Pizza Night

Back when I was but a wee lad, “Pizza Night” at our house was usually on Sunday.  Now, for us, pizza night was extra special because:

(1)          We got to eat in the living room and watch TV.

(2)          We got to drink soda.

As far as watching TV, we usually got to watch “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom” and “The Wonderful World of Disney.”

As for the soda, pizza night was the only time we got to drink it.  Unlike today where many people have substituted soda for their dinner beverage with their meals, it was at one time a real treat for us. I personally used to drink too much soda, but about 7-8 years ago I cut out drinking soda.   It wasn’t because of the calories, (been drinking diet soda since the days of “Tab” and saccharin.) It just seemed to make me feel “bloaty.” Very fond memories of drinking ice cold Coca Cola from Wyler grape jelly jar glasses.

Old time pizza.  Back in the day, “Chef Boyardee Pizza Mix”  was da bomb.

Now, when you look at the picture, that’s exactly what the pie looked like.  Bread, sauce and a dusting of yellow like stuff.  Always had to add some real cheese to it!!!

That’s pretty much what we had for pizza until my mother bought a pizza stone.  Then the pizzas got real good.

Here’s a recent Pizza Night:

A nice pan full of sweet Italian sausage.  Unfortunately, no fennel.

A very rare action shot of the wife shredding the mozzarella cheese.

Now, as far as the sauce, I don’t care too much for it.  So I am going to use  some diced  tomatoes with green chilies in it. (just like the can says)

DOH !!!!!

That’s a Homer Simpson joke !!

DOH !!! With sausage and green olives.

Into the screaming hot oven.  About 450 degrees.  Well, that might be screaming to some people.

About 30 minutes later.  I like to have my cheese browned.

The wife likes hers cooked on the pizza stone.

No, not all of these were drank with the pizza.

I picked the “Chocolate Red” to have with my pizza.

Now, I had seen “Chocolate Red” at the store before, but never bought it because I wasn’t sure what it would taste like, but the wife brought it home.  It was incredible !!!!!  Not the kind of wine you would drink every day, but it did well for pizza night.  It was only $4.00 too.

Between “Pizza Night” and the time I wrote this post,  we had enough leftover cheese and sausage to make “Taco Shell Pizzas.”

Steak And Potatoes

Ahhhhh, yet another of my many simple pleasures of life !!

MEAT !!!!

Now, I really have in the past several years eaten a lot less steak then I used to.  It has just become far to expensive to have as often as I would like to have it.

But in this case, due to some good shopping skills and good luck, I was able to get this steak for only $4.00 instead of the packaged price of $8.00.

And as luck would have it, I found myself alone for dinner, and decided it was “Steak & Potato” time.

A nice bone in Rib Eye, nice and marbled.  Hard to believe that this steak goes for over $10 lb !!!

Real simple prep.

Black pepper and some garlic salt

Too lazy to go outside and fire the grill up, I think it would require cleaning the garage to find the grill anyway.

So, the kitchen mainstay of the cast iron skillet will do very fine indeed.

Ooooooohhhhh, a very nice sear and delightful crust !!!

Oh yeah, I said something about potatoes being involved.

Now at one time, those things may have been connected to a potato, but they get shredded, processed, pressed into a shape and “VIOLA”, Tater Tot.  I suppose that there is enough potato DNA there to legally call them potatoes for this post.

Also made a little compound butter with fresh garlic.

There were no survivors.

Salt and Pepper Squid

One of my simple pleasures of life, is that usually after the Christmas/New Years holidays there are many products at the grocery store that get marked down.  Below is a small sample of some of these items, and some of the ones that I purchased.  I think that I paid $1.50 for each item which was quite a good deal !!

The pre-packaged “Salt and Pepper Calamari” cooked up in the toaster oven:

Turned out really Pretty good.

So, I decided to try to make my own with the squid rings that I bought.

This would be my lunch for the week so I added some white rice and some baby corn.

Always rinse and inspect your raw Squid !!!!

I don’t mind finding tentacles, but  I definitely don’t want to bite down on a beak or a piece of the cuttle bone that was left in.

Super simple !!!  Corn starch, salt and pepper.

Quick, light coating on the squid.

Mmmmmm, greasy !!!

Made several batches.

So there’s lunch for the week.  Made up my bento boxes and with a little sweet chili sauce on it, it was a fine lunch.

Today’s Helpful Hint:

If you are the kind of person at work that puts their food in the microwave and forgets about it until someone reminds you……………….

Please be sure that when you enter “2:00 minutes” on the timer that it is “2:00 minutes” and not “20:00 minutes”.

“Microwave Safe” is not absolute.

 

Beef Barley Soup

Staying with the “Gruel” theme for lunch, I got another bag of barley and a can of mushrooms.

Add a slab of beef and it can officially be called “Beef Barley Soup.”

A simple browning of the beef in the dutch oven.

Toss in the drained can of mushrooms.

Add the water and barley,

BEHOLD !!!!

Beef Barley Soup.

Gruel !!!

GRUEL !!!

All right, what did you think when you read “Gruel?”

Gruel has a negative image because it gets associated with stalags,gulags, prison camps, 19th century English orphanages etc.

Gruel is simply a grain that is boiled and has a high water to meal ratio.

I’m not sure if what I made would be considered “Gruel” because it has meat and mushrooms in it, but just looking at the finished product, it is gruelish.

Several months ago the grocery store had a reset and the dried mushrooms were marked down to 50 cents a bag and I bought about six bags.  I did not like the way the mushrooms turned out when I made them before, so I thought that I would boil them up here, wiz them up and use that for the base of the gruel.

I also bought a package of “pork neck bones”.  At the time that I bought them, I thought that they looked funny.  I know my pig parts and these did not look like pork neck bones.  They turned out to be various cut offs from pork items and for $1.20 a pound, I think that I came out ahead.

Browning the pork.

Very simple seasoning, salt, ground pepper and red chili flakes.

I took the pork parts out , added the water and boiled the two packages of the dried mushrooms.

I wizzed the mushrooms up, added the barley and then tossed the cut up pork back in.

This pot made enough for lunch all week, plus a bowl to sample.

Turned out gosh darn, nasty good. !!!

Assorted Eating Out

Over the past (insert time period here), we have had dinner out. Just a few photos of the aforementioned dining experiences:

A night out at Applebee’s.  I had the Riblet basket and fries.  It was fine, but I should have had a hamburger.

At Applebee’s there was a new appetizer, “Applebee’s Green Bean Crispers”.

“A shareable stack of green beans, battered, seasoned and lightly fried. Served with two sauces – cool and creamy BBQ bacon ranch and a zesty horseradish.”

They tasted pretty good, not too “green beany”

Another night out at Applebee’s.  This time it was the “Hand-Battered Fish & Chips”.

They were pretty good but I should have had the hamburger.

This time we ate at “Buona Beef”.  This was a gosh darn good meatball sandwich.

Hamburgers were not an option at this restaurant.

As a token of appreciation by someone at work, I was given a gift card to Chili’s.  Trying something different, I had the “Crispy Honey-Chipotle Chicken Crispers®”.  They were “OK”, but I should have had the hamburger.

We ordered the “Skillet Queso” appetizer.  Pretty good.

Because we had a coupon for a free appetizer, we also ordered the “Texas Cheese Fries”.  These were definitely sub par.

This dining experience was also marred by a customer service issue that I wish that I would have pursued.

Ahhh, good old “Luigi’s Pizza”.  This is a very local pizza and game room.  Almost always a great  pie.

A night out at Portillo’s.  I had the hamburger.

What a waist !!!

I spent about 40 minutes at the gym riding the bike, and during that time my wife sent a text suggesting going out for dinner at Applebee’s. I didn’t feel like driving anywhere, so I countered with a local Chinese buffet that’s on my way home.  Both wife and daughter concurred, and that’s where we met for diner.

I judge the quality of a Chinese buffet by how good their crab rangoons are and their egg drop soup. (The secondary quality making decision  is based on how many items are “pork”)

This place has GREAT rangoons and egg drop soup !!!

I tried not to over do it and “only” had two plates, so I wouldn’t have “waisted” my effort at the gym.

Bacon Wrapped Chicken

I had a hankering to use some bacon in my dinner, so Bacon Wrapped Chicken was the choice

An extremely excellent ratio of two meat to one dairy for the ingredients.

A very rare action shot for the blog.  Pounding out the meat.

Pepper and salt, real simple.

NOTE ! !!  My lawyer is making me tell you to remove the toothpicks before eating !!!

Now for the mashed potatoes.  No, not all of that garlic will be going in.

Do you remember “Squashy” from my Thanksgiving dinner???  She’s history !!!

Melt butter, brown sugar and mix in freshly ground black pepper and toss with the cut up squash.  It bakes at 400 degrees for about 60 minutes

Cooked potatoes with the butter.

I found a package of cream cheese in the fridge and tossed that in as well.

Here comes the entree !!!

All plated up.

Veal Breast

Along with not having eaten very much lamb in my youth, the same applies to not having had very much veal.  I think I recall a few veal scallopini dinners when I was a kid, but I highly suspect that it wasn’t really veal.  But fast forwarding a few decades, I had a coupon at the grocery store for $4.oo off any meat.  I thought that it would be a great time to make a veal dinner so I got a 3 bone veal breast (at a fantastic price as well !!)

Outside on the grill in the cast iron pan.  The baby yukon golds will keep the meat company during cooking.  Very simple seasoning: oil, kosher salt and a little rosemary

A little side dish.  If I remember correctly, these were Texas Sweet onions that I grew in the garden.  This was about half of the crop.

About half way through cooking.

Proof of a Supreme Being: Meat and potatoes

Onions all done up. Yes they were very good.

My wife was not as impressed with the veal as I was.  I thought that it was very good.  Something I will definitely cook up again sometime.