Yesterday I blogged about my day of awesome. There was one little thing I left out — the family bought me a combination early Father’s Day and birthday gift in the form of an awesome grill!

If you think an awesome grill would have propane fire, quite frankly you don’t know the awesomeness that is charcoal. Here you can see me with my ninja cooking utensils and my chimney starter full of burning briquettes. (If you don’t have a chimney starter, go buy one. You’ll be thankful you did.)

Just out of frame is a bowl of soaking hickory chips. I debated whether to use hickory or mesquite, but since it’s the beginning of summer, I figure I can alternate all year. Because really there’s no wrong answer. Mmmmmm…

I hope your weekend is half as good as mine. I’d wish it to be as awesome, but I fear you might explode.

May your candy bring you joy as well.

In my attempt to de-fattify myself, I find that cooking is a must. You see, it’s just too easy to buy fast food. And, it’s like, fast and stuff. When I cook, I tend to cook vegan, or at least very vegetarian. I think it takes a REALLY good cook to make something delicious when you don’t have meat as a flavoring ingredient. Plus, veggies are absurdly expensive to buy fresh, and if you add meat to the budget, well, the restaurant starts to look reasonably priced…

Yesterday we bought tofu. I really love tofu. I can eat hunks of tofu cold, and think it’s a great snack. (My family vehemently disagrees with me, but whatever) Seriously though, tofu is often thought of as a way to cram protein into a vegetarian dish — honestly, I just think it’s cool how versatile it is. I mean really, it’s a blank slate flavor-wise. That means you can make it taste any way you like. Heck, I’ve even seen people cook tofu in lard, so it takes like meat, but I’ve never really understood such a procedure. (Just buy meat!)

Anyway, this tofu is going into a huge pot of miso soup. So yes, it’s basically soybeans in soybean soup. But I’ve added veggies, so it’s not all soybeans. I make miso soup with spinach instead of wakame, because my family DOES NOT like seaweed. Oh well, they eat tofu. I suppose I can’t complain!

It’s very difficult. However, both Donna and I really need to lose weight. I need to lose about 40 pounds, and Donna needs to lose some too. (I’m not going to say how much she wants to lose — I’m transparent, but I’m not stupid) Donna paid for a month at the local “gym”, which is really a physical therapy place that has aerobic classes and such. She LOVES going there, and the exercise is great for her.

I still hate exercise.

I’ve put a lot of thought into this, and it’s not physical activity that bothers me, it’s the lack of accomplishing anything. If we had a woodstove, I would happily chop wood for hours. If I had to crank start our car every morning, I would do so without complaint. Heck, I think if I had to ride an exercise bike in order to generate electricity to watch TV — I would do it. I just hate exercise for exercise’s sake. And no, “getting healthy” doesn’t count as a productive activity. I’m too short sighted for such a thing.

If it wasn’t for the ice and snow 6 months out of the year, I would buy a bicycle and ride to work every day. But that gets REALLY unpleasant around this time of year. Also, it makes hauling equipment difficult. It also makes it hard to take the kids to school and such. I don’t know what I’ll do on the exercise front, but for now I’m concentrating on food.

Food. I really like food. I’m going to try taking this opportunity to cook more at home, and cook healthier than we’ve been eating. Most of my “specialty” dishes are vegan, and very healthy. (Vegan and healthy are not automatically inclusive) I’m hoping to rekindle my love of cooking, and in turn eat foods that make me skinny instead of fat.

Wish us luck!

I tweeted about my world famous beef stroganoff, and got a few requests for the recipe. The cool part is that the recipe is DEAD SIMPLE. And it always pleases. I got the original recipe from my Mom, I’m just a little more picky about the process. Here goes:

1 Bag wide egg noodles (whole wheat works, and tastes fine)
1 Can cream of mushroom soup
1 Package dry onion soup mix
1 16oz container of sour cream (low fat works good, fat free isn’t quite as tasty)
1 lb Beef. Any beef works, I usually use lean stew meat or steak

Procedure:

1. Fill large pot with water for noodles. Start this first, as it takes the longest. In fact, go have a cup of coffee after you start the water, because if you start the next steps right away, you’ll be waiting for the noodles to cook.
2. Heat thin layer of oil (I use porcini infused olive oil imported from Italy, but whatever you like) in a thick bottomed pan. Get it hot, so that a drop of water dances like crazy if dripped on it.
3. Put cubed meat into pan. I cut into small bite size pieces. IMPORTANT: Do not stir! Let the meat sear to seal in the flavor and tenderness. After a few minutes of cooking, check the meat to see if it has a good searing on the pan side. Then stir up the meat and continue cooking on high flame.
4. About now, your water pot is probably boiling. Add the noodles and stir them up. Let them cook while you finish the rest.
5. When the meat starts to release its juices so that it looks like the meat is boiling, turn down the flame to medium low, and add the dry soup mix. (Don’t boil the meat, it will get tough) Stir up the meat/soup mixture until you get a thick slurry of yummy smelling goodness. Depending on the meat you use, you may have to add a little water so the soup mix dissolves.
6. Add can of concentrated cream of mushroom soup. Do not add the can of water, just put in the concentrated stuff. Stir in with the meat/onion soup mixture, and heat on low heat until it’s hot. Turn off the flame, and see how your timing was. Are the noodles done?
7. Drain noodles, return to pot.
8. Mix sour cream into meat mixture. You want to wait until the last minute with this, because the fresher the sour cream is, the better the stroganoff tastes.
9. I always mix the cream mixture into the noodles. It is the perfect amount for noodle mixing. If you prefer to pour the gravy mix over noodles on the plate, so be it, but your leftovers may not match up proportion-wise. You’ve been warned.
10. Eat and enjoy! NOTE: Unlike most foods, while still delicious, it tastes best right after it’s prepared and not the next day as leftovers. Also, doubling or tripling the recipe works very well. Even though it’s not as good the next day, I always make WAY more than we’ll eat so I can have it the next day.

That’s it. You now know my super simple, super secret, recipe. Thanks Mom!