Great Expectations

Tonight, I made Sweet Potato Polenta. It was good, but I thought it was going to be better. You see, the other two sweet potato dishes I've made were excellent. This one took a really long time to prepare, and wasn't any better than the soup or gratin. Whatever, it was still tasty, just not what I had built up in my head. Kinda like when I saw Slumdog Millionaire. Good movie, don't get me wrong. Young boy falls in love, dominates on tv by sheer luck, third world happiness. However, people built that movie up in my head until I thought it would be the next Shawshank or Braveheart... it's good, but not that good.

On a seperate note, Matt was SO happy to eat a real meat hamburger! I'm gonna have a hard time switching him back to turkey burgers.

The Silence of the Lambs

I was literally terrified to eat dinner tonight. I made Lamb and Black Bean Chili with an Avocado Relish! Yep, LAMB! First time. So, I was frightened because it called for almost a cup of different types of chiles or chili powders! What the what?! Why is Bobby Flay so crazy? Has he completely destroyed his taste buds and the only way he can enjoy food is to add ridiculous amounts of spice? Matt and I kept dipping a finger in and tasting it as it was cooking, and just freaking out!! I was thinking that I just spent too much money on a meal neither one of us could eat.

As it turns out, it was pretty tasty. Spicy, yes. But, the avocado relish really added a nice cool layer of flavor. Maybe we needed something hot and spicy for the monstrous snow storm we got today!!

Shut it up lambs. I dominated you.

For my gentlemen readers, enjoy my beater shot. Your welcome.

Persuasion

Tonight, I made Grilled Chicken Breasts with Corn & Grilled Pepper Relish. I actually had to start it last night marinading the chicken. And, as this little project of mine is a learning process, I learned what ginger was. I mean, I had heard of ginger and even used ground ginger in a previous Flay recipe, but... did you know that it looks like a stick?? Sure does. So, the chicken marinaded in soy sauce, chopped & peeled ginger, garlic, honey, and lime juice. It was quite tasty. Then, it is topped with the corn relish, which was also delicious. Although, I hate vinegar. You know how some things you like the smell of, but hate the taste of? Like coffee, or gasoline. Well, I hate the smell of vinegar. And the taste. It's just yucky. There was some vinegar in the relish, as you may have guessed by my rant, and I thought the relish tasted pretty good. But, I really had to convince myself to eat it. The fork was shaking a bit as I brought it to my lips. I think it's psychological with me.... I need to start working on it. I've been dodging any recipe with mayonnaise or sour cream. Eventually, I'm going to have to do it!!

The Hours

Tonight's dinner took FOREVER! I made Grilled NY Steak with Red Chile Mustard and Sweet Potato Gratin with Smoked Chiles. The sweet potatoes were to be cooked for one hour, or until the cream had soaked into the potatoes. The key word is - OR. I let them cook for about an hour and a half!! It didn't really help that I didn't get home until after 6pm. Luckily, everything was quite tasty, so it made it worthwhile. Actually, I ate chicken. Did you know you can buy 3 servings of chicken for every one serving of a NY strip steak? It's true. Until my blog picks up advertisements, I just can't afford steak. Also, and more importantly, I prefer chicken. Nine years as a vegetarian... I'm still just not a steak girl. Anyhow, Matt seemed to really enjoy the steak and mustard sauce. I did bring out his A-1, just in case...

Included is another wife beater shot of my husband, for those who check out my blog just for that!

Crime and Punishment

The crime: messing up a Bobby Flay recipe. The punishment: eating it. So, tonight I made a tomato salsa. Easy right? I suppose not. Either I screwed it up somehow, or I just don't like it. Too much chili pepper. I tried to overcompensate with some cilantro. Yikes. Anyway, you see the picture. Ah well, there's always tomorrow night.

The Sun Also Rises

Tonight, I made a delicious summer salad. Conveniently, it was pretty warm out today - a lovely 64 degrees. I prepared a Grilled Shrimp Salad with Fresh Thyme Vinaigrette (still can't spell it without checking first) & Spicy Corn Relish. It was quite tasty and good for us. After the weekend of skiing (if you can call it that), eating, and drinking, we needed something healthy. It didn't take quite as long to prepare as I thought; maybe I'm getting used to this! I did have to roast corn and the red pepper, but I'm a pro at that now. Other than that, it just took dicing, pureeing, and grilling some shrimp!

By the by, I'm using book titles as my blog titles. It offers a new challenge and brings my hobby of reading to my new found hobby of cooking. We'll see how long I can keep it up and how far I have to reach to make it make sense. It'll be a new layer of fun for my fans! (Yes, you're still fans)

Dante's Inferno

I really thought tonight's meal was going to be super spicy! Blazing hot! A raging inferno! I cooked Grilled Pork Chops Adobo with Spicy Apple Chutney. The marinade I prepared yesterday had apprx. five TABLEspoons of different types of chili peppers!! It was crazy! As it turns out, Bobby Flay does know what he's talking about. His flavor combinations are delicious. With the fruity apple chutney, whatever a chutney is, the spiciness of the chop was perfectly matched. And although I was a bit irritated with how long the chutney took to prepare, about 2 hours, the results were tasty. AND, I've figured out a new trick with the Flay cookbook. He never tells you how long something takes to prepare, but on the more difficult, lengthy ones, he writes stuff like, "may be prepared 2 days ahead of time." I guess what he means is, "will take an extremely long time. I'm not Rachel Ray, my junk takes longer than 30 minutes. Don't wait 'til you're hungry!" So true Bobby. So true.

The Best Yet!!

Tonight, I made the best meal I've probably ever made in my whole life!! We loved it! It was a Southwestern Grilled Tuna Salad with Basil-Garlic Vinaigrette. It had grilled tuna steaks in the middle of a salad consisting of fancy lettuce (which is what I call anything that isn't iceberg), grilled new potatoes, avocado, and tomatoes tossed in the newly made vinaigrette. The most AMAZING part of this meal is the fact that I made and enjoyed a salad dressing. I've never met a salad dressing I liked. One time, I was really drunk and hungry and the restaurant put some dressing on my salad and I tolerated it, but this one... delicious! There was one major problem with tonight's dinner. It was one day too late to impress the in-laws. I know they said last night's was great, and I liked it alright, but this one would have knocked 'em out. I'm gonna cook it for them soon! ;) Oh, and the dogs enjoyed licking what little dressing was left on the plate!

Dinner for the Parents-in-law!

They said the liked it!! Of course, I mentioned before that they would never say anything mean to my face. Ha. Tonight I made Roasted Corn soup with chile cream and Larry's Oregano Spoonbread, which is like a cornbread with cheese and herbs. It was pretty good. Honestly not my favorite of all the recipes. To me, the soup was nowhere near as good as the sweet potato soup and it was WAY harder to make. I had to actually roast and de-kernel the corn! It was ridiculous. Anyhow, I had a really good time with my in-laws, as always. Matt's mom even offered to do the dishes.... I told her no, that's Matt's job!

A lovely salsa

I'm a little late posting this one because I had a really busy weekend, but here it is. On Thursday, I made Bobby's Black Bean-Mango Salsa. It was delicious. My friend Dawn described it as, "The best salsa I've ever had!!" Thanks to my lunch bunch for helping me eat it! Oh, and I had a dream that night that I met Bobby Flay and told him that I made his Sweet Potato soup and LOVED it and he said, "Yeah, that's one of my favorites." Funny!
More to come tomorrow as Matt's parents come over to have dinner. This will be the first time I've cooked a meal for them. Luckily, they're the nicest people in the world so even if it sucks, they'd never tell!

Healthy Living

Tonight I went for a healthy meal. To my fans (yes, fans) who say, "Where are the vegetables?" I say, "Here they are!" I made grilled tuna steaks with an avocado vinaigrette (did you know that's how you spell that?) and wild rice with grilled vegetables. I grilled more vegetables than you could possibly imagine! Ok, you probably could, but there were a lot of them. Here's the list: broccoli, red bell pepper, yellow bell pepper, zucchini, squash, and eggplant. I first drizzled them with olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper.
I learned another valuable lesson tonight. Who doesn't love a lesson??? I don't care for eggplant. Was it Seinfeld or a rip off who said, "It's not an egg. You don't plant an egg in the ground?" I might be making that up. Anyhow, it's a weird name and too damn squishy. It tastes like it wants to be meat but can't, so it's decided to be disgusting. I hope that I can avoid the rest of Bobby's eggplant dishes for a little while.

Fried goodness!

____________________Tonight I only made one Bobby dish, but it was delicious. I had to prep this morning before school- now that's dedication. I made Buttermilk Onion Rings and they were super good. I never really new how much freakin' work goes into making onion rings. Soak 'em, dredge 'em, fry 'em. Craziness. The first batch were a little more onion than batter, but I learned how to really make the batter stick and crunch 'em up a bit. So good.
I'm enjoying cooking so many new things, but I'm running into a new problem. So many of the recipes have to marinate overnight. I just don't plan that far ahead. Sigh. I guess I gotta learn to prep early.

Thanks to my new followers! I feel a lot less like a loser. ;) Oh, and I counted the recipes.... 234! Yikes. 11 down-223 to go!

The Most Dangerous Game

Well, I've suffered my first Bobby Flay cooking injury. I cut myself with our new knives, given to us for Christmas by my fabulous in-laws. What's worse is, I cut myself opening a Chili Powder spice container... I wasn't even cooking anything. Lame. I'd like to have a better story, or a deeper cut. Not really. Anyways, tonight's meal was a success I think. I made New Mexico-Style Barbecued Salmon and Southwestern Fries. I usually don't care too much for salmon, too fishy. I like fish that doesn't taste that much like fish. But, Matt loves salmon; I love Matt; he bought me flowers yesterday; I made salmon. It was pretty good. The bbq sauce had about one million different types of super spicy spices, but ended up not being too bad. Ten recipes down... less than 200 to go? I guess I should count them out so my countdown has more meaning.
Shout out to my ONE follower! Thanks Bri! What's taking everyone else so long? I feel like a loser. ;)

Delicious!

My second Flay throwdown was a complete success! I made sweet potato soup with smoked chiles and spicy chicken, eggplant, and red onion quesadillas. With my newly purchases food processor, the pureeing of the necessary ingredients went smoothly, quite smoothly.
The only real hiccup was having to shop at numerous stores because the P-town grocers aren't Flay-friendly. Now, I must tackle the mounds of dishes that cooking like Bobby Flay produces. I wonder if he washes his own dishes.

Ahhhhhh!

I'm frustrated and I haven't even started today's recipe. I had to go to 3 different grocery stores, then I get home and realize I forgot jalepenos! I wanted to quit. F Bobby Flay and his stupid book. Luckily, I'm married to a fantastic man who went to the store for me. he just walked in the door with jalepenos and flowers. What a sweetie.

The first throwdown!

So, I was very excited when the cookbook came in the mail, I wanted to start right away. That's when I realized that Bobby Flay cooks a lot of unique food, and I forgot to purchase duck, quail, and squab at Wal-mart the previous weekend.
But, I regrouped and waited for the weekend so I could hit up the Teeter. On my first night, I made Pan-seared NY steak with Chipotle butter and Twice-baked potatoes with smoked chiles. Overall, I was pretty pleased with the outcome. And, I learned an important lesson - A blender is not a food processor. Making the chipotle butter in a blender is not something I'm going to do again.
I invited some friends over and everyone seemed to really like it. My husband hates spicy food, so he was sweating a bit. He's the one who told me to choose a Bobby Flay book; he better start getting used to the spice! ;)
Three down and about 200 to go.