halibut, carne asada, cucumber salad, and more!

This is supposed to be My Dude Ranching Adventure, which leads you to believe I might be telling you about things going on at, well, at the Dude Ranch!  But the thing is, I've been sooooooooo busy there, that by the time I'm done, I just want to go to sleep!

Actually, it doesn't help that I'm out of shape, it's 2000 feet higher than Dow's house, or that there was a foot of wet snow to tromp through, but this will probably be another post, assuming I get to it!

Since it is my "day off", I will spend the day cooking for the Food Guy and tutoring.   

So let's talk about food!  (One of my favorite subjects, by the way...something I never would have believed if you'd told me 10 years ago.)

As I mentioned in previous posts, I have to think about how the food will keep or reheat.  Let me show you how I send him stuff.


Pineapple Chicken Salad Pitas
This chicken salad is my favorite!  It's so quick, especially if you use canned chicken or a roasted chicken from the store, and so good.  But, it only lasts for about 3 days before the almonds and carrots lose their crunch.

So, I made the mayonnaise mixture separately from the dry ingredients and left the pineapple in a can.  I write him a sheet of instructions that tells him to drain the pineapple, dump it into the chicken, add the mayo, mix and stuff in a pita with some lettuce.

Steamed Halibut with Sesame-Lime Sauce and Coconut Rice and Mom's Cucumber Salad
I generally don't cook the fish for Food Guy, because when he re-heats it, it becomes rubbery.  On a separate note, I think steamed meat is gross.  I mean, would you steam a steak?  Didn't think so.  As such, my instructions tell him he can steam it, however, I suggested he put it in a pan with a little oil.  That's what we did last night and it had a really nice brown crust to it.

As you might have guessed, Mom's Cucumber Salad isn't on the Cooking Light website.  So here goes:

Ingredients:  Cucumbers, salt, rice vinegar, and sugar (for 2 people, I used 1.5 cucumbers, some salt (?), 1/4 cup rice vinegar and 1/4 cup sugar)

Directions:  Peel cucumbers, slice length-wise, spoon out the seeds.  Use a mandolin to shave the cukes or slice as thinly as possible. Sprinkle salt on the heap o' cukes and let set for a few minutes.  Massage cucumbers and pour out the excess water that comes from massaging.  Combine equal parts rice vinegar and sugar, stirring to dissolve.  Pour vinegar over cucumbers.  Eat within a day or so!  (Or it loses its crunch.) 

Chef Salad with breadsticks (yeah, I cheated...Pillsbury!)
Nothing Special here...Cold cuts, tomatoes, hard-boiled eggs, and cucumbers.  It's not exactly vegetarian, but Food Guy isn't exactly vegetarian and he loves salads, so why make my life difficult?  And like he said, while it sounds ridiculous, he just really likes having the stuff all chopped so all he has to do is throw it together.

Peasant Soup with breadsticks (uh-huh...Pillsbury again.)
I had made a huge ham a couple of months ago, so I'm using up the leftovers now.

This soup smelled DELICIOUS while I was making it and tasted great!  Not a quick recipe, but definitely an easy one.  And even better if you have leftovers to throw in. And all Food Guy has to do is reheat!

This is just a gratuitous picture to show you my beautiful red pot (I LOVE RED!) that Dow gave me for Christmas.

Carne Asada Taco with Avocado Pico de Gallo
They always tell you to read through your recipes first.  And I suppose I did, a while ago.  But this was one of my last recipes to make when I saw that the meat had marinate for 3 hours!  I guess I'll go relax for a while as it basks in the lime juice and cumin.  This one isn't much work for Food Guy either...he has to dice the avocado and toss it with the Pico de Gallo - I didn't add it so it wouldn't discolor or get mooshy.

And there you have it!  Another week's worth of meals...with pictures to boot!

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.

food guy

As I mentioned, during my leave from the ranch, I have been a Craigslist hound. I posted for healthy in-home cooking and low and behold, someone found me! Food Guy thought he was coming up with a clever and unique idea until he found that I was already offering the service he was looking for.

He is a single dad of two kids and training for a marathon. His dilemma was that he either had to eat out, which is hard because you have to try to make healthy decisions and it's expensive, or he had to cook for himself, but didn't have enough time. Voila! Insert me! It's probably cheaper than eating out and I'm making healthy, well-rounded meals from Cooking Light.

Every week, I make a meal plan that includes 5 different main dishes: beef, chicken, pork, fish, and vegetarian. Each meal comes with a starch and a vegetable, making sure he's getting the nutrients he needs to fuel his body for the marathon.

The hard part, though, is that his kids are picky eaters. The good news (for me, anyhow!) is that he only has them every other week, so I can make "adult" food when it's just him.

So, if you're having a hard time deciding what to make this week, check back here! I'll try to post the recipes I'm making for him. And at some point, when I have more time, I'll try to get pictures of what I'm making.

For this week, you'll have to be satisfied with links to recipes. Here's what I made and most of it was pretty quick and easy, good for weeknight dinners.

• Kung Pao Shrimp with Rice (vegetables in the main dish)
• Green Curry Chicken with Rice (vegetables in the main dish)
• Herb-roasted Beef with Potatoes and Brussel Sprouts
• Pork Tenderloin, Pear, and Cranberry Salad with Coucous Pilaf
• Roasted Corn, Black Bean, and Mango Salad with Quesadillas

Happy cooking!