Delicious crockpot recipe - Finally!

My crockpot and I have a tempestuous relationship. It has such potential to be a great kitchen tool. The idea of dumping stuff in in the morning and having a yummy meal at night is so tempting. The problem is that it is so hard to find any good crockpot recipes.

I have several crockpot cookbooks but they each have their own problems. The first is Slow Cookers for Dummies. It does a good job of explaining how slow cookers work but there aren't that many recipes in it. I think I've only gotten one or two recipes out of it that I like. Its big things are these Master recipes that you make up and then use in several different recipes. To me, that's just too close to using leftovers in a dish. I HATE leftovers. Zeb has them for lunch but I just can't stand them.

The second is Williams-Sonoma Gourmet Slow Cooker. We've had great success with this cookbook. The problem though is that this is not a dump-and-go slow cooker cookbook. Each recipe calls for sauteeing or grinding or mixing before you can turn the crockpot on. Sort of defeats the purpose. I don't often have 45 minutes in the morning to prepare a crockpot recipe before heading out which means Zeb often does these. Another annoyance with this cookbook is it will call for the crockpot to be on high for a period and then reduced to low. Unless you've got a fancy programmable crockpot, this also throws a wrench into to concept of turn it on in the morning and forget about it until the evening. But the best tasting crockpot meals have come from this cookbook so it's a give and take.

The third cookbook is Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook:Feasting With Your Slow Cooker. It's a compilation of recipes sent in by home cooks. Most of the recipes are from the Midwest - not a region known for its cuisine. This one has the most recipes but most of them are terrible. Canned everything (usually cream of mushroom soup) and too much salt (from the packets of Lipton's onion soup mix). There are some diamonds in the rough including a fantastic Moroccan chicken dish but the majority of the ones Zeb and I tried were horrendous. I'm talking about having trouble choking it down sort of bad. The upside is that all of the recipes are dump-and-go.

The Sacramento Bee Food Section recently did several stories about the re-emergence of crockpots and included several recipes. Last night we tried one - Stuffed Flank Steak with Currant Wine Sauce. It was quite good. The steak was fall apart tender and the stuffing and sauce were delicious. Not to mention that it was a hit presentation wise what with the spiral stuffing. I served it with a side of orzo and the sauce on top of the orzo was quite a hit. As for prep - I spent about 20 minutes getting everything together so it wasn't as much of a pain as the Williams-Sonoma recipes. I think I'm going to have to get this cookbook.

A friendly reminder to back up your documents

Friday night, I settled in for a bit of television watching while I compiled the week's menus and grocery list. My laptop, which got me through law school and the Bar, made some funny clicking sounds and then said that it didn't have a hard drive. Now, when I was in law school, I backed up all of my documents pretty regularly. However, since graduating and starting work, I haven't done that. It didn't really occur to me that I had anything important saved just on my laptop...until my laptop said it didn't have a hard drive. That's when I realized that the ONLY copies of my menu spreadsheet and grocery list document were on my laptop. I nearly had a panic attack. I have probably spent close to 30 hours compiling all of that stuff. To give you an idea, I had menus planned out for almost a year's worth of dinners and my shopping list, which lists every ingredient of every menu, was 91 pages long. I've been doing this for a good 8 months. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what was planned. I didn't know how I was going to put together a grocery list. All that hard work just lost...

Thankfully, the computer gods smiled on me and I was finally about to get my laptop running again. Everything is now backed up on several computers. And I made it to the grocery store.

So much food...

Our Super Bowl party went very well. I was worried we weren't going to have enough food but people outdid themselves. I was running out of places to put everything! I made three different kinds of chili. The chorizo and ground beef with beans was the biggest hit. We didn't seem to have any vegetarians this year so my vegetarian chili was a waste. Too bad because it looked pretty good.

My first dinner party

Last night, I got to throw my first dinner party. Now, I've had tons of people over before but never have I provided seats for them all to sit on. It was Dan's birthday and his wife Renee wanted to throw him a party. Zeb and I offered to host since their apartment is a bit on the small side. Renee and I set up two long card tables together and then decorated them in a fishing theme. There were candles everywhere and I got to use all of my new wine glasses. We had Grilled Tilapia with Mango Salsa and Curry Couscous (Rachel Ray's 30 Minute Meals 2, pg. 221). The incredible thing about this recipe is that it is so colorful and delicious but there's very little fat. I think I used only a couple tablespoons of olive oil total and I tripled the recipes. Definitely different from what we're having tomorrow on Super Bowl Sunday. Renee and I made the salsa the night before and managed to have everything ready when people showed up. Now that's a first for me. Usually, when I invite people over for dinner at 7, we're not eating until 9 at the earliest. And we made food for 10! It was a great party. For dessert, Renee and I made Dan's favorite, strawberry shortcake. The strawberries were huge but they weren't that sweet so we sliced them up thin and marinated them in sugar and a bit of lemon juice overnight. We used the Bisquick recipe for the biscuits and then topped them with vanilla ice cream, strawberries and fresh whipped cream sweetened with sugar and vanilla. And with Dan and Renee's help, Zeb and I got the house back into shape in no time.

Mild but good

Tonight I made Chicken Breasts in Pumpkin Sauce. I'm a huge fan of pumpkin. I make a fabulous pumpkin dip that is a hit at parties and some really good pumpkin muffins. I haven't made the muffins in a few years though because one holiday season, I made muffins as gifts. Dozens and dozens of muffins...muffins everywhere. Zeb and I got to the point where the sight of them just made us gag. We're coming out of our pumpkin muffin aversion though. I considered making them this past Christmas but never got around to it. By next Christmas, I should be in a place where I actually look forward to them. Again they're great muffins...in moderation.

Anyway, tonight's dinner...very few ingredients...no chopping. In a way it's great to have a dish that doesn't require chopping because that means fewer dishes to clean up, but I don't have to do the dishes when I cook and I LOVE my knives. Zeb got me a killer set of knives for my birthday (okay, maybe "killer" is a bad choice of words). These knives are amazing - everything chops so perfectly. Zeb has several scars from them but I have yet to get anything more than a chipped nail (knock on wood). I used to dread mincing herbs because our old set, while functional, merely mascerated the leaves without actually getting through. I would even bring out the food processor just to get a fine mince. Now it's so fantastic! Mincing and fine dicing are a snap! I'll even mince garlic rather than put it through the press just to get to use my knives. Oh they're so fabulous.

But again, I didn't have to use them tonight...sigh. Nope, just chicken sauteed in garlic, olive oil and butter. The recipe said to pull the chicken out of the pan once it was done and then pour in 1/2 cup of whipping cream and get all the browned bits up. Well, I think there was a step missing, like remove pan from heat. The cream was bubbling like mad and I think got burned. I went ahead and added the pumpkin, white pepper, salt and nutmeg but it just tasted awful. I ended up tossing out the sauce and starting over. Didn't have any of the browned chicken and garlic bits but it also didn't taste like crap. I didn't think I was going to like the sauce, even remade, because it was so mild in flavor. I tend to go after very bold flavors and there is nothing bold about this dish. However, the sauteed chicken topped with the mild pumpkin sauce and almonds (which were supposed to be toasted but I was tired and a bit lazy) turned out to be quite good. Not New Year's in Vegas-more like your grandmother putting a warm fuzzy blanket she made herself on you after you've dozed off, a gentle ahhh flavor. Although the pumpkin was a main ingredient, it wasn't as strong a note as I was expecting. I will definitely try this recipe again - with my added directions for the sauce.

The one thing dinner was missing though was a side. I'm terrible about putting sides with a main dish. Usually, we just throw the main dish on top of couscous or rice but this dish didn't feel like it would mesh with either. The sauce wasn't the kind the runs down for the couscous or rice to sop up; it stayed with the chicken. I guess I could have done some sort of vegetable but I never think of that until I'm staring at the plate thinking: Gee there's a lot of empty space. Oh well, I'm working on it.

Sweet seafood

Tonight, dinner was a snap, Pasta with Scallops and Lemon (Sunset, May 2004). Just a few ingredients - scallops, penne pasta, lemon, onions, garlic, and basil. It was so simple and yet the flavors worked so well together. Either scallops live beneath lemon trees or lemons grow at the bottom of the sea. (Just kidding, it's the excellent Kendall Jackson chardonnay typing). The one issue I had was with the article. In introducing the recipe, Sunset said that one night when the cupboards were bare, Jane Doe (I can't remember her name) only had scallops and lemon on hand and, voila, a great weeknight meal was born. Who the hell has scallops just lying around? Seafood goes bad!!! It's something that you get when you have a plan!!! Either Jane Doe's lying about the origins of the recipe or she wastes a hell of a lot of seafood. Anyway, good recipe. Watched I, Robot with dinner. I was impressed - Will Smith wasn't as suave as he usually is and yet he still pulled it off.

Blackberries - not just for pie anymore

Friday night was the first night I scheduled a repeat recipe since mid-September. I've mentioned this before but, after several months of trying new things, I needed to know that what was for dinner was going to be good - not just look good on paper. Zeb made Blackberry-Barbecued Chicken with Couscous (Williams-Sonoma Pacific Northwest, pg. 48?). The baste is carmelized onions, blackberries, red wine and other things all cooked down and pureed. I could eat the stuff like soup it's so tasty. Zeb didn't grill it though. When he went out to light the grill, he noticed a bunch of feathers. It looked like a bird had exploded. I have my ideas of what happened but it's not really appropriate for a blog on food. Needless to say, we baked the chicken instead. It was missing that added flavor that grilling gives a dish but it was still delicious.

Yummy burgers!

Yesterday for lunch, I made up some Caesar Salad burgers (Cooking in Cast Iron, pg. 12) . I have usually avoided burgers since that's what we make for all our big parties. Plus, I'm not a big bun fan. However, this sounded good so I had to try it. Basically, the buns replace the croutons and all of the flavors are in the beef - capers, basil, ketchup, Dijon mustard, salt and pepper. I think next time, I'll add some bread crumbs or flour to the mixture though because I found the burgers didn't really hold their shape and were close to falling apart. They wouldn't have made it on the grill but in the cast iron pan, they did alright. Anyway, once the burgers are cooked, you put them on the bun and top with freshly grated Parmesan cheese and a bit of Caesar Salad dressing (Newman's Own is the best). I didn't think I was going to like the capers but I didn't really notice them as a separate ingredient but the flavor they was quite good. And the basil in the burgers- wow! Not exactly what you would call a boring burger. They didn't need anything else. Yay! Yumminess!

A simple dinner...not so simple cleanup

On Tuesday, I made this fantabulous meal - Baked Potatoes with Lebanese-style Beef Filling. It was kind of like a special twice-baked potato. Carmelized onions, ground beef, cinnamon, fresh parsley mixed in with the potato flesh. And then there was an easy sauce of plain yogurt simmered with a garlic-salt paste. I really need to post this recipe. Zeb had EMT class so I ate before he got home. Literally, I was trying to figure out whether he would notice if he had only one half of a potato. In the end I was good though. Definitely a recipe to repeat...but I'm not sure Zeb would agree.

We have a deal where, if I cook, Zeb does the dishes, and vice versa. It's a really good set-up. Especially since Zeb usually grills which means my cleanups are a snap! So Wednesday morning Zeb started to clean up. The recipe called for simmering the yogurt sauce, covered. When Zeb got his first apartment, his mom set him up with a good set of pans. The problem with them is that the lids often create a vacuum seal, making it next to impossible to got off. This usually occurs when we've made rice. Once when Zeb was trying to get the cover off, he cracked off several pieces of the enamel in the kitchen sink. Often, he'll go out to the back porch and bang the pan on the ground until the lid pops off. Some rice will often fall out but it's not a big deal. At Christmas, Zeb and I were complaining about this issue we kept having with the pots. Zeb's mom burst out laughing and said that the pots were supposed to do this and, by putting a bit of cold water on the lid, it would come right off. Well, we felt very stupid and, upon finding the lid on the yogurt sauce pan firmly stuck, Zeb decided to try out our newfound knowledge. Didn't work. So Zeb went to his old method. He went out onto the back porch, leaving the sliding door open, and started thwacking the hell out of the pan. And the lid came off. And the yogurt-garlic sauce left the pan...and exploded over everything. Zeb, the back porch, the sliding door, the hardwood floor, the easy chair, the bar stools, the far wall which was at least 20 feet away...it went everywhere...a garlicky dairy based product went EVERYWHERE! Zeb cleaned for a couple hours trying to get it up. We're still finding it. I was at the grocery store on Saturday and noticed these white splotches on my purse. I though a bird had crapped on my purse until I remembered the sauce. We'll be finding drops of this stuff for months.

Salt and fudge

Last night, Ellen and Sean came over for dinner. Ellen and I left the boys to the football for what was supposed to be a quick shopping trip. How time flies when you're having fun! We didn't get back until 8:30. Luckily, the recipe I had picked out, Chicken Tangine with Raisins and Pistachios, was a quick one. I snagged this recipe from my mother-in-law. It's a Moroccan dish and all of the flavors sounded delicious - cinnamon, cumin, paprika, tumeric. It even called for preserved lemons. Raley's didn't carry preserved lemons. I had to look it up on the internet to even figure out what the heck the stuff was. Neither Nugget nor Trader Joes carried it although the guy I talked to at Trader Joes said they carried oranges. As a last resort, Zeb and I went to Corti Brothers. What an amazing store! Zeb actually found several different types of preserved lemons. I was too caught up in looking around at all of the amazing stuff. The cheese case is incredible. The international foods aisle was actually an aisle. As a reward for finding the item we were searching for, Zeb snagged a beer that was rated a 95.

Anyway, back to the cooking. Super fast and easy recipe. It called for putting two preserved lemons, quartered, in the mix. The guy at Corti Brothers had mentioned that the brand we selected was very salty. So I left out the salt in the recipe. Whoa...not enough salt cut. It was good but too salty for my tastes. Next time this one comes up in the rotation, I'll either leave out the lemons or reduce the amount by a lot.

For dessert, Ellen and Sean brought over an insane chocolate cake from Nugget. Oh my god, it wasn't so much frosting as spreadable fudge. I took one bite and ran for the milk. Good things come from Nugget. Would it be wrong to have a slice for breakfast this morning?

On another note, we'll be repeating our first recipe since August week after next. We still have a ton of new recipes to try out but I decided that I wanted to mix in some other cookbooks that we've already gone through to balance out the rotation a bit. Plus, while I love trying out new recipes, I've missed the feeling of knowing that a certain recipe is great. I think my recent cooking disasters have made me want to reach back for sure things.

Dinner at Megan and Tony's

Went over for dinner at Megan and Tony's place. I've been feeling a bit blah about cooking lately thanks to a few disasters in the kitchen. Megan made Chicken Parmesan with Angel Hair Pasta and Garlic Bread. She even had a side salad. The chicken was so moist and flavorful. I really need to get the recipe. Now, Megan and Tony are on a no-carb diet right now. So I was surprised that the chicken was breaded. That's when Megan told me that it was breaded with crushed pork rinds, Italian seasoning and Parmesan. I was so surprised! Everyone thought I was disgusted but it tasted delicious - why would I be grossed out by an ingredient that tasted so good? Overall a great meal. It's so much fun to hang out with friends. Oh and there was a fantastic Columbia Crest Shriaz. I think 2002.

What a waste of time!

Last night, I was exhausted. I left work a bit early because I was falling asleep at my desk. I got home and started making Chile-Spiced Sweet Potato Tamales (Sunset, November 2004). Zeb offered to make dinner but I thought I could handle it. Cooking tends to relax me and I really enjoy it. Everything started out well. I got the corn husks soaking and the sweet potatoes, coated with butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon, roasting in the oven. It smelled so good - a bit like french toast. An hour later, I had mashed sweet potatoes laced with masa flour and chipotle chiles. The recipe called for steaming the tamales on a rack in a covered pot with simmering water. Well, this seemed a bit too much engineering for my tastes and I have an awesome steamer so I thought I'd just use that. I managed to fill the corn husks and tie them up pretty well for having no experience whatsoever. I loaded up the steamer and set the timer for 30 minutes. Recipe called for 1 hour to firm the tamales but I thought I would just check them out halfway. I then curled up on the couch and half slept, half watched television. The timer went off (around 8:45pm) and I went to go check out my tamales. Now usually, the steamer gets pretty hot so you have to be careful when opening it. Funny thing though, there was a bit of condensation on the inside but it was cool. My tamales weren't firming up at all. I started it up again, quite puzzled, when I looked down and saw that some idiot (me) forgot to plug the damn thing in. Back to the couch...30 minutes later....hot squishy tamales. At this point I'm so freaking tired, Zeb put me to bed. He kept the steamer going for another 40 minutes but it never worked. I didn't get dinner and he had cereal. Stupid tamales.

We're going out!

So I had a long day and Zeb had a good day and we have reason to celebrate so we're going out to dinner tonight. I had planned on making risotto-stuffed bell peppers but I got the wrong sausage so the timing is perfect!

Some are good...some not so much

Made a couple recipes out of Cooking in Cast Iron. Last night, I made Beef and Barley Stew with Roasted Garlic (pg. 2). I really enjoyed the pearl barley in the recipe even if I did have to soak it. It was like a chewy orzo. I understand it's quite healthy too. Not that that should deter anyone from trying it! The roasted garlic wasn't too powerful for the dish which was a pleasant surprise since the last time I roasted garlic, Zeb and I were nearly ill from the potency. I had two complaints with it though. I'm not a big fan of green peppers and there were two called for. Perhaps next time, I'll put in a different vegetable. Second, the recipe said that the meat would be falling apart tender by the time it was done and mine was tough and chewy. That may be a product of my meat selection however. Packaged stew meat tends to be pretty tough and only good for slow cooker recipes. Next time, I'll just slice up a steak.

Tonight, Zeb made Jamaican Jerk Chicken (Smoke & Spice, pg. 33) and Algerian Carrot Salad (Cooking in Cast Iron, pg. 109). Zeb is really getting the hang of smoking on the grill. Although his timing still needs a bit of work. Dinner was a bit on the late side. :-) The chicken was a little too spicy for me but once I trimmed a bit of the spice crust off, it was delicious! I've never had chicken so tender. It's really impressive. The Algerian Carrot Salad was another matter though. While the ingredients sound great (garlic, lemon, brown sugar, cumin, cayenne, etc.), the result was bland. The carrots come out limp and mushy. This felt like a recipe that was trying too hard to be innovative with cast iron. It's a pain in the butt to clean a cast iron pan and this just didn't seem like a recipe that benefited from its use. I still like the cookbook but next time this comes up in the rotation, we're not going to cook the carrots for as long and pump up the flavors. Oh, another thing, the recipe called for walnut oil which is pretty expensive. Based on the outcome, it wasn't worth the expense. Surely olive oil would have worked as well. This is like where Ainsley Harriot calls for sunflower oil for sauteeing. Ticks me off because my cabinet space is not unlimited.

Scents

Yesterday I complained about the lingering smell of salmon. Today, I must extol the virtues of sauteeing onions, garlic and ginger. Zeb's just started the Apricot Chicken and, with just those three ingredients and a glass and a half of sauvignon blanc, I'm starting to let go of my crappy day. I'm a sucker for a recipe with fresh ginger. If that's an ingredient, I'm going to add it to my spreadsheet. It's spicy and sweet and so fragrant. Garlic's another ingredient that I think should be in everything. I tend to double the amount of garlic requested by the recipe (I mean, really, who's to say what the recipe author meant by 1 clove?). I used to be totally against garlic. I think that's because my best friend from high school, Gina, overloaded a bowl of my grandfather's vegetable soup with garlic powder. The smell made me ill for years. Now it's one of my favorites. Go figure!

Speaking of which, I really need to get my grandfather's vegetable soup recipe. I don't know how to describe it. I think of it as the ultimate comfort food. Just thinking about that soup makes me feel better. Huh, another thing that makes me forget my crappy day. My grandfather doesn't cook much but when he does, it's memorable. He would send me off to college with some of that vegetable soup and, even though most soups with discernible vegetables would made me gag, that soup was heaven.

Dinner was so much fun! Even though Raley's didn't have the apricots in juice like the recipe called for, Zeb made the apricots in heavy syrup work. He's much better at improvising then I am. I'm a "follow the recipe to the exact detail" kind of person although I'm also a "by accidentally skip important steps and have to scurry around to try to fix it" person. The sauce was absolutely delectable. My chicken was a bit scorched but that's due to the fact that our grill doesn't heat evenly but we haven't figured out its hot spots. Oh, and I got Lisa to drink a ton of wine with me. Jason and Zeb called me a pusher. I prefer to think of it as my enthusiasm encourages others to join me. Here's hoping she didn't get a hangover!!

Wine with dinner

Since moving out to California, I've developed a better appreciation for wine. I think it's just one of those things that happens when you're surrounded by great wineries. It also doesn't hurt that in the past few years, wineries have been producing great wines at much more reasonable prices. I'm not at a point where I notice specific flavors in a wine (such as kiwi or red plum) but I'm getting to the point where I can tell when a wine is more interesting than another. Unfortunately, I'm a bit of a lightweight so more than a glass and I'm tipsy.

Zeb's cooking tonight. We're having Pan-Fried Salmon with Pinot Noir and Thyme (Williams-Sonoma Pacific Northwest, pg. 40) and herbed mashed potatoes (mashed potatoes with a package of herbed cheese mixed in). My first day back from vacation and I just really didn't feel like cooking. Sounds like I picked a good one to skip from the sounds of Zeb yelping from the splattering oil. That should be a fun meal to clean up!

Tomorrow night we're having friends over, Lisa and Jason. They're the ones that really got me thinking that fabulous food could be made at home without all of the processed out of a box crap. Their cookbook collection makes me drool. Literally, when they lived in the area, I would spend visits just perusing their collection. Jason makes his own curry from scratch and Lisa's got a recipe for these delectable glazed carrots that I've never been able to duplicate. Anyway, we're going to have Apricot Glazed Chicken and couscous (Ainsley Harriot's Barbeque Bible). I hope it turns out well!

Just finished dinner. The salmon was SO good! It had this delectable crust, peppery and sweet all at once. Williams-Sonoma cookbooks are pretty consistent with delivering delicious recipes without too much fuss. The recipes are more involved than Rachel Ray's but not as hard as say Julia Childs'. Zeb used a Pepperwood Grove 2002 Pinot Noir in the dish and we drank the rest. While I said above that I couldn't pick out specific flavors, with this wine, I was actually able to notice a deep fruit flavor before the spicy bite. According to the website, it was cherries. All I know is that I'll pick this one up again. It was less than $10 at Raley's.

One thing I HATE about cooking salmon indoors is that the whole house reeks afterwards. While I enjoy the smell when I'm eating, after I'm full, it just makes me ill. And it seems to linger for days. I tried a bit of air freshener but oftentimes that can be even worse! I'm a big fan of grilled salmon. Maybe next time this recipe comes around, I might be able to talk Zeb into making it on the outdoor grill's burner. Would save on the oil cleanup, that's for sure!

Ringing in the New Year!

Today's been quite the cooking day. We usually have people over to watch football on Sundays. I don't like the sport but I love having people over - guinea pigs for new recipes. For lunch, I put together Southwestern Heat Burgers with Kansas City Baked Beans (Smoke & Spice, pg. 32, 372, respectively). The baked beans were a pain in the ass. First off, any recipe that calls for soaking beans for at least 4 hours before cooking them for another 2 to 3 ticks me off. I'm a fan of Rachel Ray's 30 Minute Meals. I don't like having to think about dinner the night before or start working on lunch at 9 in the morning. I'd actually started these beans for New Year's but Brian offered to make enchiladas which are absolutely incredible - I'll never turn those suckers down. So I tossed out a pan of soaking beans Friday night. Last night, I started the second bag of beans soaking and I started them cooking around 11 this morning. Oh, the recipe called for navy beans. Raley's didn't have anything called navy beans so I grabbed two bags of red beans. Should have checked Joy of Cooking (best reference cookbook ever). Turns out navy beans are small white beans. By the time I figured that out, there were a bunch of hungry people in the house and the wrong beans still a few hours from being done. At that point, I said "screw it" and went to the store and bought a few cans of white beans. That cut at least 6 hours off the recipe. I have to remember that in the future. So the Smoke and Spice cookbook is really good - Zeb pulled a ton of recipes from it. I think if we have one a week, we won't repeat until September. The problem though is that each recipe calls for a ton of ingredients and usually a cup of some other recipe. The flavors are incredible but it is time consuming. The cookbook is like a choose-your-own-adventure story. So for the baked beans, I chose the Struttin' Sauce, which also had about 18 ingredients. At first I was annoyed I had to make it but then I tried it. So delicious! I think it was my favorite part! We put the extra on the burgers. The baked beans turned out quite well but I think it will be a while before I try that one again. The burgers weren't that hot or flavorful but that may be because the recipe was for a rub and I just mixed in the ingredients into the meat. I may not have put in enough. But, I tell you what...slather on some of that Struttin' Sauce and you can't tell the difference!

After such a big (and late) lunch, Zeb and I weren't really in the mood for a big dinner. His suggestion was to just snack but one of my New Year's resolutions was to eat better and I tend to snack on crap. So I made Tomato-Basil soup (Intercourses, pg. 40 - such a great book - get it for Valentine's Day, the recipes are easy and delicious). We usually put the soup in sourdough bread bowls but the grocery store didn't have any loaves of the right size so I just toasted up some sourdough bread and stuck pieces in the soup. With the leftover basil (which tends to turn pretty quickly on me), I made up some pesto in the food processor (basil, garlic, romano cheese, pine nuts and olive oil) and used it as a garnish. Zeb preferred the soup without the pesto but I really liked it. Not too heavy but very filling.

Oh, when we got back on Thursday, I made up a batch of Chutney Chicken Salad (Sunset, May '04). It had curry powder, raisins, basimati rice, almonds, fruit chutney, and sour cream in it. Albertson's didn't have any roasted chicken, so I poached two chicken breasts in coconut milk. It really added another flavor level to the salad. I had made it once before last week before our drive to Washington but I left it in the fridge where it sat around for a week. Week-old chutney chicken salad is not nearly as pleasant as the freshly made stuff. Yuck!

The holidays...

Got back from my in-laws lst week. My mother-in-law is an amazing cook. We were so well fed!Each year, she makes dozens of different kinds of cookies. There's a full plate with a few of each variety at all times. My favorites are the nutmeg logs and the praline cookies. Just incredible. The first time I visited, I thought I was being so thoughtful by bringing a few dozen of these fudgy bonbons (soft chocolate cookie around a Hershey's Hugs - Pillsbury bakeoff winner - so yummy when microwaved for a few seconds!). Zeb had failed to mention the spread his mom puts on. I know now - I cannot compete.

These days, I just sit back and try to learn from her. Oh she made these incredible chicken breasts stuffed with spinach and mushrooms (The Ark Cookbook). I wanted more but I could only eat so much. Oh and then there was the green beans and chestnuts sauteed in whiskey. And this cranberry butter...my sister-in-law's boyfriend just started eating it with a spoon.

The Beginning

For a while, I've been thinking about starting a blog. But the things I might write about seemed trite and uninteresting. And then there's that whole idea of strangers reading about my personal life and such. But there is one aspect of my life that I'm quite excited about sharing. I've gotten into home cooking and I've gotten pretty good at it (Okay, my husband is a great cook as well - I can't take all the credit). So I thought I'd share my plan and experiences with the Net at large.

Let me tell you a bit about my feelings about food. If it was only about nourishment and getting rid of hunger pains, I'd probably eat Ramen, Kraft Mac and Cheese and oatmeal. In fact, when I eat by myself, that's usually what I eat. I see food as an experience to be shared with others. I love going out to restaurants or having people over. I'm from the South where feeding people could be considered both an Olympic sport and a mission from God. I love being around people enjoying food and I enjoy food more when I'm around people.

When I got out of college, my culinary skills mainly consisted of pasta with any kind of sauce on it, as long as the sauce came of a jar. Oh my bank account emptied quickly as I worked my way through the many fabulous restaurants in DC. When I moved out to San Francisco, my now-husband and I each went up a size as we ate out ALL the time. He learned very quickly to not try and finish my plate as well. When we moved to Davis so I could attend law school, we started eating in more to save money. Unfortunately, we got stuck in a cooking rut. Here was the basic week: Monday - pot pies, Tuesday - spaghetti, Wednesday - chili, Thursday - chicken Caesar salad, Friday - enchiladas. We had a few other meals in the rotation but we definitely had a pattern. We probably ate out more than we should because neither one of us could handle the idea of one of "those" meals again.

During my last set of finals, Zeb went on a trip with his parents. He knew that left to my own devices, I would eat crap (see above for details). So he had me sit down with a few cookbooks and plan out a menu and grocery list. Here's the crazy thing - it worked so well, that I decided to do the same thing for the entire time I was studying for the Bar. Zeb and I sat down with all of our cookbooks and pulled out all of the recipes that sounded good. I put them in a spreadsheet and we were set. During one of the most stressful times in my life, we didn't have to worry about what we were going to eat. The monotony wasn't going to set in. We ate better that summer then we ever had before. And probably saved money too since we weren't going out!

After the summer, we decided that the system worked so well, that we should just keep it going. I'm working now so we go out to eat more then we did during the summer but we still having great meals at home. I want to share my experience doing this. Maybe no one will care but I need some sort of outlet to share my excitement because my friends think I'm nuts.