I apologize for my absence of late, but I have been working on solving one of life's greatest mysteries. Tonight I answered the age old question, "What does one man make for dinner with broccoli and beef?" The answer is, of course, Beef and Broccoli. This is one typical Chinese dish that I actually can make, as it involves little more than adding beef to oil, broccoli to water and both to soy sauce and corn starch. It tastes pretty much true to any dime a dozen Chinese corner shop I've ever had beef broccoli from, the only difference being that I used jasmine rice instead of the sticky ball of uniformed Styrofoam container that would usually be distributed.

The real reason I haven't updated in the last couple days (and I apologize for my tardiness) is because I've been switching between jobs. I went from being able to work whenever I feel like it, to working an early morning shift, to working a night shift and although I've managed to work in time to cook dinner, I haven't been able to find time to write about it. To make matters worse, as I was finishing catching up on a 4 day delay, the power went out and I lost a portion of it, having to rewrite it again. At any rate, I'm in a better routine now and should be able to continue maintaining on a daily basis from here on in.

Tonight I was having a hard time coming up with what to have for dinner, which seems to be a common occurrence lately. In the back of my mind was this little package of discounted ground pork that I saw at the supermarket earlier this week. Obviously either someone bought it or it has been discarded by now (I hope), but I started looking for recipes using ground pork. I found one for something that I thought was some sort of casserole by the name, Pork and Lemon Polpentine, but is actually a fancy cocktail type meatball. The original recipe called for sardines which likely would've changed the flavor quite a bit. Instead, they were flavored mainly with lemon and thyme. The meatballs themselves are a little dry, but when combined with the sauce from pan drippings and chicken stock they were actually quite good.

So then I had to ask myself what I wanted to eat with a bunch of meatballs. Since my Meatball Marinara Sub was nearly transformed into spaghetti and meatballs, I figured I'd take the pasta and meatball route. Spaghetti and meatballs wouldn't work quite as well with a thyme and lemon flavored meatball, I figured, so I made Woodland Bowtie Pasta instead. It always amazes me how expensive nuts can be, especially pine nuts. I bought perhaps 2 heaping tablespoons of pine nuts for this dish specifically and it was almost a dollar! I am a fan of pine nuts, but they are not so especially delicious that I'm willing to pay so much very often. The sauce for the pasta is created from the drippings from the meatballs, as well as the flavor of the vegetables and olive oil, one of the simplest ways to dress pasta.

Speaking of pasta, I caught an episode of the new Jamie Oliver series, "Jamie's Italy" and I love it. I think it's really ballsy for a show like his to show something like a boar being hunted and gutted for the dinner of a village. It's kind of shocking and funny to his target audience, since we're all so dissociated with where our food actually comes from. I also think it's humorous how all these old Italian ladies are teaching him to cook and he's just sitting there saying, "I know how to make pasta… please!"

Shannon's had a stressful work week and our pet tree frog has been slowly dying (and passed), so I decided to surprise her with a home spa and dining experience. I removed everything from the bathroom and scrubbed it up, strategically placed candles and such and had a full bath when she got home. Gave her tea and a magazine and assorted girly cleaning things. When she got out I had hot towels, bathrobe and slippers waiting. Then I gave her a long massage on the folded out futon and finally fed her a very simple "spa" meal, thus earning many brownie points.

Some of the things I've seen on spa menus really baffle me. The ones with alcohol and cake especially. To me, spa food seems like it should be healthy and detoxifying, not rich and fattening. I suppose people go to the spa for varying reasons and health is but one of them. I have only had the pleasure of going to a spa once (well, technically twice) during my stay in Mexico. Even then, the food was just the resort's buffet, so I just kind of made something up for this.

The entree was Stuffed Chicken with a honey Dijon sauce. Her reaction was amusing. "This tastes like something, uh.. wait.. like.. I know! PICKLE!" because of all the dill and vinegar in the mustard, I suppose. At any rate, she thought it was good.

I had a leftover Roasted Beet, so I sliced it up for presentation in a Cucumber, Beet and Feta Salad. Had I had mixed greens I would've incorporated them into this, but alone it still has a nice "I'm paying for a small plate of vegetables" feel to it that I imagine I'd feel if I ordered this at a high class spa. It's also a sneaky way of making something that tastes like pickled beets without actually having to make pickled beets. To round out the plate I used some of the leftover Green Beans and Red Pepper.

I've been having fun with the cheap bulk sirloins we purchased, trying to break away from previously having not much interest in steak. Tonight I made Indian Spiced Steak which really hit the spot. It was not too spicy or extremely flavored, but you could still really tell what it was seasoned with. Every bite was infused with a mild curry sort of flavor. I sliced it up on a bed of Tomato Rice mixed with hot sauce.

To cool this down a bit I mixed up some Cucumber Tomato Raita. Every recipe for raita that I've ever seen relies heavily on mint, but this recipe doesn't use mint, it uses cumin. I'm not sure if that even makes it raita at all. Since I didn't know what raita actually translates to, I'm going to assume the emphasis is on the cucumber and yogurt and not on the actual flavor. Either way, I thought this was good, but I still prefer mint or dill with cucumber ala traditional raita or tzatziki. The cumin gave it a smoky flavor, which was rather odd combined with yogurt, but it worked with the cumin in the steak. Maybe this is some sort of Southwest-Indian fusion raita.

On the side I made a simple dish of Curried Carrots. I think carrots and curry go together quite well, and this dish could easily be made into a soup by pureeing it with chicken stock and some extra coconut milk and topped with a bit of fresh cilantro (or not). The carrots also mix quite well with the raita, if your curry powder is especially hot.

This is quite possibly the ultimate guy dinner. First, it's meat and potatoes. Second, it involves beer. Third, it involves chicks, but that's a bit misleading. I successfully made chicken using fire and a can of beer and have therefore increased my chances of staying on the island if I am ever to play Survivor. Furthermore, Beer Can Chicken not only didn't burn the apartment down, but was actually quite delicious.

As pictured was a shot I took before the cooking process was actually done. I was afraid that something may happen to ruin it entirely, so I wanted a progress picture. After the mishap with the Beef Ribs last night, I wasn't taking any chances with drippings and created a drip tray and placed several layers of tinfoil over the grill itself with a little reserve hole. This ended up working quite well. The end product kind of confused me. Once I'd cut into the chicken, I realized that the outer part of the breast was not fully cooked, while the rest of the meat was. The can had cooked the chicken from the inside out, while the outer part was not exposed to enough heat. I ended up throwing it in a roaster for another 45 minutes which did the trick.

I put so much effort into making sure this chicken thing worked out that I didn't really plan on any side dishes. So, I had the remaining 5 beers of the 6 pack and made Chili Fried Potatoes. The spicy part was diminished since I didn't slice the chilies or used dried ones as the original recipe suggested; all that heat stayed inside the peppers and didn't transfer to the potatoes. This was intended since I did not want to burn out my taste buds and not be able to taste the delicious chicken. The flavor of the chili lightly infused the potatoes, but I suppose I could've gotten away with just using red pepper. To stick with the beer puns, this spud's for you!