EEE Cooks: Meals from 2003-02

2003-02-03 Asian Pork Tenderloin

It was luscious. That’s how Robin’s grandmother describes many of the wonderful creations that come from her kitchen. For some reason, neither Robin nor Chris can recall describing any meal or dish as luscious (although several certainly fit that description). Tonight’s meal was luscious – more specifically, the pork tenderloin was as tender as one can hope.

2003-02-05 Pizza Bread

We had some un-documented mafalde last night. We use the leftover baguette and tomato sauce to make some nifty pizza bread.

2003-02-09 What To Do with Leftover Bubba's

Last night’s dinner discussion went something like this: “What do you want?” “I don’t know, what do you want?” Our daughter, from the other room: “Bubba’s!” She’s her father’s daughter in that respect. Leftover wings and simple pasta with broccoli are on tonight’s menu.

2003-02-10 Chicken and Wild Rice

This meal took much longer to cook than expected. For some reason, the rice simply would not cook through. That had the unfortunate side-effect of drying the chicken out a little. Even so, the meal was still delicious – the cherries adding unexpected flavor to both the chicken and rice. We’ll definitely try this one again!

2003-02-11 Salmon (Tonight She Doesn't Like It)

Tonight, our daughter didn’t like salmon. To describe her tastes as fickle nowadays is to describe the universe as vast. Her parents have no problem with salmon (check our ingredients index)! In fact, we’ve been accused on more than one occasion of having too many salmon recipes in our cookbook. What can we say? We love it and tonight’s meal is another in a long list of fabulous salmon meals that we’ve enjoyed.

2003-02-13 Vodka Pasta

We were real tempted to get some take out tonight. Our son was extremely grumpy after his nap today. That kind of grumpy quickly infects everyone else. Fortunately, we were able to resist temptation and were rewarded by this very nice little pasta meal.

2003-02-14 Valentine's Pancakes

Robin and Chris celebrated Valentine’s Day last week at the Oregon Grille. Oh, that was so good. Tonight, we celebrate with the kids – the way they want to celebrate it – with heart-shaped pancakes.

2003-02-16 The Most Romantic Meal Ever

We’re not sure what qualifies as romantic in other families, but this is it in ours: homemade fettuccine with a tomato sausage sauce, roasted asparagus, and slices of italian bread. Why is this romantic? Well, there are many reasons…

2003-02-17 The Blizzard of '03

The day after the blizzard of ‘03 finds us firmly fixed at home. Fortunately, we have a well stocked pantry and haven’t really started to run low on refrigerated items just yet.

2003-02-18 Mac and Cheese

We’re finally out from under the snow dumped by the blizzard. For this meal, all that we needed from the local grocery mart was some milk, but it was certainly nice to be able to finally get out and about.

2003-02-19 Leftovers and Corn Muffins

Since everybody had to adjust to the old, non-blizzard routine, we are content to enjoy a simple meal tonight. The other night‘s two bean chili re-heats quite nicely. Since we don’t like to have the exact meal again, we also add corn muffins (which were delectable) to the meal. Bacon is a by-product of the corn muffins. We’ve said it before, but it bears repeating, “any meal with bacon as a by-product is going to be excellent.”

2003-02-22 Steak Burritos

We’ve needed red meat for some time now. Our kids don’t need it – they have pasta and assorted sides from our meal – but we fulfill primal urges with some steak burritos. Robin always worries that the flank steak is too rare. Ultimately, “too rare” is a relative thing as long as the internal temperature is above 120 degrees (rare).

2003-02-23 More Homemade Pasta

We could get used to this. Homemade pasta that is. We’ve made homemade pasta more than once over the years, but it is so easy with the pasta roller attachment to our KitchenAid.

2003-02-24 Mu Shu!

Mu shu is our favorite chinese dish. Robin first introduced Chris to the dish during their dating years when they went back to Brooklyn to visit her family. When ordering out, we normally get pork. We’ve made a vegetarian version before. Tonight, we enjoy mu shu beef, using up the remainder of the flank steak from Saturday.

2003-02-28 Chicken Enchiladas

This was a wonderful end-of-week meal. After yet more snow plus a little illness, this meal was ideal. Enchiladas are easy to prepare and are a fabulous way to use up leftovers. We exploited both of these aspects of enchiladas tonight – and they taste great as well!

Meals from February 2003