Posts in the Nomables Category

About to Go into the Oven

Lemony-sage chicken in milk


Lemony sage chicken! Currently you’re looking at Step 8 of this recipe. Now she’s going into the oven for an hour and a half.
:drool:

I did give in to the temptation (I tried so hard to resist!) to add fresh rosemary as well. I hope the rosemary doesn’t overpower the sage. :-/

Roasted potatoes, squash and mushrooms as the sides. So far all I’ve done is fry and season the chicken with herbs and the house already smells ridiculously good. Umm… do I *have* to wait for E to get home to dive into this meal??

Simple Sunday Snack!

Nothing groundbreaking here :D

Scrumptdillidilyumptious, but certainly not groundbreaking.

Props to the Snackmaster sandwich maker, which my mom got us for Christmas two years ago. That thing makes THE BEST grilled cheeses!

Recipe: Dragonfly Stir Fry Rice with Linguica and Dungeness Crab

I keep a running list of recipes to cook in my life-organizer yellow pad, and once I’ve made them I’ll check them off and make a note of whether or not they were good enough to want to make again. This one is an A+ will make again four-star knock it out of the park meal!!!

I found the recipe on the food network site while searching for what to do with a bunch of linguica that we had on hand. Earl and I snagged about two pounds worth of the Portuguese sausage while on a ski trip coming back from Kirkwood at this amazing sausage shop in Lockeford, CA. We were so psyched we had a cooler full of ice (formerly housed our lunchtime ski brews) on hand to bring home a nice haul of meat.

Not only was this recipe super easy and delish, but it made enough to feed us for about the whole week! :D
Your primary materials: linguica sausage, 8 oz. of dungeness crab, some chopped scallions and wine for the chef.

First step: cook up some rice. I used a plain old box of rice pilaf we had sitting around. Throw the pot of rice in the fridge while you do everything else.
Next step: Fry up four eggs.

Then: add rice and sausage to the eggs, begin stirring.

Next step: make yourself a little appetizer of cheese and sausage while you let that cook!

Now add your crab, peas, and scallions. Keep stirring!

Final step: Nosh! Throw on some soy sauce or oyster sauce if you please. I added just a touch of soy, E kept his plain.

Any meal that’s this easy, delicious and yields enough bounty to sustain us for a week (let me tell you how jealous my partner was in the ambulance when I busted a leftover bowl of this for lunch… :P ) is certainly going into the “REPEAT” file to be made again and again!

We also had a helper on hand to assist with extra sausage consumption.
Hey… I like sausage, too! Down here! I’ll taste test some sausage for ya.

What’s Wrong with Bacon, Egg and Cheese Sandwiches on a Sunday Mornin?

Absolutely nothing, that’s what!

I was out running con woofer this am and must have ran by a house cooking breakfast because MAN did I get a whiff of something tantalizing and bacon-y. Right then and there I altered course and Linus and I jogged over to the store, bought English Muffins and eggs, and came home and made these:

Bacon egg and cheese sandwiches might be one of my favorite foods EVER. In college I dated a guy who made these on the grill whenever we were camping or tailgating and they would come out SOOO good. The key is to use the LARGE sandwich-sized english muffins, so that way you can fit on three fried eggs. Our little corner grocery store only had regular sized english muffins, so, rather sadly, I could only fit on two fried eggs.

Still used a pound of bacon, tho ;)

We each had an extra 1/2 of an english muffin to mop up runny yolk. Runny yolk orbits in its own realm of awesomeness.


Linus even got in on some bacon action. He had to do “manners” to get it, however!

Lucy doesn’t care for bacon or eggs (lame!) but she did find a nice spot to curl up in the sunshine.

We, erm… also had some fruit to counteract the massive pile of bacon and make a tad more healthy.

I am going to go lie on my back now and let this post-bacon aura wash over me in waves of deliciousness.

“Heyyyy, whatcha got der?”

A silly photo from just now, whilst E is doing some work reading about cats online and eating a CARROT!! Yum, carrots! Didja know corgis like carrots? Didya? We sure do! look at me all lonely like down here by myself, dontcha think i could sure use a carrot?

In other news, we are having GRILLED WISCONSIN BRATWURST for dinner! Um, holy cow. I am sooo excited to make these suckers. Though, when your lover hails from the badger state, there’s a tad bit of extra pressure not to screw em up. Earl already schooled me on proper beer-soaking and fork-pricking methods. Hopefully they’ll turn out okay. Also exciting is that, per most of the recipes I found, “drinking beer whilst cooking wisconsin bratwurst is a mandatory part of the process.” Sweet! At least I’ve got that part down.

I’m making these soy-sauce sesame crusted roasted radishes as a side. Not because they particularly sound like they’ll go with grilled bratwurst, but because we have radishes on hand and I’ve been wanting to try that recipe out now for a while. I’ve seen roasted radishes mentioned a LOT lately, and people are always talking about how surprisingly awesome they turn out. Radishes get such a bad rap in the vegetable world. We’ve been roasting lots of veggies lately (asparagus, mushrooms, tomatoes…) and it’s just failproof. They ALWAYS turn out awesome. No huge shocker there that roasted radishes are good, too! Well… I guess we’ll see about that ;)

Oh- one amusing anecdote from my day. I realized we had no crusty rolls to serve the brats on tonight, so I decided to run to the bakery and get some. I had to get a run in anyways, and the bakery was 3 miles away, so it was perfect. I just couldn’t decide if running to the bakery to get a bunch of hard rolls on which to nosh beer and brats is counter-intuitive, awesome, or stupid. What do ya think? The cool part is, I left at about 5:30, and the bakery was closing at 6:00, so it ended up being a bit of speedwork, too! (anything below 10:00 min/mile is certainly speedwork for me at this point.) Anyways, I made it and the rolls look awesome. I also bought a bit of shortbread at the bakery which I noshed mid-run before heading back home :P Couldn’t resist. Anyways, I kinda like this “running to get your errands done” deal.

Recipe: Skirt Steaks with Paprika Butter

The guys over at The Bitten Word had me convinced with this opening paragraph:

We always feel a little bit like we’re cheating when we cook a skirt steak. How can something be this cheap, this tasty and this quick to prepare? It’s like we’ve stumbled onto an ancient secret in the supermarket: How does everyone not know about this?!

They’re right! Skirt steak DOES feel like it’s cheating. I’m not even much of a “steak cooker” (back when we did have outdoor space, E managed the grill), and even I could pull these off. So if you’re in the mood for red meat and don’t have much cash or time (hello!), grab yourself some skirt steaks and whip these up. They’re easily schmanced up by the paprika butter (which was STUPENDOUS!). I’d venture these are good enough for guests or a dinner party- they’d never know how simple they were!

Since this was so fast and easy to prepare, I made the side first. Sautee some kale in EVOO and a little lemon juice:

Dry rub your steaks in salt and pepper (or whatever spice blend you like. I used some Emeril Essence of Creole that I had leftover in the cupboard). Cook 3 minutes on high on each side. Done before I got off a good picture! Here they are, as per recipe, “resting” for 5 minutes.

Now here’s the ace up your sleeve, the paprika butter. Basically, it’s melted butter, sauteed with garlic, smoked hot paprika and some lemon juice:

I made some Old Bay roast sweet potatoes, also from the Bitten Word, as another side. These also fall into the “so easy you think it’s cheating” category. You slice sweet potatoes, toss them with some olive oil and Old Bay seasoning, and roast.

When you’re ready to serve, brush the steak with the paprika butter. The paprika butter knocks this dish out of the park- brushing on the smoky heat really makes the steaks pop.

Earl shows us how it’s done.

Start to finish: 20 minutes… if that. Gotta love meals where the cleanup takes longer than the cooking and the prep! Especially when you’re not the one who does the cleanup ;)

How Good Does this Look?

Stir fry for dinner:
stir fry
This was before the chicken, cabbage and brown rice were added. MMmm, mmm. Pretty decent for something “whipped up” at 9pm after the gym. We were chowing about 20 minutes after walking in the door.

I was inspired by this stir fry recipe over on TGR in the cheap home cooking thread. I would have never thought to add cabbage on my own. ’twas rather tasty, however. Mental note: eat more cabbage.

Also, just some random shots I took around the kitchen- check out the lovely Salmon Falls serving plate that my sister mailed me! Isn’t it gorgeous? I think this is a great spot for it.

Proudly displayed next to my other Salmon Falls pottery:

How cute was Earl when he was a little kid?!

Have a great weekend!
<3,
Ceej

Jamie Oliver’s TED Prize Acceptance Speech

Jamie Oliver, who won the TED prize this year, drives home some of the most important parts of his work in this 20-minute video.

Please watch it if you have the time!
Watching the kids unable to identify basic vegetables, around 11:00 in is just… jaw dropping.

Apres-ski at Squaw

This roasted corn is quite possibly the tastiest thing ever!

There is a guy with a grill who sells it at the base of the mountain.  We all get an ear to munch while we walk to and unload our gear at the car.   It is STUPENDIOUS!  Almost (almost) takes the place of beer for first place “Best thing apres-ski.”  Even Linus has gotten in on the corn action before.

Man I am tired.  We had such a fun daytrip today!   We skied from bell to bell, after getting up to drive to Tahoe at 4:45am.  Then, after getting back to the city we headed straight to Emmy’s Spaghetti in the Mission to chow some ENORMOUS spaghetti and meatballs.  All four of us brought home to-go bags.  I think I’ve got lunch and dinner taken care of tomorrow.

According to our dog walker’s note, Linus had a fun day today, too.  She apparently took him on multiple walks and he hung around at her house all afternoon.  So funny.  She is such a nice woman.  Anyone who needs a dogwalker rec in SF, please ping me.

Sorry if this post is incoherrent I am pretty tired.  Off to snooze :)

-Ceej

Recipe: Leeks Smothered in Bacon

Fitting nicely in line with my all-time life goal of “Eat More Meals Containing the Word ‘Smothered.’ ”
Leeks Smothered in Bacon
This was the easiest recipe ever. You basically fry up a bunch of bacon, then saute some leeks, crumble up the bacon and put it on top. I added some ‘shrooms, tomaters and a coupla snow peas, but only cuz we had em on hand and they were reaching the end of their fridge life expectancy.

Served with couscous from the box and a pair of Alaskan Amber Ales. Scrumptious.

Pre-ski trip chow, to give us energy for the EIGHT HOUR (round trip) drive to Kirkwood we’re facing tomorrow. Alarms are set for 4:35am, which isn’t really that big of a deal for me because I get up at 3:50am when I work the 5-5 shift, however Earl is in for a jolt. The smart money says he takes a snooze tomorrow while I drive :P
ps- Linus even got in on some bacon action.