bearnaise sauce

What we ate this week…We’ve got Sauce…

~ stephzuniga ~ Leave a comment

Also, week 2 of our new blog format.

So, last week started with Father’s Day dinner and it actually turned out better than I expected.  I believe the phrase, “These are the best potatoes I’ve ever had” was uttered at least once.  Which was a win for me- and everyone to be honest.  Also, I got to have bearnaise sauce which means it was a good day.

What else we ate last week. 

A Char Siu Bun Salad from Every Night of The Week which was delicious and loved by the Team BUT required A LOT of steps for a Monday night.  It was more of a Sunday salad if I’m honest.  It was a pretty easy recipe, but  there was pickling involved- and honestly, who has time for that on a Monday night.

Tuesday was Gourmet Traveller’s Taco Rice and I cannot stress enough how much I love this recipe.  First of all, it’s an Asian/Mexican fusion dish that combines BOTH of my favorite cuisines.  It’s easy, fast and tasty- and involves chips.  What else could you want for a Tuesday night?

Thursday we had Neil Perry’s Taglioni with Crab.   It’s hard to go wrong with pasta, crab, or Neil Perry so it was good.

We had some unexpectedly sad news this week (Sad in a first world problem way).  Our favorite local burger place is closing down, BurgerHead.  It’s a go-to weekend burger staple for us– and I think I saw actual tears leave Thomas’ eyes when we told him the news.   Our neighborhood doesn’t have the best food options (as compared to everywhere else I’ve lived in Sydney) so this could mean more cooking on the weekend or more meals further afield.  

We also visited our one-time favorite Fried Chicken place in Sydney– Butter in Surry Hills.    When I lived in Surry Hills (a lifetime ago), it was right down the street and certainly one of the coolest places for fried chicken I’ve ever been.  Honeymoon Chicken still wears the crown of all time, best, most favorite and amazing Fried Chicken in the world but Butter could have the Sydney crown.    Bowery to Williamsburg’s Chicken and Waffles in Melbourne are pretty good too.

So what’s on for this week?

Soy Glazed Pork Cutlets with Japanese Slaw from Gourmet Traveller on Sunday will get a run before I put the Gourmet Traveller magazine back on the shelf upstairs.

BLT Salad on Monday night from the I Heart Naptime cookbook.  I’ll also make the Chicken Taquitos from there on Tuesday.  I Heart Naptime is actually a great cookbook for time poor parents- everything takes less than an hour and is kid friendly.   I don’t love the name (especially since it’s been ages since anyone in my house took a nap) but there are great baked treats (hello, Chocolate Chip Coconut Banana Bread Muffins) and some pretty good dinners in there as well!

Thursday night we’ll do Steaks with Fries and Bearnaise sauce (because there’s leftover Bearnaise sauce and I love Bearnaise).

Friday night, we’ll probably sneak in a trip to Burgerhead.  We have 6 weeks before they close and I’ve only just discovered their Chicken burgers are pretty good!

So, that’s what we’re eating this week?  What’s on your menu?

Day 18- this is hardly a challenge

~ stephzuniga ~ Leave a comment

Image

More than half of the way through No red meat December and quite frankly I’m a bit bored.  This is not challenging.  This is not that hard.  I don’t feel like I’m denying myself anything and really I’m not.  Giving up red meat for 30 days is a lot easier than I thought it would be. 

 Let’s get one thing straight.  I LOVE Beef.  I’m a child of the 80s and vividly remember the Wendy’s ‘Where’s The Beef’ campaign.  Hamburgers, steaks, I can’t really think of what else you make from beef but you get the picture.  When I was a little girl and my father would ask me what I wanted to eat, I would apparently always answer “steak”.  He used to do a voice as an imitation of little me saying “steak” which was quite funny.  And Funny because it was not the voice of a little 7 year old girl, more of a Bill Cosby/John Belushi comedic voice, anyway, it was gold.  And accurate because I love and have always loved Steak.  If I were to die tomorrow, I can almost promise you that my last meal would involve a rare-ish steak, béarnaise sauce, chips, with mint chocolate chip and cookies n cream ice cream for dessert.  I haven’t put a lot of thought into it, but that would probably be my all time favourite meal.

Knowing this, and knowing that I always choose beef as a choice of filling, topping, or protein, I thought this would be a really tough challenge. 

 But it’s not.  And I’m disappointed.

 I’m not sure whether I’ve gone for the easy option by considering pork white meat and not red.  (Let’s face it marketing works on me, and to me pork is “the other white meat”)  There is a fair bit of debate on the internet as to which camp pork belongs to so I don’t feel like I’ve knowingly cheated but I feel like I must be cheating because it’s just.too.easy.  It could be because right behind a juicy steak on my list of favourite foods, is a nice juicy pork chop.  If my Dad is to blame for my love of red meat, my mom gets blamed for my love of pork.  If I had to pick one meal for my mother to make it would be her famous (in my eyes) breaded pork chops with white rice, corn, peas, and of course apple sauce on the side.  There has to be apple sauce otherwise it’s just not quite right. 

 I know I shouldn’t complain as I eat my Ham, cheese, and tomato sandwich (ok, no I’m not actually eating one right now) but you know what I mean.  Can I challenge be a challenge if it’s easy???

 Clearly next month we’ll have to step it up a notch!  Will we go fully vegetarian?  Liquid while the sun is up? Vegan before 6? (see article here http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/09/mark-bittman-vegan-before-6-vb6_n_3224415.html) I’m not sure what January has in store, but it will be tough.  I’m ready to get back to the Challenge part of the Challenge.