Cook-Off #2 January 26, 2010

Jason & Machiko ventured over yesterday for a lovely and fun-spirited cook-off at the Morrissey residence.  In true form when involving food with Jason we both bought and cooked way too much!  That said – it was tasty!  Our main ingredient: meat: specifically steak and pork.  Our result: 8 delicious dishes and everyone had a different favorite:

Steak & Sweet Potato Hot Pockets (a variation from an earlier post)  I used diced steak instead of ground turkey, not as good but still worth a bite.

Vietnamese Sandwiches – cooked pork with sliced black forest ham, sweet pickled carrots and daikon (Japanese radish) on a soft roll – my favorite!  I’d also venture to say this was the winner since there was nothing left and he made three sandwiches.

Pumpkin Salad – butternut squash, mayo, cream cheese, olives and toasted pecans (like potato salad)

Greek Salad – Machiko made a traditional one with fresh feta

Pounded Steak Roulade – stuffed with goat cheese and wilted chard.  One roll was covered with honey mustard and herbes de provence while the other was tied up with basil leaves.  The latter had a better overall flavor and the crispy basil was yum, yum, yummy.  I should have used dijon mustard for the first roll but didn’t have any .

Steak and Shitakes Sautéed in Soy Sauce and vinegar with a little sake and shallots over brown rice.  Jason was afraid this dish was too salty but it actually married nicely and the result was a tangy teriyaki style dish.

French Onion Soup – this dish was prepared earlier to make sure we had food ready when people arrived.  As always the best ingredient is cheese!

Karin was kind enough to bring over some brownies topped with heath bar.  Add some of the heath bar ice cream we bought for dessert and taste buds are sure to be pleased!

Yep, we ate a lot on Sunday!  Luckily we had help: Kurt, Cynthia, Karin and Rick were nice enough to come try everything with us.  As our judges they each had a different favorite.  The kids were happy with the result too.  I think its safe to say their choice for best food was brownies across the board.  Poor Griffin slept though the entire 3 hours that Jonathan and Samantha were here.  He managed to tire himself out completely playing with Masahiro before they got here.

So there you have it.  My fridge is stuffed with left over food and even more meat to be cooked that will have to go in the freezer soon.  Side note: Safeway has cow shoulder on sale for $1.69 per pound and they’ll cut it into steaks for you if you ask them to.  The pork was the same price and came as country style spare ribs.  The local produce market is where we picked up all our veggies, bread and the fresh goat cheese.  What a lovely place to live near!  I don’t even think it has a name other than Produce Market…

With all the kids we forgot the other plan for the afternoon – playing games went right out the window while we watched the kids run around the front room with pillows and play hide n’ seek with Karin.  Dinner and a show; thanks again everybody!

The Hurry Up and Wait Game, Also Known As Infection or Tumor? January 21, 2010

Grendal has been ill the past week and we’ve trying to figure out what is causing it.  She has had seizures and is now on drugs to mitigate them.  But what is causing the seizures?  That is the $3000 question…  Well, we still don’t know.  I’ve been putting off posting info until we had some answers but I’m not sure we’re going to get a definitive one anymore. 

lounging on our bed

With all her tests and scans, they Vets have found an enlarged lymph node in her neck that led to finding 5 or 6 bleeds in her brain.  These bleeds are causing seizures but what is causing everything?  Infection or tumor?  The MRI showed the bleeds which can mean an invisible tumor (not really invisible just a type that doesn’t show up on the MRI) or an infection, or a protein deficiency.  They did some more tests today to try and produce a definitive and treatable cause for her troubles.  We are not going to test anymore for the brain tumor because any results we find are not treatable and there’s no need to put her through surgery just to answer a question.

So there you go.  My week in a nut shell has been the ‘hurry up and wait’ game.  Grendal hasn’t had any more seizures thanks to the meds and is in relative comfort right now although she’s hazy (to say the least) from her drugs and being under anesthesia so much this week. Worse case scenario is that this is terminal.  In that case we will have her on meds to keep her comfortable until her quality of life is no longer good.  Best case is they find an infection (finally) and we can treat her and she goes back to being her normal wonderfully amazing perfect Grendal self.  You know which one I’m holding out for.

Love and hugs and licks to you all from the Morrissey Family

Grendal, D’Argo, Griffin, Joe and Me (Rebecca)

Griffin and Moose Jam Session – 2009 January 17, 2010

Over the holidays, we spent some time in Bakersfield. Griffin and Chris got some serious quality music time together. Chris showed Griffin his acoustic bass along with every other guitar he had in his house. Griffin pulled out his new mini guitar and the two jammed for awhile in the livingroom.

Griffin Counts to 10 January 17, 2010

Griffin and I were playing a game this evening where I would lay on his bed and he’d turn out the light (so I could presumably sleep). We’d then count to 10 and he’d turn the light back on to scare me with his trademarked BOO!

This was the first time we heard Griffin count to 10, let alone 3 by himself. It was very impressive to watch his little brain play through the numbers one after the next. I would repeat the numbers after he had said them, but then wait for him to say the next one with no prompting from myself.

I’ve included a recording I made of him counting to 10 that I thought all of you might like to hear.

Griffin Counts to 10

Now That’s What I Call A Hot Pocket January 14, 2010

With all the good food I made and witnessed this week it surprised me that my favorite meal was the simplest to make.  Real Simple Magazine had a recipe for beef turnovers.  I changed it up with turkey sausage instead of ground beef and here is the result:

Turkey & Sweet Potato Turnovers

Brown ½ pound turkey sausage with 2 cloves chopped garlic. Add 1 grated sweet potato and 3 cups baby spinach; season with salt and pepper. Cut 2 sheets frozen puff pastry (thawed) in half. Divide the beef and 1½ cups grated Cheddar among the 4 pieces of dough; seal the edges. Bake at 375° F until golden for 25 minutes.

Trading turkey for beef was a fluke.  My ground beef went bad in the fridge so I changed it up to be the turkey sausage that was still viable.  When I stirred the spinach and sweet potato in with the sausage the spinach wilted a bit which made it easy to form into the pastry shells.  I didn’t think I had enough spinach so I added an extra cup after it wilted.

So easy and so tasty you can tell people it took hours and they’ll believe you!  Since it makes enough for four, Joe & I had leftovers for the following day.  I had mine for lunch because I didn’t want to wait until dinner.  My recommendation on reheating these flaky bits of heaven: don’t nuke them.  They’ll get soggy and that’s such a waste.  Just reheat your turnover in the oven for 10-15 minutes at 375.  Enjoy!

Cook-Off Anyone? January 14, 2010

I have had a week chalk full of recipes – loved it!  In total I tried 8 new recipes.  In fact, my first post led to two food events last weekend: a light hearted cook-off and learning to make Perogis.

The rules of the cook-off were simple and guaranteed to keep everyone happy.  Jessica and her roommate Jeremy picked out some ingredients and then we all worked with those items for our dishes.  We were allowed to look up recipes online and try anything we wanted. 

While I enjoyed the cook-off I don’t think my dish was anything I’d repeat.  I made eggplant curry which was more like spicy eggplant mush.  Although I followed some directions I found online, the eggplant was overcooked before I ever added curry to the mix.  It tasted okay but lacked the texture that makes you realize you’re eating eggplant. 

The best food in my opinion was Jessica’s sautéed veggies.  She said it’s a ‘go to’ recipe for her; she just added more ingredients than normal: tomatoes and mushrooms.  Everything was cooked in garlicky olive oil and then shoyu was added at the end (soy sauce).  The tomatoes popped in your mouth they were so perfect!  I still don’t know what kind of mushrooms they got (from the local Chinese market) but they were incredibly flavorful and buttery.  Hey Jess: will you write up your recipe as a comment on this post?  Thanks lady!

The spirit of the cook-off was great.  No pressure, just fun and food.  I definitely want to do this again.  I think next time we’ll pick a single ingredient that everyone needs to use and see how that fares.  If you’re interested let me know and I’ll be sure to invite you…  (We play board games too, BTW.) 

Another great tid bit about our get together?  Jess introduced me to a favorite drink of her families: Bianco and Blood Orange.  It’s that easy.  Put ice in a tumbler and add some Martini & Rossi Bianco.  Cut a wedge of blood orange and squeeze it into your glass.  Drink up!  What a great way to get everyone into the spirit of cooking together!

*As for Perogis with the Taylors, I’m going to save that for another post.  I got to watch them make everything so I want to try it out for myself at home and then report on my experimenting at the same time.

Hello… Is this thing on? January 9, 2010

So, it looks like I’ve got an account on WordPress… let the insanity begin. Rebecca got the website back up and running and everything seems to be looking great… I still don’t trust iPowerWeb and we’re going to likely be switching over once we get everything backed up and figure out exactly where we’re going. But, all is good… for now. SPOON!

Try This At Home January 6, 2010

True to form this January has brought with it a few resolutions.  Some are meant to be kept and others will be quickly forgotten.  This one promises to be a fun way to stay in touch with those far away by keeping my family fed at home.

What do I mean?  Well every holiday and family get together in the Owen Clan centers around food – food is wonderful, comforting: perfect.  We love food!  Cooking comfort food really works for me when I’m missing my grandma, grandpa, aunts or the Farm that most get togethers center around…  So in an effort to feel more connected to my far away kin I am going to pick a new recipe every week and try it out.  Afterwards I’ll post the recipe and my experience with it here.  Sounds easy, right?  That’s the point.  I get to try some new recipes in the hopes of finding new family favorites and you get to give me your feedback as if you were here with me as my taster.  Ready?  Good, because here we go!

My first recipe comes from the Sunset Recipe Annual given to me by David for Christmas back in 2000: Moroccan Pork Loin with Dried Fruit and Lemons

Link to recipe here: http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1860056  Do me a favor and check out the recipe before you read ahead, that way you know what the hell I’m talking about from here on out.  You can skim the ingredients list and be just fine.

Moroccan Pork Loin with Dried Fruit & Lemons

The reason I chose this recipe is because I wanted to try something exotic and out of my comfort zone, plus the picture looked really yummy!  The clincher for this recipe as my first post: it calls for you to prep two roasts at once.  Then you freeze one for later. 

Result: I was a bit nervous with this recipe but the pork turned out so juicy I’m happy to know I have another one marinating in my freezer.  I also made the suggested green beans and Medjool Pilaf to accompany the dish.  The pilaf did NOT work.  I’m still trying to figure out what I did wrong.  Maybe I just had a bad batch of basmati rice that wouldn’t cook?  Seriously: the sauce was so yummy I wanted the rice to be more than just the hard rocks they went into the pan as, but alas: no.  They never plumped and I just don’t know why.

As for the pork: I missed a step in the recipe but even with my screw up it was tasty!  I forgot to add the beef broth which made the sauce dry out pretty quickly (from all that honey).  I thought the roast was going to be a burnt mess but it was sealed with flavor and so yummy – even Joe was surprised at how good it was.

A note about the ingredients: I went to my local produce market which is predominantly Middle Eastern and got most of the specialty items there.  That included Medjool dates and cardamom.  You can use regular dates I’m sure and the cardamom was expensive but available at Safeway.  As for the basmati I used Safeway’s Eating Right brand and it was a big flop.  I cooked the rice 45 minutes longer and even added more water hoping for it to soften but to no avail.  I’m going to try it again with another brand of basmati (because the sauce was that delicious!) and see how it turns out with my second roast.

Also from Sunset Magazine: Medjool Pilaf recipe can be found here: http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1860154  I hope it turns out the way it should the second time around.  And please let me know if you try either of these recipes.  The green beans were plain and heated in a pan on the stove.  I figured with all the wonderful smells going on in my kitchen that less was more when it came to the greens – it was.  Quite a nice compliment to the other flavors: good call Sunset Magazine.