Domestic Stuff

[Scrasamax]

So, I found a website, crockpot365.blogspot.com, and it is a treasure trove of recipes for crock pots.

So, I am making her version of Panera's baked potato soup. I am a tad skeptical because I haven't found many potato soup recipes that I like very well. But this one caught my attention because it is POTATO SOUP and not super deluxe loaded baked potato soup slathered up with sour cream, chives, cheese, etc etc etc.

So after peeling and dicing 5 pounds of potatoes, adding 2 quarts of chicken stock, and a few cloves of garlic and a small onion... it is a success.

Good stuff.

[Strolen]

Site looks awesome. It is a keeper!

[Scrasamax]

I do a fair bit of cooking and now that the weather is cooling off. Next up might be the bacon wrapped cornish game hens

[Strolen]

Bacon makes everything taste better.

Pork wrapped around Jalapeno peppers all snuggled in a couple slices of bacon = bliss.

[Scrasamax]

The ingredients have been purchased, the little game hens are thawing, and I won't lie I am a little apprehensive about cooking something in the crockpot that isnt a soup or stew.

And had a chat with the Wife, in light of the success of the soup last weekend, and the pending deal with tiny chickens and bacon we've come up with making a cooking venture a regular weekend activity. Some of my fellow Strolenites might think this a bit odd, but my wife and I have incompatible work shifts and I only see her for an hour or two a day. We don't cook often. Recently I've found myself growing weary of a regular diet of nuka-box and other heat and eat fare.

[Strolen]

That is awesome! Crockpot is usually some our favorite meals! Roasts, nacho/meat dips and fajitas are some of our favorites.

[Scrasamax]

Two cornish hens went in wrapped in bacon, looking sad and dry in the pot, now 4 hours later they are sitting half way deep in bubbling juice.

[Dossta]

We use our crockpot almost every week, actually.  Today I threw on some chili con carne so that no one has to cook when we get home tonight, though usually I use it to cook a whole chicken or to convert roast chicken remains & veggie ends into homemade stock.  I was really skeptical the first time I tried a whole chicken in the pot, but it was just swimming in juices by the time we came home.  Let us know how the game hens work out

[Scrasamax]

My wife was given as a gift a 4.48 pound pork roast.

I am going to make it into Carnitas. This doesn't require much that I don't already have. I am also going to make for the first time, home made salsa. We have been complaining we can't get decent salsa here in TN. The stuff in the jar is okay, but not really what we want. The local fresh made stuff we can get isn't either. It is choked with onion and cilantro, or has a consistency like pureed carrots, and on top of that, nothing has much of a bite to it.

We want a chunky robust salsa. Is that too much to ask?

And let me tell you about the local restaurant incident. We went to a newly opened establishment, Michaels Casual Dining. The wife loves their lemon pepper shrimp, and then we arrived for our third visit (place has been open 4-6 months) and our shrimp come out not right. We tell the waitress that they are supposed to be lemon pepper and they aren't. She comes back, says the cooks added more lemon pepper seasoning, but that our order was correct and that we did receive the lemon pepper shrimp we asked for.

The manager comes over, and apologizes. Not for the waitress (c'mon even when the customer is wrong, you don't tell them. You just fix it, or move the bits around and bring it back) but because they have changed the lemon pepper shrimp. Seems that it was being sent back for being too lemony and too peppery. The wife was apoplectic, and I felt for the manager. She wanted her lemon pepper shrimp with lemon and with pepper. (The shrimp we first received tasted like normal grilled shrimp, no hint of lemon in the slightest) and she wanted it right, she wanted it the first time, and she didn't want for her shrimp to require a special order

Just tell the waitress you want the shrimp seasoned strongly

no

I'll comp your dinners

no

I promise we'll do it right next time

no, there's not going to be a next time.

He looked at me, 'She's the one you have to deal with,' I said.
In hindsight it was funny, and sad. There literally was no pleasing her, and I think the manager did the right thing, played the right cards and from my side I think his offers were fine and would have accepted them myself. Unfortunately for him, I am not going to go against my wife, even when she is wrong.

/tangent