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My husband and I are back from our vacation in Tahoe. It was wonderful! I ate WAY too much, and wasn’t as active as I would have liked. I recently had surgery and am still somewhat in recovery mode, so I have to watch my activity levels. This meant we had plenty of time to find and dine at wonderful restaurants, because I’m not ready to handle the kayaking and horseback riding that we longed to do. Oh well! Someone had to eat all that great food and blog to you good people about it! As we all know though, eating out too much gets really expensive, especially when you’re in a very touristy area. One of my vacation tricks, is we usually try to get a room or rent a house with a kitchen instead of regular hotel room. This allows us to eat in some and not have to eat all of our meals out. This is especially helpful when you add a few kids to the vacation mix! I have always felt that the little more we paid for the room/house with a kitchen was made up for by spending less money on eating out.

This trip was just my husband and I, but we still ate some meals in and I wanted to share one of those with you. We were fortunate enough to have a kitchen and an outdoor barbecue available to us in Tahoe, so we made good use of it! We have this one sandwich that my husband came up with on a previous Tahoe trip and it has become one of our “go-to” meals when we’re up there! You know how certain foods or drinks remind you of a certain place and they just seem to taste better when you have them there?

So I would like to share with you a couple of recipes that we made while in Tahoe! My husband’s Tahoe Barbecue Chicken Portobello Sandwiches and my Bacon Cashew Greenbeans.

Tahoe Barbecue Chicken Portobello Sandwiches

Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts, butterflied if too thick

Italian Salad Dressing (Use fat free if trying to reduce the fat)

Sandwich Roll (We found some really soft whole wheat rolls that were wonderful!)

Portobello Mushrooms, sliced

Balsamic Vinegar

Sliced Pepper Jack Cheese

Bottled Ceasar Dressing (We used a lite version)

Tomato, sliced

Red Onion, sliced

These are sandwiches now, so I didn’t give you exact amounts. I’ll let you figure it out based on how many people you’re feeding and how much stuff you like on your sandwiches. We marinated the chicken in the Italian dressing for a few hours. We also marinated the Portobello mushroom slices in balsamic vinegar (Or you could use more Italian dressing, but I wanted to incorporate another flavor). My husband grilled the chicken until cooked through and then briefly grilled the Portobellos and put the sandwich rolls on the top rack to give them a little texture. While you’re cooking the mushrooms and rolls, you can melt the pepper jack cheese over the chicken breasts (You can always use a different type of cheese too.) Once everything is cooked, bring it all back in the house because you’re ready to assemble! Instead of mayo, we decided to use the Ceasar dressing as a spread. It just adds an extra yummy, tangy-ness to the sandwich. Then top your sandwich with whatever fresh veggies sound good. We used tomato and onion. Viola! You have our family’s bite of Lake Tahoe!

  

Bacon Cashew Greenbeans

1 pound green beans, with ends snapped off and broken into bite size pieces

½ pound bacon, cut into bite size pieces (You can use regular or turkey bacon)

1 clove garlic, minced or pressed

½ cup roasted cashews (salted or unsalted can be used)

Put beans in a sauce pan and cover with water. Bring to a boil and cook at a low boil for about 10 minutes. I like beans to still have a little crunch, but you can always cook them longer, if you wish. They will cook a little more once they get in the bacon. While the beans are boiling, cook the bacon in a frying pan on medium-high heat. When bacon is done cooking, remove from pan and keep warm. Turn the heat down to medium-low. Drain off some of the bacon grease from the pan, but not all of it. You want a little left in there to coat the beans with. Add the garlic to the remaining bacon grease in the frying pan and cook until fragrant, but not crispy. Once the beans are done boiling, drain and then add them to the frying pan. Add the cashews and stir. Add the bacon back in and continue to stir. Season with salt and pepper. If you used salted cashews, you won’t need as much salt. Cook all ingredients for about 5 minutes.