A Jeanne in the Kitchen

Give me a cookbook, and I will be a happy camper for quite a long time.  I am definitely a book lover.  I love holding books in my hands and flipping through the pages, and if it is a cookbook, I want to make all the recipes I see, right away.  I am like a little kid in a candy store, only instead of seeing visions of lollipops swirling through me head, I see visions of all kinds of different delicious foods before me.  Maybe that’s why sometimes I tend to make a lot of similar foods in a short time frame.  Lately, I have been on an Argentine food theme.   I have enjoyed this latest culinary journey down to Argentina just as much as I enjoy all my other culinary journeys to all other far off places around the world.

When we have our mermaid/merman potlucks, I almost always try to bring something healthy, since after all, we are in a fitness and exercise class and we are all trying our best to get healthier and lose some of those extra pounds that somehow seem to accumulate around our middle sections.  This time, I chose to make the hearts of palm and shrimp salad.  It’s healthy, quick and easy to make, and with the shrimp, it was a perfect fit for our mermaid/merman party. The Mermaid/Merman Gathering

The ensalada de palmitos y camerones or hearts of palm and shrimp salad is a dish that became famous and popular in the mid 1920’s at a golf resort in Mar del Plata, off the Atlantic coast of Buenos Aires.  Mar del Plata is one of Argentina’s busiest fishing ports and every year, at the end of January (the middle of the Argentine summer) Mar del Plata hosts The Festival of Fishermen, where large quantities of delicious seafood dishes are served every year, in appreciation of all the gifts from the sea.  This is one of the popular dishes served at this annual event.

Hearts of Palm and Shrimp Salad

1 lb medium sized shrimp, peeled, deveined and cooked

1-2 firm, avocados, sliced

1 can hearts of palm, drained and sliced

1 head of red leaf lettuce

2 TBSP fresh chives

1 red bell pepper, sliced thin

4 TBSP lemon juice

red pepper flakes to taste

1-2 TBSP olive oil

1/3 cup mayonnaise

1 TBSP ketchup

1 tsp Worcestershire sauce

1 tsp brandy

dash of Tobasco sauce

salt and pepper to taste

1 TBSP capers

 

Cook the shrimp in half of the lemon juice, olive oil and red pepper flakes for about 5-7 minutes or until they are done and are pink all around.  Then remove them from the heat and set aside.

Place the lettuce leaves on a platter and arrange the red pepper slices, avocado slices, hearts of palm and shrimp around the lettuce leaves.  Squeeze the rest of the lemon juice over the ingredients, making sure to really cover the avocado slices to prevent browning.    You can use lemon juice from a bottle or lemon juice from a lemon.  I used both because I also used the cut lemon as my decoration and garnish too.

Mix together all the wet ingredients to make your sauce, then drizzle the sauce over the salad.

Once the salad is made, sprinkle the chopped chives and capers all around.  I also used more red pepper strips to enhance my presentation.  Chill in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes before serving.  !Desfruitas!

 

 

 

One of my paying jobs is to teach water aerobics.  I have been teaching for a long, long time, and I love what I do.  It helps keep me in shape (or at least it used to) with all the cooking and eating I love to do.  One of the pools I work at is the beautiful outdoor pool in Wheat Ridge.  This is my favorite pool.  When the weather is scorching hot, like it has been all week, it is so refreshing to jump into this cool blue pool to help beat the heat.  Here in Colorado, our outdoor pools are seasonal, and are only open in the summers.  We all lament closing day, but rejoice when they open up again at the start of a new season.  We look forward to opening day of the new season the day we close the pool for the season with tears in our eyes.  My beautiful ladies that attend my outside classes have named us the Mermaid Club.  This year, we had our first merman too.  At the end of our mermaid season, we traditionally have a potluck party and everyone brings a ton of food to enjoy after class.  I have to work us extra hard on those days so we can burn off all those delicious calories we just know we are going to consume as soon as we get out of the pool.  We have so much fun at our mermaid/merman gatherings, that this year we decided to have two.  Our first one was held a couple of days ago.  As usual, there was so much good food and we all left feeling very, very full, although everything we brought was fairly healthy.

I am the lead mermaid, and am here in my natural habitat and environment, the water.  If I am not in the kitchen, I am swimming or diving somewhere in the waters around the world.

This year’s attendees and our scrumptious feast right before we dig in and it all disappears.  We were missing quite a few of our mermaids this time, but we all still enjoyed ourselves and ate way to much.  Hopefully everyone will be able to attend our next one, the last one of the 2019 season.

My friend and one of my original mermaid members, Kathy, is always so creative.  She brought this adorable layered tray with white chocolate dipped strawberries and gummy sharks and cherries, complete with a mermaid floating around on her pink flamingo at the surface of the shark tank.

Since I had so much of my vegetable escabeche leftover from the other day, Our Colorado Gaucho Grill that was one of my contributions to our feast.  Again, sticking to my Argentine theme for the week, I also made an Argentine salad with hearts of palm and shrimp, or ensalada de palmitos y camerones (stay tuned for details and the recipe for later.  Most probably tomorrow’s post).

Once again, we had a successful Mermaid/Merman party and season.  We have one more party for the season, and then our mermaid/merman tails will disappear and will return again next season.  I love all my mermaids and my new merman.  Thanks for yet another AWESOME season!  Just keep swimmin’, just keep swimmin’, just keep swimmin’.

 

 

 

My husband does not need any excuses to pull out the smoker and smoke some meats.  When we planned our latest get together with Jonathon and Priscilla, that was excuse enough to start smoking again.  We wanted to hear all about their recent trip for their niece’s wedding, An Argentine Wedding In California and what better way to visit with friends than over a delicious meal with good wine, right?!

The Argentines call their ranchers gauchos, and there was a gaucho grill present for the wedding.   Grilled meats are an Argentine staple and are probably some of the most popular foods of Argentina.  I guess we were vicariously in an Argentine frame of mind after seeing their pictures, so we decided to have our own version of a gaucho grill here at home.

Larry smoked some sausages, a whole chicken, a couple of racks of ribs, some pork and a brisket.  I looked through my South American cookbooks and found the perfect sides to go with all this meat, and Priscilla brought food as well.  We had enough food to feed a small army, yet it was only the four of us eating.  This is kind of typical of how I cook though, especially when I get with other friends who also love to cook.  We are still going through all the leftovers.  Of course, everything is changed so no one but Larry and I know they are leftovers, and even Larry has a hard time believing they were once something else.

One of the dishes I contributed to our Argentine feast was an escabeche with all kinds of vegetables, also known as alcauciles y zanahorias en escabeche.  Estabeches are very popular all throughout the Spanish world.  They are also very versatile and can be made with just about anything.  Every country and every region has their own specialty.  Escabeche is a technique for pickling and preserving  foods that was passed down to the Spanish during the times of the Moorish occupation in Spain, and has changed very little over time.  The basic ingredients to any escabeche are olive oil, vinegar, and sometimes wine.  Other than that, anything goes.   Ideally, an escabeche should be made a day ahead before serving, so all the flavors can really develop and come to life.  They are usually served at room temperature, although they are often served warm too.  They are great for any type of meal or snack, at any time of day.  Argentina and Uruguay are famous for their meats and wild games, so aside from this vegetable escabeche, they are also known for their meat and wild game escabeches.

Argentine Vegetable Escabeche

3 carrots, peeled and sliced

1/2 red onion, small dice

1/2 cup fresh green beans, cut into 1″ pieces

1/2 cup mixed olives, cut in half

1  TBSP capers

1 TBSP garlic

1 bay leaf

1 can artichoke hearts, drained

red pepper flakes to taste

3/4 cup olive oil

1/2 cup white wine vinegar

3/4 cup chicken broth

salt & pepper to taste

 

Bring the carrots and green beans to a  boil in water and boil for about 5 minutes, then drain and cool.

Mix all the rest of the ingredients together with the carrots and green beans once again, cover and bring to a boil.  Then reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes.

Once everything is cooked, remove the bay leaf and discard, then transfer the vegetables into a glass bowl, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate.  Take it out of the refrigerator at least 30 minutes before serving.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A tangine is both a rich and aromatic casserole as well as a cooking vessel used to cook Moroccan and Middle Eastern foods.  The cooking vessel is a clay pot with a lid that funnels at the top and has a hole at the top that allows steam to escape.  These were traditionally used by the nomadic Berbers of North Africa.  The casserole version of a tangine is a dish flavored with a lot of spices and can be made from any combination of vegetables, meats, chicken or seafood, and is often referred to as ” A glorified stew worthy of poetry”  and as ” a dish of tender meat, fish or succulent vegetables, simmered to perfection in buttery sauces with fruit, herbs, honey and chiles” (p. 7 Tangines & Couscous – Delicious Recipes for Moroccan One-pot Cooking, by Ghillie Basan).  Traditionally, tangines are served as a meal of their own served over couscous with flat breads, such as pita bread or a crusty bread, to help soak up and mop up the juices of the stew.  When cooking tangines, you want to slow cook them over a low simmering heat to preserve the juices and the moistness of the foods and the meats.  They can be cooked over hot coals or a wood burning stove, or on top of the stove, as is most commonly done today.   I do not have a tangine clay pot, nor have I ever used one, so as authentic as my flavors may be, my tangines are not totally authentic because I cook them in a skillet with a lid, which is similar, but definitely not the same.

We love lamb, but it doesn’t make our usual rotation of meats as often as we would like.  As with most things, when I do cook lamb, I make it a variety of different ways.  This time I made as a summer tangine that was loaded with vegetables.  I love all kinds of tomatoes, and in the summer, there is such a large variety of tomatoes available.  I love to mix and match my tomatoes, and I use all kinds.  They all have their own unique flavors and personalities.

Summer Lamb and Vegetable Tangine

1 1/2 lb lamb, cut into large chunks

4 TBSP olive oil

1 onion, sliced thin

1 TBSP garlic

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp coriander

1 tsp dried mint

1 zucchini, sliced

1 red bell pepper, large dice

1 yellow or crookneck squash, sliced

4 tomatoes, medium dice – I used a variety of fun summer tomatoes – some heirloom tomatoes as well as some grape, yellow tomatoes and sun tomatoes

2 TBSP fresh parsley, chopped fine

1 TBSP fresh mint, chopped fine

salt & pepper tot taste

1 TBSP lemon juice

Cook the lamb in olive oil, with salt, pepper and dried mint until it is browned on all sides and set aside.  In a separate pan, saute all the hearty vegetables in olive oil until the they are soft and tender, or for about 7-10 minutes.  To cook the couscous, it is almost a 1:1 ration of water to couscous.  Bring the water with a little salt and olive oil to a full and rapid boil, then turn the heat off and add the couscous.  Mix it in thoroughly, and let it set.  The couscous will absorb the liquid and will fluff out.  Couscous has a slightly nutty taste.

When the vegetables are done, add the tomatoes and the cooked lamb, along with a little water.  Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer and continue to cook for about 30 minutes, stirring frequently.

When the stew is finished, add the fresh mint and parsley on top and serve on top of the couscous.  I served mine with warmed pita bread and hummus on the side, and my accompanying wine choice was a smooth, velvety red blend.  Delicious!

 

If I didn’t love meat so much, I could easily be a vegetarian.  I love vegetables of all kinds, and especially fresh vegetables.  We eat a wide variety of vegetables, cooked in many different ways, all the time.  Maybe my love of all kinds of fresh fruits and vegetables stems from growing up in Southern California, where fresh fruit and vegetables are always in abundance.  My husband did not grow up eating a wide variety of either, but after 18 years of being together, he has grown to love eating his vegetables too.  But then again, he really doesn’t have much choice if he wants to eat.  We still have to work on him with his fruits though, but at least he does eat his vegetables.  The climates in Southern California and Greece are very similar and are very friendly towards growing a wide variety of vegetables.  Zucchini is prolific in both areas.

People often ask me what is my favorite type of food to cook.  Because I am a very adventurous eater, I love cooking all kinds of foods.  I really enjoy planning “themed” meals the most though.  If I am cooking something Southwestern, then I want the whole meal to be Southwestern, or in this case, Greek.  When I made my Greek Chicken and Brussels sprouts and barley salad, It Looks Greek to Me, Brussels Sprouts & Barley Salad, I also wanted some kind of Greek vegetables to accompany the rest of the plate.  Because I have so many cookbooks, and many different ethnic cookbooks as well, it is real easy for me to just go find something special  from my every-growing culinary library.  After a delicious researching expedition, I decided to make Kolokythia me skordoke ladi or braised zucchini with garlic and olive oil.  This simple and tasty recipe hails from the Greek Island of Corfu.  It is full of garlic and full of flavor; two of my favorites.

 

Greek Zucchini

1 1/2 lbs zucchini, sliced

1/3 cup olive oil

2 TBSP garlic

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup dry white wine

salt & pepper to taste

red pepper flakes to taste

1 TBSP Peruvian peppers, optional

1 tsp fresh oregano, chopped

 

In a hot skillet, saute the zucchini, garlic, salt & pepper, red pepper flakes and Peruvian peppers in the olive oil for about 5-7 minutes, or until the zucchini has softened a bit.  Then add the water and wine.  Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and continue to cook for about 15 minutes, or until the zucchini is tender and the liquid has evaporated.  Mix in the oregano and serve.

 

 

 

Since I have become such a big fan of Brussels sprouts, I almost always have some on hand, which means I am always on the lookout for fun and creative new recipes for them.  I also like barley a lot too.   I was searching for some kind of creative side dish to have with my Greek chicken,  It Looks Greek to Me and voila, I found something intriguing, and then I tweaked it by changing this and adding that, to make it my own, just like I always do.  As I have said many times, the Mediterranean diet is my favorite style of food.  Grains play a very prominent role in the Mediterranean diet, as they are a great source of protein.  I love all kinds of grains, from breads to rice to barley and cous cous, and on and on.  The recipe I found called for farro and Brussels sprouts.  I could not find any farro, but I did have barley, which is similar, and thus, a new summer salad was created.  This Brussels sprout and barley salad is also very healthy as well tasty.  I love cooking like this.  I get inspired by the darnedest things.  I never know how or when my muse will step in with new creative ideas, but I’ve learned to just go with the flow and accept it when she shows up.  I don’t question her; I just follow her lead and go where she takes me.  I am just as adventurous with experimenting with different foods as I am with life in general.  My motto – “Bring it on!”

Brussels Sprouts and Barley Salad

The Barley

1 1/2 cups barley

3 cups water

a dash of salt

1 TBSP olive oil

 

Cook the barley just like you would rice.   Put everything together into a saucepan, bring it to a full, rapid boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer and continue to cook for about 20 minutes, or until the liquid is absorbed and the barley is soft and plump.

 

1 lb Brussels sprouts, shredded

1/2 red onion, small dice

5 bacon strips, cooked then sliced or cut

1 TBSP garlic

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

salt & pepper to taste

3-4 TBSP olive oil

2-3 TBSP balsamic vinegar

I TBSP of fresh basil, chiffonade

1 TBSP lemon verbena, chiffonade, optional

2-3 TBSP Parmigiano cheese

 

Combine the Brussels sprouts, garlic, onions, and salt & pepper and then saute in a hot skillet with olive oil for about 5-7 minutes, or until the Brussels sprouts and onions are soft.  Once everything is cooked, add all the cooked ingredients, as well as all the rest of the ingredients, except the Parmigaino cheese, to the barley and toss everything together to thoroughly combine everything.  Top the salad with the cheese right before serving. This healthy and versatile salad can be eaten warm, at room temperature or even cold if you like that way.  Both the barley and the walnuts give this salad a very nutty taste.

 

 

 

 

My dear friend Priscilla, whom you have all gotten to know through my posts, and her sister Kelly are featured as my guest chefs for July.  Priscilla and I have known each other for most of our lives, dating back to junior high school in Pasadena, California through Broomfield/Westminster, Colorado today.  Priscilla and Kelly are both fabulous chefs and cooks.  They both inherited this trait from their beautiful mother Ana.  Ana and Kelly used to own and operate The Tea Room, located in Sierra Madre, California, where Kelly and Ana used to make all the wonderful foods from scratch everyday.  The Tea Room was often frequented by celebrities, and was well loved by everyone.  The Tea Room is still going strong, but Kelly and Ana sold the business a few years ago and now enjoy their family life even more.

The Santo family (Priscilla and Kelly’s maiden name) emigrated to Southern California from Rosario, Argentina, which is not far from Buenos Aires, many moons ago, and all but Priscilla, have made Southern California their home ever since.  The Santo family is still very proudly connected to their Argentine heritage.  Priscilla made Colorado her home a few years before I did, and believe it or not, we still live only about 10 minutes away from each other, just like when we were kids.  Sometimes the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Priscilla and Kelly, the two master pastry chefs for the Santo/Perez wedding.

Priscilla and Ana, the Santo matriarch.  Te amo muchos mes Amigas!

Priscilla and Kelly’s niece Madison just got married a couple of weeks ago, at a ranch in Temecula, California.  It was a beautiful wedding with a very Argentine theme, complete with a Gaucho Grill.

Priscilla and Kelly did all the decorating, made all the cookies, the flower arrangements and the wedding cakes.  The wedding cakes!!!!!!  OMG!  They are fabulous works of art.  Priscilla and Kelly did such an amazing job on these cakes.  They were truly a labor of love.

There were three wedding cakes for this very special occasion.  Each one is a culinary work of art.  One cake was a lemon cake with an elderflower buttercream.  Yum!  Doesn’t this sound exotic?  Another cake was a chocolate cake with a chocolate buttercream filling, and the third cake was a combination of a yellow cake with a dulce de leche cream filling and a banana cake with a chocolate chip buttercream filling.  Just writing about these delectable cakes has already made me gain at least 10 pounds.  I wish I was there to help celebrate, but also for the cakes.

The cake production line.  Priscilla and Kelly were very busy baking and decorating cakes.

Though they were very busy, the end results came out truly spectacular.  Look at all this attention to detail, which is a trademark of both Priscilla and Kelly.  They are culinary artists.  They think of everything, and pay so much attention to all the details, no matter how small or minute.  They both have a gift for making every event, even a simple dinner, a truly memorable moment.  This cake is decorated with fondant that looks exactly like the macrame hanging in the background.  They are both so gifted and talented.  I don’t have either the patience or the talent to make anything like this.  Hats off to both Priscilla and Kelly for such a loving tribute to their niece Madison, and also for sharing their culinary masterpieces with all of us.

I am always looking for guest chefs.  So many of you are very talented, creative chefs and/or home cooks.  I love to showcase all of your talents as well as my own creations.  Everyone is always welcome to submit their culinary masterpieces through pictures and details, with at least one picture of the chef as well.  You just never know who my next guest chef will be here at “A Jeanne in the Kitchen”.  It just could be you!

 

 

 

Unless I am having guests over for dinner, or am having a party, I don’t normally plan out my meals ahead of time, but I have noticed that lately, there have been a lot more recent meals with a Mediterranean flavor and flair.  Maybe, I am subconsciously preparing for our upcoming trip to Spain, which will be next month.  Yeah, that must be it.  Oh and also because I just happen to love those kinds of food too. Or it could be that the Mediterranean way of eating just seems to go hand in hand with the warmer, summer weather.  Whatever the reason, I just know I love eating this way, and we are doing it more often than usual these days, which is perfectly OK by me.

The other day, we had our hottest day of the summer so far, and I made some chicken kebabs with a tangy olive, lime and mayonnaise mixture.  I served the kebabs with Greek vegetables and a Brussels sprouts and barley salad, warmed chiabatta with an olive oil and balsamic dipping sauce and a glass or two of a nice, light chenin blanc.  It was a perfect summer meal to enjoy out on our deck in the cool of the evening on a hot summer day.

All of you know, I love to be creative with leftovers.  Even if I only have a little bit left, I will do my best to find a creative use for them.  I just hate throwing food away if it’s not necessary.  I had just a tiny bit of my olive-lime mixture left from when I made my grilled Brussels sprouts Grilled Brussels Sprouts with Green Olive Sauce  The challenge for these leftovers was that I did not have much left over at all, but I still wanted to use them up in a creative way.  I added more olives, more lime juice, garlic and red pepper flakes and mixed everything together with some mayonnaise, then put it all into the food processor to make it into a sauce.  This was the marinade for my chicken.   When making sauces and marinades, I often interchange mayonnaise and plain yogurt.  It really just depends on what I have on hand at the time.  And if you like something a little zestier, like I do, Miracle Whip works just fine too.

I cubed the chicken into large chunks then mixed it into the marinade/sauce and let it rest for about 2 hours, before skewering it and grilling it.

The finished dish, with a little extra sauce (cooked down) as a topper, was a Mediterranean delight.

There are 20 countries that surround the Mediterranean Sea, all with different cultures and different languages.   These countries include Gibraltar, Spain, France, Monaco, Italy, Malta, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Greece and Turkey from the Southwestern and Eastern parts of Europe; Syria, Cyprus, Lebanon, Israel and Palestine (The Gaza Strip) from the Levantine Coast, which flows from North to South; and Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco from the Northeastern and Western parts of Africa.  Surprisingly though, with all their differences, these countries share a lot of similarities in their foods.  A lot of fresh vegetables, a wide variety of grains, nuts, olives and olive oil and seafood are very significant foods enjoyed in all the diets of the Mediterranean people.   Aside from being very delicious foods, these foods are also very healthy as well.  A Mediterranean diet is considered to be one of the healthiest diets around, if not the healthiest diet.  It also just happens to be one of my favorites.  We eat and enjoy a lot of Mediterranean influenced foods.

Usually when people think of calimari, they think of the very popular and delicious fried version, that is found around the world.  I love this kind of calimari too, and we eat it quite often.  But this certainly is not the only way to eat calimari.  No, no.  There are many ways to eat this delicious, vitamin-packed gem of the sea.  Calimari is rich in protein (16 grams per 3.5-ounce serving), B vitamins and vitamin C, and depending on how it is cooked, it is very low in calories too.  I also love calimari steaks too, but here in the Denver area, they are not common and are often hard to find.  When I do see them though, I always buy some.  Calimari steaks are the circular pieces cut from the mantles of large squid.  They are usually tenderized while they are being processed, and are often used as a cheaper alternative to abalone, which is very expensive, and in a lot of places, illegal to catch.  The first meal I prepared in my newly painted kitchen was a delicious meal of Mediterranean calimari steaks over pasta, served with garlic cheese bread along with a dry and crisp chardonnay on the side.  My Newly Painted Kitchen

I just love cooking with everything fresh, from my herbs to my vegetables.  I always try to put in as many vegetables into my recipes as I can too.

Mediterranean Calimari Steaks 

4 or 5 tomatoes – as you can see I used a wide variety of tomatoes – if they are smaller tomatoes, just cut them in half, if they are larger tomatoes, cut them into a medium dice

1 lb calimari steaks

2 TBSP garlic

1 crookneck (yellow squash), sliced thin

1 red bell pepper, sliced thin

1 large shallot, sliced thin

1 cup mushrooms, sliced

1/2 cup olives, cut in half – again I used a variety of olives

1-2 tsp each of fresh oregano, basil, thyme and sage, chopped fine

1/2 cup dry white wine – preferably the same wine you are drinking with the meal

2 TBSP lemon juice

salt & pepper and lemon pepper to taste

olive oil

1/4 cup Parmagiano cheese

 

Saute all the heartier vegetables in olive oil until they are tender.  Then add the tomatoes and wine. Cook for about 5-7 minutes, or until the tomatoes start to break down.  Then add the olives, lemon juice, fresh herbs and seasonings.

While the vegetables are cooking, in a separate skillet or pan, cook the calimari steaks.  Lightly salt and pepper the calimari steaks on both sides and pan fry in olive oil for about 2 minutes per side, or until they are lightly golden on both sides.  DO NOT over cook the calimari or it will become tough and chewy.

I like to layer my dishes.  I do it all the time.  So cooked pasta first, then some of the delicious sauce, followed by the calimari, and topped again with more sauce, finished with fresh Parmigiano cheese.  I cut my calimari into thin strips, but you can cut it however you like.  There is no real right or wrong way to cut it.  In case you have not figured it out already, I am all about the presentation of my foods, especially for the camera.  After all, we taste with our eyes long before we taste with our taste buds.  My husband teases about this all the time.  Presentation is great, but really the most important part of a dish, any dish, is how it tastes.  This one is a definite winner.

 

 

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The painters have finished and now I am in the process of getting the house put back together again.  It is a slow process, but everyday a little more gets done.  The kitchen, however, was the first room to be put back in order.  After all, the kitchen is my main room in the house.  I had to set my priorities, right?!.  🙂  A lot of you have been asking for pictures of the newly painted kitchen, so here they are.

This is what the kitchen looked like while the painters were busy.  Previous to painting, the whole house was two-toned, with cream on the walls and white trim all around.  We added color.  Lots of color.  New carpeting will have to be next year’s home improvement project.  We have already spent the budget, and then some, for this year.

This is our kitchen nook area.  The teal accent wall is the color we chose as an accent color for all of the downstairs area.  We love it.  Upstairs, in our room and master suite, we went with a light greyish blue.

Other than the painting, the rest of the kitchen stayed the same.  No new appliances or anything.  We have a big house, and according to the painters, we have a VERY big house.  Our downstairs area is very open and just flows together.  Our kitchen opens up directly into our family room, so I thought I would include this picture as well.  You can really see the teal in this picture.  It just makes everything pop.

I hope you enjoy our new color and new kitchen.  I already have lots of good meals that have come from my new kitchen to share with all of you.  Be patient.  They’re coming your way shortly.