Kim gifted me with fresh Mission figs and sweet little plums. I know, it’s like a darn fruit stand over here!

I ate all the plums straight away and then worked the figs and all those peaches, ripening and being picked each and every day, into our meals.

What follows is one of the quickest and easiest of the bunch.

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Marissa and Jeff were in Mexico this past weekend for a wedding and came back through here Sunday and Monday on their way back to Austin. I decided a big pasta dish was just the thing to satisfy everyone for our Sunday dinner.

The dish uses six garlic cloves. Four are peeled and sliced and 2 are left whole. If you hate mincing a bunch of tiny garlic cloves, as I do, this is the perfect way to use those little pains. Gather them up and estimate how many make up a large clove and use them as the whole cloves in this recipe. See, I got rid of eight little ones in one fell swoop.

Meyer Lemon Spaghetti with Parmesan Chicken

Chicken

• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup milk
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 ½ cups Panko breadcrumbs
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• Italian seasoning
• 3 tablespoons olive oil

Spaghetti

• 2 Meyer lemons, well washed
• 3 tablespoons turbinado sugar (Sugar in the Raw)
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• Olive oil
• 6 large peeled garlic cloves, divided; 4 thinly sliced, 2 left whole
• 3/4 cup Panko
• 2 large shallots, peeled and thinly sliced
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 pound spaghetti
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 bunch of Italian parsley, leaves and tender stems, minced

Chicken: Use This Method to pound out the chicken breasts.

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Tram’s birthday was three weeks ago and we had not yet had time to get together and celebrate. Not until this past Saturday, after the twins were down for the night and Steve was at a Diamondbacks game.

She had texted me the night before to see if Saturday would work and if it was OK if we stayed in and had take-out. The staying-in part was perfect but the take-out … not so much.

I decided to make my slow cooker version of Chicken Tinga. Chicken breasts and slow cookers aren’t something that always goes together. We are so accustomed to cooking with boneless skinless chicken breasts that we sometimes forget how wonderful bone-in and skin-on chicken can be. For this recipe, the bones and the skin are a must – don’t worry – they are both removed and discarded before being served.

The bones and the skin keep the white meat from turning to shoe rubber and being dry and tasteless. They are essential for this long and slow cooking process.

The most important part of this recipe is to take extra time and precautions to find any and all bones and bone fragments that may be left on the meat or in the sauce. See those tiny bones and bone bits on the bottom edge of the plate in the photo above? That’s what I’m talking about. Since the chicken cooks a long time, the bones get very brittle and break easily, so follow the recipe on how and when to search them out and discard them. How terrible it would be if someone choked or cracked a tooth!

Also, be sure to drain the canned tomatoes well. Plenty of juices are given off by the meat and the vegetables during the cooking process. The liquid that remains already needs to be reduced, so having all that extra tomato liquid will make the process take twice as long. Plus I’ll be posting a fabulous recipe later this week where you can put the tomato juice to good use, so save it. Or freeze it and add it to your next batch of soup or pitcher of Bloody Marys.

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For last weekend’s Spring Reunion Dinner, I served two fresh and colorful entrées. Today I post the first, along with a few photos of the flowers and table setting.

I picked up the flowers above at Trader Joe’s when I was grocery shopping for the dinner and arranged them quite simply in a few of the bottles from my “miscellaneous cool bottles” collection.

These beauties were given to me by Lori and I can assure you she didn’t just pick them up at Trader Joe’s – more likely at some fancy florist shop. I arranged them in some of my clear square vases and they were held indoors until it was cool enough to move them to the table on the back patio where we ate our meal.

I decided to keep the table simple, fresh, and clean – like the food.

I started with white placemats and napkins, blue and gold Indian-inspired tea glasses for the water, and frosted white striped wine goblets.

Gold flatware to match the tea glasses and a lovely set of mix/match of bird and floral dishes in simple black and white.

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A dear friend and neighbor has gone through an especially tough time. I offered to bring dinner over for her family. She tried to say no, but I wouldn’t have it, so we decided that Sunday would be a good day. I brought over an Italian pasta dish and this Mexican dish.

I made another pan of the Mexican dish for our family’s Sunday meal. I hadn’t planned on putting up a post of it, but after Connor asked for the recipe and another neighbor asked for it too, I decided I’d better get it up here.

I hadn’t taken any photos, meaning I had to remake them. One problem though – I was out of black beans so I used kidney beans in their place. It’s far better with black beans! I also forgot to add a dollop of sour cream for the photo… it’s tastier with the sour cream too. In other words, don’t rely on the photos, just follow the recipe and you’ll be all good.

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Here is the last of the week’s worth of slow cooker recipes. This was the perfect thing to get me back into a blogging routine and a great way to feed visiting family while we were on the run.

We are finishing as we began, with a yummy soup. I’m pretty proud of myself for limiting the soup recipes to only half of those put forward.

To recap – A week’s worth of slow cooker recipes:

Wild Rice and Shredded Chicken Soup

Balsamic-Dijon Glazed Baby Back Ribs with Great Northern Beans

Lemony Turkey Meatball and Orzo Soup

Ropa Vieja

Mississippi Pot Roast

And here is todays…

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I have complete faith that my Arizona Cardinals will win the George Halas Trophy in the NFC Championship Game game today – along with their ticket to Super Bowl 50!

Just like I have faith that this soup can help cure, or at least bring relief to, the flu.  The flu is traveling like wildfire and now Dave has it.  I made this soup for him last night and he’s on the mend today, in time for the big game.

I found the version of the recipe when a friend posted it on Facebook. It sounded like the perfect remedy, especially after giving it a few healthier tweaks. Now it’s ready to share with you.  Round up the ingredients, pop it all in a slow-cooker and it’ll be ready for kickoff at 4:40 PM!

It is soul-soothing and absolutely fabulous, just like the Cards! #riseupredsea #birdgang

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Getting back into the swing of it, blogging-wise, has been harder than I ever imagined it would be. Since I missed it so much, I thought I’d fall right back into the rhythm. Um, not so much!

I want to blame it on the holidays. Thanksgiving, out-of-town family, Christmas, even more family from out-of-town, New Year’s, and more family have made it hard to want to sit down at the computer and “work.” But that’s really not it. I blogged religiously for more than 5 years, through every major holiday and life event, so I can not claim that the season is the issue.

I’m just out of the habit, and until I get back on track, posts will be spotty. I’m now prepared for that reality and I hope that you’ll stick with me through this transition.

Marissa & Jeff drove back to Austin on Saturday. They had flown in two weeks ago but drove back so they could take all their wedding and wedding shower gifts. They made it back in record time, arriving home, safe and sound, by mid-morning on Sunday.

On Friday night, for their last dinner at home, I made a pan of super-easy and super-yummy tamale enchiladas. So yummy, in fact, that I couldn’t get a photo of the pan before they were all but gone!

I bought the tamales from a young woman who was selling them at Connor’s apartment building. She had two adorable little ones in-tow, so how could I say no?  I bought a dozen green chile-chicken tamales and a dozen red chile-pork tamales. I should say, that’s what I thought I bought, she accidentally gave me only six green chile (1 bag) and a dozen and a half (3 bags) of red chile.

A few nights before, we enjoyed 6 of the green and 6 of the red, served in the traditional style. That was nice, but to my taste, tamales are a bit dry. So serving the remaining dozen red chile tamales enchilada-style was way more fun!

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Even with family visiting from out-of-town, it’s important to keep dinners simple during Christmas week. This one-dish chicken dinner is a snap to put together. Add a simple green salad and a side of rice, mixed grains, or quinoa and you’ve got it made.

Easy One-Dish Citrus Chicken

• 2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for drizzling
• Juice of 2 lemons
• 2 fresh bay leaves, torn in 3 or 4 pieces (or 1 torn dry bay leaf)
• 2 tablespoons fresh rosemary leaves, chopped
• 2 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves, chopped
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 8 skinless boneless chicken thighs
• 4 bone-in skinless chicken breast halves
• 2 lemons, thinly sliced
• 2 oranges, thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 2 tablespoons capers, drained and rinsed
• 1 tablespoon honey

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Yesterday, I came home after a morning at Sweet Salvage and asked Connor what he wanted for dinner. It was his only night off this week, so he could pick whatever he wanted. He didn’t know but told me he’d think about it while I went off to a lunch appointment.

I had lunch with Marissa’s future mother-in-law, Amy, to go over some wedding details.

After lunch, I sent Connor a text, “Any dinner thoughts yet?”

He replied, “Roast pheasant with buffalo sausage and sparkling cider sauerkraut.”

I said, “So helpful.”

He sent back a text, “Was it not specific enough?”

I thought, “He’s egging me on” … so I said, “Sure sounds good.”

I headed towards the grocery store, fully intent on just picking up some tortillas and making chicken enchiladas. I mean, if he wasn’t going to say what he wanted, I certainly wasn’t going to ask again.

A few minutes later, I get another text, this time with the website for his pheasant recipe!

OK, I’ll take the bait. I sent back a text, “Any idea where I can get pheasant and buffalo sausage, Mr. Smarty Pants?”

His reply, “Costco?”

“Nope!”

As I drove, I thought, “What the heck! I’m going to take his dare and make a version of his darn recipe.”

I picked up Cornish game hens in place of the pheasant…

…and hot Italian sausage in place of buffalo sausage.

I checked out the recipe and it called for 6 pounds of prepared sauerkraut. Six pounds! A one-pound package costs $3.49, I’m not about to spend $21 on sauerkraut! So, I bought just one package. I mean, I was going to have to alter this silly recipe drastically anyhow.

Turns out Connor went on Google and typed in “What should I make for dinner?”  A few sites came up and from that he picked out-

Roast Pheasants with Buffalo Sausages and Sparkling Cider Sauerkraut

This recipe calls for juniper berries. I used them since I have them on hand, but if you don’t – there is no reason to go buy a jar – they honestly don’t add much flavor at all.

Here is my recipe for…

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