Rudy's theme continued

I purchased extra food from Rudy's BBQ yesterday. That meant there was plenty left to eat this evening as well. I heated up the brisket and a bit of jalapeno sausage. I also put together some mock mashed potatoes as a side. Sorry it was not terribly exciting. Maybe I can mix it up and go crazy tomorrow.

Rudy's Friday?

I was not really in the mood to perform a lot of cooking for dinner this evening. I am not sure why that is since usually I enjoy the experience. Regardless, tonight I purchased some brisket from Rudy's BBQ on my way home. It was pretty good as usual, even if it was not quite as interesting a photography subject.

Eating late

There was a problem at work I helped to track down this evening. My departure time was delayed as a result. Tonight's meal was leaning toward something quick to cook by the time I arrived at the grocery store. There was already a can of soy black beans in my pantry at home, so I went with the blackened salmon recipe. It takes very little prep and cooking time which let me eat dinner quickly.

Eat your veggies

Tonight's meal was just like last night's. Well, except for the Kreuz sausage. There were salads both nights. Last night it was a smaller salad thrown together while waiting for the sausage to heat up. Today it was a more complicated salad. So...not really the same at all I guess. Whatever.

Sausage

I purchased a case of jalapeno cheese sausage from Kruez Market on Saturday. Tonight I heated up a couple links to eat. While I was waiting, I threw together a small salad. The sausage seemed like a more interesting photographic subject. Besides, it was what I really wanted. :)

Good news and bad news...

My mother said she now believes I actually eat dinner. :)

She indicated I am no longer required to provide a daily update. I am continuing to photograph my dinner, but cercomstances have delayed thier posting. Sometime between this date and posting I have managed to not only loose the picture, but also completely forget what I ate. I will try to be more consistant moving forward. :(

Fritatta finished

Tonight's dinner was just the fritatta remaining from yesterday. I know this is not terribly exciting, but it still tasted good warmed up. Not quite as good compared to freshly baked of course.

Another fritatta

After another lackluster sausage in Lockhart during lunch, I was in the mood to make something with sausage I would actually enjoy. I settled on baking another zucchini and turkey sausage fritatta. It tasted as good as I anticipated.

I did pick up a case of jalepino cheese sausage from Kruez Market. They are my favorite sausage so far. I will probably heat some up for breakfast tomorrow.

Hold the meat please

There has been plenty of proteins in my dinners this week. This has lead me to crave vegetables this evening. Tonight's meal is just a simple salad allowing me to scratch that itch. I was a bit disappointed when discovering there were no more sliced almonds in the house. They were added to the list for my next shopping trip, and extra chopped celery helped recover some of the missing crunchiness.

One shot wonder

I know, I know. You have seen almost this same image several times already. I can't help it. I have just been in the mood for spinach and feta stuffed salmon lately. I am sure I will get sick of making and cooking it in the near future. Then I can fondly recall the dish a couple months down the road, become obsessed with it, and begin the entire process over again. Deal with it!

Cheese sauce

Most of the food featured on FoodGawker appears to be desserts. Not that I am complaining. All of the dessert photos look amazing. It just does not help a lot when trying to decide what to make for dinner.

Today I stumbled across an entry for rib eye steak with an onion blue cheese sauce. I was really in the mood for some beef, so this sounded like a great variation to experiment with. Thankfully I managed to keep from overcooking the steak too much. It ended up slightly past medium this time. The sauce itself was pretty good. It did not make as big an impression with me as for Madeline, but I will likely make it again in the future.

There was some spinach left over from last night, so I cooked up creamed spinach again. That just always goes well with steak. I also made mock mashed potatoes which turned out great as always. I paired dinner with a glass of Madonna Estate 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon.

Fish black as the night

I remembered to photograph the food tonight. Yay!

This evening I went with blackened salmon. Spinach and black soy beans were side dishes same as last time. This time I decided I really wanted some mock mashed potatoes to go along with it as well. Guess I was just in the mood for them. I cooked up less spinach and beans as a result. Everything seemed to go together fairly well.

Invisible

I could have sworn I took some photos of my meal this evening, tarragon cream chicken again. Evidently I am mistaken as they are no where to be found. You will just have to trust me this time. There was supposed to be some close-up shots of the tarragon cream sauce simmering away. Making sauces always seems akin to brewing a magic potion in a medieval tale. You mix various ingredients in a vessel over heat until they merge into a form far greater than their parts. Hopefully I can just remember to take the pictures rather than dream up prose next time. A picture is worth a thousand words after all.

Black Sunday

My chores took longer than I expected yesterday. That meant I started driving to Houston for my friend's wedding later than planned. My hope was to stop in Lockhart for some lunch, but I had to skip that. Today I plotted a leisurely drive through the edge of Bastrop State Park on the way to Lockhart. I really wanted to eat at Kreuz Market for their jalapeno cheese sausage, but unfortunately they are closed on Sunday. Luckily this is the Barbecue Capital of Texas with three other restaurants to choose from. I ended up trying Black's Barbecue. Their jalapeno cheese sausage did not taste like jalapeno or cheese, so I assume I accidentally received the normal sausage. I also purchased some of their brisket which was extremely delicious. Needless to say that filled me up. I will probably just have something small for dinner, so lunch seemed more interested to post about.

Wedding

Tonight I was in Houston at a friend's wedding. I figured I would just take a few pictures of the food available at their reception. We started with some sort of Greek salad. At least I think that is what it was. There was definitely some lettuce, olives, feta cheese, and a vinegar based dressing.


The main course was chicken, spinach, and artichokes in a cream sauce. This was served with bow-tie pasta. Another option was herb encrusted tilapia, but I went with the chicken dish. They also provided green beans and mashed potatoes as sides.


We had a slice of wedding cake for dessert of course. I could not quite place the flavor, but there seemed to be lemon or another citrus fruit accent in there.

General Tso

My work orders Asian food for people working overtime once a week. It is not something I usually eat due to the sugar and/or starch in almost every dish. Still I was in the mood for some tonight, so I whipped up some low-carb versions. First up was a General Tso's Chicken recipe. It turned out OK but could stand a bit more chili paste for additional heat. For a side I cooked some mock fried rice. It always amazes me how grated cauliflower can become so similar to rice.

Rudy's Thursday

Rudy's Thursday is upon us once again. That usually means I have had my fill of meat for the day at lunch. This experience was no different, so I threw together a salad for dinner. Tonight I went for more of an abstract photo. You can see a more close-up view of the ingredients. The front bowl has chopped red bell pepper, celery, red onion, and mushrooms. In the background is a bowl of lettuce and sliced cucumbers. A hard boiled egg is peaking in from the right. My sliced almonds, bacon bits, and crumbled blue cheese are just sort of a blurry background here.

Stuffed salmon

I felt like having some fish tonight. I did not have a chance to look up a new recipe. I have made the spinach and feta stuffed salmon dish enough to know what ingredients to buy, so I picked up the necessary items on my way home. I also cooked up some Little Mama's Side Dish to go along with it.

Indecision

I really tried to come up with something to cook tonight. I spent some time randomly browsing The Food Network and FoodGawker websites. Nothing really jumped out at me as a meal I wanted to cook. I just fell back on making a salad.

Flying Spaghetti Monster

There was a bunch of spaghetti sauce left over from last night's dinner. I cooked some more of the whole wheat spaghetti and reheated the remaining sauce. A picture of a bowl full of spaghetti would have looked extremely similar to yesterday's photo.

Instead I decided to try getting a couple images of the two items cooking. It will be interesting to see how may ways I can figure out how to photograph the same items going forward. I am sure this will not be the same repeat meal.

Spagett!

I bought a package of turkey sausage to put in an omelet. I only used one of the five links for breakfast, so I figured I would find something else to do with the rest. I found some whole wheat spaghetti and sauce with no added sugar. There was already some bell peppers, mushrooms, and an onion in the house. They got chopped up to throw into the sauce.

Pecan chicken

Tonight's dinner was pecan crusted chicken. This time I tried a recipe to roll the chicken breasts around a broccoli and cheese mixture. Of course, it did not look as nice as the picture next to the recipe. Most of the stuffing just oozed out as I cut into the chicken. Oh well. It still tasted pretty darn good. There was no sauce along with this recipe, so I used the bourbon sauce recipe from the last time I cooked pecan crusted chicken. It is still one of the best sauces I have made.

Steak and (sort of) potatoes

I was in the mood for some beef tonight. I decided to cook up a ribeye steak. Turns out I am a bit rusty. This was not the best steak I have ever made, but it satisfied my craving. There was some spinach left over from the salmon dish I made a little while ago. I used it up tonight to make some creamed spinach. I also picked up some cauliflower at the store to put together mock mashed potatoes. A good meal overall.

One more turkey burger

Tonight's dinner was brought to you by yesterday's cooking. There was one chili turkey burger I did not eat during my previous dinner. I heated that up while cutting a few vegetable toppings. I did not believe a single burger alone would fill me up, so I purchased ingredients to make Little Mama's Side Dish again. I figured I would take a picture of that cooking rather than another shot of a turkey burger.

Turkey burgers

Tonight I made some chili turkey burgers. This is another one of George Stella's recipes. I cooked up a couple pieces of bacon to top them. Otherwise it was a fairly low fat dinner. They have some cheese included, but I have been using some cheddar made from 2% milk. The other different thing I do is use a whole wheat tortilla to further reduce carbs and up fiber content.

Another salad

I just made another salad this evening. I did stop at the grocery store to pick up some ingredients this time. Still, it was the same basic salad I usually make. There was some leftover chicken which was a nice inclusion.

Leftovers

I finished eating my turkey sausage and zucchini frittata/quiche. As usual the leftovers are not quite as good compared to freshly baked. It was still quite delicious.

Fritatta

I had time to bake something this evening. I decided to make a turkey sausage and zucchini frittata. At least that is what the recipe calls it. Personally it seems closer to a crust-less quiche. Whatever it is called, it tastes really good.

Just salad

I was in the mood for some salad tonight. I just cut up some vegetables I had and threw them together.

More chicken

Today I wanted something freshly made but not too complicated. I settled on chicken breasts with tarragon cream sauce again. Basically you cook some chicken then throw a few ingredients into the pan to simmer. Nothing too fancy, but it tastes pretty good.

Thrown together

I did not feel like stopping at the grocery store on my way home. That meant I had to figure out something to make from what was already at home. The final concoction is an omelet with the last of my chili con carne. It was a bit weird for dinner, but it tasted alright.