Menus, June 12,2013

"If you want to be successful, find someone

who has achieved the results you want 

and copy what they do"

 Tony Robbins

It's a week of celebrations! Have you checked the calendar? 

Yep. this week is that big.

Ah, perhaps you didn't know. Perhaps you'd believed this to be merely the non-event zone between Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. 

Perhaps you didn't know that June 12th is Loving day, June 13th is National sewing machine day, June 14th is National blood donor day, June 15th is National juggling day and Sunday is National fudge day. And tucked in among all these uproarious occasions are days which I plan to devote to celebrating two of my favorite originals.

And I'll be celebrating these originals by copying, shamelessly, all week long.

Original number the first?

My Mother.
Whose birthday happens to be  June 12

 Sigh. As if I'd been born on the board of a genetic checkers game, all the poise and hotness pictured above jumped right over me and landed on the next generation. As a consolation prize, I received loads and loads of  goofy awkwardness. That's ok mom. You're not to blame for the vicissitudes of  DNA. 

Mom and I won't be able to travel to each other this week, but that doesn't mean I can't take her out for a birthday lunch at one of her favorite restaurants- I'll just have to do it virtually.

Original the second will be feted on Saturday and Sunday, which besides being National fudge day, also happens to be the 29th anniversary of the home audience's first Father's Day

Here he is, circa Father's Day #1.
I've managed to feed him up a bit since then.

 Father's day lunch in a crowded restaurant? No way! I've had a conversation with the eating out money, and it would have much more fun buying presents than buying lunch. We'll still, I think, be able to eat at one of our favorite places in the city- we'll just have to do it virtually.
Now, before my mother gets so curious that she stops reading and phones me, let's get to dinner.

Wednesday: Outback Steakhouse steak and Kale and carrot salad

 Outback Steakhouse is a fave of mum's, and I'll be using copycat recipes to eat there twice this week. First up, this great steak rub- yes, that's right, I'm trying steak, and I'll even be cooking a little extra tonight for tomorrow night's stirfry.
Oh. You've noticed the salad. No, the kale salad is nowhere on the Outback menu. And it's nowhere near a favorite of my mom's. It's just that I did that thing.
You know, that thing where you buy a thing because you think you might be out of that thing, and when you get home you discover that you already had a thing and a half of that thing? I did that.
 The ease with which these accidental accumulations occur means that I ought to be very careful indeed

about harshing on hoarding.

It also means that I need to make use of two and a half bags of carrots. This salad will be a start, though I suspect that most everything this week will get a dusting of grated carrot, and I foresee a traditional carrot slaw in the not too distant future.

Thursday: Beef and broccoli stir fry

A very basic stir fry here. I'll slice the leftover steak nice and thin, douse the broccoli bits (and yes, probably some sliced carrots) in boiling water for a minute or two, drain them and then throw it all in a pan and top it with some sauce. You'll find results of bottled stir fry sauce taste tests here, or, with 6 ingredients and 10 minutes, you can cook up this great America's test kitchen version.






Friday: Outback Steakhouse Alice Springs Chicken and Spinach salad

Oh, my Aussie friends. Here at my desk, half a planet away, I can hear your derisive laughter. You're absolutely right. This chicken recipe comes from Alice Springs in the same way that Moon Pies come from the moon. Wait. Moon Pies. That's an American thing, isn't it. hmmm.
It's a tasty dish though, regardless of the authenticity of it's origins, and taking mum out for two virtual dinners at Outback is twice the fun of treating her to one. I'm going with this salad, since the bacon and mushrooms will already be prepped for the chicken and since in my magic kitchen, the health molecules in the spinach will neutralize the cholesterol molecules on top of the chicken.

Saturday: Chicken churrascaritas and ginger rice

The home audience and I are dining on the great food of the Blue Mesa Grill for Father's Day. Blue Mesa hosts one of the most extraordinary Sunday buffets I've ever eaten my way through, and they're gracious enough to share their delicious recipes on the website-though the only linkage possible is to the recipe index. The index is alphabetical, and every letter looks great- I just thought these looked to be among the greatest.The chicken bites in the indexed recipe aren't wrapped in bacon as are the ones in the pic, but I assure you, they are quite thoroughly South American- you can tell by the way the recipe uses sushi ginger, pesto, frozen orange juice and soy sauce. This should be fun. 

Sunday: P.F. Chang's lettuce wraps

Another copycat recipe tonight- this one recommended by my daughter, who says her dad (aka the home audience), will like them. I'll be taking a shortcut by using last night's leftover chicken, and I may use leftover teriyaki sauce from Thursday as a dipping sauce. Why all these effort-saving tactics? Well, there's a happy little collision of calendar events that I'd like to commemorate with an actual dessert. Sunday June 16th really is National Fudge day. And the home audience really did spend his childhood in Brazil....  And Fudge + Brazil = Brigadieros!!!

  Look at them! So cute!!!

And so EASY! And so FAST!! 

and so....CHOCOLATE!!

Have you guessed what I'm hoping to accomplish with all this?
I'm hoping to copy my way straight into an original way of saying, oh, you know,

 love.

I'm hoping for a week, and a few dinners, that blend the best of individuality and imitation.

And I'm hoping that sort of week for you too.
I hope that maybe once or twice this week

you'll realize that you really are steadily becoming that authentic person you wished long ago to be.

And that the successes you used to only see in others

have become somehow your own. 

And I especially hope that even if it's one of your 364 unbirthdays, 

you feel loved and celebrated, both today

and for many happy days to come.