This was very easy and delicious - and very lemony. For the orzo, I just sautéed a couple shallots in some olive oil, stirred in some chopped ham, some frozen peas, and 2 cups cooked drained orzo. Nice.

Ingredients
2 chicken breasts
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 t rosemary
1 t thyme
Olive oil
The zest of 1 lemon

1/2 cup parsley, chopped
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 lemon, juiced
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 400 degree F.

Place the chicken pieces in a baking pan and season with salt, pepper, olive oil, the herbs, and the lemon zest. Roast until chicken is done, about 30 minutes.

Combine the parsley, olive oil, and lemon juice and serve over the chicken breasts.

To make the penne, I used Nebraska grown organic bulgar wheat that I milled myself and mixed with water and egg whites and extruded with my bronze die pasta maker. For the sauce, I grew hydroponic tomatoes and garlic in my kitchen. I made the parmesan cheese last summer and it finally has aged enough for me to use my cheese knives to split the forty pound wheel I had in my cheese cellar.

Actually, it was Ragu on store brand boxed pasta. Meh. It looks good though, doesn't it? Nick really liked it.

Easy and delicious - and cheap. Boil the rinsed corned beef with 20 peppercorns and two bay leaves for 3 and a half hours. In the last fifteen minutes add the cabbage. Remove the the beef and let rest for ten minutes before slicing. Drain the cabbage and serve with boiled potatoes, mustard, and horseradish. Alex, my mom, and I each had two servings and Alex and I are eating the leftovers for dinner tomorrow. Fantastic.

Oh yeah, I used homemade butter on the potatoes. Wow.

Mangocrantini
2 oz. Mango Vodka
1 oz. Citron Vodka
3 oz. Cranberry Juice



Pommangotini
3 oz. Mango Vodka
3 oz. Pomegranate Juice
2 T Mango puree


Pomegranate Lime Martini

(I was done taking pictures)

3 oz. Vodka
1 oz. Pomegranate Juice
1 oz. Lime Juice
1 oz. White Grape Juice

I bought raw turkey cutlets and smoked them with hickory. I built the sandwich with, sliced Italian bread, roast pepper spread, the sliced turkey, whole fresh basil leaves, slices mozzarella, and aoli.

For the potatoes, I stirred together cubed potatoes, salt, pepper, extra-virgin olive oil, oregano and baked it for 30 minutes in a 350 oven. I then added the juice from a lemon, 1/4 cup cubed feta, and 1/2 cup sliced grape tomatoes and baked another 15 minutes.

Wow, this was delicious.

Yes, butter. Alex is in D.C. with his eighth grade class so I told Nick I'd make whatever he wants for breakfast. He chose buttermilk biscuits. So, this morning, I got up, made coffee and started getting ready to make biscuits. I only had ONE tablespoon of butter - well short of the seven I'd need.

I had just read about making butter from cream and I had a pint of cream in the fridge so I thought I'd try it. It sounded simple enough. Whisk the cream for fifteen minutes or so until it turns to butter, drain off the buttermilk, and eat your fresh, delicious homemade butter. Excellent!

The cream whipped right up and was looking tasty. But, after fifteen minutes I still just had whipped cream. I ran to the internet and found some other people who'd done this. "...get fresh, unpastuerized cream from a local farmer." "Make sure cream is at room temperature." Oops. But, there was nothing to do but let it keep going.


After about 30 minutes it happened! Here, the buttermilk is draining out though the cheesecloth.


This worked so well that I was giggling like an idiot. I pulled the carton out of the trash for its photo op. The one pint of cream made 6 ounces of butter (about a stick and a half) and 1 cup of buttermilk.


It's important to get all the buttermilk out of the butter because it will turn sour and ruin the butter. I think I got it all out.


Three ounces cut up and ready for the biscuits.


Biscuits!

I don't know why I was sort of craving this. I think I just wanted something cheap and easy. This certainly fit the bill. It was the best Tuna Casserole I've had in over ten years. (Only) It also happened to be sort of boring. I served it with a nice salad. Alex claimed to like it but I noticed he had a bowl of cereal about a half hour after I cleaned the kitchen.

Tonight, I was looking at some other food blogs. I like the pictures I take. Having them uniformly on my white porcelain on my boring cream counter keeps the focus on the food. It's almost become my "look." But, I was jealous of some of the cool photos on some of the other blogs. I was worried my little digital camera couldn't do it. But it looks good.

1 can tuna (12 oz)
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can green peas
1# noodles, cooked
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk

Add ingredients to a casserole dish. Stir and bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

I love this. Soba is a Japanese noodle. This was buckwheat soba. Instead of nori I have some Korean fried seaweed that was even better than nori as a garnish. I probably tripled the amount of fish sauce in the dipping sauce. I knew I'd have extra sauce so while I was eating, I cooked a second batch of noodles just so I'd have leftovers. Instead of keeping the second batch for leftovers, I ate it. Now, while I'm writing this, I'm cooking a third batch of noodles to go with the leftover sauce. I'm playing racquetball tomorrow at lunch so I may have to eat those leftovers for breakfast. Mmmm.

Ingredients
4 ounces soba
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
3 scallions, thinly sliced
1/4 teaspoon anchovy paste, or to taste
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 dry sherry
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 teaspoon fish sauce
Pinch of sugar
Pinch of salt
1/4 cup finely julienned carrot
1 sheet of Nori

Instructions
Bring a saucepan of water to a boil and cook the Buckwheat noodles a few minutes. Drain and refresh under cold running water. Hold noodles in a bowl with cold water until ready to serve. Mix ginger, scallion and anchovy paste and set aside. In a small saucepan bring soy sauce, sherry and vinegar to taste, to a boil. Mix this warm liquid into ginger, scallion and anchovy paste and season to taste with fish sauce, sugar, salt and pepper. Transfer this to small dipping bowls. Drain noodles and portion out into bowls; top each portion with some julienned carrot. Toast sheet of Nori over an electric burner and cook until crisp and crumble it over the soba and carrot. Dip noodles in sauce.

I was planning on prepping this Thursday night and let it cook all day Friday. After seeing Todd twice and Scot once on Thursday I got home too late to make this for Friday. I didn't have time to prep this last night either so I came home from work at lunch today and got it in the Crock Pot. This was pretty good. Alex absolutely loved it. He ate two huge servings. The meat was incredibly tender. This was about as Chinese as fortune cookies but I'd still make it again.

Ingredients
2 1/2 lb beef round steak cut into strips
1/4 cup flour
1/2 t salt
1/2 t pepper
1 large onion, chopped
5 small clove garlic, minced
2 large red peppers, seeded and cut into 1/2-inch strips
2 16-oz can diced tomatoes
1 T ginger, freshly grated
1 T soy sauce
2 t Worcestershire sauce

Instructions
Cut steak into strips. Combine flour, salt and pepper. Toss with steak strips to coat thoroughly. Add to crockpot with onion, garlic and pepper strips, stir. Add tomatoes, ginger, soy, and Worcestershire sauce. Cover and cook on Low 10 to 12 hours or on High 5 to 6 hours. Serve over hot rice.

This was delicious. I used the Hungarian sausages I made a couple weeks ago. The onions were terrifically spicy and rich. Alex didn't care for the horseradish sauce but I thought it was terrific on the sausages and onions. I pulled the red cabbage from the freezer - leftovers from Christmas. Tasty. I will absolutely make this again.

Ingredients
Hungarian Sausages
water

Paprika Onions
3-4 T vegetable oil
2 cups sliced white onions
1/2 t salt
1 T paprika
1/4 cup sour cream

Horseradish Sour Cream
1 cup sour cream
2 T horseradish
2 t sugar
1/2 t salt

Instructions
Place the sausages in a heavy frying pan with a cover. Pour water over them so the links are in 1/2 inch of water. Raise the water to a slow boil and cover. Turn the sausages and add a little more water to keep it from burning. When both sides are browned, move sausages to a skillet and brown skins.

Combine the Horseradish Sour Cream ingredients and set aside.

In a wide skillet, saute the onions with the salt in the oil until softened. Add the paprika and keep warm. A few minutes before serving, add the sour cream and heat.

Yesterday, when I asked Alex what he wanted for dinner tonight, he replied, "Curry." So, this is a pretty standard Thai red curry that I made with mahi mahi. The last time I made this with fish I used flounder. The mahi mahi was much firmer than the flounder and it was delicious.

Cows are delicious.

This was nuts. I suppose this is like eating a pint of Ben and Jerry's straight from the carton. I originally planned on cooking this Australian Free-Range Ribeye steak I had in the freezer for Alex and me last night. I was too grumpy to make anything difficult so we had hot dogs. I figured I'd eat half the steak alone tonight with a little foie gras I had left over in the fridge (if it hadn't spoiled). I got stuck at work until 8:30 and considered picking up Wendy's on the way home. Screw that, I'm eating the steak. So, I got home at 9:00 and made this wine mushroom reduction sauce from a recipe I made in December, sliced the foie gras over the steak and ate it. I didn't even screw with a side dish - just a big steak with goose liver and a great sauce. I'm a bit giddy now this was so good. Every once in awhile it's a good idea to have a delicious meal by yourself. I listened to music, drank some wine, and literally savored every bite.

I guess I'm not getting enough asses and eyeballs in my diet. Actually, we had hotdogs again tonight because I didn't want the buns to go stale. That, and the fact that I was a grumpy bastard tonight, put hotdogs with sauerkraut on the menu. Alex was lucky to have a side dish. It's broccoli slaw with Hartville Kitchen Slaw Dressing. If you're from this area you know what that means. If you're not from this area, I'm too grumpy to explain it. Actually, this was pretty tasty. Alex, the sauerkrautaholic, naturally, loved it. Halfway through my dogs I realized I totally screwed it up. Today was the first day of actual games in Spring Training. I should have had Stadium Mustard. Damn.