Day 11: Sunday Funday

Today's Sunday:
Snow, brunch, grocery shopping, and rest. It's a cold week ahead. What are we going to do? We'll make some of the things we didn't get to last week. We'll treat ourselves to brunch out today, shop for groceries today, eat leftovers today.

The menu was planned in the breezeway of Blue's Egg on my phone while we waited for our table. This is the plan:

• Sweet and tangy oven-barbecued chicken (published May 1, 2004) and Brussels sprouts with garlic and farrow (published November 1, 1995).
• Pan-seared inexpensive steak (published September 1, 2005) and rice pilaf with vermicelli (published March 1, 2000),  
• Cornish hens with a fruit salad
• Vegetable beef stew and fresh-baked bread
• Parmesan-crusted chicken cutlets (published March 1, 2007) and cheesy risotto

We didn't cook, we barely cleaned, we watched TV, played video games, and watched the Pro Bowl.

Days 6: Menu planning, grocery shopping, and meal cooking and meal eating

Day 6: Tuesday, January 21
Today I planned the rest of the week's meals, went grocery shopping after work and cooked a one-pot couscous meal. Wednesday-Friday of this week was a long one. Every Wednesday I stay late for Drama Club, Thursday I had fillings and Friday I'm always spent -even on a short week.

Day 7-9, Wednesday through Friday, meals were planned from Cook's Illustrated as:

• Pan-seared inexpensive steak (published September 1, 2005) and rice pilaf with vermicelli (published March 1, 2000),
• Parmesan-crusted chicken cutlets (published March 1, 2007) and make-ahead mashed potatoes (published March 12, 2007),
• Sweet and tangy oven-barbecued chicken (published May 1, 2004) and Brussels sprouts with garlic and farrow (published November 1, 1995).

 It didn't turn out quite as planned. Some things were cooked, some things weren't.We'll get to that later.

Tuesday's Dinner:

• Hangar Steak with Spicy Lemon Couscous (Bon Appetit)

This dinner turned out really well. It was pretty quick (hangar or skirt steak both cook so quickly because they're thin) and couscous is so fine it plumps up quickly.

This recipe has lots of veggies. Fennel, carrot, lots of delicious, crisp veggies.

Finely-chopped lemons go with the veggies.

 It's refreshing, literally, to have lemon with vegetables. They have a juicy, tart flavor that adds a different dimension because of the tough rind.

Fennel, carrot, lemon, cilantro, garlic and ground red pepper

The ground red pepper, though delicious and not as spicy as red pepper flakes, dulled the color significantly and made it look monotone. 

If you might recall, the nice butcher counter guy at Cermak mistook my order for 1 pound of flank steak for 4 pounds. I was disappointed to begin with, but then I froze the extra and it was just fine. Especially when they cleaned the fat off for me.

Season the steak with salt and pepper prior to pan frying.

When it's all said and done:

Cilantro for garnish and toast as a side.

 Less blurry:

It would be more beautiful with red pepper flakes instead of ground red pepper.

Dawn of a New Dinner

The materials.

This winter Colin and I decided to start cooking. Let's be clear, it's not a New Year's resolution. We have a few big reasons:

1. It's cheaper.
2. It's tastier.
3. It's healthier.

Finally we sat down to plan our first week of cooking at home. Tackling dinner this week. Read ahead for the menu:

Day One: Dawn of a New Dinner (Tue.)

• Mixed Greens Salad for One -for two
• Pan-Seared Salmon

Day Two: The Next Dinner (Wed.)

• Grilled Tuna with Mojo
• Lemon-Pepper carrots -...?

Day Three: Dinner's Revenge (Thurs.)

• Roasted Chicken Thighs -with thyme and rosemary
• Roasted apples -Wing it, yo.

Day Four: A New Dinner (Fri.)

• Sphagetti with Meat Sauce
• Baby Peas

Day Five: Dinner Returns (Sun.)

•  Roast Pork Loin w/ Apples

Day Six: The Uprising of Dinner (Mon.)

• Hangaer Steak with Lemon Kooz Kooz

All this took so long it made:

Blurry death by cooking.