Sunday, February 20

Chicken Enchiladas

This recipe is a huge pain to make.  And takes about two and a half hours.  But it turns out really good. 

The green sauce is made from tomatillos (those things that look like wrapped up green tomatoes) and poblano peppers, which are broiled and mixed in the food processor.  The chicken is simmered with onions and garlic and then mixed with cilantro and Monterey jack.

After warming the corn tortillas to make them pliable, you put the filling inside, roll it up, cover it with the sauce and cheese and bake for 20 minutes.  Sounds simple, right.  Well, it is.  It's just time consuming and uses nearly every kitchen implement.  It took two runs of the dishwasher to clean up everything.

Saturday, February 19

Homemade Linguine with red sauce, served with garlic bread. 

Michael made homemade pasta using our Kitchen Aid mixer and the pasta attachment.  This was his first time making linguine and it turned out nicely.  Soft, but not mushy.  He doctored up some canned pasta sauce with additional spices and served the pasta with frozen garlic bread.

February 15, 16, and 17

No pictures, but it was chili, chili, and more chili.  The problem with making a nice big pot of chili when you're only cooking for two people is the leftovers.

Wednesday, February 9

My night to cook since Michael has a standing appointment on Wednesday afternoons.  Since after picking Baxter up at daycare it's pretty late, Wednesday dinner is always quick.  I did chicken on the George Forman grill (seasoned with Bicentennial Rub from Penzey's), boxed mashed potatoes, and edamame.   I overcooked the chicken a bit.  Oops.

But while we're on the subject of the chicken...  We buy the huge packs of boneless skinless chicken breasts from Costco and I got to tell you, I am impressed by the size of today's chicken's breasts.  I cut one breast into three pieces and Michael and I split it.  Amazing.

Tuesday, February 8

Michael's night to cook and he decided to go all out.  He served salad as a starter and then fillet, twice baked potatoes, and mushrooms. 

 
The fillet was excellent -- I think he used his dry curing method for preparing.  I don't know much about it, but it involves having the steak sitting in the refrigerator for a few days drying out.  The twice baked potatoes were also excellent.  I ate two of them -- skins and all. 

Monday, February 7

Michael's night to cook.  Despite the feet smell that permeated from the kitchen, dinner actually tasted pretty good.  (No idea what caused the smell -- I'm thinking it might have been the anchovies on Michael's salad).

Michael prepared salad for the first course and crabcakes and rice for the second.  He served the crabcakes with a homemade tartar/crabcake sauce that was pretty yummy.

Sunday, February 6

Super Bowl Sunday.  I had originally planned sloppy joes -- I figured they would be easy to make (and to eat) during the game.  Michael found out about my plans and objected.  Apparently the Super Bowl is a holiday and should be treated "like Christmas" with a special meal.  I renamed them Super Sloppy Joes and served them with football themed plates and napkins and that seemed to satisfy him.  The chips are blue corn chips.

Super Sloppy Joes
Buy can of Manwich at grocery story (original, not bold flavor).  Follow directions on back of can.  Don't try to rush the cooking, the flavors need to develop completely.  Serve with dill pickles, chips, and large hamburger buns sesame seed tops.  (I don' t know why, they just taste better that way).

Saturday, February 5

Yes.  Again, it has been a very long time since I've updated the food blog.  Since there have been some complaints, I figured I should probably at least make an effort.  Last night was fondue.  Michael has perfected cheese fondue. 

Our receipe:

Cheese Fondue

3 cups sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1 cup shredded Swiss cheese
3/4 cup beer
2 to 3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried mustard
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper to taste

In separate mix cheeses and a small handful of flour.  The flour helps to prevent the cheese from clumping when it melts.  In a fondue pot (or sauce pan if you don't have one), bring the beer to steaming, but not boiling.

Slowly mix in cheese, stirring constantly.  Add garlic, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, and salt and pepper. Serve with cubed bread, granny smith apple slices, and/or chopped veggies.

Tuesday, October 26

Seasoned Pork Tenderloin and Fried Potatoes

Yes, I know it has been a long time since I've updated. My excuse, as always, is that I've been too busy. The most complicated thing about blogging is hooking my camera up to the computer to transfer the photos every day. Now, though, I've got this cool card that automatically uploads the pictures to my computer and to the interwebs so it is much easier to blog. So, as always, I'll try to be better.

Tonight was Michael's night to cook. He made pork tenderloin -- it was already seasoned with garlic and a lot of black pepper -- and fried potatoes. The potatoes were delicious! The pork was pretty good -- it was a little peppery, but I got used to it after a little while. I'll be eating the leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

The presentation isn't the best -- we'll be working on that in the coming months as well. The last few months have been kind of busy -- with the wedding and our new furniture purchases for the living room -- that cooking has sort of fallen by the wayside. I think we're ready to get back into it, though. So we'll see.

Sunday, October 3

Crab cakes and Homemade Potato Chips

My night to cook.  After we went to a local crab cake place (which, unfortunately, has since closed) last month, Michael commented that we could probably make our own crab cakes at home.  Crab was on sale this week (not the jumbo lump, but the back fin) for only $7.99 a pound at the grocery store, so I decided to try.  I followed a Cook's Illustrated (of course) recipe that uses very little ingredients other than the crab -- just scallions, a little breadcrumbs, a green herb (I used cilantro), egg, and seasonings.  For my first time cooking with crab, they actually turned out pretty good.  (And much cheater than buying crab cakes at a restaurant).  Next time, if I decide to use cilantro as the herb again, I probably won't use as much.  For the potato chips, I used our mandoline to slice the potatoes (the food processor takes too long to clean up), fried them up in the deep fryer, and dusted them with salt and Old Bay.  Yummy.

Saturday, October 2

Ribs and Potato Salad

Ribs were on sale at the grocery story this week.  (Yes, we finally went back to our menu planning and grocery shopping schedule) and Michael was still proud of his ribs cooking ability after his first attempt to grill ribs was so successful over the wedding weekend.  So he decided to try again.  This time he used the Should be Illegal recipe that I've used in the past.  They turned out wonderfully.  (You do have to cook them a little longer than the hour the recipe calls for -- more like 2 hours).

He served the ribs with potato salad which, for some reason, didn't turn out as well.  I forgot to tell him to add onion.  Maybe that was it.  Maybe the proportion of mustard to mayo was off.  Not sure, but it ended up a little vinegary.  Which was weird since there wasn't any vinegar in it.  The ribs more than made up for the potato salad, though.

Friday, October 1

Out to dinner night.

Now that our self-imposed rule of only dining at restaurants we can walk to has ended, we decided to try a fairly new place in Rockville, Againn.  (They also have a location in D.C.).  The restaurant is billed as an upscale British Isles restaurant.  It was fairly crowded when we got there, which was a little surprising for 8 pm at a strip mall type restaurant in the 'burbs.  Our table was near the bar -- Michael and I each ordered Irish drinks -- Michael's was Smithwick's beer (on draft), mine was an Irish cider (also on draft).  We ordered the spinach and artichoke dip for an appetizers, Michael ordered the bangers and mash, which I got fish and chips with mushy peas. 

The drinks were huge -- 20 ounce.  (Yet I still managed to put away 2 of them).  The appetizer (along with a bread basket) came out quickly.  Michael loved the bread and the spinach dip was okay  -- more spinachy than I usually like.  Our dinners were good -- Michael seemed to like the bangers (which are sausages) and mashed potatoes, served with an onion gravy.  The fish was okay -- it was a huge piece of fish (probably about 12 inches long) and fairly thick, so the "fried" to "fish" level wasn't quick right.  It was served with an oniony egg sauce instead of tarter sauce.  The chips (fries) were good and served with ketchup, a garlic aioli sauce (which Michael loved) and malt vinegar.  The mushy peas were mushy and I didn't eat them.

All in all, a fairly good dinner.  I wasn't really hungry for dinner.  (Had a large quiznos lunch), so maybe the next time we go, I'll be more hungry and could try one of their more refined entrees. 

Thursday, September 30

Pork Chops and scalloped potatoes

Another from the freezer and pantry dinner night.  I pulled the pork chops out of the freezer this morning and had Michael check they were defrosting during the day.  We bought the pork chops (which are huge -- I cut them in 2 so they aren't so thick) in bulk at Costco so we always have a huge selection of chicken, hamburger, pork chops, and sometimes steak in the freezer. 

I sliced the chop down the middle to make 2 thin cut (I've found that one chop is enough for both of us), seasoned it with Penzey's Pork Chop Seasoning, which has a really nice smokey flavor and threw it on the George Forman grill.  I also made a prepared box of Scalloped Potatoes.  (Cheese and pork chops is a bit of an unusual combination, but we just had rice on Tuesday).  The chops were cooked in ablout five minutes, but I left them on a little longer to brown and surprisingly, they didn't end up dry and overcooked.  Michael isn't a huge fan of pork, but he even liked the flavor tonight.  And asked that I always grill pork chops in the future.

I served dinner with a tomato, lettuce, and cheese salad.  Using up the lettuce and tomatoes from last night's burger night and the cheese still leftover from the wedding.

Wednesday, September 29

Hamburgers and chips

It was my night to cook.  No pictures because we were too hungry.  Today was Baxter's daycare day for the week and Michael picked me up at the Metro station closer to Baxter's daycare so that we could pick him up together.  Traffic was a nightmare because of a bad bus accident and we had to stop at the grocery store to get buns for the hamburgers.  By the time we got home, it was about an hour late and we were both starved.  So, no pictures. 

I did the hamburgers (1/5 pound each) on the George Forman grill with a little bit of seasoning.  Served them with chips left over from the wedding.

Tuesday, September 28

Chicken quesadilla and spiced rice

Michael's night to cook.  Again since we haven't gone grocery shopping since the wedding, we're been relying on what's in our freezer and pantry.  So it's been a challenge.  No sour cream with dinner (even though I love it with quesadillas) because, according to Michael, what was remaining in the refrigerator was a little too sour.  Michael added some diced jalapenos to the chicken and it kicked up the flavor profile a little bit.  The cheese was cheddar, leftover from the wedding.

Monday, September 27

Pasta with meat sauce and garlic bread

Michael's night to cook.  He said he was making meat balls, but I'm not sure what happened.  It ended up as meat sauce.  I thought dinner was pretty good, but Michael wasn't happy with the sauce since it was from a jar. 

The garlic bread (made from the tons of bread we have leftover from the wedding weekend) was good.  Although I think he made it in the oven (rather than the toaster over) since it was only toasted on one side. 

Sunday, September 26

I know, I know.  I've been a horrible food blogger.  It's been a month since I've updated.  But I can explain.  We've been busy -- getting married.  Now that things have settled down a bit, I'm back to blogging.

Grilled Chicken and Mashed Potatoes

We haven't been grocery shopping for non-wedding food for two weeks now, so we're trying to use up stuff in the freezer and pantry.  Sunday was my night to cook.  (The potatoes were left over from the wedding weekend -- I had planned to make potato salad one night, but since we had so much food, I didn't.)  I seasoned the chicken with Penzey's Bicentennial Rub on the George Forman grill, and served it with mashed potatoes.  Not the best dinner ever.

Monday, August 30

Sloppy joes and peas?

I thought he was kidding about the peas thing.  He made a comment about how we were having peas for dinner.  I laughed, thinking it was a joke.  Because everyone knows that peas don't go with sloppy joes.  Turns out Michael didn't get that memo.  The sloppy joes were excellent.  I don't know about the peas because I didn't try them.  There's just something wrong with serving peas with sloppy joes.  Kind of like having milk with pizza.

Sunday, August 29

Salad, (then later) McDonald's

Technically my night to cook.  Michael was at his friend's house for a Star Wars role-playing game-a-thon.  (Lasting over 12 hours).  Since Michel wasn't home, I made myself salad for dinner.

Michael got home later and was "starved", so we decided to go to the 24 hour McDonald's.  Michael got a couple of burgers and some fries.  I couldn't resist a cheeseburger and Baxter got a happy meal, which he unwillingly shared with Ferb and me.   

 

Saturday, August 28

Cheese Fondue

Yes, another "cheese as dinner" night.  We had to eat fast (and early) because we were going to a performance at Strathmore tonight, so Michael decided to go with a quick option.  The cheese, as usual was excellent.  (The performance was also excellent!)