Second attempt at blogging

I made a post once where I asked myself if I should do this again.  In that wonderful post I decided that I would only post when I felt like it.  No longer would it be something I had to do, but if I felt like sharing a bit of myself again, this is where I would do it.  I say that was a wonderful post because thanks to the wonders of technology it is lost in cyber space where you will never see it to know if it was a wonderful post or not.
Now I finally feel like posting again.  I don't have anything particularly wonderful to say.  I just kind of feel like typing.
That is a weird feeling I know, but there it is.
I just finished cleaning up the house and am now waiting for the kids to come over for our bi-weekly visit.  Let me just say this once again, as I am sure all of you who know me well can attest - I hate housework!  I mean really sincerely and with no reservations despise it.  I have never felt this much hatred for anything as I do for housework.  I should like it, being a person that thrives on instant gratification.  I love mowing the lawn because what was long and messy is instantly short and nice looking.  It should be the same with say cleaning the bathroom.  What was once grimy and disgusting is now clean and sparkling, but what are you going to do with that nice clean bathroom.  That is right, piss and poop all over it.  So what is the point right?  The same is true of the living room, it is going to get lived in, so why erase all signs that is has been lived in up until that point.
I must admit though I do feel differently about cleaning the kitchen, that is a necessity.  If you are going to even warm up a plate of food you have to have some surface space to prepare the food for the microwave.  It is infinitely better if that space is not covered with last night's dinner.  Also, as I have aged I have discovered that it truly is more pleasurable to climb into a nicely made bed than a sloppy one.  Does that mean I have started making my bed every morning? Hell no.  Most of the time there is still a large snoring man in it when I get up.  Once I am up I have no desire to revisit the bed just in case I become overwhelmed by the desire to crawl under the covers again.  Sometimes I will straighten up the bed right before I crawl into it, but seems like cheating.
I guess the main reason I really do not like working on the inside of my house as the outside is that no one else will see it besides me and the before mentioned snoring man.  So I guess I am kind of an exhibitionist in that regard.  Why work on something that will get you no recognition or praise?  I have finally started asking my man how the house looks when I am done cleaning it to get the small amount of praise that comes with that, and it does help, but it feels kind of shallow.
OK enough already, time for lunch.  Catch ya later

Testing

Does this work?

Recipe # 7, Steak Kebabs

The cooking experiment continues.  I think I am almost caught up with the recipe per week thing.  And, I am now known as the cooking expert by my stepdauhter!  Just add another jewel to my crown of coolness! (slightly inside joke, sorry about that).  I am starting to really like these recipes from a card, because you can take it with you to the store for shopping and you don't have to have a book out on the counter while you are cooking.  The only thing is that I tend to lose the recipe about 4-5 times while cooking, or it gets wet and then is all wrinkly.  At least the recipes I am trying are getting recorded on here so in case I really do lose or ruin them I will have this wonderful blog for all eternity right?

So, down to business. 

Steak Kebabs
Perparation time:20 minutes plus marinating (1-2 hours) Funny how they think marinating time doesn't count, it is not like you can find this recipe, think great, we can eat in 20 minutes and then all of a sudden try to put your family off for 1-2 hours while the meat just sits there.
Cooking time: 10 minutes
Clean up time 4.5 hours! One hour to wash the dishes (ok that is a little generous) and then 3.5 hours to put your oven through a self clean cycle as you try to rectify the damage done from the drippings!  My tip, use the grill, even though it is ungodly hot outside.

Ingredients:
2 Tbsp Reduced- sodium soy sauce
2 Tbsp honey (I really did have honey this time!)
1 Tbsp grated fresh ginger or 1 tsp ground ginger
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp grated lemon peel
1/4 tsp crushed hot red pepper flakes
12 oz boneless sirloin steak, trimmed and cut into 1-inch cubes (we just went with some of the stew meat we had in the freezer, it was a little tougher but good)
8 cherry tomatoes
4 large mushrooms, cut in half
1 green bell pepper, core, seeded, and cut into 8 squares

If your family eats like my family, double this recipe.  We tripled it and were still only left with 3 skewers, just enough for my lunch the next day.

1. In a shallow glass dish, combine say sauce, honey, ginger, garlic, lemon peel, and red pepper flakes.  Mix well.  Add beef; stir to coat.  Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours, stirring occasionally.

2. Preheat broiler.  Remove beef from the marinade. Discard marinade.  Using four 10-inch metal skewers, alternately thread beef, tomatoes, mushrooms, and bell pepper.  Place on Broiler pan.

3. Broil 2 inches from heat, turning 2 or 3 times, until meat is medium-rare and vegetables are lightly browned, about 10  minutes.  Place on serving plates and serve immediately.

The Verdict

I think this recipe is mostly about the marinade, and that got great reviews.  I may add some meat tenderizer to the marinade if I make it with stew meat again so the meat will not be so tough.  Also, I added some onions since there are some people in my family who don't like tomatoes or mushrooms (imagine! sheesh, I am working on that) and they did not cook well with the other ingredients so they wound up under-done. 

I do like the marinade and may find some other uses for it.  I might make this again with just the meat, I think that call that tandori?

Recipe # 6 Chicken Teriyaki

This is another recipe from a group of cards.  I did actually complete this collection, back in the late 90's but this may be one of the first recipes I have actually made.  Are you sensing a trend? Yes, I have a lot of barely used recipe books, thus the desire to learn a new recipe a week, to make the books useful.

Chicken Teriyaki
Preparation Time: 15 minutes plus marinating (at least 30 minutes)
Cooking time: 10-12 minutes
Serves 4

Ingredients
3 tablespoons sesame seeds
2 tablespoons reduced-sodium soy sauce (can you tell this is a healthy recipe?)
2 tablespoons honey (again, substituted corn syrup and one packet of stevia, since I know that oriental food sometimes needs that little bit of sweetness)
1 teaspoon oriental sesame oil (optional)  (I opted out since I did not want to buy something just for one recipe)
1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves (4 ounces each), cut into 1-inch chunks.  (I used 3, 6 oz breasts, I know, what a rebel)
Green onion for garnish (yeah right)

1. In a medium bowl, combine sesame seeds, soy sauce, honey, sesame oil, ginger, garlic, and pepper.  Mix well.  Set aside 2 Tablespoons of marinade.  Add the chicken to remaining marinade in bowl and stir to coat. Cover bowl with plastic wrap; refrigerate for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

2. Preheat the broiler.  Remove the chicken from marinade; place on a broiler pan.  Discard the marinade in bowl.  Broil 5 inches from heat, basting with reserved marinade and turning once, until no longer pink in center, about 10-12 minutes.

3. Garnish chicken with green onion.  Serve immediately.

Again it was getting pretty late at night when I was wrapping all this up so I went ahead and divided it up for lunches.  As you can see I have my trusty little Ricey in the background making some rice to go with this.  I did overcook the chicken a little because I forgot to set a timer and, like I said, it was late, so it was a little on the dry side.

The Verdict

Even though I overcooked it and it would up dry, it is still pretty tasty.  I will definitely make this recipe again in the future since it works out great to put in the freezer and take for lunches at work during the week.  I love making my own microwave meals!

Recipe #5 Meat Loaf Supreme

Again in a desperate attempt to play catch-up on recipes I found this one among a set of recipe cards I have gathered from somewhere in my life.  I don't remember where this set came from but I am pretty sure it came in the mail on a weekly or monthly basis and I was supposed to collect a whole ton of them, but fortunately good sense prevailed eventually and I cancelled the subscription because it was just way too expensive of a way to collect recipes.  But since I have them I better use them right.

So here we go.

The Recipe is called Meat Loaf Supreme and usually I can locate it on the Web to do a quick cut a paste so you can have the ingredients, but not this time.  

Preparation time: 10 minute (according to the recipe, it took me a little longer)

Cooking time: 1 hour

Serves 6

Ingredients

1 small onion (in my grocery store it seems like onions only come in one size)

1/2 green bell pepper

1/2 cup milk (we don't keep milk around because nobody drinks it, so I used some powdered soy milk)

1 egg

3/4 cup seasoned bread crumbs

1 teaspoon dried basil

1 tablespoon dried parsley

1/8 teaspoon pepper

1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef

Topping:

3 tablespoons ketchup

1 tablespoon honey (I really thought we had honey, turns out we didn't so I substituted light corn syrup)

1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F.  Line a 9x5 inch loaf pan with foil.  Spray with cooking spray.  Chop onion and bell pepper together in a food processor.

2. Combine milk and egg in a large bowl; add bread crumbs, basil, parsley and pepper.  Stir until blended.  Add onion and pepper, mix well.  Add beef; mix just to combine ingredients.

3. Shape the beef mixture in prepared loaf pan.  Do not pack.  For topping, combine ketchup, honey and Worcestershire sauce in a small bowl.  Mix well.  Spread evenly over the top of the meat loaf.

4.  Bake meat loaf until cooked through, about 1 hour.  Place pan on wire rack; let stand for 5 minutes.  Lift meat loaf out of pan and place on a serving platter.  Remove foil.  Serve immediately.

So it was getting close to 10:00 pm and I was not interested in eating this immediately so I divided it up into containers to take for lunch.  Let me just say, ignore the direction not to pack the meat.  It absolutely fell apart and looked more like meat mush that meat loaf.  I don't know if that is usual or not for meat loaf since this is only about the second I think I have ever made in my whole life.

The topping did turn out very good with the weird substitution I made.  I think it might have actually have been for the best since I do not like my meat to taste sweet.

The Verdict:

I will try meat loaf again, maybe not this exact recipe but I had fun making it.  It was very quick and easy.  Even though it looks a little unappealing it was very tasty.

Please leave me a comment if you know how to keep your meatloaf from falling apart.

Print from Mary

I finally found a groupon to Deck the Walls and got the print Aunt Mary got for me in Denver framed.  I loved this etching because it really reminded me of my husband.  She traded for it for me because she is just awesome that way.  I think it turned out perfect and now I just have to figure out the best place to hang it.  I even sprung for the gallery glass that has some uv protection so hopefully it will look great for a very long time.

Recipe #4 North African Style Burgers

I am falling so far behind in this endeavor I went for a quick and easy recipe to make for my husband as I was heading out to a restaurant for girls night out.  I did not make the full burgers with the bun and stuff the way the recipe says, because this is a Weight Watchers recipe it does get very specific about how to prepare it so you can have your points value all figured out for you.  Since I am not concerned about that any more I really just wanted to try a recipe that sounded different and I was pretty sure my husband would eat.  I was only pretty sure because of the cinnamon.  So here we go.

The ingredients

I used a pound and a half of ground beef because that is what I had in the freezer left over from the Lasagna recipe.  So I increased all the ingredients again by half.  

I then forgot to take any pictures until I had all the patties formed.  It wasn't really interesting so I don't think you missed anything.

Into the frying pan.  My little ring of burgers, aren't they cute?

All done

The Verdict

David said they were okay, because he couldn't really taste the cinnamon.  I tried one and I thought they were interesting.  I don't think I will include cinnamon in any burger recipes again but the cumin and tomato paste were very good.  I will include those ingredients again for sure.