Chicken Kiev: Attempt 3

So this time I didn't pick up chicken breasts still attached to chest cavities, but the thin slices were far too thin to actually work with. Only one stip actually held the bundle of onion, garlic and parsley. The rest were open on one end or the other, causing all the butter to spill out before they were done baking.

I started preparing these the day before (at the same time as the lasagna), so being able to come home and not really have to do any work offset the frustration of it not turning out as well as the first attempt.

Blueberry Buckle (and Lasagna)

I had been eyeing the Raspberry Buckle recipe in the cookbook for a few weeks before I made this. There were two weeks of trips to the supermarket where I couldn't find frozen berries at all or fresh berries I wanted to use. Then I gave up and decided to make Blueberry Buckle with fresh blueberries. After they had been baked, the blueberries tasted so much better. Unlike the nun's puffs, I'd make the Blueberry Buckle again.

My mom makes a really good lasagna. It's one of the few things she makes that I really like. I don't have her recipe, though. I feel like it's something like (with resentment), "Pour the jar of spaghetti sauce in the bottom of the pan, don't cook the noodles, layer on some ground beef, some cottage cheese, some more spaghetti sauce, repeat." I decided to try the Better Homes & Gardens recipe. There was a Contadina recipe on the back of the crushed tomatoes label, but I stuck with the BHG route.

The first difference I noticed was that my lasagna was not very tall. It just doesn't looked like lasagna when it's kind of slumping over that way. The sauce BHG calls for has an entire onion in it. And lots of tomatoes. And a little meat. But mainly you end up eating an onion layered with noodles and lots of Italian spices. I thought it was okay. Not lasagna, but good enough for dinner. We'll have to find a new recipe next time.

Heineken

I gave Heineken its own search label a long time ago because it plays such a key role in the menu at our house, but this would be Heineken's first solo entry: LV's going away party. It's kind of sad that Heineken is being overshadowed by Stella, the real LV choice of drink, in Heineken's first solo appearance.

(There are some takeout nachos in the background courtesy Wackjob, but food is never a key ingredient in getting people to participate in karaoke.)

Oven-Fried Pork Chops

I bought pork with no idea of how it was going to be cooked. Flipping through the cookbook, I found a recipe that called for breading and not much else. Perfect.

LV got very excited when he saw the breading come out. If only we could get the Little One that excited about vegetables. Even just carrots.

Steak (sort of)

I don't remember what recipe these were purchased for, but come Monday night I only felt like broiling them. Done. Some more mashed potatoes on the side (because I hadn't really ventured into the vegetables section of my cookbook yet) and it's a LV-friendly meal. Though really any meal is LV-friendly.

Wings and Crab Cakes

Wings for the second half became a staple of Bears games. At this point, winning was still a staple for Bears games, too.

I was completely in love with the shredder after making these little guys. The difference might have also been better crab, but using a shredder to flake the meat made for a much better consistency in the paste. Or dough. Whatever you want to call. They were so much better.

The Little One loves crab. Trying it prepared in some other way than sushi-quality sticks seemed like it might be a problem, though. "Cake" conjured a picture of frosting and candles. She was not prepared for a dumpling with finely shredded crab. But she was a good sport and actually finished one.

Chicken Kiev: Attempt 2

I can't imagine what it will be like to shop with multiple children in tow... Keeping an eye on the whereabouts of an active 6-year-old is the only way I can explain not really comprehending what a label says when I buy what's obviously the wrong the thing. Though, I'm not sure "6 per water retainer" would ever mean to me that the chicken breasts I'm about to purchase are still attached to the chest cavity of the chicken from which they came.

I've never been taught to clean a chicken, and at 8:30 at night I hardly have the desire to even pound the thing into shape as the recipe instructs. Instead of trying to remove the chicken from the bone, I decided to just start cooking them in a skillet and then finish baking them in the oven the way I would if they were the little bundles of chicken and butter they were supposed to be.

I apparently didn't cook them look enough because LV's looked raw about halfway in.

Modified Chicken Kiev = No Good

Cranberry-Orange Biscuits, Chicken-Fried Steak, some unpictured wings, and a sundae

Sunday was a busy day.

BREAKFAST



The new grater was put to good use with all the oranges that needed to be shredded for this recipe. Any dried fruit would have worked, so I picked cherry-flavored dried cranberries. Scrappy decided these were just raisins. "They feel like raisins, but they taste like cherries," I told her.

"No," she said. "They taste like raisins."

But she continued to help make them and ate two biscuits when they were ready.

LUNCH



The Bears play-off game started at 1 p.m. EST. This called for wings. We thought they might be too hot for Scrappy, so she was eating orange slices. "This one has a seed," she said before continuing to eat. Then she stopped. Looked at the seed she had put on her napkin and yelled, "It's my tooth!"

The stuff all over her hands in the photo is sauce from the wings. She decided to give them a try after checking out the hole her first baby tooth had left behind.

DINNER



I'd never had Chicken-Fried Steak before in my life, so I had no idea what it was supposed to taste like and very little idea what it should look like. I've decided creamy sauces are fun to make, but I just can't eat them.

This is a photo of Scrappy's plate. The only part she had a problem with was the mashed potatoes. Crazy. She likes corn, which I don't think counts as a real vegetable, but she got distracted trying to put kernels in the hole where a tooth should be.

DESSERT

While waiting for the Tooth Fairy to show up, LV decided he needed a snack. I offered up vanilla ice cream topped with Oatmeal Scothies and Butterscotch sauce. There wasn't much ice cream left. It would have been a very sad looking sundae in print. But it was tasty.

Bolognese Sauce

I thought I could trick the little one into eating vegetables if they were mixed in with a sauce. No such luck. She ate all the pasta, leaving behind all the sauce.

The new issue of O had just shown up with an article proclaiming Bolognese the most seductive of sauces. I stuck with the Better Homes & Gardens recipe. There's nothing seductive about telling a six-year-old she needs to eat two scoops of the sauce before she can leave the table.

Pasta with Shrimp and Asparagus

I thought this was a good use of the frozen shrimp we had left over from the birthday party. I think the recipe called for four pounds of tomatoes. That was about two more than were going to fit in the skillet. The sauce turned out just fine with fewer tomatoes.

Attack of the Casserole Dishes!

I decided Sunday was a perfect opportunity to spend hours chopping vegetables for two recipes that could be eaten much later in the week: Tex-Mex Chicken & Rice and Chicken Pot Pie.

The Tex-Mex Chicken & Rice looked really gelatinous and green compared to the photo in the cook book. Then I noticed the photo had a wooden spoon. But this did not improve matters tremendously. I moved on. (Three nights later, Scrappy actually ate some. So, that has to be a success. And eating the week-old leftovers four days after that didn't make me want to gag either. Stirring it up made it look fluffy and not gelatinous at all.)

The Chicken Pot Pie smelled so good I decided it needed be eaten immediately. I didn't measure the homemade pastry covering before I cut it, so I had a lot of leftover pastry that promptly went into the toaster over. I thought it was odd the the recipe only called for a pastry cover--no bottom or sides--but it turned out to be so much better than any frozen version I've had before. LV raves, "Homemade chicken pot pie: F*cking insane."

Spicy Pecan Pork Sandwiches and the Return of Oatmeal Scotchies

The stack looks good, right? You can't tell from this angle how there isn't enough oatmeal in the cookies because you're busy wondering if the cup is really shaped that way or why there isn't more milk in the glass.



Scrappy refused to give the lettuce and tomato a try, but she ate pork breaded in toasted pecans, dijon mustard and cayenne pepper, so I figured that was enough of a win. Then again, it's fried breaded pork. How much convincing did she need to eat that?

LV was most excited about the amount of pork. The new level of preparation for fried food was something to rave about, but really he's just excited to have pork nuggets to snack on during tomorrow's games.

Pepper-Lime Chicken

The kitchen smelled so good when this started broiling. The combination of lime juice steaming and thyme... I've decided I really do need a grater because this is the third recipe calling for shredded citrus peel. I had to resort to using a peeler, and then chopping the peel.



I decided not to include the Heineken bottle in this shot even though it went with the green theme. The broiler on the oven would have put the chicken too close to the flame, so I used the toaster oven's broiler. This increased the cooking time immensely, leaving my empty stomach full of Heineken--not the best conditions for shooting Heineken labels clearly.

Last Minute New Year's Eve

I had planned to make bruschetta for a birthday party on the 16th, but ran out of time. All the tomatoes and cilantro were still sitting in my refrigerator, so I decided to go for it, buy another loaf of bread, and whip up some bruschetta.


Every piece pictured here ended up in the trash... Between all the food in-laws brought and the little one leaning over them too much on the coffee table, no one ate any. Sad.


A picture of Champagne in the flutes we bought just for the occassion was supposed to go here, but I was using the point-and-shoot, so the glasses are blurred and the Champagne looks spectacularly flat.