What are you cooking tonight?

Well, there's your problem. I had a couple of friends that tried doing the same to get me on the vegan train with them, but having grown up in the north and with the hunting and farming, it was nothing I hadn't already been jaded to a long time ago. Nothing tastes better than a couple of steaks so fresh they're still warm seared directly on the coals of simmering campfire.

 

Finally home after two back-to-back trips for work in a row, and I'm anxious to get cooking again. It's 33 degrees and raining, which will later turn into freezing rain, so it's a chili with skillet cornbread and honey-pecan butter kind of day.

 

Will you be my mommy?

 

Not something I cooked myself, I ate it at a restaurant on Friday, but I'd love to learn to make it: an entire roasted cauliflower. I thought that'd be too hardcore for me, but it was actually reeeeally yummy. It was the first meal I insta'ed, so that should say something.

 

Bit depressed about this evening. Leftover mince from Friday and a Yorkshire pudding and old peas from Friday.

 

It’s dead cow night at my place. A couple nice thick sirloins, with those miniature red potatoes, and mixed veggies. (I’d do the sauteed mushrooms and onions too, but the wife doesn’t like ‘shrooms.)

 

Sirloin is such an odd word.

Sounds kinda like a knight, Sir Loin.

Or in a more macabre sense, a high society fellow (top hat wearing chap with a fancy cane),
has had his buttocks cut off.

Food names are weird...

 

That used to be my dancing name.

 

Oh, I love whole roasted cauliflower. I just core it, plop it on a baking tray after rubbing with olive oil, salt and pepper, then bake for 30-40 minutes. When it's done I pour 1/4 cup of melted butter over it and shake on some Parmesan cheese - delicious!

 

Aloo gobi, which is spiced potatoes and cauliflower. < drool, not tears

 

Dinner tonight will be whatever I can rustle up under my roof. We're apparently getting all the snow/ice/sleet this weekend that we managed to avoid over the winter, and I'm not leaving the house today for anything. Even the grocery store delivery service has been suspended until tomorrow!

 

Assuming my power's on (good so far, but we got over a foot of snow yesterday and now the ice is just starting...) I think I'm having a stir fry. It feels so retro, somehow. I used to eat them all the time when I was in school and I loved them, but they seem to have sort of faded out of fashion?

But they're yummy, easy, and healthy, so... I'm bringing stir-fry back!

 

Where’s your sense of adventure?

 

When it comes to driving in the snow, it's non-existent. However, I have discovered that Amazon Prime will deliver groceries to my house today, so tonight for dinner it's flat iron steak, buttermilk mashed potatoes and sauteed green beans.

 

Is this the title track of your debut album?

 

I would if I had someone to take out and dine with.
Otherwise no, I do not go out to eat period.

 

Yup, Mrs. A and I eat out far too often, kills the budget, but that's where we seem to be as a couple, so...

 

I eat out too much also. Is it just me though or does eating out start to lose its harm after a while? I think home cooked meals are generally(with exceptions) better.

 

For my birthday in 1876 - we visited a farmhouse in the middle of the moors for 'real homecooked farmer's wife etcetera' - I suppose it was a word of mouth fad.

So, she - the farm wife - worked really hard at the cooking - and sat us down [meanwhile] in the sitting room with our drinks. But then there were other guests - these 85 yr old firemen and their wives - and we were kind of yuppies at the time - and we all really disliked each other. And afterward we had to eat the food [together], it was horrible, grandma's meat and grey vegetables.

But most social interaction is painful. When we moved up here - the third night my wife dragged me to the Slaughtered Lamb pub at the corner, people all talking Yarkshiire and dominoes. I wandered in with my monocle/plus fours. Wife saying 'what is wrong with you?' at the top of her voice...everybody looking...

'Shut up or I'll leave you, and never talk to you again, I hate you.' I lost my edge, y'know, happens v. rarely.

 

Roasting brings out the nutty flavor in cauliflower and gets rid of the bitter flavors. Makes it a whole other thing. Warning: It smells God-awful while it's roasting, though, so air out the place as it's cooking.

 

Steak n' Shake style chili mac for dinner tonight to use up some of Saturday's chili leftovers:

 

A big slab of Red Meat.