Veal with Lemon-Capers Sauce

I cheated on Valentine's Day... I've been faithfully pulling recipes from the Better Homes & Gardens cookbook since January, but I thought Valentine's Day called for something more dramatic. So, I went to Epicurious, where they were promoting Jamie Oliver's Valentine's Day recipe for anchovy-something-or-other or a less scary-sounding recipe for two. I skipped the soccer mom cookbook and the anchovy delight, and went for veal with potatoes.

LV hung out in the kitchen and helped me make dinner, which normally doesn't happen because I feel I can't have a blog if I don't do all the work. But this was better. We were listening to the Billy Joel box set, and probably should have changed it before we sat down to eat. His poppy synthesizer hits don't mesh well with candlelight.

Oh, yeah, and there's a total lack of a centerpiece. It looks like a cat food dish in the middle of the table... LV sent me flowers, I sent him flowers, we didn't need more flowers for the table. Doh. The bowls are from the bread and dipping sauce we were munching on while making dinner.

Leftover Salad

We've had a lot of leftovers in our fridge for the past couple weeks. Leftover casseroles, lasagna, wings, cheesecake, coffeecake,... So I decided to take what I could and use up as much as possible in one dinner. LV had leftover steak (I guess didn't document that from earlier this week) with wings and mashed potatoes. Then I took the spinach I bought for beef sandwiches that we never made and threw the pork with melon-tomato relish and blueberries on top. My salad was prettier, so it gets the photo.

Pork with Melon-Tomato Relish

In the middle of a cold snap, I decided it was time to make a summertime grill recipe... If I make this again when cantalope and honeydew melon are actually in season, it will probably taste much better. It was mainly the watermelon that sketched me out. I got one of those plastic containers from the store that has chunks of random melon in it. Like funny-smelly watermelon. But I'd just read an article about rinsing meat, so I figured rinsing fruit to get rid of sketchy-watermelon-smell couldn't be nearly as riksy as rinsing rancid meat.

Oh. That's the left-over insides of the potato skins making a comeback as mashed potatoes behind the porkchop. They weren't very mashed. I'm used to the mashed potatoes out of a box.

Super Bowl Sunday

We decided to have a Super Bowl party. That amounted to four people coming over. But that's more of a party than any other Sunday, so I started looking around for what to make. Wings, of course, and Potato Skins. This is a picture of the skins before they went into the refridgerator. I didn't take any pictures when the came out of the oven (cheese was added, sour cream on the side) or of the wings at all because I was more caught up in getting food out on the table. And people might think I'm really bizarre for taking pictures of the food they're about to eat.

At the last minute I realized we had no sort of desert. Everything was salty bar food. To try to get Scrappy more involved, I pitched a couple different chocolate cookie recipes to her. As we were rolling all the dough into little balls, she asked where the chocolate chips were. The "like Oreos" concept apparently hadn't been a clear enough description.

These cookies have gotten so much better over the course of a week. They came out of the oven a little dry, but with all the frosting sandwiched in between (half were vanilla-filled, half were chocolate) they've become more moist. Mmm...

Eww... Breakfast for Dinner

Hash browns always sound good to me. When I saw the recipe for hash browns (not home fries or the green pepper-potato-onion-mush some diners serve), I ran out and bought a bag of potatoes.

I've never peeled potatoes before. I patiently peeled all the potatoes after scrubbing them. Then patiently shredded far too many potatoes because I was being diligent to the recipe. Then I got tired; Breakfast for Dinner is supposed to be quick and happy. I decided the potato shreds did not need to be rinsed.

First the potatoes turned a rust color. Then they turned gray.

It looks like a photo of a giant sausage patty or something encrusted with pecans. There is sausage in the picture, but mainly you're looking at the hasbrowns. They were so gross. Much as LV told me they would be fine--there are dirty potato chips that aren't washed at all--he wasn't about to finish the leftovers. If I hadn't started drinking Heineken while peeling potatoes, I probably wouldn't have been able to eat more than a few forkfulls.

Fewer potatoes, more rinsing next time.

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.

"Little Strips of Goodness"

I forgot to post these...



LV says they're just like Planet Hollywood's Chicken Crunch. Except with Ritz crackers. "And that's easily the best thing on that menu."

There were far too many chicken strips here that the recipe for oven-fried chicken tenders called for. I ran out of the mixture of paprika, thyme, low-sodium Ritz crackers (so gross compared to the real thing), etc. so that's why some of the chicken looks pale in the photo. They were good. But "oven-fried" doesn't really describe them.

Peanut Butter Bacon Sandwiches

This was supposed to be a testimonial to how great my meatloaf was the night before, but wouldn't you rather eat peanut butter and bacon on white bread after seeing this?

Nun's Puffs

The picture of these in the cookbook looked so tasty. Raspberries scattered around, honey dripping, a croissant-like texture... I couldn't wait to make them.

There are four eggs and not much else in this recipe. If you don't put honey on them, they kind taste like an egg. Croissants don't taste like eggs. I was kind of disappointed.

Meatloaf

I was thinking of titling this post "mmmmMeatloaf," but I really wasn't that crazy about it. I think I'm programmed to want my meatloaf with just ground beef and on the dry side. Like it's not done right until it NEEDS ketchup on it.

As a way to use up the left over ground veal and ground beef from an earlier (and successful though not photographed) attempt at Swedish meatballs, I decided to make some meatloaf. I think the veal helped it taste juicy, and I was repulsed. Scrappy and LV, however, dogged it.

All I have to show are the three leftover slices...

Game Day

I started out the football season with lots of chips and deli meat. Then I got a cookbook. I not only made buffalo wings, I also made the bleu cheese dip with real crumbled bleu cheese. The beer, however, I'll leave up to Heineken.

The Birthday Party

Who knew 6-year-olds could have such fun finger food at their birthday parties? I'm sure no one was expecting this menu when I decided to cook.



Crab dip served in phyllo shells





Buffalo Wings (well done by the third batch because of all the grease on fire in the broiler)



Shrimp and limes on skewers (which really functioned as more of centerpiece) all dried out at the end of the party

Chicken Kiev

Who knows why I didn't take a picture of the chicken kiev when it first came out of the oven... I had beat those little chickens to the thin rectangles they were supposed to be, and then folded the butter and onions and garlic and everything else tasty inside better than I thought I would. Ugh... All I have is this lame video of the leftovers I made when I got tired of filming LV playing his new PSP game. You can't even see how well I breaded those suckers! I'm just going to have to make them again.

Steak: Attempt 2

I found this when I was looking for more food pictures. It's not really about how overdone the pepper steak was as much as how we still have a dishwasher sitting in the middle of the kitchen. You have to see the video that came before it to understand better how the kitchen is set up.





Translation: "This is what Juan has done to my steak. It's overdone because his plumber [he sent over at 8:30 at night] couldn't do anything for us because he's not an electrician and a fucking carpenter [on top of being a plumber]. [[Shot of cabinet that needs to be removed]] Not an old dishwasher. Not an old dishwasher that needs to be replaced [as Juan lead the plumber to believe would be there]!"

Sugar Cookies

We bought a ton of new cookie cutters, two packages of the Pilsbury Dough mix, and went to town making sugar cookies. None of the pictures or videos were that exciting, so here are some thumbnails:

Gingerbread Men (and Women and Bears)

The gingerbread men in the Woman's Day Christmas cookie tear-out looked really good, so I decided to go ahead and spend 8 hours mixing, rolling, refrigerating, rolling, freezing, cutting, baking, and decorating some. (some = about 5 dozen)




This must be somewhere near the end of the process because my face is red and I have a toothpick ready for testing.




The important thing here is to note the dining room table in the background. No more folding-chairs-turned-into-tables for Scrappy.

Pumpkin Seeds

My grandma used to put the pumpkin seeds in the oven and toast them when we were done carving jack-o'-lanterns. I always thought they were super tasty and decided to give it a try. I'm not sure if it was a bad guess at what temperature and for how long to toast the seeds or the Mrs. Dash that really made these awful. So gross. But I like the pre-oven picture.

More Cookies

I'm guessing these were chocolate chip cookies. More Toll House...

Strawberry Cookies

"What kind of cookies should we make?"

"Strawberry."

I'd never heard of strawberry cookies. Were they pink cookies? Did they just have pink frosting? Were they just in the shape of a strawberry? Rather than go to the Internet and hear what everyone else thought a strawberry cookie was, I started asking myself what the Little One might have found lacking in previous batches of cookies. Were they dry? Did she not get to use the rolling pin enough? The answer, I decided, was to buy premade sugar cookie dough and a jar of strawberry jam. Voila. Strawberry cookies.

No stores in our neighborhood had the cans of Pilsbury dough, so we bought the Duncan Hines sugar cookie mix. This worked out better for incorporating the rolling pin. One cookie in the shape of a Superman glass, add some jam, top with another cookie in the shape of a Superman glass minus a heart or star cut-out. Bake. Strawberry cookies (that are not so easy to layer in a narrow Tupperware container).

Toll House Recipe

Chocolate chip cookies with chopped pecans. What they lack in adventure, they make up for in taste.