Tonight's Dinner: May 12, 2012

For Mother's Day this year Christopher and I decided to cook for my Mom since we couldn't think of anything that she really needed and/or wanted.  What we do know is that she loves seafood and that the simpler the better.  This was the first time I've ever killed the crabs myself.  I was very proud.  Usually cooking the crabs is my Dad's job, but I took on the challenge this time around.  To make the crabs feel a little bit better, I sang the Little Mermaid to them before they hit the pot of boiling water to their deaths.

We also popped open a really nice bottle of champagne that was given to my parents for their 40th anniversary.  It was pretty sweet and crisp.

Alive and waiting their death sentence

Look how big this guy is compared to the chopstick.

Soy-based dipping sauce for the prawns.

Cheers!

One of three plates of shells

This is all that's left!

Tonight's Dinner: May 11, 2012

I had defrosted some fish at the beginning of the week that I wanted to use up before the weekend since I knew I wouldn't be around to eat it.  A friend stopped by for some drinks and chit chat so we did a little fish and asparagus fry.  As we know, fish isn't my favorite so I wasn't really sure if it tasted okay or not (or even how long to cook it for that matter).  It was fine to me, but Nick thought it could have used some salt, which I didn't add.  I figured the breading and garlic flakes was enough, but clearly not.  The texture was nice and flaky without being dry so the two minutes on each side worked well. I'm just glad that I was able to use the fish.  I've had my fish fill for a while.

I didn't realize this was so blurry, but I was trying to get dinner on the table
before it got cold. 

Tonight's Dinner: May 9, 2012

I was craving sushi midday so Nick called his parents to see if they wanted to go to our favorite place in Concord.  They were happy oblige.  These pics look pretty much like the last ones I posted, but the food is just so pretty that I wanted to share again.

Oysters!

Grilled hamachi cama

White tuna and hamachi

Rainbow roll for me

Uni nagiri, salmon nagiri, california rolls, and unagi nagiri

Dirty Dog

The grounds keepers must have just watered the lawn where I play frisbee with Emmy because it was like a swamp. After two passes with the frisbee she was filthy so I figured she may as well have fun.  On our walk back to the apartment Nick and I hosed her down in the car washing station much to her chagrin, but that wasn't good enough for me so she got a full on bath before we met Nick's parents for dinner.

If her rear end is this dirty, just imagine her under carriage.

Tonight's Dinner: May 8, 2012

Even though our apartment was a stifling 85 degrees at 6:30pm and we were both tired, we decided to cook inside because our second balcony where the grill is located was even hotter. We made Hawaiian BBQ again, but this time tried to make it even more like the restaurants.  Our macaroni salad is getting very close, the cabbage was pretty much the same, and I added some fried garlic flakes to the panko which made it extremely delicious. I like to use chicken tenders because they're small and pretty much fool proof for pan frying.  Fry for about 3 minutes on each side and then pop into a warm oven on a rack to keep warm and let excess oil drip off.  They were so moist and tasty.  I didn't even have to add salt or pepper.

Without gravy

With gravy

Tonight's Dinner: May 7, 2012

Tonight Emmy and I went on a run so for dinner I didn't want to have anything that was heavy.  Nick went to dinner with his family and we were on our own.

Yup, this was my "light" dinner.  Seared filet of fish and two sunny side up
eggs over lettuce.  No need for dressing!

Tonight's Dinner: May 6, 2012

We try to eat healthfully while still indulging in delicious food.  Tonight we had grilled burgers.  Actual beef burgers.  That's a big deal.  We haven't been eating that much red meat lately so beef burgers were kind of a big deal.  (We'll be having turkey burgers later in the week.)  Okay, I lied.  I guess we did have a giant steak last week, but that was a gift and we couldn't let a gorgeous cut of meat like that go to waste or be frozen.

To me, anything on the grill is at least 50% healthier because most of the grease falls into the grease pan.  Plus, grilled food is delicious.  Basically, I'm justifying our ground beef burgers.  If I get a meat grinding attachement for my Kitchen Aid I'll grind my own beef, but for now, since I'm lazy, I buy ground beef from Costco. 

Yes, yes, more zucchini.   I even said to Nick last night that if he gets tired
of it he needs to tell me because I love squash and will eat it all summer while
it's in season.  So far he's not tired of it thankfully.  

Tonight's Dinner: May 5, 2012

Cinco De Mayo!  Margaritas!  Yuck!  Bonnie and I found that we don't like them much, but they certainly did the job.  We followed up by a hearty BBQ, which was much better than the margaritas.  At first I thought that I had just made them incorrectly since I've never made them before, but Nick said that it tasted like normal margaritas to him.  (He celebrates margarita days with his coworkers after work sometimes so he has more experience than I do with them.)  Whatever the case, I'm sticking with wine and beer.  The food, however, was much more pleasing than the margaritas.  Shanna, if you're reading this, you need to come home to drink the rest of the tequila bottle for me!

We made some pretty standard stuff that I was able to whip up while being slightly tipsy.  Spicy grilled chicken, marinated squash quarters, caesar salad, and buttered spinach noodles.  By 8:30pm we were sober and watching Sweet Home Alabama.  Thank you Bonnie for always watching terrible TV with me...including but not limited to cat breeding shows like old ladies and circa 2002 chick flicks.  We will grow old and wrinkly together with our disgust for margaritas and love for wine.

Nick's face and Bonnie's thumbs up.

Lazy dinner

What do you do when you don't feel like cooking but need to cook the meat in your fridge so that it doesn't go bad?  You put it in pasta sauce and bake it.  I had five pork chops that I had defrosted on Monday that needed to be cooked before they went bad.  I had also defrosted some of our lamb pasta sauce that I needed to use up as well.  Easy dinner!  I opened a pre-made jar of sauce for the bed of the pork and then poured our lamb sauce on top.  So easy and should be delicious.

Yup, the pork chops are in there.  I was so lazy I didn't even slice the silver skin,
but they didn't seem to shrink that much during cooking. 

Tonight's dinner: May 3, 2012

I love pizza!

Papa Murphy's take and bake: Murphy's Stuffed Combo

Tonight's Dinner: May 2, 2012

I had terrible indigestion and heart burn from my lunch of Bean Thread noodles that we call Thy Foon.  I grew up eating this stuff and now it makes me so sick I can barely do anything.  I think I just had too much of it at one time because I had two bundles at once.  If I had one then it doesn't make me feel ill.  So even though I was not feeling super well from food, I still wanted food.  I made a simple soup of chicken broth, star pasta, one squash and lettuce.  It was delicious but left me hungry by 10pm so I made an enormous breakfast burrito in the morning.  

Spoon full of soup

Annual Mosquito Bite Blow-up

As most of you know from past years, when I get bitten by a mosquito it looks terrible even if I don't scratch it.  I got bitten three times on Monday when I was playing frisbee with Emmy.  The one on my leg is gigantic.  We suspect that it's because there is more blood flow than on my back or arm.  Nick read that if you put a hot compress, like as hot as you can handle, that it helps with the swelling.  I decided to give it a try since the bite was as big as a baseball.  Today the swelling is gone and it barely itches.  I'm going to have to try this on my other two bites!

Right after the hot compress

Tonight's Dinner: April 30, 2012

Our good friends Rob and Linda gave Nick a giant piece of prime rib from Kinders' butcher.  I, of course, got to share some of the goods and so did Emmy.  Nick gave me half and Emmy got the bone after he gnawed on it for a while to get all the salt and pepper off.  It is so peppery and delicious.  We took so many pictures that we qualified this as food porn.

This baby only need some salt and pepper.

This is a man's dinner... or an woman's if you have my appetite

So nice and rare

I sure hope that Emmy doesn't get sick from this, but she's sure enjoying it.
She's been playing frisbee like crazy so I think her weight is going down drastically.
Look at how sprawled her front paws are to get good leverage.  

Nick's Birthday BBQ

Like I said, we live up the whole birthday thing.  You only get so many in a lifetime!  After our guests arrived and we started having fun, there were minimal pictures take but this is what we served:

• Regular cheese platter
• Spinach and artichoke dip with chips
• Skewered grilled bacon
• Spicy grilled chicken
• Hotlinks
• Chicken Apple Sausage
• Grilled corn on the cop
• Caesar Salad with homemade dressing and croutons
• Beer, beer, and more beer

As a treat our friends Frank and Jenelle brought over home-cured bacon that Jenelle's chef brother had made.  It was so juicy and delicious.

The thick cut bacon is the homemade stuff

Grilled bacon is so completely awesome.  I don't like bacon that much, but
when it's grilled it is really good.

Jenelle eating a hotdog bun stuffed with
salad and a piece of bacon.

Rob made his own corn skewer.

Incanto

We love food.  And what do we do to celebrate, well, everything?  We eat.  We usually try to do a lot for our birthdays especially because it's something for us to look forward to in our hum drum lives.  This year we went to sushi with his parents and I took him to Chris Cosentino's restaurant, Incanto, in the city.  It was amazing.  We'll definitely be going back.  Definitely.  It was low key, rather casual, and so delicious.  Who knew offal was so good?  I went in feeling a little apprehensive, but let's face it.  I'm Chinese.  Guts don't really gross me out that much.

We actually only ordered starters that were the specials of the night and desserts with a couple of flights of wine.  We started with a calf-liver pate pie and crostinis, then had lamb tripe with porchini mushrooms, and finished with lamb livers over pureed peas.   It was even more awesome that Chris was in his restaurant plating food and walking around the bar.  I kept telling Nick to ask him to take a picture with him, but Nick refused.  We're now thinking about getting his cookbook and going back to have him sign it.  I will surely be doing this before we go see Alton Brown and Carla Hall in a couple weeks in Monterey.

We told a few of our friends about the restaurant and how they have "Leg of Beast" or "Whole Pig" on the menu if you pre-order.  We are soooo doing that.  Whole pig?  Yes, please.

On with the pictures!

Tour of Italy wine flight

Calf-liver pate pie

Pate!

Lamb tripe and porchini mushrooms

Lamb liver over pea puree and pickled carrot
shavings.

Nick's pine nut cake with lemon sorbet

My cheese dessert with olive oil soaked pears over a toasted slice of bread.