I Roll Fatly

I know this will not surprise any of you who read this blog even semi-regularly but...

I'M HUNGRY!!

Like all the time.

Sometimes (okay MOST of the time) while eating one meal, I'm thinking about the next. It's bad. My mom said as much as I talk about food I should be two tons of fun. I can't help myself! And this summer I've been cooking up a storm which is absolutely exacerbating the problem.

BTW isn't this like the best! picture! ever!? I walked into Rashan's room where I was meal-planning and it struck me that I had 4 Rachael Ray mags and 3 books and I should TOTALLY take a picture of that! So awesome! (And that's just the tip of my Rach iceberg). I also got unnecessarily excited when I saw Rachael Ray chicken stock in the grocery store-- I even used the recipe on the box for the chicken in meal number 3 below. My mom gets kind of jealous of my Rach love because she taught me stuff about food first. It's kind of funny in an incredulous kind of way. Hey mom... chill out. Lol. Nevertheless, meal-planning for one day almost always makes me hungry immediately no matter how recent my last meal. As I write this post, shortly after thinking about eggs over-medium just worked me up into a near-frenzy, I'm starving! But I think that's an illusion because when I thought that Monday night I went downstairs and whipped up some eggs with potatoes and salmon already cooked and went to town. After the first couple of bites I was satiated.

And don't let me have worked out and have an excuse to think fatly. It is hilarious to me that fatly is a word. As in, "I was fatly planning meals, you know, Paula Deen-style with lots of butter and mayonnaise and bacon, preferably in the same dish..." Kidding. I would never say that. I don't like mayo very much and a butter and bacon combo sounds disgusting to me. As if bacon doesn't work fatly enough. *snicker* (Don't get me started on the pitifulness of turkey bacon *shudder* and don't tell me about your turkey bacon either because it is nowhere near the taste of the thick-cut applewood smoked bacon at the Dekalb Farmers Market aka Jameil Heaven. That is some of the best bacon I've ever had in my LIFE. Right up there with the Cracker Barrel bacon. MMM!!)

Some of my meals so far this summer:
1) Ground turkey (with cumin, poblano peppers (pretty mild but a nice pepper flavor), cumin, salt, pepper, cilantro), oven frites, corn and black beans (drained & rinsed, add s&p, cilantro, cumin, lime juice) with homemade guacamole (avocado smashed, add garlic (optional), cilantro, lime, s&p, onion).

2) "Casablanca" lamb burgers with fried potatoes. (pictured right)

3) Chili lime salmon (twist on the recipe from the frozen salmon bag-- baste the salmon with garlic, poblanos, s&p, cumin, lime juice (notice a theme?) and EVOO-- extra virgin olive oil-- broil at 400 for 6-7 mins on each side, basting when you turn) with poblano creamed corn and cumin thyme black beans (twist on the recipe on the bean can).

4) Chicken breast with a mustard gravy (from the Rach-brand chicken stock), broccoli and a quinoa-orzo-baby garbanzo bean-couscous mix (from Trader Joe's but using a Rach recipe for quinoa (pronounced "keen-wah")).

5) Peruvian chicken (I used a whole chicken which means you need to make sure to season the cavity well) with sauteed spinach and cheddar broccoli rice (right out of one of those flavored bag rices-- not my normal route but Rah had it in the cabinet so I snatched it right out).

6) Don't-kiss-me garlic and Adirondacker burgers (yes, 2 burgers in one night-- we each had 1/2 of a different burger) with oven steamed zucchini (garlic, onions, zucchini coins in a foil packet on 350-- twist on an Aida recipe) and sour cream smashed yukon gold potatoes.

7) Gaucho burger with charred pico de gallo and homemade guacamole and tortilla chips. We weren't fans of the charred pico in this one so if I made it again (because the burger was delish otherwise) I would just make a regular pico.

8) Eggplant mushroom parmigiana. For this one I used a Mario Batalli recipe (plus mushrooms) with a homemade marinara recipe he provided. AMAZING! I liked this a lot and it's less fat(ly... lol, yes, I know that is grammatically incorrect) than the regular fried eggplant version.

This is in the last month (4 in the last week), along with trying several new restaurants and some old faves, which may not be much for some of you but is a small miracle for me. I am admittedly a Food Network nut and love burgers as much as/more than I love Mexican and eggs. I can't decide AND WON'T!! If I could have all 3 in a meal it would probably be too much! I've combined 2 on several occasions. Hmmm.... I'm thinking a mexican burger topped with a fried egg. Oh YES!! See what I mean? Just fat!! Internally fat!! That was a completely unplanned tangent.

Anyway almost all of these recipes were Rachael Ray. Yes, Rashan and my mom have been LOVING ME!! Lol. And there are more to come because the more I cook unfamiliar foods (many of these recipes were my first time trying either the method or one or more of the ingredients; all except number 1 were my first time trying the recipe. 1 was a mix of my fave ingredients which I would usually add tortillas to), the more confident I become about cooking (even better when they clean the kitchen) and the more willing I am to try lots of stuff. Wheeeee!