Another Steak Roll...

I have to say, this was my best to date! This time I used a combo of feta and goat cheeses. My-Worst-Food-Critic-Poppy said it was restaurant quality!

Speaking of Poppy, she just luvs her poppies so for years, I've been harvesting poppy seeds. You know that long thing that grows out of the flower of the poppy? Well, in the wild, that thing dries out and explodes all the little poppy seeds everywhere. Okay, I guess, that long things is some sort of penis in the plant world. Anyway, I found some poppy pods around the block. I had to find a way to let them dry out but not explode everywhere. Here's my scathingly brilliant idea!



I took my wire strainer, covered it with plastic wrap and poked some holes in the wrap so those plant-penis-things could get air and VIOLA! Damn, I need a cigarette!

Yesterday, we spend a few hours in the back. I brought Old-Girl-Meeko out for a vissy. She decided to stay out with us for a while. She's very sweet.







Jax-The-Jealous-Jewel was also with us:



Alright, let's move on to Gopher Update #3...

As you recall, I sent away for The Gophinator. It came the other day so I set it up yesterday:



I know, you can't see it cause I forgot to take a picture of it. I brought my tools of torture out to set the trap. That included some pig fat. I gotta think even gophers love pig fat. Anyhow I had the pig fat sitting on a paper towel. I ran back into the house cause I forgot one of my tools, came back out to find Jax-The-Pig-Fat-Connesewer finishing up the pig fat. Argh!

Okay, time to check the Gophinator...

Let's just say in less than 24 hours, I've achieved success. We will be having a Memorial a little later. We'll be serving mimosas and barbequed "chicken".




May he rest in peace...I know I will!

Later.

Pile on Poppy!

It only took about a week for Travlin-Poppy to get back in the swing and now all is right with the Kecky's world!

Yesterday while I was waiting for Dad to be dropped off, I noticed that my rosemary bush was looking a little dead so I decided to give it a haircut. Oops...went a little too far. I'm sure it'll grow back.



We had a good day with Dad that ended with this...





That's right BBQ'd chicken, roasted root veggies and corn on the cobby. We actually did the veggies two ways; roasted and steamed in a foil packet. For both, they were coated with melted herb butter, some salt and pepper. We liked the roasted veggies better than the steamed. Also, I made the BBQ sauce from scratch. I'm not going to bother with giving you the recipe cause it was okay, but not great. My-Worst-Food-Critic-Poppy said it's good on the chicken, but not good as a dipping BBQ sauce. She suggests I turn it into soup. Sounds like a plan to me!

Gopher Update #1: He's not shown his rodent little beady-eyed face since I went after him on Saturday. I'm still fixing all the sinkholes from his endless amounts of tunnels. How far can a gopher travel? There's only one other house on the block that has any kind of garden. Wonder if he'll go pay a visit over there...

Bye bye.

Busy Saturday...

Well, it would seem that our pet gopher is back and he's moved in to the front garden...Freakin varmint!!!



THIS MEANS WAR!



Haven't seen the little bastard since I went out there with my instruments of torture. If he comes back, I'm ordering the Crittergitter! What is a Crittergitter you ask? Well, its a thing that hooks up to your vehicle exhaust pipe and then to your garden hose. You shove it down the gopher hole...you get the picture.

Friday night's dinner was Kecky's Burger Patties and creamed spinach. Very tasty, but even more tasty for Saturday breakfast!

Creamed Spinach

2 lbs fresh spinach (yes, I use the stuff in the bag)
1/2 cup cream
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 table spoon fresh lemon juice
salt
pepper
1/2 cup Parmesan or Asiago, grated

I steam the spinach and squeeze most of the liquid out. Saute it in some sort of fat, preferably piggy fat. Add the salt, pepper, cream and lemon juice; stir until incorporated and warm, then add the cheese. Serve immediately.



What makes them Kecky's Burger Patties? I'll tell you! I like to grind my own meat, as you know. So to the meat I'll add a couple or three or more nice shakes of Worcestershire sauce to the meat then Kecky's Klassic Burger Seasoning. This is a take on onion soup mix without the MSG.

Kecky's Klassic Burger Seasoning

Ingredients:

8 tsp. dry minced onion
1 tsp. onion powder
2 tbsp. beef bouillon granules (sans MSG)
1/4 tsp. celery salt

Mix it up and add it to your burger meat. I'd say one tablespoon to pound of ground beef. But I always add my seasoning, then make a very mini-burger and taste it for the seasoning and add more to the mix, if needed.

Now it was time to head out with our new Scooter buddies, Gumbo and Roux. Sure had fun. We drove all around the city...to the Mosaic Stairs on Moraga/15th, Twin Peaks, the Mission, the Castro, the Haight and through Golden Gate Park to our final destination, Cajun Pacific for the dinnah! Cajun Pacific is one of the Kecky's favorite restaurants. We had fried heirloom tomatoes, fried soft-shell crab stuffed with blue cheese. Those were both crazy good. Crabby-Poppy has the soft-shell crab Po'Boy, I had the BBQ Gulf shrimp. Didn't taste a bit like petroleum products. Roux had the ribeye and Gumbo had, well, the gumbo. He said it was almost as good as his. Okay, first Gumbo had the crawfish pasta, but as it turned out the crawfish tasted like cow pooh pooh smells. I don't think that was the way it was supposed to taste so we went that back. Guess it was a bad batch of mud-bugs.

Here are Roux, Gumbo and Skidmark:



Here's Gumbo at the top of the world:



Here's Roux doing her Rocky impression on the stairs. That's right, she walked all the way up those stairs with her helmet on. Safety first!



Oh, Tic-Tac-Poppy and Skidmark took Scooter-Jax out for her maiden voyage yesterday. Went very well...



Have a great week!

Date Night...

For Seester and Bro-N-Law last night so I got to spend some time with Dad. I got to make him dinner too. Let's talk about Spike...

The ingredients I worked with last night were pork chops, egg noodles and peas. So for the chops, I seasoned them with Spike. If you don't know about Spike, it's an all purpose seasoning with about a thousand ingredients in it. It's salty goodness. I grilled the chops on the stove top grill. To the noodles I added Italian seasoning and butter. To the peas, a dash of dried mint and butter. It was all pretty NOM. I've never used Spike on meat before. It worked really well with the pork.

Seester and Bro-N-Law went to Burlingame Prime so I'm thinking their dinner was way better than mine...they had Yorkshire pudding!! Oh, and Seester just told me she brought her leftovers in for me. I'm very excited!!

Jax-The-Cheese-Connesewer loves her Uncle Darryll...



Later.

My har is like a box of chawclates...

I never know what I'm going to git.

So I decided to let my hair grow. Not sure how long I can take it. It's like a blanket on my head and is making me sweat. Right now, I'm looking like a cross between Bobby Sherman and Justin Bieber. Not a pretty picture!



Long before Tic-Tac and Skidmark received their scooters, IT-Extraordinaire-Chris decided he'd get a scooter and we'd form a club. Well, many months past and we still didn't have our scooters. Now that we have them, we've made a plan with IT-EX-Chris and wife, Preservation-Kerry to have a little scooter rally and dinner on Saturday. Tic-Tac-Poppy said she wants to take Jax-The-Scooter-Dog on the ride. But I was thinking since IT-Ex-Chris and Preservation-Kerry would be riding on one scooter, maybe it would be more fun if I BOB it on the back of Tic-Tac-Poppy's scooter. She liked the idea. Then a little while later, she wrote to Fatass and said "I think we might exceed the weight limit on my scooter." Um, yeah, I'm pretty sure she's callin me fat!

I hope the dog bites her in the butt!

Happy humpy day!

Leftovers and stuff...

Well, Homestead-Poppy is just about back to the routine of living la vida Kecky. Yesterday, we went to the beach with the little dog. Walked the length throwing the ball and rock hunting. Check out our haul:



Since Mountain-Climbing-Poppy saw some cool rock formations in Ireland, I think she's got some ideas about how these will be placed. Like a mountain, probably.

Note about Jax-The-Cheese-Connesewer...since her Poppy has been home, she's kicked the Mama to the curb. So ungrateful!!

After that, we headed up to Noriega Market for the rest of the fixins I'd needed for Double-Decker-Taco-Supreme night. For those of you who do not go to Taco Bell, a DDTS is your basic hard shelled taco filled with meat, sour cream, lettuce, cheese and tomato then the cruchy shell is shrouded in a soft flour tortilla that has been spread with refried beans. If you're going to eat the fast food, I highly recommend this...or better yet, make them at home!

But, I digress...let's start with breakfast with the Kecky's.

Frittata!





Remember those veggies and steak we grilled on whatever night that was? Well, I took the leftovers, heated them all up in one of my favorite cast iron pans. Then took 5 eggs, a big handful of sharp cheddar and some cream; mixed all that together. I added it to the pan with the veggies then off it went to a 350 degree oven for about a half hour.

My-Worst-Food-Critic-Poppy said she'd pay money for it at a restaurant it was so good! I'm movin up in my little culinary world!

Alrighty, so back to the DDTS night. Tex-Mex-Poppy has been craving her tacos. I've been craving my DDTS so that's what we did. Take a look...

Taco night starts out with my grinding up some kind of beef roast. If it doesn't meet the 80/20% fat content, I'll grind up some fatty pork...cause pork fat makes everthing taste good!

First I made my pico de gallo:



This recipe is pretty simple:

2 parts chopped tomato to one part chopped onion
juice of one lime
1/2 to 1 Serrano chili, seeded (you want it hotter, you know you can leave the seeds in)
handful chopped cilantro
celery salt
pepper
garlic salt
onion salt

Mix it all up. This is all to your personal taste.

The other thing I wanted was to make my own refried beans. So...

I took about a cup of Rancho Gordo's Pinquinto beans. Rinsed them and let them sit in the water over night. Lucky for me I had some bacon skin pieces I'd froze from one of LuvBacon's smoking sessions. So sauteed a carrot and onion in the bacon skins until soft.



Once cooked, I seasoned the beans with some Kecky's Southwest Seasoning, a little Ancho chili powder and salt. Then, I drained off most of the pot liquor. Note, you can save the leftover pot liquor and serve it as a pre-dindin soup. Very yummy!



Now it's time to do the refry in those refried beans. I took a touch of grapeseed oil and put the beans in my cast iron skillet and fried them until they reduced just a bit.



Then Taco-Meat-Poppy starts the meat. It gets browned and to that Poppy adds diced green chilies, some mild salsa, Kecky's Southwest Seasoning and some onion powder and garlic salt. Drain the fat off and...

VIOLA!



Well, time to watch our USA gals kick some booty! U-S-A! U-S-A! And what goes good with Women's World Cup Soccer? That's right a watermelon mimosa!!



Enjoy your Sunday!

Sheeeeeee's Baaaaaack!

Check out Union-Jack-Poppy!



Computer-Poppy is very happy to be home...so let's talk about what we ate!

As you recall, all Beef-n-Grape-Deprived-Poppy wanted when she got home was "wine and steak". So that's what we did...

Here are my veggies marinading in olive oil, sherry vinegar, Kecky's Southwest Seasoning and a touch of Kecky's Steak Shake.



For the steaks, I dusted them with Kecky's Steak Shake...oh, last weekend, Pal-Crin was over and made a garlic-herb butter so we put that on the steaks while they were resting:



Let's eat!



There were lots of yum yum noises during dinner.

Jax-The-Cheese-Connesewer is a fair weather kind of dog. It was too cold for her out by the grill, so she spent some quality time with Meeko.



Time for breakfast!

This is my play on prosciutto and melon. Talk about a darn tasty-treat sensation!



It's Sopressata and watermelon. NOMMY!

Well, it's about time to get Computer-Obsessed-Poppy out of the house. She swears she needs to get all of the trip exposes figured out or the world will stop revolving or something. Whatever! I think she needs to go back to Europe!

Later!

It's Friday...

Well, it is for me! Yep, Homesick-Poppy is in the air and on her way home. The last time I heard from her was yesterday. They'd had Margarita night. Here's Cousin-Autumn:



I saw an email from Cousin-Autumn to Poison-Poppy that said "I won't be having another margarita for a couple of years!" She's going to hate me for posting this.

This past weekend was a Dad weekend, as you know. We took a drive on Sunday. I wanted to find the mosaic stairs. I found them and they are cool! When Volksmarch-Poppy gets back in the groove, we're going walk up them.



I'm sure you've noticed that Fatass' eating habits have not suffered without her LuvBacon. She made a couple of really good dishes this week.

Here is a play on the huevos rancheros:



Dad and I had taco night on Sunday, so on Monday, I took the leftovers and Viola!

Check this out...I had some lamb chops. I had some mint sauce in the fridge too, but it has sugar in it. So, I made my own...

1 handful mint leaves, finely chopped with about a teaspoon of Truvia
3 tablespoons of sherry vinegar
1 teaspoon balsamic

Mix it up.

I took the lamb chops and marinated them in 3 sprigs of rosemary, chopped garlic, salt, pepper and olive oil. I grilled them in a cast iron grill pan.



Freakin NOM!

Have I mentioned Homesick-Poppy is coming home? I emailed Carb-Overloaded-Poppy and asked if she wanted anything special in the house for when she gets back. She said "Wine and steak!" The next day she said they never had taco night there so she wants taco night too.

Chow!

Sunday and stuff...

Well, all's quiet on the Kecky front. I've had Dad this weekend. Nothing exciting there...although, it's only Sunday. Pal-Crin is coming over in a little while and we're going to make compound butter. I think she wants to do a garlic one.

We had the electric SmartMeter installed yesterday. I've gone online to see how much electricity we've used since yesterday, but come to find out, I can't do that until the whole area here is SmartMeter'd. Whatever.

I heard from Irish-Poppy yesterday. They are back at Cousin-Autumn's in Chilton (outside London?). She said she's had a great time, but is ready to come home cause she misses me! She said when she gets home, she wants to cozy up to the farpit with me wearing her new wooly jumper. I'm hoping that's a sweater and not a hyper lamb she's bringing home.

Gosh I feel boring...

Holy Virgin Mutha!!!

Do you see what I see?



I got chills up and down my spine!

So late night was fajita night! Damn, I'm eating good while Nonexistent-Poppy is gone!

Here they are marinating in Kecky's Southwest Seasoning, olive oil and tequila. Nom...



I couldn't decide whether to grill them outside or cook them on the stove. I went with outside in the cast iron pan.



And the finished product:



I put a little Pasilla chili powder and salt in the sour cream. I can't wait for lunch!

I'm Baaaaack...

Been in Sacramento since Sunday visiting Very-Longtime-Friend-Jeannie. Of course, we had a great visit, but it was all about the food. I did Taco Night on Sunday and then Steak Roll on Monday. Here's what it looked like before it was cooked:



So basically, what I did was take about a 2lb flank steak and butterflied it. Then sprinkled some of Crin's Mediterranean Seasoning on it. Put a layer of fresh spinach on it, then a layer of roasted red peppers and lastly a layer of feta cheese. In this case it was Bulgarian Feta and it was creamy-good! Then I rolled it and tied it off. Browned it in a cast iron skillet and then threw it on the grill. So freakin NOM!!!

VLTF-Jeannie set me up in their spare room. She swears she didn't do this on purpose, but I beg to differ!



I couldn't sleep a wink knowing those minkies were going to come alive and scratch my eyeballs out! Not to mention it was 100 degrees up there!!!

Tuesday night was so fun...VLTF-Jeannie and Tom-Look-At-Your-Hands took me to Fuji Sushi. All you can eat sushi buffet for like $15! I know what you're thinking you foodie snobs, but it was basic and it was NOM!!! They had the little boats in the water and you could ask for whatever you wanted. I got a whole lot of sake nigiri, ika and amaebi. I also had a medium sashimi combo plate. It was fresh and good...and really all you could eat! They also had an array of rolls, but I likes the nigiri and the sashimi.

Okay, so it was time for me to come home...I was looking forward to getting back to my climate and was not disappointed!!



I've heard a bit from Driving-Miss-Poppy and MomJean...but not since Monday. I figure they're probably getting ready to head on back to London within the next few days. Guess I'll find out when they get some Internet.

Okay, time to fire up the grill for fajitas!