food - favorites week

This is the 14th week, since I started cooking for Food Guy. Although, I'll admit, I have had 3 weeks off in there, because he had too much food...a much better problem than the other direction.

So whether it's technically week 11 or week 14, we had a favorites week, allowing me not to think very hard about the menu while I was in Florida. His menu was as follows:

Pan-seared Scallops with Ginger-Orange Spinach and Lars' Bread

Adobo Chicken with Sticky Rice and Asparagus

Grilled Sirloin Salad with Lars' Bread

Chicago Deep-Dish Pizza with Salad

Southwestern Bean Stew over Mexican Polenta

A couple of notes about the food.

1. The scallops were not a favorite, but Food Guy hadn't rated any of the previous fish meals with a high enough rating. Same for the vegetarian meal, except that the meals he rated highly were more winter dishes and I think it's time for spring. So there. Take that.
2. I added Lars' Bread (of Lars & Amy) to myrecipes.com, but it hasn't shown up yet. I'll add the link if it does.
3. The Adobo Chicken sauce needs to be at least doubled. You'll be happy you did.
4. You REEEEEEAAAAAALLLLY need to make the Chicago Deep-Dish Pizza. Food Guy sent me an email the very night he made it, to tell me it was the ABSOLUTE BEST pizza he'd had. EVER. That's right EVER. Ok, so he said maybe it contended with some pizza he had in Italy, but that was 15 years ago and he couldn't exactly remember now. Therefore, my pizza is the best EVER.
5. I test as I go, usually.
6. (This is 5a.) The Southwestern stew seemed blah...til I added the sour cream and avocado that just seemed like a condiment. It made the dish AWESOME!
7. (This is 5b...I love outlines, by the way.) The scallops were PHENOMENAL! Restaurant quality! (As long as you cook it on high heat. I learned that mistake the hard way, too many times. And scallops are expensive!) The spinach on the other hand, was overpoweringly orange and kinda ruined the scallops in my opinion. But that's just me.
8. If you stick with me, kid, you'll never make a bad meal again. I tell you whether it was good or not. And almost everything - unless it's favorites week - is an experiment.

Ok, so moving on. I've gotten a couple of questions about cooking (mostly from my mother, but from a few others, too) and I'll attempt to answer them here. Watch out! There's another outline coming!

1. Do you freeze all your meals for Food Guy?

• No, my college roommate and I decided that food was good in the fridge for 7 days. After moving out on my own, I decided 10 days...I couldn't eat as fast by myself. That being said, I make the food and deliver it within a day or two and figure it's good in the fridge until I bring new food. If he can't get to it, it's up to him to do the freezing.
• Food Guy told me he didn't have enough food this past week and therefore his children simply did not eat. I felt the guilt of his kids being malnourished. He admitted he was too lazy to take food out of the freezer and reheat it. I put the guilt back on him. Thank goodness I don't freeze everything or the whole family would be malnourished, not just the kids. (Btw, he has a sense of humor.)

2. Is everything just "leftover"?

• Well, yeah, kinda. I try to think through the cooking process and how it will be reheated. Sometimes I fail. Like I cooked the mahimahi for him and when reheated it became rubber. I cooked some mushroom-stuffed chicken that had a nice, crisp, breaded crust...but not when reheated. It was soggy.
• Food Guy doesn't mind a little cooking. In fact, he hired me because it was too time-consuming, so if I do the prep work and he just has to grill a steak or something (usually fish), he's good.
• I send raw meats to him frozen.

3. Did you use fresh corn last week? (That was my mother)

• No, I used frozen corn for the Roasted Corn, Black Bean, and Mango Salad.

If y'all have ANY questions about techniques, products, etc., just leave me a comment. It will give me something to talk about!

And if there are any chemists out there...can you tell my why baking soda and vinegar make my pan come clean when I burn stuff on it? (Did I mention the scallops are cooked on high heat?) I LOVE it! I'm not sure if someone (the parental units?) told me to do that or if I've just burned enough stuff to have figured it out myself. But it's magic. And if you REEEEEAAAAALLLy burn something, pour dish soap on it, baking soda on top of it, and let it set in that paste overnight. Rinse and repeat as needed.