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And so the Chicago Dog Salad was deemed to be not only “actually totally edible”, but also “better than expected”. An unexpected non-disaster. Amazingly, no pizzas were ordered in the making of this evening. Tomorrow, we tackle Pork Chops with Grainy Mustard and Raisin Sauce; at least some of which sounds good. I’ll reveal the fascinating details of how to make the hot dog salad tomorrow; I’m sure you can hardly wait.

This evening we rustled up Asian-Style Cashew Chicken in about 20 minutes. Of course it helped that we made a double portion of the extra-long-cooking-rice last night, which we just bunged in the microwave to heat up. This is one of the few times that we’ve actually managed to plan ahead enough to not have to cook the exact same element of a dish two days in a row. The recipe is very straightforward with plenty of vegetables, which was refreshing. Onions, garlic, scallions, pea pods, red peppers and beansprouts were stir-fried with the chicken and hot pepper flakes over a high heat in vegetable oil. Duck sauce and tamari were added to create an Asian-Style sauce, and a hefty amount of cashew nuts were stirred in to the concoction. Like yesterday, I left out the parsley or cilantro garnish, preferring to let the flavours of the dish speak for themselves.

I don’t think that I have actually had duck sauce before; I was imagining hoisin or plum sauce, both of which I love. The duck sauce seemed a little on the cloyingly sweet side, which seems a bizarre thing to say after yesterday’s meal flavoured with maple syrup and honey. The tamari offset the sweetness a little, but we both used a fair amount of soy sauce to counteract the sugar with some salt. However, this was a good meal. With the maple honey chipotle sauce of yesterday, and the vegetables of today, this would be a fantastic meal. Especially if the chicken was replaced with char siu. Perfect.

So tomorrow is Dog Day around here. Our friends who have the dubious pleasure of coming over for dinner tomorrow have offered to bring a can of chilli to make Chilli Dog Salad, or batter and sticks so we can make Corndog Salad. Surely even salad on a stick can’t compete with the heady culinary delights we have in store for us tomorrow. Chicago Dog Salad. It’s going to be sublime.

This evening I made a delicious stir fry for Baby A, with the intention that she could have some for dinner tonight, and some for lunch tomorrow. Between us, we ate it all. So after putting her to bed, I made another delicious stir fry for Baby A to take for lunch tomorrow, and then set about making Park City Cashew Chicken. This is a really easy, really good recipe that Rachael Ray invented after eating some chipotle cashew nuts from a grocery store in Utah (true story). The basic ingredients are onion, garlic, red pepper, cashew nuts and chicken, with the seasoning and flavour provided by grill seasoning, cumin, chipotle powder (or chipotle in adobo), honey and maple syrup. It tastes great; rich and warm and spicy and sweet, and it should be incredibly fast to make.

The only slight drawback to this recipe, was the rice assembly. The dish calls for brown rice, and I did consider using the pretty much instant stuff that I had on hand (see stir fry, earlier). In the interests of authenticity, I followed the directions and fried some onions, then the rice, in some butter and oil. The chicken stock went in the pot, and I set the kitchen timer for 18 minutes, as directed. When the time was up, the rice was still waterlogged, and pretty much raw. I checked the package on our brown rice, and it said to cook for 35-40 minutes. It pretty much took that long for the rice to be edible, which was a shame because the main part of the meal only took about 10 minutes to cook including preparation time.

Other than the rice timing issue, this is a great meal. We debated giving it five stars, but feel it falls just short of utterly exceptional. I would never have thought of flavouring this dish with the chipotle and the maple syrup, but it is certainly successful. I could see the glaze being great on pork and probably good on the grill. Tomorrow we remake the cashew chicken element in a more usual fashion for Asian-Style Cashew Chicken. It’s made with duck sauce and tamari, both of which I distinctly remember buying, but can not for the life of me find in the kitchen. And there’s only so many places I could have put them, so maybe I just dreamt I bought them. How sad.

Reading the recipe for Turkey Club Super Mashers, I thought that putting bacon into mashed potato was just gratuitous. Having made this meal, we discovered what presumably many other people already know; bacon in mashed potato is fantastic. Truly amazing, perhaps we’ll never again have vegetarian potatoes. There was also watercress and tomato mixed in there, which actually worked pretty well in conjunction with the crunchy pieces of delicious bacon. Although the first mouthful of warm potato and cold tomato was a little disconcerting, the taste was acquired very quickly.

Topping the potato was sliced grilled turkey and a thyme gravy, decorated with chopped scallions. Presumably this is some sandwich variation, substituting the BLT for BLT mash. It sounds ridiculous, and we had been sceptical, but really this was very good; highly recommended. Tomorrow we start two days of cashew nut chicken, with Park City Cashew Chicken. I’m pretty excited about that, and of course each meal brings us closer to the Chicago Dog Salad. The pickles have been purchased, the hot dogs are in our fridge. Who knows, perhaps we might be blown away by this culinary masterpiece?

Waking up at 5.30am to throw up is not so unusual for me these days, but hearing L in the other bathroom being equally ill with some flu-like thing is certainly not commonplace. L called in sick at work today for the second time in six years, and never have I been more grateful that we have two bathrooms in our condo. Fortunately, Baby A isn’t sick at the moment, so she went off to daycare, which made the day considerably easier, and probably much more entertaining for her. L and I spent all day alternating between bathroom visits and trying to sleep off the lurgy. Suffice to say that we weren’t too much looking forward to cooking or eating Honey-Orange-Glazed Ham Steaks with Spicy Black Bean, Zucchini and Corn Salad tonight.

In an attempt to keep this brief, we didn’t particularly enjoy dinner tonight. The honey orange glaze with chili powder, chicken stock, salt and pepper cooked down to be a reasonably tasty topping for the meat. We couldn’t get ham steaks, so we substituted pork chops, and they were pretty tasty. The warm side salad tasted good half way through cooking, when it consisted of red onion, garlic, jalapeño, sweetcorn, black bean, zucchini and chicken stock. At its completion, it also contained parsley, orange zest, lime zest and lime juice. Suddenly the flavours were not so harmonic and there was an uneasy clash of tastes. The parsley was particularly dominant, and just overpowered everything else.

In summary, this is a reasonably easy tasty glaze, but we won’t remake the side salad. Tomorrow, turkey cutlets on BLT mashed potatoes; Turkey Club Super Mashers. I really hope the morning sickness and L’s stomach bug thing subside a bit by then.

This evening’s meal, Lemony Crispy Chicken Cutlets and Roasted Tomato Salad with Pine Nuts and Blue Cheese was the perfect meal to cook when you have zero energy. It took very little effort, with a lot of pottering around the kitchen waiting for things to cook. This stress-free meal tasted good and looked quite pretty on the plate. Overall, a winner, but I’m still dreaming of pizza.

The tomatoes were halved and tossed in a little olive oil, salt, pepper, fresh thyme and garlic, then put in the oven to roast for twenty minutes. At this point, the pine nuts should have been toasted, had we not run out. Neither of us could face a trip to the store, so our version ended up being pine nut free. The chicken was prepared, assembly-line style, with seasoning, flour, egg then a final coat of breadcrumbs with lemon zest. Fried in vegetable oil for a few minutes on each side, the cutlet was tasty and moist and delicious. No old boot here. When the tomatoes were roasted, they were chopped and mixed in a salad bowl with the spinach, lemon juice, salt, pepper, (not) pinenuts and a drizzle of olive oil. I skipped the extra oil as the salad wilted nicely with the heat of the tomatoes. Served on a plate with some lemon slices, the salad was finished with some cheese crumbles. Very nice.

Tomorrow we will be having Honey-Orange-Glazed Ham Steaks with Spicy Black Bean, Zucchini and Corn Salad which sounds reasonably good. Now please excuse the overly-short entry, I need to go hunt and gather for something to satisfy my pizza craving.

This afternoon we went over to see friends and eat dinner with them. Because of the high children count between us, we ate at around 5pm. We got pizza delivered and had delicious pepperoni yumminess which I could eat for the rest of my life, or at least the rest of this pregnancy. At least until my heartburn returns. Anyway, we then came home, did the bath, books, bed thing with Baby A, and then cooked Garlic and Herb Chicken with Romesco Sauce on Spicy Greens. We had intended to cook our allocated meal at lunch time, but because the kitchen is next to the baby’s room, we’d rather starve over the lunch hour than risk waking her from her singular nap of the day. So tonight we made a tiny portion of chicken, which L ate and proclaimed to be very good. I had some of the sauce on half a slice of toast and proclaimed it good, but not as good as the pizza.

Fortunately, this is one of the easiest recipes that we’ve made to date. In the mini food-processor I blended garlic, parsley, thyme, salt and pepper, and olive oil. The green paste was smeared on the chicken breasts which were cooked on the skillet for a few minutes per side. Meanwhile I toasted some almonds then chucked them in the food processor with some toasted bread, garlic, roasted red peppers, red wine vinegar, and half a chopped plum tomato. The whole lot whizzed up into a paste with a sort of thick clumpy texture.

The chicken was sliced and placed on a bed of spicy greens, with a dollop of the sauce on top. The meal probably took 15 minutes to cook, with minimal clear up, even with the use of the food processor. This meal is very elegant and light, and would be a good one to serve to impress people with minimal involvement. It is, as L said, something you’d be happy to get for lunch and actually pay for. The sauce is intriguing- the toast and ground almonds give it a certain substance, without being overly heavy or stodgy. The red wine vinegar and garlic are noticeable, without being overbearing; there is a good depth of flavour. Also worth noting is that this sauce is one of the few really tasty things we’ve made this year that hasn’t had half a cup of olive oil and/ or 4 tablespoons of butter added. I imagine it would heat up well and go nicely with large pasta shapes, and be relatively diet friendly, if these things concern you.

When you blog about what you eat every day, there must be a slippy slope down which you can easily slip to start talking about paying your bills or cleaning the cat litter (or not, thank you pregnancy). In the spirit of not being quite there yet, but being extremely close, I feel compelled to talk about our grocery shopping exploits. We decided to go entirely organic last week, which was very morally rewarding, although very spendy. However, the recycled unbleached tissue almost made the skin on my poor overblown nose bleed, and we couldn’t do $5 for 15 freezer bags. Within hours I went out to buy Kleenex with lotion, morals be damned. The last few weeks I’ve been shopping in our not so pleasant but certainly cheap grocery store option, in an attempt to cut down our expenditure a little. So, it was with great delight on my part that we went back to Super Target this morning for the dull essentials. Oh Target, how I’ve missed you. And oh previous life, when Saturday morning happiness meant a lie in and a good book or some other bedside entertainment, how I sincerely miss you. Really.

Moving on, tomorrow we might just be making some more chicken with Lemony Crispy Chicken Cutlets and Roasted Tomato Salad with Pine Nuts and Blue Cheese. Then we have a ham day, a turkey day, then two more chicken days before we hit the highlight menu of the first quarter of the book; Chicago Dog Salad. Yes, it’s a salad, a hot dog salad; all the ingredients of a Chicago Dog, minus the bun. A hot dog salad. And we have friends coming over for dinner that night, because we know how to treat people exceptionally well. Did I mention that it’s a hot dog salad? The countdown begins.

This evening I made Salmon Burgers with Ginger-Wasabi Mayo and Sesame-Crusted French Fries. I was really excited to have oven chips/ fries, because it seems like forever since we got to eat really, really low maintenance food. But the easy bung the chips in the oven part of the meal was pretty much offset, effort-wise, by making the salmon burgers from scratch. The salmon fillets were ground up in the food processor, with garlic, ginger, scallions, red pepper, tamari and grill seasoning added. Formed into monster burgers, they were then fried in vegetable oil. Meanwhile, I mixed the mayonnaise with ginger, lime juice and enough wasabi paste to make L pant (I opted out in favour of tomato ketchup, old habits die hard). When the oven chips had 3 minutes left to cook, they were encrusted in sesame seeds, and put back in the oven. The burgers were served on sesame rolls with lettuce and the spicy mayonnaise; the fries piled alongside.

If this recipe was mine, I would go one of two ways. Either acknowledge that making burgers from scratch is a bit of an effort, and so call them fishcakes. These Asian-style fishcakes would be great with a tangy dipping sauce, served with any vegetable and maybe a little rice. Or, buy a good quality fishburger, ditch the Asian styling, and just have fishburger and chips. The fusion style food didn’t particularly work in this instance. The enormous doughy breadbun masked the taste and effort of the burger, making it seem like much more run-of-the-mill food than it actually was. The fries with sesame seeds just didn’t happen. We sprinkled the seeds and tossed the chips with a spatula as directed, then put them back in the oven. Three minutes later, we had fries with sesame seeds alongside- they certainly hadn’t stuck to the potato and were far from Sesame-Crusted. Surely some sticky element was needed for that to be successful.

The whole meal was a little disappointing and anaemic-looking. Part of this could have been our use of organic fries, which didn’t have any other additives, colourings etc so stayed a bit on the whiter side of pale throughout the cooking process. The fish burgers were good, but completely overshadowed. As I mentioned earlier, I ended up eating my serving with ketchup in the bun and salt and vinegar on the chips, completely obliterating the fusion elements, as I is classy an’ that. Still, I did consider ditching the fish entirely and putting the chips in the bun for a delicious chip butty. But, on a rare day when I haven’t been sick, I thought the fish and vegetables may provide some much-needed nutritional relief. I did counteract any good work with a gigantic bowl of ice cream and crushed biscuits/ cookies, in case you’re concerned.

Tomorrow we will be eating Garlic and Herb Chicken with Romesco Sauce on Spicy Greens. Presumably my slightly schizophrenic use of English and American words will calm down when we go back to talking about chicken. Unless we’re eating it on the pavement/ sidewalk, or making heavy use of the rubbish bin/ trash can. Don’t get me started on the bum/ fanny conundrum, and the terrible misunderstandings that can cause.

This evening, in between bouts of morning sickness and a split appointment with a tax professional, L and I made Grilled Chicken Paillard with Grilled Red Onion and Asparagus Salad. Our grilling was done indoors, on a grill pan, but this meal was still pretty tasty. The asparagus and onion were charred on the grill until tender, then chopped and thrown in a salad bowl. There they were joined by grape tomatoes, lettuce, basil, with a dressing of Dijon mustard, white wine vinegar and olive oil.

The chicken breasts were pounded until they hit the confines of the freezer bags in which they were being assaulted. The flattened meat was marinated exceedingly briefly in lemon juice and olive oil, and then grilled swiftly until cooked, when their transformation into Paillards became complete. This is certainly an easy meal, and a reasonably satisfying one too. Unfortunately my non-too-settled stomach did protest at the chicken, and really I only picked at the grape tomatoes. L ate more, although he too left some chicken. Whilst nicely grilled and pleasantly lemony, I think we’re just chickened out. The salad was very good, although we both found the lettuce and basil to be a bit superfluous. The asparagus and onion were great with the grape tomatoes, and didn’t even particularly need a dressing.

All in all, an enjoyable enough meal. Tomorrow we are having Salmon Burgers with Ginger-Wasabi Mayo and Sesame-Crusted French Fries, which I am ridiculously excited about because we get to eat oven fries. And they’re not tossed in butter or mutilated in some way- they merely have sesame seeds stuck to them. How un-fry like can they be? Now, if you’ll excuse the short entry, our daughter seems to have embarked upon a new improved cough and cold which is keeping her awake; just what we all need.

This evening, L and I made Cheddar-Studded Tex-Mex Meatloaf Patties, Scallion Smashed Potatoes, and Spicy Pan Gravy which is pretty much the same dish as we made yesterday, with a few tweaks, and served with mash rather than green beans. The recipe book says that you should omit cheddar cheese, and also add cheddar cheese to the meatloaf recipe. These “variations” on the “master recipes” can be a little confusing to follow. The ingredients list is not broken up into the individual elements of the dish, so it is difficult to isolate what you need for just the meatloaf patties, for example. When the variation recipe says follow the instructions for the master recipe, it doesn’t mention what you should specifically add, substitute or do differently. So you actually need to engage your brain to cross-reference the two recipes to follow the directions. Which is not good when your head is filled entirely with cotton wool. Just saying.

Anyway, moving on, this was a pretty good meal, as well it should be for the eighty gazillion calories and grams of fat it must contain. The patties were all beef today, with cubes of cheddar throughout, and flavoured with cumin and coriander. The mashed potatoes with butter, sour cream and scallions were really good; stodgy, solid perfection. The pan gravy was the same onion, butter, red pepper flakes, chicken stock and heavy cream concoction that we made yesterday, but lime juice and cilantro were added. That was the only weird part of the meal. The gravy is so creamy and dense, that the lime juice just seemed misplaced. But other than that, this was certainly pleasant.

Tomorrow we will be having Grilled Chicken Paillard with Grilled Red Onion and Asparagus Salad, whatever a Paillard may be. Ok, a quick Google search tells me that the chicken breasts will be pounded thinly and cooked. Well that makes a nice change.