30 Days of Home Cooking (Week 2)

Welcome back to 30 Days of Home Cooking, the show where I spend hours of my life, planning, prepping, and cooking meals, only for Jeffery to gobble it up in 10 minutes. 

I actually thoroughly enjoy cooking, it's become my hobby. Jeffery says I could have made just as good of food in the old kitchen, but I disagree, cooking was more of a chore before. I don't have to walk all the way to the pantry for my spices now, my mixer is on a lift, the trash pulls out nicely for easy food disposal, it's wonderful, as is the food so without further ado, here's what we ate for week two.

Day one of week two we decided that we'd do our late anniversary dinner for lunch instead of dinner. We took a trip to Costco afterwards and while there we picked up some USDA Prime New York Strip Steaks for relatively cheap, so that's what I made tonight. My father can attest to the quality of this meal.

The plate starts with a scoop of whipped potatoes that I seasoned with salt, pepper, and garlic. On top of that is a sprinkling of caramelized onions. The steak was cooked to medium rare and then topped with a goat cheese and butter spread as well as a balsamic reduction (also seen circled around the plate.) The broccoli was steamed and tossed in salt and pepper. Look for the recipe here.

The next day I made one of our favorite meals. Citrus Braised Pork Tacos. This recipe comes from Cook's Country.  You can find the video for it here. These tacos are delicious, I recommend you at least try making the pork and then top it with what ever you like.

Here are screenshots of the pork portion of the recipe straight from their website you need paid access to view. (Did you know you can't copyright recipes in most cases? Recipes are seen as statements of facts and not creative works. A cookbook or art associated to the recipe may be copyrighted but the recipe is not. Fun fact of the day.)

Day three my Dad bought pizzas from Dominos for us. We didn't go out to eat last week before our counters were installed so we still haven't eaten out more than planned. My brother was over too and we hadn't gotten back from the lake until almost 8. No one was willing to wait for me to cook after I got the kids to bed. So pizza was ordered and I enjoyed time around the table with my family instead of in front of the stove.

Day four I finally addressed the turkey breast I had thawed in the fridge. I wasn't feeling up for a Thanksgiving feast, so instead I turned it into pulled turkey sandwiches. This ended up being quite savory. I brought the grill up to temperature with all burners on high for 15 minutes, then turned off all but one primary burner that stayed on high. I laid the turkey down on the "cold" side of the grill and "baked" to an internal temperature of 165 degrees. 

The turkey was prepared by removing the back bone, and splitting it in half down the breast bone (it's almost a gruesome as it sounds). It was then brinned for 30 minutes, patted dry, and seasoned with salt and pepper. After it was cooked I just shredded the meat and added it to a homemade BBQ sauce that I think was a bit too sweet so I won't be sharing it with you today. We had ciabatta buns laying around that I used for the sandwich, and then shredded cheese was sprinkled on top. 

Next up was spaghetti with Emily's Famous All Day Sauce. There's a recipe for that sauce on the blog already which I am thankful for because I forgot to get a picture. I've been living without a cellphone for a while now and I don't really feel like dragging out my Canon to take a snap of spaghetti dinner. Replacement is due in on Monday.

Thursday night I made one of Jeffery's favorite meals, Beef Stroganoff. I didn't know he had late lunch out for work otherwise I would have saved this for a day he was more hungry. At least he'll have good leftovers for lunch tomorrow. I made this one in easy mode. The sauce is a combination of canned cream of mushroom soup, sour cream, and cream cheese. The next time I go all out with my beef stroganoff, I'll type up a recipe for it. 

Friday night, Jeffery grilled some burgers and hot dogs for us. I picked up some fries to stick in the oven to go with them and they were arguably the best oven fries we've tried. If you're in the market for a good steak fry to bake, Lamb Weston Steak Fries. (not sponsored)

I'm giving you an extra meal this week because I want to switch to Sunday being the beginning of the new week. So last night, I made chicken burgers. I really wanted Chickfila to be honest with you. If you've ever had the Chicken Bruschetta burger at Red Robin, this burger was reminiscent of it. If you haven't had that burger, try it. I had it once when I was pregnant with Henry and I actually cried because it was so good and I was so pregnant. The burger I made last night was even better.

I'll type up a recipe for this chicken burger soon and come back to edit the post to include it. I wanted to get this blog posted now so I can work on the next week's blog.

We start off next week with Calvin's birthday so we'll see what he decides he wants for dinner. What have you been making for dinner this past week?

Until next week.

-Em