So...whats for dinner?

Nance - glad to see that the trigger thumb issue was of some interest. I've been worrying that Sandy & I hijacked the thread.

I bought a Chicago Home Run Inn frozen pizza a couple of weeks ago - sausage, pepperoni & cheese. Cooked it last night and my opinion of frozen pizza stays the same - cardboard & worthless. Anyway I'm a fan of thick crust pizza so even if it might have been acceptable, it was awful.

Tonight was leftover Mandarin Orange Chicken bowl with Fried Rice from Panda Express. I added an appetizer plate of raw carrots, cauliflower and radishes with a ranch dip. So I'm full if not gourmet food.

Tomorrow I'm meeting my niece for an Italian lunch. Reports to follow.

Next week I hope to have lunch with another BCO member again - Sandra from San Antonio.

Carole, Carole - we miss you. Even if you aren't cooking "exciting" things, you are eating. Come back to the kitchen table - please!!!!

Bob's medical office is across the street from Home Run Inn--but when they order out for pizza (or the drug reps bring it in) it's from Giordano's--yup, even on the S. Side! That should tell you something.

The only frozen pizza I find the least bit palatable is DiGiorno Rising Crust. Whole Foods’ fresh take-&-bake pies are acceptable, but none of the frozen pies they sell. Their fresh pizza-by-the-slice is almost NY-style good.

Nance, feel better! You and Gordy are both hitting the Symbicort to beat the band these days. (Allergy season is extremely rough on his asthma, and it isn’t till late Nov. that we can relax and not have to worry about trips to the ER when the nebulizer doesn’t do the trick for him). As for fried chicken, I hardly ever eat it and definitely don’t attempt to deep-fry stuff. But the fried chicken at Big Jones (Carolina low-country-cooking restaurant one neighborhood to the south of us) is amazing--even the white meat is succulent. When Paul, the sous-chef at B’way Cellars, gets his pickle-brined fried drumsticks on to the “specials” menu, I am soooo there. And my other faves are from White Fence Farm down in the SW suburbs. Morrison’s Cafeterias in SE FL, and Stroud’s in KC. Never could warm up to Gus’ in Memphis.

Dinner tonight starred grilled duck breast, with a light fig balsamic glaze (barely a tsp. on either side). Took several attempts to get the gas grill lit--we may need to replace the igniter and have the venturis cleaned. Sides were raw sliced Vidalia onion, yams mashed with applesauce & ginger, and roast brussels sprouts. And the last 3 oz. of the Jean Farris Pinot Noir I started with the Coravin back in July.

I’m not a big fan of cornmeal-fried chicken, nor the kind where the spice overpowers the chicken flavor. That’s why I can’t get excited over going to Gus’ when in Memphis--I’d rather go cruising for BBQ. I prefer double-flour-and-buttermilk-dipped myself. I will say that I last tried Stroud’s in 2011, the Shawnee Mission branch.

Yay for your friend’s clear biopsy, Special K! And a dry cleaning bill is a small price to pay for a free cosmo....and one of those insanely wonderful Ruth’s Chris steaks (gotta love that sizzle from the butter they finish it with)!

Special, great news about your friend's biopsy results! No so great to wear ketchup from a lunch mishap! Ick!

Sandy, your grilled duck breast dinner sounded really good, maybe minus the raw onion. I know very little about tasty fried chicken since I just never eat it. Maybe some day....I'm impressed with your many tries!

Yesterday I walked our usual walk route sans DH (He is still nursing his sprained ankle from over a week ago) stopping at the food store to pick up something to grill for dinner. I was happily surprised that they have a new ground lamb supplier, so we had delicious lamb burgers, with a mix-in of rosemary powder, garlic, feta, and fresh ground pepper. I had forgotten how yummy those were! Sides were corn on cob and a boston lettuce salad with dried cranberries, walnuts, red onion and a maple dijon vinaigrette.

No idea about dinner tonight. Then tomorrow night I am solo since I'm not going with DH to Stockbridge. I'll miss a great dinner there, but have been home barely two weeks, so have no need to race off again. Instead I'll go meet the new kindergarten classes tomorrow and prep for my start up with them next Tuesday. I also need to get some promised "Red Sox babytaggies" made after dusting off the sewing machine! Hope I'm that productive! I seem to be able to waste time quite easily.....

I don't care for fried chicken that is any other type but buttermilk/flour either. I would not enjoy cornmeal crusted chicken (at least I don't think I would as I have never had it) so I would not likely go there. Living in the NE, there are very few chicken joints that are any good around here anyway. We had a place called Greer's but since the matriarch retired, it is no longer worth the trip. So, twice a year, my cast iron skillet fills with grease and chicken and spatters me and everything around the stove..LOL But, man oh man, was it worth it!

Special, that is fantastic news about your friend! Once in a while, things go right in terms of health scares and thankfully this time your friend had this outcome!

Tonight I am making baked stuffed flounder with stir fried veggies (snow peas, green and red peppers, onions and mushrooms) and baked sweet potatoes with butter. My stuffing is a bit of lump crab meat and my own seasoned saltine stuffing combined and it always comes out really good. It is pretty much the same one I use for baked stuffed shrimp or lobster (both of which I rarely make) I make a butter, lemon white wine sauce that I pour over the fish at the end of baking. So good. Have not made this in a long time but today is a bit cooler so why not. Only takes a short time in the oven anyway.

The only way I usually have raw onion is as a condiment: thinly sliced red onion on a burger, cream-cheese-& lox sandwich or tunafish with lettuce & tomato. Sweet onions, OTOH, are a different animal. They are no spicier (at least to me) than radishes, and do have a sweetness to them. (Vidalias are most famous, Texas 1015s the most readily available, Mauis the rarest; but I really prefer Walla Wallas—they make the best onion rings, dipped only in unseasoned flour before deep-frying). But because of their high water content, they don't keep as well as regular yellow onions (which are of course a root-cellar staple). You can't tell how fresh they are till you cut into them, because they rot from the inside out (toss the brown inner parts if you find them), not just soften from the outer layers in like yellow, white & red onions. Those conventional onions will sprout from the inside, but sweet onions just rot where you'd expect to see a sprout. (Red “candy onions" do sprout, however; and onion sprouts can be used like scallions).

On my way back from the kindergarten early this morning....yawn....I passed an estate sale a few streets down from our house. I have never gone to an estate sale, partially because I do not need anything more to stash in this house, but I could not resist seeing what it was like. Lots of kitchen and dining wear, some large expensive furniture items (tho I suspect that the really "good stuff" was already taken by the really early shoppers/dealers), and many knick knacks and books and records that were clearly brought in by the estate sale personnel. Anyway, I saw an interesting looking cookbook that I bought for two dollars. I'll be interested to see what my Lebanese next door neighbor thinks about it. Some of the recipes will be good to make for the docvegans in my family!

As long as I'm doing pix, here is one of the gazpacho we had recently.

Tonight Bob came home early to read echocardiograms on his computer, and he had an early dinner at the hospital. Gordy has a bratwurst with grilled onions & fries (our housekeeper made it) waiting for him when he comes home from the theater (heaven knows when). I almost got weak and ordered out for NY pizza or the fish & chips I was craving, but remembered I had a healthier meal on hand that was pretty yummy. So I defrosted some scallops, rubbed them with olive oil and dusted them with Old Bay and some sweet paprika. Pan seared them for a couple of minutes on the first side, turned off the heat, flipped them and left them on there while I reheated the roasted brussels sprouts and mashed sweet potatoes with apples and plated the whole shebang. My cat considerately slept through my meal. I accompanied it with Mumm Napa Santana brut.

I used a new skillet—a copper ceramic nonstick that claims to be super-slick (you need to season it first). It was so slick that I cracked an egg into it and it slid around without any fat or utensils. Worked like a charm with the scallops, too.

April yes I'm making soup today with onion garlic carrots celery fire roasted tomatoes basil oregano paprika pepper quinoa vegetable broth and frozen spinach I think I'll leave out the kidney beans

Yes, we are suddenly transitioning into warm soup season. Onion soup sounds great! I finished the last of the gazpacho last night with some tuscan bread slathered with red pepper hummus....a typical 'on my own' dinner while DH enjoyed an amazing sounding meal in Stockbridge....including wonderful salads and both filet mignon and salmon. He skipped the dessert that sounded like a delicious panna cotta.

After dinner, I made several loaves of zucchini/banana bread due to a glut of over ripe bananas. I blended two recipes since I wanted to use half whole wheat flour, and am a bit worried if they might be "dry" so am going to drizzle them with a maple glaze......so much for adding the healthful whole wheat flour! Ha!

I'd like to hear more about the pan you mentioned, Sandy.

Eric, you can make individual turkey pot pies and freeze them too. Lots of chunks of nice turkey in a nice gravy (made with the home-made stock) and veggies like carrots, parsnip, onions, peas and celery. You don't even have to make your own dough unless you are feeling ambitious. You can buy that refrigerated pie dough and cut rounds out that overhang the edges of your vessel (ramekin?, bowl?) by an inch or so, crimp and freeze. I have done this and it was successful. Just make sure to cut steam holes before freezing as it is hard later...bake at 400 for about 35-45 mins depending on size. I buy the dough at Whole paycheck as they don't have all of those chemicals but sometimes I cheat and buy Pillsbury...lol Yummmmmy! Plus you will have them for a while depending on how many you make.

Bedo, your soup sounds delicious too. I make something similar but instead of spinach I use escarole most of the time but I will use spinach if I don't have any. Frozen spinach gives a lot of bang for the buck and I use it in soups a lot actually. We went to the Durham Fair last night (a local fair that draws a lot of people from NE) and then we went to a restaurant to eat instead of eating corn dogs and French fries...LOL

I think the maple glaze will give you the moisture with out a lot of health sacrifice Lacey. Sounds great to me!

I never finish a steak in a restaurant either but I ordered a shrimp scampi and ate most of it...LOL so Hubby was the only one with steak and leftovers. It was a big steak and he only ate a few bites. I think he ate too much of the appetizer. He ordered loaded potato skins with bacon and sour cream and this place makes the best I have ever had and he ate 3 of the 4 potato halves so he was full and bloated..LOL

I use a Pyrex glass pie plate (deep dish) when I make a large pot pie (which I have frozen as well) and I just make sure to put it out for a while before putting in the oven so that it is not really cold It works well with no issues. I also put a cookie sheet under them (forgot that part) and I add cubed potatoes too (also forgot that) and I don't even peel those. I just wash them well first.

To make it, I just make a roux (flour and butter usually for this) and then add stock and then I put in the turkey and veggies which I usually have par cooked in the same pan with a little olive oil or canola oil to soften them (tender crisp)first and I take them out of the pan before making my roux. Edited to add that make sure all of your veggies are around the same size so they cook uniformly.

I make a thicker than normal gravy for this so it won't be runny and the veggies will add some liquid to it so just make it extra thick. Let mixture simmer for about 15 minutes on low. Season to taste with salt and pepper and put in the ramekins, cover with dough and crimp. Make steam vents in the top and freeze or cook right away. Voila! Pot pies that are way better than any from the grocery store.

Eric, good to know that someone else notices that contemporary cast iron skillets don’t deserve cast iron’s “season it and it will get slick” reputation. Whether plain or pre-seasoned, I have never been able to get a newly-purchased cast-iron pan properly seasoned—the pebbly surface grabs the paper toweling used to apply the oil (never corn or olive—always only canola or Crisco) and leaves little bits of lint, and it’s always sort of sticky afterwards. I’ve sometimes done it several times in a row, with no improvement. I clean them only with a stainless-steel chain-mail scrubber made only for that purpose—used to use kosher salt and crumpled foil, never soap or detergent of any kind, and if I rinse, I wipe them out till not a drop of water remains, and then reseason….to no avail. All my friends who sing cast iron’s praises inherited their pans from their parents or relatives. I really think the older skillets came out of the molds with much smoother surfaces to begin with. Something must have happened in the mass-manufacturing process to change that.

Big disappointment last night—no fireworks, too windy (and the city decided to stop them after the last day of summer—last year they did them through Sept. and in previous years through the end of Oct. or till the first snowflakes, whichever came first). Okay hors d’oeuvres: mini crab cakes, coconut chicken bites, insalata caprese skewers, boiled shrimp, and the usual cheeses (boring Swiss, mild cheddar, smoked gouda, pepper jack) and carrot sticks. Buffet of very good broiled salmon fillets, decent spinach ravioli, slightly overcooked grilled veggies, dry chicken breasts, so-so carved-to-order beef tenderloin, mashed potatoes (which I didn’t even bother to try) and a spinach-salad drenched in a bland bacon vinaigrette. (We were among the first in line, so the chicken’s dryness can’t be attributable to time out on the steam table). Forgettable little dessert bites. Okay coffee, cheap too-sweet bulk-process “champagne,” too-sweet unidentified red wine. And because this was not a large dinner boat like the Odyssey or Spirit but a smaller two-deck private yacht, we felt every wave & swell and had to hold on to our drinks as they began to slide across tables. Not for anyone prone to mal-de-mer. But it was warm enough to wear sandals—a rarity for late Sept.—and we had a nice time.