No, I'm not going to tell you I didn't make what I planned. I did. Except...I forgot to tell you that the potatoes were purple. Yup, beautiful purple mashed potatoes. See? Right there next to the chicken and oven-roasted asparagus and crescent roll.

Yummy. Just yummy.

So said Peaches on the topic of "Yummy"
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This week, The Boy has to take part in a health unit for his Pre-AP Science class. The State of Texas has a big push on for nutritional awareness among elementary and middle school kids, trying to promote healthy eating habits that will hopefully last into their high school years.

Anyway, for the unit he has to give all his stats (height, weight, waist size, head circumference, etc.). Now, I'm not sure about you...but I was a chunky kid and if they'd asked me to do all that in 6th grade I think it would have REALLY stressed me out. I mean, think about the danger of the "mean girls" finding out my stats and teasing me? Crushing. Luckily, The Boy is thin and fit so I don't think he'll have a problem with it.

Another part of the project is The Boy has to write down each and every single thing he eats...for a week. I'm really not sure what they're going to do with the information. I guess it could be used as part of a study where they look at what the gifted kids are eating (or not eating) that makes them so smart. The kids in the regular science class aren't doing the project...

Anyway. So....how would you react if you knew that each and every thing your kid eats for a week is being set down on paper for all the teachers at school to see? I don't know what you'd do, but I'm pulling out all the big guns this week, baby. It's oatmeal and fruit for breakfast, at least an apple if nothing else nutritions at lunch, beef jerky for snacks, and here's the evening menu:

Monday: Parmesan chicken with tomato/basil salad and roasted potatoes and peppers
Tuesday: Beef kabobs with squash mushrooms, onions, bell peppers; couse couse on the side
Wednesday: Roasted chicken with mashed potatoes and asparagus; crescent rolls
Thursday: Spinach and cheese tortellini with small side salad and garlic bread
Friday: Peppercorn pork loin with saffron rice and spring salad
Saturday: Turkey enchiladas with Spanish rice
Sunday: Braised halibut steaks with sundried tomatoes and onions; brown rice on the side

I hope they approve....thank God the project ends on Sunday. I don't know how long I can keep this up....

UPDATE: Oh....My...GOD!!!!! The Boy just called down the stairs after reading this post and said, "Mom, we have to do it for a month, not a week!"

Damn....now I have to plan miracle menus for three more weeks....wonderful.

It appears I've rounded the corner on the whole being sick thing. As you may recall, it started off with a bang in the wee, wee hours of New Year's Day (a sickness not caused by a hangover as I only had three drinks New Year's Eve but which I'm now convinced was directly related to drinking like absolutely no water for a week which caused sever dehydration). Then I immediately moved on to the cold that everyone in Wisconsin and on all our flights on the trip seemed to have in varying degrees.

Tommy has the cold now. He had to call in sick for his current trip.

I think the turning point for me was on Friday when I decided the house was a sty and needed to be cleaned, no matter what cost to my personal well-being. I simply could NOT stand it anymore. So I put my cleaning clothes on and off I went to "just clean the bathrooms"......four hours later the entire house was clean with the exception of mopping the bar floor and dusting our very high ceiling fan in the living room and light fixtures in the the entry.

But damn, I sure did feel better after that. I actually felt like I was sweating the sickness out of my body. Yesterday (Saturday - day after cleaning) was the first day I woke up and finally felt half way normal. Didn't even take cold meds until bed time and then it was only Sudafed and Robitussin.

And today I'm feeling better still and I'm planning on making peanut butter cookies with my new mixer. I don't eve like peanut butter cookies, but Tommy does so the goal is to try out the new mixer whilst avoiding extra calories that would result in me eating the finished product if I actually liked it.

Oh, I'm under no illusions that I won't at least try one of the cookies...but they're not my favorite so hopefully I'll be able to keep it down to just a taste.

To summarize - was really sick...then was cold sick....am now better....will be baking today.

That is all.

UPDATE: As you can see, I didn't waste any time. The second batch just came out of the oven, and I didn't even wait until the cookies had cooled before I sampled one. They are damn good. I've already scarfed my second. The mixer did excellent work for me blending all the ingredients perfectly. However, this recipe should be outlawed as it necessitates multiple tastings even for those that don't even care for peanut butter. I mean, seriously...

If you'd like the recipe, you can leave a comment on this post or send me an email. Yummy.

So said Peaches on the topic of "Just So You Know" & "Yummy"
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Scytheboy got out of school for Christmas Break (they call it Winter Break...but we all know what it is) yesterday. So of course he had a friend sleep over. Yes, they were up late and yes, they were both ready to end the sleepover today as they started it at 12:30 yesterday. There is such a thing as too much togetherness, I think...

Anyway, the request he and his friend made this morning for breakfast was homemade popovers. This is a super-easy recipe I got at school back when I was in home-ec in 7th grade (yes, they still had home-ec when I went to middle school...shut up).

So here's the recipe. This makes 12 but you can double to make 24 if you have a big crowd. They take less than five min. to mix and much longer to bake. The waiting's the hardest part.

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 eggs 1 cup milk

Sift the flour and salt together into a medium bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients and whisk until smooth. Pour into prepared muffin tins (about 2/3 full).

Bake in 425 degree oven for fifteen minutes (this is the part where they "popover" and get golden brown). Then reduce heat to 325 and bake for another 25 minutes.

These are excellent with butter and honey. Enjoy!

Have you guys been having the same problem I've been having? For some reason, I've been having a hard time finding stuff to post about. So I thought I'd at least put down something useful. I took a pepper steak recipe from a low fat cookbook and modified it so it's actually pretty good. Here we go...

Ingredients:

1 1/2 to 2 lbs. top sirloin steak, cut into thin strips (set aside in large zip loc bag)
2 medium green bell peppers, sliced thinly (any color will do...but green tastes better)
1 1/2 medium onions, sliced
1-2 teaspoons FRESH garlic, minced
Flour
1 1/2 - 2 cups cherry tomatoes, quartered
1 1/2 cups beef broth
1/2 cup water
1 Tablespoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
Lots of salt and pepper (to taste)
Olive Oil
Worcestershire sauce

Here's how you do it:

First - and this is key...cut up everything first. Trust me on this.

Sautee' the peppers in olive oil with salt and pepper for about five minutes. Remove peppers from pan. Add onions and garlic to the pan, salt and pepper, and sautee' until they are soft. While this is happening (I usually have my son stir at this point), add flour to the zip loc bag filled with meat and toss until coated. When coated, add the meat to the pan and stir until browned on all sides (you might need to add more oil to the pan at this point...and salt and pepper the meat while it's browning).

Note: For those of you like me that are gravy-phobic, what you are doing now is making a rue for gravy...you just don't know it. Never mind...moving right along...

Once the meat is browned, add the beef broth, water, tomato paste, and Italian seasoning. Salt and pepper again. Bring mixture to a boil, then reduce heat and cover the pan. Simmer for 35 minutes. Then add the peppers back to the pan, stir, cover, and continue simmering for 10 more minutes.

Note: If you are cooking bread (we do the Pillsbury French Loaf with this) you might want to preheat your oven now.

After simmering, add the cherry tomatoes , salt and pepper them, and pour in Worcestershire sause to taste (we use quite a bit), recover pan and simmer for about 20 minutes.

Now is when you should put the bread in the oven and set your noodles to boil....we use those No Yolks egg noodles but other stuff works too.

After 20 minutes, serve your pepper steak over the cooked noodles in pasta bowls with whatever type of bread you prefer.

I hope this was clear enough. It's really not all that hard, just very time consuming and there is a lot of cutting stuff up which you can do before hand as I always do.

Enjoy!

I might have mentioned here before that breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. This could be because what could be better than starting off my day with one of my favorite things to do...eat? Or it could possibly be due to the fact that if I don't eat in the morning I will more than likely faint (I'm hypoglycemic) so I try and make the best of it.

In any case...I've been craving French toast lately. This is because my grocery store recently began carrying a specialty sourdough bread that I have to walk past every time I'm there. In my opinion nothing stands up better to French toast batter than sourdough bread. As a result every time I see the stuff I crave French toast.

So this week I picked up a loaf. And I pulled a recipe for French toast off of Food Network. Tommy got back too late to make it yesterday, so today was the first opportunity I had to try it (well, I wasn't gonna eat it all by myself). I executed the recipe brilliantly (Tommy said so...he might not have used those words but that's what I heard him say). But I was too hungry to take pictures, so sorry no pictures.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

3 large eggs
3/4 cup milk (skim's OK)
1/8 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla (use the 100% pure stuff, not the imitation)
1 tablespoon orange juice (don't skip this, trust me)
Cinnamon to taste (I did 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon)

Whisk all the ingredients together in a shallow baking dish, making sure the eggs are thoroughly combined. Heat a skillet to medium high, thinly coating the bottom of the pan with REAL BUTTER. Dredge slices of sourdough bread through the mixture on both sides, draining off the excess. Fry both sides of the bread in the skillet until golden brown.

Serve with heated maple syrup or any other condiment of your choice.

It's good, people. Trust me.

We just finished eating our fried turkey and fixin's about an hour ago. I'm just now able to move enough to show you what goes into frying said turkey.

First you inject it:

Then you put it on its pedestal:

Then you dunk it in your hot peanut oil:

Then you watch it fry in the peanut oil (make sure it's between 300 and 350 degrees):

And then you get to eat this:

It was SOOOO yummy. Definitely nothing like deep fried turkey. Thanks, Tommy!

And happy Turkey Day, everyone!

So said Peaches on the topic of "Yummy"
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Question: Do you suffer from a condition called "Bacon Frustration"?

Definition: Bacon frustration is the state one reaches when, after trying to be health conscious and trying different, more healthy varieties of the stuff (such as center cut and low sodium and turkey, etc.), all a person really craves is a good, thick, crispy normal slice of bacon.

I was shopping today, examining the many varieties of bacon....when I suddenly realized that I do, in fact, suffer from "Bacon Frustration". So I bought my good-old black label thick cut normal Hormel bacon and I will greedily eat it on Thanksgiving morning, thank you very much!

No more bacon frustration for me. How about you?

We all have those favorite dishes we rotate through once every couple of weeks. In our family, we love pasta. So I do a few dishes a month. We usually have pasta once a week....we would all love to have it more often but we know we should moderate our beloved carbs.

One of Tommy's favorite dishes is my oven-baked tortellini. It is sinfully easy, but the taste cannot be beat. Here's how I do it:

Oven-Baked Tortellini With Red Sauce

Ingredients:

One family size package of pre-made tortellini, frozen (we usually go for the three cheese stuff)
One regular jar spaghetti sauce (we use Prego)
Shredded mozzarella cheese
Shredded Parmesan cheese (not grated)
Garlic powder (California style with parsley)
Fresh ground pepper
Crushed red pepper (optional)

Set oven to 425 degrees. Fill a large pan with water and set it on high to boil. Place spaghetti sauce in a medium sauce pan (add 1/4 to 1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes if you prefer a spicier sauce). Cover and simmer on medium low heat. When pasta water boils, add the tortellini and boil until al-dente. When pasta is done, drain it and pour into a large shallow baking dish. Cover pasta with spaghetti sauce. Sprinkle garlic powder in a thin coat over the sauce. Add freshly ground black pepper to taste. Cover pasta and sauce with a generous layer of shredded mozzarella cheese. Sprinkle shredded Parmesan cheese over the mozzarella to taste. Bake, uncovered at 425 degrees until cheese is melted and slightly browned.

Serving suggestions:

-Pepperidge Farm Garlic Texas Toast - this takes about five minutes to bake, same as how long it takes the cheese to melt so it's an easy addition to the pasta.

-A Caesar salad is a good complement to this dish. You can use the bagged stuff, but I usually tear up my own romaine lettuce, then add fat free Caesar dressing, croutons, shredded (not grated) Parmesan cheese, and fresh cracked blacked pepper. It's really good.

There you have it. A simple Sunday dinner we have way more often than we should. I better get cookin'!

P.S. Yes, you are correct in assuming I had nothing to post today. Hopefully, this will do....

UPDATE: Sorry, Jack. Forgot your pictures. Here are the before and after shots:

Shut up, I didn't feel like salad tonight...I wanted more room for bread.

So said Peaches on the topic of "Yummy"
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I like these:

With a grilled ham 'n swiss.

So....what's your favorite salty snack? Do tell.....

So said Peaches on the topic of "Questions" & "Yummy"
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This one's for you, Jack. And it's all in one pan so it's all ready at the same time! It should take you only about 30 minutes to do this, including all the cutting.

Ingredients:

1 lb. chicken tenders, cut in bite-sized pieces
1 sm. can sliced water chestnuts
1 sm. white onion, chopped
1 bunch green onions (scallions), sliced
1 package cooked brown rice (the kind you boil in the bag - I use Success)
1/2 cup frozen baby green peas
Garlic Powder
Fresh ground black pepper
Sea Salt
Teriyaki sauce
Soy sauce
1-2 Tablespoons canola oil

Heat your skillet to med-high, coating the bottom of the pan with your canola oil (I use closer to two tablespoons, but it's a matter of taste). Sautee all the onions in the oil with sea salt and pepper to taste. Add chicken and season to taste with more salt, pepper, and garlic powder (I usually do one layer of sprinkle with the garlic powder, you can do more if you like). After you add the chicken, start your water to boil for the rice.

When chicken is lightly browned on all sides, drain and add water chestnuts, teriyaki sauce and soy sauce to taste (I usually add twice as much teriyaki as soy sauce and it seems to work out). Simmer, uncovered, while the rice boils. A couple minutes before the rice is done, add the frozen peas and stir; continue simmering for 2-4 minutes. Add the rice, stir, and simmer a couple minutes more and you're done.

Good eatin' and easy, trust me. The best part is you get to decide how you want it...spicy or mild, saucy or not. You can add any other veggies you choose....I figured I should put something green in there and at least try to give Scytheboy part of his daily quota at dinner.

Sorry, no pictures. It was gone before I thought to post the recipe.

As I sit here waiting for the cake to bake, I thought I'd check in and give you a good idea for a quick dinner. I saw it one one of those Food Network shows a couple weeks ago...can't remember which one. Anyway, this is quick and SO easy.

Ingredients:

Italian bread crumbs
Grated Parmesan cheese
Buttermilk
Chicken tenders
Olive Oil
Butter

Soak the chicken tenders in buttermilk for 20-30 minutes (you can season the buttermilk if you want but it's better if you don't)

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees, and make sure the rack is in the middle.

While the chicken is soaking, combine the bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese to your liking - I like a little more cheese than most, but it's your call.

Butter a cookie sheet - thin coat (I usually take the end of the stick and drag it all over the cookie sheet).

Roll the chicken tenders in the bread crumb mixture, making sure all excess buttermilk is drained off before you coat each piece. Place them in a single layer on the cookie sheet.

Drizzle the coated tenders with extra virgin olive oil. Then bake them in a 500 degree oven for 12 minutes.

Serving suggestions:

I mix a couple cloves of minced garlic with balsamic vinegar and drizzle in some extra virgin olive oil while whisking. Add salt and pepper to taste. It's yummy for dipping.

On the side, I serve angel hair pasta with Prego spaghetti sauce - I reserve some of the sauce for dipping. Also serve some type of green - Italian salad maybe or I always do sugar snap peas because they're easy.

Oh, and ya gotta have bread. French bread is good with this.

That's what we had last night. Sound good? Give it a try. Quick dinner, once you start coating the chicken.

Mmmmmmm.....breaded chicken tenders and spaghetti.

Oops...cake's almost done. Gotta go.

I was watching a TiVo'd episode of Iron Chef America on Food Network tonight. It was Battle Asparagus. And when sampling asparagus ice cream and chocolate covered asparagus, one of the panel members said something like:

I like the ice cream, but not as much as the chocolate. Of course, the only thing better than chocolate is bacon.

In my opinion, no truer words were ever spoken.

Damn...I don't have any bacon. I'll have to make Tommy take me to iHOP tomorrow so I can have some bacon.

That is all.

Okay, I admit it. I have nothing to post today. But I thought you might want to see what I've been doing instead of posting....I made a cake. Sing it with me...."I am great....I made a chocolate cake!"

Recipe's in the extended entry. Doesn't it look GOOD?

Good Old Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs (not eggbeaters - eggs)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray two 9 inch round cake pans with Pam. Set Aside.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder and baking soda. Add the milk, vegetable oil, and vanilla and beat with an electric mixer for 2 minutes until smooth. Add the eggs and beat for another 2 minutes.

Pour batter into the pans, then slam the pans on the counter a few times to get rid of the bubbles. Bake for 35-45 minutes or until a toothpick poked into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Let cool in pans for 5 minutes, then invert them onto a rack and let cool completely before doing something delicious with it.

Note: I tried this cake several times in a 9 x 13 inch pan and it simply does NOT work. Falls every time...trust me.

Another note: In my picture, you see one frosted layer. That's because I cut the recipe in half. Tommy doesn't like cake and since Scytheboy and I don't need that much I only make one layer. It will still be excellent though.

Seriously, a two year old could make this cake. It's that easy. I did cheat and use the canned frosting but at least the cake is from scratch!

So said Peaches on the topic of "Yummy"
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One of the things I make that Scytheboy absolutely loves is swordfish braised in onions and sundried tomatoes. It's really, really good. But Tommy doesn't like it so once in a while I make it for just the two of us.

Doesn't it look good? We usually have oven roasted asparagus with it, but this time we both wanted corn so we had corn and couse couse with shredded Parmesan cheese - thus the title of this post. Two starches is bad, but it tastes oh, so good! It only takes less than a half hour to make and it's yummy, yummy, yummy. If you don't like fish but you do like sundried tomatoes and onions you might want to try this.

Here's the recipe:

Swordfish Braised in Sundried Tomatoes and Onions

Ingredients:

2-4 swordfish steaks (halibut is a good substitution)
1 medium or large white onion
1 tsp minced garlic
3 Tablespoons julienne cut sundried tomatoes in olive oil (or more if you like)
1 teaspoon dried marjoram
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1 cup chicken stock
1 small can tomatoes sauce
Olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Dice the onion, mince the garlic, and sautee them in a medium pan with olive oil, salt and pepper until soft. Add chicken stock, sundried tomatoes, marjoram and oregano. Simmer on medium high heat until most of the chicken stock is gone. Add tomato sauce, and then place swordfish steaks in the pan and cover them with the sauce. Cover the pan and simmer for 7-10 minutes, turning once half way though. Serve with sauce spooned over the swordfish.

So said Peaches on the topic of "Yummy"
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Tamara said I had to make the key lime pie and I had to do it with real limes. Looking for anything that would make the job easier, I decided to use DrinkJack's method and put them all through the garlic press.

I used to only get about 1/2 cup of real juice using the old manual juicer. Now I can get almost a cup, but I needed a cup so I did augment with a little of the bottled stuff - sorry, Tamara. And thanks for the tip, DrinkJack. Right tool for the job.

After it came out of the oven, I noticed it appears to be lighter using mostly real juice.

It was only after I'd run all the limes through the garlic press that I realized I would have to zest squishy lime halves. I don't even want to talk about how messy this got, what with all the seeds and excess juice that landed in my little zest bowl. No picture of that. I'm too disgusted. The zest is now in the refrigerator drying out. Hopefully, it will be dry enough in a few hours to use as garnish on the frosting so I can finish the "Sprinkler System Re-Vamp Reward Pie".

So said Peaches on the topic of "Whining" & "Yummy"
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So I HAD to make something out of them. Sorry, I didn't get a picture of the overly-ripe, disgusting smelling bananas. But a picture of the first batch of muffins I'm making is in the extended entry.

Back story...I had some bananas in the bowl on the table before my in-laws got here. She's sitting right here so I have to be nice.....so anyway, they were getting REALLY ripe and REALLY smelly. I threatened to throw them away last night, and again this morning, and she said:

No, you're not throwing those away. Those are just right for eating.

I told her I was going to throw them away tonight while she's sleeping. One problem...she doesn't sleep very much at night so I could just picture her digging them out of the trash and putting them back in the bowl on the table. She HATES to waste ANYTHING.

So anyway....today we got back from shopping and there they were...the gross overly-ripe bananas...stinking up the whole kitchen. Nobody else said they could smell them, but I know they could smell them. They were just toying with me to see how long they could guilt me into keeping the damn bananas. I just know it. And NO, I am NOT paranoid!

So I searched the Internet and finally found a recipe that called for FOUR overly ripe bananas (here's the receipe if you want to give it a try). And....I began making the muffins. Well, wouldn't you know it, there was one banana left. Do you know that she sat there and ate that banana, marveling at how perfect it was?

Her:

Oh, this is just perfect. Not green, not black, it's firm, it's not dark. It's absolutely PERFECT for eating.

Me:

Humph.

OMG she just said:

Your kitchen still smells like bananas. It smells like banana muffins.

Finally, she admits it. She COULD smell those damn bananas!!

So, here they are. And they're fabulous. Of course, she claims they're "just right" because SHE insisted on mashing the bananas for the damn muffins. Oh well. At least I don't have to smell those skanky bananas anymore.

So said Peaches on the topic of "Whining" & "Yummy"
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Yup, I made a key lime pie to reward Tommy for the upcoming trip to Buenos Aires. I did it the easy way and used the pre-squeezed key lime juice. Just a five minute operation, really, to put the pie together. All I had to do was mix the frosting really quick and grate a few limes for zest when it was chilled. DrinkJack, on the other hand, did it the hard way. I'm sure his pie was yummy, too, but mine was SO much easier, which was good what with all the re-cleaning I had to do today.

This recipe is a real crowd pleaser, and it will feed a LOT of people. I showed you a picture of it a while back, so here's how to make it if you want to give it a try.

Bow Tie Pasta with Semi-Homemade Red Sauce

Ingredients:

-1 12 oz. box Bow Tie Pasta
-6 cloves garlic, minced (real garlic, not the stuff in the jar)
-½ medium white onion, chopped
-2 large roma tomatoes, chopped
-1 lb. ground sirloin
-Low-sodium chicken broth
-1 jar Prego Mushroom spaghetti sauce
-Olive Oil
-Fresh basil and Italian parsley, chopped (about 1 Tablespoon)
-Shredded parmesan cheese (not grated)
-Italian Seasoning
-Sea salt & fresh ground pepper

Instructions:

-In 5-qt. skillet, sauté garlic and onions with olive oil until tender (don’t burn the garlic!)/salt and pepper to taste

-Add ground beef/season with liberal amounts of Italian seasoning, salt and pepper/crumble and brown thoroughly with garlic and onions

-Add chopped roma tomatoes/salt and pepper to taste/go twice around the pan with chicken broth and simmer for about five minutes

-Add Prego and stir

-Put lid on pan and simmer

-While sauce is simmering, cook bow ties (don’t forget to salt the water) until al dente and drain - DO NOT RINSE!!

-Add the bow ties and most of the fresh chopped basil and parsley to skillet with the sauce and stir well/cover and cook on low heat for about 2- 5 minutes

Serve pasta in bowls with shredded parmesan and on top/sprinkle with chopped fresh basil and parsley mix if desired.

Don't tell Tommy. He's been whining about not having any pie since he made the brisket. All that talk about pie caused me to actually go to the store after dinner, buy the stuff, and make the pie. Soon it will be cool. And I will be eating apple pie. Yummy.

Yes!!! I can finally eat my dinner. The dinner that I've been smelling while it cooks, both inside and outside the house, all afternoon. Mr. Average did a WAY above average job on this dinner. When he decides to cook (which is rare because I hardly ever let him in the kitchen anymore) he definitely goes all out.

It began with a spur of the moment trip to the store yesterday. When he got home, he marinated the brisket and soaked the beans overnight. Then today after lunch he put the brisket in the smoker and the beans on the stove with several secret ingredients. He wouldn't tell me what he put in the beans, but I know there was bacon involved.

He bought the potato salad because let's be honest...it IS mostly about the beef. I wish you could smell this picture. Words cannot describe how good it smells or tastes (yes, I got caught more than once pre-sampling the goods - "what are you doing?" was heard from Mr. Average on several occasions this afternoon as I tried to hide fork and bowl behind my back).

I did cave and decide to make some corn bread from scratch. You simply CAN'T have brisket and beans without corn bread. It's just not done.

Time to go load up my plate again. This dinner is SO damn good! He even let me have some of his Sam Adams Summer Ale from the keg. I should definitely let him cook more often.

I hate to clean the house. But I do have brisket to look forward to. So THAT is a good thing. It will be yummy, and the best part is I don't have to cook it!

First, a fabulous recipe for steak marinade (good for flank, top sirloin, whatever).

Ingredients:

-6 generous tablespoons FRESHLY SQUEEZED lime juice (bottle will not do for this)
-2 tablespoons soy sauce
-2 teaspoons minced garlic (jar is fine for this, but freshly pressed is better)
-2 teaspoons ground ginger
-2 teaspoons granulated sugar
-salt and pepper to taste (I use lots and lots of freshly ground black pepper and at least two teaspoons sea salt)

Whisk together and set aside.

The steak:

Chop up some fresh garlic and make small cuts into the steak in many places on both sides. Please pieces of garlic into these small cuts. Trust me - it will be GOOD.

Pour marinade over steak, coating both sides completely. Marinate all afternoon, turning at least every hour. When you're ready to eat, bring the steak to room temperature and grill or broil, depending on the weather. If it's flank steak, make sure you slice thinly against the grain before serving.

What goes with the steak? Well, quartered red potatoes coated with olive oil, salt, pepper, chopped garlic, rosemary, thyme, and parsley of course. Bake uncovered at 425 for about 30 minutes. Yummy. I also do a caesar salad and crescent rolls.

And the next day is almost the best part. Here's a good leftover recipe:

Slice an onion and sautee in olive oil (a little butter is good here too if you're in the mood) with salt and pepper until slightly browned. Cut the leftover steak in bite sized pieces and add it with leftover potatoes to the onions. Cover and simmer on medium heat until warmed through. Serve with ketchup, of course.

Hungry?

Mmmmm....a family favorite. My bow tie recipe with fresh herbs from our garden. I chose the Septima Tempranillo. Want some?