oregano | Mommie Cooks!

Southwestern Stuffed Mushrooms

May 3, 2011 By Julie 36 Comments

Kids say the darndest things. Last night we were sitting down to dinner, enjoying some quality time, when Alex made a sudden declaration that he didn’t like meat. “All meat?” I inquired. “No meat.” he replied. So I asked him the next logical question that came to my mind. “Do you think you might want be a vegetarian when you grow up?” An overly exaggerated look of utter frustration washed over his face as he rolled his eyes at me and sighed. “I thought we already discussed this. I want to be an ice cream truck driver when I grow up!” Silly, silly mommy for asking such a ridiculous question. But hey, as long as he drives his truck through my neighborhood it’s all good to me.

…

17 Bean White Chicken Chili

March 21, 2011 By Julie 24 Comments

Have you ever bought one of those packs of beans from the grocery store? You know the ones, they have 17 different flavors of legume in the assortment and a recipe for the same old soup on the back every time you pick it up.

Well, I just so happened to have one such bag gracing the inside of my pantry a few weeks back that was bellowing at me to eat it. Being the adventuresome food blogger that I am, I decided to veer away from the bean sack’s dinner plans and instead attempt to create a dish of my own. It would be a chili dish. And while I was at it, I resolved to make it a chicken based chili. And if I was going to use chicken, why not take it one step further and make the base be something other than tomatoes. I was on fire; the inspirational juices were flowing like a glass of cool water on a hot summer day.

I threw in a little of this, and a bit of that. The steam was rising and the water was bubbling. All I needed was my witches hat, a wart and a good cackle, and I would have been concocting one seriously wicked witches brew. When the smoke cleared and the spoon was laid to rest, what remained was one seriously delicious white chicken chili.

…

Navajo Fry Bread

February 28, 2011 By Julie 32 Comments

The time comes when all birds must leave the nest and fly on their own. When I graduated college and started looking for a job, I decided that the farther I could soar from my hometown the better. Sound familiar? Be it a need for actual physical distance or merely emotional distance, I’m willing to bet that at one point in our lives we could all relate to that new found feeling of independence pulling us as far away as possible from where it all began. As for myself, I wanted nothing more than to show all those around me that I had what it took to make it on my own.

That ever growing need for independence eventually landed me in Phoenix, AZ. It was far from my childhood stomping grounds, completely different in every possible way from Wisconsin, and I had a cushion in the fact that my grandparents were living there in case I ever needed a familiar hand.
…