So...whats for dinner?

Well, the filling could use some work but here it is. I'm going to have to tweak the recipe and try again

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Lilimae, may I suggest puff pastry for your topping? I first read this idea on Ina Garten's website, and I have to say, it is FABULOUS! Ina Garten Chicken Pot Pie I make these all the time for friends who need some food delivered [and are not vegetarian.] Really, really tasty!

Our dinner wasn't bad. The grilled swordfish was rather nice. The fried fish fillet was too overdone. Cole slaw? Really good. Baked Potato? Yuck. Steamed in foil. Oil used wasn't as fresh as I prefer. However, we are perfectly happy. Simple food, done simply.

*susan*

Susan - I loved reading about your fish dinners BOTH nights. And I'm jealous.

Since I didn't eat my salad until 2pm I never bothered with dinner. So pork tomorrow. I'll go with both Susan's & Ceila's choices - since there's enough for two meals.

Welcome joycek!     Illimae- that chicken pot pie looked delish!

Hot in sunny South Carolina again today so we are doing a Low Country Shrimp boil with the neighbors. Shrimp, corn, andouille sausage and red potatoes boiled together in water, beer and spice "concoction"- shrimp added right at the end.  A nice vinegar based slaw and tossed salad with cukes and cherry tomatoes from the garden.  (I will not eat the corn or potatoes- saving my carbs for the veggies in slaw and salad.)  

Path of least resistance last night—ordered NY-style pizza (a 16-incher, not 20), half-and-half anchovy and sausage. Fed the three of us. Not sure what I’ll do tonight—if Cellars is gonna have the Tonys on, I’ll go there & pick up the wines I’d ordered; otherwise, will make a classic Caesar from Anthony Bourdain’s recipe in his new cookbook “Appetites.” (Good read, no-b.s. recipes). Only place where he & I part company is that he believes in draining fried stuff on newspaper. YUCK! Printer’s ink transfers, and the smell of those petroleum distillates makes me retch. (Still can’t even stand to eat near newspapers—an aversion I’ve had all my life, which means that no, I didn’t go to fish & chips shops while in London). If there are smelly printed placemats on my tray or table at a diner or Chinese restaurant, I’ll ask that they be removed, and I spurn lobster bibs if they’re printed paper. I will read a newspaper, but not while or near where I’m eating—and even so, I prefer to read it online.

There’s a terrific Low Country restaurant near us—Big Jones. Would go there for dinner tonight, but there’s a massive street fair (Andersonville Midsommarfest) and it’s smack dab in the middle. Parking on the side streets is nonexistent, too far to walk (2 miles in the 90-degree heat) and probably completely booked up. Chicago street fairs aren’t what they used to be: they now have gates at each end where they extort a “suggested donation,” barricades on either side at the side streets (unfairly pressuring neighborhood residents to pay just for accessing their own streets), are run by the same agency all over the city, booking the same musical acts (mostly from outside the neighborhood) and the same food & drink concessions (also mostly from restaurants outside the neighborhood). Like Taste of Chicago, you can’t just walk up and buy food—you have to buy food tickets, which are sold in multiples that guarantee you will end up overbuying, wasting tickets, forgoing what you really want to eat & drink or eating something that wasn’t your first choice because that’s all the tickets you have left. Plus, they’re filled with mostly drunken millennial “bros” (referring to men of a certain age, of whatever ethnicity but mostly white, whose idea of participatory sports is beer-pong). Years ago, when it was booked by the neighborhood chamber of commerce, my band played there all the time. Last year, I played inside my son’s comedy theater, but the noise from the outdoor stages a block away drowned everything out unless we closed the doors…greatly reducing walk-in traffic. This year, his troupe lost the theater and the building will become condos or a Lululemon or some other overpriced boutique catering to millennials. He skipped Midsommarfest and instead went to Bluesfest downtown.

When my own neighborhood street fair comes around in July, I will have to bring my cane so that they won’t rip me off for $7 just to walk to Cellars. (And I will eat indoors, where it’s air-conditioned, the menu is bigger and I won’t have to buy tickets and sit on a fire hydrant to eat).

Staying home to watch the Tonys, I pan-seared a Copper River salmon fillet and plated it atop baby arugula dressed with lime juice and lime olive oil, with sauteed snap peas on the side. Appetizers were an impromptu “Cajun” guacamole made with a little leftover avocado, lime juice and Panola sauce instead of Tabasco or Cholula, and heirloom tomato with the season’s first basil from my garden.

our mouths are watering reading and seeing these posts. Glad you are all sharing your ideas here!

Oh Mommy - hoping that you do get a nice surprise dinner out. Let us know.

Last night's meal of NYStrip steaks on the grill, Potatoes Dauphinoise, and green salad with topping bar was a great success. I assume that my friends will know what to do with the leftovers. We are back home, getting ready for tomorrow's infusion and arrival of some guests. This time from the Philippines. I can feel that my potassium is too low, so I will make a sweet potato Massaman curry again even though it is about 96º in my kitchen. I had also planned to make some arrival treats, but don't think that I want to turn on the oven today. First thing we did after getting home was nap. Neither of us slept well on that mattress. We never do, but the company is well worth it. I assume the kinks in my necks and the soreness in my lower back will get bette quickly.

Today is Lacey's birthday.

Finally got to the store yesterday & got celery & green onions, only to discover that most of the red potatoes in the bag had squished out. I'd forgotten the awful smell.

Good heaven's Special. I'm trying to gear up for making potato salad at the same time I'm spiralizing zucchini & yellow squash at the same time as sauteing some spinach that needs to be used AND I've been putting it off. Now I really feel like a wimp.

Yes, I bought a couple of bananas yesterday too. Magnesium supplements don't seem to be solving the cramps in my calves & feet, so I'll add the potassium.

Susan - good luck with the infusion tomorrow.

Val - I'd love your recipe for brandy cream sauce. I make it a different way each time and I still haven't been able to replicate the original meal that I loved.

I am not going the banana route. It doesn't give you all that much; certainly not more than artichokes or sweet potatoes. And it introduces a ton of sugar into my diet. In general, I find bananas cloyingly sweet and don't really eat them at all. Of course, if they are still a bit green then they aren't so sweet, but then they taste green. Picky! Picky!

:-)

*susan*

Tonight it's a big salad for me, 5 kinds of lettuce, red cabbage, radishes, green/red onions and some leftover grilled chicken with a little buttermilk ranch.

Mommy - happy anniversary. Happy break from cooking.

Dinner was FINALLY pork medallions in brandy cream sauce. Pumpernickel tomorrow. I felt so guilty after all of Special's yummy dishes. While I was sauteing the mushrooms & onions & preparing the brandy cream sauce, I boiled potatoes & eggs, cut up onions & celery (and prepped the rest of the celery in nice sticks for the rest of the week) sprialized 3 zucchini, then 2 large yellow squash, made a potato salad, Now I have fresh food ready for easy prep the rest of the week.

Susan - Pumpernickel is not easy to find in Houston. Sometimes Central Market has home made bagels, but it's not on a schedule. They usually do have bread. There's one Einstein Bagel shop that has them once a week... sometimes. Neither of those are anywhere close to me. Sigh.

Waiting impatiently for Olathe corn. I know it's probably not until July, but I can already taste it.

Minus, I think that is just foolish talk unless you are talking about a sub-sect of Indians who don't eat either due to their religious beliefs. We can't get very good rye bread varieties either which is why I make my own. *susan*