Brown Food is Good Food!

Mondays can be a challenge for a variety of reasons, but today was an especially challenging Monday for me.  (Stick around...I'll get to the food, I promise!)

Let me begin by saying that my sweet Terry is rather ill with that awful stuff that's going around.  And at 2:00 in the morning, when I got up to get him another dose of our 'coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever, so you-can-rest medicine', my blurry blue eyes came into focus on the expiration date, which was...well, let's just say 'prior to Feb 2011'.  Oops!  No wonder it wasn't helping him...poor thing! 

Tip of the Day:  Check the expiration dates on all medications, especially before you really need them!  

So, I began the day with major lack of sleep (I was up every two hours with my sick baby, I mean, my sick husband). Seriously, it was a two cup of caffeine kind of day for me...a coffee and then a cappuccino! 

I can handle the lack of sleep, but for me, there are few things in life worse than a sick husband.  It breaks my heart that my sugar-pumpkin-lumpkin doesn't feel well, and I can't make it all better!  Of course, first thing this morning I went to our local pharmacy and got the medication he needed; he is feeling a bit better now, but still deserves his fair share of pampering until he is 100% well.   

Pampering always includes what we call 'mood food' so tonight Terry got to select anything he wanted to eat for dinner.  While I waited for his 'special menu request', I was preparing myself for a time-consuming, labor-intensive, five-course meal, complete with never-ending dishes to boot.  Then, as I was going through the options with him, his eyes lit up -- and then he popped the question.  (No, not that question....that question was popped sixteen years ago!) 

This question:

"Do we have any frozen hush puppies?"  Hush puppies?  Seriously?  Yes, honey, we have hush puppies! 

"That sounds good to me."  Okay sugar...you got it!  How about the main course? 

"Do we have any fish or shrimp?  Any potatoes?"  Yes, yes, and yes!  And thus the meal was born! 

My kitchen is considered a 'no-fry zone' which means I will not fry anything at home.  I repeat -- I will NOT fry anything at home.  If we want to eat fried food, we have to go to a restaurant.  That's my way of helping us eat healthier.  We have to work for it!  So far, it has worked for us, and I have never fried anything.  

Kinda sorta.  Technically, when I buy frozen breaded shrimp or beer-battered tilapia, or hush puppies, or french fried potato crowns, they are fully-cooked (read: fried) by someone else, and all I have to do is heat them in the oven. 

That's baking.  That's baking fried food.  Not frying fried food. 

Please tell me I am correct in my belief that I am not frying food...please. 

Thank you for that...whew!  I feel so much better now.  Hubby will feel much better after his 'baked-fried' meal, too.  Here goes!

Look at that pan - o - brown, would ya'?!  That is a pan full of brown food!   Brown 'mood food'!  Mmm!

One of my favorite Food Network hosts, Chef Anne Burrell, always says that "brown food is good food" but I don't think this is what she means!  In fact, I know it's not what she means, but tonight...this brown food is good food.  The challenge will be how to make it look a little more...shall we say, presentable?  After all, we do eat with our eyes first.  Even when we're feeling under the weather, and have itchy, watery eyes!  So...here goes.  (Knowing that my husband won't care what the food looks like, I still make the effort, 'cause I love him that much!)

Special, fancy, white plate.  Good start.  'Cause when you're sick, you need to feel special!

Shingle the fish.  (Shingle is a fancy-shmancy-cheffy food term that means 'lay the food on the plate like shingles on a roof...to make 'em look real purdy') 

Pause to think about what to do with the potato crowns and the hush puppies, and then just get them on the plate.  He really doesn't care what the food looks like, but I still get an 'A' for absolutely trying my best! 

Enter my secret weapon for embellishing golden-brown food.  Heinz Ketchup.  Not just because my Father-In-Law retired from Heinz, but because of ... wait ... wait for it...

(Anticipation!)  No really, sing it!  Remember their jingle?  Sing it with me! 

Anticipation, Anticipa...yay...tion...is ma-kin' me wait! 

I love that jingle!  Good thing, because it's one of those jingles that sticks with me.  For days.  And weeks.  Until I find another jingle that sticks.  For days.

Schlotsky's is a good jingle for when you need a good jingle distraction.  Remember that one?  I'll sing it for you.

Another day!

But the Heinz really works to jazz up the presentation, don't you agree?  My Terry's a 'food drizzler', so his ketchup gets drizzled over his baked, not fried, fish.  But that still isn't enough, because the baked, not fried, potato crowns will be jealous if they don't get bathed in some tomato-y goodness of their own.  Tomatoes are good for the heart, you know? 

Ta-Daaa!  Brilliant!  A special heart-shaped pool of ketchup-y goodness for the potato crowns.  (I do play with my food for a living, remember? No one told me not to draw with ketchup on my plate when I was little.  I'm glad.  It sure is fun.  You should try it sometime.  Really.)

And awwww....that's sweet!  That makes it all better!

For me, just a regular old everyday plate, with a pool-o-ketchup for dunkin' and a pool-o-tartar sauce, 'cause I love me some tartar sauce!  My plate just gets a pool-o-sauces', because I'm not a sauce 'drizzler', I'm a sauce 'dunker'.

And if you look really close, you'll see the chip on my dinner plate on the right side.  Don't feel a bit sorry for me, I'm ordering new dishes next in a couple of days with my birthday money (from January!).  For a long time I've been looking for a set of white porcelain dinnerware, and I finally found a really nice one on sale at JCP.com.  I'm waiting to order them because my $10 coupon is not in effect until the 23rd.  Yep.  I'm waiting to save $10.00, because $10 saved is $10 earned. 

Plus, my Mama taught me to save whenever I possibly can.  She was a very wise woman.   I really, really miss my Mama. 

And I certainly do save whever I possible can.  I'm a frugal foodie. 

Hmmm...Frugal Foodie...that's catchy...I'll have to remember that one!  'I'm Kitchen Kimberley, the Frugal Foodie'! 

Am I thinking out loud?  It feels like it to me.  It must be getting late.  I should 'wrap'. 

"Okay, people, that's a wrap!"  By the way, no one really says that in TV...at least I've never heard it. 

To sum it up, tonight's dinner was indulgent, quick, easy, tasty, and satisfying to the congested taste buds of my illin' hubby.  He managed to eek out a couple of 'mmm's with his very deep, low, congested voice, which I hope will be back to normal tomorrow.  If not, Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup is on the menu, and we'll blog about it then! 

Until then, I'll be counting my blessings, and counting the minutes until I can cook another meal!
Remember...cook, eat, smile, repeat!
Kimberley

p.s.  See?  I am just a real person!  I'm really just...plain old me!  If I were trying to be anything other than the 'real me' that I am, I would have shown you this picture of my plate, without the chip.  That's just the kind of foodie I am.  A real one.  With chipped plates and all.  And new ones on the way soon!