Mandy and Jace

I hate to admit this but I hate thunderstorms. I don’t know why but the mere mention of a thunderstorm in the area makes me nauseous. I think I’ve figured out what makes them so scary. Tornadoes. I am terrified of tornadoes. The funny thing is I remember exactly what started my fear. When I was in 2nd grade my teacher thought it would be a fabulous idea to call in a local weatherman to talk about tornadoes. He showed us this horrifying video that showed all the damage they cause. He gave death statistics and all, TO 2ND GRADERS! From then on I have these visions of little me getting carried off by a huge tornado and being thrown into another county or I see a photo of me with my beautiful Louboutins sticking out of my head (at least the red sole would match the blood). If I could just remember who the weatherman was I swear they would be getting a nasty letter from me.

So, Friday I went home for lunch and happily turned on the Private Practice episode that was on the DVR and ate lunch. All of a sudden the clouds opened up and God said “I hate you, Alfalfa”. Not really, I just had to throw that in there; I looked on Facebook and saw people talking about tornadoes in the area. Trying to be calm I turned on the TV and saw, lo and behold, they were heading straight for me, and I was alone. Panic hit and I immediately called Jace at work, balling and squealing. He told me to go in our downstairs bathroom and wait it out. SURE! I’ll do that! Just go have a seat and wait, cause that’s doable. I grab every pillow on the couch and our duvet and run into the bathroom. After a couple of seconds just sitting there I decide that maybe I should have some other things in there, you know, JUST IN CASE I DIE.

So, a normal person would grab a flash light, water, food, or even a radio. Not me, of all things the only thing I could think of was the Mac and my iPhone. Apparently my subconscious wants everyone to know that I’m a Mac and not a pc. Oh and the cat, I tried to get her in there but she was preoccupied and couldn’t care less if I died or not. Anyway, after sitting there for a while I emerge from the bathroom and see that everything was OK. After the scare, I had my brother come get me and I sat at mom’s house until the flood of the century was over. Turns out that Midland still doesn’t have good drainage. Huh. Maybe we should do something a couple of years ago to prevent cars floating away in Scarborough draw? Nah, that’s too much work.

Needless to say I’m alive and breathing. I’m sure if there was an actual tornado I would die of a heart attack before the tornado gets me. For the out of towners, here are some of the photos of the flood.

I don’t have much of a meal plan this week because we are cramming a million and one things into the next two weeks. Despite the stress though, we will be making Jambalaya again and I will definitely put the recipe up. It was a big hit last time we made it, and we had tons of leftovers that were even better a couple days later. Here’s the plan.

Tonight: slow cooker drip beef sandwiches
Tuesday: Jambalaya
Wednesday: dinner at the church
Thursday: take out after practice
Friday: date night!

Happy eating!

We officially have a new favorite seasoning in our little household, it’s Chinese 5 spice powder. This combination of Szechwan pepper, star anise, fennel seeds, cloves, cinnamon, salt and white pepper smells like Christmas morning, but when you put it on something it gives it this spicy, yet cinnamon taste. In other words, heavenly. I had printed out a recipe that required this spice a long time ago and one day when we were putting together our meal plan we saw the recipe and decided to try it. It quickly became a regular in our kitchen. You can use any type of veggie you prefer. The original recipe had bok choy and sugar snap peas in it but that didn’t sound appealing to me. Give it a try. I promise, you won’t be disappointed.

5 spice beef stir fry
1 pound flank steak, chopped into small slices
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 teaspoons fresh ginger, minced or grated
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon Chinese 5 spice powder
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 red bell pepper
1 onion
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons oil (whatever you have on hand is fine)

Combine the soy sauce, rice vinegar, ginger, garlic, sugar, 5 spice powder and red pepper flakes in a bowl and whisk together. Place your beef in a zip top bag, pour the marinade in, close the bag and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.

While that is marinading, julienne your onion and bell pepper.

Remove the beef from the marinade. (Don’t throw the marinade out!) Pour the remaining liquid into a bowl and add the cornstarch. Set aside.

Put about a tablespoon of oil in your saute pan over high heat. When the pan is hot add the meat. Cook for a couple of minutes stirring often until it is brown. Remove the beef and set aside.

Add another tablespoon of oil and add the onion and pepper. Cook until tender. Put the beef back in the pan with the veggies and pour in the marinade. Cook for a couple of minutes until the sauce is thick.

Serve over rice or noodles.

Did anyone else’s weekend go entirely too fast? I could swear that I went to sleep on Friday night and woke up this morning. Even though it was very short we had a good weekend and got quite a bit done around the house.

Due to the addition of a couple of pounds, I will be attempting to eat healthy this week. It’s not fun but necessary. I’ll be eating lots of veggies with my meals along with smaller meat and starch portions. Also I’m going to try to be more strict on what I’m eating during the day. Here’s my plan.

Tonight: sautéed chicken with mashed potatoes and corn
Tuesday: beef fajitas with refried beans and rice
Wednesday: nachos made with leftover fajitas
Thursday: take out before practice
Friday: date night!

Happy eating!

The Boy here with another installment of And Now For Something Completely Different where we’re focusing on veal stock. Tonight we’re making a fairly simple cream sauce that works well on pretty much anything, but it’s more of a…. philosophy than a recipe. We like to use it on chicken and pasta, but it would be good with something mild like fish and pretty much anything starchy.

We’re going to start with some sautéed chicken (or fish, or turkey, etc). We’ll post a recipe for Chicken Provençal pretty soon, but just basic chicken breast seasoned with salt and pepper sautéed in about 2 tbsp of butter will do quite nicely. Just after you get the chicken done and you have all those amazing little brown bits just begging to turn into a sauce. So that’s what we’re going to do.

Let’s start with two cups of veal stock. Just pour it in and scrape up the little bits with a whisk or metal spatula. Let that bubble away and reduce for about 2 minutes on medium to medium-high heat. Next up we’re going to pour in 1/2 a cup of heavy cream.

Hey? Where are you going? I said it’d be good, not healthy. Good. You can eat a salad or something with it.

So, we’ve added the cream and the sauce is pretty close to awesome. Lower the heat–for fear of having the cream de-nature and break apart (that’d be gross)–to medium or medium-low and let it bubble away for another minute.

Here’s where you need to make some decisions. If you plan on using it as a thin dipping sauce, like an au jus sort of consistency, then just skip this step. If you, like we, plan to make it a fairly thick sauce for pasta and chicken, then we need to thicken it up. The easiest way to do this is to make a slurry by mixing 2 teaspoons of corn starch and 2 teaspoons of water in a small bowl or cup and mix it all together. This stuff will thicken any hot thing you pour it into very, very quickly. It’s like magic. Seriously, it’s pretty fun to watch.

Now you’ve got your perfectly thickened–or maybe still thin–sauce and it’s just about done. Grab yourself a clean spoon and give the sauce a taste. Mine needed about a teaspoon of salt and a pinch of pepper. You also want to put something in here to tie it with your main dish; we used some herbes de provence and freshly grated nutmeg. But we’ve also used cajun spices, Italian seasonings and, well, I bet anything would probably work pretty well.

The sauce we just made is really tasty. It’s got a deep flavor with a velvety kind of feel to it; it also has enough body to stick to pasta but thin enough to keep from being a stew. Give it a try, and I promise, you’ll be hooked.

Veal Cream Sauce with Herbes de Provence

1 Pan full of little brown (not black) bits after cooking chicken
2 cups veal stock
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tsp corn starch
2 tsp water
1/4 tsp herbes de provence
salt and pepper to taste

After sautéing some chicken, quickly deglaze with 2 cups of veal stock being sure to scrape up all the little brown bits. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat and allow to reduce for approximately 2 minutes. Add 1/2 cup of heavy cream and lower heat to medium and allow to simmer for a minute or two, stirring occasionally. Meanwhile, mix 2 tsp of corn starch with 2 tsp of water in a small bowl. Add the slurry to the pot and continue to stir until the sauce is all the same consistency. Simmer for another minute. Add 1/4 tsp of herbes de provence and season with salt and pepper to taste. Finally, add just the tiniest pinch of freshly grated nutmeg at the end.