Mountain Cooking..

So we went to Grand Lake with some friends last weekend, each couple taking responsibility for dinner one evening... The first evening my friend made yummy pizza using pilsbury pizza dough which we flattened out and cooked on the grill (I am telling you, I have everyone around me grilling pizza now.. soooo good!)by coating one side with olive oil and placing it face down on the hot grill, then flipping when that side got nice and crispy (it will release easily when it is ready to be flipped), then placing the toppings on the cooked side and letting the other side cook while the toppings warmed thru- she brought goat cheese, mushrooms, and spinach to top one, and another was BBQ chicken breast and carmelized onions (my fave - it was amazing!!)... She also brought peperoni and tomato sauce for the less adventurous among us.. :)
It was a really easy way to feed a crowd a delicious dinner!!

Day two was my night, and at The H's request I did chicken and beef fajitas - I didn't want to deal with a bunch of raw chicken in the cooler for the drive up, or in a kitchen I didn't know, so I used a large bag of pre-cooked,taco-spiced chicken breast strips I got from SHARE and had in the freezer. I got a large cut of flank steak, and a couple hours before I started cooking, I took a package of fajita seasoning, the juice of a lime, and a half cup of veggie oil, mixed it all together in a ziplock and put the flank steak in to maranade... That left plenty of oil on the meat to keep it from sticking to the grill when I cooked the beef (I did a medium-temp grill for 10 minutes a side, and the cut I had was fairly thick.. it was medium rare by the time I took it off the grill and let it set wrapped in foil before cutting)..
I heated the chicken on the stove while I cooked up a giant pan of onions and peppers, doctored up some ready-made guac I had in the freezer with some of my homegrown cherry tomatoes, and cut the beef into thin strips across the grain.
Fajitas are super-easy to serve buffet style, so I just lined everything up near the hot stuff on the stove and let everyone make a plate...

Day three was BBQ ribs and pork tenderloin on the grill, and while they cooked that I scrouged around with one of our friends and found extra potatoes which we pan-fried, and boxes of good old Kraft Mac and Cheese to serve along side... Boiling water to cook pasta at 8500+ feet takes FOREVER!!! I have never worked harder to make a box of Mac and Cheese!

My friend made an egg bake for breakfast one morning that was AMAZING - I will publish the recipe when I get it..

I ate like a pig the whole time we were there - so much good food, and not even complicated...

Appliances are in...

Ok - so the new appliances are in and the kitchen is technically functional again...
However, getting brand new shiny appliances has a way of making everything else look kinda shabby - so I am hesitant to post pics... The H is trying to decide if we can get the granite counters done before the elevator project leaves us effectively in a 6th floor walk up for 2 months, or if we should just wait until after...

Also, we are weighing the pros (awesome finish) against the cons (cha-ching) of having our super cool metal cabinets powder coated, instead of just painted...

Anyway, Dinners this week have consisted of some things I am not proud of (Chicken fingers and baked potatoes last night, boxed potatoes au gratin and plain grilled pork chops the night before.... sigh....)

Life and worrying about other stuff has kind of sucked the joy out of cooking for me this week anyway... (I didn't think that was possible, usually cooking relieves all my stress, this week I wish I could feed The H Post Toasties every night or something...)

I am sure the culinary funk will lift soon... meantime, if there's anybody out there, post your favorite thing to cook, or a link to a recipe for it... something you love to linger over, love the process of making, or something that you make when you want to enjoy and feel better...

In case you are wondering what is cooking..

The answer is kind of nothing... why?

This is where a stove should be:

Yeppers... we await the arrival of our new drop-in stove - but since it was kind of labor intensive to get the old one out, we had to take said labor when we could get it...

And so BEHOLD the wonder of the stove hole!!! Bask in it's (not live, don't worry)220 connection glory!!! Gaze at the beauty of ancient linolium from an era long gone by!!

(Pray for the stove delivery fates to be kind and fill this dreaded hole in a timely manner..)