Super Fail

Sorry... hubby & I moved into our new house, were without internet, got internets, and have made one meal this entire time. It's hard when everything is in boxes and all you want to do after working and unpacking is order pizza (chicken spiedies with bacon & ranch from nirchi's) and go to sleep. So sorry. but I promise - i'll blog about the two meals I cooked tomorrow.

You have chicken soup (homemade with homemade stock - so worth it) and a summer pasta to look forward to! Enjoy them, becuase I'll be making "Megan Meals" for the next month or so. I promised.

FYI - Megan is my bff and college roommate who just told me today that she misses my cooking. She also is not a cook (her words, not mine) and needs explicit instruction. So... if you're not for explicit instruction, sorry. If you are, though, this next month is for you!

I'll get some pictures of the new kichen up soon... cable comes for our kitchen tv on monday :) woot woot!

Bon Appetit! I pray you have a great pizza place near you like I have near me :)

oops - one day late

So this should be the blog for yesterday (tax day, 4/15/10) but I forgot. In recent new, we got keys to the new house today! and we move tomorrow! which means we had our celebratory chinese food and brut at the new house tonight sitting on the floor of the dining room (look for pictures later... it was fun). So fun :)

Anyways, I wanted to talk about what I did for dinner last night - it was fantastic! We're really at the end of our rope because we have just about nothing left in the house. I used the last few potatoes to make some mashed potatoes, but before they were completely finished, I put a head of broccoli (chopped up of course) in the water with them. As potatoes were cooking, I defrosted some salmon (remember, fresh fish, it's a good idea sometimes). And seared that skin-side down in a pan with some olive oil. Then, once you started to see the fish turn a light pink on the sides, flip it. Once the potatoes were soft and the broccoli was that beautiful really green color, drain the water and mash everything together. I mixed some chicken broth (cause I had it) and some blue cheese together. I recommend the chicken broth, I DO NOT recommend the blue cheese - it's too powerful. Maybe some cheddar would be better. Anyways, mashed broccoli and potatoes are great because it's green and a vegg & starch in one. So cool. Plus, kids would probably love it. I don't have kids, but me and hubby are like kids so I bet it's great :)

So, when I flipped the salmon, I put about 3 tbsp of butter in a small saute pan on medium to low heat. I added a bit of sage into that and let it melt and turn a little brown. A brown butter sauce :) It's great on the salmon and broccoli/potato mash. Once it's melted and is a bit brown, add a splash (or two if you like the acid) of lemon juice. It'll sizzle a bit, but it tastes SO good on the salmon.

I plated the broccoli/potato mash first, then salmon on top of that, then the brown sage butter with lemon juice on top of everything. It was delicious. You should cook salmon about 4-5 minutes on a side so it's not overcooked. The hard part with frozen fish is that you take it from frozen to defrosted to cooked in a matter of usually 24 hours or less so overcooking is a little inevitable. But usually it'll be a little over done, but it's always edible and you'll be fine, I promise. Unless you live near a body of water where you can eat fresh fish, then you better cook it nicely because you get fresh fish.

So, I'm heading to bed early because I have to move my entire apartment into our new house tomorrow :) Hurray for new houses! I don't know if Sally (our cat) will enjoy it, but we're so ready :) I'll post pictures as soon as we have them! Bon appetit! Or, as some fish-eating countries say, like in Finland, "Hyvää ruokahalua!"

fail, minus f, i, & l = save.

So I thought I was all prepared etc when I took pork chops out of the freezer yesterday and put them in the fridge for dinner tonight. I was so excited, I was even going to marinate them in peanut ginger dressing that we got sometime... probably for our wedding. So when I got home from school today, around 5, I took out the pork, opened it up, smelled it, and gross. Had to throw it away. damn. All of that nice preparation in the trash. literally.

So anyways, I am an expert at turning fails into saves :) I found way back in the freezer some jalepeno & cheddar sausages that I thawed in the microwave. I made those (a total time saver, btw, love those prepackaged gourmet sausages) plus skillet taters (recipe from Hubby) and I roasted asparagus with lemon juice. So sausages and potatoes are easy, plus I talked about potatoes already so let's talk about asparagus.

So asparagus is one of my fave veggies, I just love it and you can make in so many ways. So today I roasted it in our toaster oven (the greatest invention ever) in 10 minutes. I didn't have to preheat an oven or wait forever for it to warm up and then again to roast my lovely asparagus. It's amazing.

Anyways, I did the snap thing with the asparagus, cut off the ends, then left them whole as I put some olive oil, salt, and pepper on them. Then, right before I put it in the toaster oven, I put some lemon juice on them. So delicious. I put them in at 400 degrees for a little less than 10 minutes. They were crisp, roasted, with the slightest taste of lemon and absolutely delicious.

So, I turned an epic fail into a pretty good save. And, since I packed the dishes and silverware already, we ate it on paper plates with red forks. And the stuff didn't leak through the paper plates. phew. And to make things even better[!!], the meal was ready and being dished onto plates as Hubby walked in the door from work. I am an AWESOME housewife.

As we say in the US, Happy Eating. As they say in German which this sausage is supposed to be from, Guten Appetit!

lazy butt

Yes, I'm being a lazy butt tonight. Well, I guess lazy butt is only half true. I'm doing a bit of packing for this massive move that we still don't know when it will occur. That and I went back to school today for the first time in over a week. Oy, it was a long day. But thank goodness for coffee this morning that Hubby made the night before. I love coffee pots that can be programmed. This is incredibly wonderful at 6:00 am. The smell of coffee this morning had me snoozing the alarm only 3 times instead of 5+! Hubby's thankful for this too.

Anyways, we're ordering chinese tonight. Our faves? General Tso's chicken, pork fried rice, and egg rolls with bunches of soy sauce (hubby) and siracha (both of us). This place near us makes the best egg rolls - I must not have had cabbage enough as a child because I LOVE cabbage now. Plus, chinese food and wine is kind of our thing. It's how we celebrate almost every important anniversary in our lives - especially when we were in college. In fact, Hubby told me that he was going to propose to me on Valentine's Day in 2008 after we had chinese food & wine. Except he couldn't get a hold of my dad to ask him so he didn't propose - we just had a valentine's day full of chinese food & wine. But his proposal was better the way it happened anyways. :)

So it may seem like I have nothing to blog, however.... we made the greatest dessert yesterday too and I forgot to blog about it. As I was packing up the guest room & kitchen yesterday I found some chocolate chip cookie mix that we hadn't used yet. Plus, we had 4 eggs left and 6 sticks of butter in the fridge/freezer. So I asked Hubby to make cookies. Except we didn't have any bowls left out or cookie sheets. Dilemna? Heck no! Our kitchen aid mixer was still out so he used it even though we haven't made cookies in it since Christmas time. It was pretty sweet. And then, what to do when your cookie sheets are packed? Make use of all those wedding gifts and use your mini-muffin tin!

We made miniature chocolate chip cookie cake muffin things! It was pretty sweet... you have to bake them for longer by about 3-5 minutes, so the tops are browned nicely, but they get a nice crustish thing on the outside right away and are mushy and delicious on the inside when they're still warm. It's pretty sweet. And they were pretty delicious! Good job, Hubby.

Oh, I also forgot to take out something from the freezer last night for tonight. Oh well.. chinese will be good and well-deserved, I think! I did take out some pork chops for tomorrow though... I wonder what I'll whip up for dinner... we're running low on stuff in the pantry! Bon Appetit! or... as they say in Mandarin, "請慢用" [please eat slowly]

Commence Moving Week

So, hubby and i are moving sometime this week. As in... as soon as we get a closing date. Hopefully by Thursday at the latest [cross your fingers for us!]. Well anyways, we have a whole apartment [and a half, it feels like] worth of stuff that we need to pack, so we started early. Well, *I* started early. I was on break this week so I started packing - 59 boxes of stuff - pretty good. Then today, hubby & I continued to pack including most of the guest room and the kitchen. Which means... it's paper plates, green solo cups, and red plastic forks. Plus, limited cooking utensils, pots, pans, and prep bowls, and zero shopping trips this week. We need to use up our fridged/frozen goods. 

So, with my limited kitchen, I have to figure out what to make for dinner. I started thinking about it this morning, which is WAY earlier than I usually do, but we decided to do some frozen fish - Halibut, tonight. We buy frozen fish instead of fresh fish because we live in the middle of NYS and are not near any major fishing ports. Therefore, frozen fish is actually fresher for us. Don't feel bad about buying frozen fish - it's pretty good plus, it's pre-portioned so you know exactly how much you're eating and can compare it to exactly what you should be eating. 

Anyways, Halibut for dinner, I also have some cranberries in the freezer and sliced almonds so I think I'll throw them in together for some tangy & tart with our halibut steaks. I also have a load of brown rice and some red & green bell peppers so I'm going to make a rice & pepper mixture. I like to reference epicurious for ideas when I cook because some days I'm just not as confident as I should be. So I got some good help from them with this meal too. 

Ok, so started with my rice cause it'll take the longest to cook. Chopped some onions, and 1 1/2 medium bell peppers. Chopped the peppers first then melted half a stick of butter in a sauce pan while I chopped the onion. Put that in and letting it saute. Problem one of moving week: only one cutting board left out. oops. Problem two: packed the spray oil for greasing pans. dang. Problem three: packed all measuring cups. Whoops. Good thing I don't measure a lot anyways.

Ok, so Hubby is making lunches while I make dinner. Score. Now, oiled a baking pan for the halibut. Am going to dredge it in cornmeal, salt, & pepper before it goes into a 400 degree oven for about 10 minutes - a little longer if you're doing more than 2 filets or if they're pretty thick. Mine are from the "Full Circle" brand and each filet is about an inch thick and weighs 6 oz. So, my rice mixture just came to a simmer so I'll let it go for about 8 minutes before I put my halibut in, this way everything finishes at the same time. In the meantime, crack open a bottle of wine and decide where you're going to eat dinner! [Hubby & I don't always eat at our kitchen table, and today, def can't because of all the boxes] 

Ok, we're drinking Chateau St. Michelle, a vintage 2005 Syrah and eating in the living room because we DVR-ed Bones from Thurs evening. Great trick for wine drinking... wrap a paper towel around the neck of the bottle - it catches drips when pouring. We learned it from our new fave restaurant, although they use a cloth napkin... this works just as well. 

Side Note: Greatest purchase ever: Dishwasher. I'm not lying when I say I think it is the appliance that has helped our marriage. A close second: The Coffee Maker. But really? we bought a "portable" one - so it's on wheels and hooks up to the sink - but it's amazing. Totally worth the $500 we spent on it. I highly recommend one if you have ya know, 2x2 ft on the floor and it's like, 3 ft high. So worth it.

Ok, so just put the halibut in the oven. Now to make a sauce. Why? Because Bobby Flay always makes sauces and I heart him. So melting butter in a sauce pan, gonna add some cranberries and chicken stock, cause that's what I have in my kitchen. I added about 3/4 cup of cranberries and I eyeballed 1/4 cup of stock. Once it boils, I'll reduce heat and let the cranberries soften. I'm also toasting some sliced almonds in our toaster oven [another FANTASTIC appliance that you should have]. Actually, Hubby is toasting almonds... 

Ok, once my sauce is ready, I'm going to add some parsley, lemon juice, and the almonds. Hopefully this will turn out well. When my rice mixture is done, I'm going to add some blue cheese too. Halibut is looking good in the oven... should be about another 2-5 minutes. I just flipped it. I'm not sure if I was supposed to, but I thought it needed it. Whoa! Cranberries are poppin'... that's good, it means they're softening a bit. But it's a little scary... 

Ok, it's time for the final push, rice is about 2 minutes out, sauce is almost ready for the almonds, lemon juice, parsley, and halibut's about ready to come out in 2 minutes. So... I'll update later tonight and let you know how it turns out... until then, though, bon appetit!

Oh! And check out my sister's blog: http://ramenreplacementtherapy.blogspot.com/

She made cornish hen tonight!

of course I'm sick...

I was so excited to get this started!! I told my husband about it at dinner last night and he was supportive too! We also had to figure out what would happen if he felt like cooking one night. Is it cheating? No... because usually when he cooks I play sous chef so no worries - I'll still be cooking!

Except for tonight... I woke up this morning feeling so ill. Turns out my months of zero-sickness is over... I felt like crap all morning, then this afternoon I thought I was better but then I needed to take a nap and slept for 3 HOURS. Ridiculous. Good thing hubby is nice enough to make some dinner for himself (and me if I still feel up to it). Also, good thing we haven't moved yet or I'd be s.o.l. on post two! *sigh*, such is life.

Anyways, hubby is making kielbasa, skillet potatoes, and a salad for dinner tonight. Hubby makes the best kielbasa so I'm totally ok with this arrangement... I'll have to ask him what he used to make it when he's done cooking. He zones when he cooks sometimes. :)

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ok, done eating - it was delicious! Hubby started with potatoes in a skillet with some olive oil and salt & pepper browning them first, then turning heat down and lid on to steam 'em. Then he steamed the kielbasa in beer. Saranac's Irish Red Ale, about half a bottle. He then drinks the rest because it's a waste of beer (obviously). Once kielbasa is cooked, he makes a really good beer mustard sauce. Except today, not as much mustard because we're clearing out the fridge and I didn't buy more. Oops. The sauce is the left over beer, about a tbsp brown sugar, and 2 or 3 tbsp of dijon mustard. Whisked together, reduced down, deliciousness with kielbasa. Then, with the potatoes, once they were pretty much done, he took the lid off, turned the heat up and put some of this grilling cajun rub that we have on them and got a good crust going. It was really good - I highly recommend it. 

And, the best part of this dinner? We had everything here from previous shopping trips! (except the salad.. hubby bought that today). Some time ago I had bought kielbasa and it was buy one get one, so I got another and froze it for use today! I also like to have potatoes on hand because a bag of potatoes is cheap and TOTALLY worth it because you can cook potatoes in a million different ways. The only thing bought was a bag o' salad. Which, although you pay for the packaging, is excellent. It's such an easy way to get a veg in when you don't have much time.

Hopefully I'll be better tomorrow and I can make a sunday dinner from whatever's left in my fridge/pantry. We're getting down to the wire - not much left here for us to eat! Happy eating!

jealous [new] blogger

So I was feeling left out of the blogging phenomenon. My sister has a blog, my husband has a blog and all I could do was comment. Boo. So, this week (my spring break) I spent my days packing to move and trying to think of what I could blog about because I was jealous.

Lots of things inspire me... I'm a music teacher so I love to think about teaching and music, but so many people know more than I do and I didn't think I could blog efficiently nor effectively about those subjects. I like to decorate and paint and do crafty things, but I mos def could not write a blog about that. I've read those blogs - I am NOT that creative. Then I thought about food. I love food. I love cooking. I could write a blog about cooking! Like Julie & Julia! Except not... there's no way I could write a blog about how I'm cooking through a famous cookbook! I don't even cook every night for dinner! Then, *lightbulb*, I bet having a blog would make me stick to a goal like cooking dinner every night for, oh, say, a year. Hence, "So... what's for dinner?"

My goal [and this will be my contract] is to cook dinner every night for one whole year. I'm going to start when hubby & I move into our new house, hopefully next week but definitely by next weekend. That way, my first quarter will be the summer months, which I can TOTALLY do. It's the next three quarters that scare me a little, especially since I'll be teaching full-time plus doing my Master's online full-time, plus musical season. ick. But, it's a great way to get me shopping smart, cooking healthily, and sticking with it. I think I can do it. However, I also thought about extreme emergencies and I think I'm going to allow myself one night a month where I don't have to cook anything and hubby & I can go out to dinner. I think that will be fair.

So, if you're interested in food, cooking, and crazy haphazard, "what're we doing for dinner?" conversations, perhaps this will be an interesting read. Or, maybe you're part of my family/friends and are just reading to be nice ;) But it'll be a good ride...

Off to dinner out with the hubby at The Cellar before we spend a weekend of packing. Bon Appetit!