Boy did I have a good lunch today.  At Butterfield's I had a Poached Egg Frisee Salad.  It was delicious.  The description from the menu is "Organic mixed greens tossed with chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, bacon bits, and goat cheese topped with poached eggs and balsamic vinaigrette".  I had them hold off the cucumbers and add extra goat cheese.  I also had the dressing kept off.  I was surprised how much I liked this....the warm egg over the cold salad was a wonderful, unexpected enjoyment.  And the egg yolk with the slightly melted goat cheese, due to the heat of the egg, made its own yummy dressing.  

For dinner tonight I made some recipes I just found in the latest Food Network magazine.  The barley beef slow cooker stoup was delicious.  I made changes to the original recipe (of course, I always do).  I will give the Super Mom version of this dish.

Ingredients

• 2.75 pounds boneless beef chuck (in one piece)
• 2 cup pearl barley
• 4 stalks celery, cut into 1/2" pieces
• 6 medium carrots,  cut into 1/2" pieces
• 3 medium leeks, sliced 1/2" pieces (white and light green parts only)
• 2 sprigs thyme
• 8 cups low-sodium beef broth
• 2 tablespoon soy sauce
• 2 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• Freshly ground pepper
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Directions

Combine the beef, barley, celery, carrots, leeks, thyme, beef broth and soy sauce in a slow cooker. Cover and cook on low, undisturbed, 8 hours.

Uncover and skim off any excess fat (if you have any...I didn't). Pull out the sprigs in thyme. Shred the meat in the pot just using 2 forks. Add 2T red wine vinegar, and 1-2T soy sauce (instead of salt) and 1-2t freshly ground pepper. Thin the stoup in the slow cooker with some more broth, if desired.

Then I made popovers that I also found in the same issue of the magazine.  I bought a popover pan at William Sonoma ($20).  It was SOOOOO easy and SOOOO impressive that I will be making them again.
I doubled it because I wanted to make 12 and this recipe only makes 6. The recipe below (from Alton Brown) is for the original 6 popovers.

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted and cooled, plus 1 teaspoon for the pan
• 4 3/4 ounces all-purpose flour (This is tricky....I happen to have a food scale from one of those crazy diets we tried to do once.  I weighed the flour....it came to about 1 cup)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 cup whole milk, at room temperature (to lighten up this recipe I used 3/4 cp fat free half and half cream and 1/4 cp skim milk)
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• Directions

Heat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Grease a 6-cup popover pan with the 1 teaspoon of butter.

Combine the 1 tablespoon of butter, the flour, salt, eggs and milk in a food processor or blender and process for 30 seconds.

Divide the batter evenly among the cups of the popover pan, filling each one-third to one-half full. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 40 minutes, taking care not to open the oven door. Remove the popovers to a cooling rack and pierce each one in the top with a knife to allow steam to escape. Serve warm.

I also made some honey butter for a snack later on the left overs.  To make the honey butter, just let butter soften then mix in honey.  SO good with re-warmed popovers.

Ok Super Moms....you know when you just hit a wall and don't want to cook anymore?  All you need to do is find something already made and add just a homemade touch to make it yours.  Tonight I just picked up chicken pot stickers from Trader Joes.  I follow the directions on the bag as to how to make them.  My homemade touch is in the dipping sauce. I use equal parts soy sauce (I like low sodium soy sauce) and rice wine vinegar (in the Asian cooking section).  Then I add in agave nectar.  I have been trying to use agave vs. artificial sweeteners - which is what I have always used.  I like to keep things low sugar and in the interest of health, I am trying to go more natural. Lastly I add fresh ground red pepper flakes to the sauce. For tonight, I made 1/2 cp soy sauce, 1/2 cup rice wine vinegar, 2 T agave, and 2 groundings of red pepper flakes. Mix it well so that the agave dissolves and distributes throughout the sauce.

Here is what I served on the table. As you can see in the picture, I served the dipping sauce little bowls that I had bought on one of our trips to Chinatown.  They are very cheap and pretty and the kids like having "their own" bowls. I love it there in Chinatown....but that is another post for another time......

Tonight I made "mexican".  AKA...everything that goes into a taco with no taco shell.  I use ground turkey.  It is lower in fat and tasty.  This meal takes about 20 minutes to make.  Once I am browning the meat, I start cutting up the tomatoes, the onions and avocadoe. Once the meat is done, I add a packet of the Frontera mild chili and cumin taco mix for beef.  1 packet per pound of meat.  I used to use the powder spice packet from McCormick, but I like this MUCH better (and you can get it in mexican section of the grocery store I work at and just about in any grocery store).  I also microwave a can of drained black beans.

I put out all the different components out on the table and everyone puts things together onto their plate like they like.  It is SO much easier when there are different components to each meal.  So each person makes what they like.

Here is my plate of food for tonight....oh....and I like it with fat free sour cream.  Healthy and delicious....

I made chicken marsala, roasted green beans and carrots and green beans and garlic for supper tonight.  Actually, I made the chicken and roasted vegis, our 10 year old son made the green beans and garlic dish.  See...it's not the hard to cook delicious, healthy, tasty food!!  All Super Mom's need side kicks.  And doesn't every kid need to learn to cook??  He helps me with almost every meal.  It's a huge confidence builder.  He loves it!

Here is the chicken marsala.  This is one of my more complicated dishes.  I used thin sliced chicken breasts.  You can buy thin sliced chicken in the meat section in the grocery store.  I put about 1 cup of flour with 1 tablespoon kosher salt and 1 tablespoon of pepper in a paper plate (less to clean up!).  I use a regular, large skillet. I coat the bottom of the pan with butter (just rub is around so it melts just slightly).  Coat each breast with the flour mixture, shake it off, and put it in the pan.  The heat should be at medium high.  Each breast cooks in about 5 minutes a side. I usually rub the butter into the hot pan everytime I flip a breast.  Not much butter is used at all. Once they are cooked, I put the finished breasts on another paper plate. I usually make about 2 pounds of breasts.  Once all the breast are made and out of the pan, I put sliced white mushrooms into the same pan.  They need to brown and will start to release some liquid.  This takes about 10 minutes.  Then I put the chicken breasts (all of them) back into the pan and add the marsala.  I let it simmer for about 10 minutes.  The sauce it creates starts to get thick and yummy.

Look at these delicious roasted vegetables!!  Carrots and green beans.  I have explained before how I roast vegis...always good!!

Here are the green beans that our 10 year old made.  I had made them before - and explained to him what to do.  And he did a great job.  Everyone loved these too. 

Here is my mother's stuffing.  It is my most favorite.  I think it is great the way each kid likes their mother's stuffing over any others.  I have a funny story.....when S drove me home for Thanksgiving, the first time, my mom gave him a large pile of her stuffing.  I mean, everyone loves her stuffing, surely he would too.  He ate the whole amount.  She offered him more and he said no thanks.  She said "You didn't really like me stuffing.  Did you?" And then he admitted he didn't.  It was SO sweet that he still ate it anyways.

My mom's stuffing is made with challah that she toasts, then adds lots of thinly sliced cooked onions, some broth and then her secret ingredient.....jelled cranberry sauce.  You can even see some of the cranberry sauce here in my picture.  People come to the house to get a container full of stuffing to bring home with them, even though they don't eat their Thanksgiving supper at my parent's house.  It is just that good.

Tonight for dinner I made chili.  It takes no time at all to make this chili.  And everyone in the house eats it, a miracle onto itself.  1 pound of ground turkey that I brown.  I add in a packet of chili spice mix (McCormick) to the ground turkey. To that I add 1 large can Brook's chili seasoning and beans (it can be found near the canned beans section of the grocery store), 1 can of Cambell's tomato soup (straight from the can, not with water or milk mixed in), and 1 can of large dark kidney beans.  And that's it....SO good!!!!  And SO fast....I can make a whole pot in about 10 minutes.  I do like to let it sit on low on the stove for awhile.  Just make sure to stir it every so often so the bottom of the pan.

Restaurant review - Mark's Feed Store Louisville, KY

Now for my favorite restaurant in Louisville....Mark's Feed Store.  I swear if I could open one here, I know it would do great.  Every person that asks us where to eat as they drive through Louisville (most common response when I say I used to live there is "I drive through there on my way to Florida."), we always recommend Mark's Feed Store and it has NEVER disappointed. In fact my friend, Jan's son asked if they could go down to Louisville again just to have their honeywings.  Ben...I could not agree with you more!!  They are the best!

Here are the famous Honeywings!  I have tried to make these at home.  I am very close.  Honey, cayene pepper, and some apple cider vinegar.  I am so close.....but something is missing.  Maybe it is that I don't fry the chicken.  I just toss it in some oil and cook them.  It is just SOOOOOO good!

Can't leave any of the extra sauce.  Here is one of our daughters even dipping her fry into the extra sauce.  Like liquid gold to our family!

Here is there pulled pork sandwich.  There pork is SO tender.  It almost melts in your mouth.  I have this bbq sauce from them.  This one is their "original" bbq sauce.  As you can see, it is mustard based.  Due to having the sauce, I can make a very close duplicate of this dish.  They also make a tomato based bbq sauce and now an extra spicy version of that. I always have a few bottles of the original and tomato version of each sauce in my kitchen.

Here is some more delicious food we ate on our trip to Louisville.

We ate breakfast at Lynn's Paradise Cafe.  The food is delicious and creative, but WAY over priced.  The Bourbon Ball French toast is around $15.  Really?!?!  Yes.....for french toast.  It is a very fun place to look around - all kinds of fun things on the tables and the walls.  Definitely worth the visit, but I don't see it really being a regular place due to the cost.

Bourbon Ball French Toast....over the top.  Bourbon cream sauce, pecans, bourbon whipped cream, strawberries, and the french toast is cinnamon bread.  The bread is SO soft and fresh. This dish beat Bobbly Flay in a french toast "throwdown".

This was my breakfast.  See the biscuits.....huge and so fresh and good.  The smaller cup in the top right of the photo is cheese grits. Not so good.  WAY too salty.  I couldn't even eat it. I like the cheese grits at Eggshell here by our house MUCH better.

The tree inside of Lynn's.  It inspired me when I lived in Louisville.  I put an old branch in my sunroom of my old apartment and put all kinds of cute stuff in it.

I went out to dinner with a couple of my dear friends.  Not even sure where we went.  It was more important who I was with. When I look at this picture I will think about Jenny and Karen and how much I love to be with them and how much I miss them.  To me, food is a reminder of certain times, certain memories.

I had two tamales.  They were good.  I put salsa on them to make them tastier. I hope to try to make tamales sometime.  The folks I work with that are from Mexico say they are tough to make.  One day, I will try.