The Search for a Perfect Sunday

After a very long sabbatical (don't be mad, remember that absence is to love as wind is to flame), this week I return with good ole meat and potatoes.

The meat is my Mom's Barbecued Cube Steak.  You can't actually buy cube steak at Valley grocery stores, or at least it's very hard to find amidst the abundance of fajita meat.  The important thing is that you get round steak that has been "tenderized," whatever that means (it means beat-up).  And make sure when you brown it at first, you just brown it lightly.  Mine was a little tough because I overcooked it on the first pass.

As for potatoes, Alton Brown's garlic mash was super good (even if you have to mash 'em by hand because you live in the Stone Age without an electric mixer, like this moi).  That being said, mashed potatoes are just not sexy.  So you can spice them up with these suggestions.  I bought goat cheese (my fave) and horseradish to try on mine this week. 

All in all (with the addition to these space mitts to my kitchen), it was a perfect Sunday.  Started off with some Deadwood, then spent a little quality time with my Kindle at Olivier's French Bakery on Pecan, went to see Tinker Tailor, grocery-shopped on North 10th, and back home for cooking.  Finally, fueled by the greatest of all Irish meals, I will run 5 miles.  Hope your Sunday's as good as mine.

Wedding Pie

Happy Sunday.  Happy Thanksgiving week.  Happy birthday Scorpios.  But most importantly of all, HAPPY HAPPY WEDDING DAY TO MY DEAREST FRIENDS AIDIN AND J.C.

As you can probably guess, I made three wedding pies for Aidin and JC's nuptials this evening.  Trying to honor fall tradition and find pies that fit a wedding is very difficult, but of course, I prevailed.  The first was a chocolate cream pie (my mother's secret recipe that involves very intricate chocolate science), next came a pecan pie (I wanted to try dark chocolate pecan pie, it sounds amazing but you can't have chocolate cream AND chocolate pecan at one wedding), and finally, sour cream apple pie (in my opinion, the best incarnation of good ole apple pie). 

I absolutely loved being a part of Aidin and J.C.'s special day.  Their wedding was exactly what it should be: friends and family gathered to celebrate an amazing relationship.  I couldn't be happier or more excited for them.  They were meant for each other, and I have no doubt that they'll have a beautiful life together.

True love (and pie) conquers all.











P.S. Saw Twilight this weekend.  Horrifying.  Bought the soundtrack.  Not proud of myself.

Winning

So, I had A LOT of grading to do last night and couldn't cook.  So sorry, but progress reports take precedence over... pretty much everything, eating included.  But TODAY, I made one of my usual favorites, Balsamic Chicken.  It's a great staple and tastes good with pretty much everything I can make.  And who doesn't like balsamic vinegar?  Makes everything better.  It's like fancy delicious ketchup.  I'm shaking my head as I re-read that comparison, but I'm going to stand by it. 

The reason I chose my fancy delicious chicken was because it's a perfect compliment to my VERY HEAVENLY RISOTTO!  A friend once told me that I overuse capital letters, but I DON'T THINK THAT'S TRUE ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT SOMETHING SO BUTTERY, CHEESY, AMAZING.  I can honestly say that this was the first weekly meal that I felt confident making, and even strayed a little from the recipe.  I used chicken stock because I couldn't find bouillon at WalMart (quelle surprise), and in so doing successfully left the nest of bad cooking.  No burns, no cuts, no forgotten ingredients, nothing left cooking too long.  Absolute data-perfect success.

So I'm sorry if you opened the blog to hear about another sad misadventure, because today I am winning.

Pet Peeves

You know what my biggest pet peeve is?  The fact that Christmas starts the day after Halloween.  We skip right over Thanksgiving, my birthday, and Scorpi-season in favor of awful music and shopping advertisements that are more of the same year after year.  So I'm not going to say 'tis the season for chili, even though it is.

The Valley had wonderful fresh weather this weekend, and my classroom has been a little calmer, which tells me that it is finally November.  To celebrate the arrival of my favorite month, tonight I made turkey chili but did not make corn bread.  The chili was delicious, so spicy and turkey is apparently very good for you.  The corn bread burned itself and my hand in the oven so it had to be thrown out.  Thank goodness I predicted that a tragedy such as this would strike, and bought back-up tortillas at the store today. 

Lucky girl that I am, I also have ALL of the beef stroganoff I made last week.  I stayed at school so late on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday that I got a free meal out of it!  Go me.  This week, I have planned many evening activities to get myself out of the classroom early enough to enjoy a decent dinner.  Happy fall, everyone.

The Almost-Fire

Inspired by a trip to City Cafe, a wonderful little restaurant in McAllen, today I made beef stroganoff for dinner and corn casserole for a little dinner party.  As always, my cooking adventures were fraught with mishaps.  I forgot to drain the corn for the casserole, so it was too runny.  The stroganoff involved using flour as a thickening agent, which I am incapable of doing at all ever under any circumstances.  But, I cooked beef for the first time (raw meat is guh-ross) AND the casserole was a hit.

The dinner party also featured a very delicious pumpkin pie from my friend Janet, a pumpkin pie that almost burned the house down.  She and I went on a run with our other friend Lia and COMPLETELY forgot the pie in the oven.  We had to run back to the house to get the pie out and then went on our regularly-scheduled run after that brief "warm-up."  We ran four miles in all (almost died) but the pie was great and basically calorie-free.  Lia also burned her oatmeal this morning, so it seems I'm not the only one who struggles in the kitchen.  You see what I'm up against now? You see what I'm surrounded by?

My mom gave me some great advice this morning that you can't do things with happiness as your goal, you just do the best you can and happiness will find you.   Cooking trouble aside, I feel incredibly blessed to have such excellent friends to share a meal with on a lazy Sunday.

Did You Know They Sell Frozen PB&J?!

So there I was, standing in my kitchen and eating my 2nd plain tortilla of the day, when I thought to myself, "There has got to be a better vehicle for consuming all these tortillas."  Then it came to me.  Chicken enchiladas.  This recipe has been, honest to goodness, the EASIEST recipe I have made so far.  I used chicken that I cooked and froze last week, and bought pre-made flour tortillas from HEB so all I had to do was put it all together and it is ABSOLUTELY THE MOST DELICIOUS THING EVER.  Word to the wise, though, they have an entire bucket of sour cream and many other very unhealthy ingredients.

Which leads to me to my #2 big realization.  I am eating a huge portion of delicious, unhealthy food twice a day.  Moreover, the average amount of time I have for lunch is 12 minutes.  If I spend 3 minutes of that heating up my food and 2 minutes walking to and from the staff lounge (this attention to time is just one charming thing about the monster that TFA has made me), I barely have enough time to hoover my food before 4th period starts.  So I've decided to go a more healthy and less time-consuming route for lunch-fruit, carrots, almonds, yogurt, etc.  Although I would love to include those delicious frozen PB&Js, those are a heart attack waiting to happen.  Much like my chicken enchiladas.  Enjoy.

Finally, and most excitingly, my sister is having a baby on Wednesday!  She's incredible and I'm so happy for her!  Pretty much my biggest accomplishment is writing a cooking blog once a week, and she has created human life.  It's the most amazing thing ever.  Those chicken enchiladas are second place, though.

Success

Much like this picture of boil-in-bag rice (which I did not use this week because that would be cheating), I have experienced success.  And it's the best kind of success-the kind that means you will never have to leave your house again.

Because I have made thai food.  Yes!  Thai food!  And you know what, it fell victim to the same complaints I make at thai restaurants which is that there's not enough sauce but IT TASTES PRETTY GOOD AND IT LOOKS HEALTHY TOO.  And guess what?  Once you can make your own Thai food, there's no reason to ever leave your house again except to buy peanut butter and broccoli!  It's just me and my boyfriend Netflix forever and ever.  

I also whipped up some French Onoin Soup (I found this one after I ditched Alton Brown's recipe.  Sorry Alton).  Also, a ROUSING SUCCESS.  The broth for French onion soup (which uses beef consomme, which I found out about at a teaching leadership conference) is just so good-smelling.  You have to put toasted French bread on top and then bake the soup to finish it off, which is very surprising!  I got some really good bread off a recommendation from the Breadsmith lady.  I remember the day I discovered Breadsmith in the Valley.  When you go into Mexican bakeries, there is no bread.  There are only donuts and cookies and pastries.  I thought I was going to starve and die, but luckily I found Breadsmith four short months later.  It was the second-happiest day of my life.  Number 1 is this day, the day where I finally make food I want to eat.

In Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the top of the pyramid is self-actualization.  When I used to talk about that stupid Maslow in debate, I used to think, "Wow, self-actualization, that sounds like funsies."  And now I'm there, friends.  I'm actually doing it.  Time to try something harder and slide back down to safety.