Outside the dugout: What's cooking?

Spent Thursday, Friday and Saturday in DC with my eldest eating at not fancy but well regarded restaurants according to the Washington Post food critic. The first night was really good. I had a proper chicken mole. Excellent. The next night was at one of the many Ethiopian restaurants around Silver Spring. Really good food. Not as fancy as Das in Georgetown by a long shot but the food was to the same level. On Saturday we went to a Oaxacan Mexican restaurant. Everybody got stellar food except for me. I ordered the weekend special posole and it was OK but I make a better one. I make mine with pork shoulder and a traditional posole would use lesser cuts/guts and I expected that. Instead they used leaner pork like pork loin or center cut pork chop meat. And I make a tasty pepper sauce with ancho and arbol chillies to spice it up but with a deep flavor profile mostly from the ancho. What I got wasn't very spicy. It was good but I have to say what I make and it takes most of the day to make was better.

Sunday was flying back out of BWI so airport food and drinks. Over priced and not very good.

Tonight I didn't cook as my youngest and I are going to the Gator bball game and my wife is arriving too late for that and will be making something for her and her mother. My youngest is out getting Dick's burgers.

 

On Saturday we went to the National Arboretum. Really cool place.

On Sunday before we left we went to the Hirshhorn art museum because they had a Basquiat piece that the street artist Banksy quoted in a piece he erected outside a Basquiat show. They had both pieces of art shown in the same room. Not to everyone's taste but I found it awesome. Seeing them together was like seeing a total solar eclipse.

For many people it would be like "This is art?" but for me it was fantastic to see.

 

Last night was clam linguini. It was the olive oil, parsley and garlic style and not a cream or tomato sauce variety.

Tonight I am grilling some brats and my wife is making a bread salad.

 

Just started my KJ and poured myself a finger of that.

 

Got two chickens on the KJ. Just as much work to do one as two.

 

Just took two perfect chickens off my KJ.

I love cooking them in a ceramic cooker because they stay moist. I cooked these a bit faster (3 hours at a higher temp) than I usually do because of time constraints. Chickens do not need to be cooked "low and slow" because you don't need to melt connective tissue but a "low and slow" cook imparts more smoke and keeps the chicken juicier.

I cook two at a time to have lots of lovely smoky chicken for enchiladas and chicken salad with the leftovers.

 

Going old school with a chicken spaghetti casserole today. Gotta use some of that left over chicken for something.

 

Sounds good.

I would have worked in some crawdads but I am the only one in my family that likes them. My older sister used to love "pinching tails and sucking heads" but she died over ten years ago. I miss her.

 

Never made the chicken spaghetti before and it was really good. So many variations on that can be made. I will try going off recipe to find my own way of cooking it. I strictly followed a NYT recipe this time to get a baseline.

Tonight will be chicken enchiladas with my homemade green tomatillo sauce. I shredded the second chicken for this so there will be some leftover chicken as we won't need a whole chicken. My wife is the master of the enchilada assembly so I left that up to her. And she needs to get some Cointreau on the way home for margaritas. We have limes, simple syrup and good tequila already in house.

 

Leftover chicken enchiladas with margaritas.

 

Take-out for a quick bite before going to the basketball game.

 

Last night was ground pork with green beans, Fresno chilies, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, garlic and ginger over rice. I usually added diced tomatoes but I was in a rush to get dinner done before the Lady Gator volleyball game came on.

Tonight is a 1950's classic: Tamale Pie from the Joy of Cooking cookbook. My only tweak is to use fresh corn and not canned or frozen. It is surprisingly good.