Author Archives: Lucky Rhino

Volleyball, Spiderman and the Twilight Zone

I introduce these recipes without meaning any offense to the first two. The first two were delicious. Had we made only these two, the post-volleyball tournament, post-re-doing her son’s room, post-Religious-Ed mass with the dead grandmother movie (Grandma’s Bread – look it up) crowd would have been very pleased.

But then came the green beans.

First the Korean Style Bulgogi Steak, inspired by thekitchn. Thekitchn tells you how to make your own gochujang sauce but requires gochujang paste. Neither Jewel nor Whole Foods sought fit to provide me with this, but Jewel had pre-made gochujang sweet and spicy sauce.

So I looked at the ingredients, added what seemed to be missing (a little rice wine vinegar and neutral oil) and used it as a marinade for the steak and drizzled some extra on top. Wonderful.

Then, having only one usable avocado, I made Smitten Kitchen’s Obsessively Good Avocado and Cucumber Salad. It was, as advertised, obsessively good. So much so, we didn’t take a picture, so here’s one of Guitar Boy before the oral report he had to give on Spiderman creator Stan Lee.**

Presented for your consideration. A humble pound of green beans. Trimmed. Fresh. But what happens next can only be explained in..the Delicious Zone.

These Roasted Ginger Sesame Green Beans from Foodie with Family come from another planet. A planet where everyone finishes their green beans. Where children (not mine!) willingly take them from their father’s plate. Fantastic. Thanks Foodie with Family.

** Our excellent friend Jeremy Manier commented on Facebook that if Guitar Boy wanted to make his Stan Lee oral report authentic, he should make brief cameos in other kids oral reports. Genius.

Spring Salad

You know my motto, if it’s April, and you aren’t having asparagus then you better have spinach. Fine, that’s not my motto at all, but this spinach salad, well…just, well.

Spinach Salad from Two Red Bowls.

This was bacon, hard boiled eggs, almonds, goat cheese and caramelized red onion magic. I had made it as side to my standard pork tenderloin, but seriously, the salad should be the meal. Sorry pork tenderloin, but you were ditched. Much of it can be made ahead on the weekend making for an easier weeknight meal (bacon, eggs, caramelized onion – just make sure you save the bacon fat in the refrigerator to use as the fat for the dressing).

But I’ll give you the ingredients for the pork tenderloin, maybe for next time:

Marinated Pork Tenderloin (adapted from one of my favorite people, Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa herself, where there is no bad recipe)

WHAT YOU NEED
1/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 TBSP fresh chopped parsley
1 TBSP fresh chopped rosemary
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
4 cloves minced or crushed garlic (I love Trader Joe’s frozen cloves)
2 TBSP Dijon mustard
Pinch of red pepper flakes
2 pork tenderloins

WHAT YOU DO
Combine all the ingredients in a large ziploc bag and marinate the pork tenderloins in the refrigerator. It’s better overnight, but also good if done about 5 hours ahead. Again, it’s something you can do on Sunday for Monday’s dinner. Heat oven to 400.

Remove tenderloins from marinade and either sear in a pan on the stovetop and transfer to a baking sheet and roast in oven for about 25 minutes or until temperature reaches 1405F (or more, if you are like me and still barely want to see pink). If you don’t feel like dirtying two pans, you can just roast in oven and then flip half way through so both sides get a little brown.

I also served it with this minute rice blend:

It’s a mix of brown rice, red rice, wild rice and quinoa. I don’t know why I originally bought it, but it’s very good for instant, weeknight rice/quinoa. Now, you may ask yourself, if you have a rice and grain drawer

yes, I said a rice and grain drawer, then you may ask yourself, why in the world are you buying a Minute Rice blend? Because when you find out for the umpteenth time that regulators have changed their minds again about how a 5 year old rule should be interpreted, well, ain’t no one got time for measuring cups.

And please enjoy what Guitar Boy concocted for dessert to melt out of leftover Easter candy.

Stop looking at me with those sad Peep eyes.

Home Sweet Home

As you can tell, Lucky Rhino has moved to a new home. I thank the fine folks at Tumblr but thought it was time to use the domain name I reserved years ago, pre-financial crisis, when there was a threat I would open a home goods store (not to be confused with my store crush on TJ Maxx/HomeGoods).

So, going forward, this is where the blog will live.

Since I am thiiiis shy of being the least computer literate person around, I’m not yet familiar with this format so there may be some glitches, sudden font changes, 2 spaces between sentences* or changes in widgets. It will eventually settle down, I promise.

For now, please enjoy this picture of Skunk and I on RACCOON WATCH – 2015.

*Kevin says that everyone will know I’m over 40 because of my ridiculous reliance on two spaces after a period. I say everyone will know I’m over 40 because, for the love of all that is holy, have you seen my hands?!

Happy Spring Break and Easter Happenings

Hello all. We’re back from a fun, but lacking in sleep, trip to the Wisconsin Dells. There was:

Surfing

surfing

Lazy rivering

Partying (Hulk say, “Drinks too small”)

And…sitting inside the waterpark watching Spongebob.

But a good time was had by all.

Then of course the 9^th Avenue Egg Hunt:

Then, right on to Easter for 30 people at my house. Yikes.

Main dishes were my standard roast salmon (see prior Easterpost) and glazed ham using The Pioneer Woman’s glaze with its secret ingredient:

This glaze is for you, Fake Sister.

Also made a wonderful Melon Salad with Prosciutto from NotWithout Salt

And the rest of the sides were asparagus, green salad, scalloped potatoes, lemon jello (even better when you eat it with your hands, says Baby D):

and of course, the spécialité de la maison – buttered noodles.

For dessert: Lemon Cupcakes from The Alchemist with Fresh Blueberry Frosting from White on Rice Couple. I am not responsible for the use of the word “moist” in the recipe’s title.

Look at the rest of the cute desserts from the oh-so-talented Ellen Anderson

The boys and I tried to make dyed Rice Krispie easter eggs. Essentially just use the Rice Krispie treat recipe, add food dye to the marshmallows when stirring. Note to file: in the future, do not try to make purple marshmallow krispie eggs unless you realllllly like gray food. Do not blame Ellen for the gray eggs!

And the Easter drink this year was Pineapple Sangria from How Sweet It Is.

The Tables

For grown up table favors I went with the pretty blue and purple Mason jars as vases.

For grown up table #2, I busted out my napkin folding skills.

For the kids’ table, little Easter take out food boxes with Game of Thrones dragon eggs. Fine, they aren’t GoT but are called dinosaur eggs (with a tiny dinosaur inside) on Amazon. But the Mother of Dragons can dream, can’t she?

By the way, I accidentally went to TJ Maxx/Homegoods last week and bought pretty dishes. What?! You never see twelve of anything at HomeGoods. It was a sign from above. And when my sister went to her TJ Maxx/Homegoods to look for extra plates for me, she found the mirror she had been looking for. Divine intervention indeed.

Mother Nature again cooperated beautifully for the egg hunt.

Even the dyed eggs got dressed up.

And in the end, it was good day to relax. On a couch. In the yard. Seriously, why won’t anyone on Craig’s List buy this couch. Best offer. Text me. Drummer boy not included.

Happy Easter everyone!

Saturday Night’s All Right for Baking

Fake Sister is having the third birthday celebration of turning 12 tonight (MTV Birthday Weekend!!!!) so the block has been overcome with tweens playing outside. They’re playing Infection, which we used to call Ghost in the Graveyard. Stupid zombies changing everything.

We’re hiding inside. So what did we do with this free time?

Continue reading →

Happy First Day Without Negative Windchill

I hope everyone remembered to set their clocks forward an hour (after the kids woke up, of course).

We took the opportunity of a moderately mild night yesterday to grill some steaks.

Simply salt and pepper the steaks, throw them on the grill. While they grill, melt half a stick of butter. Stir 1/8 tsp garlic powder, 1 TBSP chopped fresh parsley and a dash or two of dried oregano into the butter. Right when the steaks come off the grill, baste with the butter mixture and then let the steaks rest while you grill asparagus, because SPRING BABY!!! Continue reading →

Baby D is the Big 01

Had a little family party for Baby D – Colleen and Mitch’s great (grand?) nephew. There were presents:

Cake:

And, of course, taking selfies with Baby D.

Continue reading →

What Worked Well – Valentine Edition

So what did everyone make for Valentine’s Day? Did you go with fancy (something with scallops perhaps) or a nice steak? I went with comfort food and a joint Valentine’s Day with my sister’s family. The more the merrier!

The Slow Braised Beef from Smitten Kitchen was easy-peasy lemon squeezy. 3 ingredients. That’s it. 4 hours. It’s done. Did I take a picture? No, I didn’t.

For dessert, I made How Sweet Eats Chocolate Cream Pie. Continue reading →

Warm Food for Cold Days

Earlier in the week, when it was still big-coat cold, I made this soup, inspired by How Sweet It Is’ Potato and Roasted Garlic Soup,

But I changed quite a few things.

WHAT YOU NEED
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 yellow onion, diced  (or, if your onion is ginormous, use ½)
3 pounds Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and chopped
5 cups low-sodium chicken stock
2 bulbs roasted garlic
¼ cup whole milk
2 TBSP plain Greek yogurt
¾ tsp salt
¼ tsp fresh ground pepper

WHAT YOU DO
Then I followed her directions, but used an immersion blender to blend in pot. Served with Turkey sandwiches on Artichoke Bread from The Merry Thought. The bread was done as a test for an appetizer at the Super Bowl but wow, it is amazing as a sandwich. Continue reading →

New Feature – This Week in Alliteration – What Worked Well

New feature – this will be where I post which recipes of the prior week worked out the best. One of my New Year’s resolutions was to get dinner on the table 4 out of the 7 days of week. Really more like 4 out of 6 because Pizza Night lives on. And really 4 out of 5 because the boys have band practice on Thursdays until after 9:00. So really, I’m killin’ it.

Hopefully this leads to healthier choices (less take out) and can also remind me as to what recipes we liked rather than searching all my various Field Notes planners.

Last week in the sub-zero wind chill, this Cream of Tomato Soup from SmittenKitchen hit the spot. Accompanying it were grilled cheese and prosciutto sandwiches. Trader Joe’s makes a gruyere/white cheddar combo cheese that makes a really good grilled cheese. Also, grate your cheese instead of slicing when making grilled cheese because then it melts faster and the bread won’t get overly toasted. Hmmm, grate your cheese sounds like a saying about being mad at someone (“That Helen in Accounting, she really grates my cheese”).

I don’t have a picture, but I also made this Roasted Almond Crusted Salmon from HowSweetEats. Now to act like a recipe commenter by telling you about a recipe I like and then making changes**, I didn’t have regular breadcrumbs so I used all Panko and added ¼ teaspoon dried oregano and a dash of onion salt. Nor did I make the glaze but instead served with lemon risotto. I cooked it on a rack on a baking sheet as directed and it was deliciously crispy.

** Still the funniest recipe-commenters-out-of-control moment is chronicled in the article, “Rainbow Cake Inspires Comment Apocalypse” at Deadspin. If you haven’t read it, please do. I’m laughing just typing the article’s name.

If that’s too much reading, you can always head over to Food.com and read the reviews for the Ice Cube recipe.