. Owen helped by stirring the ingredients and licking the bowl.

I mentioned we attended 2 different Easter dinners. The first was my family's get together where we brought Creme Brulee.

This is one of the few times a year that I get to pull out my kitchen blowtorch which is always a spectacle to behold and humour.

Here's Owen with his bat cycle (from Nana & Papa) and batman Converse shoes (Katie and Mouth). Thanks guys, but it must have paled in comparison the next morning when Owen woke up to the Easter Bunny leaving a plastic kite, a tooth brush, cool shades and a couple masks.

Owen mastered the hunt by round 3 where he quickly snagged his one foil wrapped chocolate egg and then left the rest of the plastic eggs behind. Game over! Here he is at breakfast eating his Smarties egg, the breakfast of champions! Are we not asking for a melt-down here?

Once the chocolate was finished, he picked up the rest of the eggs which were filled with stickers and grow capsules.  

Our second family get-together was Easter Sunday at my in-laws where Owen gets to party with his cousins. This family keeps growing - we're going on 6 cousins (under 5)!

It's getting pretty damn hilarious watching the kids get down after eating a couple chocolate eggs.

Along with Asparagus with Hollandaise we brought Carrot Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting from Great Food Fast.

And an Easter Chocolate Raspberry Pavlova.

To me, Easter food is all about cooking with eggs. If I can't get through a carton of 18 eggs in the week leading up to Easter strictly on food alone, then we're just not doing justice to the holiday.

chicken with poblano cream sauce and antojitos

This is our Chicken with Poblano Cream Sauce from Great Food Fast. The side is Cilantro Lime Rice from Everyday Food Light.

This dinner is fantastic. Took a while from start to finish and made a mess with 2 different sauces in the blender. But it was so worth it! We've recently discovered that the boneless skinless chicken from Costco make for the most moist chicken with the best sear. Believe it or not, many other brands of chicken out there (including several major brand names) seems to give a sear that turns out like a thick paper-like crust and a fiberous texture. To think all this time I didn't like boneless skinless chicken because I was sticking to the same 2 brands. Live and learn. 

Anyways, this poblano cream sauce is wonderful. The stores are now carrying poblanos (I guess they are seasonal), which is wonderful. This recipe requires you to roast your poblano and remove the skin (this is my latest kitchen trick/tip about roasting peppers under the broiler - super easy to accomplish now!). And we can't get enough of the cilantro lime rice. It's pretty much our standard go-to as a side for all our Mexican dishes. I'm starting to think I'm going to make huge batches of the cilantro-lime sauce and freeze them so that half the work is already done in the future.

I went out for lunch earlier in the day to Montanas where they sell a starter called Antojitos. I've never had them before but as I was gazing at the menu I thought this was a perfect toddler food, so I wrote down the list of ingredients and then reworked it for this dinner as something special for Owen.

To make these antojitos blend cream cheese, finely diced red bell pepper, shredded cheese (cheddar, munster, monterey jack - anything melty), poblano cream sauce, diced chicken and cilantro lime rice. Roll and grill (I used the same pan the chicken sauteed on). Slice and serve. These are very nice and mild so they are perfect for kids. Delicious warm or cold, I'll definitely make these as appetizers or for potluck in the future.

Something that I particularly love about this dinner combo is how versatile it is to rework. All the parts of this could make great burritos, quesadillas, chicken salad sandwich or salad. I actually used the leftover rice and diced an avocado into it for Owen's lunch the next day and he went nuts for it.

chicken caesar salad

This is our Chicken Caesar Salad from Great Food Fast.

And it was good, not great. I made chicken caesar salad back when I didn't know how to cook, so I really don't see the merit of this salad. Nothing really set it apart from any other chicken caesar I've made before except this one is from scratch. I hate to say it, but store bought caesar dressing is tastier than this one. 

What was very nice were the croutons. We had some old buns in the freezer and they worked perfectly for these. I know the recipe indicates Italian loaf, but we found the lightness of rolls worked really well for croutons.

baked tortellini

This is our Baked Tortellini using Great Food Fast’s recipe for Baked Ravioli.

I remember seeing this in the cookbook and thinking to myself, who couldn’t figure out how to make something like this? I felt there wasn’t any need to use a recipe to make a baked pasta. Come on! But we made this according to the recipe and it was great! It took quite a while because you start by making a homemade pasta sauce then adding your partially cooked pasta. Finishing with a generous sprinkling of mozzarella it bakes for quite some time. The mozzarella was the real kicker in this dinner. If we were to make this again I think we’d mix the shredded mozzarella right into the pasta dish because it added a great flavour along with the cheese tortellini. And, wow, talk about a kid friendly dinner. Some dinners get Owen so riled up he has to celebrate, and this is one of those dinners. That’s another great thing about this dinner, it lasts 2 (or more) dinners, so luckily this one was a hit that no one minded eating twice.

shrimp pad thai

Here is our Shrimp Pad Thai from Great Food Fast. 

This dinner was an all-time-fav for us for years and years. We found ourselves always ordering from a great Thai restaurant in town, but then wondered if we could learn make a few of our faves at home by ourselves. We ended up buying too many authentic Thai ingredients for a not so great result. Luckily this shrimp pad thai recipe uses easy to find ingredients and is a good substitution when you don't want to get take-out.

baked chicken nuggets

This month's issue of Everyday Food magazine featured a recipe for Baked Chicken Nuggets. We make our own chicken nuggets but these are the type that are great in the freezer and then baked in the oven. I love this recipe because nuggets have more of a chicken texture (they are just small pieces of chicken breast) and can be made from scratch start to finish quite quickly. 

Everything that goes into these nuggets are pantry staples, so I like that these are as easy as they are. We were in total shock as to how quick they are to prepare and how truly delicious they are. There is a suggested dipping sauce which is a mixture of ketchup, chili sauce, sriracha and mayo and had quite a kick. Plum sauce was Owen's side. And, I guess it goes without saying, but I will anyhow, Owen loved them.

steak sandwich with peppers

There isn’t any question in my mind why the Philly Cheesesteak has the reputation it does. I’m not sure there are many things that can top how satisfying it is to eat a steak sandwich. It’s filling, full flavoured and comforting. A few weeks ago I blogged about the chilli rubbed skirt steak I accidently left out overnight which foiled the plan to make Steak Sandwiches with Peppers the next day. Well, I wasn’t going to just let that delicious possibility fall by the wayside, so we did it all again. The first dinner was the chilli rubbed skirt steak with a side of mashed potatoes to turn into next day Steak Sandwiches with Peppers.

This dinner is beyond delicious! I almost always enjoy next day steak sandwiches over the previous days steak entree.

chicken cacciatore

This is our Chicken Cacciatore from Everyday Food Light.

I really didn't end up following the recipe instruction with this dinner. It suggested microwaving the chicken with the other ingredients and that really didn't sound too appealing. So I decided to season and dredge the chicken in corn starch and pan fry. Of course, this isn't the light option, but it's the tastier one. With that modification I had to adjust the rest of the cooking times and techniques. Served over linguine, this dinner was a total hit with Owen.

ham and egg fried rice

I've mentioned before how much Owen loves rice. What can I say, he's a cheap date! Between his love for rice and beans he would have made a great Cuban. I was looking through past issues of Everyday Food magazine where I stumbled upon this Ham and Egg Fried Rice from April 2009. A great way to use up leftover rice from the previous night.

This was so simple and nice. By no stretch the best fried rice we've had, but it certainly was a nice switch-up and perfect for an easy mid-week dinner quickly put on the table.

salmon with hoisin glaze and sauteed bok choy with broccoli

This is a Salmon with Hoisin Glaze with a side of Sauteed Bok Choy with Broccoli from Great Food Fast and steamed basmati rice. I've never been a huge fan of bok choy, but I never give up on it and always continue to try it in different ways. This recipe is probably the most delicious way we've had it to date.

Together this dinner is so delicious! I wouldn't change a thing about it and would definitely have it again.

pork tenderloin with swiss chard and polenta

This is Pork Tenderloin with Swiss Chard and Polenta from Everyday Food Light. 

I doubt it comes across as particularly appetizing based on looks or description, but this dinner is a combination of all food we have really been enjoying lately. Everything goes so nicely together and in combination the flavour is unexpected and totally different then how you would imagine each ingredient tasting apart. That is what makes this dinner so outstanding. Naturally, I didn't expect Owen to be on board, but he loved it too. He's always surprising me with what he likes and dislikes. This dinner is truly delicious, I know we'll keep going back to it in the future.

orecchiette with sausage and roasted peppers

This is our Orecchiette with Sausage and Roasted Peppers from Great Food Fast. 

It really was delicious using our favourite local butcher's Italian chicken sausage. This is a very nice dinner with most of the flavour built right in through the sausage seasoning. What was really a great confidence boost was that this was my most successful attempt at roasting red peppers. From past experience, I always assumed I needed a gas range to accomplish this, but the broiler did a better job then ever before.  The skins slipped right off the flesh without any hassle!