Pot & Cover

Views from the McRanch, where we were housesitting...it was stormy, but the views are spectacular! We are house sitting for friends...its labor day weekend...family is coming for dinner...and I don't want to cook.  Mikey, Amanda and Logan are coming out to spend the night Sunday nite.  Costco lasagna to the rescue!  Just take off the wrapper and pop in the oven!  I am making fresh garlic bread...but that's not cooking...just assembly.  My hands smell all garlicky...which is a great aroma to go with the baking lasagna.  We'll add a simple romaine salad with our favorite vinaigrette or with Ranch dressing...to each his own.  I only wish that I would have clipped some fresh basil when I was home watering my plants today... I'm looking forward to time with family and no kitchen work...its vacation!  We got yummy Costco cookies too...the combo pack of chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, and macadamia nut white chocolate chip (Scott's fav)  Mikey b...

We cooked dinner for some friends at their house, S&J @ Mc Ranch...our simple ribeye with blue cheese crumbles from last week, garlic bread and caprese salad...finished off with the toffee chocolate cupcakes... so yummy! A few days later we hosted other friends at our house...no pics from that night....but the menu follows. Our freshly made bed in the guest room at the McRanch...Sammy was thinking a chocolate on the pillow and this is the improvisation... I LOVE IT! An old H.S. friend and family came over for dinner recently...I wanted to focus on my guests and not be fussing in the kitchen.  I'm always in a quandry as to what to cook when I want good food that will be pleasing to all, simple to make and keep me from sweating while hosting a dinner party.  After scouring my cookbooks and old ideas, I went with the simple chix & rice with a side salad...I just pumped up the volume a little.  I started with rice pilaf...an old armenian recipe from a school...

3 small avocados 3/4 tsp salt 2 tsp franks hot sauce 2 tsp sour cream 1 and 1/2 roasted hatch chiles dices 1/2 lime I found a recipe online for chile guacamole, which I haven't made, but sounds very good...These are not my notes, but the person who posted this: "I made half a batch of this for New Year's Eve and it is delicious! My Hatch peppers were fairly spicy so this has a bite. Use less fajita seasoning than it calls for as it is too salty to use the full amount. I used about 5 large garlic cloves for half a batch and at least 1/4 cup cilantro, I just added it to taste. Green Chile Guacamole 2 - 8 oz. blocks cream cheese 1 large garlic pod handful of cilantro leaves 1 or more pounds hatch chiles- roasted. 2 tablespoons or more to taste fajita seasoning.(use less, too salty) Take most of char off chile peppers , remove seeds and stem. put all ingredients in a food processor and process until it looks, or resembles guacamole( couple minutes). Serve w...

Capellini & Meatballs...with bits of Ribeye, sauteed onion and mushroom! No recipe here, or picture...but it was yummy!  A 'make it happen' kind of meal... so good.8.24.09 Chix Parm ala Scott...no recipe here, cause apparantly I was too lazy...but I think Scott used Tyler Florences breading recipe on the chix....it was yummy!...Might have used a bit of the left over pasta sauce from the speg and meatballs day before. the breaded chix...with fresh herbs, basil & rosemary too! buttery garlic bread ready to go in the oven topped with melting mozzarella cheese! Good job honey!  oh, yah, we also had fresh sliced tomatos dressed with our favorite homemade balsamic vinegrette

Grilled ribeye, topped with crumbled blue cheese which was like a sauce all melting on the steak.  Steak seasoned with s,p and garlic powder and rubbed with olive oil.  Served with a simple baked potato with sourcream and cheese. We'd been making all kinds of great food lately, but this simple steak and potato with about 4 ingredients was the best meal of the week! We finished with a chocolate cake, topped with chocolate chip studded cream cheese frosting and topped with toffee almond crumbs.  It was amazing!  Just a box mix, with my favorite cream cheese frosting with just some chopped choc chips stirred in...then my toffee crumbs from the freezer.  WOW!  I made this into cupcakes later.  A definate victory!

Its Hatch chile season and we got 10 lbs of fresh roasted today at Market Street. We didn't plan on peeling and seeding all of them, but once we got started, it was like a snowball down a hill. After an hour plus of almost choking a few times on the chile fumes, and having a few sharp tingles on my hands for a while, we now have over 6 lbs of chiles in the freezer. Ready for chile verde, Marriage chili, pots of beans and who knows what else?! Surprised that 4 lbs of the chiles were seeds and skin. I feel like I have a freezer full of POWER! Scott also bought a 4 pak of ribeyes that were on sale $3.99 per lb! So we freezed those per Alton Brown's storage instructions...1.air dry in fridge on a rack to remove surface moisture..check. 2. wrap in double layer of saran wrap...check. 3. double wrap tightly in foil...check 4. store in a labeled zip lock...check! I'm begining to realize I might need a deep freeze in the garage.

Scott wanted to get the delicious shrimp at Costco, so we made the sauce from the Scalloppini di pollo recipe, and added shrimp instead of chix.  It was very good.  Very rich tho...I could only eat a little.  I think I like this recipe better with chicken.  The basic recipe is on the post when we previously made the di pollo. shrimp and the spiced flour to dust them in crisping the bacon in the new huge pan from Costco...love Costco! only 29.99! the sauteed mushroom, artichoke and rendered bacon...which just makes me smile:) the lemon, butter sauce....it had seperated a bit...but tasted great...last time I buzzed it in the blender to reblend.

We enjoyed our favorite "take out", bake at home wings last nite...from our favorite local grocery store, Market Street, who by the way also does a mean breakfast...brisket...enuf said. Anyway, tonight we are (Scott is) cooking blackened ribeye sandwiches (ribeye was on special at Market Street) on toasted onion rolls, with sauteed onions and mushrooms (which I've already sampled and got in trouble by the Chef for sampling too much, I got my hand smacked!) He made herb mayo, with fresh basil, rosemary, lemon thyme (which he once labeled on a ziplock as Lemon Lhyme by accident..LOVE IT!) I just got to sample a little of that too...yummy! The grill is preheating with the cast iron skillet on it, for the blackened steak...we learned to not make this inside the house the hard way. There are fresh 'maters, as my daddy would say and oven roasted french fries. I have a smirk on my face as I type this, thinking of the meal that I get to eat soon! We like to cook with a...