SIck of Thinking Up Dinner

Seriously.

I have a few recipes that I make over and over for ease, prep time, cook time. I don't usually get home until later, so time is of the essence. I'm getting sick of them.

I need some new ideas. HALP.

Orange you glad I made dinner?

So my Smalls had a rough day today so I thought I would try and make a modified version of her favorite Thai meal, papaya salad. We did not have the right ingredients so some pretty big modifications had to take place.

What we had:
Fresh Ginger
Oranges (fresh orange juice and zest)
Garlic
Boneless Ribs
Honey
Chili Sauce
Soy Sauce
Olive Oil
Honey Mustard
Spinach
Peas
Red Pepper
Carrots
Goat Cheese

I have no real understanding or methodology towards cooking. (Besides my love of watching Alton Brown.) I just see ingredients and add a little of that, a pinch of this, why not a splash of that, and hope that everything comes together in the end.

Looking at what we had I knew I didn't have the time to cook ribs as I would normally want to, so I cut them into very fine slices and set them aside in a little olive oil, salt and pepper until they came to room temperature. I then cooked them over high heat to get a good sear on each side.

I then squeezed two oranges and took the zest from half of one orange. To that I added the honey, honey mustard, minced garlic and ginger, soy sauce, and chili sauce. I added this mixture to the pan and brought it to a simmer with the seared beef. While the glaze was thickening I julienned the red pepper and carrots and placed them over a bed of spinach, along with the fresh peas. Once the orange juice and ginger mixture reduced to a sticky glaze I poured it over the lettuce.

Katie took this dish to the next level with the idea of adding crumbled goat cheese on top. The rich texture of the cheese rounded out the orange/ginger glaze.

The meal turned out fabulous and it put a smile on my Smalls' face--it was a nice end to the day to have a tasty dinner together. We both felt this was my best dinner creation ever. Not bad from pulling a bunch of random ingredients together in a half-hour.

Forces Pulling from the Center of the Earth Again

Today, I had mindbendingly-long work session in which I feel that my coworker and I should now be awarded a PhD in statistics, even though I can only speak for myself in that I have major issues with simple addition, let alone anything past basic, basic algebra. I feel smart. SMART. We are going to take over the world.

Then: long happy hour to celebrate four (4) people's birthdays. Packed like sardines. Loud people. Frat people. Too loud. Too much.

Then: quick stop at grocery store for NY Strip steaks.

Then: visit with my dad. Pick up my sweet, sweet mutt.

Then: Go home, toasty home, with husband and mutt, cook steaks, asparagus, broiled/toasted cheesy bread. Red wine. Ice water. Candles. Good conversation.

Now: Blogging.

Next: Some administrative stuff surrounding my freelance work. Working a LOT these days. Is good.

Then: Sleep, glorious sleep.

PS: Made major grammatical error and used "that" instead of "who" in last post. Makes my hair stand up on the back of my neck. Promise to avoid those errors in future. What was I thinking? Oh yeah, post-cupcake haze. Mmmmm cupcakes.

Eating

...is so good. I ate chicken and squash. And it's so good.

Yes, that is the sum total of my past few days.

That is all.

Side of Slaw

Tonight, I made a purple cabbage slaw and it was mighty tasty.

Here's what I put in it:
2 small sweet red peppers (those smaller, skinnier ones)
half a head of purple cabbage
3 heads of baby bok choy
2 stalks celery
3 Haralson apples (Mmmm, nothing beats a Minnesota-grown Haralson)
3 full carrots, shredded

For the dressing, I used about a half a cup of apple cider vinegar, half a cup of Simply Orange juice, 3 or so tablespoons of honey (mmm, late summer harvest honey from Minnesota farms), salt and pepper.

I thought it'd be improved even with some bacon crumbles and blue cheese, but I thought of this too late.

It was super tasty, and I served it with white rice and some beef skewers I found at Target (an Asian BBQ sauce and sesame seeds on the outside).

Our new knives make me feel like a professional chef, even if William thinks I chop scarily. I would provide pictures but our point and shoot broke in Hawaii...what a pain.

Sorry, I've been in another rut of blogging. I have some ideas set up but none of them are ready to go yet.

William's grandparents kept track of at least one thing they did each day on their yearly calendars. I love that idea. So sometimes I might just post a something from our day. Written in their style, it might say something like this:
"beautiful weather today, in mid-80s. ate beef skewers and new slaw for dinner. spent time showing each other fun ideas on the internet."

OK, now I must go. I am finishing What is the What tonight and I'm not sure why this didn't win the Pulitzer Prize.

Thanks, Farmers

Tonight we ate like Minnesota-farm-spoiled gluttons.

On the dinner table: caprese salad, sweet corn, BLTs with cheese and avocado. I'm sure there's a lot of fat hanging out there, but man, I am just in heaven when I eat all that.

Nearly every weekend in the summer, we head to the St. Paul Farmer's Market and load up on whatever the farmers have grown for us that week. If we had this weather year-round, people would be dying for our produce.

To me, you can ship all the Driscoll's raspberries you want to Minnesota, but by the time they get here, they taste no better than the plastic they're shipped in. When I was a kid, my mom had rows of raspberry bushes outside, and we would head out there with giant mixing bowls. Every night we endured the awful mosquitoes (they love hanging around the plants) to pluck all those juicy, raspberries from overgrown bushes. (Sometimes I'd just watch from the swingset while my mom did all the hard work.) We'd have mixing bowls heaping over, and my mom would make jam and we would eat raspberries with cream every night after dinner. Juicy, giant, sweet and tart all at once. A huge taste in a small package. The way they're meant to taste.

Same with tomatoes. A beefsteak tomato in August with a cob of sweet corn, dripping with butter. Can't beat it.

When I was little, I never understood how my parents could gorge on that stuff every week. Now, I do the exact same thing. William and I pushed away from the table tonight, totally stuffed--but not uncomfortably so--ending our meals with the perfect bite of salty/sweet/juicy. Mmmm.

Sometimes the small things in life can be so good. Thanks, farmers, for all your work.

culinary master

i am not a culinary master. I will probably not be posting any photos really anytime soon regarding my dishes. but i am getting better. and if i have time and ingredients, i enjoy cooking and especially baking (the results are more fun). tonight was culinary all over the place. grocery store (where the cart got so heavy it was hard to take corners), home, make dinner (william did that), and make dinner for tomorrow night (and leftovers for the next couple days). you see, i made one of my mom's recipes, this homemade mac-n-cheese with chicken, pimentos, celery. . . it's so good. totally comfort food. and it makes so much that william and i can eat it for like two-three days. rock. so i did that. so all of that took my whole night. and now i'm tired and it's nearly 11 and i didn't get to read or anything yet.
such is life.

shortness of breath

unfortch, this is going to be a little short entry again tonight. i stayed up too late last night, and now i have to write these letters for my dad (long story) and i'm tired from staying up late and i was crazy busy all day and i stopped and had dinner with my parents and they invited me since i was without "my beloved" as my mom calls william (well they invite him too, but i think they felt sorry for me), so we had dinner and i chatted with my mom about various things in my life since we barely get to see each other for more than like five minutes....yes that was one sentence because that's how i feel like my life is going lately. constantly running on top speed during the week, multitasking, freaking out, running out of time, ahhhh!
but good things today: my new planner is working out quite nicely at work, i had a very nice lunch at a new restaurant (i had a kobe beef cheeseburger and hand-cut fries, not very adventurous but it tasted awesome, plus it had sun-dried tomatoes on it), i had good corn on the cob and tomatoes for dinner, it was ridiculously sunny out (although too hot!), molly was excited to see me. william is with a friend, so i'm sure he's enjoying himself too.
sad: i rented some documentaries (gimme shelter, the weather underground) but i can't watch them in time before the return date.
man, it's just been a busy couple of days. and tomorrow i'm attending a bris. never done one of those before. i assume i bring a gift, right? any help out there?
anyhoo, i know this is a disappointing entry but i must be on my way. if i finish up these letters, i'll post the videos i was promising. and a better blog.
but i'm still on my goal! posts most days!

all for now

i ate a red velvet cupcake with homemade vanilla buttercream frosting (made by my lovely sister sooz). it was awesome, as was her homemade spaghetti (recipe borrowed from mom). i watched the twins lose. my back hurts and i have my dad's lidocaine packets back on it. booooo. william had a good fantasy football draft. hooray!
it was 91 today. that is not fall. not at all. but that's ok! i didn't want fall anyway! hang on summer! make it happen, global warming! just kidding, i'm not in favor of global warming.
i have two funny video links i'll have to do tomorrow. i'm real tired, i just wanted to post a little something here....as i'm trying to do almost every day.
that's about all for now.