I heart Rachel Ray!

Have I ever told you that I LOVE Rachel Ray? Well, I do. I love her even though she is a bit obnoxious and has a tendency to use acronyms a little too much i.e. EVOO - extra virgin olive oil. Seriously, how tough is it just to say "extra virgin olive oil"? Do you really need an acronym for this? Anyway, I initially developed my Rachael Ray "crush" when I was on maternity leave. I discovered if you focus, you can actually catch her on the tube 3x a day. Yikes! Oh, and I took advantage. I watched her morning show at 9:00 am, 30 minute meals at 1:00 pm and 30 minute meals again at 5:00 pm. What I like about Rachael is that she has great 30 minute meals that are fantastically flavorful (like this term?) yet easy all at the same time. Clay tends to be the cook in our household. He loves to cook b/c it involves two of his favorite things: 1) Thinking and 2) Self indulgence. I'm not much of a cook but I can handle Rachael's meals. Ever since maternity leave, I still try to catch an occasional 30 minute meal on the Food Network and I buy her cookbooks and LOVE to cook her meals.

Here's how this very random blog and random obsession with Rachel Ray apply to today: Clay has had a tough couple weeks. He's been studying non-stop for his architecture license and has actually pulled off taking 3 exams in less than a month. In addition to this, he is stressed at work and has been working very long hours. Poor thing...yesterday he had to drive to San Antonio to take another exam at 6:00 pm. He finished that, drove back to A town and then had to go back to the office to work through the night. Oh, and then when he got home, Lo was awake and was hysterical as her little ears were hurting (Yes, she has ANOTHER ear infection). It can be tough on him. On top of all of that, he has to deal with me. Yea and believe it or not I'm not always easy to deal with. For some reason lately I've been a horrible wife and have done my fair share of snapping his head off and yelling at him for no good reason. Not sure why....going through a "phase" I guess.

So, today I decided I was going to try to make it up to him and I busted out the Rachel Ray cookbooks. I was ready to cook a fab meal for a fab hubby! I started prepping this morning at 11:00 am. I picked the perfect dish. Then, I went to the grocery store to pick up all the ingredients and some wine of course. Then, it was time to start preparing the meal. I felt like I was a contestant on Top Chef. It should be noted that as I prepped and began cooking, I was watching none other than the first-class Rachael Ray. Yes, one of her shows just happened to be on...gotta love it! Here is what I cooked:

• Prosciutto-wrapped halibut (they didn't have halibut so I substituted with sea bass) with tortillas (homemade), savoy cabbage (wasn't sure what this was so I just went with green cabbage...I chopped/shredded myself. This was quite a big accomplishment considering I'm not a real good veggie chopper), and warm cinnamon-chipotle tomato salsa.
• Saffron and olive rice
• Black beans and I also prepared (i.e. opened a jar) green chili tomatillo sauce b/c it's Clay's favorite.
• Garlicky Guacamole, chips and homemade durros to add an extra special touch.
• For dessert...butterfingers. Yummy! I may have even had one or two while prepping/cooking the meal.

This wasn't one of Rachael's more simple meals and definitely wasn't cheap but I wanted it to be special so I gave it a shot. Now, I have to admit that I didn't know what half of the ingredients were, I had to look up some of the "culinary" terms (such as "dredge") on foodnetwork.com to make sure I was doing the right thing and I had to continue looking at the picture to make sure mine looked like hers (it didn't) but I still managed to pull it all off thanks to the astounding Rachael Ray!!! By the time Clay got home, I had cleaned the house, picked up Lola and put her in a very "Clay" outfit (black shirt and striped pants), lit the candles, put flowers in the vases, had everything cooked and beautifully displayed and most importantly wine in the glasses. It was absolutely delicious!!! Clay went on and on about how proud he was of me for producing such a fabulous meal. I'm certainly glad it all paid off and he enjoyed it!