Eating Dinner With My Family

Well another day without a proper refrigerator.  (grrrr)  My lovely friend invited us over for Mojitos and Pizza.  Both were delicious!  The Mojito recipe is from our friend Benny.  They are most likely the best mojito recipe on the planet!  They go down WAY to easy!  Since the pizza was from a local place, Luigi's, the only recipe I can include is the one one for the mojitos. Enjoy responsibly ;) I can't wait until I can cook properly again! Mojitos 1 Cup sugar 5 Limes 750 ml of bacardi white rum 1 Bunch of mint leaves Crushed Ice 1) Muddle the sugar and mint well 2) Add the juice of the limes and mix 3) Add the rum and stir Pour over a pitcher full of crushed ice.  Enjoy!:)

My new fridge! The fridge didn't get fixed.  Ok well I am excited to have a super cool new fridge, down side is it won't be here until Wed.  ( a week!)  WTF to do about dinners?!  We do have a back up fridge,but I just don't like it.  It is a a ratty old fridge in the garage.  (not to mention it is all the way in the garage)  OK I know, groan, hardly real problems.  Not only do I have a back up, but the ability to replace it with a sweet new upgrade. I am annoyed by the inconvenience, but depressed that I have seemed to lost my perspective.  Perhaps it is (only a smidge) the blog's fault.  I want to do my recipes and skip the processed shortcuts, and now I am now required to do that unless I want to waste a bunch of ingredients? So I am getting off the pity party, and going to say how tasty a Hormel Teryaki pork tenderloin with a packaged pear & gorgonzola salad mix and a baguette with butter is.  Truly it wasn't ba...

Well this morning, I thought the temp in the fridge was a little warm.  Thankfully my husband is a restaurant manager and a food safety expert.  A quick temp check showed that the fridge was about 45 degrees.  (DANGER ZONE)  That was the air, the food was still below forty, so we moved the uber perishable foods to the 'beer fridge' in the garage.  I called the appliance repair place my friend recommended.  She is totally the one who would know, so I am thinking my impression is wrong but..., they were so not helpful.  We had already replaced the motherboard on the fridge; my MIL's husband knows all about this kind of thing and has the same fridge.  He recommended switching it out because it fixed his problem and  it is what was the fix for 99% of the problems with the G/E profile artica fridge.  After spending about $200, (half was the motherboard) I didn't have confidence in the repair guy that came out, because of how vague he was,I ha...

I got this recipe from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  I love the way she gives a base recipe and then all the variations on it, but it took some getting used to not having all the ingredients at the beginning of the recipe.  It makes sense really, but it just isn't what I'm used to.  This is one of those amazing meals that you just want to lick your plate.  It is a bit time consuming and requires a bit of planning, but it is not a lot of active  time.  You start with the marinade. It is a spice blend you rub on the meat and let sit in the refrigerator.  I put it on in the morning and leave it until I start cooking dinner, but there was no firm time to leave it on.  Before you start cooking, scrape off as much as you can with a butter knife. Take your time and get it nice and brown before you put it in the oven.  Also, don't be put off by the... aroma of the vinegar reducing.  Its not pleasant and it will burn yo...

Ok so I had no plan (again) as I wandered around the grocery.  For some reason, I decide I want a Philly Cheesesteak.  I get a steak and some rolls.  I briefly looked at a philly recipe and they said freeze and thinly slice before cooking, I wanted to try for medium rare meat. The steak was too thick when I sliced it.  The boy loved it, so did my husband, but it was too thick for me.  Next time I will follow the recipe for a Philly and freeze the meat raw, thinly slice and then cook,  I cooked the steak under the broiler as I usually do and put the meat on rolls with sauted onions and mushrooms, provolone and mayo. Oh and did I mention the meat was TOO DANG THICK!  It really annoyed me.

So at one point I had found a Rick Bayless recipe for a chorizo taco, but I could only find this adaptation.  I think it was pretty plain; I would have liked cilantro and sour cream.  So overall meh. Potato-Chorizo Tacos With Avocado Salsa       2    -3 (about 12 ounces total) medium red skin or smallish Yukon Gold potatoes peeled  and h cubes          (about 2 cups)       1    2-15 ounces Mexican chorizo sausage,store-bought (casing removed if       1    small white onion,finely chopped       4    ounces (2-3 medium) tomatillos,husked, rinsed  and cut into q       1    garlic clove,peeled       2    serranos or 1 jalapeno       1    large rip...

Tonight's dish is another family favorite.  I find this dish amazing for so many reasons.  First of all, I don't care for sasuage; the boys don't care for squash, yet somehow we all like this dish.  It is a perfect example that you should never say never when it comes to ingredients.  Sometimes it will be the quality that has put you off in the past.  (not true here for us becasue it's the same products we have been buying)   Sometimes it will be improper preperation.  (I do credit the recipe here a little but it is still me cooking it so that does keep it fairly consistent)  But most often it is just the recipe.  This one makes all the peices work.  I think I got this dish from the Fine Cooking emails, but I think I also saw it on the food and wine website so...  It is from Scott Conant.  I thought I was going to hate this guy when I saw him o...