Ravioli with Perfectly Grilled Chicken and Olive Oil

            Yesterday I BBQ brats from the grill for dinner.  Thinking ahead, I grabbed some chicken breasts and burgers, figuring I could fix a quick meal after school for a couple of days with the extra meat.  Last evening while I prepared the grill my son Ted handed me a bag of charcoal that had hickory wood imbedded into each briquette.  I filled the bottom of the grill, one layer deep with charcoal and made sure to put some lighter fluid on each piece.  Next, I built a pyramid out of the saturated pieces, packed tightly together.  I lit the charcoals and Poof! An impressive flame leaped up.  This next step is where most people fail with cooking on the grill:  Do not start cooking on the grill until most of each briquette is gray.  Otherwise your food will taste like lighter fluid, or you might not get an even cooking area.  Next, spread them around the grill, put aluminum on the grate and start cooking.  For years my husband and I have had discussions about how to light the grill.  In the end I assert my father’s method is best.  I like to think he is looking down from heaven’s backyard and smiling; he was a man who loved his grilling (and his fires). 

            Ravioli with Perfectly Grilled Chicken and Olive Oil

In a pan put two sliced carrots, one chopped onion and two garlic bulbs.  Cook them in butter or olive oil until tender; add salt and pepper to taste.

Add:  Cooked Chicken breasts cut into bite size pieces.

In a different pot cook your cheese ravioli.  When they are floating on top of the water pull them out, they are finished.  Over-cooked ravioli is not pleasant to eat.  Put your servings of desired amount of ravioli on dinner plates, (more if your husband is thin and less if he is challenged), add chicken and vegetables over the top.  Now pour a small amount of olive oil over everything topping it with a small amount of parmesan cheese, place fresh chopped basil on the top.  Normally I eat Alfredo sauce on my ravioli, but this time I was quite pleased with how the olive oil went with the creamy centers of the ravioli. 

P.S.:  You can often get home-made ravioli at your butcher.  It is much to be preferred over mass-produced globs of dough. 

Lettuce and Cucumber Salad

I pride myself on being a wise mom.  If you want to see your kids often, find them a home down the street from yours.  Not too close, least they feel their privacy is violated.  My son Ted’s home is about eight houses from mine.  He likes how close we are, but he likes how his home is around the corner to keep his nosy mom out of his business.  My daughter found a home less than a mile away.  She has privacy and yet can raid my refrigerator at any time.  I love this living situation; it is almost like we live on a big estate on different ends of the property.  All I have to do is cook dinner for the family and my budget savvy kids come running.  Why buy food if mom wants to cook for them?  I love this set up, my kids are never too far away to pay me a visit and they are always ready for a meal.  Of course this does not count for my oldest daughter Amanda and her husband Michael who abandoned us in Michigan to live in South Carolina.  Hey, you kids!  Eat more salad!

           

            Lettuce and Cucumber Salad

            Chop any type of lettuce other than iceberg head

Slice a Hot house cucumber down the center, and then slice little half moon pieces.  (The type of cucumber that you eat the skin)

Add olive oil, vinegar, dill, sugar, salt and pepper to taste.

Mix together with the salad and add ½ chopped onion. 

Bon Appétit!

Good bye Luna

                                       (Sorry about the video being sideways)

Today is a very sad day for the Rabourn household.  Our beloved dog Luna had to be put to sleep after a six month fight with grand mal seizures.  Her sweet personality who loved to run around singing to me every time I arrived home turned into a lethargic and neurotic dog who degraded into alternating between fitful sleep, food, and seeking help when she was having her seizures.  The last couple of sleepless night has been very difficult for our family.  Today our vet advised us we had no real hope of avoiding a continuing decline.  Brian and I were present as the vet put her to sleep.  Before the "red" needle, he put her into a sleep.  As she went out, her anxious crazies turned to a very peaceful Luna, relaxed, placing her head on my lap for comfort.  I told her to go "night night" and that I loved her.  Luna will be greatly missed.

Fajitas

            Every family has their own version of a quick meal, from T.V. dinners to McDonalds.  When I was a kid my parents came up with the “genius” idea of having each of us kids take a day of the week where we would cook dinner, wash dishes and wash the laundry.  There happened to be seven people in the family, so this method works, kind of.  It worked only if you think of eating pot pies, hotdogs and beans, goop (hamburger and beans), and pancakes as dinner.  I remember after I got married I tried to make a breakfast dinner.  Brian looked at the food and told me, “breakfast food belongs at breakfast time.”  He liked what I cooked for dinner and did not want to miss out on a good evening meal.  These days, I might make a breakfast dinner, but not too often, maybe twice a year.  After twenty-five years of marriage I actually have created several of my own forms of healthy quick meals; anything but T.V. dinners and hotdogs cut up in beans.

            Fajitas

            2lbs of steak – marinate for at least two hours.

            Marinade      

            ½ cup olive oil

            ¼ cup vinegar

            1 clove garlic

            6 shakes of Worcestershire sauce

            6 shakes of Soy sauce

            1 Tbsp fresh ginger or 1 tsp ground ginger

After the steak has marinated for at least two hours cook whole in marinade.  After cooked, slice the steak against the grain in thin slices.  Empty almost all of the liquid from the pan and add: butter, sliced mushrooms, green peppers, onion and salt to taste.  Make sure that you do not stir too frequently, you want the mushrooms to get a bit brown before flipping them; onions should be slightly browned too.

            On a soft tortilla add refried beans, steak, mushroom, green pepper, onion, cheddar cheese, sour cream and Jalapeños; any other vegetable that you might desire.  Then eat up.  This meal is fast and easy, but expensive in a restaurant. 

Little Bear Corn Bread

            “Dorothy, my Grandma’s last name was Rainey because she remarried Spears Rainey from Athens, Alabama.  Now Spears was a fine man, whose favorite thing in the world to do was go squirrel hunting with his brother Ray.  My dad often said Spears was fit because he never ate more than one helping of any meal.  I know there was one exception:  cornbread and pinto beans.”  For years, Brian imitated an Alabama accent to the family, telling us funny stories of a man from the south who migrated to the north where he couldn’t get enough of “that sweet Kalkaska water”.  When Brian spoke like Spears the words seemed to get lost between his phalanx and his lips, as he spoke in an exaggerated whisper, where every sentence sounded like one long word.  So, in memory of our giggles and fun times at Spears’s expense, I finally developed my own version of cornbread.

            The first and most important point, I do not make a hard disc which needs several ladles of gravy.  Nor is it that nasty little blue-boxed mix of my child hood which contained ingredients for a weird yellow cake they called cornbread.  Mine is home-made and is not too dry or too sweet; it is just right for us.

            Little Bear Corn Bread

            1 cup cornmeal

            1 cup flour

            ¼ cup of sugar

            4 teaspoons of baking power

            ¼ cream of tarter

            ¼ cup melted butter or cooking oil - I prefer butter

            2 eggs

            1 cup of milk

I usually cook mine with my other foods on 350 and do not really pay attention to the cooking time, so this is where the guess work comes in.  Try letting it cook for 30 - 40 min.  Keep an eye on it; when you can stick a knife in it and it comes out clean, it’s time to eat!  BTW, Brian insists I mention his favorite way to eat my cornbread is topped with my strawberry freezer jam.  Maybe he’s trying to tell me it’s been too long since I made a batch of my world famous jam!