Catching Up {&} Theme Food Week February: I {heart} Theme Food Week

{living}&{cooking}

Well, well, well..... here I am again having to play catch up after being MIA for over a month..... I really can't believe its been so long, February and March have really flown by! I apparently didn't even get Theme Food Week for February posted (we'll get to that in a minute).  I know why I didn't get anything posted in February - we were without internet for several weeks again at the beginning of the month (of course that turned out to be our fault, we didn't realize the power had gone out to the outlet that the modem was plugged into and it needed to be unplugged and plugged back in ..... which lets face it should have been one of the first things we tried, but it wasn't... haha) and then we were in California for my sister-in-law's wedding at the end of the month.  March.... IDK what happened there, it just flew flew by.

So let me go ahead and do my recap for February's theme food week and then I'll get you all caught up with everything else that's been going on and what's coming up. (especially with Easter sneaking up so quickly on us here!

Theme Food Week February: I <3 Theme Food Week

In honor of Valentine's Day February's Theme Food Week was all about heart shaped food.  There were a couple new recipes I tried for Theme Food Week, but also several of the days were just normal stuff made heart shaped or with heart shaped ingredients. So here's the menu:

Monday: Stuffed Flank Steak (hearts) with Heart Shaped Roasted Potatoes and Brussels Sprouts

This was one of those that wasn't a new recipe, just a little extra effort put into the prep.  For the stuffed flank steak I pounded out the flank steak to get it to a good thickness and size then coated one side of it with a mix of crumbled goat cheese, pesto, and roasted red peppers.  Instead of just rolling it like you normally would I rolled each side into the middle and tied it off with kitchen twine to make it heart shaped (or at least as heart shaped as possible lol). Honestly now that it's been over a month I don't remember what temp and length of time I cooked it for, but I looked up a couple stuffed/rolled flank steak recipes to kind of see what the average was and went with that, so my advice would be to do the same, for that matter you can follow the whole recipe for any stuffed flank steak and just roll it this way....  The potatoes and brussels sprouts were roasted together coated with olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic, etc. same as always.  The potatoes I cut out of slices of potato with a heart shaped cookie cutter.

Tuesday: Heart Shaped Mini Pizzas and Chicken Wings

This night was super easy and again, not a new recipe or anything, in fact mini pizzas is a dinner I make a lot, for Theme Food Week I took them up a notch with a couple more heart shaped cookie cutters.  The crust is Pillsbury Artisan whole grain pizza crust.  It's a really good pizza crust actually, of course making your own would be better I'm sure, but........ lol ;).  As well as cutting the crust out with a heart shaped cookie cutter I used a tiny one to cut hearts out of pepperoni.  I also (sort of) managed to make little hearts out of mini red bell peppers, and I attempted to cut grape tomatoes into heart shapes, but that only really worked on a couple of them, haha.  The wings were simply coated with barbeque sauce and then baked (you can toss them again with more sauce when they're done if you want since the sauce you baked on them thins out a lot in cooking, but it's a matter of preference.  Just make sure if you do it's not the same sauce that came in contact with the raw chicken!)

Thursday: Chicken Lazone (with heart shaped chicken breasts) with whole grain angel hair and sautéed green beans

This is the recipe for the Chicken Lazone that I used.  It was the first time trying it for us.  My mom thought it was fine but my husband and I both thought the sauce was a little to cream tasting and needed more flavor.  I do think this might have had something to do with the way I ended up making these though.  The recipe calls for chicken strips and then when you make the sauce you just make it in with the cooked chicken all in the same pan.  Because I partially butterflied the chicken breasts to make them heart shaped (to do this simply slice at an angle through the middle of a chicken breast, leaving the pointed end uncut so that it becomes a heart when you open it flat), I had to cook them one at a time because that's all that would fit in my pan and the butter in the pan got a little burnt from cooking so long so I had to clean out the pan and start over and while I did add a fair amount of the seasoning mix back in I think it just wasn't the same as it was supposed to be.  So while it was still good I do want to try it again sometime the way the recipe says to make it.  When I was plating my pasta it just happened to fall onto the plate in a heart shape too, which I thought was a cool coincidence.  The green beans were sauteed in butter and olive oil and of course salt, pepper, and garlic on them.

Friday: Italian Orzo Soup (with heart shaped veggies) and Heart Shaped Garlic Toast/Croutons

This is the recipe for this soup.  It was so good and I think for a change I actually followed the recipe as it was written, hahaha.  I cut the carrots for it into heart shapes (I saw it on Pinterest, basically you just shape it with the vegetable peeler and then slice it) and I actually found a heart shaped piece of tomato from the canned tomatoes that were used.  The bread was cut out with a heart shaped cookie cutter and toasted under the broiler (or you could use a toaster oven) with butter and garlic powder and a little salt on it - normally I would also put Parmesan cheese on them but I was out.....



Now you may be asking yourself, "But what about March's Theme Food Week?" We actually ended up not doing Theme Food Week this month, it just didn't really work out, but I am SUPER excited about Theme Food Week for April... the theme is April Fools.... definitely going to have some fun with this one!

    So now to catch up on other things..... As I mentioned we took a trip to California at the end of February for one of my Husband's sister's wedding.  It was a great trip and we got to see lots of family.  Also the weather was FABULOUS! it was around 60-70some degrees the whole time we were there, while back home here in VA we were having record cold temps.  We got some snow before we left and a decent snow after we got back but it was a really nice break to have that spring like weather in the middle (and miss the really cold weather at home).  Then it was March, then before I knew it mid March and then before I knew it here we are almost April and almost Easter.  Easter really snuck up on me this year too, I didn't realize it was going to be so early.  I still have a lot to do to get ready for it, but I have gotten most of my decorating done, as well as another house project I've been wanting to do for a little while now.  Over the next few days I plan on posting a decorations tour, as well as a few craft projects to help you get ready for Easter and some photos of my Easter dinner tablescapes/decor from the past couple years (since I wouldn't be able to show you this year's until after Easter).  And of course I'll have to show off my light fixture makeover too.  

    I'm also gearing up for my 30th birthday at the end of April, and we'll be celebrating our 5th anniversary in the middle of the month.  So all in all it should be a pretty busy month. A month to look forward to though!

I hope that you also have a month to look forward to on the horizon for April and beyond, and look forward to sharing mine with you!