we missed the boat

My parents took us to San Marcos to see the Texas State University-San Marcos Aquarena Center. It used to be the Aquarena Springs Resort complete with underwater mermaid shows and Ralph the diving pig. After the demand for swimming swine dwindled TSU bought it and now use the land to educate the masses about the Edwards Aquifer. The aquifer is the source of the springs, and the springs, the source of the San Marcos River. They have glass-bottomed boats that you can ride on and see the fish, turtles and other animals as well as the water percolating up from the bottom.

We got there are 3:30. The last boat left at two pm. Dang! Don't worry though. We had fun. We walked on all the boardwalks and made a game of finding the turtles and fish hiding among the weeds.

My point in telling you this? Well, we were leaving (around 4:30) and realized we were very hungry. We asked Betty (my Sienna's nav-center) what was around and she let us know that Taco Cabana was nearby.

One fajita steak burrito for me and three cheese quesadilla meals with chips and queso for the kidlings. (What can I say? They like cheese.)

The end.

antithesis

Tonight, I got to meet the parents of my parents' friend. (I'll wait while you figure that out.)

Sweetest people. He's from Monterrey, Mexico and she's from Chile. While I can't speak Spanish worth a plug nickel, I can understand probably 75% of their conversation. It was a ton of fun. We made a three-cheese (read: expensive and super-yummy) fondue and I made a blackout chocolate cake. (A delicious chocolate cake frosted with delicious chocolate pudding that looked just like this cake if you had dropped it and then slid it as best you could back onto the plate.) This wasn't dinner it was "dessert" but I thought you'd like to know. And I was lazy and did not take pictures. Sorry.

Dinner. I don't want to admit it. But my dad picked up Little Sleazers. Two pepperonis. So we had cheap-butt pizza and kick-butt dessert. It is what it is, I guess.

last of the leftovers

We had one turkey breast left. I didn't want to do it, but my uninspiration continued and so I fell back on a turkey favorite, tetrazzini. To be honest, it's still too soon. We just had this a month ago after Thanksgiving. I'm sick of it.

Tetrazzini, my kids love you, but I need space. I just feel like you're smothering me. As far as turkey leftovers go, our relationship can't be exclusive. I'm just not that girl. It's not you, Tetrazzini. It's me. I think it would be best if we spent some time apart. I'm sorry.

inspired and yet not.

Last night I watched Cupcake Wars on the Food Network and now I'm totally making cupcakes for the New Year's shindig I'm going to. I'm so very inspired to create cupcake delishifull-beautiness.

Dinner tonight? Completely UNinspired. I was planning to unleash the kids on Nana's cereal choices while I got cozy with a cheese ball and Ritz. (We're at my parents'. My husband took our oldest son and road-tripped it to Oregon.) Nana wasn't feeling it, though. She made a rather delicious salad topped with the last of the pork loin from Christmas dinner. The kids ate salad instead of cereal. Good job, Nana.

And while the cheese ball was good, I admit I was feeling better after the salad, too. Thanks, Mom.

texas burgers

While on vacation this summer, we tried to visit a Texas Burger. Twice. Both times ended in failure. Tonight as we were headed to San Antonio to visit my parents we purposed to change our Texas Burger destiny.

We succeeded.

As far as fast food is concerned, Texas Burger has earned itself third place in my book, behind #1 Burgerville and #2 In-N-Out. It is a decent burger that is among the upper echelon of fast-food burgers.

That still doesn't make it good for you. It just makes it so that I don't have the double-teaming haunting of bad taste and bad nutrition.

Oh! I almost forgot. I ordered the swiss-mushroom burger with onion rings. Onion rings: delicious. Burger: would have been great with real swiss instead of that processed cheese food they stuck on it. But hey, you get what you pay for, right?

can you guess?

Is there any possible thing we could have had tonight besides leftovers? I think not.

German Feast part zwei.

our great german-american feast

Usually I am one for tradition but this year I just couldn't stomach another roast turkey with stuffing and mashed potatoes right on the heels of Thanksgiving. (Which is saying a lot since mashed potatoes are my most favorite-ist food.) I suggested to my wonderful husband that we might try a German feast this year and the enthusiasm he exhibited would have frightened small children and animals.

Last year my hubbers had made this delicious white-meat turkey stuffed with dark-meat apricot sausage. He wanted to make the sausage again but this time make it into links with a sausage stuffer and everything. He also had made this supremely, delightful cranberry-bourbon relish so we knew that would make another showing.

I checked out Great German-American Feasts from the library and we started searching. From that cookbook we decided on rotkohl (vinegared red cabbage), mustard-glazed carrots, Austrian pork loin, spaetzel (noodley-dumpling things) and maple sweet-potato puff topped with pecans. We also made turkey schnitzel (boneless breast pounded thin, breaded and fried), a cremini-shiitake mushroom sauce, and cheese fondue with homemade pumpernickel, rye and sourdough loaves. (The fondue flopped terribly, to our great sadness. It separated and while it tasted delicious, it was quite disturbing to gaze upon.) Our friends brought over a ham.

For dessert I made a pumpkin pie and we served the leftover cupcakes from my daughter's birthday. Our friends made pumpkin bars, flourless chocolate cake and a truffle layer cake.

I think the word of the day was STUFFED.

Pictured above are: apricot-turkey sausages (Dug added apricots and pinenuts to this recipe), mustard-glazed carrots, Austrian pork loin and cranberry-bourbon relish.

Next we have from front right: turkey schnitzel (in the recipe, we substituted turkey breast slices for the pork and we didn't use the mushroom sauce, although we have in the past and it is good.), a big ol' ham, and rotkohl (red cabbage all spiced-up and yummy).

At the far end of the table we had starting at front right: spaetzle, cremini-shiitake mushroom sauce (Dug's original recipe below) and maple sweet-potato puff topped with pecans.

Lastly, our dessert table: chocolate cupcakes from last night, flourless chocolate cake, truffle cake and pumpkin pie.

Dug's Mushroom Sauce
8 oz sliced mushrooms (get a variety)
2 T chopped onion
1 T butter
1 T olive oil
1/2 c white wine
1 c turkey broth
2 T flour
salt and pepper, to taste
1 tsp dried parsley flakes

Saute mushrooms in butter and oil until mushrooms release juices. Add white wine and bring to boil. Take some of the juices and mix with flour to make a paste. Add flour mixture and broth to mushrooms and reduce til thickened. Add parsley and adjust seasonings to taste. Makes 1 1/2 to 2 cups.

pizza + chocolate cupcakes

Today isn't Christmas Eve in our house until after dinner. From the moment we wake up until dinner is eaten it is our middle daughter's birthday.

In our house when it's your birthday, you get to pick the menu for the day. There are only two rules:

1. Only one meal may be eaten at a restaurant. (This had to be instituted because of our eldest son.)
2. Mom holds veto authority.

For her birthday, my not-as-little-as-she-used-to-be-because-she's-now-seven red-head picked pizza: one cheese, one pineapple and one pepperoni. For dessert she asked for chocolate cupcakes with white chocolate ganache frosting and a cherry on top. Believe me, I was quite ready to fulfill her birthday meal wishes with those choices...

I used this recipe for the chocolate cupcakes. Mmmmmmm.

brisket quesadillas

With christmas shopping and all, we barely had time for dinner preparation tonight. We ended up using the leftover brisket from last night to spice up simple refried bean/cheddar cheese quesadillas. The green in our meal came from some guacamole we mixed up. I'm quite sure that that isn't what they mean by "getting more greens into your diet," though.

brisket + green beans + mashed potatoes

Mom and Dad are here for the Christmas holiday. Dad was out and about and came home with a brisket. We threw it in the oven, made a massive amount of instant mashed potatoes (eaten with equal parts cook's guilt and taste-bud pleasure) and steamed then pan-fried some green beans. Simple meal with delicious consequences.

sausage and veggie chowder + focaccia

I have an unknown-origin recipe in my recipe box for vegetable chowder. It's a great conglomeration of green beans, carrots, potatoes, and onions. I had a head of broccoli and a couple leftover sausages from a previous meal and a real hankering for some creamy soup. I took my chowder recipe nixed the green beans (I was out), added the broccoli and the sausage and threw in a cup or two of cheddar for good measure. Mmmmmm....just what the tummy ordered for cool winter's day.

I also made up a thick garlic-butter focaccia with my handy-dandy pizza dough.

Comfort food at its best.

leftovers

There's nothing new here...

pineapple chicken bake + brown rice pilaf + salad

This was an unintentional Indian-esque dinner. The recipe was blandly named "Pineapple Chicken Bake." With that name would you expect it to be chicken baked in very strong curry-flavored pineapple sauce? I didn't. It was good, but the husband is not the biggest fan of curry. Foreseeing his slight unhappiness at the prominent flavor I halved the curry powder called for. It was the right move because he ended up really liking it.

I paired it with a millet pilaf, subbing brown rice for the millet. (I forgot to buy some.) Of course the kids hated it, what with its fruit and nuts and veggies invasion. But they've got to learn there are times when you are faced with food you think you don't like. (That and I'm a selfish cook: If I'm making it, it's going to be something I'm in the mood for.)

I threw in a salad (Tonight's was topped with my favorite, Annie's Naturals Goddess Dressing.) and considered it a meal.

The Pineapple Chicken Bake came from America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. Millet Pilaf materialized off the pages of Moosewood's Low-Fat Favorites.

mel's country cafe

My hubby loves burgers. We live in Texas. We found this blog called "Texas Burger Guy." The author loves burgers and goes all over the state of Texas trying them out and reviewing them. His number four, Mel's Country Cafe, isn't too far from us and we decided to check it out a few months ago.

Oh dear me! Those burgers are sooooo good.

All this to say: We ate there tonight. I got the swiss-mushroom burger. We ordered a basket of tots and basket of their super-delicious onion rings to share with the fam. I was exceedingly and happily full.

I didn't take any pics but they have the Mega-Mel Challenge (eat the Mega-Mel Burger in under two hours and get your name on the Wall of Fame) and thought you might enjoy these shots of random strangers attempting it.

african peanut stew + rice + salad

I love foods with peanut sauces. Indonesian chicken satay, udon noodles with peanut sauce, mmmm...so delicious. I also like dishes that have basic, inexpensive yet nutritious ingredients. West African Peanut Stew from The Vegetarian Family Cookbook has both. This soup had sweet potatoes, cabbage, tomatoes, onion and ginger swimming in a sea of broth and peanut butter. Sounds odd, tastes superb.

I served it over rice and would have loved to have added the cayenne but for the sake of everyone but my oldest daughter (she loves spicy, too) I refrained and just added red pepper flakes as a garnish to my bowl. A green salad finished off the meal.

egg salad sandwiches + carrot sticks

Long story, short:
Grocery shopping took too long. Dinner started by oldest son. Boom, boom, bang...egg salad sandwiches. The carrot sticks was my quick and feeble attempt to bring a degree of redemption to the cholesterol laden (and highly delicious) meal.

seitan "meat and potatoes" stew + green beans

Last night I used up the extra seitan that I had made for a pizza about a month ago. (Don't worry I had frozen it.) I decided to make the Seitan "Meat and Potatoes" Stew from The Vegetarian Family Cookbook. It has been colder out which makes stew such a good fit. It's a very simple recipe mainly consisting of potatoes, carrots and the seitan.

Instead of adding green beans to the stew I decided to have them as a side dish instead. My favorite way to prepare them is to steam them for a few minutes and then pan-fry them in olive oil with some Mrs. Dash, garlic powder, salt and pepper. They get a little blackened and are so delicious. Of course they ended up mixing with the stew but they were a much more flavorful addition this way.

Happy tummies.

baked potatoes

Continuing with the leftover beans...Baked Potato Night!
We had the leftover Cuban beans, broccoli, cheddar, and sour cream as options for our spuds. It was supposed to have barbacoa meat as well, but I forgot to defrost it and...well...you know.

The kids are not the greatest lovers of baked potatoes but if they ate their food they got to eat a pecan bar cookie that I made today from my favorite cookie cookbook, Martha Stewart's Cookies. Believe me, it was worth choking down that tater.

PS - There really is a potato under there.

leftovers

A sort of fend-for-yourself, leftovers kinda night. I had this dinner sans cornbread.

a night divided

I had to do some face painting at a church Angel Tree party. They served lasagna, salad, bread and dessert. My family ordered pizza. (Since I wasn't there, not a single veggie in sight!)

That's the report.

joe's crab shack

Remember me saying I would give Joe's Crab Shack another shot? Tonight, apparently, was the night to do so. We had to drop our daughter off at a cookie decorating party at 6pm. It was sufficiently far enough away that we'd have to eat dinner a little before five. I'm sorry. That's just not going to happen in our house. So we decided to go out to eat after ditching the daughter.

We moved to Texas about a year ago and our house is now in a neighborhood that makes going out to eat much more difficult than eating at home. Because of this, I'm getting to be quite a food snob. The hubby and I love good food. We love making and eating good food. And lately, every time I eat out I'm disappointed. The food isn't terrible it's just not great and amazing. We are also sufficiently new that we haven't found all the good independently-owned restaurants to try. Sorry to get on my little whine-y train here, I'm just so sad. Chain restaurants just serve boring food, in general.

I had the Fisherman's Platter or Plate or something at Joe's tonight. It consisted of calimari, shrimp, Great Balls of Fire (cream cheese, crab, shrimp and jalapeno balls breaded and deep-fried) and a piece of some fish, I can't remember what. (That's exactly what I'm talking about. Completely unremarkable.) Besides the Great Balls, there was nothing to differentiate this food from any other fish place. *heavy sigh*

Sorry this is such a downer. I'm just a little sad. We used to live in a college town that was brimming with independently-owned restaurants serving ethnically diverse food. I just miss it I guess. And I hate spending money on food that doesn't make me close my eyes so I can better focus on the flavor.

Tonight's meal descriptor: mediocrity.

beans + cornbread

I have a recipe for Cuban Black Beans that I gleaned off the internet a few years ago. (I have no idea where, sorry.) It is one of my go-to pantry recipes. I usually have all the ingredients no matter how long it's been since I went grocery shopping.

Tonight I made a double batch but used 1/2 black beans and 1/2 kidney beans, rather than all black. It was a nice change. Topped it off with some sour cream, cheddar and jalapenos. Delicious! I made a batch of my favorite cornbread and voila! Dinner.

Here's the recipe. It's super simple.

1lb black beans (soaked overnight)
1/4 c olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 can tomato paste
1 (4oz) jar pimentos (I usually leave this out because I rarely keep them on hand.)
1 Tb balsamic vinegar
3 tsp salt
1 tsp white sugar
5 c water
1 tsp pepper

Saute the onion, pepper and garlic in the oil. (Sometimes I skip that step if I'm lazy.) Add everything else, cover and let simmer for 2 hrs.

pumpkin waffles redux

Once again the dinner hour snuck up and attacked me from out of nowhere. Because of a women's Christmas tea at our church, we didn't have Daddy's Waffles on Saturday. Those two facts when added together came up with my answer for our hungry tummies: Pumpkin Waffles.

We've had these waffles before but they just weren't pumpkin-y enough. Tonight I decided to see if I could bring out the pumpkin-ness by adding more of the spices. I did and it did. If you're following the Vegan with a Vengeance recipe just increase the spices by fifty percent. Mmmmmmmmm.

I had some leftover whipping cream from making cookies with my son so I whipped it up. In hindsight I should have spiced it up with some nutmeg. (My friend loves nutmeg and has inspired me to think of ways to use the oft-overlooked spice.) Despite my oversight, the waffles topped with maple syrup and whipped cream were heavenly. Just right for the season surrounding a divine birth.

vegetable phylo roll extravaganza + salad

I'm thinking the authors of Moosewood Low-Fat Favorites stuck the name Vegetable Phyllo Roll Extravaganza on this recipe thinking they would go back and change it later. The problem is that that they didn't. They plum forgot. So now I'm stuck having to write it on my blog post. I mean, seriously. Extravaganza?

Don't get me wrong. The breadcrumb, parmesan and garlic layered phyllo wrapped around sauteed veggies (yellow squash, carrots, red pepper, and mushrooms) was delicious. So much so that I ate three of my kids' leftovers (Mom! There are mushrooms in this!) including my own servings. But extravaganza? It makes it sound like some over-the-top sales event. Come one, come all, to the vegtetable phyllo roll extravaganza you've been waiting for!

Naming blunders notwithstanding this meal was superb. The only mistake being that I didn't make two rolls. There was just enough that I was comfortably full, but it tasted so good I wanted to be painfully full. My tummy might have had enough but my mouth wanted more of that crunch of flaky crust and that satisfying mmmmm of savory filling. I was far from satiated.

Next time I make the Extravaganza I will definitely double it and, to be nice to my kiddos, I'll omit the mushrooms from one roll. I could add chicken to it* but we'll see. It was really good as a vegetarian dish.

*My husband's usual response to vegetarian food is as follows:
Hub: This is really good. You know what would make it even better?
Me: No, honey, what?
Hub: Some meat!

caribbean stew + brown rice + jerk chicken

Tonight we tasted the flavors of Jamaica. (Sort of. I mean, I've never been there so there's no way for me to tell you how "Jamaica" this was except that the Moosewood Low-Fat Favorites author assured me it was.)

First up: Caribbean Stew. Basically a vegetarian stew of sweet potato, yellow squash, and kale. I screwed it up. I dumped in the can of diced tomatoes only to realize (literally one second later) that I had grabbed a can seasoned with garlic and oregano. While the final result was still tasty, I'm sure Italian tomatoes kinda push this stew off the Tower of Authenticity. Oh well.

I also made Jerk Chicken from the cookbook. Technically it was supposed to be Jerk Tofu, but I didn't have any and really wanted a meat in the meal. The recipe called for three chiles. I added 1/2 of one and the oldest daughter ended up with all the other kids' chicken. ("It's too spicy, Mom!") So that leaves us with a total of three for six with the chicken. I'll take those numbers.

The meal was not a hit with the kids, but as usual, I don't really care too much. I thought it was good. (More importantly, the husband liked it.) And boy did the house smell delicious with the aromas from the stew on the stove and the spices from the chicken in the oven. Perfect for a cold, rainy winter day.

leftovers + joe's crab shack

The family ate leftovers.

I, on the other hand, had a date with my also-moved-from-Oregon-to-the-Houston-area good friend, Amy. She had some coupons for the Crabby Apple Crumble at Joe's Crab Shack and asked if we wanted to meet up there. Free dessert and a new place I hadn't been? I was definitely for it!

We decided to share an appetizer sampler and then I tacked on a cup of clam chowder because...well...it's clam chowder. And I'm a fan.

We left stuffed and at our monthly limit of fat, I'm sure. Cream cheese and deep-fry. That about sums it up I think. I won't judge them too hard though. I mean, we got an appetizer and a dessert. Not exactly the healthiest sections of the menu.

I think I'd like to give them another chance to show me what they're all about. I saw these steampots that looked pretty tasty. Big buckets of seafood...yum.

pizza

Pizza night again.

In order to control our fat along with my ongoing (and ever-failing) endeavor to not eat the swine, I (re)discovered turkey bacon. It's not bacon, but it's not bad. Our choices tonight were

• cheese (as always)
• turkey bacon and pineapple
• bbq chicken, turkey bacon, pineapple and carmelized onions.
  

That last one was a tasty, tasty morsel. (Pictured below, ready to be plucked from the oven)

spaghetti + meatballs + corn + bread

Tonight is a first. I made meatballs. Never, in my recollection or in my husband's, has this occurred.

Other than that this meal was unremarkable and rather atypical. I used not only store-bought sauce, but a baguette as well. Even the parmesan was pre-shredded. Why this aberration? Our grocery store, HEB, has these Meal Deals where you buy one item and get four or five free things with it. Usually this is something I would never use like a pre-made lasagna or two tubs of pre-seasoned, shredded barbecue beef, but today they had a special in which you buy two pounds of ground beef and get a baguette, a pound of pasta, a bag of salad, a bag of shredded fancy cheese (whatever that means), and a jar of spaghetti sauce for free. Except for the bag of salad (I hate the smell of pre-bagged lettuce) I would actually use all that stuff. I normally make my own pasta sauce but I like to keep a jar on hand "just in case."

All this to say that I found myself needing to put dinner on the table, incorporate a fresh baguette and get it done rather quickly since it was already 7pm. The meatballs came from my ATK's Family Cookbook and were a tasty addition to an otherwise unimaginative meal.

That's all. No gems from the sky tonight. And yes, that meal desperately needed something green it it.

beans + bread

Man, it is so hard to take appetizing pictures of brown food.

Tonight was great northern beans with barbacoa and foccacia. We've got a friend in San Antonio who hooks us up with the barbacoa. It's beef and that's as much as I'll say. It's good, but I don't want to dive in too deep about where on the cow it's located.

Super simple dinner. A pound of beans with some spices and a pound of barbacoa. I used my pizza dough to make some bread. One was just salt and pepper, the other cinnamon and sugar. (for dessert)

I've got a headache coming on and I'm tired. The wit just isn't making it past those two tonight.

leftover turkey usage

My parents sent the leftover turkey home with us. Besides sandwiches (and just recently a kick-butt stromboli) turkey tetrazzini is the first thing I make after Thanksgiving. I used this recipe. It was good. The kids were happy. And besides the four cups of cheddar that it called for, it isn't too bad in the fat department. I used whole wheat spaghetti noodles and Smart Balance Light instead of butter. (I'm not sure which is worse: high-in-saturated-fat butter or questionable-man-made margarine. I go back and forth.) Finished her off with some steamed broccoli.

when freezers break...it's feast time!

Our friends had their freezer breakdown on them. That's the bad news. The good news is that they invited us over to help them eat their turkey, ham, roast beef, spinach, mashed potatoes, carrots, baby potatoes and pear pie. We decided to be that kind of friend that helps when needed. They called. We answered. That's just who we are.

ps - Visiting my parents, I didn't really have a chance to update. Now I'm five days behind. I'm just gonna start from today and pretend I'm caught up. OK?