dinner's ready!

Sorry for the tease in the last post, but it was worth the wait... introducing AnyIdeasForDinner.com, a new food blog launching today.

This is a joint venture between Matt the Web Guy (that's me) and The Queen Bee (that's my Sweetie), and got it's start from all of the food-related posts on both of our blogs. We hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoy sharing it with you.

I told you I smelled something cooking.

i smell something cookin'...

... yup, that's a tease, clear and simple. Stick around and you'll see what I'm talking about. Any guesses out there?

more food?

My most recent post got me to thinking... why not add more cooking and food posts to my blog? Sure, the blog is called MattTheWebguy, and sure, I haven't posted much web-stuff, but I really enjoyed blogging about Sunday night's dinner.

Here's what I've blogged about in the past...
golden brown & delicious
boomper's birthday
let the grilling season BEGIN! (include a link to my Propane Estimator Thingy)
(gee, I thought I had a few more in here... wait... yup, they're still in my head. sorry)

So, what do you think? Anyone interested in reading more about my culinary exploits and adventures? I'm willing to share, if you're willing to listen. Let me know what you think...

trains, planes, automobiles... and sausage?!?

There comes a time (almost) every afternoon that I ask my Sweetie these same four words... "Any ideas for dinner?" This roughly translates to "What would you like me to make tonight?", since I do about 90-95% of the cooking in the house.

I cook for the love and challenge of it. I've always had this goal to make someone say, "This is better than my Grandma's!", and hope that Grandma had mad skills in the kitchen. I have no desire to change careers and head off to culinary school and then sweat it out in the kitchen of some tyrannical chef with an ego the size of a Buick. I DO joke around with my Sweetie about moving to a semi-quirky town in the Adirondacks, opening a diner, hiring a middle-aged waitress that calls everyone "Hon" and never lets your coffee cup go dry, and just cook like no tomorrow. Maybe someday...

Sorry, got a bit off-track... back to tonight's creation...

Like most nights that aren't planned (we actually do plan a fair amount of dinners 'round here), I like the challenge of the Pantry Raid. I enjoy rifling through our pantry shelves, fridge and freezer, and seeing what I can create without too many special ingredients. I believe I do a fairly good job at working with what's on hand.

Off track again? sorry.

Tonight's dinner kinda started with a special ingredient, (but it was gifted to us, so it doesn't count): three beautiful homegrown yellow tomatoes from my Mother's garden. The tomatoes, along with the request for a pasta toss type dish got me thinking.... and then the raid began.

Here's what I pulled together...

3 yellow tomatoes, coarse diced (Thanks, Mom!)
1 small yellow onion, diced
2 Tbsp unsalted butter (is there any other?)
1 Tbsp pure olive oil (save the extra virgin stuff for salad dressings)
1/2 bag of frozen cut-leaf spinach, thawed
1 Tbsp minced garlic
3 precooked Italian sausage links, grilled (I broiled them) and sliced on the bias (ours were a local brand that can be ordered from here - they ship!)
dried oregano
dried parsley
kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste.

And then "the pasta". We usually use Barilla Pasta Plus because it actually has flavor. Oh, and it's better for you than straight semolina pastas. But for tonight, we found some motorized vehicle shaped pasta we got for Christmas last year from my Sweetie's folks (CORRECTION: the pasta was a gift from my Sweetie's sister... thanks Sue!) It was the perfect pasta for all of us to enjoy, even Boomper (aka Munchkin). He's not big on the dishes I come up with, but give him some pasta with butter and parmesan ("Shakey") cheese, and he's one happy little boy.

So, here's how I put it all together... (FINALLY!)

1. Cook the pasta (al dente) in a large pot of salted water.
2. Sweat the onion in the butter, olive oil, a sprinkle of kosher salt and a crank or two of fresh ground black pepper. As the onion just becomes translucent, add the garlic to brown slightly.
3. Add the sausage, and brown slightly. The grilling (broiling) adds some great flavor to the dish.
4. Add the spinach and combine.
5. Season to taste with the oregano, parsley, kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper.
6. Once it's all together and warmed through, cut the heat and toss in the tomatoes (so you don't bruise the fresh flavor). Give a quick toss and get ready to plate it up.

Plate up the drained pasta, spoon the sausage-tomato-spinach combination over the top, and finish it off with fresh grated parmesan.

As I placed her pasta bowl in front of her, my Sweetie said "wow" and immediately snapped these two photos. Here's the aerial shot...

A chiffonade of fresh basil would have been killer, but our basil went to seed and is rather bitter now. And "yes", the parsley is for style points.

Almost forgot.... I took a two-day old baguette, sliced it on the bias in 1/2" slices, spread them out on a baking sheet, brushed on some olive oil, sprinkled on fresh coarse ground black pepper and parmesan (some slice also received a slice of fresh tomato and more cheese and pepper, and then under the broiler it went for about two minutes. Nice addition to the meal.

So... any ideas for dinner?

boomper's birthday

Last Sunday we celebrated Boomper's (the boy wonder) third birthday. Hard to believe it's three years already.

Last year, I decided to make his cake, so I made one that looked like a dump truck. he liked it so much, he wanted to play with it.

This year, I wanted to make a Thomas the Tank Engine cake, but after talking it over with The Wife, we decided that it would be better NOT to experience the possible psychological trauma of a little boy watching his favorite train get sliced up with a large knife. Believe me, I can just picture the look in his eyes, and then the look in my eyes as I'm shelling out huge sums of cash for all the therapy. Not pretty.

So instead of Thomas, I decide I was going to make a simple steam engine with tender, and after my first experience building a groom's cake for a nephew, I decided to revisit the world of fondant.

First of all, let me go on record as saying that Duff and the kids at Charm City Cakes make it look a whole lot easier than it really is. Of course, they also crank out boatloads of cakes each and every week, and get loads of practice.

So the picture above is only my second attempt with fondant, and I'm sure that with a wee bit of practice, I'll get "mad skills"... as the kids say.

golden brown & delicious

After a weekend of holiday prep, cooking and baking (and a few days of a nasty tension headache), I hung up the apron for an enjoyable Christmas Day with Regina and Boomper, the Boy Wonder.

But after making "Southern" Russian Teacakes, a crock pot full of three-bean chili, a pot of Greens 'n Beans soup, a pot of Chicken Soup with Orzo, Chocolate AND Chocolate-Peanut Butter Truffles, a huge gingerbread cookie boy, and two other doughs that I just ran out of time to bake (but will be a nice treat next month), the day off of cooking left me with a bit of cook's withdrawal.

As Boomper and I sat on the living room floor, playing with the Mr. Potato Heads that Santa left under the tree, I spied one of the many accessories Aunt Cathy brought back from Disneyworld: a small plastic Mickey-shaped soft pretzel. I had found my inspiration...

I soon set forth to track down the recipe I remembered from the "Pretzel Logic" episode of Alton Brown's Good Eats on Food Network. With printed page in hand, I presented my idea to Regina, and then headed to the kitchen to make sure I had everything I needed. We decided to have them with dinner, so I had some time to plan and prep.

A few hours before dinner, I started the dough. I gave up on 'active dry' yeast a long time ago in favor of instant yeast. I like the instant yeast because when I'm making pizza dough, or baking bread in the bread machine, it can be added to the dry ingredients. No proofing necessary.

This recipe called for for proofing the active dry yeast in lukewarm (who WAS Luke, and why was he always so-so warm?!?), salt and sugar, so I decided to proof the instant yeast. I swear I could hear the little yeasties burpin' and tootin' (well, that's what they do). Soon the yeast was nice and foamy, and ready for the flour and melted butter.

After a thorough mixing, kneading and a one-hour rise, the dough was ready to be portioned, rolled, and pretzeled.

Now comes the science. Prior to baking, each pretzel took a 30-second dip in pan of boiling water-baking soda solution. Dipping each pretzel in this slightly "basic" solution, helps the pretzel brown to a deeper mahoghany finish, helping the pretzel look more like a pretzel, and less like a funky-shaped dinner roll.

Each pretzel then got a quick brushing of eggwash, and a sprinkle of Kosher salt, and then into the oven. Yes, pretzel salt is ideal, but I wasn't planning on heading to the grocery store just for it. Maybe on my next trip.

The picture above is all that is needed to tell of the end result. That, and the "yummy" I got from Boomper. That one makes it all worthwhile.

If at all possible, keep an eye out in your TV listing for this episode of Good Eats, as it has a great explanation on the whole process, in a rather entertaining way. And follow the link below for the recipe and instructions: Good Eats Homemade Soft Pretzels

Let the Grilling Season BEGIN!

Boomper (Boy Wonder) and I just returned from HD (that's Home Depot for you noobs out there) with 20 lbs. of sweet propane.

Yes, I know that the grilling season is 12-months long, but there is something about THIS portion of it. Standing outside, in front of the grill, beer in one hand, tongs in the other, and nothing but the smell of cooking meat. Ah.... heaven.

Still got a tank from last season? Want to get every drop out, but don't know how much grilling time you'll have? Have no fear. Just check it out here: Propane Estimator Thingy. It's not perfect, but it'll help.

Mmmmm... I can already smell the goodness...