bbq peach turkey tenderloins

• turkey tenderloins
• 1 bottle of bbq sauce
• 2 jars baby food, peaches

Combine baby food and prepared bbq sauce. Brush liberally on all sides of turkey and grill until done.

The dish: If you believe the theory of birth order, then Kim and I are doomed. A relationship of the two last born children will spiral out of control as it will seem like no one is in charge, and even the youngest can only take chaos for so long (would it be a bad time to mention that we had zebra cakes for dinner tonight?). I bring this up only because being the youngest child means that you grow up with limited experience in matters like diapers and baby food. I've never had to feed a younger sibling baby food who promptly spit it up or threw it on the floor, so it doesn't mean much more to me than just being that generic mush in the little jar. I wanted to try something new and yet easy with traditional bbq sauce, so I figured I'd give this a try. It gave a really great taste without adding too much artificial flavor or sweetness. Just for kicks I still cut my meat into little pieces and pretended my fork was a locomotive heading toward the tunnel of my mouth, but I do that at least two nights a week, so I don't think there's much of a connection.

peanut butter banana smoothie

• 2 bananas
• 1/4 cup smooth peanut butter
• 1 scoop frozen vanilla yogurt
• milk

Place everything but milk in blender and begin to pulse. Slowly add milk and continue pulsing until you have a thick smoothie consistency.

The dish: I met Kim the Friday night before a Saturday St. Patrick's day. We hit it off pretty well and wanted to hang out again, but both had plans for the next day; she was going to a math conference and I was going to New York to drink green beer (telling?). We made plans to meet Sunday for lunch. In the beginning of a relationship when you know so little about someone, where they pick to eat can be pretty telling. I wasn't sure what to expect but was shocked when I met her out and she asked "do you like sandwiches". Turns out she wanted to take advantage of some unseasonably warm March weather and grab a quick lunch and go for a hike. The first sandwich shop we went to was closed on Sundays, so we ventured to the next. We wound up at Rocket Wraps (get a website people!!), where we had some kind of rolled up sandwich and smoothies. To this day, whenever Kim can find a reason to go there, she returns and she always has a peanut butter banana smoothie. We had some bananas that needed to be used and a new appliance to play with, so we came to the mutual conclusion that we should try to duplicate Rocket Wrap's concoction. I liked it, but really don't have the intimate knowledge of the real thing that Kim does, but she loved it. It was a perfect treat on a warm day and sharing the smoothie in our red kitchen brought back good memories of enjoying one together when we barely knew one another on that sunny day in March.

honey mustard chicken wrap

• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1 head of iceberg lettuce
• good quality honey mustard dressing

Grill chicken until fully cooked, set aside to cool then chop into small pieces. Tear or chop lettuce into medium sized pieces, or just open a bag of mixed greens. Assemble wrap with lettuce and chicken and a pass of the honey mustard dressing.

The dish: I love making anything in a wrap because by virtue of Kim's aptitude, I get off the hook without doing too much work. It's like not knowing how to fix the photocopier at work; no one even bothers knocking on my door when the thing jams because they know I'm useless. I'm fairly certain that if I devoted a small amount of time to either that blasted machine or the flat sandwich holder, I could learn the skills necessary to master each, but why bother when those around me are so good at these things.

chocolate silk cake

• 1 box chocolate silk cake
• whip cream (dream whip is the favorite in our house)
• cocoa powder

Prepare cake according to instructions on the box. We used a Duncan Hines dessert selects cake, but any will work. Arrange slice of cake on plate and top with whip cream and garnish with cocoa powder.

The dish: I'm sure if you were to consult with any of my old teachers they would verify this, but I do not follow directions well at all. I am unable to prepare any instant dessert because I always feel that "maybe it could just use a pinch more of something". That attitude may fly in cooking, but it's a recipe for disaster in baking. If you're new to the party, then you should know that there are two absolutes here: 1. dessert tastes best when instant and 2. Kim is pretty much awesome (and not just for her taste in husbands). She can scratch bake like no one's business, but she can also make instant anything and achieve great results, something I am truly envious of. Along the same lines she also has an aptitude at assembling furniture from Ikea. If you've never had the pleasure of the Swedish furniture giant, you have no idea what you're missing out on. We bought a new 6 drawer dresser this week and it fit comfortably in the trunk of our car in a box that's smaller than what most people deem to be carry on luggage. When you get it home the instructions have no words at all on them and there are many more pieces than you would expect a dresser to have. Needless to say, Kim can navigate through that mess and within just a little while we have a dresser that's a much more solid piece of furniture than you would expect it to be. So I guess the moral is that whether it's furniture or cake, Kim can bring great things out of boxes.

rice with chicken, cashews and gloden raisins

• 2 cups white rice, cooked
• 1/4 cup chicken, torn into bite sized pieces
• 1/4 cup halved cashews
• 1/4 cup golden raisins
• fresh curly parsley, chopped
• Mrs. Dash seasoning

Combine first five ingredients. We used leftover chicken and we nuked it in a little chicken stock because we had some of that left over. Season to taste with Mrs. Dash and fresh ground pepper and kosher salt.

The dish: Kim really believes that she can't cook, which is not the case, and as a result she's a little pensive in the red room. I was working late and we had some leftover chicken so we planned on her putting this dish together and it came out great- the mix of flavors really worked. We normally just buy rice from the local Chinese place, but she used Uncle Ben's enriched boil in the bag and the texture was perfect. I enjoyed it cold the next day for lunch- this was a great way to stretch a little left over chicken.