Dear Hubby's birthday dinner

these two were such great help for me tonight while I cooked up dear hubby's birthday dinner.





Today was Dear Sweet Hubby's (DSH's) birthday and since 1) the economy sux, 2) we are spending what money we have outside of bills on the kitchen and 3) we're broke (refer to #1) my main gift to him was a home cooked meal of his choice. He chose fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy and corn on the cob. We have already had record breaking heat and we're currently under an extreme heat advisory for the next few days; I'm gonna fry chicken?! You betcha - he deserves it.

I soaked the chicken in the fridge in buttermilk overnight - I have no idea if it made a difference or not but even the white meat was good and juicy...it looks over cooked but it really wasn't...

 I love fresh corn! This was good and sweet...the 'tators turned out fluffy and creamy...see how the mixer blades left a fluffy mountain? :-)

I draw the line at making home made coconut cream pie.......Tippins pie at Reasors works just fine this year...

I'm reminded why I do this meal once a year....dealing with being under construction added an interesting new dimension to the cooking experience. I'm going to stick my head in the freezer for awhile now......

when all else fails...make goolash

I've been fighting a migraine for two days...yesterday we had leftovers from Father's Day dinner...today I decided that if I were to die first my guys would probably just sit and stare at my chair and wonder what's for dinner.  Why would I think such a thing?  The fact that everyone was sitting and staring at the t.v. and not a soul was stirring, with stomachs growling would be a good clue. I announced my splitting headache, no one moved. FINE! I'll cook something. I have a pound of hamburger in the fridge that needs to be cooked anyway. I'll get 'em - I'll something semi healthy and I'll use those veggie noodles I bought. This is what I came up with:

I boiled the veggie elbow noodles I found at Reasors...I didn't really look close at the label, they could be really high in food coloring and not really made of vegetables but I'm gonna go with they were made of veggies 'cause I'm a sucker for marketing sometimes...anyway, while the noodles were cooking I fried up the pound of hamburger with about a half of a chopped onion and a clove of crushed garlic, then I drained the noodles, added the hamburger (minus grease), a can of cream of mushroom soup, a can of mushrooms, a can of tomato soup, and a can of RoTel  - salt and pepper to taste.  It's some form of goolash, right? Did my guys learn anything? I don't think so, 'cause they liked it.

Father's Day dinner

Some friends gave us a couple heads of cabbage, some sweet onions, a case of cantaloupe, a half a case of oranges and 50 pounds of baking potatoes the other day.  I've given some of the potatoes and fruit away but still have plenty...

so even though I have very little space to work on, I decided to cook for my dear hubby for Father's Day.  He has been a pretty good boy this last year and the best way to show my man I love him is to cook a good meal so....Saturday evening I chopped up a head of the cabbage, added a jalapeño from our one plant and some miracle whip, honey, vinegar,  celery seed and called it coleslaw after it sat in the fridge till today's dinner.

This morning before church I seasoned the pork spare ribs

While dear hubby got the smoker going (yea, he went to church smelling like the smoker and cologne - what the heck, it's Father's Day) I peeled and boiled 4 of those baking potatoes and then made some potato salad.  While making the potato salad I remembered I needed to boil some eggs or the salad would be ruined.  The Boy brought me some eggs but one went to be with his cousin Humpty...

some of the white is mud from mudding and taping the walls...as you can see, The Boy drew a face on Humpty's cousin and it was proven that this family can not sit on walls...

After church, Dear Hubby took the ribs off the smoker - where they had been smoking at about 175 degrees for 4 hours - and we put them in a pan with some apple juice in the oven at 275 for another four hours (covered).  MMMMMMM!

                                  

I also decided that Dear Hubby deserved a home made cake - because I think I secretly like to abuse myself I went into the middle bedroom...the room that has almost everything from the kitchen and all of the contents of the former closet. The new closet hasn't been built and the kitchen obviously isn't done so it's quite the determined soul that goes into this room only to come out victorious....

yep - there's even a bathroom sink in there...that's going to have a home someday soon...I found what I was looking for though, which is amazing since I had the flu when the kitchen got packed up....

So, I'm going to make an orange cake...I look on www.cooks.com and I find this recipe for an orange chiffon cake so I decide to go for it...now if you notice in this recipe, no where does it say to put the cake mixture in a bunt pan...it says to put it in a pan - that's it.  It my hairbrained idea to battle that room.  Anyway, I squeezed several oranges and got some fresh juice, found my zester and got some of the orange zest like the recipe called for.  I did everything this poorly written recipe said to do...this is what my dear hubby got for his Father's Day dessert...

the thinnest pound cake ever!  I thought that it would be light and fluffy - that's what "chiffon" says to me...but NO!  At least I know I can brave the wilderness....Happy Father's Day my dear sweet hubby!  MWAH!

the great harvest of 2011

we were at the hardware store buying stuff, you know, for the kitchen under construction, and saw a lonely jalapeño plant and so we bought him and then decided to add three tomato plants to the mix - you know since we'll have lots of time to devote to a garden and all.  So far this is our harvest...

this is the first crop of tomatoes....

and this is the second crop....we can make some really spicy salsa for Barbie and maybe enough for Ken....

Thank God for summer!

 If I come home to ladders blocking the sink much more, my guys may think we've turned into rabbits....

 summer time in Oklahoma means it's BBQ time and dear hubby took some time this last Memorial  weekend to fire up the smoker and cook up some chicken breasts, pork loin and a "roll of red" (bologna, for those of you that don't know)...my dear, dear friend texted me Saturday morning with an invite to Cherry Street Saturday Market.  Today I used some of the wonderful mixed lettuce I bought with a bag of regular salad from Reasors, cut up some of the chicken breasts and a tomato and a bit of purple onion, add some Ranch dressing and viola! it no longer matters that I didn't have access to the sink (because I had already washed my veggies before I put 'em up)

my sink is barely hanging on anyway...it's getting closer and closer to time to deal with plumbing issues and to make a decision on a new sink....for now, I'm glad fresh veggies are coming in, that we've had enough rain to lift the burn ban and we are clear to fire up the grill!

someone PLEASE do the dishes!

I come home to sheetrock leaning up against the sink and my dear hubby is tired from all the projects he has going on so what's for dinner?  How am I going to  work around the sheetrock?  Broil chicken breasts and open a couple bags of salad, cut up some tomatoes and throw in some shredded cheese and that's how I dealt with that.

What wasn't pretty was what I found today after the piece of rock had been hung...The Boy has been slacking on his dishwashing duties....

for whatever reason dishes from last night's chicken salad dinner are sitting on the floor behind the "ta da" wall...

looks like it's been more than an evening that he's slacked off.  I realize Dad has tools laying around too and that clouds your view of things, but dear son o mine, PLEASE, PLEASE take care of the dishes so I can cook again and before I blow a gasket! I hope you read this so you heed this warning.....

how does he not see the dishes? Do guys automatically focus on the tools and manly projects and think "what's she talking about? I don't see anything."?









I do however know how bad my stove looks, it's a filthy mess.  Grease and stuff has dripped down the side over the years, add dust from the removal of the plaster and dear hubby messing with the sheetrock and you get this beautiful sight...

eww, right?!  Good thing I'm not cooking on the sides of the stove!

Add dear hubby not being the greatest at picking up after himself and you get this view....

 I kinda feel like the soap dispenser...

I worked around it all, believe it or not, and made a meatloaf (1 pound of hamburger, an egg, saltines, tomato sauce, onion, pepper, and some worcestershire sauce) with a sauce made up of some catsup, mustard, honey, garlic powder,and brown sugar; cut up some potatoes and put 'em in a pan with olive oil, seasoning salt, pepper, parsley and garlic powder and put both dishes in the oven at 350 degrees for an hour or until the sauce is thickened and the potatoes are done.

more dishes to do son!

Pork Ribs a la D

I found some pork ribs in the freezer so I thawed 'em out, sprinkled on some seasoning salt & garlic powder, added liquid smoke and worchestershire sauce, cubed an onion and stuck the pieces in between the ribs and then I poured some Head Country BBQ sauce ('cause there's no other kind of BBQ sauce a person should use - just sayin') over the top, covered with foil (am I the only one who has a thing about whether or not the shiny side is up?  If not, I put the shiny side down).... 

bake at 375 for three hours....mmmm, mmmm good!  There was enough for us to have two meals too....the less I have to cook, the better!