Rosie Cooks Dinner For Maxine & Co.

Last night, I cooked for Maxine and her Gentleman Friend,
Chronos Onassis, distant kin of Aristotle O., the hubby of Jackie K.


I must tell you, Rosie was beside herself.

I had a hard time in Danville trying to find suitable protein.
I wanted fish.
Specifically, Mahi-Mahi.
I went to Super WalMart.
No go.
Then I looked for the darn seafood store which I knew was somewhere real near, but the roads weren't cooperative.
I knew it was SOMEWHERE.
Just not exactly WHERE.

And after 25 plus years of not living in Danville, I must admit, Danville's made some changes.
The best, I think, being the Danville ByPass,
if you catch my drift.

At any rate, I'm looking for a seafood store I know used to be
somewhere around where I'm circling.
No can find.


So, I ended up going to Harris Teeter.
Asked the gentleman behind the counter for Mahi-Mahi.
He only had one Mahi package left.
He did have a Wahoo package.
I purchased both.
Now, I have a plan.

Since we're having fish for dinner, and fried at that,
I decided to make a Remoulade Sauce.

Here are my ingredients:

celery
onion
garlic
mayo
coarse ground mustard
capers
white vinegar
cumin
coriander
cayenne

I minced some celery with some garlic.

Chopped some red onion.

I Cuisinarted the celery, garlic, and onion,
then added in the capers.

Add in some coarse-grained, brown mustard.

Add in the mayo and the spices:
cumin, coriander, cayenne, and salt and pepper.
And there's my (NOT) Remoulade Sauce, courtesy of Mark, owner of Lucky 12 Tavern.



Next up, my Tartar Sauce.

Mayo, chopped red onion, minced dills and sweet relish.


Now, here's where I got pissed off.

After searching high and low for Mahi Mahi, I finally found a sad little package at Harris Teeter.

I get the fillet out of the package, and low and behold, when I turn it over, there's the easily concealed skin on the bottom.
Damn butchers.

So, I deftly skinned the fish.

Next up, Wahoo..

I unpackaged the fish, and, once again, turned it over to expose the left-on skin.

For crying out loud, Butcher/FishmongerNOT/HEWHOCANNOTBEBOTHERED!

THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE!!!

The worst part is what the fishmongerNOT, left in the fish:
the BLOOD VEIN.

Look at this.
I've skinned it. And now, the dark, deeper colored Vee meat in the middle must be removed.
This is the Blood Vein.
It is usually unpalatable.
Depending on the type of fish, it can be - to different degrees and strengths - oily, fishy, or just plain nasty.
I always remove it.
Actually, I've never found it at seafood stores here.
They know better.

I'm making a batter for my Mahi Mahi and Wahoo.
Mr. H. and I like McCormick's Fish and Chips batter mix.
Instead of adding water (as per McCormick's) I add in beer.

After skinning, de-veining, de-tendoning (Yes, part of the wahoo looked like it had tendons on it.) and de-silverskinning (And, yes, part of the wahoo had what looked like a membrane on it.),
and overall, just getting the fish ready for presentation,
I finally rinsed off the fillets in cold water, then drained on paper towels, and salt and peppered.
Sliced into strips.
After the fish is dry, place in batter and coat thoroughly.

Very Important: Before battering anything, be sure it's dry.
That way, the batter sticks to the meat.

Heat up oil to 350-375 degrees.

Then, put in a few fish strips.

Allow to brown.

About 2-3 minutes.

Drain on paper towels.
I also fried up the left over batter for yummy chips.

Here's Maxine's table.
And the view from her side of the table.
Those two small, shallow bowls contain malt vinegar.
I dip my fried fish into that,
and it is delicious.

Here's the view from my seat.
I, of course, have the best fried pieces on the cutting board immediately to my left.
On the table, I have a broccoli salad casserole, Remoulade sauce, and Tartar sauce.
This was quite good, if I do say so myself.

Mr. & Mrs. Hawthorne Take A Road Trip.

Middle Hawthorne just finished his second semester at college, so Mr. H. and I drove the truck up to school to pack up the larger items that wouldn't fit into his 2-seater - which is basically everything he has. The back of my truck is filled to the gills with his drum set, wide screen TV, and numerous other large items.
He has entirely too much stuff.
Then Mr. Hawthorne dropped me off in Danville to visit Mama Hawthorne and Maxine, while he drove on to visit Mr. Mama Hawthorne-in-Law.

Soon after leaving the beach, we crossed Alligator River Bridge and we passed this sign.
We were tempted ... NOT.
Now Alligator River Bridge is kind of neat. If you ever have a chance to go across it, check out your compass. You're going due west and all of a sudden the compass jumps to north and north east. You're going due east and the compass jumps to south and south west.
I think the Mother Ship must be under that bridge.

In Plymouth, we stopped at our usual place for lunch.
Now, I generally don't like to go to buffets with Mr. Hawthorne because he's been known to knock down small children and old ladies with walkers to get to the buffet,
but he controlled himself today.
Good Mr. Hawthorne.

Now, I'm at Mama Hawthorne's, it's Saturday morning, and I'm fixing her lunch.

After prepping for a while, I thought to myself, "Self, you should be taking pictures of this and blog today, since you didn't tell anybody you were going out of town, and people get antsy when you don't post within a reasonable amount of time."
So I went into the trash to retrieve the Hunt's Meatloaf Sauce can
and the Lipton Onion Soup Mix box.
(Aunt Sandy would be proud of me.)
I finely chopped 1/2 an onion and 1/2 a pepper, added 2 aigs, 1/2 the can of Hunt's sauce, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper and mixed it all up in my meatloaf mixture of ground pork and ground beef with my impeccably clean hands.

And here's Mr. Meatloaf in the 350 degree oven.

While this is cooking, I decided to make a broccoli salad for a side dish.

Drop trimmed and chopped broccoli into a pot of salted boiling water.
Bring back to a boil, about 3 minutes.

Drain, and immediately put the broccoli in ice water to stop the cooking and set the color.

Drain the broccoli and add chopped red onions, raisins, walnuts, and bacon.

Next, I made a dressing: mayo, a bit of sugar, balsamic vinegar, and salt and pepper and tossed it all together.

Here's my finished meatloaf.
Throughout cooking, I was draining the grease out. After about an hour, I added the rest of the Hunt's Meatloaf Sauce on top and cooked for about 15 more minutes.
Let it set about 15 minutes before slicing.

Next up, chocolate covered strawburries.
Mr. Hawthorne and I stopped at Vollmer Farm
and bought two 5-pound boxes of beautiful, just picked, huge strawburries for $11.00 each.



I just melted some semi-sweet Nestle's morsels with a bit of vegetable oil and dipped the strawburries in it.



Here's our lunch - meatloaf, broccoli salad, and mashed taters.



Mama Hawthorne proclaimed her lunch, "Divine."

I must say, it's terribly difficult to cook in someone else's kitchen. I couldn't find proper utensils. I couldn't find ingredients that I have as staples. I only made three trips to Food Lion within a two-hour period to get stuff I needed. Plus, I can't see in this kitchen cause it's so dark. Even the little focusing illumination light came on on my digital camera.
In spite of these obstacles, Rosie still made a decent meal.

Here's our dessert - strawburry pie.

You could use a pastry crust, but I decided to use a graham cracker crust.
I just combined crushed graham crackers, melted butter, some honey, and brown sugar.

For the filling:

1 quart strawberries
1 cup sugar

1/4 cup cold water
2 TB cornstarch

2 TB butter

Slice the strawberries and bring to a boil with the sugar, mashing and stirring.
Boil for about 9 minutes.

Then add the mixture of water and cornstarch.
Cook until thickened

Add the butter and stir until melted.

Mix a few tablespoons of strawberry mixture with about 4-5 ounces of softened cream cheese.

Spread the cream cheese mixture over the bottom of the crust.

Pick out some of the larger, nicer shaped strawberries and place in the cream cheese.
Then pour the rest of the strawberry mixture over top.
Refrigerate.

Slice of strawburry pie with chocolate covered strawburry.



Uh oh. What's this??!!!??
Mama Hawthorne is a closet Fandra.
She Semi-Ho'd my pie!



While Mama Hawthorne checked her email,
I went back to the kitchen to make tonight's dessert-
Pineapple Cake.

Here's the cake - one of the simplest, quickest, and tastiest cakes I've ever had:

2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 can crushed pineapple

Mix together dry ingredients and stir in eggs, pineapple, and pineapple joos.
Pour batter into a greased 9 x 13 inch baking dish.

Bake 30-35 minutes in a pre-heated 350 degree oven or until edges come away from pan.

While cake is cooling, prepare the icing.

1 stick butter
1 package cream cheese
2 cups confectioner's sugar
1 TB vanilla

Mix all together and spread on top of cake.

I cut the cake in half, since Imonna take half to Maxine for dessert tonight.
The toothpicks are there so the plastic wrap won't get all in the icing.

Here are the roses from out of my garden which I brought to Mama Hawthorne.
Aren't they pretty?

Mama Hawthorne gave me explicit directions on where to place the roses on top of her piano but
I wasn't following directions very well, unfortunately, and just didn't put them
exactly where she wanted them.

Move the pictures on either side. Not that way! That way.
No, no, no. Move that one to the left. NO! The other left.
Now, move that one back to the other side. No, not that side. I said the other side.
You get the picture.

Oooh, ooh ... Roses on your piano ...
That reminds me of a joke:
What's better than roses on your piano?

Go no further, Mama Hawthorne.


Tulips on your organ.

Mama, I told you not to go any further.

May Day Dinner.

Happy May Day everyone!

I've just come inside from exciting May Pole activities involving rent-a-kids
and I'm ready to fix dinner.

Remember this EPISODE
from Sandra Lee.

Here is one of my all time favorite SLoP arussippees.
From that EPISODE.

Can you imagine actually feeding that to a child?
This recipe was designed to be fed to the children
(Sandy's rent-a-kids)
frolicking around the Maypole.

Look closely at the picture in "SLoP arussippees."

What, at first glance appears to be 6 bite-sized pieces of dainty sandwich, is actually, on closer inspection, one great, big, honking FLOWER CUTOUT that's big as crap, with the
6 dainty sandwiches being petals (???).

The six "petals" are weighted down with Sandy Krap.
Sandy Krap inkludes salmon cream cheese, tarragon, and capers ... for CHILDREN!

And if one were so inclined,
how the hell is one supposed to eat that konkokshun?


OK, back to dinner:

I had bought numerous chicken bosoms on sale the other week for $1.49/pound and pulled two out of the freezer.

And now I'm thinking to myself, " Self, how can I do chicken differently?"

Hee! Who else would I be thinking to?

Oh, I know, I know. Imonna think to the DOG. "DOG, take the garbage out and pick up all the pine cones in the yard and put them in a neighbor's yard. Good DOG! Good DOG!"

It's like Daddy used to say, "... in my own mind ... ."
And Mama would say, "Well, who the hell else's?"
Oh, God. I'm turning into my mother.
But I digress.

Not knowing exactly where I'm going with the chicken, I start getting my ingredients together.
Right now, I'm playing it by ear.

Here, I have black sesame seeds, sesame oil, Mandarin oranges, Grey Poupon Dijon mustard, some almonds, fresh asparagus out of my garden, snow peas, cucumber, and lemon.

I'm starting a dressing here. I used the juice of one lemon, then added some of the Mandarin orange joose, and then decided it needed the juice of one lime.
Some Dijon mustard and sesame oil go in, then I whisked in some Bertolli Extra Lite Olive Oil.
Ooh, ooh! Looking at the picture, I remember now that I put some minced garlic in it too.

It needs some more, so I added chopped cucumbers and black sesame seeds.

Next, I toasted the sliced almonds and chopped the snow peas, asparagus, and green onions.

I salted and peppered the slightly pounded chicken bosoms and sauteed them in a combination of butter and olive oil (Land o' Lakes unsalted and Bertolli Extra Light Olive Oil).

After the chicken was done, I tossed in the snow peas and asparagus for a minute or two.

I chopped up the chicken and added the snow peas, asparagus, almonds, and oranges.

This is looking pretty good.

Then I added the sesame/cucumber dressing.

Oh, I forgot.
I decided to add in some chili-garlic sauce to the dressing, about 1 teaspoon.

Add in the scallions and toss thoroughly.

Place on a tortilla with shredded lettuce.

Wrap the tortilla up (And yes, I used toothpicks.), place in the toaster oven, and toast all over.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know this one is a tad overly "toasted."
But I like it like that.

Youngest Hawthorne ate two wraps.

This was different and quite good.

I have some leftover chicken mixture which would be really good on a salad.


OK, next up ... the cleaning of the stove.

Me: The stove is filthy. I've cleaned it the last 12 times. It's your turn.

Mr. H.: I don't want to.

Me: I know you don't want to. Neither do I. But I'm tired of doing this crap all the time while you just sit there and watch TV.

Mr. H.: Quitcher naggin'. I wanna see the news.

So's, I go take the grills off the stove top, sighing heavily and quite audibly, and commence to rip off about a dozen sheets off the paper towel roll.

Mr. H: What the hell are you doing?

Me: I'm cleaning the stove.

Mr. H.: But you're wasting paper towels!

Me: No I'm not. I need these to clean the stove with.

Mr. H.: Oh for crying out loud. Get the hell out of the way and let me do it.
You're doing it all wrong

Me: Well, if you really think so.

Mission accomplished.
Heh.

I don't know if I've mentioned this or not, but Mr. H. is a Virgo.
Attention to detail.
Here, he's taken the burner tops off and is cleaning underneath.

There was some particularly stubborn matter next to this one burner.
Mr. H. is using is finger nail to scrape it up.

If I said he was anal, that would be a bit of an understatement.

I'm surprised he doesn't suck up the furniture when he sits down.