All Grown Up.

I'll let you in on a little secret...

With the exception of the rare spinach-based salad, I have never made a salad with anything but iceberg lettuce.

Not that iceberg lettuce is bad by any means, I've just learned that it doesn't really fit well with some types of salad.

So, this week, I expanded my salad horizons and made, what I consider, a grown up salad.

I have no idea what besides spinach was in this mix I bought, but it said organic, and it looked fancy so I went for it.

The rest of the ingredients were based off of The Pioneer Woman's Steak Salad, which is based off of the steak salad from Dave and Buster's.

Mine included: Mixed greens, tomatoes, pecans, 5-cheese italian blend, blue cheese dressing, steak, fresh ground pepper, and PW's Onion Strings.

It was fantastic, and actually it was my first steak salad ever. 

Oh how I have grown since iceberg lettuce and Kraft singles.

(Again, not that that is not tasty in its own right.)

Want me to prove how (else) I've grown?

Ahh, birthdays. You get to eat cake, and someone else does the baking. Nothing wrong there!

The 100th.

This post is the 100th of KO Kitchen, and I'm sad to say it won't be anything special.

But maybe, just maybe, it will be the post that gets me back on track in the kitchen!

The following is simply my meal plan for the upcoming week. 

Sunday:

Baked Macaroni and Cheese

On another note, I cannot wait to make PW's "Fancy Macaroni" again. However, it won't be this week.

Monday:

This Steak Salad.

I'll be swapping the dressing for a different kind, I'm not sure what yet.

Tuesday:

BLT's

Wednesday:

Cheese Roll House for my Birthday. Hooray!

Thursday:

My Alfredo Pizza

I know, I know. Macaroni and Cheese, Cheese Roll, and this?! It's my birthday week. That's my only excuse.

Friday:

Lasagna

Saturday:

Caprese Chicken

Sloth.

This is not working as I thought it would.

(By "this" I mean the whole 'cooking for one' thing.)

I thought it would liven up my cooking. I looked on the bright side, and I thought how wonderful it would be to make all of the things I love that Chris doesn't.

Instead, I have been so, so lazy. The first week I cooked soup on Sunday and ate it for three days. Then I made Lemon Pasta and ate that for three days. That pretty much took me through the week. I had a few meals here and there the second week, then I made four chicken breasts. The first night I had BBQ chicken, for lunch the next day it was Chicken Parmesan Light. That night for dinner I added Cream of Chicken soup to some rice and the chicken. The following night I added salsa and shredded cheddar to the last chicken breast and rice.

I am so sick of chicken, and I still have a decent amount left to go through before I can restock my freezer with meat.

Tonight, I'm having Chicken Spaghetti. Fake fried chicken will come soon after.

To liven things up, I tried to make cookies the other day. They melted. Let that sink in. They didn't burn. They melted. How does that happen? Who does that?

I do, apparently.

I'll get back in the swing of things soon. I have to. I think the problem is the sink full of dishes in my kitchen. It's just not as fun to cook when you have to clean up after yourself. Bummer.

Shrimp and Avocado Quesadilla.

Mike's Tex-Mex is arguably one of the better aspects of Misawa. As I mentioned in a previous post, I ordered a Shrimp and Avocado Quesadilla the last time we went there, and it was fantastic. All I can criticize is that it was just a bit bland. However, they served it with a delicious sauce, unfortunately, I haven't a clue what was in it.

I wasn't absolutely sure on what all was in the actual quesadilla either, but I had an okay guess.

After peeling the tails off half a bag of shrimp I cooked them in a mix of butter and EVOO, seasoning the shrimp with salt, pepper, white pepper, garlic, lemon pepper, and lime juice. As the shrimp cooked the sauce thickened and I poured the whole pan out onto a plate off to the side. 

I then roughly smashed an avocado and tossed it into the pan, stirring it around for about 30 seconds before removing it as well.

Finally, I grated up a bunch of parmesan cheese. Then it was time to build the quesadillas.

This amount of cheese, shrimp, and avocado made two LARGE quesadillas. I started with a layer of parmesan, sprinkled shrimp (still coated in the sauce it cooked in) over the cheese, and added gobs of avocado in between the shrimp. I sprinkled a bit more cheese over the top, added the top quesadilla, and cooked it on both sides until the outsides were crisp and the cheese was melty.

The quesadillas turned out just as good as the one I had at Mike's, but they, like their inspiration, were a bit bland. The second day, when the spices on the shrimp had settled over night, was perfect.