The Blonde Diaries

Cooking Results with Pictures

I have finally started to remember to take pictures of my meals before I start eating them so that I can show you how different recipes turn out as well as verbally tell you. I feel that pictures do help complete the story so I love checking out recipes with photos next to them. So hopefully photobucket will finish uploading these pictures before I need to head out to go to the Astros v. Rangers game.

First up since it is the newest recipe/post will be the Quick and Easy Chicken Couscous. I normally love this recipe. It is just so quick and easy. This week the entire thing had I been properly prepared would have been done in less than 10 minutes I kid you not. Unfortunately, I tried a different brand of couscous and it just was very bland. I highly suggest getting a flavored Near East brand if you make this. Plain just doesn’t cut it. I think I have used half of my lemon juice to spruce this up. Nevertheless, it did turn out looking the way it was suppose to which is good. I tried to make sure you could see all of the ingredients in here but the cheese was a bit tricky!

Next up was the cast iron skillet steak Mike and I made last weekend. This steak turned out great! The only problem is that Mike and I are still learning about cooking times and the thickness of steak so our sear for 1 minute, throw in oven for 2, flip cook for 1 turned out medium-well not medium steaks but they were still excellent. I wasn’t sure how cooking them this way would turn out but from now on I think I will be doing it this way.

I apoligize for the usage of A1 on these steaks but I don’t know anything about marinading steaks and we didn’t have any butter around.

Budget Saver or Budget Killer?

I subscribe to the daily Daily Candy email newsletter. As part of my subscription I sometimes get “dedicated” emails (sponsored emails), travel ideas, and weekly coupons. Today I received a Daily Candy Travel email. I immediately opened it up as it usually has some good recommendations and great travel ideas and today was no different.

Today’s theme was if you can’t travel to exotic locations due to the rise in gas/inflation/food/etc why not bring it to yourself. The product recommended is called a Destination Dinner Recipe Food Kit. Basically, Destination Dinners offers about 10 kits which all represent a different flavor/locale. When you buy your kit you are buying all of the dry ingredients - rice/pasta, seasonings, spices, oils. Additionally, they will provide you with a shopping list so that you can go pick up your perishables, preparation instructions, and possible table settings/themes. It sounds like so much fun if you are hosting a dinner party.

Here is one example, Khao Ob Sapparod (Bangkok, Thailand)
The Kit:

The final product:

Looks pretty darn tasty doesn’t it? Here is the dilemna though: at $25 for the kit (plus fresh ingredients) a budget saver or a budget killer? I’d like to think it’s a saver since you aren’t actually going on vacation and spending thousands but at the same time $25 for a kit is sort of a budget killer. I guess it would be good to try once though. Maybe you can buy a kit, measure the ingredients as you cook and then make your own kit at the grocery store for less. Hmm now there is a good budget friendly idea. I’ll have to give this a try. I’ll tell you how it turns out.

Quick & Easy: Chicken Couscous

Tonight I am making one of my favorite quick and easy dinners: chicken couscous. You know a few years ago I had no idea what couscous actually was. A quick detour so I can enlighten others who might not know either.

Thanks to wisegeek.com I found this explanation:

Couscous is a coarsely ground semolina pasta that is a dietary staple in North African countries. It is also widely used in Middle Eastern countries and has become popular in American dishes. It is made of semolina, flour, salt, and water. Similar to rice in shape, color, and texture, it is used in many dishes as rice would be. A grain of couscous is similar in size to a grain of sugar.

So basically it is a pasta which is shaped like rice. I can tell you after eating it multiple times it does not taste like either pasta or rice. Not sure if that is a good thing or not!

So tonight I have a box of couscous which my dad picked up at Big Lots for me (I know I know) which you can find it at any grocery store over by the boxed rice mixes, 1 pound of grilled chicken, 1 small container of feta cheese, and 1 bunch of asparagus. Basically, I’m just going to follow the instructions on the couscous box in it’s preparation, shred up the chicken, and grill the asparagus and chop into about 1 inch pieces. When the couscous is done I will immediately throw in the feta so it can melt and then add in the chicken and asparagus. I cannot wait to eat tonight. It’s light and pretty healthy!

It’s Steak Night again!

We are trying to do steak night again. This time around Mike wants to try the Smith & Wollensky method since he heard from a coworker that that is the best way to prepare a steak. I don’t see what was wrong with the George Foreman method I tried last time but apparently that was not a “proper” way to do it per Mike. So we are off to church right now and have the steaks out on the counter warming up to room temperature. After church we are stopping by Mike’s apartment and grabbing the cast iron skillet since it is stove top and oven safe and giving this a try. Basically from what I have read online we are to heat up the skillet as hot as possible and sear the steaks on one side for about 1 minute then flip and throw in the oven for 2 minutes per side and we are suppose to have the perfect Medium steaks. I’m letting Mike do most of the handling of this little adventure especially since it calls for using the cast iron skillet which is really heavy. If this method works as we believe it will I will report back tomorrow with exactly what we did, how long, and pictures.

Wish us luck!

I have not had any luck with cooking lately

Man!  I have not had any luck in the kitchen the past 2 days.  Yesterday, I finally got around to making Cheeseburger Soup in the slow cooker.  I have been eying this recipe for months in the cookbook but never got around to making it.  So I set aside yesterday to go for it.  Let me just preface it by saying this is not a difficult recipe and I will be posting the recipe in my crock pot series soon.

So after cooking the soup for 8 hours as instructed, it was finally finished at 11pm last night.  Not wanting to spoil the soup I let it sit on the counter to cool down before refrigeration as I was not going to bed anytime soon.  Not so bad so far…  but (you knew it was coming) I totally forgot about it at 1am when I went to bed.  This morning at 7am I found my soup on my stove top cool as can be and now it has to be tossed.  I was super sad.  I guess I will have to try this one again and make sure to refrigerate it properly!

Well that was just the beginning of my food nightmares today.  Tonight I thought I’d go for something quick and easy and make New Orleans style BBQ shrimp since it was quick and easy.  Everything turned out great (we will forget the 2 sticks of butter required) until Mike broke out in hives at the gym.  He breaks out every now and then when he eats shrimp.  Mainly when it is cooked cajun style so we figure it is a seasoning/spice used but we just don’t know which one since he is ok with dirty rice, etoufee, gumbo, and jambalaya.  It might be the blackening seasoning.  Luckily we are near a Walgreens and was able to pick up some benadryl and get him under control.  Needless to say while this was a definite keeper of a recipe I will not be making it again.

Maybe I will have better luck tomorrow.  I figure I will stick with tuna helper and then start branching out from there.