Sunday, 1/30/2011

Ben was in charge of preparing dinner tonight.  I was babysitting at a friend's house all afternoon and couldn't be much help to him.  He made buffalo chicken fries and served a wedge of iceberg lettuce on the side.  Katie was not at all interested in the chicken, but she did show a surprising interested in the lettuce.  

Ben altered the quantities for the hot sauce mixture ingredients to try to increase the heat and decrease the sweetness.  He used 1/3 of a cube of butter and only a 1/2 tablespoon of honey.  We plan on having this again tomorrow, so he cooked up two pounds of chicken.  He worried that there was not going to be enough sauce for the extra chicken, and so we doubled it.  I didn't know that he had halved the honey in the first batch of sauce.  So, I added a full tablespoon of honey to the second batch.  The result of these changes was a slight increase in heat and it was still too sweet.  In the end, we didn't need the second batch of sauce. 

Thursday, 10/21/2010

Last Friday I picked up some short ribs in Kalbi marinade from the Fred Meyer meat counter.  I thought we would have them over the weekend, but we never did.  I wanted to use them tonight, but was pretty sure they were not going to be good anymore.  It must be my lucky day, because they were still good!  Ben grilled them on direct high heat for 5-6 minutes.  We had iceberg lettuce wedge salads to go with it.  My salad was exactly as I wanted it to be.  1/4 of a lettuce head + bacon crumbles + Kraft's Zesty Italian Dressing = tasty salad.  Ben's didn't turn out as I expected it to.  I got him blue cheese crumbles and assumed we had a blue cheese dressing in the refrigerator.  While it is hard to tell if blue cheese has gone bad, Ben was pretty sure the dressing wasn't good anymore. He opted for the same dressing I used, but was not thrilled with it. 

Katie was willing to eat some rib meat, but mainly just ate grapes and cheese.  

I cooked up a pound of bacon tonight so that we could use it for our salads and then breakfast over the next couple of days.   Rather than using a frying pan, I baked the bacon.  I lined an old cookie sheet with heavy duty foil and then placed two square, metal cooking racks inside the sheet.  The racks had to overlap to fit, but it allowed me to use the entire sheet's surface for bacon.  I covered the racks with one layer of bacon and put the cookie sheet into a cold oven.  I then heated the oven to 400 degrees with the bacon inside.  I first checked on the bacon after 27 minutes.  When it wasn't done yet, I continued to check on it every 3 minutes until it was done enough for my taste.   For thin sliced bacon, 27 minutes is often enough.  For the thicker, leaner cuts of bacon, it takes a while longer.  The cooling racks keep the bacon out of the rendered fat.  This is a method Ben learned from Alton Brown on the Food Network several years ago.

I was just about to write about how sad it is that we can no longer watch Alton Brown's show "Good Eats" on TV anymore.  We gave up cable in January and it has not been available on Hulu.com or through Netflix.  But, as I was pulling up the show to link to it for the blog, I found that there are five full episodes currently on the Food Network's website!  So, if you want to learn about salmon, canned tuna, celery, popovers, or home freezing...check it out here:)  You learn a lot about the food itself and then how to prepare it.  We've learned a lot from Alton.

Thursday, 5/13/2010

I was late getting dinner ready tonight, but that's ok. While we were waiting for the oven to preheat, Katie insisted on going outside to show her daddy the flowers in the front yard. She spent about 45 minutes out there with me this afternoon. I was dead-heading pansies and weeding while she chatted at the neighbors, hollared at the dogs down the street, picked up dirt and rocks (some of which she handed to me and some she ate), and practiced standing up on her own. Until just this week, she has preferred to crawl to something that she can pull herself up on. It was fun to see her practicing this new skill on the soft grass. Good choice Katie!

Anyway, back to dinner. We baked beer battered halibut tonight. Since we had a fruit salad last night, we decided to use up the remaining iceberg lettuce for salads. Ben went with blue cheese, while I went with Italian dressing. Too bad, we didn't have any more bacon to crumble on top. I cut up two strawberries for Katie, but that was not enough. She wanted more, more, more! I'm going to have to get more berries for her before next week's shopping trip.

Tuesday, 5/11/2010

Katie and I did a super quick grocery store run this morning after her breakfast. Usually, when I want to purchase boneless pork chops, I can't find the right quantity or thickness. But today, I hit the jackpot- two pork chops in one package, weighing just under a pound. Plenty for the three of us, plus a little left over for Katie to snack on.

I marinated them in McCormick's Grill Mates Southwest Marinade. We use these marinade packets a lot; all of the flavors are great. Most just take a little water, oil, and vinegar. Although I usually marinate meats for 8-10 hours, today, the pork chops only got an hour or two- didn't matter, they were really good. I grilled them on medium direct for 10-12 minutes. I spooned on extra marinade as I flipped them so that they were good and coated. Ben would have been ok if they were a little less done, but said they were a good compromise. I like my meat cooked more than he does.

For a side dish, we had iceberg lettuce wedge salads. Ben topped his with blue cheese dressing and blue cheese crumbles and added some crumbled bacon I baked earlier in the day. I had some of the bacon and used an Italian dressing. Since Katie doesn't eat salad greens yet, I steamed some broccoli for her. I know, I know...it's crazy that I would cook it for her, but won't eat it myself. Truth be told, Ben won't eat it either. But, I did put it on my plate so that she would see it coming from me. I even pretended to eat a piece she passed to me. Oh the sacrifices I make for my daughter's health:)