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, 10/15/2010

Tonight we rid the fridge of some leftovers.   I need to fit a large crock pot into fridge overnight, and we needed to make some room.  We are hosting our potluck group from church in our home tomorrow, and I am making BBQ pulled pork.  Katie and I ate leftover meatloaf from last night.  Katie seemed to enjoy it as much tonight as last night.  I guess I'll increase how frequently I make this for our dinner.  When Ben got home, he finished off the last bbq chicken leg and some chili.  It was a fairly uneventful meal. 

Thursday, 10/14/2010

Tonight I finally made the meatloaf I've almost made a couple weeks ago.  The original recipe for this meatloaf came Betty Crocker's New Cookbook.  Over the last couple of years, I've adjusted the ingredient quantities a bit.  My altered recipe and some notes are posted below.  

MEATLOAF

Prep: 20 minutes
Bake: 45 minutes to 1 hour

Ingredients:
1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon dried sage leaves
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon dry mustard (ground)
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 large egg
1/2 cup dry bread crumbs or 3/4 cup quick cook oats
1 tablespoon onion flakes

Directions:
1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2.  Mix together all ingredients.  Form into 6 loaves and arrange in an ungreased 9 x 13 baking dish.  Spread ketchup or BBQ sauce over each loaf.
3.  Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour and serve. (Cook until thermometer reads 160 degrees.)

Notes:

1.  The original recipe called for chopped onion--I opt for onion flakes because we don't like the texture of crunchy onions in our food. 

2.  The original recipe called for torn pieces of bread.  I find that to be a tedious and unnecessary ingredient.  It is much easier to use dry bread crumbs or quick cook oats, which Betty listed as alternative ingredients.  I used dry bread crumbs and ground beef with an unknown fat content for the first time tonight.  The beef came pre-wrapped from the butcher shop and didn't have the fat content noted on the package.  The beef ended up being fattier than I usually use and probably would have gone better with the oats than the bread crumbs. 

3.  I spread regular ketchup over half of the loaves for me and spicy cajun catsup over the other half for Ben. 

4.  Ben had to work late tonight, so Katie and I ate before he got home.  She hasn't been very into eating meat lately; so, I was completely shocked when she ate almost an entire meatloaf on her own.  Yes, she did consume a lot of ketchup with it, but still!  Go Meat!  I mean, Go Katie!

Wednesday, 10/13/2010

We all ate late, big lunches today.  Ben and Katie had a lunch date at Red Robin while I went to an appointment.  I picked up Arby's on my way home with Katie.  The best part about her eating with Ben already was that I didn't have to share my fries;)  

Since we weren't really hungry for dinner, we decided to go for a run on Alki Beach.  We arrived just as Downtown Seattle was being lit by the sunset. Wow, what a beautiful view.  We are so lucky to live here!  I have only run once in the past month due to being sick so much. Needless to say, I had a challenging run tonight.  I had to take a step back in my workout, but still managed to complete it without stopping.  Katie drank milk and ate fish crackers on the run for her dinner.  Ben followed up his run with a pear, and I chose an apple.  I expect there will be some wine and chocolate while we watch Modern Family tonight.  13 minutes and counting!

Tuesday, 10/12/2010

This morning I took Katie to Alki Beach to play in the sand.  What a beautiful morning for that outing!  She had lots of fun digging in the sand and looking at the boats and birds.  I only had to remove sand from her mouth once;)  Here are a few of my favorite photos from the morning.

And for dinner tonight, I decided to make pizzas, including dough from scratch.  Katie has been "helping" me rearrange the lower shelf of our pantry cupboard lately.  While putting everything back away, I was reminded that I had a jar of pizza sauce from Trader Joe's.  With pepperoni and Italian sausage left over from stoup last week, all I had to purchase at the store was mozzarella cheese.  I found a Bobby Flay recipe for pizza dough on www.foodnetwork.com.  It turned out ok.  It was probably the best pizza dough I have made myself, but was still a far cry from the greatness of Trader Joe's dough.  Here's the recipe I used:

Ingredients:

2/3 cup lukewarm water (105 degrees F to 115 degrees F)
2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1/2 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons olive oil, plus additional for oiling bowl
1 3/4 to 2 cups all-purpose unbleached flour
1/4 cup finely ground yellow cornmeal
2 teaspoons coarse salt

Directions:
In a large bowl stir together 1/3 cup water, yeast, and sugar and let stand until foamy, about 10 minutes. Stir in remaining 1/3 cup water, 2 tablespoons oil, 1 3/4 cups flour, cornmeal, and salt and blend until the mixture forms a dough. Knead dough on a floured surface, incorporating as much of remaining 1/4 cup flour, as necessary, to prevent dough from sticking, until smooth about 5 to 10 minutes. Form the dough into a ball.

Lightly oil the sides and bottom of a large bowl with oil, add the dough, turn to coat in the oil, cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 hour. Gently punch the dough down and divide into 4 equal pieces. Roll each piece on a lightly floured surface into a 10-inch circle that is 1/8-inch thick. Brush off excess flour and transfer the dough to a baking sheet, cover each circle of dough with plastic wrap and continue stacking rolled out pieces on top of each other. Wrap well with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to grill.

Notes:

1.  I used blue cornmeal instead of yellow.  I don't think it made a difference other than giving the dough a different color.  

2.  My dough did not double in size.  It made four, 6-inch pizzas, instead of 10-inch pizzas the recipe said to expect.  Ben and I each ate one and a half for dinner and saved one for tomorrow. Katie had some cheese and ketchup with chicken nuggets dipped in it for her dinner.  I'm pretty sure she ate more ketchup than chicken tonight.

3.  When I picked it, I didn't realize that this recipe was to be used for grilled pizzas.  Instead of grilling, we baked our pizzas on a pre-heated pizza stone for 10 minutes in a 450 degree oven.  It was a good guess:)
4.  I don't think this was "the" pizza dough recipe for me.  I'll keep trying to find one that works for me.

Monday, 10/11/2010

Today I defrosted the whole chicken legs I got from the butcher shop a couple weeks ago.  For a two pound package, I expected five to six whole legs.  When the package finally defrosted, I found three very large legs.  Great!  That just meant fewer legs to have to turn during grilling:)  I rubbed the legs with our standard bbq rub, and Ben grilled them on indirect medium heat for 50 minutes.  I went a little lighter on the rub than I usually do.  Perhaps that was a good thing--they were outstanding!  Katie even ate chicken like a trooper tonight.  She kept asking for more:)

We made a Caesar salad to go with dinner tonight, but I just didn't like it.  I purchased the Fresh Express Supreme Caesear Salad Mix this week because the romaine lettuce didn't look good in the Classic Mix. So, it would seem that I really don't care for the flavor of the dressing or croutons that come with the supreme variety.