Gavin LOVES to eat Mexican food (and wear it). In this photo he has beans all over himself!
Dinner with Dad and Jennifer – Joe’s Farm Grill
Dad and Jennifer were recently in town for their Spring break vacation and we all decided to go to Joe’s Farm Grill for a yummy meal.
(I “lifted” this picture since I didn’t take any of the actual restaurant. Doh!)
Joe’s is located in Gilbert, AZ and is a part of Agritopia. The Agritopia Project is “an effort to design and build a neighborly community around an urban farm.” It’s a really cool idea and you can read more about it here.
The restaurant is right next to the actual farm where much of the food the restaurant serves is grown. Here’s a picture of Gavin patiently waiting for some dinner.
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After arriving at Joe’s we waited in line for about 20 minutes and then ordered at the window. I ordered the Fontina burger with onion rings. The burger was sooo good and topped with fontina cheese, pesto (herbs from the garden), roasted red pepper, mushrooms, and arugla. Oh yeah, and the homemade pickles are the bomb!
Chanin ordered the BBQ Bacon Blue burger with chili fries. Her burger was topped with bleu cheese, bacon, onion rings, and BBQ sauce. Gavin loved the chili fries! Dad (Grandpa) ordered the Ribs and BBQ Pork platter and Jennifer got the Ahi sandwich. The ribs were tasty and the Ahi looked nice and fresh.
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This was our first visit to Joe’s Farm Grill and we’ll definitely be back! The weather is just about perfect right now and we love Spring time here in AZ. At Joe’s there are huge grass areas and lots of trees which makes it a perfect place for the kiddos to run around. When the weather is this nice, and the food is that good, you just can’t beat it!
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Food, Food, Food…
A bunch of pictures of food that we never got around to posting!
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In no particular order those are pictures of:
- Food from Arriba’s Mexican Grill
- Homemade Birthday Cake – Chocolate with Caramel Frosting (made by Chanin)
- Homemade Humongous Snickerdoodle (made by James for Chanin’s Birthday)
- Corned Beef and Cabbage
- Fresh Strawberry Ice Cream
- Grilled Ribs
- Grilled Pork Chops
- Strawberry Shortbread
- Tostada
- Wedge Salad
- Homemade White Bread
Grilled Pizza
I’ve been wanting to grill pizza for a while now and finally got around to it last weekend. I decided it would be a nice treat for Chanin’s birthday since she loves pizza. So, I had her pick her favorite toppings and this is what we ended up with.
Toppings:
- Feta Cheese
- Pepperoni
- Spicy Sausage
- Roasted Red Peppers
- Caramelized Onions
- Kalmata Olives
- Fresh Mozarella
- Fresh Basil
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I made the basic pizza dough from Chow.com which can be found here: http://www.chow.com/recipes/24529.
And made the basic pizza sauce from Chow.com which can be found here: http://www.chow.com/recipes/24531.
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Then I grilled them all up and we enjoyed them!
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The pizzas turned out soooooooo good! We’ll definitly be making these again.
Homemade 100% Whole Wheat Bread
We’ve started buying those frozen loafs of bread from the store because they’re pretty tasty and they’re cheap! But yesterday I got the itch to make some completely homemade bread. I already like to bake sweets and figured bread would be fun. We bought some King Arthur Whole Wheat flour and used the recipe on the back. You can find that recipes on the King Arther site (click me). Here are some pictures of the final product.
The bread turned out great and made a yummy turkey sandwich. It was pretty dense but not dry. And packed with flavor.
I think I caught the bread making bug. Next I’d like to make a rustic bread like the one seen on The Teacher Learns How to Cook blog.
Grilled Lime Shrimp
During lent Chanin forces likes me to avoid red meat. 
We both love seafood so it’s not a difficult thing to do. Last Friday I decided to cook dinner and found a promising shrimp recipe on recipezaar.com. The recipe is really simple to prepare and VERY tasty. To go with the shrimp I grilled some veggies as well.
Grilled Lime Shrimp
- 1/2 teaspoon fresh lime zest
- 1/4-1/2 teaspoon cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1/2-1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2-3 tablespoons fresh squeezed lime juice
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 lb shelled deveined uncooked shrimp
- 1-2 tablespoons garlic chili paste (Thai), we added this to spice it up.
Directions
- Mix together the first 8 ingredients in a bowl.
- Add shrimp; toss to coat.
- Let stand at room temperature for 10 minutes to marinate. – We let it marinade for at least an hour.
- Thread shrimp on metal skewers; reserve marinade.
- Place skewered shrimp on grill over medium heat.
- Cook 3-7 minutes or until shrimp turn pink, turning once and brushing with marinade occasionally.
Grilled Veggies
- 2 zucchinis
- 1 yellow squash
- 1 red onion
- 1 green pepper
Directions
- Slice along the long side of the zucchini and squash, slice red onion, slick green pepper into strips
- Grill veggies on medium-hot grill and brush with olive oil, lime juice, and salt/pepper mixture. Cook until done. We like ‘em a little “blackened.”
Enjoy!!
Baby’s Dinner vs. Our Dinner
So, tonight Chanin made some chicken chimichangas and they were very tasty! Inside we had seasoned chicken, beans, cheese, cilantro, and probably some other goodies. And outside we had all of the fixins such as sour cream, cilantro, salsa, guacamole, etc.
And the little guy had baby formula as usual. We’ve had some good personal recommendations and have him on Nestle Good Start. One of the things I’ve recently learned is that baby formula is EXPENSIVE! Each can is about $26 (plus tax of course). Chanin went online and found a good deal if you buy in bulk. We figure this will last us a few months.
Fresh Trout
During our recent trip to Idaho my bro and sis-in-law invited us over for a fresh trout dinner at their place. I hadn’t had trout for a really long time and was looking forward to it. The day before, my bro had gone out fishing and caught lots of fishies. So anywho, on to the pictures!
Mmmmm……makes me want to go fishing (as long as someone else kills the fish!).
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