pork! pork! pork!

so yea....no new updates. no camera still has me unmotivated. i'm still cooking of course. i mean, i have to eat. like tonight. tonight i baked some chicken and made some twice baked potatoes for my friends kp and mk and we watched, "mr. smith goes to washington." fabulous movie. i love jimmy stewart. so cute. so honest. so genuine. sigh....... they don't make 'em like they used to.

so the chicken. i picked up some boneless, skinless chicken breasts and thighs and pounded them out. then i marinated them for about 1 1/2 hours in fresh squeezed lemon juice and minced garlic. i melted some butter and olive oil in a small pan and then let it cool. i brushed the chicken with the butter/olive oil and then dredged it in a mix of breadcrumbs, fresh thyme (from my garden! the herbs are still kickin'!), salt and pepper. then i baked the chicken on a cookie sheet for about 25 minutes.

in the meantime i baked two potatoes in the microwave. then i scooped 'em out and put the hollowed out skins back in the oven to crisp up. while those were crisping (and the chicken was bakin') i smashed together the scooped out potato, some chopped green onions, sharp cheddar cheese, salt, pepper and some sour cream. i re-stuffed the skins and then put 'em back in the oven. mmmmmm....it smelled good in my kitchen. when everything was done i topped the potatoes with a lil' more cheese and some chopped chives (also from the garden!).

kp, mk and myself enjoyed this dinner with some red wine (me) and some cider and rum (kp and mk) while we watched jimmy stewart as a young idealistic junior senator take washington by storm!

oh! and last night i was feeling like i could accomplish things so i finally set up the printer/scanner/copier that my aj and uncle stu-hoo gave me months ago. and since i can scan now i scanned the following photo:



i took this photo months - maybe years - ago up at the west side market. man, i love that place. and i love pig. next time kp, mk and i get together to watch an old timey film i'm cookin' up a pork dish!

nothin' you haven't seen before

i am still without a digital camera. this sucks so badly. i think i'm going to try to finagle one outta my parents for either christmas or my birthday. my friend gentle ben offered to sell me his for $30 but at that price i'm not so sure. is it busted? does it suck? i think i'm just gonna go ahead and shoot for a new one.

last night i made myself a fine meal but it's nothing new to you. i acquired a ton of collard greens last week and i've been keeping 'em fresh in a bowl of water in my fridge. i also had the other key ingredient handy - bacon. i've taken to freezing it now so i almost always have some on hand. i whipped up some greens and a yummy half of an acorn squash.

i ate this delightful dinner while drinking a few guinness and watching some like it hot.

i guess this movie is a classic. i liked marilyn monroe cuz she is nice to look at and she had a great line, "i'm not a drunk. i can quit drinking any time i want to. i just don't want to." ha! however i decided that i don't really like tony curtis. he just isn't very good looking or much of a leading man. and the ending of this movie.....gimme a break. at least i was comforted by collard greens and squash.

bad news on the blog front

last weekend the shitetarian and i headed out to the beautiful beaches of delaware. bethany beach to be exact and it was
fucking awesome.

the seafood feasts we cooked in our tiny condo kitchen were remarkable. outta this world. i'm talking mind blowing, buzz inducing seafood feasts (or was that the vodka......)

the bad news in this otherwise heartwarming tale of good eats, good friends and good booze is that my digital camera bit the dust while we were out there!

i captured day one's dinner (grilled shrimp two ways [a chipotle, lime marinade and a simple olive oil, red pepper flakes, salt mix], steamed clams in white wine and garlic, and steamed hard shell crabs with melted butter) but that was it. i attempted to capture the remaining dinners with my 35mm but who knows if those photos will end up being blog quality or not (that might have something to do with the vodka......)

so yea. i can't get the few digital pics i was able to take off of my camera and i am flat broke (from the seafood....and maybe the vodka....) so i can't afford to develop my film, let alone pick up a new digital camera.

it is a sad, sad miserable time for the erratic epicurean (so sad in fact i am talking in the third person. christ. maybe that was caused by the debate beers - MY FRIENDS, my friends, mY fRiEnDs - the viper knows what i'm talking about). so yea. no digital camera. it makes blogging much less fun.

what do you care if i made a kick ass pot roast with carrots and onions and mashed potatoes and pan gravy tonight?
you can't see it.

man, this totally blows.

northeast ohio tomatoes. yummmmmm......

so the other day i came across this recipe for tomato soup. it sounded so delightful i couldn't resit. i had an onion and peppers and i decided to hit szalay's after work for a couple of big, homegrown tomatoes.

i cut up some tomatoes, a red pepper, an onion and a couple of yellow peppers. the recipe called for NO yellow peppers but it did call for three yellow onions. hmmmm. well, i only had one onion and i picked some peppers just cuz they were yellow and spicy and i threw in a few extra garlic cloves to make up for the lost onions.



i poured olive oil over everything and then sprinkled it with some salt. i left the garlic in the peel cuz the recipe told me too and also because roasted garlic is one of the best things ever.

i roasted the veggies in the oven for about an hour.



once they were brown and tasty looking i took 'em out of the oven and started scooping them into my food processor. when garlic is roasted just right you can just squeeze ir right outta the peel. mmmmmmm. squeeze this out on to some triscuits - that shit is tops!!



i scooped in the roasted veggies and i slowly added some vegetable broth. i seasoned it with some salt and red pepper flakes and i just pulsed away.



mmmmm. it smelled so good in my apartment. those roasting veggies - yum!

soup's on. here it is. roasted tomato soup.



i picked up a really yummy lil' block of parmesan cheese up at the market last week. you know you have the good stuff when it just crumbles between your fingers. so i crumbled some into my soup. i paired this soup with a tasty mojito cuz i had all the fixin's and they just taste so damn good. roasted ohio tomato soup and mojitos with my own garden mint. yum. yum. yum.