Improv Night

So, what does one do when they put Salisbury Steak on the menu?  Get a recipe?

Brian don't need no stinkin' recipe.

Voila!  Salisbury steak, improvised.

It was delicious.  Brian and I thought so, anyway.  Sean gave it a try and ended up eating four bites.

Will, on the other hand, was ok with the flavor until he found the greenery.  (Parsley, and maybe a little spinach.)  Then he pronounced it "a combination of a murdered cow and a vegetable garden."

In other news.....laughter will egg your ten-year-old on.  It's important to keep a stern face in these matters.  Or, at least try.

Livin it Up

The boys went to visit their grandparents in PA for a week before the four of us headed to Virginia for vacation.  Sadly, both parents had to work that week.  But night can be fun, especially when there's no kiddie restrictions to dinner!

We stopped at the grocery store on our way back and picked up some live lobsters and fresh corn on the cob.   So delicious, and yes, I'm convinced now that steaming is better than boiling.  The plate doesn't get all waterlogged while cracking for lobster meat.  So, so good.

On Monday,  we fixed Brian's "I've never had a margarita" problem by heading to Mezcal in Worcester.  Upon hearing that held never had a margarita, the bartender asked to make us something special off-menu.  We were not disappointed!!!  Add some tuna tostada, chicken mole and steak chimichanga, and of course, their famous homemade guacamole and it was a great night.  No "ew, what's that" or tears.  Just full bellies and happiness. 

Tuesday was some of the biggest stuffed chicken breasts that I've ever seen.  Filled with spinach and feta cheese, they were dinner for TWO nights.  Thursday brought us to pork lettuce wraps with veggies, ginger, garlic,  housing, spicy peanut sauce, along with almonds for crunch.  Oh, and the second trip for ice cream that week.  Followed by a ton of packing for the trip.

On Friday, we began the drive down. But as a last hurrah, we went back to a special place:  Paul's Pasta in Groton, CT.  We hadn't been on about six years, and some of our early dates were there 18 years ago.  Still delicious, relatively inexpensive and so tasty.

So, our week of Food Comas was complete, including a few trips for ice cream.  It was worth it.  

My New Favorite

I made this for a Friday night dinner and it was awesome!  Not surprisingly, the recipe was from America's Test Kitchen.

Pork chops breaded with panko and shredded parmesan cheese.  To die for...and certainly something I'd serve again.  Since we're trying to eat light (ish) I served them with roasted butternut squash and an arugula salad.  Delish!

Supper Bowls

Something in this month's Cooking Light caught my eye this month:  brown rice bowls.  Basically, a bowl of brown rice bowls with add-in ideas.  The pork one sounded intriguing, with pork  tenderloin, asparagus, dried cranberries, feta cheese, balsamic vinegar and toasted almonds.  All flavors that Brian wasn't sure could go together, but as the flavor decider in this family, I said it was worth a try.  Delicious!  Almost, in fact, good enough to lick the bowl.

  Looking forward to leftovers tomorrow.

Pork Chop Disappointment

Last night's dinner was a shining example of how they just can't all be winners.

It was a casserole called "Pork Chop and Rice Bake" from one of my go-to cookbooks "9 x 13:  The Pan that Can."  The recipe touted itself as the perfect Sunday meal straight from the oven.  Sounds pretty good, right?

It was not.  The pork browning on the stove next to the onions sauteeing smelled delightful and promising.  My mom, who had stopped by for a visit, remarked at how good it smelled. I was looking forward to this based just on my nose.

However, the end result?  Not delightful.  In fact, it was dreadful.  Not sure how this happened, but it tasted like feet.  I've never tasted feet before, but this is my interpretation of what feet would taste like should I choose to dine on them.  And the rice....oh the horror.  After 45 minutes of baking in the oven it was still as crunchy as it would be if you took a spoonful straight out of the box and put it in your mouth.  Not sure where this went wrong, but it was horribly, horribly wrong.    Needless to say, our trashcan ate well last night, and the recipe got a big-lettered "NO!!" right on the page.  And boo-hoo.....no leftovers for work today.  I'll eat Peanut butter and jelly if I have to, just glad I'm not eating that again!

Pork n Pears

Another great recipe from America's Test Kitchen in their cookbook "Simply the Best." Yep....that's the spotlight cookbook this week. This is a great cookbook for weeknight cooking: nothing too complicated and not a ton of ingredients. This recipe features boneless chops, pears, balsamic, a little sugar, blue cheese crumbles, butter.....a delightful combination if you ask me.

I'm trying to get better at starting to cook when I get home from work, so we're not eating dinner at 8pm. :) Today I was successful, but man is it hard to follow directions and cook, as well as pour drinks for the kids and answer for the second time today why we're not going to "that frozen yogurt place that I really love.. (Because we went twice in a span of two days, kiddos. And although it's delicious, it gets expensive quickly and will feel less like a treat if we go every day!)

So only Brian and I partook in the pork chops and pears. And as great as they were, it was only until we were finished eating that I realized that the blue cheese was still in the fridge. Yep, the very same blue cheese that took me forever to find at the market the other day. Ah well, looks like blue cheese is on the menu somewhere next week. Great, because I love the stuff!

Tex-Mex Tonight

We found ourselves with a plethora of fresh cilantro after a party on Friday....so tex-mex on Sunday!  Had a great recipe for pork tacos with fresh mango salsa out of an America's Test Kitchen cookbook.   It used ground pork instead of tenderloin, and canned Chipotle in adobo sauce.   Rounded out with rice and beans, fresh guacamole ( that I "wing" instead of using a recipe now) and you've gor a great meal.  And plenty of leftovers, whixh is always my favorite.

Honey-Balsamic Pork Tenderloin

Tonight's pork recipe is courtesy of the Food Network.   It was a delightful, tangy glaze of balsamic vinegar (which I almost forgot to add) honey, four cloves of garlic, olive oil, rosemary and a little dijon mustard.  Served with couscous and salad, but the boys had theirs with bread and applesauce.  Will wolfed his serving down, and Sean even tasted it before he politely told us that he didn't like it.  Who are these kids?  No tears, and eating everything??  :)

I also like recipes that start by browning on the stove and finishing in the oven.  The browning, and then the finish by roasting, makes for a nice, moist meat.  I'd definitely make this again.

Day Five: Grillin' Indoors

When Hubby's in school I tend to go a bit minimalist when it comes to feeding the fam.  Tonight's dinner was homemade cornbread, grilled pork chops, applesauce cups and green beans.  Nothing super special, though I am pretty satisfied that I baked the corn bread from scratch instead of using a bag mix.  A while back we got a grill pan for the stove (total impulse buy on our last trip to IKEA but worth it!)  This was my first time using it, I'm not totally comfortable with grilling things but I'm trying to get better at it.

So everyone eats the same dinner tonight, and that makes this Mama happy.

A Weekend of Food

The Good

Brian's pork roast came out absolutely beautiful.  It had roasted for several hours, in a citrus-herb marinade.  Fork tender and delicious, everyone had extra servings.  Dinner was made complete with rolls, baked potatoes, carrots and green beans.  And dessert, oh dessert!  We served two desserts, because we were honoring TWO birthday guests.  Mom's birthday was last Monday, and Dad's was on Friday.  There was coconut cake with chocolate frosting and toasted coconut on top, and there was a fresh apple pie.  A little of each was left over, as well as some pork.  The pork made for a great sandwich yesterday, too.

The Bad

Dinner last night was from one of my favorite cookbooks:  "9x13...The Pan that Can."    Meatball and Polenta Casserole.  The recipe was a total disaster.  Sometimes simplicity ISN'T a good thing.  Meatballs, polenta and cream of mushroom soup....not necessarily a delicious dinner.  Oh wait, I forgot the mozzarella cheese.  The cheese could not save this dinner.  We each ate a bit off our plates, then I said "I'm sorry, I just can't eat this," and Brian agreed.  The polenta was like a corn sponge.  So instead of making something else, we just had a slice of leftover apple pie for dessert. 

Fish Tacos

Despite him saying that he wouldn't like them, Brian suggested that we take "salmon" off the menu for tonight and try fish tacos.  I was elated, since I LOVE fish tacos!

Grocery shopping on a Friday night--it's pretty tiring but it gets it out of the way so you're not looking to carve out some time during the weekend to get this chore done.  I wanted to make fresh mango salsa to go with the fish tacos, but our grocery store only had green mangoes.  I'm not really an expert in the mango field, but something told me that these aren't the mangoes that I used before.  I whipped out my Droid in the produce aisle  (Seriously.....smartphones are awesome!) and googled it.  Yep.....green mangoes aren't going to work.  So I brought home a fresh pineapple instead.  Mmmmm......fresh pineapple is so, so good.

I came home from a trip to the spa to find that Brian and Will had already put together the pineapple salsa:

Good call on gloves for the little one, Daddy!  Brian said that Will helped with the "dumping" the ingredients into the bowl.  Looks like he's having a blast.  :)

We settled on a tempura batter and frying the tilapia that I had bought.  (that Will helped pick out in the grocery store.  He's become quite the kitchen helper.)  Brian was surprised with the ingredient that makes tempura so thin.......seltzer!    The only drawback was that the seltzer choices in the house were flavored....raspberry and lime.  He decided to throw caution to the wind and use it anyway.  After all, it was going with a fruit salsa.  It was a snap to throw together.

Add some corn tortillas, Boston lettuce and the aforementioned pineapple salsa and you've got dinner!  Oh, and the corn tortillas were absolutely delectable, once they were warmed in a frying pan.  Now that I have that taken care of, I'd be happy to eat corn tortillas any time.

First bite and I'm hooked.  And you know what?  So is Brian!  He loved them!  He was so surprised that he liked the fish tacos but I wasn't....I know him and I knew he'd love them if given the chance.

Steak Night

Right around Christmas, Brian got a big roast for our dinner.  We waited to hear how many people we were expecting for dinner, and then Brian trimmed the roast to include not only Christmas dinner, but ten steaks.  And folks, it's some of the best steak this house has ever made!

Tonight's Steak and Potato Night:  Rio Grande Steaks by Rachael Ray.  Lots of spice...chili powder, cumin, coriander and cayenne.  (not a kid-friendly night, they had cheese omelettes, fruit and English muffin.)

And you know something?  The onions were "almost" as delicious as the steak!  The only thing on 'em was salt, pepper and olive oil.  Who knew such simple ingredients could dress up an onion?