Random Thoughts...Food, Firearms, and Fun

We had an adventure packed weekend. I worked a bit late on Friday, so when I got home, I immediately started lunch. We had knishes that we picked up when we were last at Costco. They were very good, although they'd have been better with sauerkraut. I napped after lunch, while Mac cut the grass. I wanted to go to a semi-local BBQ restaurant, but by the time Mac showered and was ready to go, we wouldn't have made it there until after they closed. So, instead, we hit our local Qdoba, and then did a bit of grocery shopping. Mac always teases me about my choices for veggies for dinners, so I left it up to him to select veggies! On Saturday, we were going to have the Dream Dinners Crispy Salsa Ranch Chicken for dinner, but I had a few mystery shops to do, so we decided to push those until later in the day, and then check out a different BBQ restaurant for dinner. The BBQ restaurant was very good, and their dry rub was incredible, but neither Mac nor I were enamored with their sauces...

We had a fairly crazy weekend. On Saturday, I monitored a rescue transport, which went well. Mac and I went grocery shopping, and tried out a restaurant a bit south of us. It specializes in pit beef, ham, turkey, and pulled pork. It was good, but it was rather expensive. There's another "smokehouse" that's on the way from the vet, and it's about the same distance. We decided that we prefer that one. When we did our grocery shopping, the cashier didn't scan 2 coupons, so I had to visit the customer service desk to receive those. Today, I monitored the second day of the transport, and drove the next to last leg of it. There were no problems, except on our leg, when one of the three dogs decided she wanted to chew anything--her leash, her harness, another dog's collar or leash, or another dog's leg! We took Cobaka and Geno to our local dog park this morning. They enjoyed running around, and Cobaka especially enjoyed frolicking with another dog who arr...

I prepared the St. Louis Smokehouse Ribs on Thursday for an early dinner. We headed out to Philadelphia for the Steelers-Eagles game. That was an experience, just trying to get there, with the Turnpike closed in several areas. The stadium layout is so disorganized, and you have to go down to the lower level to get to various "sections" of the upper deck. Horrible layout and experience! Anyway, back to the ribs... The Dream Dinners ribs were easy to prepare, as I only needed to open the packages, wrap them in foil, and bake them. I used additional BBQ sauce, and served them with cole slaw. Mac and I split a rack of ribs, and kept the other rack wrapped in foil, in the fridge. He prepared those for lunch the next day, although he didn't bake them quite enough to heat them. Such is life! The ribs were very meaty, with minimal fat, and had a nice flavor, although the extra sauce was definitely necessary to add a bit of extra moisture to them. As Mac mentioned, they'd ...

I prepared the Dream Dinners Pork Burritos last night, and wow, were they easy to prepare and rather yummy. When you prepare them at the store, you place them into a foil pan. To cook them, you simply remove the lid from the pan and bake in a pre-heated oven. After allowing them cook for 25-30 minutes, you're then supposed to cover them with the enchilada sauce provided and bake for another 10 minutes. I opted to use salsa verde instead, and also covered them with a dusting of cheese. I served the Pork Burritos with Spanish rice, refried beans, and Southwest salad. The meal was extremely yummy! The burritos had a nice flavor, with a touch of BBQ sauce, and the corn added a hint of sweet. While they contained black beans and rice also, I supplemented our meal with refried beans and rice, in addition to the salad, in part so we'd have extra leftovers. The clean-up was extremely easy. Once we packaged up the leftovers, the foil pan was tossed in the garbage, and Mac washed the...

Yesterday's dinner was Pulled Pork BBQ Sandwiches. Mac was in charge of cooking this dinner. He took a half day from work, since we were going to the Pirates vs. Orioles game last night. Since he was home early, he started the meal while I was on my way home. We had a few issues with this meal, and because we were in a hurry, I failed to take photos of if. Issue 1:  The pulled pork took longer to heat than what the directions said, to the point that I became impatient, and simply turned the burner up quite a bit. :-) Issue 2: Mac was not happy with the directions to toast the rolls, as they read, "Toast rolls under broiler, open side up, until golden brown," but failed to give a suggested amount of time. To correct this problem, I used a trick I learned as a child, from my mother. I scraped the burned areas off with a butter knife. :-) Issue 3: The pulled pork wasn't anything different from the pre-cooked pulled pork that you can buy at grocery stores, like ...

Mac and I selected our Dream Dinners for the week. We're eating at the game tomorrow night, since it's Dollar Dog Night. I figured that we'll start with dinners for Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Friday night, we're dining out with several other couples. Well, we're grilling out at a friend's house. Dinner for the week: Tuesday--Mango Chutney Chicken Wednesday--Chicken Yakitori Thursday--Pork BBQ Sandwiches Friday--standard cookout food Mac is going to prepare Thursday's meal, so we'll see how that goes. The Chicken Yakitori was my free Chef's Touched entree. I wasn't given much time to browse or read instructions or ingredients, so we'll see how it tastes.

Mac and I were out until almost midnight on Friday, doing a dog transport. It ran over 2 hours late, closer to 2 hours 30 minutes late. We drove to Bel Air, MD, near where we were supposed to pick up the senior pups we were transporting, and stopped for dinner. We wanted something different, not the same old restaurants we have here. As such, we found Famous Dave's BBQ, which was very good. When we did finally get home, we decompressed for a bit before bed, and we both were up around 6:30 to head to our activities. Mac headed to the gun show, I headed to Dream Dinners. I came home about an hour before he did, which was just enough time to stow everything in the freezer, and then get last night's dinner in the oven. I opted to try the Brushetta Chicken Bake last night, in part because I didn't want to store the box of stuffing mix much longer! Tiffany had tried her Brushetta Chicken Bake earlier in the week, and shared a few words of advice, including not to add as much wat...