Cereal and Chicken

While it might sound like the makings of World Famous Chicken Crunch, I've been taking an ungodly number of pictures the past two weeks for a photo class. This is just LV pouring some cereal... I like the slow shutter speed on it.

This is Chicken Marsala in front of the TV. I don't like how the bounce flash makes food look so unappetizing, but I liked the effect it had here--some eery lighting to underscore the notion that I spent all that time preparing fresh mushrooms and pounding chicken to the right thickness only to plop down in front of the TV with it.

You can't really tell at this size, but there's a shallow depth of field b/c the flash isn't connected to the camera. The Sony bounce flash isn't compatible with the Canon Rebel, so I had to release the shutter and hit "test" at just the time without shaking the camera. Nice, huh? I bought a compatible Speedlite the next day.

Crazy Sauce

Many weeks ago I made stir-fry... On the train ride home I realized that these were going to be some pretty bland cuts of beef if I didn't think of something quick to put on them. I decided equal parts soy sauce and BBQ sauce plus cornstarch and something else (LV was mixing it all up based on what looked like a good amount) might be tasty. It wasn't so bad.

Pork (I think)

I've been on hiatus, so I barely remember what this is. Based on the way the green beans are mixed with the rice, I'm going to guess this was a day that LV cooked. I could just check a calendar to see what day the 27th was, but that would be too easy.

Strawberries

Saturday morning I opened the fruit drawer to discover strawberries and pears that I had apparently forgotten about approximatedly five minutes after purchasing. The quart of strawberries worried me. They looked okay, but they were sure to go bad first.

There were still filo shells in the freezer from Scrappy's birthday. Some powdered sugar in the shell, some decorative sugar on top. Mmm...

Tuna Melt

I didn't take a picture of the food, but I've decided Flight 151 has the best tuna melt ever. After waiting outside Cafeteria and aiding Michelle Rodriguez in her quest to not litter, we headed for the far less crowded Flight 151 where they encourage you to draw on the tables. This is LV drawing Batman. I thought it would be more appropriate to use the shot where I stuck my Guinness in the frame, but the Guinness just wasn't that good. Unlike my tuna melt.

"Crab Mush" and Steak

LV was on his own for making dinner again. This time, though, he didn't venture into anything too precarious. White rice, frozen carrots, frozen broccoli. For the little one, he mixed in the leftover crab. For himself, he made steak. The steak was good. The crab wasn't so agreeable...

Mini Twice-Baked Potatoes and Wings

Perhaps because it's a big plate of brown and slightly burnt morsels this just doesn't look as good as it tasted. Or maybe it's because I forgot to add the bacon bits or cheese to the mini potatoes. They really did taste better than they look.

1-2-3 Dinner

I'm trying to get my photo portfolio together, which also means I'm trying to organize the home office so I can find all my CDs and have a place to put everything I print. All of this means that I spent my St. Patrick's Day afternoon running around the crowded and under-stocked Atlantic Center Target with LV and the little one in tow. By the time I gave up, went to Office Max, and then went to Party Central for cheap St. Patrick's day hats, it was really late.

Originally, I had joked that we could get Scrappy to eat vegetables on St. Patrick's Day by telling her she had to eat green food for good luck. Like the Irish love broccoli or something. By the time we got back from shopping, though, I was ready to just throw a frozen pizza in the oven and call it a day. Then I decided to run over to the grocery store.

Frozen country fried chicken, frozen peas and carrots, and mashed potatoes out of the box. About as easy as waiting 15 minutes for the pizza.

When I began scooping peas and carrots onto plates, Scrappy immediately protested that those were not carrots. Her dad reminded her that carrots aren't green, so she had to eat peas, too. That morning, they had bought cupcakes for St. Patrick's Day. To add to her dad's speech about vegetables, I told her that she wasn't getting a cupcake if she didn't eat the vegetables.

"I didn't want one anyway."

"So, you're not going to eat your dinner?" I ask. "Because I'm not going to bother giving it to you if you're not going to eat it."

Scrappy wanted the chicken. She didn't say she only wanted the chicken. She said she wanted dinner. She swore she was going to eat it.

Sunday afternoon found Scrappy staring down the vegetables and mashed potatoes she ended up refusing to eat the night before and LV asking if we could make more green margaritas.

LV Cooks

The full adventure in crab cakes is available here on LV's blog. For now, this is the picture he took...

Italian Wedding Pasta

LV proclaimed this the best dish he'd ever eaten... that contained spinach.

The making of the dish was rather traumatic. The recipe says to make the meatballs, then start the pasta while the meatballs are baking in the oven. By the time they come out, the cream sauce on the pasta is done, and everything is ready to be mixed together at one time. That's what the recipe says. The recipe also says the prep time is 30 minutes. That means I would have 10 minutes to chop up all the ingredients and roll out at least 36 meatballs. The recipe is a little off.

Making pancakes is not my only problem with the new stove's range. Water doesn't boil. I started the water as soon as the meatballs went into the oven. The meatballs came out and went back in for two more minutes. When they came out a second time, the water still wasn't boiling. It was 8:30 and everything still needed to be baked all together for 20 minutes. I ended up throwing an oven mit across the kitchen in a "Why won't the water boil" tantrum.

In the end, the dish looked and tasted good. When I said it's too bad we don't bring lunches to work, LV said he would bring the wedding pasta. He really did like it that much.

Ice Cream

I don't know if it can really count as something I made, but, considering this comes from the same day as frozen pizza, the caramel and chocolate sauces have to count as work. Too bad I didn't push all the cords out of the way on the countertop...

Pancakes and Pizza

I started making pancakes when I was in junior high. Then I started making crepes. I have no idea now I used to make my crepes, but I was really good at it. Pancakes have never been a problem for me. Then I met my new stove.

The stove at my last apartment was only turned on once. The stove at LV's place was magical by comparison. I found a photo of it today when I was cleaning off the old computer's hard drive, and it clearly says "precision simmer" next to the burner switches. There's nothing precise about the new stove.

Until today, pancakes at the new place have all been burned on one side, under-cooked on the other. My pancakes do not fair well against the inability to control the flame and an eager six-year-old. Today, when she told me she could spell pbskids.org, I sent her to go play on the computer; the pancakes needed more time on this range than she was going to allow them.

Today's batch was more picture-ready than they have been since we moved here, but I felt like the outside was a little tough. That's not adjective I want to use to describe my breakfast...

For dinner, I forgot to defrost anything, so frozen pizza it was. But I hate just sticking a pizza in the oven without adding anything to it--a seasoning--anything. Today, by request, I added bacon bits. My only complaint is "Did I have to pick the least pretty corner to shoot?" But it's okay. Bacon makes everything better.

Broiled Pork Chops

I'm not sure who was happier: Me upon seeing LV getting dinner started or LV upon seeing me with a big bag of comic books for him.

When I walked in the door, he had already started the rice and was getting ready to figure out how I usually make the pork. Rather than run off to organize his new comics, he and the Little One watched me prepare the rest of dinner. She was actually more opposed to me seasoning the pork than she was to me preparing broccoli.

LV hates broccoli. He asked in a hopeful tone, "Are you going to season it with whatever that was you used last time to make it tasty?"

"Salt?"

"No, it was different."

"Garlic salt?"

No broccoli actually made it onto the Little One's plate. I thought that would save us from a battle over vegetables. I thought wrong.

She cut all the carrots in half, which did not increase the amount of carrots on her plate, but it looked like there were too many. Too many carrots then meant she didn't finish her dinner in time to play a boardgame with us. One of these days she'll learn...

Chicken Parm (sort of)

We had a lot of breaded chicken leftover from earlier in the week, so it became Chicken Parmigiana. Sort of. Scrappy and LV aren't cheese fans, so they had spaghetti topped with chicken and tomato sauce. I had the same, but threw a bunch of shredded mozzarella cheese on top. It looks pretty gross melted in the picture. I think, not only did I not really feel like cooking, but I also didn't feel like getting a good shot of this dinner...

Steak Sandwiches

The recipe called for flat breads, and then everything was supposed to be cut like finger food. I was perfectly happy to eat this on a big roll (even if I did have to layer the pieces of sirloin in order to make it feel more like a sandwich). Vidalia onions sauteed with brown mustard, marinated red peppers... These were so much better than chicken rolled in Ritz crackers.

"Little Strips of Goodness" Pt 2

This time I knew what I was I getting into, so there was enough seasoned breading for all the chicken, unlike last time. Unfortunately, I didn't think to take the foil from the cooking trays and use it to stuff the bowl for the photo. As soon as I poured the dressing into the bowl to be a dip, I realized how empty that was going to look in the photo. So I stuck some Happy Juice in the background to distract you. Maybe I should make "empty bowl" an index search term...

Pasta with Leftovers

I was swamped this weekend, so I didn't leave the computer. LV took over making dinner for the night. I thought the fact that Scrappy was sitting down to a plate of carrots merited a photo alone. She had fresh pasta with leftover oven-fried pork while LV had fresh pasta with leftover meatloaf. And lots of carrots all around.