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Amongst Women, Dinner Party

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Amongst Women, Dinner Party Last weekend I had the pleasure of spending my time with 2 beautiful ladies and a dog. Yes, a dog was invited to this dinner party, but could only sit and enjoy the view from the balcony overlooking the parking lot. We anticipated a few more ladies, but for the first dinner party gathering, this was lovely. A quaint setting in which no one competed for the attention of the group. Our time was equally shared with one another. However, Cookie, the dog often disobeyed the commands of stay and sit as she inched closer and closer to the welcoming scent of lemon and brown sugar. As we entered the home of our gracious host, we were greeted with scented oils and appetizers, potato cakes with aioli. Our host is very well known for her extravagance, she is the Marilyn Monroe of our group as she often dawns the best high heels, trench coats, and beautiful dresses. However, this woman is a professional with the cookware. Her food will cause you to spend hours
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New Year Resolutions?

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Lemon Thyme Grilled Chicken Lemon Thyme chicken with red peppers, onions and spinach. Served over mashed potatoes and gravy. Photo taken by Chad Morgan. It’s a new year! And we all have made those resolutions to get healthy, eat better, workout and some more stuff. This year I vowed to give up pork, and Lord knows I LOVE bacon and pork chops. However, I do find some comfort in knowing that I’ll never eat chitterlings and pig feet. Fourteen days in, and I’m still going strong. It’s the little things that bring the most joy. With that being said, this weekend I decided to challenge myself by keeping track of everything that I ate and drank. It started off well. For breakfast, oatmeal with brown sugar and blue berries served with turkey bacon. Next, sixteen ounces of water followed by an 8 ounce fruit smoothie. But then, the cravings kicked in. When I searched my refrigerator, for items to snack on, I saw cookie dough, spinach leaves and more blue berries. It was then
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Mint Beef Stir Fry

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Beef and mint stir fry, served with jasmine rice and asparagus. Photo by Chad Morgan Mint Beef Stir Fry It’s been over 1 month since my last blog post. And, frankly, that is far too long.  Forgive me, please.  I must admit that I probably cooked twice the whole month of September. Most due to laziness, but mainly because my mother came to visit and there is truly nothing like food from home! She cooked every day for 2 weeks, multiple times a day. I had so much food in my house. I felt rich.  Normally, I would not let a guest come to my home and cook for me, but my mother is a busy body. She needs something to do constantly. So she cooked and cleaned.   Back to reality now!  I began to notice that I cook a lot for fish, chicken and pasta. Those are my go to items, but I’m much more than that. So this month, I plan to get away from those items and work with some flavors that I don’t normally use at home.  In DC, we call our Chinese food spots, carry outs.  And since
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Italian Pasta and Broccoli

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This weekend, I decided to give up on fast foods. Not because of any bad experiences, but because of the amount of money that I’m spending on food that makes me say, “meh!”  And, although I do realize that meh! is not a work, it is used to describe something that does not evoke any pleasure. Honestly speaking, five dollars here and there really adds up. By the end of the month, I’ve spent 50 dollars at these neighborhood fast food spots. I could have gotten a pedicure and a leg massage, with 20 -30 dollars left over for something else. Back to my fugal, thrifty self.  When I went to buy the food for this weekend’s posting, I was in awe of how much money I spent. Nine dollars and some change. This nine dollars will make 4 servings of food, for a single person such as myself, but can feed a family of four. Seriously, think about how this could help you... With most spaghetti, you get a full serving of veggies. And who doesn’t like their veggies…  I know this post is going t
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Faux Fried Fish

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Baked Catfish This month, I decided to take a spin on the healthy side. And in doing so, I’ve realized that I’m not a healthy eater, which has been a tough pill to swallow. I do eat salads often, only when I’m lazy and do not want to slave over a stove. I sauté mostly in olive oil. However, eating healthy is about much more than that.  As I started to think about what kind of dish I would prepare this week, I realized that my eating habits were pretty much atrocious. I love bacon on everything and in everything.  Like bacon cheese dogs, chicken salad sandwich with bacon, bacon cheese burgers, bacon deviled eggs… You get the picture.  Then my next addiction, cheese.  My love for cheese is kind of crazy. I have at least 8 different kinds of cheese in my fridge. I can’t even being to justify why. I just do! Why do I have Feta cheese, Parmesan, cheddar, Mexican blend, Cijota, queso, pimento? What am I using them for? So, this week, I was determined, no bacon and no cheese
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Salad without the greens

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Photo by: Chad Morgan Corn Salad Last week I was challenged to become the food coordinator for a 9 person Bible study group. The reason I say challenged is because I have never cooked for 9 people, and these are 9 people that I don’t know well yet. So my first thought was to find out if anyone in the group had food allergies? Or food restrictions? Those are all very important questions to address when cooking for a large group. I do not want anyone's throat to close or worse.  After I found the answers that I was looking for, I then had to tackle another obstacle. The Bible study teacher said to make sure all the snacks were healthy. And she meant business!  However, I live with the mantra that everything is good in moderation. So this is the bigger challenge. Normally I do not cook with the idea of being healthy. I also think, for many people, the term healthy is scary. I mean, I would not serve anyone a stick of fried butter. But is being healthy boring? On the con
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Level 1 Pastry

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Photo by: Chad Morgan Chocolate Molten Lava Cake Recently I had a 30 minute conversation with a friend about an episode of Chef Roble and Co.  It’s the episode in which Roble and company catered 2 parties for NY Knicks center, Tyson Chandler. Needless to say, this is the inspiration behind this weeks’ blog posting.  A level 1 pastry. I’m not sure exactly what falls under Level 1 pasty, but apparently molten lava cakes do. I was upset by this news, because I have eaten at a number of restaurants that serve lava cakes. And this was never a dessert or pastry that I enjoyed. It was always hard and somewhat stale on the outside. Like the cake had been in the fridge for too long before serving. No! I am not a chef, nor do I pretend to be. I will never dress up in my kitchen with a chef jacket and hat. Instead, with the advice of Kevin Hart, I stay in my “cooking” lane. However, when Roble ripped his pastry chef a new one, I had to try to cook this pasty.  And I kicked its
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