Sibling Appreciation Day

Over the past year or so, I have felt some new responsiblities.  When Mom goes out of town, I feel like it is my place/joy/pleasure to make dinner for my three brothers.  Now, I know that they would be perfectly fine without me doing this, but when I have the time, it is something I enjoy doing.  Mom and Dad went out of town this weekend with a few friends, and it is so rare that all of my brothers are in town and not busy, so I invited them over.  We also asked Matt's sister, Anna, to join us so the entire family would be complete.  We did not even realize that it was National Sibling Appreciation Day until after we invited everyone.  Does God have awesome timing or what?

I started thinking about what I was going to make.  I knew it needed to be a lot of food.  My family is notorious for eating large quantities of food very very quickly.  If you do not eat fast, you do not eat.  What do guys like to eat?  Hmmm?  Poppy seed chicken casserole...good but that may not fill them up.  Pizza...we had that last weekend.  Meat!  Yes...lots and lots of meat!

Let there be meat!!

And potatoes!!

And family time!!

 These were a deer backstrap that Matt had collected from this previous deer season...super manly food.  All I did was cut it into little steaks and let it marinade in a Kroger chop house marinade while I was at school.  I threw it on a smokin' hot grill for about 3-4 minutes on each side, and it was a perfect medium-rare.

This meat was so tender and delicious.  Jeff keeps saying, "That is steak?" and we would say, "No, deer." "No wait.  This is steak." "No, deer backstrap."  "This is backstrap?  There is no way this is backstrap.  It tastes just like steak."  Needless to say, the boys went crazy for it.  

This is my new favorite way to eat chicken!  I have served it to several different people and every time it is completely devoured.  I cut the chicken into cubes and let it marinade in the zest of 2 limes, along with the juice, 2-3 cloves of garlic minced, 1 TBSP of olive oil, and a pinch of salt and pepper.  Put them on skewers and grill until they are cooked through.  They are delicious just like this, but to bump it up a notch, we brought out some honey barbecue sauce.  The tang of the lime and the sweetness of the sauce hits all of the right notes!

I also made some roasted potatoes and baby bella mushrooms.  I cut russet potatoes into cubes and the mushrooms in half then sprinkled them with salt, pepper, paprika, rosemary, thyme and a little olive oil.  I roasted them in a 400 degree oven for about 25-30 minutes.  They were a perfect side to my manly meal.

But enough about the food!  Lets get to the important stuff...

No one would take the time to pose for my pictures since the food had already been laid out, so I sincerly apologize for the quality of these pictures.

There's that, and there's that...

My ST (MC social tribe...long story... don't worry about it) sister, Sara Kyzar, also joined us!

Poor, lonely piece of sausage, a few potatoes, and a heap full of green beans were all that was left over.  Apparently our carnivorous sides won out tonight.

Jonathan was happily full while James and Jeff were just full.  Everytime I told them to smile, they just stared at me.  I don't think my brothers like me telling them what to do.  I almost expected a, "You're not the boss of me!"

Sweet brother and seester sharing the big, comfy chair

I love how we can just sit and watch Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory together.  I love how we disturb our neighbors by singing the Veruca Salt song at the top of our lungs.  I love how the snozberries always taste like snozberries.  But I especially love all of these people that I know as my brothers and my sisters.

Siblings are the people we practice on, the people who teach us about fairness and cooperation and kindness and caring, quite often the hard way. -Pamela Dugdale