"No" I tell him firmly. All meals have to be made at home for 30 days. Lunch counts. Breakfast counts. Snacks count. Dinner counts. And don't go trying to convince me to make a run to Andy's. Dessert counts, too. Perhaps we need to clarify the rules.
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THE RULES
1. All meals must be made at home for 30 days.2. We will not have any take-out, drive-thru, restaurant, or premade meals. This includes but is not limited to Cherry Limeaids from Sonic, frozen Stauffer's lasagna, and Strawannas from Andys.
3. We will accept offerings of homemade meals from other kitchens (such as Mike's mom's chocolate cake) as long as it's not the main course.
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My cheese quesadilla was a poor showing for lunch, so I was feeling pretty grim. I tracked Mike down to complain. There he was, on the back patio, accompanied by a juicy cutting board and dirty knife and fork. "What is this? Did you smoke bacon again?" Mike sheepishly replied that he had grilled a steak for lunch. He just couldn't find anything else to eat.
Tomorrow we will head to the store to find some appropriate lunch foods.
Our good friends, Branden and Ashley, came over for dinner tonight. Branden and Ashley got married last weekend. They spent much of this evening gazing at one another and canoodling.
We wanted to treat the newlyweds to a great meal, so we pulled out a sure-fire hit,the Barefoot Contessa.
What's on the menu? Steak. No, I'm not kidding. Mike will be eating his second steak of the day. Thank you, Harter House, for offering a two-for-one special on filets.
This recipe begins with searing the steaks in a hot skillet, then transferring them to the oven for ten minutes. Ina encourages you to make sure your kitchen is well ventilated. As you can see, ours is not.
While Mike threatened to smoke us out, Ashley and Jack had fun looking at her phone.
Ashley is really good with kids, and she constantly offers to babysit. We love having her over!
No one minded the smoke, and we somehow escaped without setting off the smoke alarm. This reminded Branden that one of the items on his "Before the Wedding" list is to install smoke alarms. This item has now been moved to his Honey Do list.
Branden is one of Mike's childhood friends. He always tells great stories. I love listening to Branden's stories, because each time I learn something new about Mike. After Branden's visit, I usually spend at least a week worrying over this new story, what it means about Mike, and if Jack will end up doing all the same things.
When the smoke finally died down, it was time to put the steaks in the oven. Everybody put on your oven mitts!
For extra fun, we served up the steaks on our sizzle platters. These make a lovely sizzling sound when you serve your steak. Unfortunaetly, they make a terrible nails-on-chalkboard sound when you cut your steak. Every rose has its thorn.
We had an extra special dessert tonight, thanks to Ashley. She loves to bake all kinds of sweets, and even did all the desserts for her own wedding. Tonight, she brought a homemade apple cake and homemade ice-cream. I couldn't believe it! Homemade ice-cream! Who is she? Laura Ingalls Wilder?
Ashley picked her recipe knowing that Jack liked apples, and wondering what kid would refuse ice-cream. We felt pretty confident he would devour the sugary dessert and then run wild through the house for hours after his bedtime. Jack turned up his nose, surprising us all. No apple cake; no ice-cream. This was pretty disappointing, especially after Ashley had put so much thought into her recipe selection. On the upside, this meant Jack went to bed on time and the adults had plenty of time to sit around on the kitchen counters finishing the wine.
Nights like this recharge our batteries. Great friends, good food, and funny stories to last all night.
