So...whats for dinner?
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minus - I also like pears in salad with chicken, pecans (sometimes candied), and goat cheese, with a vinaigrette or balsamic dressing. It makes a fast main dish salad for dinner. Works with apples and strawberries too. If I do strawberries I sometimes mash a few berries and mix them into the dressing.
So, I am now cooking for both DD on her work days and the elderly dog. She is super busy and task saturated, so seems mystified by the whole process of planning meals, grocery shopping, and cooking when it involves work days. Her solution is take out, but that is too expensive to do two meals a day for five days a week, sometimes six. Plus she has an LLC that puts on an offroad event in the spring and she is busy with that too. Not to mention the horse, chickens, small parrot, and the kitten she is fostering. She has many redeeming qualities but organization is not her strong suit. In her defense she has a LOT going on, a long commute both ways to work, and ADD - so her focus is mainly depleted by the time she gets home from work. Enter mom to save the day, or perhaps be an enabler, lol! As far as the dog, I am supplementing his food with brown rice, chicken, and peas and carrots twice a day. I just roasted an entire bag of chicken breasts, so seasoned two for dinner tonight for us - the remainder of the meal as yet undetermined, the rest was finely chopped for Mr. Toby. He lost several pounds that he didn't have to lose during the fall when we were gone, so I am trying to get him back to where he was, and maybe add a couple. Seems to be working - he is a reluctant eater (opposite of the cat) but is now enthused to eat some "people food" with his dog food. Things seem to be working out for all - DD has more free time and money, dog is happy, and being busy keeps me out of trouble. The only unhappy party is the cat, who thinks he does not get enough tiny pieces of chicken while I am meal prepping for the dog.
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Well, we just took care of a lot of all of the year end tax and investment stuff. The saving habit has been such a strong habit that it's hard to change.
Last night Sharon and I were walking along an urban trail with some friends and we encountered a javelina on the trail. Eventually the javelina moved off the trail so we could continue with the walk. I was kind of surprised, but I guess I shouldn't have been as the trail goes along a wash that is also were the storm drains end. There is a lot (for the desert) of water from lawn runoff, etc., and that means lots of vegetation as well...which makes a perfect place for wildlife that doesn't mind city noises.
We are still eating the potato-leek soup I made a few days ago. It makes 8-10 servings and it tastes even better as leftovers. It is "thick" enough that I may make some large sourdough "rolls" and make them into bowls for the soup.
Special, I can sympathize with your DD. I wouldn't be surprised if I were to get "checked" I would be considered ADD. The more chaotic and high stress the situation, the better I do and the more I like it. The 90 minutes (each way) commute and long meetings were the most exhausting things on my schedule.
The cat being unhappy made me laugh. When Jessiecat was still alive, if I fed something to the dogs and forgot Jessie, he would take care of himself by walking to either dogs' bowel and convincing them to share. :-)
I agree with Minus....drinking is OK here too! There is a Total Wine store about two miles from home. When I run out of a nice ale or Sharon runs out of Labatt beer, or we need a nice wine for a fancy meal, we head up there. Still, we don't drink much, a 6 pack of beer will last most of a year and MIL takes home the remaining wine after a nice meal. As for distilled spirits...meh....except for margaritas. Sharon and DD *LOVE* margaritas.
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Dinner tonight chicken teriyaki (low sodium, no sugar - honey only) and stir fried chili garlic green beans. I made it in the pressure cooker, took about 20 minutes total time.
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Trying a new salad kit from HEB tonight: Blueberry/Pistachio - and I'll add pear. (baby spring mix, carrots, blueberries, pistachios, dijon tarragon dressing) To be served with another new trial - this one from Costco: Organic RIced Cauliflower Stir Fry (with peas, corn, red bell peppers, sesame ginger sauce). Bought the latter on a whim some time ago but it's been hiding in the freezer.
One of my goals is to eat stuff out of the freezer from now to the end of the year.
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Pressure cookers are amazing.
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We finished up leftovers last night (broccoli chicken casserole and chile relleno casserole). Tonight was goo-lolli and slaw. Dessert just baked chocolate chip cookies.
Agreeing with Eric about pressure cookers!!
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I have used my pressure cooker twice. I really ought to give it a harder workout.
The Vital Farms eggs are amazing. I wonder if they feed them marigolds or something for that deep orange yolk.
Eric, I envy you...the more chaotic or "piled on" things are, the more stressed I get. The older I get, the less I like it.
I'm thawing some copper river salmon for tomorrow.
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Beaverntx, did you make the chile relleno casserole? I would like your recipe if you don't mind sharing. I often order chile rellenos when I try out a new Mexican restaurant but the dish never comes close to a meal I enjoyed in Cancun years ago.
I was out and about yesterday and used up my energy for dealing with the thawed whole chicken. We had leftover pot roast and veggies instead, with the addition of frozen peas. It was really good the second time around. Side was a large tossed salad with our favorite ingredients. Tonight will be the roasted chicken and a side dish made with artichoke hearts and bagged dressing mix. Probably a salad, too.
I'm working my way slowly through the collection of recipe books. The stack of keepers is amazingly small so far. There are associations with each book, a gift from so and so, etc. I will donate the discards to Friends of the Library for their second hand book store. If there is a recipe or two I have made and liked, I'm copying them on a card. My main enjoyment of recipe books has been reading them when they were acquired.
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Beavemtx, I second Carol's request for the Relleno recipe, if you are willing.
I moved 800+ cookbooks out here and wish I had thought that through a bit more; with the internet and ebooks, I am shamed that I schlepped that many. I'll have to see if the library takes cookbooks. At one point, they said no...but maybe the Friends part of the library would not object. Great idea!
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Where we are hoping to move, the internet connectivity is likely to be far worse than here and getting stuff "on-line" might not be so easy.
Sharon and I both hold commercial driver licenses and can drive the "big trucks", so it shouldn't take too many trips to move the cookbooks. :-)
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Eric, where were you when I needed you!! I'll spare you the rant on our movers.
I had the copper river salmon tonight. I ended up using the leftover japanese rice and added some broccoli. Copper river sockeye is worth every effing penny; I may have to relocate to Alaska and fish there to stock my freezer. Even my cat, who is beyond fussy, ate the skin DH would not eat (oh the horror). Leftovers tomorrow but the sides will be the leftover potatoes and we're venturing to the grocery store for salad stuff, so who knows what the "green" side will be.
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Wally - I have a small package of Copper River smoked salmon that my son sent. Saving it for a special occasion.
But not only salmon - what about Dungeness Crab. I try to plan any trips to west coast locations based on the season for Dungeness. No other crab like it anywhere!!
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Minus, Dungeness is THE best...of course, I have not had the Maryland blue, so it is a comparison of N=1, LOL. When we first moved here, DH and our neighbor would go crabbing. We had so much crab, we were BEGGING neighbors to take it. Can you imagine, some said they didn't want the hard work of picking the meat. It does take time, but worth it, IMHO. DH has gone a few times in the small skin-on-boat he built but then, his cancer...he went last year, which shocked me...but probably not again. Never say never, right? I have 2 small 6 oz vac sealed pkgs of his haul that we picked; special occasion.
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I'm another big fan of Dungeness crab. They're easier to pick out the meat than our blue crabs.
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Not so much dinner...unless you want it to be, but I did my holiday baking. I made fantasy fudge, and cookies. For the fudge I use the Kraft Jet-Puffed marshmallow creme fantasy fudge recipe, as it's easier to make than classic fudge and generally gets rave reviews by those I give it to. I add more chocolate chips than the recipe calls for though. I use about 20 oz intead of 12. It helps it solidify better in addition to giving it a richer chocolate flavor without being too rich.
For the cookies I planned on making Mexican Wedding Cakes, and Candy Cane cookies. Just a little fun fact, Mexican Wedding Cakes were originally called Russian Tea Cakes. They turned out fine. For the Candy Cane cookies I typically use a recipe from one of my mother's old cook books but she couldn't find it so I attempted the Betty Crocker recipe. They both call for almond extract, but I had discovered mine had evaporated so I did a test bake with marzipan. It was bland and scone like. We later discovered after she found the recipe that hers calls for two tablespoons of egg rather than a whole one like the Betty Crocker recipe. I later fixed after buying more almond extract and adding more shortening (margerine in this case) but by that point I was too tired to bother shaping them in to candy canes, which involes seperating the dough, coloring half of it, rolling each out and twisting them together, so we essentially have almond tea cookies instead of candy canes.
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Took me a bit to round up the recipe but here it is:
Chiles Rellenos Casserole
Adapted from recipe by Alyson Moreland Haynes
Published in Cooking Light
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Cook ½ pound ground turkey and 1 cup onion, chopped in nonstick skillet on medium-high until browned and crumbly. Remove from heat and add 1 3/4 tsp ground cumin, 1 ½ tsp dried oregano, ½ tsp garlic powder, ¼ tsp salt, ¼ tsp black pepper, 1 (16 ounce) can fat-free refried beans. Stir well, set aside.
Using either 2 (4 ounce) cans whole green chiles, drained and cut lengthwise into quarters OR 2 (4.5 ounce) cans chopped green chiles*, arrange half the chiles in an 11x7 baking dish; top with ½ cup preshredded Colby-Jack cheese**. Spoon mounds of the turkey mixture over the cheese, spread gently leaving a ¼ inch border around the edge of the dish. Top with 1 cup frozen corn, thawed and drained. Arrange rest of green chiles on top of corn and top with an additional ½ cup of cheese.
Mix together 1 1/3 cups low fat milk, 1/8 tsp hot sauce, 3 eggs (lightly beaten). In a bowl, combine 1/3 cup all purpose flour ***and ¼ tsp salt; gradually add milk mixture stirring with a whisk until blended. Pour over casserole
Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour and 5 minutes or until set; let stand 5 minutes before cutting.
Garnish with red onion slices and chopped cilantro, if desired
Serve with sour cream and chunky salsa, if desired.
Serves 6
*I use the starred option
** I have also used shredded cheddar and or shredded Mexican.
**Gluten free measure for measure flour also works well
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WC3, I also did some Christmas baking, for a neighborhood get together. Made 3 recipes using gluten free Bisquick: lemon squares, toffee bars and chocolate chip. Taste tasters did a thumbs up.
Limiting our Christmas goodies this year (did not do our traditional fruitcake or my family's traditional filled cookies) as it is appearing that sugar is a major trigger for a gout attack for me. Am trying to avoid having to take the anti-gout medication as I had a not-so-good reaction to the first try. Finding it to be a major challenge to walk past those cookie containers but so far, so good!!
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I'm roasting asparagus and we'll have leftover potatoes with the leftover copper river sockeye.
Thanks for the recipe, Beavemtx!
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Yaay Beaver -thanks for the recipe. Years ago I used to make "real' chili rellenos when I lived in NM. This sounds much easier.
Eric - you inspired me. I paid all my bills today & updated my spreadsheet with taxes, interest, donations, etc for 2021. Also updated this years budget & completed the predictions for next year. Whew....Weird to see that my category "trips" has zero dollars for 2020 & 2021.
I still plan to make date/nut bread and the new almond cookies, but so far I've done NO baking. I could freeze a couple loaves of the date bread, but the cookies would have to be eaten. Since my friends & family have responsibly pulled back again, that means I'd have to eat them all.
Many of the Houston restaurants have closed & cancelled reservations for the remainder of the holidays. One good friend was caught today having to plan an emergency Christmas Eve dinner for 10 after their upscale restaurant closed. (Mae - Jonathan's Rub)
This same friend had to run to HEB today and was not adverse to picking up two lobster tails for me so I don't have to fight the crowds. I got them from her this afternoon & they are not frozen so that will be my Christmas dinner. This small size used to be 2 for $12. Now they're 2 for $18. I just have to decide whether Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. And what sides from the freezer.
True to my resolve to clean out the freezer, tonight was a Seafood Paella from Trader Joe's with rice, shrimp, calamari, mussels, bell pepper, etc. Really quite good & I will buy again. Since it's cooked on the stove top & I have a gas stove, it's a good thing to have on hand for power outages.
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Went to Mon Ami Gabi last night, and wonder of wonders--they didn't run out of the weekly special, which was Dover sole meuniere with sauteed spinach & roasted potatoes. I hadn't had real sole since 1991 in London--when we ate on a barge moored on the Thames. (Most "sole" you see in the US is either Pacific petrale, "lemon sole"--not actually sole, or even sand dabs). I'd planned to bring half of mine home, but...naaah. I gave Bob my spuds anyway. But because we planned to dine in tonight, he also ordered a filet mignon with frites to go. For appetizers he had a half pot of steamed mussels and I had escargots with garlic parsley butter (we traded morsels). No dessert--he didn't have room and I had too much discipline,
Tonight, we were going to do a surf & turf with the filet mignon and a piece of pompano I'd defrosted. But Bob asked if I could get more oysters, preferably Atlantic because they're bigger--and Whole Foods had them for $2 ea. (On Fridays, they do a "Fishmonger's Special" of a dozen for $12). I got 4 each Wellfleets, Cotuits & Blue Points. Tried the shucking technique I saw on several YouTube videos, but I guess I'm not strong enough. So I cheated again--a minute in the microwave made them play peek-a-boo just enough that I could slide the knife blade in and wiggle them fully open. Amazingly, one Blue Point had a baby oyster stuck to the outside, and a Cotuit had a tiny "pea crab" (no shell--apparently a delicacy that was George Washington's fave) inside. (Both edible--I gave Bob the crab and I got the baby oyster). They also had Kumamotos for $2 ea--my favorite oysters but they're even smaller than Tues. night's Kusshi and barely bigger than the insanely expensive Olympias (which are unavailable east of the Cascades, and I haven't had in over 30 years). Tonight's were just a bit more than half the price of Tues. night's from Hooked on Fish. We'll have the steak and maybe the pompano later, along with broccolini and either a cherry-tomato Caprese or a Caesar.
Bob has tomorrow completely off--I'm thinking shakshuka for brunch. Dinner at Regalia--I have a sinking feeling that we may not have many more chances to indoor-dine at restaurants soon if the Omicron wave continues at its current pace. I just bought some N95s, even though I hate the head straps. (Bob said "welcome to my world").
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Thank you, beaverntx, for the recipe. I think I will try it with modifications, using fresh roasted poblanos and ground beef. Poblanos are always available in the supermarkets and are such pretty peppers.
Yesterday dh did the only baking that will be done in our house. He made his Quaker oatmeal cookies. The recipe is printed on the inside of the container lid. My sister and her dh, our Christmas hostess and host, requested them. There were many years when he made multiple batches and we gave cookies to the neighbors. My job was was coming up with a different container each Christmas.
Today I will cook a pork butt roast for tomorrow's noon dinner and make a creamed spinach casserole. My sister will also make a meat dish, probably a turkey, and side dishes. Christmas dinner in my family has always been a buffet with more emphasis on food than presentation.
Yesterday my inspiration for dinner was waiting for me when I walked inside a small supermarket near my hair lady's beauty shop. A plastic bin of bundles of fresh mustard greens, on special for two bunches for $3. I bought three bunches and a packet of pickled pork for the mandatory seasoning. The washing, vein removal and chopping took some time but it was worth it. Dinner was a bowl of the greens and cornbread with butter. A good amount of leftover greens.
Happy Christmas Eve to all. Our neighbors decided against their open house because of health concerns.
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Beaver's recipe inspired me to look for the old enchilada recipe my son's baby-sitter used to make for us. She was probably 60 in 1970. You will all appreciate it calls for "one 18 cent can of chopped green chilies". Assuming this must be the 4 oz size! Made with brand specified ingredients - can or Campbell's chicken soup & a can of Carnation evaporated milk. She also specified Cracker Barrel cheese. She said it was 'bland for nursing mothers'. Funny, I always remembered they were chicken enchiladas - but the only chicken was in the cream of chicken soup.
Finally baked the date bread this morning. The house smell sooooo good.
Edited to say - Carole, I'd like your spinach casserole recipe if you don't mind sharing. I ate the leftover creamed spinach from Perry's & it was delicious. Most likely cream cheese, but also maybe pearl onions? and some spice that might be nutmeg? I found a Morton's copycat recipe that has nutmeg.
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Sandy, your post reminded me of my oyster "experience" several weeks ago. You'd think I would learn after several horrible experiences, but no. Your post still made me want to run out and get some!
I'm making a fritatta tonight; probably vegetarian since we are having fatty duck breasts tomorrow.
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Minus, thanks for the restaurant name, funny, you knew I’d ask, lol.
Last week was easy cabin meals, hot dogs, salads, soup. Tonight is seafood takeout for our anniversary (neither of us feel like cooking), tomorrow will be a roast with sides. I’ll likely resume my regular cooking early next week with what we already have at home as we will be avoiding public places for the next week or so.
Happy holidays everyone 😁
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Bob went out for Mexican (the only place open w/in walking distance) for brunch today (nothing on their menu I can eat, will spend my cheat carbs at Regalia tonight). I waited till 3 and made myself avocado toast on my usual high-fiber low-carb bread. (Don't think I'll buy the Carbonaut keto stuff again, as only the crust has any taste whatsoever, even when toasted. (The inside doesn't even brown. It's good only as a "vehicle" for melted cheese).
A little bittersweet, though: that avo toast used up the last of our homegrown tomatoes.
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Mae - all of Chris Shepherd's & Justin Yu's places closed too.
Luckily I'm having broiled lobster tails at home, dressing/stuffing on the side with extra onion, celery & sage, and a new 'recipe' I found for roasted carrots (thyme, garlic & tarragon tossed in EVOO with a splash of balsamic vinegar). Go figure - 80 degrees & I have the oven on. Tomorrow's supposed to be even hotter so it will be appetizers all day long, and and maybe some left overs.
Wally - love vegetarian fritatta!!!
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57 and misty now--not going down below 50 tonight. Weird. We're headed to dinner at 7:15--who'd have dreamed I'd be wearing a rain parka instead of a wool or puffer coat?
Merry Christmas!
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Minus, the frittata (I never know how to spell that correctly) turned out better than I thought with simple ingredients.
Sandy, didn't they have Guac you could get with any meat? OK..I'm drooling just thinking mexican.
It is in the 30s here; we may get 2" of snow...HUUURRRAAAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I told DH if I have to suffer through a midwestern summer here, I deserve to enjoy a midwestern winter. And so I shall, hopefully, for at least 2-3 days.
Happy Solstice!!!!
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Wally - I've been making guac every week for the last couple of months.
One or 2 ripe avocados sliced tiny then smashed with a fork. Sprinkle with a little lemon juice to prevent browning. Two or three Campari tomatoes - skin off - sliced tiny and added to avocado. Add & mix in - garlic salt, 1-2 teaspoons Mrs. Renfro's green chili salsa, one scant tablespoon mayo. I usually leave it in the fridge overnight before eating but sometimes just dig right in.
I know, I know - wheres the sour cream & the onion & etc?? This is just for me, so while I could add other things from my fancy guac recipe - usually not. It's a good way to eat those healthy (and oh so expensive) avocados. I usually eat it with rosemary crackers, but this week using sea salt & chive crackers.
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Has anyone tried Wholly Guacamole? Costco will have it on sale and I was curious if it is worth buying. Yeah, 'cados are expensive!
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