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Weekly Menu for the Week of March 9

March 8, 2020 By Chelsia Rief Leave a Comment

Happy St. Patrick's Day week! As much as I love this holiday, there are so many Irish foods I've yet to eat. I've never really had corned beef or Irish soda bread. At some point, I'd really like to experiment with those foods. What I'd like to know is...what is your favorite Irish meal or dessert? If you haven't had our Guinness Chocolate Cake or Irish Shepherd's Pie, those are two meals I'd recommend trying out! In fact, we've got several Irish recipes on our blog for you to try, so you can always look through the archived recipes to see if there is something you'd like to try.

I hope you're all staying well and not letting too much of the media hype give you fear and anxiety about the Coronavirus. Not to downplay the gravity of the situation, but there's only so much that's within our individual control here - practicing good hygiene, washing your hands, trying not to touch your eyes, etc. Seeking out official sources for expert recommendations and information, paying attention to what your employer is saying about the virus and what is expected of employees - these are important, of course. And it's times like this when, if going out to eat or having food prepared for you by others makes you nervous, there are major pros to cooking from home and preparing your own food. [Read more...]

Honey Ginger Stir Fry

March 4, 2020 By Chelsia Rief 2 Comments

This simple, flexible recipe for honey ginger stir fry with chicken should be one of your go-to easy weeknight dinner recipes!

My mom owned a black and red wok when I was growing up, and when I would see that red lid on the counter, I knew mom was making stir fry that night. She always bought fresh vegetables for it, sometimes she would use tofu instead of meat (though that was rare), and sometimes she would even make some yakisoba noodles to go on the side!

I always got excited about stir fry because we didn't eat Chinese food very often, and the wok she used just seemed to make the meal more special because it was usually put away.

When Josh and I first got married and I didn't know a thing about cooking, stir fry was something we would make often. But it was with frozen vegetables that included a sauce bag that was always too salty. It took me awhile before I finally figured out that I could just make my own stir fry with the vegetables I preferred. [Read more...]

Weekly Menu for the Week of March 2

March 1, 2020 By Chelsia Rief Leave a Comment

Not many months ago, March felt so far away and now it's here. We get an hour stolen away from us soon and in exchange we get more light in the evenings...fair trade. YAY!

Today (Sunday) we ended up staying home from church. Some of the kids thought they might be under the weather (they ended up being fine), so we played it safe and made pancakes in the morning, did some good cleaning in a few areas of the house, and washed all of our couch slipcovers. I feel like even though the kids started out not feeling great, we got a lot of stuff done and still got to relax around the house a bit.

I recipe tested the most amazing shepherd's pie last week! I served it for dinner on Thursday and it was such a hit! I can't wait to make it again to share with you guys...and tonight we're testing an Irish dessert! YUM! Actually we've done a lot of cooking over the weekend and it was all really good. Some new recipes and some favorites. One of the new recipes we (Josh) made was a sheet pan quiche. It is amazing, but the crust needs a little work, so we'll keep tweaking that before we're ready to share it. [Read more...]

Bacon, Balsamic, and Arugula Fried Egg Sandwich

February 26, 2020 By Joshua Rief 1 Comment

Craving a fried egg sandwich with a bigger flavor profile? Let this bacon, balsamic, and argula fried egg sandwich come to your rescue!

bacon balsamic arugula fried egg sandwich

This post originally appeared on Catz in June of 2013! Apparently, it was our one and only go at "fried egg sandwich" week, which, I have to say, sounds like something we ought to do again...At any rate, seven years later, we made these sandwiches again for a get-together with a few of my siblings, and we decided to take some updated pictures and re-share the recipe. It is wonderfully tasty!

Welcome to fried egg sandwich week here at Catz! This first offering is probably the most traditional of the three we're blogging this week, though none of them are overly so. When we were up visiting my sister and brother-in-law a few weeks ago in northeastern Washington, they invited us to join in their Sunday night tradition of fried egg sandwiches and smoothies! It may sound like an odd combination, but it works, and we love both fried egg sandwiches and smoothies, so we were sold. We got home from that trip on a Thursday night, and the very next Sunday we decided to give it a go ourselves.

I've been trying to do a better job of keeping arugula around the house lately (and now we have Aruguzilla growing in our garden...), and we always have balsamic vinegar, so I thought, why not get a bit creative with the concept of the fried egg sandwich and see where it goes? Arugula tossed in balsamic vinegar and olive oil with a bit of lemon juice and sea salt pairs nicely with many a savory entree...why not this? And so it began.

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Weekly Menu for the Week of Feb 24

February 23, 2020 By Chelsia Rief Leave a Comment

Happy Sunday, friends! I just finished folding three loads of laundry and now I'm sitting on the couch with my girls. Josh and Christian are spending the afternoon at the Portland Auto Show - they left after church (with full bellies because we had an Italian potluck at church and I made my lasagna). I didn't come home with any leftovers so I'm guessing everyone enjoyed it. The girls and I are just chilling here at the house with the guys gone. We're hopefully going to finish West Side Story tonight once the guys are back.

The weather is crazy today! Sun, wind, rain, repeat. I don't know about you, but spring is budding here. The cherry blossoms are just beginning to open up and it's a beautiful sight! I can't wait for more sun! [Read more...]

Easy & Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup

February 19, 2020 By Chelsia Rief 2 Comments

A flavorful, quick, easy, recipe for homemade chicken noodle soup - make this when your family is under the weather - or when you just want some comfort!

I grew up with my mom making the best soups ever! My mom has many talents in the kitchen and creating soups with delicious flavors and broths is certainly one of them. I mean, I am not a fan of French Onion Soup AT ALL! But hers, I'll actually eat and kind of sort of enjoy...!

I might need to have her make it again so I can see if I like it any better.

One of the things my mom always did was make a really good chicken noodle soup. I remember a few years ago when I was living closer to her I was sick with a cold and my mom had made a chicken noodle soup for her and my dad - she offered to bring me down a bowl and it was so good. It had fresh rosemary in it...so flavorful! A flavorful, quick, easy, recipe for homemade chicken noodle soup - make this when your family is under the weather - or when you just want some comfort!

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I might need to have her make it again so I can see if I like it any better.

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Weekly Menu for the Week of Feb 17

February 17, 2020 By Chelsia Rief Leave a Comment

Happy President's Day! I hope you all had a great Valentine's Day weekend. Josh surprised me by taking me out to dinner in downtown Portland and then walking me down the street to the theater to watch Casablanca presented with live orchestration from the Oregon Symphony! It was such a perfect surprise!

Currently, we're enjoying our Friday night pizza night tonight (Sunday) and getting ready to watch Frozen 2. My daughters have seen it but the rest of us haven't and we're very excited!

We're working on re-photographing some older recipes from our archives currently. We made one of our favorite breakfast items, but after making it we decided that this particular breakfast item needs to be tweaked a little, so we're going to do that before we re-photograph and share it with you guys. But I'm pretty excited about it. [Read more...]

Orange and Mascarpone Toast

February 11, 2020 By Joshua Rief Leave a Comment

This simple brunch recipe for Orange and Mascarpone Toast with blueberries and honey puts delightful breakfast food on the table in about five minutes!

I love everything about this easy little brunch recipe. It's simple, only requires a few ingredients, and comes together a couple of moments. On the other hand, it feels slightly sophisticated, tastes delicious, and is as interesting to the kiddos as it is to the adults. Of course, I'm incredibly partial to the brightness of orange and orange zest in nearly any recipe, so perhaps this was all a foregone conclusion...

We're always on the lookout for fun brunch ideas. I'm not sure where we originally saw this Orange and Mascarpone Toasts with Blueberries and Honey (may have been an email), but Williams-Sonoma doesn't make too many bad recipe recommendations, so when this one came to my attention, I knew I had to give it a try.

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Weekly Menu for the Week of Feb 10

February 9, 2020 By Chelsia Rief Leave a Comment

Happy Valentine's week everyone! Do any of you have plans? I'm not sure when Josh and I plan on going out, but we've already decided where we want to go - one of our favorite local French restaurants. Valentine's Day is on a Friday this year and every Friday we have pizza with the kids and watch a movie. We all look forward to this day all week, so we plan on spending the evening with the kids, and on Saturday, I'm doing a "Galentines" dinner out with some of Josh's sisters. So, maybe we'll go out on Monday?? He'll figure that out...

Make sure you check out our Valentine's Day section on the recipe index on our blog. Lot's of good ideas if you're going to be doing anything from home. When in doubt...a cheeseboard is always a fabulous idea! Hmm, maybe I'd rather do a cheese plate than go to dinner??? [Read more...]

The Best Cheesy Scrambled Eggs

February 4, 2020 By Joshua Rief 4 Comments

This incredibly simple four-ingredient recipe results in the best cheesy scrambled eggs we know how to make! Breakfast, brunch, or breakfast for dinner!

Before I get into the backstory of why we've mustered up the audacity (can you muster audacity?) to declare this recipe the best cheesy scrambled eggs, I've got to get something else out of the way. It's something controversial and polarizing, something both comfortingly familiar and off-putting, something that for many of us is a part of our childhood memories, and yet something many of us go out of our way to avoid...American Cheese.

Upon reaching the early stages of adulthood, perhaps even my early teens, I'd decidedly begun to loathe American cheese. To me, it was the antithesis of everything proper cheese ought to be. We happened to live not too far away from the Tillamook cheese factory on the Oregon Coast, where they produced the most wonderful, strong, sharp flavors of cheddar my tastebuds could desire, and every time I visited the factory or purchased their delectable products at the market, my heart hardened against the deplorable qualities of American cheese just a bit more. As Chels and I got deeper into the "foodie scene" and we discovered the myriad delights of cheese boards, this propensity to consign American cheese to the trash heap of plastic-imitating-food deepened. [Read more...]