Random Thoughts...Food, Firearms, and Fun

I realized, as I tried to plan meals for next week, that we have an empty freezer for the first time in ages. Not completely empty, but empty of meals. We have lots of antelope, elk, and mule deer, but we only have two freezer meals left. My January Dream Dinners session isn't until next weekend. I'm kicking around several different ideas, from increasing my Dream Dinners order every month, to preparing some freezer meals at home, and then having those to use as well. Since my last attempt at preparing freezer meals at home didn't go well (Mac wasn't a fan of the ones I prepared), this time, I'm using cookbooks, not just recipes I found in other blogs and such! I've just ordered three cookbooks, all geared towards preparing meals, freezing them, and then thawing and cooking later. They are: Dream Dinners: Turn Dinnertime into Family Time with 100 Assemble-and-Freeze Meals Don't Panic - Dinner's in the Freezer: Great-Tasting Meals You Can Make Ah...

Last night's dinner was "Chicago-Style Chicken with Red-Skin Potatoes, aka Chicken Vesuvio. Mac was so unimpressed with it that not only am I not to make it the next time it appears on the menu, but it's my lunch for the rest of the week, not his. He'd rather eat the Rigatoni, Sausage, and Kale from Eat Now, Eat Later, than this Dream Dinner, which says quite a bit! The potatoes definitely needed salt. Otherwise, they had no flavor. The chicken would have benefited from being marinated in the sauce and garlic for a day or two before baking, rather than just topping with the sauce, as it lacked much flavor. The only way the chicken had any flavor was really if one ate a baked clove of garlic with each bite of chicken. It didn't even look that appealing, as shown below. Chicago-Style Chicken with Red Skin Potatoes It was definitely disappointing. Oh, and yes, the horror!!! We had red skin potatoes and broccoli with rotini as sides, in addition to the Light ...

I've neglected updating this for a while! Oops! I'll have several posts today I guess. I prepared the White Chicken Lasagna from Dream Dinners last week, and was so rushed by everything, I failed to even take photos of it! The past few weeks have been so crazy, I can't even remember which day it was that I prepared this! The lasagna was enjoyable, but was rather bland. It needed something to spice it up, be it additional veggies or additional seasonings. It was also fairly liquidy. I did add a bit of extra cheese, but just a touch, at the end of the baking cycle. I'd suggest adding some crushed red pepper, or perhaps some sliced or diced peppers to this recipe, and scaling back on the amount of liquid used. Mac is finishing the last of this for lunch today.

On Sunday, I cooked the Dream Dinners Chicken Carbonara. Since I didn't thaw it in advance, I followed the "When frozen" cooking instructions. It was easy enough to toss it into the oven, and while I'm glad I placed it on top of a cookie sheet, I no longer have that cookie sheet. Apparently something leaked onto the bottom of the pan before it made it home. That residue baked itself onto the cookie sheet, and it was so difficult to remove that we trashed the cookie sheet. Not a huge loss, because it was an old cookie sheet. In the future, I guess I'll line the cookie sheets with foil, just in case. I didn't top the Chicken Carbonara with additional cheese, although I did think about it. I think additional cheese probably would've helped a bit, as it wasn't very cheesy, and I like cheese. It did seem to be a bit cooler than most of the other oven-baked meals, but I'm guessing part of that is having cooked it while frozen, rather than allowing it t...

We tried the Cheese Ravioli from Eat Now, Eat Later last night. Well, Mac tried it. My tummy wasn't happy with me, so I didn't even eat anything. As Mac said, it was barely edible. The sauce congealed a bit too much, so there was no liquid. The sausage tasted like sand, and, while Mac ate ravioli and saved the ravioli, figuring we'll add more sauce, we fed the rest of the sausage to the dogs. The dogs didn't seem to mind its flavor, so I can't complain. Tonight's dinner was a new take on the Texas-style casserole. I used shredded hash browns, added corn, green peppers, onions, egg, and ground chorizo. The chorizo and green peppers definitely helped, but the next attempt will include jalapeno peppers and/or crushed red pepper. I've still not changed my mind that Eat Now, Eat Later just isn't worth it.

Dinner last night was Kentucky Pork Chops from Dream Dinners, served with green beans and Omaha Steaks' Twice Baked Potatoes. Lesson 1: Don't overheat olive oil. Lesson 2: If you do overheat olive oil, don't drop cold items into the olive oil without using a spatula or otherwise protecting your hands. I now have a really nice burn on my arm from the hot olive oil splattering my arm when I placed a cold pork chop into the oil. I'm dealing with it. It's not fun, but... The Kentucky Pork Chops were, once again, very easy to prepare, assuming you don't burn yourself. First, you dip the pork chops in the rub, and then place them into the frying pan. Once they're cooked (flip them to cook both sides), you top each side with a bit of the sauce, and then cook each side another minute. You then remove them from the pan, toss the sauce into the pan, cook it until it thickens. You then top the pork chops with the sauce. I complicated things by burning myself. ...

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...

I prepared the Lemon Chicken Piccata with Fettuccine Dream Dinners last night. It was very easy to prepare as well. Basically, I heated water to cook the fettuccine and then cooked the chicken in a frying pan with a bit of olive oil. Once the chicken was browned on both sides, I added the sauce, cooked the pasta, and then it was ready. The sauce had a lot of artichokes and capers, with just a few tomatoes. It did have a nice lemony taste to it, and the meal was very enjoyable. The next time it's on the menu, I'd definitely make it again, although I'd probably scale back on the capers and add a few extra artichokes and tomatoes, just due to preference. While this meal wasn't on the table in 20 minutes, it was probably on the table in half an hour. There were leftovers for lunch today, although there wasn't quite enough pasta for 2 lunches. I'd consider supplementing this meal with extra chicken and pasta from home, if I created a bit of extra sauce at Dream D...

Last night's dinner was the third Eat Now, Eat Later meal. The quick summary was, according to Mac, lousy. Edible because we added cheese and sour cream, but otherwise, lousy. I ate about 4 bites and then decided that dinner would be a few crackers instead. I probably knew deep down not to get my hopes up after two things happened yesterday. The first was that yesterday morning, when I stumbled into the kitchen to start the coffee, I noticed a pile of liquid by the corner of the fridge. Cobaka has had a few bladder infections, and when she has one, she'll sometimes potty near there, since she can't hold it then. She's also been known to go there when she's jealous that Geno has the prime real estate on the bed. Since he'd had the prime real estate on the bed that morning, I assumed she'd expressed her displeasure. I cleaned it up, and wasn't very happy. I then opened the fridge and found that there was pink liquid throughout one side of the fridge. ...