July 9, 2011- Country Style Pork Ribs

Yesterday afternoon I started making Country Style Pork Ribs for Kate and Spencer to have for dinner.  Ben was the first one to prepare them in our house, and he did a great job documenting the process in the following post: http://duckywhit-whatsfordinner.blogspot.com/2011/02/monday-2212011.html.  In order to get out the door for our date last night, I turned the preparation over to Spencer at step #8 in the directions.  We made enough so that we could have left overs for our dinner tonight.  I reheated the pork in the microwave, smothered with more bbq sauce.  I reheated corn on the cob from last week's PEPS potluck for our side dish.

July 8, 2011- Sazerac

Kate and Spencer kindly offered to babysit Katie for us tonight. Date night...what a treat! After getting her settled in with them, I met Ben downtown for dinner and a movie.  We planned to keep our food costs down by sticking to happy hour menus.  We ended up at Sazerac since the happy hour menu was offered until 8pm, two hours longer than most restaurants. 

We started with Crispy "Truffles"-- a deep fried ball of yukon gold potatoes and truffle cheese, coated in bread crumbs, served with truffled aioli.  I really expected a fancy potato chip when I ordered them.  What a pleasant surprise.  Next, Ben had the pulled pork sliders with a mustard based bbq sauce, and I had the cheeseburger sliders with garlic aioli.  We wrapped up the meal by sharing the grilled housemade Andouille sausage.  It had a great texture and a unique flavor.  The food was wonderful, but so were our seats.  

We were seated at the chef's counter, which meant we could watch the chef prepare food while we ate.  The thing we miss most about not having cable television anymore is The Food Network.  We love watching people prepare food.  Tonight it was just like we were part of a live studio audience for a Food Network show.  What fun!  The chef greeted us and said goodbye when we left, but was heads-down the entire we were eating.  I wonder if he likes being watched so closely while he works. 

The movie we saw was Horrible Bosses.  Oh man, that is a hilarious movie!  We were in a packed theater and the whole audience laughed and groaned and jumped as one.  If you liked The Hangover or Bridesmaids, I've got to think you will love this movie!  We will own it for sure.

Tuesday, 4/19/2011

Our PEPS group gathered at Barb, Tadd, and Ronan's house for dinner tonight.  Before we ate, we got to check out their new chickens.  Raccoons got a couple of their chickens; so, these were the replacements.  They were still small, but past the cute fluffy stage.  Katie DID NOT want to touch them.  She eventually stepped into the coupe with me, but never got up the courage to touch one.  

Barb made pulled pork sandwiches for the main dish.  We knew that there were more carbs in the sauce than we were allowed, but decided not to sweat it.  We avoided the buns (which we brought for the potluck) and skipped the salad croutons and dessert.  The nuts in the brownies made it pretty easy to resist the dessert temptation tonight.  Unless we are talking Reese's peanut butter cups, I find it rare to really like a dessert with nuts in it.

Thursday, 4/7/2011

We're on VACATION!!!  This morning we flew to California to spend four days at Disneyland.  We flew down with Ben's brother, Spencer, and met Spencer's fiance, Kate, and their mom, Jennifer, there.  We are going to be in the parks today through Saturday, and then spend Sunday morning shopping and playing in Downtown Disney.

Within a few minutes of passing through the Disneyland entrance gates, we found Snow White.  After a short wait, Katie went right up to Snow White with no obvious sign of fear.  We were worried she would be afraid of the characters, like she's been of Santa Claus the past two years. It was wonderful to see her interact with a princess, talking and hugging.  I hope she'll be at ease with the others too:) 

We had dinner at the River Belle Terrace, in Frontierland.  All of the adults in our group had the BBQ pork sandwiches.  I think they were as good as the pork sandwiches we make at home.  Katie had a peanut butter and jam sandwich with apple slices.  I'm glad she was hungry, because she ate well and didn't waste any time.

The best part of the meal was when Katie reached for a bottle of Diet Coke and ended up spilling it all over the table.  It took several seconds for us all to realize what had happened.  By the time we picked up the bottle of coke, it was pooled under each of our trays and took a lot of napkins to clean up.  What made it really funny to us, was that we had just talked about the following video.  Enjoy:)

Sunday, 10/24/2010

Katie didn't nap today.  She was in her crib for over an hour this afternoon and never stopped chattering for long.  Her fake nap ended when the chattering turned into crying.  Needless to say, it ended up being a very long day for her parents.  At one point this afternoon, Ben and I both laid down on the den floor to rest while she played around/on us.  Ben was actually able to doze off.  I guess I was more in her way than he was;)

Katie was not in the mood to eat dinner, even though we knew she had to be hungry.  We got her to eat a little ham in her high chair, but then she threw a tantrum in order to get down.  She kept crying each time we tried to guide her away from something she couldn't have, like my phone.  We finally got her back into her high chair, but only after she insisted on having it moved into the middle of the kitchen.  Then she scarfed. She ate a bunch of tuna fish, pickles, and grapes.  She just needed to eat.  Too tired to make anything new, Ben and I just reheated the remaining BBQ pulled pork from last week and last night's cheesy noodles.  Rather than eat at the table, tonight the Ackers family dined in the kitchen with Katie. 

Wednesday, 10/20/2010

Tonight we enjoyed the simplicity of left overs. We all gladly finished off the corn bread/BBQ pulled pork dish I made yesterday. Katie called the corn bread "cake." Very cute:)

Our evenings this week are filled with prepping for my first album to be released.  Ben took amazing photos of me and has been designing beautiful CD case inserts.  His attention to details astounds me.  It's a good thing he is in charge of the design and not me.  I could never make it look as great as he does.  We hope to have the design all done by tomorrow night so that we can submit the CD order.  Yikes...I can't believe this is happening! How very, very cool:)

Tuesday, 10/19/2010

At our potluck on Saturday, our friend Shellie brought a Mexican casserole. I'm not sure exactly what went into it, but it did have beans, corn, and seasoned beef under some kind of cornbread crust. Not wanting to just have another pulled pork sandwich, I decided to experiment with tonight's meal. I used the Mexican casserole as my inspiration.

I took an 8x8-inch glass baking dish, sprayed it with non-stick cooking spray, and covered the bottom with about an inch of leftover BBQ pulled pork. Then I mixed up a batch of corn bread batter, using the recipe on the back of the Albers Yellow Corn Meal box, and poured it over the pork. I baked it in a 400 degree oven for 25 minutes. Although the toothpick I stuck in the middle came out clean, it wasn't quite done cooking. Given another 5 minutes in the oven, we would have avoided the soggy middle. It tasted good even though it was a bit soggy. It was fun to experiment. I rarely cook or bake without a recipe to follow.

Here's the recipe to make the corn bread by itself. When I was growing up, it was the recipe my parents would make to go with dinner. I always slather my cornbread with butter and a coat of cinnamon/sugar:)

ALBERS CORN BREAD
Makes 9-12 servings

Ingredients:
1 cup yellow corn meal
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 cup milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 large egg, lightly beaten

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Grease 8-inch-square baking pan.
2. Combine corn meal, flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl. Combine milk, oil, and egg in small bowl; mix well.  Add milk mixture to flour mixture; stir just until blended.  Pour into prepared pan.
3. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.  Serve warm.
Note: Recipe may be doubled.  Used greased 13x9-inch baking pan; bake as above.

Sunday, 10/17/2010

This was a great day to get stuff done at home.  Katie took a long nap this afternoon and allowed me to spend 3 hours in the yard.  I used our new electric lawn mower for the first time, and then weeded the flower bed around the grass.  I was ruthless and just pulled out everything.  Well, I did leave a few pansies which were small and in good shape.  Everything else came out.  This was my first time really looking at the patch of clover which has taken root in the front yard.  Yuck, that is going to be a pain to get rid of.  I started to pull out a section of it and decided I need to tackle it a different day.  Now that the weeds and overgrown pansies are gone, I am going to increase the size of the flower beds.  There just isn't enough room to have flowering plants in the beds and also maneuver a lawnmower in the small yard.  That will also have to be done a different day.  

For dinner we reheated some of the bbq pulled pork leftover from yesterday.  I took two buns, buttered them and then broiled them in the toaster oven.  It was nice to have the pork on toasted buns.  

Ben has been busy this week creating the artwork for my first album "Favorite Things".  He took the back cover photo at Alki beach last week and took the front cover photo in our backyard yesterday.  It is amazing how many steps it takes to turn a photo into an album cover.  Thanks Ben for making me look so good!

Saturday, 10/16/2010

I love a good potluck!  Tonight we hosted our church fellowship group "Crock Pots" at our home, and it was great!  The Crock Pots, a group of 30-somethings, give or take a decade, gather monthly for a potluck.  Although we have historically met at the church, we decided tonight to do our best to meet in our homes.  It is more comfortable to linger in a home than in the big Fellowship Hall at the church.  Tonight we had 14 adults and 6 kids, ranging in age from 8 months to 6 years, in the house tonight.  It was loud and lots of fun!  

We slow cooked a big pork roast all day and turned it into BBQ pulled pork for sandwiches tonight.  We used our standard BBQ pork recipe and it was as good as ever. I did put aside a small dish of pork before adding the sauce so that those in our group who are gluten intolerant could have some.  Who knew that BBQ sauce would have gluten in it?!?

In addition to the pork sandwiches, the potluck included two green salads, a Mexican casserole, sauteed mushrooms, and gluten free desserts.  Our friends Cherie & Tom and their daughter Katie went to a mushroom festival today and came over with some amazing mushrooms.  One variety they brought was called a Lion's Mane Mushroom.  Here's a photo I found online of one:

Cherie chopped up this kind of mushroom along with several others and sauteed them in butter with some cheese and salt and other delicious things.  Even though the flavor was quite good and the house smelled delicious, I am still not a fan of the texture of cooked mushrooms. Ben liked them a lot:)

Friday, 7/23/2010

We attended the wedding rehearsal for our friends Laura and David this afternoon. We are going to be their photographers tomorrow. They were kind enough to invite us to their post-rehearsal reception downtown Seattle at the Red Lion Hotel. They reserved half of the lounge and patio for their guests. We were lucky to find a table to sit down at. We enjoyed pulled pork sliders, egg rolls, hummus, potato wedges, fried shrimp, and plenty of cookies and tasty desserts. It was a very nice evening until...Katie puked. Yes, that's right...she puked at the reception. (Just warning you now that I am going to get a bit graphic in the rest of this post.)

We think that the puking was triggered when she choked/gagged on a small piece of chocolate truffle. She had been drinking a ton of water and eating cheese just prior to the incident, so it was like a small, yet foul, geiser that mainly landed directly on my sandal covered foot. YUCK!!! She seemed fine and was only concerned about the puke which was running down her leg. Ben ran to go get some help from the hotel staff. The nicest waitress name Monica came to our rescue. She brought us wet towels to clean up with and even took our soiled shoes into the back to wash them for us. We stripped Katie down to her diaper cover and clothed her in a very large tie-died shirt. It was a youth size small:) Anyway, we got cleaned up enough to leave, said our goodbyes and went home.

Thursday, 7/22/2010

The house smelled delicious ALL DAY LONG today. I prepared a pork roast in the crock pot last night and Ben started it cooking at 6:00 this morning. YUM! Here's the fail proof recipe.

BBQ PULLED PORK

INGREDIENTS:
1 Boston Butt or Shoulder Pork Roast, 2-4 pounds
Garlic powder
Kosher salt
Freshly cracked black pepper
1 large white onion

1 cup of your favorite bbq sauce (we like Longhorn BBQ sauce)
1/2 cup white vinegar
1-2 teaspoons of liquid smoke (optional)

DIRECTIONS:
1. Liberally coat the bottom of your crock pot with garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Then, rub the same three ingredients over the entire roast. Quarter the onion and place the separated chunks on top and around the roast. Cook on the Low Heat setting for 9-11 hours.
2. Remove the roast from the crock pot and shred the pork with a couple of forks.
3. Clean out the crock pot.
4. Return the shredded pork to the crock pot. Combine the three liquid ingredients together and mix into the pork. Cook on High Heat for one hour, stirring occasionally.

Serve on toasted buns.

We enjoyed our pulled pork on toasted Oroweat Sandwich Thins with corn on the cob. Katie wouldn't touch the pork, but did well with her corn.

Wednesday, 6/23/2010

Tonight was another night that didn't happen quite like we expected it to. It all started at 1:30. That's when I took the car in for replacement tires. I thought it would be about an hour, but I learned it was an hour for the tire replacement, then another hour for the alignment, and then the clean up, payment, etc. And then, the tires, which were promised to be in stock, were not. The tires were supposedly 1/2 hour away. I agreed to take a loaner car when I was told my car would not be available until 5pm. Ok, fine. The car dealership is in Renton, so I decided to kill some time at Southcenter mall. Katie and I shopped, snacked, and played at the mall.

At 4:45pm I called the dealership for an update. The care was NOT done and wouldn't be done until 6pm. I was asked if I would be ok picking up my car tomorrow morning instead. What was I going to do? I explained very nicely how we had been promised the tires were in stock when the appointment was made. I politely shared my expectation that I would not be paying for any gas the loaner car consumed during my drive back and forth to the dealership. How nice that the gas will be comped.

Since I hadn't been at home all afternoon, I didn't have anything ready for dinner. No problem. We decided to go out for dinner. I left Southcenter Mall at 4:49 and headed downtown to pick up Ben from work. We had plans to attend a concert at our church with Katie at 7pm and thought we would have plenty of time to eat dinner and swing by the house to get Katie into her pajamas. Nope, not enough time.

There was an immigration protest happening downtown that neither Ben nor I knew about. It was happening directly in between the exit I decided to take off of I-5 and Ben's office. An hour later, I finally had Ben in the car and we were headed back to West Seattle. Goodness! There was definitely not enough time to go home and go out to eat. Without any good dinner options ready at home, we chose "out to eat." Thankfully, our first choice for dinner was not busy at all.

We were seated immediately at Eats Market Cafe. Although I didn't catch all the details for sure, Katie's kids meal of pb&j sticks and apple slices was free tonight. Good deal! Ben and I both thoroughly enjoyed their bbq pull pork sandwiches. I must tell you, if you have kids, this is a great place to eat. The staff is very accomodating and aware of the needs of kids and parents. As soon as Katie was in the highchair, the server was giving her a spoon to play with. And, her food came out as soon as it was ready, rather than waiting until our plates were ready too. We were asked if we needed a small cup of water or extra napkins for Katie. I just really appreciate having no stress about having a toddler eating there. AND, there is a changing table in the bathroom! That makes me a very happy momma. KUDOS to Eats Market Cafe!

Tuesday, 5/25/2010

We stayed in Ft. Bragg, CA tonight. When we first got into town, we needed to stop at the grocery store for Katie's milk and ice. The first store we saw was like a PCC or Whole Foods. The store had a small section of clothing in it, including t-shirts for a local brewing company. When we checked into our hotel, we asked if the brewing company was a good place to eat. Turned out it was!

We had dinner at the North Coast Brewing Co. Ben and Spencer each had a plate of BBQ pulled pork with cornbread. Jennifer and I shared a cheeseburger with fries. That was one fabulous burger. The bun was toasted and the burger was super juicy without being undercooked. Ben said his pork was good, but that the bite he had of my burger made him want to switch what he ordered. Katie gnawed on tough crusted bread and while I fed her some of Ben's pork and cornbread. She also stole a few fries from her grandma's plate:)

If you ever plan on driving down the coast and find yourself needing a place to stay in Ft. Bragg, CA, I highly recommend the Shoreline Cottages. We stayed in cottages 8 and 9. Each had a small kitchenette, furnished with dishes, paper towels, dish soap and a sponge, a microwave, coffee maker, and fridge. They had TVs with DVD players, comfy beds, fast response heaters, and nice toiletries. The rooms were clean and the property manager was very knowledgeable about the area.