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Steel Cooking Together After All These Years

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Friday Mike (aka “dad”) and I celebrated our wedding anniversary. It’s been 11 years and two beautiful babies since that day. According to the anniversary lists, steel is the traditional gift this year, but we opted for a sensational dinner for two instead. Do stainless steel utensils count? 😉

When we were planning our meal, we tossed around several of our old favorites – things that Mike used to whip up to impress me. You see, I didn’t cook back then – except for my favorite bowl of pasta which only I seem to like. (To this day I think my dad is afraid to touch any pasta that I’ve made.) Fortunately, I’ve evolved since then and Mike and I have spent lots of date nights in our own kitchen whipping up meals, sipping wine and having great conversations. It’s easily one of our favorite things to do. So this weekend we got the kids to bed early and whipped up one of our favorite celebratory meals – Champagne Risotto with Truffle Oil.

We started with the Arborio rice, chicken stock, vegetable oil and butter. Continue reading →

Almost Perfect Father’s Day

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I had two things I wanted to do on Father’s Day–play golf with my dad and try out the new smoker.  The problem is, smoking and golf both take a long time.  But dad got an early tee time and I figured five hours would be just enough to have dinner ready by six.  Golf was the almost perfect part–I missed my first career ace by less than the width of the ball.  185 yards with a 6-iron on the 15th hole and I hit the edge of the cup on the fly, but it spun out to about 8 feet.  (Sadly I missed the putt.)  Still, it’s always great to play golf with my dad.

As for the smoker, well, that was pretty darn near perfect too.  We got three slabs of ribs from Costco. I thought there were only two in the package, so when we opened them last night and saw how many ribs we had, we quickly called mom’s parents to join us for Father’s day dinner.  Step one was to make the rub, which we did the day before.

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Musgo, Musgo, M-U-S-G-O

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Sorry flashing back to high school cheerleading there (Let’s Go, Let’s Go, L-E-T-S-G-O). Tonight we’re eating what my mom calls musgo. In other words, everything Must Go! We’re still pretty full-up from the weekend and we have a fridge full of leftovers. So while we were going to begin our new country tonight, selected by Mr. N, we’ve decided to hold-off until we finish up the musgo.

In the meantime, we’ll share one of the recipes from our “barn raising” that was a favorite for Mr. N and Miss A. Our original plan was to use a bunch of little smokies in an Amish breakfast casserole, but since we didn’t have much success with Amish recipes this weekend, we decided to look for other options. We found an interesting recipe on Hot Dog City that put an Asian twist on an American favorite. These Pigs in a Blanket Asian Style were definitely the biggest hit with the kids yesterday. We started with these ingredients: Continue reading →

It’s Always Sunny with Philly Cheesesteak

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The Philly Phanatic

This meal was all ChefDad, so he’ll share this one in his own words. 🙂

Today we head to Pennsylvania for Philly Cheesesteaks, and if Ribbie and Roobarb merit a spot on this blog, surely we can find room for a true legend among mascots–the Philly Phanatic. I’ve had a taste for a Philly Cheesesteak for the last couple of weeks, though I confess to limited experience with them. We did order cheesesteaks at the old Veteran’s Stadium back in 2003, though I suspect mom was too busy taking pictures of Kyle Farnsworth to pay much attention to her meal.

The internet’s not much help for cheesesteak recipes–it seems there is no universal formula beyond thinly sliced beef, cheese and bread. Nevertheless I felt confident as I began this undertaking, as mom said to Mr. N, “He’s been to Philadelphia once and he thinks he knows how to make cheesesteaks.” Yes I did. We settled on a set of toppings–onions, green peppers, and mushrooms. Continue reading →

Much Better than Ribbie and Roobarb

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Many thanks to ChefMom for giving me a second turn at the controls.  She was a tough sell, but since she’s off schmoozing for work I’m in for the night.  I may not be as practiced a writer/blogger as mom, but I am an economist, which means I know a bit about the misuse of statistics. Note the steady uptick in blog traffic following my one and only post. (Mom is lovingly rolling her eyes. 😉 )

Ribbie and Roobarb

Today’s recipe is Strawberry and Rhubarb Risotto, adapted from Cooking Light, May 2010; and I’m happy to report it was much better than the ex-White Sox Mascots Ribbie and Roobarb. Wikipedia notes: “Fans openly mocked Ribbie and Roobarb, with even children gleefully attacking them.” Readers should feel free to mock the White Sox, but I don’t think anyone will be mocking this rhubarb recipe.

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