I won’t bore you with further pictures of my dinner prep, but I will tell you that the lobster salad turned out very well, and I served Greek-style kebabs tonight, and Thor asked for seconds.
The lobster salad came from my imagination:
1/2 lb of cooked lobster tail, cut into small chunks
Put in a lidded bowl and shake ingredients until well blended
Serve as is, or rolled up in a tortilla (as I ate it, mmm!), or on a soft roll
Tonight’s recipe came from my Mediterranean cooking cookbook.
Tonight’s kebabs are actually beef in the cookbook, but I used ground lamb, and it went like so:
1 lb ground lamb
1/4 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp coriander powder
1/4 tsp brown sugar
1 small onion finely chopped
1 Tsp cilantro finely chopped
Salt ‘n Pepa to taste (p-push it real good!)
Once you’ve mixed up all the ingredients, you mold the meat into sausage looking links around 4 skewers. If you are using wooden skewers, be sure to soak them in water for half an hour first. I use metal ones because of that one unfortunate incident with me–you don’t want to know. Just know that there were splinters involved.
You are supposed to grill these over coals, but I put them in the broiler for 10 minutes on one side, and 3 on the other, which was a nice medium on the smaller kebabs, and a nice medium rare on the fatter one I made for B.
I served it over couscous with slices of fresh avocado, and we had honeyed Greek yogurt for dessert. Not a bad spread!
The B Family went to Half Price Books last night, and I scored three new cookbooks, along with my Father-in-Law’s next holiday present. God bless him. He has suffered through nine years of crazy gifts from me. But he loved his talking George Bush doll, and his Chia Obama. Okay, loved is maybe too strong a word, but he did enjoy seeding Chia Obama’s ears, eyebrows and nostrils, so at least we know he was entertained.
Anyway, cookbooks. This is about cooking, not my inappropriate gift giving–I can’t even remember how that started. I get normal gifts for everyone else. Only Pop gets the nutjob treatment. Cookbooks.
The new ones are the Step-by-Step, the Mediterranean, and the Smoothie books. No, those aren’t all my cookbooks. I haven’t found all of them in the unpacking, yet. And yes, that is an upside down wall sconce being used as a book end.
I’ve done a fair amount of cooking today, for having only gotten started after four o’clock. I made my crackers this morning, then went to the grocery store and came home with the fixings for five recipes out of my new books. I also came home with steamed crab legs, cooked lobster tail, and shrimp cocktail because my mother has addicted my child to crustaceans and he has been begging me for crab for two weeks.
While I was resteaming the crab legs, I got started on Goat Cheese Tarts from the Step-by-Step cookbook. This is my kind of book! It is full of pictures, showing you how to, what to, and how it should look. I’m pretty visual. That helps me.
The recipe called for a sheet of puff pastry, 10 oz of goat cheese (I got two different kinds from the same brand), onion, corn, or tomato relish, one egg beaten, oil for drizzling, flour for dusting, and pepper. I also added chopped olives and a dash of sea salt for flavor.This relish. You guys! This relish is delicious! I had no idea what kind of relish to get, only that B hates corn, so that was out. I chose this one because Wayne rhymes with Lane, and it was Award Winning. I chose wisely. Buy this.In short: You dust some flour on a space, roll out your dough, then use something round (I used a glass) to cut out 12 circles of pastry. You transfer that pastry to a buttered up cookie tray (I used a stick of Land o’Lakes butter and just rubbed it all over the tray until it was slick.) Then, use a smaller circle to make an inner ring dent (don’t cut! just impress) on the circles of pastry, brush egg all over that, then prick the dough with a fork a few times to punch some holes. I don’t know why. It was an instruction and I followed it. Then, you put a spoonful of relish in the center of each round, and I added a spoonful of chopped olives, then a dash of salt. Then, you put a round dollop of goat cheese on top, drizzle that with oil, and top with sprinkles of pepper.
That goes into an oven, preheated to 400, until the pastry is fluffy and the cheese is bubbly. It took about 12 minutes for mine. Serve hot or cold.
They don’t look like much, and I was actually afraid to eat one. I served them to B first, since I had finished cracking and cleaning his crab legs first. He said they were very good, so I tried one. Um…I have 4 left. I am saving them for tomorrow. Maybe.
But the relish is the thing. That relish is delicious! It is exactly the right balance between sweet and savory. Nom nom nom. Probably a ridiculous amount of calories per bite, but I don’t care. That’s good eatin’!
I had a lot of lobster left over, so I have made lobster salad. We’ll see how that is tomorrow, and if I like it, I’ll tell you what I threw together for that.
For Memorial Day, I was going to rehash my annual appreciations and talk about my military family’s service in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam again, but our friend, Jonathan (Bryan’s blogging buddy over at Free Air and Water), has been posting a series of remembrances of his fallen friends from our most current war. It is extremely important to remember that people, real people die in service. And usually, very young people. The military isn’t much on us Olds–young people can march farther, see better, and run faster.
We call these people soldiers, but other people call them son, daughter, brother, sister, husband, wife, dad, mom, uncle, aunt, friend. It does not negate their bravery or their sacrifice to remember them as such. Soldier, Troop, Airman, Marine, Sailor–those are descriptive of the duty, not the human being. Mine are/were Dad, Uncle Junebug, Uncle Kenny, Boom-Pa, Grandaddy, Pop, Uncle Bob, Uncle Joe, and Barbara. I cannot imagine my life without any of these people, and I am overwhelmed with gratitude that I don’t have to.
I asked Jonathan if he would mind me sharing his thoughts with you. I hope you won’t mind me posting them either. My family is insanely fortunate that all of our soldiers have come home, and have come home with all their body parts. It is extremely important to remember, as Jonathan said, “that every time politicians start calling for a war, there is some kid out there like Nick Crombie, young and brave and innocent to the ways of the world, who will believe what he is told about duty and country and will die halfway around the world instead of living his life.”
David Nicholas Crombie was 19 years old when he was killed by an IED on June 7, 2006. He was my best friend through basic training and also my bunkmate all through medic school. He once bet me I couldn’t finish a 64 ounce margarita in five minutes. He won that bet, but then bet me double or nothing that I could not finish another one in under five minutes. I do not remember if he won or lost that bet. I miss him. He was young and brave.
Joseph Gilmore was two bunks down from Crombie and I in AIT. I remember he had a TV and Xbox set up in his wall locker. On weekends he’d open it up and sit there playing like a kid, which we all were. He was killed by an IED on May 19, 2007, in Baghdad, Iraq. He was 26 years old, married with two children
Gabriel Figeroa also went to AIT with me. He was a quiet kid who was in the next platoon over, but when we all got to Ft. Hood together we naturally stuck together through inprocessing with those familiar faces we remembered from medic school. I got to know him a little; he had a goofy sense of humor and looked and sounded like a little kid. He was killed by small-arms fire In Baghdad, Iraq, on April 3, 2007, at age 20.
Christopher Kurth and Leroy Webster were members of my battalion, which is to say they lived for fifteen months in the same very small town as me, known as FOB Union III. I did not know them particularly well, but I made small talk with both on occasion. On their next deployment, after I had left the unit, they were both killed in action.
Marisol Heredia was 19 years old when she was mortally injured in an accident on our forward operating base. I did not know her well, but I try to remember her. She was so young.
Of course there are so many Iraqi civilians I saw killed. I wish I knew their names. The one I remember most clearly was the first. She was a woman, maybe in her mid-30s, walking along the side of the road in Al-Hillah, Iraq. She got in the way of an IED meant for us. She died instantly. I wish I could say something profound about all these deaths. I wish they added up to something lasting. All I can really do is remember them.
I want to thank Jonathan for sharing. For every person who loses his or her life in a war, there is a person who lives with the memory–who saw it, who felt it, who tried to patch it up, and who tries to sleep every night after it has happened. The dead have died, and the living live with their deaths. It takes a strong person to live through a war, and keep living. We shouldn’t forget that either.
Men and Women of the military, thank you.
Boom-Pa. I just had to get him in here. He was the bravest, best man I’ve ever known.
My friend, the illustrious Dr. Stephanie S., posted a recipe for basic homemade crackers on Facebook. I had exactly one cup of whole wheat flour sitting in my pantry, so I decided to give it a try. Mmmm!
First, preheat your oven to 400 degrees, and get a cookie sheet ready. If it is non-stick, no worries. Otherwise, give it a coat of cooking spray.
1 cup of flour 1/4 cup of water 3 tbs olive oil 3 tsp toasted sesame seeds 1 tsp garlic salt, ground with parsley 1/2 tsp chili powderKnead the ingredients until dough forms, and is slightly sticky.Roll out your dough (on a non-stick surface, or a surface prepped with cooking spray) to about 1/4 inch thickness, then cut into the shape of your choice.Pop the cut crackers in the oven for 8-10 minutes, until crispy.Remove from oven and enjoy!
Pretty tasty little wafers. These would be good with hummus. The basics are always the same: Flour, water, oil. Mix up the flavor ingredients as you like to change up the taste. Next time, I’m using rosemary!
30 years ago, school was letting out for the summer. We had been in Texas for six months, and I had yet to make any friendships that would stick. I was headed for daycamp at Evangel Temple, where I was pretty sure I would be miserable–I had been miserable at the Evangel Temple school, so what could possibly be different?
Jamie Anne, is what.
For the first few weeks of camp, Jamie and I were half of a foursome (rounded out by Moddy and Sheila) that was ultimately deemed to dangerous to be allowed to continue. When the camp counselors broke up our “gang” (I’m telling you, Evangel Temple was a prison camp) Jamie and I went one way, and Moddy and Sheila another til the end of the summer. Then, we were all scattered. Moddy and Sheila back to their schools, Jamie to Evangel Temple’s 6th grade, and me off to Hockaday, where I would learn that there were fates worse than Evangel Temple.
But, summer came again, and Jamie and I were delighted to find ourselves at the same YMCA daycamp, where we wreaked our special brand of havoc once more.
We have gone to daycamps together, worked as Candy Stripers together, had a thousand sleepovers, gone to clubs, had family vacations, watched each other’s children…everything. Jamie has real siblings, whose blood ties to her I have always envied, but she has always been sister-close to me. I love Jamie. She is better people than you will meet accidentally.
Jamie is and has always been the most generous person I’ve known. She is kind and considerate, and careful with the feelings of others. She is a true home maker for her family. She is a great and gracious hostess. She remembers important things, and is just naturally a good friend to anyone. If anything happened to Bryan and me, she and Wes are the people I would trust with Thor. You might not know, but Jamie knows the full meaning behind those words. I trust Jamie with more than my life. I trust Jamie with Thor’s life.
The Outside Lane 