Food & Dining

Here’s a recipe suggestion for Kini, who commented yesterday about fixing something other than chili in the crockpot.

This meal was adapted from a Rachael Ray recipe, with Andouille sausage, cubed chicken and shrimp. The original recipe calls to cook some of the ingredients in a skillet, but we toss everything in the pot and cook on low for six or seven hours. Everything cooks in the broth and the results are essentially the same. We don’t toss in the pre-cooked frozen, cleaned shrimp until about 20 minutes before serving time. We prepare the rice per the package instructions and serve the jambalaya over a scoop of rice in a bowl. Oh yeah, I forgot – we always chop up a couple cloves of garlic since the original recipe left it out for some reason.

Feast your eyes on these beautiful shish kebabs as they cook on the grill. When we finished grocery shopping this morning, we came home and cut up a tri-tip (bottom sirloin) roast into chunks, removed the stems from some fresh mushrooms and put them in a marinade consisting of extra-virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, chopped rosemary leaves and minced garlic.

We also boiled up some red bliss potatoes, Brussels sprouts and diced acorn squash chunks. We only boiled them until the potatoes were just barely fork-tender. These were drained and set aside to cool.

While the vegetables were cooling and the meat marinated in the refrigerator for a couple of hours, we watched some football and visited with the family at a nearby eatery. We didn’t order any food, though, since nothing on their menu could possibly compete with what we were planning to have for dinner.

At the left, you can see the meat and veggies on the skewers before we put them on the grill. Notice the rich deep-brown color of the marinated beef and mushrooms.

Click on either picture to see a closer view.

On the side, Damsel prepared a pasta salad with orzo, cherry tomatoes, broccoli, olives and artichoke hearts. I have to tell you, this was a great meal – and certainly better than anything on the menu at the eatery where the family gathered.

Today, we took the old burned-out TV to the electronic and hazmat disposal site. After that, we did the weekly grocery shopping and stopped at the sporting goods store to get some pistol and shotgun ammo and targets – you know – the bare necessities.

Before we went on our errands we made the marinade for some 1-inch thick pork loin chops, We juiced some oranges from our recently-harvested dwarf orange tree, added some honey and coriander with a little salt and gourmet pepper and refrigerated with the chops in a zip lock bag.

When we got home, we sliced up some fresh pineapple and put the slices in to the broiler with the chops. I whipped up a bourbon-orange reduction, and steamed up some rice and broccoli.

On a busy day with lots of errands to run, it’s nice to be able to whip up a sumptuous meal in about 45 minutes. So easy and so good.

Christmas dinner: roast beast au jus, horseradish sauce, stuffed baked potatoes, broccoli, orange glazed carrots and a small dinner salad. Don’t bother me – I’m eatin’.