Change of plans
You may or may not recall that this past weekend my wife and I were supposed to take a trip down to North Carolina to watch our niece play softball. With that being cancelled, we found ourselves with a free weekend and nothing to do. The problem is, it was a winter weekend in Michigan. I had thought about taking a short drive to do a couple of fun things on Saturday to take our minds off the disappointment of the other trip not working out, but like I said, it was a winter weekend in Michigan.
The weather got a little nasty on Friday and the winds were blowing snow over the road and turning them into nothing but a sheet of ice. With that in mind, we thought it might be wiser to just stay at home and avoid ending up in the ditch by some farm fields in the middle of nowhere. If you have never driven by a farm field in the winter, the wind just whips right across the landscape, with nothing to to stop it, it blows the snow wherever it wants to go. Until it manages to stick on the road, then it just piles up more and more. It's pretty crazy to see.
Anyway, we decided to stay home and just do some puttering around the house. We started out with a bit of food prep starting with this fresh and amazing pico de gallo that we have been making quite a bit lately. It's a close recipe to the stuff we had in Cleveland this past summer from the downtown market. The key difference between this and traditional pico de gallo is that it uses green onions instead of red or yellow onions. It also has sweet yellow, orange, and red peppers in it along with tomatoes, a jalapeno, and cilantro.
The night before we had stopped at our local meat market and picked up some stuff that we were getting low on in our freezer. I grabbed two pounds of their homemade double smoked bacon. I cut it up into smaller pieces and then we vacuum sealed it for use at a later date. I also grabbed two pounds of their ground breakfast sausage that we divided up and vacuum sealed as well.
Finally, we also got five pounds of ground chicken. I divided that up and then we vacuum sealed it as well. Part of the reason we vacuum seal stuff is for portion control, but the other reason is so @mrsbozz can cook with it without having to touch it. She just opens a package and dumps it into the pan.
While we were working in the kitchen, we noticed this black squirrel that was hanging out in the tree in our backyard. We couldn't figure out what he was doing at first but I think he was keeping an eye on the neighbors dogs next door. Ready to make a beeline for the woods should the need arise.
For lunch I fired up the grill and made the chicken wings that you saw in my post on Monday. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon finishing up the last couple episodes of Fallout Season 2 while my wife took a nap in the bedroom.
Closer to dinner time I fired up the grill again and I cooked some chicken breasts and a pork steak that we had pulled out of the freezer a day or two before. @mrsbozz also made some homemade mashed potatoes to go along with it and some brussel sprouts. It was an amazing meal.
After dinner we sat down to play a few rounds of a new (to us) game that her parents taught us called Hand and Foot. It's been around for a while and you can easily find the rules online if you want to search for it. It's kind of like Rummy and another game I can't remember now, but with a few twists. In case you are wondering, she beat me.
Finally, on Sunday we got up early and made the drive down to Flint, MI to watch our niece play basketball with her team. Oddly enough, the rest of the day was kind of a rinse and repeat of Saturday, with a little bit of cleaning thrown in and minus the grilling. We played more Hand and Foot and I got beat again, then we spent the rest of the day watching basketball, the Winter Olympics, and season 2 of Landman.
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Overall, it sounds like a very pleasant weekend to me. The chicken and pico looks great.
We made the best of it! Thanks, everything was delicious!
Those firestarters are one of the inventions of the century. Makes life so much easier. At least that was when I did use a regular BBQ. Now we do have a wood BBQ.
I love to play games with the wife during the lazy weekend. A glass of beer or wine and just playing. Getting crushed most of the time but that isn't important. The time together is.
I think my wife enjoys the games more than I do, but it is fun and it's a nice change from just sitting in front of the TV. Totally a game changer. When people talk about how they don't like charcoal grills because it takes too long to get started, I always tell them to get a chimney starter. I have about three of them at home. It's looking like I am going to have to retire this one soon.
I did notice that :). Still have a spare one if you want, just come over :)
Maybe one day!
Hand and Foot. I'll have to look that up. When my kids were younger I taught them crazy 8's. Now all they want to play is Switch, so we don't get to play as often. If I can ever draw them away from the screen I was planning on teaching them Hearts or Euchre. Gin Rummy might be fun too.
Euchre is the greatest! I love that game! This one is fun, but depending on how many people you have playing, you need one deck of cards per person, plus one more deck. So with three people it would be four decks. There are rules on the Bicycle website and I noticed they have an expensive boxed version of the game on Amazon.
That double-smoked bacon from the local market is definitely going to make some future breakfasts much better.
It's good stuff! Usually leaner than most and it has a great flavor!
They managed to have a nice weekend, complete with a barbecue. Perhaps the squirrel was waiting for its plate of grilled meat.
The meats look awesome, and fresh pico de gallo. I would have loved that! I would pass on the blowing snow, there's a reason I live in California! Glad it was a good weekend even though you didn't make it down to North Carolina. Maybe that will be a trip in the near future!
We are heading to Virginia in March, so that will have to be close enough! I used to hate pico when I was growing up because of the tomatoes, but now I could dive in a vat of it.
Hmmmm bacon, don't you just love it! We call that sort streaky bacon over here, and I love it. Funnily enough when my Dad came to visit once that is what he said was the best food, the bacon lol!
Looks a great feast and yeah much better than being in a farm ditch! Sometimes it is far better to be safe than sorry.
Bacon is pretty good, but I have started to realize it doesn't need to go in everything like some people think it does.
https://www.reddit.com/r/BBQandGrilling/comments/1r2lsog/juicy_grilled_chicken_breasts/
This post has been shared on Reddit by @mayt through the HivePosh initiative.