Holidays

Erin and I had some great food while celebrating the Holidays. Some of the best:
1.) Filets at the Stookeys, Christmas Eve:
Erin's parents made some delicious filets. **So sorry I don't have a photo..I'm so mad, because they were soooo good!!
2.) What the heck is a stratta?
Turns out, it is some sort of quiche dish. It made for a pretty tasty brunch

3.) Nonna's Christmas spectacular:Similar to last year's, my grandma made a Christmas dinner for the ages. This year, we had Steak Sciscliano (prounounced SHISH-lee-ano). A very good cut of meat sliced into thin steaks, quickly seared on each side and soaked in olive oil and garlic and some italian seasonings. We had a lightly breaded and then baked shrimp; Pazella (italian style peas); homemade ravioli (with homemade tomato sauce)- they took my grandma something like 6 hours to hand make over 100 ravoli. They were the highlight of this wonderful meal. We had some nicely seasoned and spicy rappini (an Italian vegetable- a cross between spinach and broccoli).

4.) New Years Eve dinner: steaks at Red Gables Mesquittttte grill
We went to a small steakhouse in Sandusky with my brother and a couple friends on New Years Eve. The planning of our evening was very last minute, but we didn't complain. In fact, Erin ended up with the best steak ever. She got the filet, I got the ribeye. Both were perfectly cooked, high quality, and rubbed down with bold amounts of pepper and flavor. I tried a bite of Erin's- amazing.

**Also, sorry no photo, I guess the holidays=eating=Erin and Ryan's forgetfulness. I now have a New Year's resolution to remember to take photos of all this awesome food!

 A belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Years to everyone!

I am a Grill Master

So, I'm a grill master...it's official. I got off work early the other day and Ryan was super busy with school so I decided to cook him dinner. We have a little market in Mt. Lookout Square and I went in a while ago and wasn't really impressed. The market has a hodge podge of things from frozen dinner, to deli meat, to fresh veggies and wine. It also smells a little weird, but I think it's the combo of ingredients they carry. Anyway, I digress, I decided to try it out again and see what they had. The veggies they had left were a little banged up, but I found the best zucchini and yellow squash yet and 2 butterfly pork chops.

When I got home I told Ryan to continue studying and I would handle everything. I seasoned the pork chops with with salt and pepper, lemon pepper seasoning and a little red pepper flake. I sliced the yellow squash and zucchini in long strips and drizzled with olive and added some salt and pepper.

We had tons of pasta leftover from the last post so I just reheated that and also used the leftover balsamic dressing from the last post. We also saved the grilled onion from the last post and I put that in a saute pan with a few whole cloves of garlic and softened them up. The garlic helped them season it a bit more and we also added the balsamic dressing to the onions.

I rarely operate the grill (that is usually Ryan's department while I work on another part of the meal) but I have to pat myself on the back, I did a really good job. The pork chops were well seasoned and very moist and the grilled zucchini and squash were amazing. After I took them off the grill I poured the balsamic dressing over it and they just absorb all of the dressing and create a wonderful dressing. The pasta reheated very nicely too.

My dinner turned out really good, Ryan really enjoyed it and was happy not to have to help so he could work on his studies.

tuna pasta salad

This quick meal falls into the category of: "shit, its 6:15 and we have no food at home, but we can't afford to go out, what can we make?" I had the idea of some sort of tuna salad as a few cans of tuna was really all the protein we had in our apartment. I also thought we could make some pasta with some of our tomato sauce. Erin had the brilliant idea to forget the tomato sauce and combine a tuna salad on top of some pasta.

As we boiled the pasta we started with the "tuna salad". Erin chopped a few green onions, some celery, dill pickles, and baby carrots and added it to two cans of tuna packed in water. We added a few chunks of asiago cheese and some alfalfa sprouts and then I began to season and dress the salad. I added a couple tablespoons of olive oil, juice from 1/2 of a lemon, and a healthy splash of white wine vinegar. I seasoned the salad with salt, black pepper, lemon pepper, hot paprika, and oregano. It tasted pretty good. We added this salad to 1 pound of cooked wheat pasta and finished the dish with some parmasean cheese and a little crushed red pepper. It was a delicious, quick and easy meal.

Sorry for the lack of pictures, didn't think about blogging about this meal until well after the fact and how satisfied I was for such a last minute thing. Also, I know this is just a food blog, and it will continue to just be a food blog, but I really think that you should watch this music video inspired by Barack Obama's "Yes we Can" speech from New Hampshire about a month ago. Anyone waiting for our generation's JFK or MKL, well, here you go: