Uh-oh, leftovers!

It wouldn't be a holiday dinner if The Mr. and I didn't come home with an armload of leftovers.

This Thanksgiving haul: One spiced pumpkin pie, one plastic takeaway container of green bean casserole and one ham.

No, I don't mean one takeaway container of ham. We have one whole honey roasted ham. I believe it came from the HoneyBakedHam Company.

What the [stuff] am I gonna do with all that ham?! They told me it would freeze well, but why don't you try freezing half a ham with the bone still in it! All right, then, Option B: Eat it all before it spoils.

So, dinner last night was ham and cheddar sandwiches on whole wheat baguette (courtesy of my sister, who works at Panera and gets a massive discount). My pre-workout breakfast this morning was a ham and cheddar omelet with two eggs and one egg white.

I wanted to make ham bowls--put slices in the bottom of a muffin tin and fill the cup--but the bone gets in the way of pulling off a decently sized slice.

I'm thinking dinner tonight will be baked mac 'n cheese with ham, peppers and onions.

'Scuze me, I need to go Google, "What do I do with all this ham?!"

Turbaconducken

We've all heard of Turducken.

Well, now there's Turbaconducken.

This is easily the most disgusting thing I have ever seen on the Internet. And I've seen a lot of disgusting things on the Internet.

Really. How could anybody eat this?

I admit that I'm a reluctant carnivore and I will only eat good meat, but this is--wow. I can't imagine eating this!

Chili Beer Burritos

I made beer burritos with chili beer last night.

Ew.

I knew they were going to taste different when I used frozen corn and fresh tomatoes instead of canned, to cut back on the sodium.

What I didn't expect was no flavor at all from the beer.

I usually make beer burritos with Corona, and it comes out just fine. The chili beer didn't leave behind any beer flavor or extra spice. I was expecting at least some heat, considering how burny the beer is when I drink it from the bottle.

Nope. Nothing. Disappointing, because when I make it with Corona, I get comments on how nice the beer flavor is. Oh well.

The next order of business? Satisfy my curiosity about what the chili itself--a regular ol' serrano pepper--tastes like. I shook it out of the bottle and lopped off a piece to taste. I immediately wished I hadn't. Maybe all of the spice had leached out into the beer? I don't know how those things work.

The short attention span version: Chili beer doesn't give food flavor. Eating chilis that have been soaked in beer is a bad idea. Do Not Try This At Home Or At All.

Pasta, as promised

Well, I said I'd post about the pasta, so here it is!

The sauce is intense. I mean, it is HOT. It will make you breathe fire.
But, man, is it worth it.

I tossed it with gnocchi first, which...whatever, it was Target gnocchi. Nothing special there. The Mr. enjoyed it, but I thought it was too blah. I don't think it's even worth discussing.

The fettuccine, on the other hand.... yum! I'm not sure where I got it, but I have a vague memory of my mom giving it to me. It was Al Dente Lemon & Chive Fettuccine. The lemon chive flavor was annihilated by the fiery sauce, so next time I'll make up a garlic butter sauce.

Aside from being superheated, the fettuccine was deliciously sweet and hot. Unlike a lot of pasta I've eaten, which exists mainly to hold up the sauce, I could taste the noodle. Like I said, I couldn't really taste any lemon chive, but there was a distinct noodle flavor. The sauce has just enough oil in it. It does a great job of de-stickifying the noodles, but I didn't get that feeling like I'd just chugged a bottle of olive oil.

This goes on my Must Have Again list. I'm starting to think that it might be worth getting in my car and driving 20 minutes each way.

Tonight, I'm making burritos with chili beer!

Beer is good! ...and stuff. Let's go drink some BEER!

They say beer will make me dumb. It are go good with pizza.

So, I've discovered that beer really IS good (and stuff). I'm very lucky to live less than five minutes' walk to the Total Wine, where they have a nice selection of single bottles. Making mix-packs is more fun than it probably should be (oh! I found a Monty Python Holy Grail Ale! I don't know if I'll like it, but I don't care because it's Monty Python beer).

I also like spicy things, so when I found a chili beer, I snatched it right up!

....It's like drinking liquid hot pepper.

Which is great, if that's what you're in the mood for, but since I generally like to eat spicy foods with my beer... meh.

It's also great for when you're not in the mood to taste beer, because this doesn't taste like beer at all.

But, somehow, I still find it somewhat enjoyable. I also have this urge to get the peppers out of the bottle and cook with them. Or, you know, maybe I'll just cook with the beer itself--I do have a burrito recipe that uses half a bottle of Corona.

...Hmm. I have burritos on the dinner plan for this Wednesday night!

(And more soon about that hot pepper garlic pasta sauce! It was wonderful with gnocchi and I'm sure it will also be wonderful with the lemon chive fettucine that I just found in the kitchen!)

The kitchen is for more than microwaves and beer, guys.

Wow, it's too bad that I didn't learn about National Men Make Dinner Day a week ago. It would've made a great story-in-pictures... unless dinner was a pizza of dubious origin. :)

So, my mom works at Wegman's now. In addition to being--from what I hear--a great workplace, they have some great food. Yes, even their house brand.

This means that I got a gift bag of delicious goodies for my birthday!

• Three kinds of cheese
• Two kinds of bruschetta toasts
• Two kinds of bruschetta topping
• Spicy garlic pasta sauce (it's not liquid like you'd expect)
• Good olive oil
• Bread, for dipping in the good olive oil
• Basting sauce (maybe it'll make that fish edible)
• Thai green curry sauce
• Organic strawberry jam
• ....oh, and the rest of the pistachio cake
• A cloth grocery sack, of course!

So far, I've been into the bruschetta, bread, olive oil and one kind of cheese. Tonight? Spicy pasta with bruschetta! I may also finally open up the cherry wine for dessert, along with white chocolate truffles, but I'm in a team weight loss contest and doing miserably.

But you're taking my carbs when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.

Going out for less: Tapas edition

There are ways to still go out, even now.

Trick #1: Restaurant.com deals. They usually offer $25 gift certificates for $10, but I was able to get a bunch of them for $2 each. Two of them were for tapas restaurants, so The Mr. and I went to the first Friday night.

Trick #2: Tapas. Individual plates tend to run from $7-9.

We had to spend a minimum of $35 on food (alcohol wasn't covered by the coupon, bah!), so we got the 2-person tasting menu (warning, PDF!). We got--no lie--8 plates of food, which we annihilated.

The tortilla was my favorite. I've never had a Spanish tortilla before, and it. was. fantastic. It was more like a savory pastry than an omelet, actually

The Buey al Jerez was my next-favorite and The Mr.'s first favorite. This was grilled, marinated steak in a sherry mushroom sauce. Oh, but what the menu doesn't mention? The potatoes. The wondeful, delicious potatoes that looked like American homefries but tasted so much better.

As for the sangria blanca, well, I'm not saying it was cheap, but what I am saying is--it had peaches!! The Mr. turned up his nose at cinnamon in it, but when the pitcher came, there was no nose-turning-up at all. The cinnamon flavor was very faint and enhanced the fruit flavors instead of overpowering them?

Oh, and those peaches? Yeah, we dug them out of the carafe and ate them like the winos we are.

If awesome had a taste, it would be tapas. Oh, and saving $23 on the bill.

...Wait, you can't taste money.

Well, anyway, tapas = win.