I pulled a couple chicken breasts out of the freezer today, unsure of what I was going to make for dinner with them. As dinner time approached, I decided to go with good old chicken burritos. I diced the raw chicken into pretty small cubes, maybe 1/2 inch. I cooked the chicken in oil until done and added taco seasoning and water. When the sauce had thickened a bit, I add it to tortillas already topped with shredded cheddar cheese. Drizzled with a little hot sauce and nuked in the microwave to melt the cheese, the chicken burritos were delicious. In the past, Katie has willingly eaten the taco seasoned chicken. Not tonight. I don't think she ate more than 3 pieces. And, she definitely prefers cubed cheese over shredded. Much like her friend Oliver:)
When I planned our dinner menu for the week, I expected to have left over salmon for dinner tonight. Without a better option, we stuck to the plan. I needed to find a way to make the salmon better than it was last night. I placed pats of butter on top of the salmon before I reheated it in the microwave. Turns out the melted butter helped with the moisture issue I had last night. It didn't help with the orange flavor, but it was better overall. Ben liked it. We had a caesar salad on the side.
A while I ago I purchased quite a few Grill Mates marinade mixes. I decided to try the Baja Citrus flavor tonight. Although several different protiens would go with each marinade, it seems like the best choice is listed first under the ingredients on the packaging. Salmon was listed first; so, I marinated salmon. I struggled with how long to cook the salmon. I like salmon to be moist, but done. It's a hard balance to find. It seems like I went from raw to overcooked in a minute. The salmon was just too dry in the end. And, unfortunately, I was disappointed with the flavor. I can't be sure why, but I think it is because there is too much orange flavor in this marinade. I think salmon goes well with lemon, but orange doesn't work as well in my opinion. Ben went to a Mariner's game; so it was just me and Katie for dinner. I didn't want to go through the hassle of grilling asparagus without a second person to watch Katie. Instead, I fixed mixed berries for a side dish. Katie is still not sure about blackberries, but she loves blueberries and strawberries.
We hosted our PEPS gathering this week. It was a little crazy trying to pull it together after just getting back from our vacation, but we did it:) I got a package of chicken drumsticks from Costco and rubbed them with our standard bbq rub. Ben worked the grill and got them perfectly cooked and coated with bbq sauce. They were spicy and a hit with the group! I opened up a package of mixed greens and put out a couple salad dressings for people to choose from. We had our first corn on the cob of the season. It will get better for sure, but it was still very tasty. And for dessert, we had angelfood cake with berries and whipped cream. I filled a clear salad bowl with 3 layers of berries- blueberries, sliced strawberries, and blackberries.
For the kids, I had Ben grill a couple plain chicken breasts, and I steamed some broccoli. Katie ate so much broccoli at the Chinese restaurant the other day that I was sure she would eat a bunch of it. Nope, she only played with it. Yes, it was all over the carpet. UGH! Boy, those kids were soo cute! We hadn't been with the group for a month, so it was fun to see how much each of them has changed. I think they are almost to a point where they will play with each other. We put Katie and Ronan in our arm chair together for fun. Ronan has been known to feed Katie food during our gatherings:) Here's a photo of them together. They were grooving and clapping to Casper Babypants. 
Oh boy, the post-vacation weigh-in was NOT good this morning. Back on the low carb band wagon for us, except that we have this left over pizza in the fridge. Since I had not gotten to the grocery store yet, we decided to just finish off the pizza over lunch and dinner. We added left over Caribbean Pork Bowl pork and sausage to dinner in order to have enough to share with Katie.
The last leg of our vacation was super smooth. I highly recommend driving between Portland, OR, and Seattle, WA, on the Sunday of a three day weekend. There was NO traffic! After unloading the rental van, removing the top carrier, returning the van to the airport, and taking a cab home, neither of us was interested in cooking. Garlic Jim's Pizza to the rescue. We took advantage of a coupon for a $5 large pepperoni pizza. The funny thing is that we ended up paying $10 plus delivery fee for it since they have a $10 minimum for delivery orders. Ah, it is good to be home:)
Another delicious breakfast at the Arch Cape Inn today. First course- strawberry, kiwi, apricot fruit salad in a yogurt, poppyseed dressing. Second course- wild mushroom quiche and apple chicken sausage patties. Again, we were both brave and tried the quiche. It was actually pretty good. It was in puff pastry, which definitely improved it:) The sausage was wonderfully tasty. They served fresh cranberry scones for the third course. The steady drizzle of the morning caused us to head back to Jennifer's house in Clackamas, OR, instead of spending more time in Cannon Beach. The drive back was very quick compared to most of the other driving we did on the trip. We had lunch at a local grocery store deli and then spent the afternoon relaxing at her home. Our plan was to have dinner at Montage in Portland, OR. We have attempted to go there several times before and have not made it for one reason or another. We actually drove there tonight, parked, and went in the front door only to find out that they had just filled all the tables and that they didn't have high chairs or booster seats. Foiled again! Someday we WILL eat there:) Luckily, we knew of an excellent Chinese restaurant relatively close by- Mandarin Cove. We were seated immediately and had a fantastic meal with wonderful service! We shared General Tso's Chicken, dry sauteed string beans with chicken, and beef with orange flavor. With full bellies, we finished our day by watching "The Hangover".
