St. Louis weekend getaway and meet the family

Well hello there bloggers and readers and anyone who happens to stumble upon this blog Mike and I call ours.

This past weekend we did not cook or even remotely try. I can't say I have really baked either. I did bake Gooey Butter Cupcakes (sorry, no recipe for you, I think only one other person has my recipe and she's not telling).

I made the cupcakes so that when visiting St. Louis I could give some to Mike's parents as well as leave two for Roomie while the rest went to work with me to be devoured and made to vanish. Those things are dangerously addictive and I blame Mike for introducing me to this evil thing called gooey butter cake. But then again I'm not complaining and neither is he, provided I don't bake it for a month straight. Sorry honey, was experimenting and thank you for being my Guinea pig ;)

So we were off to St. Louis on Friday afternoon. I drove to the halfway point where we swapped and picked up McDonald's for lunch. A mid twenties couple walking into McDonald's and ordering two chicken McNugget kids meals. That's not strange at all. Well, it's not in our book. It was easy, fast, and relatively low in calories considering the other options at said establishment. So we were off, with food in our bellies and 2 more hours to drive.

We arrived in St. Louis to stop at the local sporting goods store in Pevely, MO to pick up a new Benelli shotgun that Mike has wanted. Was a fun detour as we walked around and waited for paperwork to be processed.

Once we were finished it was off to the hotel to check in before meeting up with the parents to have dinner.

Can I just say, the hotel bathroom was fan-freaking-tastic!! We have stayed in other hotels where you have to slide into the bathroom to even shut the door, basically stand on the toilet to do so. We have also stayed in hotels where you feel as if the walls are closing in around you as you shower. This was none of those. Sure it was just a standard king room but the room was big enough for both of us, plus exercise room (this is important when doing Insanity). Then the bathroom had the marvelous shower with the giant shower head, a little seat and just a great amount of room to be able to move comfortably. We I actually said goodbye to the shower when we left Sunday morning.

We ate at a local Chinese place for dinner that night and conversation was a bit on the quiet side, was a little strange, but really meeting people for the first time is always a bit strange. The food was tasty, I confused the poor waiter by asking for my chicken and vegetables to be steamed with the sauce on the side. I know, so difficult. Mike ended up explaining that for me while you could see the light bulb finally turn on for the waiter. I always enjoy trying to explain to the oriental waiters and servers. It's challenging and fun all at the same time.

So then after dinner we went out with some friends and then crashed so we could be up at 7 AM to go shooting with his dad. So off we went to the range to shoot pistols and a bit more.

Putting the new toy together

Shooting down those pesky metal plates

Father and Son investigating a small problem

No I didn't just stand around and take pictures of the men-folk shooting guns. AK, Revolver and .45. I got in on that action too and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Mike said he was impressed with how I did and told me I did very well for never having shot a pistol before. My cluster was pretty consistent and I did hit center a few times :) That made me happy. I have a great teacher and I definitely will be wanting to shoot again.

After shooting we went to see what the cowboys were up to, not the football team, actual people dressed up like John Wayne. Shooting competition. It was comical to see the costumes and get ups but also fun to watch them do their thing. There were even old men scampering to get to their next station to get a better time. It was interesting to watch for sure. It was even set up in this little ghost town feel section of the gun range. So fun.

So after shooting it was back to the hotel where we were to workout and do insanity, after only doing 1/2 my insanity Friday and still feeling sore in the knee and foot Mike and I decided to hit the hotel fitness room and run and do weights - sadly we came to find there were no weights so we were limited to just treadmills and bikes. I ran my 2 miles, Mike ran 1.5 I believe and then he got on the bike until I finished my run. After that we did a little bit of calisthenics and called it a workout.

Soon we were off again after freshening up and headed back to the parents house so we could go to Gramma's and check on some things. We ended up taking some things home, cupcake pans and a spring form pan with an insert for me (you will be seeing recipes hehe) and then he took home some silver, a tray, electric pitcher, candle holders, and fondue type pot. Then he also had pot holders, you know the homemade kind from yarn? yeah, those. Well evidently he had burnt one of Roomie's homemade ones and wanted to replace it. It's not THE potholder but it's the gesture and thought. She laughed when seeing it and said "But mine was from my grandmother, who is dead." So then Mike just said "this is from my dead grandmother." Even Stevens right? hehe, Roomie is a good sport and just laughs and says thank you for the thought and kindness. He also found an electric carving knife - which will be well used on roasts and birds - then a carving knife set with the knives and fork. So we came home with some fun little extras.

We did eat well at mom and dad's for dinner Saturday. Enjoyed pork steaks, quail, mac and cheese, corn on the cob and some salad. Was a good Missouri dinner, with the Missouri Tigers football game on in the background. MIZ-ZOU! (and EMAW for my team). We had a great time with the family, lots of laughs and I just get a kick out of them. They are good people and funny to be around.

Mizzou did win as did KSU so both sides are happy for NCAAFB.

Sunday morning we awoke early, 6 AM, to go skeet shooting. Well, I went in thinking I wasn't going to hit a damn thing. I figured I would get laughed at by the old men and just shrug and say, "Oh well." Come to find I'm not as bad as I thought. I hit 7 out of 25 clay birds on my first real skeet shoot!! WOW!! :) Super stoked that I was able to accomplish that.

Dad, Mike, and Dave

We had a great time shooting and I shot Mike's new shotgun, too long and a righty to boot. :) I'm just awesome like that. I guess I even impressed the old guys there by hitting what I did and as many as I did with the little experience I have. Of course being a lefty they all noticed right off too. I found that being a lefty had it's benefit. Loading a righty shotgun as a lefty is a WHOLE lot easier than it is for a righty. I'm not reaching around the gun to load. Hehe, points for me.

Dad shooting Mike's new gun

I also enjoyed just chilling out with the boys - not unusual as men are more fun typically to hang out with than women, less drama, easy going, and laid back. I also just had fun shooting.

Mike setting up and looking awesome

So while I was shooting I was just waiting for someone to bring up that I was a girl. Well, I was the only woman there that morning. It took a bit but at one point I was all set up ready to go, much like Mike is in the picture directly above, and Don, one of his dad's friends, was behind me and said "That's the best view we've had here in a long time." I just turned and smiled and laughed. I then said "I'll play along," and proceeded to shake my booty. We all just laughed and had a good time. Don apologized and said it would be the only time but it doesn't bother me with old guys. It's comical and it's really hard to offend this Kansas girl.

All in all the weekend was a total blast, had sooo much fun and wish it had been longer.

We made the 3 hour drive home that night and proceeded to not cook, again. Stopped at Taco Bell for lunch and had a local restaurant for dinner upon arriving back at Mike's. We then vegged.

And Mike played with my phone. It was nice to chill and not move at that point after being in the car for 3 hours. 

The next day it was back to work. Boo Monday's. But we both made dinner for ourselves too. Mike had bought two great steaks and cooked those with some mashed potatoes and asparagus while I went with rotisserie chicken, sweet potato, and peppers and onions.

Dinner a la Sarah

Dinner a la Mike

So go out and cook folks, even though we didn't until Monday. ;)

Beyond the Normal Steak and Potatoes

This weekend was a lazy weekend. We didn't really feel like doing a whole lot of anything. We were going to go to the lake and meet some new friends but decided it was 1. too hot, 2. we didn't get up till 10 AM Saturday morning and 3. We would have had to drive at 8/9 am after going to bed at 3:30 AM/4:30 AM. Yeah not so much. So we decided to stay in for most of the weekend.

We drove into the city to go to Best Buy and Bed Bath and Beyond. We looked for bread pans (the ones you would make french bread loaves in - or even find mini ones to make hot dog buns.) for my pretzel bread adventures. No luck, the man at the store that we asked said "It really isn't baking season." Um, excuse me, it's always baking season. I even said "It's always baking season." LOL

So we got whisks, my whisk recently broke - grr, granted I've had it for quite some years now and wasn't what I would call a SUPER sturdy whisk. Basic and cheap from Walmart. So got that and headed off to Bets Buy. Mike wants to get a good tough camera for when he goes duck hunting this fall/winter. From what he says he inevitably ends up in the water and so a water proof camera would be a fantastic idea. His phone stays in a zip lock or air tight container and he doesn't really want to ruin an expensive electronic device, phone, camera or otherwise. So we found what he was looking for and then they didn't have it in stock. We ended up leaving and going back to the apartment and he ordered it online. Should be a fun toy. Won't have to be just for hunting. :)

*the wheels are turning for food pictures*

So that day we went to "Mighty Melt" for lunch, I got the cheese sandwich on wheat where he got the Chili Cheese potato. HOLY CRAP was that a HUGE potato. The Frito's on top were meh and stale and the knock off type. The cheese was just your basic nacho cheese dip and the chili was actually quite surprising. I would say it was the best part of that potato. My sandwich was good, fair amount of cheese but not too much and the veggies that were on it were good too, lettuce, tomato and mushroom. The wheat bread was border line dry but not bad. will probably stick to the white when I go back.

Beer brats are the lighter ones and
chicken chipotle jack are the brown ones on the left

That night we did bratwurst on the grill and used the pretzel bread buns to hold them. We sauteed up onions and peppers to put on top and then topped with spicy mustard. They tasted great, the only issue we had was that the pretzel buns had gotten hard. They had been in zip lock baggies, so not sure how they got hard and almost rock like. Edible but the crust was tough.

sauteed peppers and red onion

I made mine work and finished it all, hand held. Mike chose to cut his up with knife and fork.

Brad on pretzel bread, onions, peppers and mushroom rice

So because I've posted pictures of Mike cooking he took my phone and decided it was time for one of  me cooking. Yes I do cook, I prefer to bake but I do cook. I help with the pan work while he works the grill and the knife. 

Me laughing once I realize what he is doing.

 So that was dinner Saturday night. We ended up falling asleep not long after, about 10pm on the floor and couch. Sprawled out and tired old people that we are. (26 and old already haha.)

So Sunday we got a take and bake pizza from Papa Murphy's. Mike wasn't feeling leftovers since that was what he had been eating for a week. We had a chicken, bacon and artichoke de-Lite pizza. Was fabulous.

Then we napped. Like I said, lazy and relaxing weekend. We then got up and headed out to our friends house for a swim and some people time. We were also told to take home some bags of groceries - they had a neighbor moving who cleaned out her pantry. Free food, not going to argue. She says she'll have baking stuff soon too. YAY!!! I'm excited about that.

So after getting some vitamin D and having some time with friends we headed out to come back and make dinner. We had, that morning, picked up some lamb steaks, sugar snap peas, sprouts, onion and Greek seasoning. So came back and Mike prepped the onion, tomatoes and garlic for the veggie stir fry that I would be cooking up and he prepped the grill for the lamb. He coated each side of the meat with a generous sprinkling of Greek seasoning (Go to Walmart and pick up some - fabulous on lamb).

Sprouts - fresh

Tomatoes fresh from our friends garden

Garlic Herb seasoning from our local farmers market

Snap peas and onion saute

All veggies mixed in and sauteed up

So after coating and chopping up veggies he got them on the grill, the grill tried to flame broil them at one point, making cook time shorter than expected but still turned out great.

Mike saving the Lamb from the flames

A little charred but not badly

Mmmmm grilled lamb steaks :)

So Mike saved the lamb from a fiery death and promptly brought them in at a medium rare temp and doneness. :) Then we heated up some of the left over mushroom rice from the night before and plated.

From the rice, my steak was
much smaller than Mike's MAN steak ;)

From the veggie side of the plate

Let me just say this about the look, fresh and crisp on the veg, rice was good and the steaks were beautifully pink. Oh, yum, come play in my mouth for a while.

Moving on to flavor, the char really did not affect the flavor much, if at all. In my case I thought it was pretty good.

I may have mentioned this before but when Mike starts grunting and making yummy sounds while eating you know it's good. I agree - it was FANTASTIC! Mike used choice phrases. "Fucking amazing" "God damn that was good!" "That was awesome!" and so on. Went on until we went to bed. I am in total agreement. I even would be quoted, while getting water 2 hours later "Oh my god that was amazing."

This was definitely a hit and was definitely worth the time and effort and will be done again.

Y'all should try this too, amazing. No real trick to it, just cook. So, allez cuisine folks!

Whiskey Tango Steak Night!!!

Ok so maybe just Whiskey in the steak marinade, but YUMMMMM! When Mike and I are high fiving each other over such a great dinner you know we have a hit on our hands.

Again, another creation from the "big book of food." The Roomie decided steak over lamb and boy it was a good choice. So the menu for the night was:

Sirloin steak
Mashed Potatoes
Grilled Veggies
and a Mushroom Gravy

But let's embellish a little. That menu sounds like a pretty basic mid-western meal. Well you may be right but damn meat and potatoes is just a good way to go.

So here is the revised menu so you can start drooling like we did.

Sirloin steak marinated in a whiskey brown sugar marinade served with a baby red potato mashed into a heavenly smash with garlic and butter with a side of grilled California mixed vegetables with olive oil and garlic herb seasoning with a great side of mushroom gravy to serve on top of the steak and potatoes.

So now then you ask, what does this look like???? Well I am guessing you are salivating. Too bad these pictures aren't scratch and sniff, oh man you should have smelled this. The steaks only needed an added salt and pepper (light) to spice up the marinade for grilling.

So to start we marinaded the steaks in this fabulous whiskey marinade (we even bought cheap whiskey - McCormick's for $5 - tasted great! You are welcome to use Jack if you prefer). Here is the recipe:

1/4 cup whiskey (your choice to go expensive or go cheap - we couldn't tell the difference)
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 Dijon mustard
1/4 cup finely chopped green onion
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1 dash Worcestershire sauce
ground black pepper to taste

Stir together whiskey, soy sauce, Dijon mustard, green onion, brown sugar, salt, Worcestershire sauce, and pepper. Add to chosen meat - sirloin steak in our case. Marinate over night or at least a couple hours. (We marinated over night)

Marinated Steak - just started grilling

From there we started making the mushroom sauce/gravy.

The mushroom gravy we cheated a little bit and used pre-made beef gravy and added some ingredients.

So we took this "savory beef" gravy. The gravy on its own is not that tasty. So we checked out the recipe for mushroom sauce from the "big book of food" and added white cooking wine (instead of white wine as stated in the book). We then cooked down mushrooms and browned them with some green onion.

freshly cut white mushrooms: courtesy of
Mike the ninja knife master

DON'T CROWD THE MUSHROOMS ;)
or they won't brown

So now we add the mushrooms and onions to the gravy.

Thickening process

Started cooking after browning mushrooms

We ended up having to make a roux (Mike made - I do not have the patience, when I thicken gravy I use cornstarch. He says that doesn't taste quite as good. I am sure he's right.)

Here is the gravy after adding the blonde roux.

YUMMY!

Of course we also added salt, pepper, rosemary, garlic powder and the white wine. Roomie didn't care for the rosemary and, therefore, didn't care much for the sauce/gravy. But Roomie liked the steak, taters and veg.

We cheated on the taters since neither of us wanted to boil and mash (even though that's probably my favorite way to eat taters).

Can I just say though, these didn't even need butter added. It's an "add boiling water" and wait 5 minutes potato mix. Just yum!! I was shocked for a potato flake mix. Definitely recommended.

So by this point food is starting to come in from the grill.

Steaks ready to come in - veggies in the foil

Can we eat now?

Steaks smelled AMAZING when they came in. Was so ready to eat at that point. So Mike got plates out and we dug in.

The veggies came in and looked great.

Now to eat and show off the skills of cooking.

My steak was done more medium rare/medium while the rest were closer to medium/medium well. Still so so so delicious.

We will definitely make this again. Maybe next time we will mash our own potatoes and make our own gravy but in the mean time this did a great job of satisfying our hunger.