Friday the 13th (May 2011)

I was a little hungry this morning and didn’t feel like waiting for lunchtime to have breakfast. Today will be house cleaning day and I need the energy. We had a real breakfast today complete with hash browns sausage and poached eggs. I was going to wait until after today to do the house cleaning because the air conditioner guy was scheduled to come up and service the acs. They called the other day to re-schedule for Wednesday and I couldn’t bear to live in this pig sty that much longer.

Now that job is complete and it’s time for lunch. Today we have some bratwurst from Whole Foods. I got the grill going and started working on the condiments. We have some sauerkraut but it’s not a full jar so I think I want to “stretch it”. We had some shredded cabbage leftover from the other day so what I did was to drain the sauerkraut and put the sauerkraut liquid on the cabbage. It will just sit there  and pickle while the rest of lunch is prepared. Now the grill is nice and hot so I put the brats on the top shelf and turned down the heat a bit. This is raw meat and I want to make sure it is cooked through. We have some whole wheat hot dogs buns (Maui Crunch) made right here on Maui at the Homemaid Bakery, sauerkraut (which I have mixed with the drained pickled cabbage), several kinds of mustard, mayonnaise, ketchup and onions. If I know my husband well, and I think I should after 34 years, he will want some sort of vegetable besides just the sauerkraut so I steamed up some green beans to go along with our meal. Then for dessert we had some chocolate from the Big Island complemented with blue cheese. It’s almost like eating a chocolate cheesecake.

The afternoon’s work consisted of finishing the laundry, ironing and making the bed as well as making ghee, prepping the ribs for grilling tomorrow, and marinating the chicken breasts for tonight. For the chicken marinade I used the juice of 1 lemon, 2T extra virgin olive oil, 4 cloves garlic, 4T dijon mustard. This will marinade all afternoon. Randy quit work about 6:30 which was perfect timing as I was just finishing the last shirt and was ready to light the barbee. Mark Berry came over with some fresh ahi poke from Foodland so we had a little snack while I got the chicken going. Tonight I have a craving for garlicky mashed potatoes. Usually when I make them, I cook the garlic in the water along with the potatoes. The only problem with that is it makes the garlic a little too mild and I was in the mood for GARLIC. Tonight we will have raw garlic in our potatoes. I like the texture of  Yukon gold potatoes to make mashers. Okay, the chicken is grilling, the potatoes are boiling and the asparagus is cleaned and snapped (asparagus naturally snaps off at the point where the edible stalk begins). Now that the potatoes are done it’s time for some seasoning. Starting off with a few tablespoons of ghee, I add salt and pepper, 5 cloves of fresh garlic and milk – which I don’t have so I’ll have to substitute with coconut milk. This can of coconut milk was opened and has been in the fridge for a day or so and the really thick stuff is all that’s left, so I’ll have to add a little chicken broth to it to thin it out.

It’s time to enjoy all that God has blessed us with including time with Melissa while she is here. We picked out a movie to watch and enjoyed each other’s company.