Chef Interrupted

My persistent journey through a month of meals hit a wall and doesn't see the light of getting back on track... maybe next week I say.

With crazy schedules, juggling appointments and our new adventures in babysitting - I'm tired and more interested in frozen dinners that take 5 minutes.

Thank GOD for Amy's Organic Meals... easy, delish, healthy, tasty, easy, cheap.

Life makes cooking hard.

Real Simple Meal - Steak with Potato and Parsnip Mash

Another, dare I say "Real Simple" dinner. Week two, night three - Steak (sirloin) with Potato and Parsnip Mash.

Prior to challenging myself to step outside my cooking comfort zone, I had little experience cooking steak. In my head, for steak to be good, it had to be grilled and I am not the griller in the family (I suppose my next challenge can be grill related). However, my mom and dad always grilled steaks.

When they shipped me off to school in '98, they helped me put together a small repertoire of meals that included eye of the round steak in a skillet which is equivalent to shoe leather.

Thanks to RS, I can now include a tender juicy piece of red meat in my dinners without using the grill.

Some notes on this meal:

• I like to include a veggie with everything. I didn't have time last night, but I could see some sauteed green beans going well with this.
• It was really easy to cook the meat and not hard to cook it to a redness of your liking
• I had a hard time getting the parsnips to soften at the same rate as the potatoes therefore they didn't mash well and there were chunks o' parsnip in the potatoes which lead to parsnip flavor overload at times.
• Timing is everything. The steak is quick the potatoes are slow.

William LOVED the potatoes - but actually ate leftovers from the night before for dinner because he was hungry before I was done cooking ;)

Real Simple Dinners - Pork and Garlicky Broccoli

It was an exciting day!

I delivered the afore-posted Chicken Posole to Kim, Mike and Weston (accompanied with tortillas, limes, sour cream and BROWNIES!) and William got some new kicks - he is a size 7!!

William showing me his new kicks

Happy that his shoes fit!

Not to mention, tonight was Real Simple dinner Pork Chops with Garlicky Broccoli.


I will say, I'm starting to get a system down that really makes cooking these meals very easy.

Here's what I'll say about this one.

- I need a bigger skillet
- I burned the broccoli* but it was still VERY good.
- Pork has surprised me at how easy and delish it is to cook
- I have a new found deep respect for EVOO
- I'm REALLY good at cooking rice

* I was distracted by William who needed "up" and "out" but got neither so threw a fit

Other exciting events of the day included a 20 minute nap and two really awesome dance classes at Sway. I can retire this day with a gold star.

Real Simple Dinners Week 2: Chicken Posole

We took last week off because we were gallivanting in Seattle celebrating Rebecca and Steve's nuptials. There was no time to cook.

We start this week off out of order because I needed something SUPER easy that could be doubled and dual purposed as a dinner for meal ministry.

So here it is - Chicken Posole:

This dinner WAS Real Simple. Very easy to prep and a cinch to clean up. It tasted delish topped with a dollop of sour cream and accompanied by warm tortillas.

William T - The Next Gap Baby

Let's Face it. I'm not THAT good lookin' - what is the likelihood that I would have a SUPER CUTE baby?

Well lo' and behold, I was blessed with not only a SUPER CUTE baby, but an AMAZINGLY ADORABLE kid with curls to DIE for.

I want to tell the world.

And maybe start his college fund with it.

Vote for William to be the next Gap baby!

visit: http://family.go.com/gapcastingcall/entries/leslietjackson/

You will have to register first.

Then you can vote on ALL THREE of his entries.

Real Simple Simple Dinner 5: Spaghetti with Sweet Potatoes and Ricotta

Real Simple Month of Dinners #5 - Spaghetti with Sweet Potatoes and Ricotta (pronounced ri-Khat around these parts)

I took a couple of nights off for the weekend (since no one was home to eat) but continued with meal #5 - Spaghetti with Sweet Potatoes and Ricotta (ri-Khat). Wow - this one was by far the easiest and one of the tastiest - I would rank it #2 of the five. If I ranked them in how much I loved them order, it would go 2, 5, 4, 3, 1.

Maybe I'm just slowly enhancing my ability to cook, but this meal came without a hitch. I will comment that at my stage of cooking by a recipe - I prefer more explicit instruction. I.e when the recipe calls for two sweet potatoes cut into one inch pieces I ask "do I peel the sweet potato first?" This might be common knowledge, but I wasn't sure. When you make your own baby food you do not peel first - the skin contains nutrients. But for this, I peeled. Good idea.

It was delish - Pat had seconds and William at every single bite of his sweet potatoes and shallots. I recommend pairing it with a Chardonnay (on the sweeter side) if you are one to indulge in the treats of the winery.

Next week will be modified a bit because we're traveling Thursday - Sunday. But each meal will be cooked - I promise. Would this face lie?

Day #3 - This time we have guests

Here's the recipe link. I will let the photos speak for themselves - Pork Loin w/ Brussel Sprouts dinner, w/ guests.

Pat's Plate - yet again, perfectly laid out

Our guests felt they needed to worship the Josiah before dinner started.

The dishwasher enjoyed the Framboise to much

The Josiah requesting after dinner praise

A completely random picture of Will and I. Not even the same day as dinner.