Mother’s Day 2013

We had the In-Laws and my parents over for Mother’s Day this year and had a nice little cook out.

Portilo’s   has a very good “Chicken Pecan Salad” that my mother usually gets when at Portilio’s and I thought that I would try to come up with something similar.

Instead of using a Dijon sauce, I went with Raspberry.

Melt the butter and mix with brown sugar, tabasco  and Worcestershire sauce.

Spread out the nuts in a single layer on a baking sheet at 350 degrees for about ten minutes.

All toasty and candied up (I could have ate them all at that point).

MEAT !!!!!!

A nice slab of ribs and some one inch thick boneless pork chops.

I would have liked to have had the bone in pork chops, but I knew that several of our guests would have not finished a whole chop and did NOT want to have that wasted.

I also seriously over estimated the amount of meat needed.  There are four more chops off to the right.  The good news is that I had pork chops for my lunch the rest of the week.

And here’s the salad all tossed up.

This was probably the best dish that I have ever made that did not include meat or potato.  Next time I will sprinkle BACON on it to take it to “eleven”.

The wife made a loaf of “Dutch Oven Bread”.

Just Another Meatloaf…….

But Just add Bacon !!!!!!

All cooked up

Mmmm, Lamb Chops

Another dinner with “cheap meat”.

The packages of lamb chops again had $2.00 off coupons so each chop cost just over $1.25.

As always, “SIMPLE” !

Olive oil

Black pepper

Garlic Salt

Yeah, I could have put these on the grill but didn’t care to have to go in and out while cooking.  Another few weeks and I will be glad to spend weekend afternoons sitting around the grill.  So the lamb will just have to be happy to meet the cast iron skillet.

And if I have to have/make a vegetable that ain’t a potato, it’s going to be simple too !  The same ingredients on the lamb went on the asparagus and got roasted in the oven.

The daughter won’t eat lamb, so some dino nuggets for her.

Ham-A-Pa-Looza

THE GOOD NEWS:     The Friday before Easter, ham was on sale and I bought one.

THE BAD NEWS:        Easter was the following Sunday.

THE GOOD NEWS:     We had ham that Sunday.

THE BAD NEWS:         By the end of the week, even I was “hammed out.”

THE GOOD NEWS:      Hams were still on sale for Easter so I bought one and froze it.

Ham out on the grill.  What?? You’ve never had “Ham Incognito?”

This would be the ham from the freezer.

Ahhh, there she be !!! A couple of hours on low heat just to warm it through.

This would be the first time that I had ever tried making gravy from a ham.

Straining out the lumps and what not from the “gravy.”

Get ready Porky, the knife is coming for you !

Some potato galette and steamed green beans to go with the ham.

Oh, and the “gravy.”  Now I know why you don’t make gravy with ham juices.  It was just a little bit salty. Not quite Dead Sea salty, but close.

For day two of the ham, it was fried ham and hash browns.

After day two, this is what was left.

The survivors for day three.

Chopped it up and into the food processor.

All chopped up.

The fixn’s for “ham salad.”

Mix,mix,mix.

Eureka !!! Ham Salad !!!

A nice ham salad sandwich with tater tots.

Day four.  I’m using the ham bone from the first ham that I had saved in the freezer and the current ham.

Another great pot of split pea soup that should last me a week for my lunches.

If You Like Bacon……………………

http://365daysofbacon.wordpress.com/

 

I’m just a bacon amateur  !!!!

More Fun With Food

Nothing really big about this.

Just making bacon and eggs for the little girl had a bit of fun with it.

Mmmmmmmm, BACON !!!

Daughter thought the hair and the mustache was amusing.

Quicky Salmon

A nice quick and simple Salmon dinner.

With a good bit of shopping and a little luck, I got these two slabs o’salmon and each one had a $2.00 off coupon making each piece about $2.50.  A decent price for dinner.

Hard to believe, but I bought fresh dill too.

Like I said, very simple.  Just a little oil and some fresh ground black pepper and sea salt.

Hello cast iron.

Skin side down to start and I let the skin get nice and crispy.

Also hard to believe but I also bought a bottle of hollandaise sauce.  Chopped up the fresh dill and mixed it together.

Yum, nice big dollop of the dill sauce and some tater-tots.

Quick and simple

Habanero Clamgetti

I had to throw together something for a couple of  days lunches for work and this is what came out of the cubbard:

Draining the diced tomatoes and the clams.

Unfortunately, I got real busy while making this and I neglected to rinse the clams.  There was grit in the finished product.

Sauteing the clams in a little olive oil.

Toss in the habanero tomatoes.

Mixing together with the rotini pasta.

Wam-Bam-Pow !

A couple of quick  lunches.

I normally like to use the diced tomatoes with “Chiles”  in them, but I had a few cans of the habanero tomatoes.  It added a lot of “Zing-Pow” to the lunch.  I actually feel sorry for anyone that had afternoon meetings with me on those days.

Bacon Blasphemy !!!!

I love bacon, but this is just not cool:

http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2013/03/28/company-releases-new-bacon-flavored-condoms/#ixzz2OriHQTSs

Just when you though the bacon fad was fizzling out, J&D’s Foods –the same Seattle-based company that brought us the bacon coffin and bacon mayonnaise (all real products) — now has introduced Bacon Condoms that claims to “make your meat look like meat.”

As an added bonus, each condom is coated with its very own J&D’s baconlube.

From it press release: “Truly the new standard of animal protein themed prophylactics Bacon Condoms are proudly Made in America of the highest quality latex and rigorously tested to help ensure the utmost reliability and safety for when you’re makin’ Bacon.”

Revenge of the Bacon

If you recall, that had been a very failed attempt to make bacon on the grill:

http://wp.me/p1QpKD-r7

Well this time I thought I would try it again, but in the oven.

What’s the worst that can happen?

So we have more of the thick cut bacon with black pepper and brown sugar.

It took about 35 minutes to bake.  I think next time I could turn the heat up a little.

Turned out really good.

The wife very wisely suggested that I put the foil in the pan.  That would have been a nasty mess to clean up.