Jambalaya

A week ago today was Fat Tuesday and, while that doesn't mean a lot to us personally, we viewed it as a good opportunity to make a big pot of jambalaya. We got the recipe here on Allrecipes.

The Recipe

Cindy's Jambalaya

1 Tablespoon Olive Oil

1/2 Pound Smoked Sausage

1 Large Onion

1 Cup Chopped Green Bell Pepper

1 Cup Chopped Celery

1/2 Teaspoon Cajun Seasoning

1/4 Teaspoon Salt

1 Cup White Rice

1 Can (14.5 oz) Diced Tomatoes With Juice

1 Tablespoon Minced Garlic

2 Cups Chicken Broth

3 Bay Leaves

1/4 Teaspoon Dried Thyme

1 Pound Shrimp (31/40 count), Peeled and Deveined

Heat the oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Slice the sausage into 1/4" slices and add to the oil, cooking for about two minutes. Add the onion, bell pepper, and celery along with the salt and Cajun seasoning. Sweat until the vegetables are soft, 6 to 8 minutes. Next, stir in the rice and combine it with the vegetable mixture. Then add the tomatoes with juice, garlic, chicken broth, bay leaves, and thyme leaves. Bring the pot to a simmer over medium-high heat, then reduce to medium-low, cover, and let simmer for 20 minutes. Add the shrimp and cook for another 10 minutes. Remove the pot from the heat, let sit for five minutes, remove the bay leaves, and serve.

The Results

This isn't as good as Yats, but that's probably because I've never made jambalaya before. That said, this did turn out to be pretty good. We skipped the shrimp because we didn't have them on hand and used Boudin sausage I got from the Smoking Goose. This wasn't a great application for the sausage, so I'll probably use something different next time, but it worked. The recipe was really easy to make and it makes a good pot of hot food - perfect for cold weather like this.

And that's all we have for this post. Thanks for reading!

Time With My Valentine

So what's been going on here lately? Not a lot, actually. We've been taking it pretty easy.

We got some new games recently thanks to Kickstarter campaigns finally being fulfilled. This meant there were a few nights of board game fun at the Miller household. Leslie won both games, which is kind of ridiculous, but I guess that's how it goes.

I also managed to get a visit in to one of my favorite places in Indy - the Smoking Goose. I picked up some pork jowl bacon, which is sooooo good. We cooked it up and had a nice pancake and bacon dinner. Brinner really is the best.

Usually we don't do much for Valentine's Day. In fact, last year we did no more than go to HotBox Pizza. This year we stepped it up a bit. Well, stepped it up for us, at least... I'm sure many people would think our night boring. We started off with a nice dinner at a local Greek restaurant and then headed home for a quiet night there. We watched a movie, had some wine, and enjoyed a crackling fire. It wasn't much, but made for a nice night after a busy week.

And really, that's been about it. It's nice to have some quiet time and we sure aren't complaining. We have been up to a few other things... but that will have to wait for another post. Let's just say that the next house project is in the works. More on that later, I suppose.

Thanks for reading! Take care and stay warm.

Working The Bench

Yes, not long ago we did some work on the garage. But I wasn't quite finished. I wanted to add a few more finishing touches to the workbench.

One of the many benefits of my employment with a contractor is access to custom fabrication shops. We currently have three shops in Indianapolis, one of which is a sheet metal shop. I gave our shop superintendent a call and asked if he had any scrap that could work for my purposes. Luckily for me, he had a some spare sheets that would work well for me. What I wanted was a metal counter top for the workbench and a piece of metal to go behind it that I could use magnets on. There were a few sheets of thin gauge, white-painted metal the shop had leftover from another project. Our shop normally deals in 316L stainless steel, which isn't magnetic, but luckily this material is ferrous enough to hold magnets.

I had the shop cut the pieces to size and bend a lip on the front of the counter top piece to go over the nose of the workbench. I tacked that down with Liquid Nails and mounted the other to the wall with nails and some scrap wood. I still want to caulk around where the bench top meets the wall, but otherwise they're both installed and ready to go.

The metal on the workbench makes for a nice work surface. I still need to mount the bench vise to the workbench, but I'm not in a rush for that. The piece on the wall will be home to magnets (there's a little craft project involving custom magnets coming soon, but that's another post). I'll use these to hold recent receipts for tools / materials we buy for projects or any sketches or material lists I happen to scribble on scraps of paper. Think of it as one of those "idea boards" moms make, but less girly and more practical. I've already got my Milwaukee screw driver set for my drill on there (it has a magnetic back) and a magnetic parts bowl we picked up at Menards.

I've also got a little set of drawers for screws, wire nuts, and whatever other bits and pieces need organizing. On top of that are my battery chargers for my Milwaukee tools and Black + Decker yard tools. I also put up a kitchen knife holder to help corral more hand tools like extra screw drivers, wrenches, and a few others. So, while there are a few finishing touches to make, this brings the workbench area pretty well to completion. And I love it!

And that'll do it for this post. Thanks for reading and we'll be back soon!

Maple-Garlic Marinated Pork Tenderloin

Yes, more food. We've been cooking a lot recently, as evidenced by our string of recipe posts. Think you can deal with that? Well I hope so, because if we keep trying recipes that turn out as good as this one then you'll be seeing a lot of cooking posts. This recipe is found here on Allrecipes.

The Recipe

Maple-Garlic Marinated Pork Tenderloin

1 Cup Maple Syrup

2 Tablespoons Dijon Mustard

1 Teaspoon Sesame Oil

1 Teaspoon Soy Sauce

3 Cloves Garlic, Minced

Pepper to Taste

1-1/2 lbs. Pork Tenderloin

Combine all ingredients but the tenderloin in a large plastic bag. Add the tenderloin, massage it to coat it thoroughly, and place in the fridge to marinade overnight. When you're ready to cook it, heat a grill or grill pan on medium-low heat. While the grill is warming up, remove the pork from the bag and place the marinade in a small saucepan. Reduce the marinade over medium-low heat for about five minutes. Brush the grill with oil and start cooking the tenderloin, brushing it with the reduced marinade occasionally. Be sure to keep the grill from getting too hot as the marinade burns easily. Cook the pork until it reaches an internal temperature of at least 145 degrees (about 20 minutes). Remove the pork from the grill and allow to rest for three minutes before cutting.

The Results

Pork is such a fun meat. It takes flavors well and can easily be enhanced without being overpowered. This marinade was great. It gives the pork a rich sweetness that's balanced out well by the soy and sesame. Yes, the soy sauce wasn't called for in the original recipe, but some reviewers recommended it and I wanted to add a bit of umami. The whole thing turned out great and was pretty easy - a double winner, I'd say.

Now, just to clear one thing up, pork can be pink now. If you saw the pictures of our pork and thought we were going to die, you're wrong. Well, not entirely... we probably aren't immortal. But this pork won't kill us. USDA recommendations changed in 2011 from a minimum internal temperature of 160 to 145. I hate overcooking food, so I pulled our tenderloins off the grill pan when they were at 145. I also knew that we'd have plenty of leftovers that would get reheated in the microwave, so by keeping them as moist as possible now they hopefully won't turn into rubber when we reheat them later. Leslie still said that she would prefer hers cooked through a little more, but she also likes her steak well done... so if you still want to cook it to 160 (no pink in the middle) then go for it. I'll just be over here enjoying my juicy, melt-in-your-mouth-tender, pink pork.

Fruit Pizza

I love pizza. I also love contrasting flavors and textures when I'm eating. I want a crunchy element to pair with a soft entree. I want a salty accent to my sweet dessert. So, when our church group decided to have pizza at our next get together, I thought it would be fun to make a fruit pizza too. It's in keeping with the theme, but is also a rich and bright contrast to the salty, meaty pies we would be having otherwise. Plus I just straight up love fruit pizza anyway, even if I'd never made it before. I found this recipe on Allrecipes and gave it a try.

The Recipe

Fruit Pizza

1/2 Cup Softened Butter

3/4 Cup White Sugar

1 Egg

1-1/4 Cups Flour

1 Teaspoon Cream of Tartar

1/2 Teaspoon Baking Soda

1/4 Teaspoon Salt

8 oz. Cream Cheese

1/2 Cup White Sugar

2 Teaspoons Vanilla Extract

Fruit of your choice

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cream together the butter and 3/4 cup sugar until smooth, then mix in the egg. In another bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt. Add this to the wet ingredients until just blended. Press the dough into an ungreased pizza pan and bake until lightly browned (about 10 minutes). Remove from the oven and let cool. To make the frosting, beat the cream cheese with the 1/2 cup sugar and vanilla until light. Spread this on the crust once it's cool. Slice and arrange your desired fruit on top and chill the dish until ready to serve.

The Results

Let me say it again - I love fruit pizza. And this turned out quite well, if I do say so myself. We used strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries, which made for a good combination. If / when we make this again we'll probably try out some different fruit. We could probably pile it a little higher with fruit too, but we started off fairly conservatively, since we weren't sure how far the fruit we bought would go. Another change I'd probably make would be to use a smaller pan or make more of the recipe. It filled about 2/3 of a sheet pan (I don't have any crappy pizza pans lying around here), so if I made a double recipe it would fill the pan and be a little thicker crust. And that's something I wouldn't mind (Chicago Style > New York Style FOREVER!).

And that's all for now. Thanks for reading and we'll catch you on the flip side.

Sausage Zucchini Boats

The original recipe is found here on Skinny Mom.

The Recipe

Sausage Zucchini Boats

1/2 lb Sweet Italian Chicken Sausage, Casing Removed
1-1/2 Cups Light Pasta Sauce

4 Medium Zucchini

1/2 White Onion, Diced

1/2 Cup Red Pepper, Diced

1/2 Cup Shredded Mozzarella Cheese

2 Tablespoons Parmesan Cheese

2 Tablespoons Garlic, Minced

1 Teaspoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1/4 Teaspoon Salt

1/4 Teaspoon Black Pepper

1 Teaspoon Garlic Powder

Preheat your oven to 425. Cut zucchini in half length wise. Use a spoon or melon baller to remove seeds and scoop out flesh and chop the flesh into bite size pieces. Set this aside in a small bowl. Drop the zucchini halves in boiling water and boil for 1-1/2 minutes. Remove zucchini halves from water and dry zucchini with a paper towel. Spread a little over ¼ cup of marinara sauce into bottom of a 9x13 pan. Place the zucchini halves on top of the sauce with the open side facing up. Brown the sausage in a pan and chop into small pieces while browning. Drain the sausage and set aside. Heat your extra virgin olive oil in the pan, then add the diced onion, garlic, and red bell pepper to pan and sauté for 2 minutes until softened. Next, add the chopped zucchini, season with salt, pepper and garlic powder and cook for an additional 2 minutes. Return chopped sausage to saute pan and mix with the veggies. Using a spoon or spatula, add equal amounts of sausage mixture to each zucchini half. Top each half with the remaining pasta sauce and cover with cheese. Cover pan with aluminum foil and bake for 30-35 minutes in the oven until cheese has melted and zucchini is cooked through.

The Results

This was a pretty easy recipe to make and it was yummy! I can't wait to make it again when zucchinis are in season - the ones I used were very small. The only change I made to this recipe was not actually making the zucchini halves into boats. They were too small to dig out the flesh, and it was easier not too. And it tasted the same too! In the future, I will probably still just leave them as halves. I loved that this used lots of veggies. Hopefully we'll be able to use some from our garden if we can get it planted this year. Overall, I'd say this was a hit!

A Guy's Garage

One of the things that really sold us on this house when we started looking was the three car garage. We knew it would be great to have room to park both our cars inside and have extra space for all our junk. We also knew that we would want to do a little work to the garage space in order to maximize its functionality. Well, the time finally came to do that work, and here we are now.

We wanted to be able to keep a bunch of boxes and whatnot out there without taking up too much space. We decided to do that with shelving. We also built the shelves with room underneath for the chest freezer and a little "saw garage" space where I've got my miter saw and table saw stored (along with my golf clubs, paintball guns, and fishing rods because I'm awesome). The top row is all decorations and stuff that Leslie had stashed away in closets. Below that on the left is some lesser used appliances (roaster pan, ice cream maker, etc.) and on the right is tools storage for me (Sawzall, air compressor, wrench set, etc.). There's more space that's yet to be filled, but I'm sure we'll get around to that eventually.

The shelves themselves are made out of plywood and dimensional lumber. They're anchored to the wall studs in the back and then there are three floor supports on the front of the shelves. Since all the weight on the front is centered on these supports I attached the shelf rail with 1/4" lag screws just to be sure it could take the weight. I haven't looked up the shear strength of these screws, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure it'll be ok since we aren't storing elephants or anything.

I also wanted to integrate a new workbench. The bench top is plywood over 2x4 supports attached to the wall studs and with three legs in front. I also added a heavy duty power strip above the work surface and a little under cabinet lighting and task lighting to make working on small projects easier. The workbench is about 8'x3', which is a very nice size. It's also tall enough that there's room underneath for a few things like paint cans, the shop vac, and our halogen floodlight. I also mounted some pegboard to the new shelves on the left side of the bench to hold hand tools. There were already cabinets in the garage when we moved in (likely leftover from a kitchen remodel), so we simply moved those around a bit to fit the new configuration. Those now house a bunch of miscellaneous items such as gloves, sandpaper, and whatever other misfit toys won't go anywhere else. I also got a little swivel stool to go with it, so now I can work in style and comfort (or at least comfort). There are a few more improvements for the workbench area... but they aren't finalized yet. I'll update on those once they're up.

We also covered most of one of the walls with pegboard to give us even more storage. There are three 4'x8' sheets up there, which gives us lots of room. I've got it only about two-thirds of the way filled for now, so there's plenty of room to add new tools. We also mounted the big 5'x3' whiteboard I had in college up next to the pegboard and a large wall calendar I got from work next to that. (Yes, the area looks cluttered in the pictures, but we're still figuring out where everything goes.)

We made a few other changes like replacing the weak little bare-bulb light fixtures with big 2'x4' fluorescent fixtures and adding a little coat hook thingy to the wall that we use to store Leo's leashes and towels (for drying him off when it's wet out). Yes, they're small changes, but they make a difference and help the whole space be even more useful.

And that's about for the garage (for now). Thanks for reading and we'll see you soon!