Last night, we attempted to prepare braised sirloin tips over rice. However, after some scary oil spatter and a small fire, we defaulted to prepackaged lobster ravioli.
Here is the recipe, in case we’re ever not too traumatized by this experience to attempt it again.
Please see the following link. I’m not ready to attempt such a feat myself…. yet. But one day it WILL be mine!
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| Week 05 |
Well… this one certainly wasn’t our best performance.
Things started well, but as we made the sauce with the onions and the flour whatnot…. well, we ran into a problem. After adding four cups of chicken stock (an entire package), we found out two things: One, we don’t have a big enough pan and Two, we’re somehow making soup. At this point, it was time to call mom with a big old fashioned WTF. Long story short, we determined that my email client thinks that 3/4 (when formatted with super and subscript) is best displayed as an asterisk. And when I saw that, I figured “oh, what a simple typo. She said * but she meant 8.” We had plenty of ingredients to remake the sauce but there wasn’t quite enough. We should have either made more sauce or removed some noodles, but we were already taking forever and wanted to be done with the cookings. It came out dry and spicy (my fault for the spiciness) but at least it was edible and we all learned something about email.
“I hate scruffy Alton Brown! Shaved Alton Brown looks very professional, but scruffy Alton Brown looks like someone you don’t want to give change to, on the street, because you know he’d just spend it on liquor!” -Stephanie
Tuna casserole post pending. 
I chosed a meal that I stealed from Mom.
A casserole
One bag extra wide noodles cooked and drained per instructions (large pot and colander)
One 6oz can of chunk light tuna well drained
Onion, Butter, Flour, 8 cup chicken stock & Milk
Cayenne pepper and salt and pepper to taste
One 3oz jar of pimentos (optional)
Soda crackers and butter
Sauté 1/4cup onion in 3TB of butter until translucent. Add a scant 3TB of flour in pan. Cook and stir for tree to five minutes. Add warm milk and chicken stock to desired thickness. I’m not exact on the milk but at least a cup. You’ll want a thin white sauce but not runny because you still have to bake it. Add your spices, tuna, noodles and pimentos. You decide at this time if there’s enough white sauce. Just make a little more white sauce using less butter flour and milk and add it in. In a separate pan sauté the crushed crackers in butter till brown; top casserole. Bake casserole at 350 for 20 to 30 minutes or until bubbly.
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| Week 04 |
At Russell’s suggestion, we made pot pie, this week. However, instead of your typical chicken pot pie, we decided to make a cheesy pizza pot pie, from this recipe.
It turned out quite yummy, but we had a lot of leftover filling. So much leftover filling that I suspect we could have made twice as many mini pot pies. And Ben and I didn’t even bother with the cubed ham! We also agreed that it could have used more pineapple… and that our mushroom slices were a little too chunky.
(or Robyn, who bakes and/or at least watches enough Food Network to possibly know the answer to this question)
Why is it necessary to use a wooden spoon? Or… is it really necessary to use a wooden spoon?
1 cup butter, softened
2 3-ounce packages cream cheese, softened
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup milk
1-ounce envelope Lipton onion soup mix
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 cup shredded Mild Cheddar/Monterey Jack cheese
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 375 degree F. For pastry, in a large mixing bowl, beat the butter and cream cheese with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Stir in flour with a wooden spoon until combined. (If necessary, knead mixture with your hands.) Press a 1.5 to 2-inch ball of the pastry dough evenly into the bottom and up sides of each of 18 ungreased 2.9 inch muffin cups. Set aside.
2. For filling, in a small saucepan over medium heat, bring milk and soup mix just to boiling. Remove from heat; cool for 5 minutes. Stir in buttermilk. Add cheese, eggs, mustard, salt, and pepper. Spoon filling into each pastry-lined muffin cup.
3. Bake in the preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes or until filling is puffed and both the pastry and the filling are golden. Carefully remove from muffin cups.
Ben suggested lessening the salt and adding crumbled bacon to it, but we’ve yet to try it. It’s a heart-attack in a cup, but what a way to go!
We stuck with poultry and prepared Apple Glazed Cornish Hens.
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| Week 03 |
I need to leave for work in a few minutes, so I’ll be brief.
Ben says the glaze was either to sweet or too lemony. I kind of wish we’d let the chicken sit in it overnight. I couldn’t get enough of it. Either way, they were juicy birds. Also, next time we must remember to prepare some rice or stuffing.
From now on, it’d probably be a good idea to pick a recipe by Tuesday, do the shopping on Wednesday, and the actual cooking on Thursday. The first time we did this, we didn’t wind up eating dinner ’til 11. This time, we got it down to 10:30. Ben gets home around 6:30-ish at best, we don’t leave to shop ’til almost 7 and we start preparing at 8. We could at least shave an hour off that if we shop in advance. We probably would have shaved off two hours if we didn’t have to defrost the hens, tonight, also. Alas, our lack of forethought.
Or perhaps we ought to try something that doesn’t require an hour or so of baking. 
Nonetheless, week three has come and gone with no fires, yet. So far, so good. 
