My Man's Man

Frank is definitely the alpha cook in our household according to this New York Times article, He Cooks.  She Stews.  It’s Love.  I really related to one of the beta-cooks who said, "[He says] ‘Great, yes, come cook with me.’ And then he gives me the take-the-chicken-out- -of-the-package-and-rinse-it job."  So I found the same solution that one of the other betas found,  "Ms. LaVallee, the adviser to the president of Georgetown University, now chooses to sit on the sideline with a glass of wine."  I usually end up sitting on the kitchen floor talking to Frank defending my glass of wine from the dogs.  All in all though, I think I have the best of all worlds:

life with an alpha cook can mean sitting back and watching while
someone else prepares restaurant-quality wild mushroom risotto on a
quiet Tuesday night.

Photo by scribeoflight.

One of the few dishes I make well is chicken curry and since I’m not a big fan of cooking I’ve worked hard to perfect not just the flavor but to minimize the amount of time it takes to prepare.  This at one time was a Betty Crocker recipe but I’ve modified it drastically.  Here it is.  Don’t worry too much about the measurements and feel free to substitute and experiment.

Take out a crockpot.  Add (in any order):

• 1 can of chicken broth
• 1 can of diced tomatos
• 1/4 cup of shredded coconut
• 1/4 cup of flour
• spoonful of sugar
• 1.5 teaspoons of curry
• 1/4 teaspoon of dry mustard
• 1/2 teaspoon of ginger
• 1 stick of butter

Then chop and add:

• 1 apple (green ones are best)
• 1 onion
• 1/2 pound of ham (lunch meat works fine)
• 1.5 pounds of raw chicken
• 1 clove of garlic

For an added bonus, about an hour before you eat, you can add:

• two handfuls of cashews

Cook on low for 4-8 hours.  Serve over rice.

If I could eliminate the chopping it would be the easiest recipe in the world!

Sorry for the quiet period.  Our five month old ended up in the hospital – he’s doing fine now – but we didn’t do much cooking during that time.  We lived on hospital food (not too bad) and take out.  The best was Tim’s Thai. 

I thought about taking pictures of all of it for you but I didn’t have my camera on me, so you’ll have to take my word for it that the hospital food was better than expected, the thai food was great (we tried to order from them a second time), the pizza the first night was awesome (that tends to happen when you don’t get to eat for 12 hours) and the rest was ok but not particularly memorable.

Does all the alcohol really burn off when you cook?  Not as much as you probably thought …

I found this answer in multiple blogs and it supposedly comes from the US Department of Agriculture but I couldn’t find the information on their website.

As part of our New Year’s Eve dinner we had crab legs.  This is a recipe even I can’t mess up!  (Luckily I’m not even tested as Frank took care of the whole dinner.)

• Boil some water with salt.
• Put in the crab legs.
• Boil for 10 minutes.

They are ready to eat.

I finally got Frank to go snowshoeing – we just had to call it "hunting." 

Seriously, we went elk hunting on Saturday.  It was gorgeous – virgin snow everywhere.  And while we didn’t see any sign of people all day, we also didn’t see any sign of elk.  Which was probably a good thing since there is no more room in our freezer for any more meat!

It was a gorgeous day and a great snowshoe hike.

(And for those of you wondering what Frank cooked.  He made us bagel sandwiches of ham and corned beef with onion and chive and garden vegetable cream cheese spread.)

At our traditional New Year’s Eve dinner, the main dish was lobster tails.  Yum!  Frank also says they are easy to make.

• We bought 4 oz lobster tails – two for each person.
• Wash the tails in cold water.
• Take poultry shears, split the shells from the top to the tail.
• Crack open the shells and pull the meat out.  (This is just to make it easier to eat later.)
• Put them in a baking dish.
• Put a clove of crushed garlic on each tail.  (Make sure all your dinner guests eat at least one tail so you all smell like garlic!)
• Slice a stick of butter the long way and put a slice on each tail.  (The slice will just cover the tail.)
• Sprinkle the tails with seasoning salt.
• Put the tails in the oven on broil on the very top shelf.
• Bake for 10-15 minutes.

Yummy and easy!  I saw that we still have some more frozen lobster tails in the freezer so I’ll have to request them for dinner soon!

Usually we have our big seafood dinner on Christmas Eve but this year we had it on New Year’s Eve.  It was scrumptious!  I’ll be posting all the food and recipes but here’s a teaser:

• Lobster tails
• Mussels
• Shrimp ceviche
• Crab legs
• Twice baked potatos
• Asparagus

As usual, everything was awesome.  (I didn’t do anything but taste it!)  Frank even added candle light this year and some really great presentation ideas like putting the ceviche in martini glasses.

Frank’s been making a lot of sausage lately with some of the antelope and deer we have in the freezer.  He mixes it with pork fat, paprika, crushed red pepper, cayenne, beer, anise seed, mustard seed, crushed bay leaf, garlic powder, fresh crushed garlic and ground thyme.

This picture is of the drying process.  He actually hung them up in the garage for the day.

Mussels make an easy and delicious appetizer.  What you’ll need for 3-4 people:

• 2 pounds of mussels
• lot of fresh crushed garlic
• enough white wine to cover the bottom of the pan – 1/4 to 1/2 an inch of white wine (we used a huge $5 bottle of chardonnay)
• chopped white onions

Wash and scrub the mussels in the sink and pull off the "beards."  Throw away any that are open and don’t close when you wash them.  Soak in cold fresh water for at least an hour.

Put all of the ingredients in a frying pan, bring to a boil and boil until the shells are all open. 

Serve warm with melted butter on the side.