Outside the dugout: What's cooking?

Last night was a quick and dirty good meal: NY Strip Steaks on a gas grill, garlic mashed potatoes, and a salad with what we had (some mixed salad greens, tomatoes, steamed asparagus). And an pretty decent Oregon Pinot from 2013. Not all Oregon Pinots from 2013 are good.

Tonight I was going to make pork shoulder tacos with a 1 pound piece of boneless pork shoulder that was in the freezer for a while and defrosting. And then everyone asked if I was making carnitas with it. Damn. That is too small of a piece of meat for that, so I went out and bought a 3+ pound boneless pork shoulder to use with it so I can make carnitas.

It has just started braising and I have already made a "taco shop" guacamole to go with it. That is nothing like a regular guac. It has more tomatillo than avocado, lots of serrano pepper, cilantro, lime juice, garlic, and onion all in a blender.

I'll start making the pico de gallo soon.

 

I don't know what is in a Vienna Beef hot dog, but I always have several whenever I visit Chicago.

As for hot dogs that I can get at Publix, I go for Hebrew National.

 

Tomorrow I just might cook a Meatloaf.

 

Today is son #2's 22nd birthday. Last year I cooked steaks, but this year he wanted to go to Dragonfly (a downtown Gainesville Japanese/Asian restaurant) for an early dinner before the game. So no cooking for me tonight. The only cooking I did today was making "suet blocks" (actually no suet, I use lard) to feed the neighborhood birds that visit my yard. I don't save a whole lot of money by making my own, but the birds prefer what I make over the store bought kind and that includes what I can get at Wild Birds Unlimited.

 

It is my son's birthday. He is watching the Blackhawks game (actually the National Anthem right now) on our really nice TV. I guess I will retire to my bedroom to watch the baseball game.

Also ESPN3 is not letting me watch the Lady Gators play volleyball even though we have ESPNU on our cable and the AM 850 website is not working either for audio of the UF vs UK women's volleyball match.

 

My son is so nice.

He let me see the end of the Lady Gators volleyball match against UK. Go Gators!!!!!!

Now it will be switching between the Blackhawks and Game 7 all evening.

 

I just bought a nice piece of fresh grouper. I am going to bake that with a macadamia/panko/cilantro/butter crust.

I also have a bunch of celery missing one stalk (I needed it for last night's meatloaf - I wasn't joking!). I am making celery soup with that.

Keeping it simple with steamed green beans as the veggie unless I get inspired to do something more fancy with them. I do have some slivered almonds somewhere ...

 

YUM, Mr. Horne.

I went to the Gator BB exhibition so not much time for cooking. A dozen chicken legs on the grill with Pat's Ho Made BBQ sauce to finish them. They just came off. And my wife made home-made mac-n-cheese.

I also bought some green beans, but they have never gotten made. Maybe a salad will get thrown together at the last minute.

 

NICE!!!! I wish that I was there except ...

Tonight was Trivia Night (we won!) so no cooking. Food truck pizza instead (OK, but overpriced). We did win the pretzel round which should have gotten us one pretzel, but we got six really great pretzels instead. Maybe the lady serving the pretzels liked us. I bought one to go afterwards and left a nice tip. If you know pretzels from NYC or the like you will know these pretzels. Served with lots of mustard, of course.

Last night I made a soup with the ground pork I didn't use for the meatloaf, mustard greens, Thai rice noodles, chicken stock, scallions, ginger, and Sichuan peppercorns. The last ingredient may be hard to find, but it is essential.

Now I have some extra mustard greens and they are my favorite greens. So many great dishes to chose from.