Meals for Michael

As I work to be a "good wife" in my upcoming marriage, I thought it could be interesting for us all for me to document my attempts at making meals Michael will eat!  In reality, Michael is incredibly easy going with food.  I'm just a perfectionist and want everything to be perfect (including myself as a wife!).  So I end up being really nervous every evening while cooking.  And I think I don't really breathe until Michael takes his first bite and smiles his approval at me.  And when I actually do cook a good meal, I need to make sure I remember what Michael likes!!  Hence, a Meals for Michael page.

March 23, 2013
Well, it's been a while.  And it's not that I haven't been cooking.  Lord knows I've cooked more in the last 9 months than I have in my entire life!  I just forget to blog about it!!  But I had to make sure to blog about the meal I made last night.  It was STUPID EASY!  It's called Crockpot Cheesy Chicken and Rice.  Now, for you health nuts...this probably isn't the dish for you.  Most of the time I really try to keep things relatively healthy in my kitchen, but this isn't one of those times.

I found this recipe on Pinterest (oh, how I love thee!).  It's from the blog Southern Plate.  And now you'll see what I mean when I said it was easy.  Literally the hardest part was cutting up an onion.

1. Put 3-4 chicken breasts in a crockpot.
2. Put your diced onion on top (I only used half an onion).
3. Dump a can of cream of chicken soup on top.
4. Cook for 3-4 hours on low or 7-8 hours on high (I did 7-8 hours).
5. When you have 30-40 minutes left on the chicken (or you can even do it the night before and throw it in the fridge), cook the Zataran's Yellow Rice Mix according to the directions.
6. Once the rice is ready and the chicken is finished, dump the rice, cheese and a drained can of corn in the crock pot and mix it all up.  (I cut/smooshed the chicken up with a wooden spoon as I mixed).

You're finished!!  And it's delish!!

The finished product

Michael likes it!!  I was lazy and just fixed green beans to accompany our meal.

The proof is in the empty plate!

See the recipe on my post here.


August 9, 2012
Now that I'm back from China, it's back to figuring out what to cook for dinner each night.  I'm gonna be honest -- I'd much rather prefer my own personal chef to figuring out dinner on my own.  But it makes me happy to please Michael, so I'm back to perusing my foodie blogs every Sunday afternoon.  I have a couple of meals to share tonight.

Tuesday night Michael and I had pre-marital counseling.  It goes until about 7:00 so we either don't eat at the house or I have to figure out something quick to fix.  This week I relied on my fav foodie blogger at Baking With Blondie.  Michael loves pizza, and I thought her pizza muffins would be perfect for a quick dinner night.  And, wouldn't you know?  SUCCESS!!

Michael's Verdict:  He didn't want to stop eating them.  He thinks this is a weekly meal.  :-)  But why do hers look so much prettier than mine???

Hers

Mine

Sad comparison, I know.  :-(

Tonight we had another experiment.  I found a pork loin recipe on another blog (not Blondie's) that I wanted to try along with a pasta salad recipe from Eat Yourself Skinny.  I also wanted to see if I could get Michael to eat some cauliflower and I remembered a recipe for roasted parmesan cauliflower from a recipe book by Joy Bauer.  Here's what dinner looked like:

I thought the pork looked and smelled delicious.  But I overcooked it a bit (oops), and I've decided that I really just don't like rosemary.  I need to stop trying to like it.  We ate two pieces of the pork and it ended up in the trashcan.  

The cauliflower, on the other hand, was a HUGE success!!!  It is so wonderfully crunchy on the edges!  Michael took one floret to start with, tasted it and then proceeded to scoop a big spoonful onto his plate.  YES!!  I didn't make much because I wasn't sure that he would eat it.  Next time, I'll use the entire head of cauliflower.  

As I was finishing up the pasta salad, Michael let me know that he has yet to find a pasta salad that he likes.  So, I was nervous for not only the cauliflower but the pasta salad as well.  (By the way, I have never heard of someone not liking pasta salad!)  Luckily, I was two for three tonight!  He loved the pasta salad, too!!  

Michael's Verdict:  No thanks to the pork loin (I agree!).  But the pasta salad and cauliflower are a once a month meal! 

July 1, 2012
Last week was my most "experimental" so far when it comes to dinner - and with mixed results.

The week started with some homemade meatloaf, green beans and corn.  Michael's verdict -- not a fan. Which is a bummer, because I really like my meatloaf.  It helped to know, though, that Michael apparently has never really liked meatloaf.  Information that may have been helpful before I made dinner...   :-)

Then I found a fantastic blog called Baking With Blondie.  Holy helpful!!!!  I now officially look at that blog every single day.  My first Baking With Blondie recipe was the lasagna rollups.

My dinner table

Michael's Verdict:  YUMMY!!!!  He thinks this is a weekly meal.  :-)

I also attempted my mom's homemade mac and cheese.  Why is it that things never taste as good as when your mom makes it??  I didn't have macaroni at home and am trying to use up the food in my pantry.  So it was really penne and cheese instead of mac and cheese.  For some reason after I baked the "mac" and cheese, it got kind of curdley.  ???  I used 1/2 cup of Michael's whole milk.  Wondering if that was the problem....

Michael's Verdict: It was good enough to eat the majority....but his fiancé needs to practice. (We came to the same verdict.)

July 2, 2012

When I was meal-planning yesterday, Michael's exact question to me was, "Are you experimenting again this week?"  Yup.  Hope that's okay!  "I like experimenting."  Whew!!  :-)

So my experimenting week begins with another recipe from my new favorite person in the whole world (Mandy from Baking with Blondie).  Today I'm trying her Pan-Fried Chicken with fresh Tomato and Corn Salsa.

I went ahead and made the salsa first which, if I make this again, I will do that ahead of time and put it in the fridge.  It was the longest part of the process.  But it looks pretty!!  I diced my tomatoes a lot smaller than Mandy did because I really just don't like big chunks of tomato.  And since I diced everything else, I diced the onion instead of having strips of onion.

I was ready to start fryin' my chicken when, wouldn't you know it?  I ran out of olive oil.  (!!!!!!)  Thankfully, my wonderful fiancé (whose belly I am trying to fill) ran to Hy-Vee to get some for me.  He also got to realize how expensive extra-virgin olive oil is!  

So, here's what this dish is supposed to look like.

I had a really hard time getting my chicken to be cooked all the way through.  I was getting very frustrated because the chicken breasts were getting super dark on the outside but the insides were still raw.  I ended up nuking them for 30 seconds to finish off their insides.  Apparently I picked the big-boobied chickens.  ;-)  Michael thinks it would have gone better if I used a cast iron skillet.  Next time.  

Here's what mine looked like.  It tasted much better than it looks!!!

Michael's Verdict:  Two thumbs up!  A clean plate!!  :-)  This is a twice a month meal according to my fiancé.