Tonight's Dinner: October 30, 2012

Tonight for dinner I made a triple batch of chicken for our Halloween potluck at work.  I figured Asian-style roasted chicken was a safe bet.  I also used left over red potatoes and the cream cheese from the "bat guano" to make roasted garlic mashed potatoes.  It was a pretty simple dinner, but quite delicious.  I was able to pick up the chicken from the store, make the chicken, finish dinner, make cheese grits for breakfast, go for a run, do a short workout, and shower up before 8pm.  Living' the life.

I woke up early to do the ventriloquist makeup again.  I put out all of the makeup
that I would need to complete the look.  Can you believe it takes this much
makeup?!  It's a miracle that my skin hasn't broken out...or fallen off.  

Today's Lunch: October 29, 2012

I'm sure that it's clear by now that I love quesadillas.  I also love putting new things in them to spruce it up.  I had bought premade Turkey Carnitas from Sprouts on Friday so that I didn't have to make dinner while I was prepping for our Halloween party.  There was some left over because I ended up not eating dinner.  I added it to my quesadilla for lunch today and it was extremely tasty and satisfying.

Tonight's Dinner: October 28, 2012

With the apartment cleaned and nothing on our schedules, Nick and I headed to my parent's house to get them up and to go to Pho.  It was noon and they hadn't gotten up yet.  It's hard to kick the jet lag if you just let yourself sleep in, especially since my Dad had to get back on a regular schedule to go to work on Monday.  From Pho, Nick and I headed to the gun range because I wanted to see what Nick gets so excited about.  I had gone to a shooting range with my Dad when I was young and thought it was great.  As an adult,  it's not my thing.  I just don't get excited about it.  There's no real adrenaline rush and I found it to be a little boring.  I actually enjoyed picking out the .9 brass casings for Nick to take home  (he plans to start reloading ammo when we get a house where he can have a work bench.)  I did really well with the .22, but who knows where my .9's were going.  Not on the target, that's for sure.  I will leave the shooting to him.  There go his hopes of me joining the Action Pistol club with him.

We headed back to our place early to have Nick's parents over for dinner.  They had gone to Costco where they purchased a huge salmon, crab, and brussel sprouts and wanted to use our grill.  That's right, they brought us food so that we would cook for them.  That is fine by me.

This salmon was gigantic.  It was at least half the size of our sink. 

Nick minced up garlic to mix with EVOO and lime zest.  He also stuffed the
fish with thinly sliced onion.

Hello Sebastian. I'm going to eat you.

I had gnocci in the fridge that I had been meaning to make.  We didn't have a
starch so I pulled them out.  I made this wine sauce as a healthier alternative to
tossing them in butter. 

Red wine sauce 

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 14.5 oz can fire roasted tomatoes

1.5 cups red wine

Salt and pepper to taste 

Directions:

Saute garlic for 1-2 minutes.  Add in tomatoes and red wine.  Bring to a boil and let reduce until thick enough to coat your pasta. Season according to taste.

Mrs. Fong breaking down the crab.

Nick said that the salmon almost came out like smoked salmon in some places.
The Fongs were fighting over the belly and more rare portions.  I ate bits of the
fully cooked fish. 

This was my plate with a tiny piece of salmon on it.  I'm really not a fish eater.

Mrs. Fong knows that I love tulips so she planted me a bulb
with some winter flowers on top.  She said that she planted
150 bulbs in her front and back yard!  Holy smokes!  I'm going
to have to go over there when they all bloom. 

I've been trying to eat oatmeal for breakfast at work to keep myself from wanting
terrible things like Taco Bell.  It works half of the time because I really don't like
oatmeal.  Last week my office mate even said to me, "Let me get this straight.  You
torture yourself by having a healthy breakfast and then go to Taco Bell for lunch?"
Yup, pretty much.  These are stone cut oats that I started making.  Nick loves them.
We put a little bit of honey on top and add a couple of tablepoons of soy milk.
This is a breakfast that I make the night before.  It lasts for a little while in the fridge
too so it's nice to grab when we're running out the door in the morning.  I just wish
it tasted better.  I'm going to have to find myself some grits so that I'll actually enjoy
my breakfast. 

Halloween 2012

I had been planning a Halloween party for several weeks and it finally arrived.  I love planning things!  On Friday night I did most of my food prep because my family was going out to the City for a cousin's birthday party during the day before the party.  This meant that I would have no time to do any food prepping the day of. While I prepped, Nick cleaned.  It was all working out really well until the end of the night when we realized that our dishwasher was massively leaking and we had to wash everything the old fashioned way.  It's time for an upgrade anyway.

The plan was make as many things as possible that would keep over night.  I put together an easy cheese ball, baked my Apple Churropies, blanched brussel sprouts, cut up tortillas to make homemade tortilla chips, chopped celery, onion, cauliflower, and bacon, assembled Halloween themed tags for the food, and painted my nails.

As far as I could tell, everyone had a fantastic time.  We watched the third game of the World Series, which the Giants won so we were all in high spirits.  There were plenty of beverages going around (I went back to Costco and got two more of those Deadman's Ale growlers) and everyone seemed very relaxed.  After dinner was finally served, we played a couple of board games before dessert.  I deem this party a major success!

This was Nick's dinner.  I picked up premade turkey from Sprouts and he added
cheese, hot sauce, avocado, and sour cream.  I was too busy to end up eating. 

I couldn't resist some of the easy, inexpensive, and usable decorations. 

I got this little guy at the dollar store.  He is so cute!

I found these Halloween tags online.  Some came premade while the small
rectangular ones I used a blank template and added in my titles using dafont.com.

Rat Brain: Roasted cauliflower, cherry tomatoes, and red potatoes
Ghost Guts: Cheese ball
Zombie Snot: Bacon brussel sprouts
Bat Wings: Buffalo chicken wings
Dragon eyes: Meatballs in bbq sauce

Night Crawlers: Hummus
Zombie Teeth: Homemade tortilla chips
Decomposing Eels: Burgundy pork tenderloin
Bat Guano: Cheesy salsa dip

I actually botched up this recipe a little bit by grabbing a carrot cake mix instead
of spice cake.  They still turned out really well though. 

Cheese ball, hummus, and cheesy salsa dip.

Nick kept his Gagnman jacket on for about five minutes
because it was so hot in our apartment, but at least we
got a picture in. 

The Burgundy pork tenderloin turned out really well and it was super simple.
We ended up having way too much food as usual.  I made six tenderloins
thinking that there would be just over one tenderloin per couple.  I always
forget that not everyone eats the big portions that Nick and my family does.
My parents just got back from their China trip and were very jet lagged.  We
brought over two whole tenderloins, brussel sprouts, and two trays of veggies
so that my Mom didn't have to cook dinner.  Now we might actually have a fighting
chance of finishing off our leftovers without them going to waste.  I have some
plans for how I'm going to repurpose the leftovers this week.   

Roasted in the oven at 350 for about an hour.

Cauliflower, red potatoes, and cherry tomatoes.  We parcooked the potatoes
to cut down the roasting time and for them to crisp up.  I will use the extra potatoes
for mashed potatoes this week. 

Gangnam Style

Tonight we ate left overs so that I could go to the grocery store and work on Nick's Halloween costume that I have been putting off.  Last year Nick had said that if I could find him a good outfit that he would actually dress up for Halloween.  He doesn't remember saying that, but I sure do.  He's a scrooge of sorts.  So after much hot glue and burned fingers, he has a Gangnam Style jacket.  I got the jacket at Good Will for $10 so it doesn't fit him well, but my options for ugly, flamboyant jackets were limited.  For those of you who know him, Nick is not a small person but he is swimming in the jacket.   I'm going to safety pin the back so that it doesn't look so large.  I had also asked Christopher if he still had his bowtie from his band uniform, but he couldn't find it so he made him a bowtie out of tape.  There are going to be so many Gangnams running around this Halloween, but none will look as bedazzled out in rhinestones and  ducktape like Nick!

Tonight's Dinner: October 25, 2012

I'm in full preparation mode for our Halloween dinner.  I'm very excited about it, but I'm going to go broke from my love to entertain.  Right after work I headed to Costco to pick up some supplies for the party.  I found this awesome looking ale bottle that would be perfect for our Halloween theme.  (Plus, all the guys really like beer.)  I only purchased one, but now I'm thinking about getting a couple more.  When I got home, I quickly whipped up a curry noodle soup for dinner and was in bed by 9:40pm.  It was wonderful. Now I have to do my regular grocery store shopping and the prep for the party!  I won't be able to do anything on Saturday during the day before the dinner since we will be in the City for a family birthday party so I will have to do all my mise en place on Friday night.  I have my hands full with this menu, but I think that I can prep pretty much everything ahead of time.  We plan to have ten people so it's not a huge party and they're all good friends so they won't mind if dinner is a little bit late. There are also a lot of appetizers and booze to keep their bellies happy.  I've also started thinking about a NYE dinner party with a couple of friends who want to keep it low key.  I just can't get enough of entertaining now that we're settled into the condo much to Nick's chagrin.  It means he has to help me clean. Muahaha.

Halloween Party Menu:

Bat Wings (buffalo chicken wings)

Zombie Eyes (meatballs)

Bloody cream cheese dip (salsa on top of cream cheese)

Homemade tortilla chips

Hummus and Pretzel Crisps

Pecan cheese ball

Burgundy pork tenderloin

Roasted cauliflower, cherry tomatoes, and red potatoes

Bacon brussel sprouts

Apple Churropies a la mode

Wine, wine, more wine

Beer

Tonight's Dinner: October 23, 2012

Tonight it was Nick's turn to make dinner.  I've been making a lot recently and have been getting tired of doing it so he decided to give me a break.  Plus, usually I cook so that I don't have to clean.  I had planned on making a tortilla soup because I had cut too many tortillas into strips for my enchilada casserole.  I gave Nick a recipe to follow, which he never does, but the soup was delicious and I felt nice and relaxed at the end of the night.  He has also fully adopted my habit of cleaning while he cooks so by the time I went to clean the dishes, all I had was the pot and my bowl to clean.  I always try to keep my pot usage down for ease of cleaning at the end of the night.  If I use a pot for pasta I'll wash it while the sauce is cooking so that Nick won't have to clean it after dinner.  Or better yet, drain the pasta and then make the sauce in the same pot.  We all know how food coma sets in especially at the end of the day.

He baked the tortillas strips with some EVOO, salt and pepper at 375 for about
20 minutes.  These were so delicious an much more healthy than store-bought
chips.  We used flour tortillas.  They reminded me a little bit of those fried strings
that go on top of Chinese Chicken Salad.  

Nick's bowl of tortilla soup.  Nick and I both love avocado so we each got a
whole one to put  in our soup. 

I like lettuce with my Mexican food.  Before you say, holy cow that's a big bowl,
I didn't end up finishing it and Emmy and I went for a 2.6 mile run (I mapped it).

Tonight's Dinner: October 22, 2012

We are still on a mission to get rid of chicken strips.  Luckily, Christopher is also still on his own at my parents' house and is need of sustenance.  He came over to pick up the second half of our chicken enchilada casserole and the remaining chicken strips.  Leave it to a young male to clean house (not literally).  For dinner I made a fake chicken Parmesan with the chicken strips that I had reserved for our dish.  It made it so simple.  All I had to do was pile on some pasta sauce, spinach, and monterey jack cheese.  I also did a cabbage saute on the side.  By the time I went to eat, all I wanted was cabbage and ate almost the whole head.  My stomach was not loving me in the middle of the night after that.