Did somebody say nachos?

I make nachos from time to time. Who doesn’t like nachos? Exactly.

On Monday night I made the best darned nachos in the history of me making nachos. Take that, restaurants.

Here’s how it went down.
1. Grill 2 chicken breasts with a salt/pepper/garlic rub
2. Lay out a thin layer of tortilla chips on a baking sheet.
3. sprinkle black beans, green chiles, diced jalapenos, cheddar cheese, and roasted tomatoes (from the can) on the chips.
4. add diced chicken.
5. add another layer of chips and repeat adding the other stuff.

Bake at 375-degrees for 30 minutes. Take them out, sprinkle chopped cilantro and avocado on top, and serve with guac and salsa.

Done. You’ll thank me later.

Mal and Erin’s 3rd Anniversary – Delicious

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I don’t know what else to tell you.

Today is our 3rd anniversary. We could have gone somewhere fancy. We could have gone somewhere that costs a lot for a decent meal. We could have done lots of things. But here’s what we did instead. AND IT WAS AWESOME!

Step 1: You cut a hole in the box… (oops. Wait, sorry. I’m way off.)

First thing:

We returned to The Westin Kierland Resort where, 3 years ago today, we got hitched. Erin and I brought a bottle of wine from one of our Napa trips and drank it while sitting in front of a lakeside/gold course facing firepit. Beautiful!

The wine was a Sangioviese/Cabernet blend from Goosecross Cellars in Napa Valley. It was outstanding. So we drank the whole bottle. Goosecross was one of our favorite vineyards when we went 2 years ago. The place is tiny and we went in the off season when nobody goes (Nov. to the end of February are perfect times to go). So we were in the tasting room at Goosecross with a gal who works there. And we were there for HOURS. She kept opening wine for us to try. And we obliged her by drinking it. Lots of it.

BTW, Kierland has a bagpiper that plays at sunset. Combined with the setting, the cool weather, the wine, and the fire pit, it was perfect. You can also bring your own wine out there. Ya just can’t drink it in the bar areas. Duh.

Second thing:

Once the wine was done we hopped in the car and headed a few miles up the road to In and Out Burger. Say what you want about $30 filets, etc. I’ll take an In and Out burger any day of the week. Erin had a cheeseburger (animal style) and fries. I had a double double and fries. Fantastic.

Third thing:

Nightcap? How does Coldstone sound to you. We drove back down to Kierland Commons and hit the Coldstone. The perfect way to end a fantastic night of talking, wine, remenising about our wedding and what liquor people drank in the ’80s, killer burgers, and a bag piper. It was a terrific anniversary.

Next year. Same thing. I hope.

Bridgeport India Pale Ale = my new favorite beer

I’ve seen Bridgeport Brewing Co. beers before. I’ve likely even drank one or two. But while at the Safeway this weekend I found myself seeking beer for the best sale price – I love me a bargain…

So Bud was $6. Sam light was $6. Many others were, too. But then I saw 1 6-pack left of Bridgeport IPA.

Now, I like IPA. Erin loves the stuff because she likes her beers hoppy. But when I got home and popped my first beer I fell in love.

According to the bottle – and you can’t argue with a bottle – the IPA is bottle conditioned. I don’t care how it’s conditioned… Bridgeport Brewing Co. has raised one helluva beer.

I’ll be buying more. Even if it’s not on sale.

Holy hell this beer is good.

How Yelp Saved the day for La’s Thai

Oh man this was good.

No.

Forget it.

Not in a million years.

These were variations of the replies I got from Erin when I suggested trying a new neighborhood Thai food place that happened to be located in a shady little strip mall at Hayden & McDowell.

Part of me understands the hesitation. La’s Thai was the 3rd or 4th restaurant – the previous were all Chinese food joints – in that same location and the location & lack of a website did nothing to build trust. But I’ve never hesitated in eating at places with less-than-stellar locations (See: Carolinas at 12th St. & Mohave… umm….) before plus I’d walked into La’s before to grab a menu and it looked nice. Very bamboo-y.

So this is where Yelp came in. The Yelp reviews for La’s Thai were stellar. Erin likes Yelp. Erin trusts Yelp. Yelp closed the deal.

Price: Very reasonable. We got two items for $20 and it was PLENTY of food. Even after a day of volleyball and bike riding to Tempe for an ASU game, our hunger couldn’t quite finish off the food.

The food: Dare I say delicious? I do. Delicious.

I had Pad Thai and it kicked ass. Big shrimp, lots of chicken. A heap of noodles, onions, peanut bits (the safe kind), and a killer sauce. And it made me sweat – things here are a little spicy. I have so many other things that I want to try but can’t. get. away. from. pad. thai.

Erin got Yellow curry with Shrimp on noodles. It was fantastic and passed the fridge test the next day – there was no coagulated oil or layer of sludge. Just good, real stuff in this curry. The best part – well, not as good as eating the stuff – was watching The Wife pile food in because if she stopped eating it would make her sweat too much. My pad thai was spicy. Her’s was really hot. In a good way.

Anywho, the curry had tons of flavor, lots of shrimp, and carrots and onions. The noodles came in a separate container and were tasty but for my money, I like my curry on rice so that the rice soaks up the excess juice.

We’ll be back. Hopefully soon. And we’ll post to Yelp about how good this place was.

More to come! I know I’ve forgotten to write again for the last 3 months byt we’ve been eating well.

Avocado chicken pizza. The day after.

Tonight’s post is about dinner last night. Never got around to writing last night.

My cooked chicken breasts came in handy again last night. I was too tired to “make” something so I used our last CostCo margarita frozen pizza – tasty! – and diced up 1.5 chicken breasts. Parm. cheese + a secret blend of spices (costco garlic spread) rounded things out.

15 minutes later dinner was served. I added 1 diced avocado to the pie. Erin didn’t have any. It was a good decision. I hghly recommend this – next time you make/order/buy pizza toss some avocado on there. I’m learning that there are few things that don’t deserve some ‘cado treatment.

Breakdown:

• frozen pizza
• 1.5 cooked chicken breasts… diced
• Parmesan cheese
• garlic blend
• Oven @ 450-deg
• 15-minutes to kill
• 1 avocado

Done!

I don’t know what I’ll make tonight but I think it’s going to be scrambled eggs with pesto, diced pastrami, and toast. Yep – breakfast for dinner.

Some things are best chopped. Like salad.

Let me start by saying dinner is easy to make when you prep stuff in advance. Take good ol’ chicken, for example. I cooked up 6 chicken breasts yesterday on the grill and wrapped them for easy access. I needed chicken for dinner tonight… and there was chicken cooked in the fridge… and I didn’t have to thaw/season/grill. Holy crap, this was good thinking.

From now on, Sundays are chickin preppin’ days.

I had tennis tonight after work. Erin was out shopping for undergarmants. By the time we both got home and caught up it was 8pm and hunger was settling in. What’s a good meal in a pinch when cooked chicken is available? Well, chopped salad, of course!

Let me set the table for ya…

• leaf lettuce
• onion
• red bell pepper
• 2 cooked chicken breasts
• 1 avocado
• 2 roma tomatoes
• tiny cubes of cheddar

Everything got chopped up into tiny pieces and tossed together in a bowl. 15 minutes later dinner was served. Chopped salad is officialy my new favorite dinner. Until I go to Trader Joes again and get pizza dough. Pizza always takes the cake. So there.

Other random thoughts:

• I love ginger-soy salad dressing
• Tomatoes are hard to dice
• Our dog loves me. When I toss her scraps. That hound can catch!
• I need a real lightbulb for the light over our sink.
• Now that I’m getting more settled in with Twitter, I really think it can be a great tool for us folks at Business Wire.
• That’s a wrap. off to hang with Erin!

Steak. A salad I saw at the grocery store. Halloween Oreos.

Um. It’s October. And it was 98-degrees according to the Honda on my way home from the grocery store today. Did I mention that it’s OCTOBER? I played a couple hours worth of tennis this morning and got roasted a little bit. Once I’m done with this post it’s off to slam a bottle of h2o before bed….

98-degrees. October. It does this every year! It was 74 last weekend. This state’s weather is such a tease. Oh well, at least I can play tennis outdoors even when it’s hot. Can’t do that n snow and rain.

Note: One day, images of meals in progress and other stuff from the blog will accompany these posts. That day will have to wait until we have a working camera. Dammit.

Here we go….

Steak:

These beauties got the midwest treatment – a solid rub down with some Blues Hog seasoning rub. This stuff comes via recommendation of Erin’s uncle Rob. My stash was a gift from Rob – THANK YOU, ROB! This man knows meat and is a BBQ champ and judge.

2 hours in the fridge and then straight to the grill. 5 minutes a side did the trick. Why was it tough? Could have been the $5 price tag ($9 originally, though… so there).

Salad:

This one was my favorite part of the meal. I was cutting up tomatoes and then remembered that we had 1/4 of a cucumber left. I chopped that. Then I remembered the CostCo-sized cube of cheddar that I had been snacking off of – I sliced off a couple pieces and cubed them. Then I grabbed an onion and chopped up a little of that. The whole batch got dumped into a bowl and tossed with black pepper and a soy-ginger dressing. REsult? Outstanding. It pays to loiter at the Safeway deli… you get ideas for things.

Halloween Oreos:

Orange filling inside my favorite cookie. Nothing else to say but Halloween rules (and I love me some Oreos).

Booze:

We finished a bottle of Cab that I got at Bevmo on Thursday but I can’t remember what it was called. Nothing great but it had a nice spice to it.

I give tonights meal a thumbs up. The steaks were adequate but the salad was excellent. The wife, as always, concurred that dinner was excellent. I think she’s just happy we aren’t eating Hungry Man meals for supper…