Sunday, March 29, 2009

Thank heavens for rainouts...

...otherwise I would barely get any cooking done! Sunday we had a rainout, and once the weather cleared I had my heart set on leg of lamb. Unfortunately, the usual suspects did not have any, so I bought some beef and made a carbonnade with Chimay Belgian beer. I used Saveur's version, clipped from a magazine ages ago. It was very very good. It went well with the beer as well! Unfortunately my picture came out very blurry....
This week was a bit hectic, I realized I missed calling my nephew on his 16th birthday. I did manage to get 2 meals on the table -- Monday soup night was the Jamie Oliver pasta e ceci that I made before, and Tuesday I finally got around to trying these balsamic glazed pork chops, from any number of food mags I have gotten, so who knows where it came from. You brown the chops and shallots in the pan, then add balsamic & brown sugar, reduce to a glaze, and return the chops to the pan. Perfect with some asparagus and roasted potatoes.
Thanks to Costco, I get my lamb fix today. I cut a huge 5 pounder into 4 pieces so I can pop one out of the freezer whenever the mood strikes. Of course just as we were getting ready to start the charcoal for the grill, it started to sprinkle... so oven roasted lamb & asparagus, with aioli and home made bread tonight. Then, back to the craziness tomorrow! Ooh, and I get to work in the snack bar on Tuesday night (ugh).

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Crazy times....

It's baseball season here again.
Well, it's always baseball season but in the spring not only is there club baseball, there is also Little League. So, we find ourselves sitting down to one or two meals a week max that aren't Subway, sloppy joes, grilled cheese, etc... There is a lot of this, which is the Nigella Lawson chicken and sausage bake without the sausage.
I found this in my camera too, I made a curry-garam masala paste and roasted whole chicken legs, served with basmati rice, baba ganoush and tzaziki. Oh, yeah, and 5 minute bread makes a fun pizza. This one with pesto, fresh mozzarella and sundried tomatoes, a bit of procuitto on top too. Yum! We had a rainout today, and I tried to buy leg of lamb but no one seemed to have any, so I will make carbonnade (beef stew with beer) and post on that later this week.

I did, however, finally get around to making this mushroom bourguignon a few weeks ago, it's from Smitten Kitchen. I didn't have any beef or veg stock, so I used veal stock. That made it good :). This was pretty easy to put together and tasted really really good. The smell while cooking the mushrooms and then the mirepoix was pretty dang amazing.
And tasty too, with some cold leftover lamb on the side.


Sigh.... is it August yet?