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”.

Free Food

A short time ago, I was rewarded (off the books) for a project that had incredible results.

And that reward was a “Chili’s Gift card”

So the family had a couple of dinners at Chili’s

The first time it was just a classic bacon cheese burger.  Bacon and cheese is about the limit to the amount of “stuff” that gets piled on a burger for me.  Good thick apple wood bacon.

The next dinner we had, the wife suggested we get the “2 for $20″ deal.  A shared appetizer and two entrees.

We had the “Crispy Onion String & Jalapeño Stack”.

Now, there are nanny state ninnys that get enjoyment from telling others not to enjoy themselves:

http://www.cbsnews.com/2300-204_162-10005091-10.html

Well, screw them.

We ate it and enjoyed it a lot !!!

Dang, those Jalapeño’s are hot !!

“Beer wench, fetch me a stein!!”

And I got the dry rub ribs.

I like ribs, but every time that I order ribs, I always end up thinking that I should have just got the burger !!  Food regrets !

What was really neat (and new to me) was a small electronic device at the table that you could use to pay.

Happy Father’s Day !!

Well, at least my Father’s Day post is more timely than my Mother’s Day post !

My mother was in England and my father was invited by other in laws for the day so it was just  my in laws this day.

It could have well have been called “Meat-A-Paloza” with all that I made !!

We start out with a nice slab of St. Louis style ribs.  I sprinkled a little “Soul Food” seasoning on them before wrapping them up in foil.  They cooked for about an hour before I unwrapped them and began putting BBQ sauce on them.

We had a package of leg quarters, so I cut them up into pieces.

Ahhh, the wings.

Yep, I de-boned most of them.

Some jalapeno peppers and cream cheese

The peppers stuffed with the cream cheese and soon to be inserted into the boneless wings.

Here’s most of the food cooking.

Asparagus wrapped in prosciutto.

The prosciutto got nice and crisp.

What may have been at one time a chicken.

Mmmmmmm, PORK !!!!!

Bean salad, pilaf, fruit salad (and of course MEAT !!)

The grill was way to filled to cook the wings, so I saved them for the next day.

These nasty bastards were incredible !!!

I can’t wait to whip up another batch soon.