Porter House

Still Camera-Less...

We made it home Sunday at about 3:00. The drive was a little scary. It poured on us the whole time. This wasn't comforting for several reasons. Mostly because I had hundreds of dollars of purchases in the back of our Tundra. Justin and I kept telling each other that as long as we were moving, the rain wouldn't reach our stuff. Justin showed off some very admirable driving skills.

*Driving  7 1/2 hours with only one lunch break.
*Not rear ending all the people who suddenly slammed on their brakes.
*Driving without any visibility, without ever pulling over.
*Not floating away in the flooded streets of Carthage.

Amazingly, nothing was ruined except packaging materials. Thank goodness. When we arrived home we were in for a wonderful gardening surprise. Our broccoli plants had 2-3 inch florets on them. Too cool!

I really need to find my battery charger. You would be seeing some pictures of delicious beef shish kebabs with wild rice. As well as pictures of the best berry fool ever. Both CI recipes, the fool is in the newest issue that just came out online. Unfortunately I still haven't looked for found it.

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I signed up for Netflix Sunday. It was bound to happen after Karen (By the way, did you know It. Snowed. there?) gave it such a high recommendation. The main reason I signed up was to get the miniseries The Stand on DVD. I am currently about 1/3 through the book. My dad told me it was the best Stephen King book ever written. I believe him.

Of course, it is the only movie in my queue that has Very Long Wait beside it. The new releases are all available. I assume they do not have many copies of The Stand, it also seems to have some sort of cult following. So if you happen to be rewatching The Stand from Netflix for the 3rd time or something please put it back in circulation so that I can watch it.

Multi-grain Bread

Okay, I did some baking yesterday and threw together a surprisingly good meal. We ran through 2 loaves of store bought wheat bread this week, so I decided to make some multi-grain bread. This bread of Cook's Illustrated's is one of their most loved and talked about recipes. It is just fantastic. You use 7-grain cereal in it. The Bob's Red Mill works great. Then the inside is studded with sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds. This time I had shelled pumpkin seeds in the freezer, so I used those. It makes two big, pretty loaves.

We have been trying to eat more fish. Unfortunately our selection around here is abysmal. They get all the great seafood in south Louisiana. Around here, frozen is usually your best bet. At least you know it was frozen soon after it was caught versus fresh, which is trucked in from who knows where. Anyway, I had some tiny frozen cod. I finally found I good looking recipe on Epicurious. It calls for a larger solid piece of cod, but I just layed down some lemon slices down the middle of a 13x9 pan, and tiled the small pieces of cod on top. Then I placed the potato, onion, and olive mixture along the edges and cooked it.

I served some green rice on the side. I got the recipe for this green rice on the Cook's Illustrated's bulletin board a while back. So far back, that I have no memory of who posted it or what thread it was on. I have searched for it to no avail. I am sure that the original poster would not mind if I post the recipe here. I just wish I could give her credit for it. (If it was your recipe, please tell me in the comments section so I can thank you!)

Green Rice

1 cup raw rice, cooked normally (basmati or popcorn rice is best)
6 T. unsalted butter (Please do not reduce the butter until you've tried it this way!)
2-3 stalks of celery (with leaves), chopped (I didn't really read the directions and used 5-6)
1 bunch green onions, chopped
a handful of Italian parsley, chopped, if you have it
salt and pepper to taste

Start your rice cooking. I cooked one cup popcorn rice in two cups water, with a bay leaf and some salt thrown in for good measure.

While the rice is cooking melt butter in a large saucepan over med-high heat. The original poster mentions that she lets the butter brown a little, so do I it is delicious. Add the vegetables. Let them cook for about 15 minutes until they are caramelized and have reduced by about 150%. Reduce the heat to low as necessary to prevent it from burning. Turn off the heat.

When the rice and the vegetables are ready, add the rice to the skillet. Add salt to taste and lots of freshly ground black pepper. Unbelievably good!



For dessert I made one of my sister's favorite cakes. It is the Blackberry roulade from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook. This time I decided to use raspberries though. The picture isn't great, and I did have some cracks, but the taste was amazing.  It is a vanilla sponge cake rolled around crushed berries mixed with whipped cream, covered in powdered sugar. Ummm...



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Last night my husband and I rented the movie Black Snake Moan from PPV. This is not a movie you can watch until your kids are firmly asleep. I thought it was a lot better than the reviews made it seem. I am sure most men would agree with me given how much time Christina Ricci is half naked is artistically nude. Personally I just enjoyed the fact that Justin Timberlake was in the movie as well. However, Samuel L. Jackson really stole the show. He's a great actor.



 

4 tickets please...

How cute is this picture?

Justin and I took the kids to see Shrek 3 yesterday. My sister had already given it pretty bad reviews. We still went though because Ryan has never been to a movie theater before, and we were worried about him sitting through any movie. I should have listened to Karen.

It is just not a good movie. It just makes the other two great movies look bad. Save your money.

After all that, Ryan still didn't sit still. Luckily there was only one other family there. He wandered the rows and played on the bars. We will wait another year or two before we take him again.

At least the kids got to meet the Simpsons...

Another Movie Night

It seems I neglect my blog on movie nights. I did try to blog, but my camera wouldn't upload pictures to my computer, and I gave up. I think my computer needed to be restarted.

We watched Babel last night. I say we, but Justin kept walking off and doing other things. I guess he didn't love it. I did, it was nice to see Brad Pitt actually look his age... I had no real idea what it was going to be about. It jumped between 4 stories that were all connected. They take place in Morocco, Mexico, San Diego, and Japan. It was good, I kept a level of dread wondering what what going to happen to everyone. The NEW Dakota Fanning was in this movie, her little sister Elle. I feel bad for Dakota...

I made the Cook's Illustrated's Sour Cream Bundt Cake. I have been hearing how great it was, and for some reason had never made it. It would have been better with my Penzey's cocoa which comes tomorrow, but it was moist and wonderful. It makes a great breakfast too.



Yesterday was monumental for another reason. My little boy went fishing in a boat with his Daddy for the first time. I packed him a lunch box knowing he would stay in the boat only until he ran out of food. He had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, sliced pears, mixed nuts and a slice of the above bundt cake. They had a lovely time, but caught no fish. Oh well. Luckily Justin had caught enough bass with my grandfather (Honey-long story) for a fish fry last night. I made up some hush puppies and tartar sauce, and Justin fried the fish, fries, and hush puppies. Sorry no picture, we ate it too fast.

-Becca

Yes, I missed yesterday...

It was my first day I didn't blog since I began. I blame it on The Prestige. My husband who has been working a lot of overtime, had the evening off. I had a terrible headache all day yesterday, and didn't plan a meal. So I went to Cook's Illustrated's website and found a recipe that used canned diced tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, spaghetti, and bacon. While the pasta and sauce were cooking I threw together a salad of romaine, lemon juice, olive oil, and parmesan cheese. The whole meal took about 20 minutes, and was really good.

Then we settled in to watch The Prestige. My husband had been wanting to watch this for awhile. It was really interesting. I had read a spoiler about it somewhere, but I was still lost until the end. I loved it and so did Justin.

Hopefully, I will feel up for a better meal tonight, we'll see...
-Becca