So...whats for dinner?

Today's meal - sauteed mushrooms, bits & pieces of left-over rotisserie chicken mixed with Rao's Marinara served over zucchini noodles. And of course another slice of Boudin's San Francisco Sourdough bread. And two glasses of the La Moneda Reserva Malbec. This is just an amazing single-varietal red wine for every day use. A Decanter world wine award winner with 95 points out of 100 available only at WalMart for $6.96

Edited to say, this is not a commercial & I don't own stock. I don't even shop at WalMart as a rule, but will go buy more of this wine if I can still find it.

By the way, not editing a thing in that pic post as the pix keep disappearing when I try to change anything. Apologies

Lacey, that's okay--entire posts of mine keep disappearing tonight--including about nice brunch today (Bob went out in the cold and brought it home for me; due to a nasty spill I took late Sat. night, I was too sore to walk to the restaurant and--also due to a Lyrica I'd taken after said fall--too woozy to drive there); and a perfectly dreadful and bland Chinese dinner we ordered in. Just too tired to re-type the details. Let's just say it was Cantonese cardiac patient food. Even Bob (a cardiologist crusading against sodium overuse) said that if one of his patients were to have ordered it, he'd have advised him to add salt.

Carole - I too have inadvertently dropped salads from my menu. For me, I'm sure it's because of the unusually cold weather for our areas. I only want to eat warm things. Tomorrow we're supposed to have rain turning to sleet & maybe snow by noon - and of all days - I have to drive to the medical center for my Prolia shot.

Last night I seared some salmon. The "dressng" was a lime juice, scallions, garlic chives and honey mixture.

Tonight I'm going to make up for last night's healthy meal and cook up some meat lasagna.

Took the leftover shrimp/squid chow fun--to which I'd needed to add star anise, ginger, garlic, sesame oil, salt & pepper just to get it down last night. Tonight, it seemed a bit improved after a night in the fridge for the flavors to marry, but it still lacked a little something. So a few drops of sriracha, 1/2 tsp. soy sauce, and more garlic & ginger, reheated and stirred. Voilà (or the Cantonese equivalent): finally tasted like it came from the dim sum cart. Will set to work on the broccoli in the morning (might need not just a bit more oyster sauce but also perhaps a tad bit of bead molasses, garlic and five-spice powder)--and see what that accomplishes. Nothing, of course, can turn Birds-Eye florets into Chinese broccoli (or even broccolini), but I'm viewing this as an episode of "Chopped: Home Take-Out Edition." (And nobody throwning a secret ingredient like gummy worms or Chee-tos at me).

Hi all - I am back, thanks for the kind thoughts. Stayed in a beautiful ocean front rental house with two SIL's and husbands, and my DH and our son and daughter, and three elderly dogs, lol! Memorial was nice, but extended fam (one BIL and his whole fam) behavior was suspect and there has been an abundance of drama and tension - eeesh! None of this directly involved my DH or kids, but we were on the periphery by virtue of proximity. Only direct issue was finding a juvenile deer that had been hit by a car and left and was struggling and suffering on the road to the FIL/MIL house where we were going for dinner Sat night. DD was already there, and always carries, so semi-hysterical SIL's asked her to come and shoot it. Misbehaving BIL was opposed and DD told him to get out of her way, she didn't need his permission. I was standing there, was actually proud of her for standing up to him in a civil way, because she was hell bent on ending this animal's suffering. SIL's feel she is their hero, and the problem was solved, albeit illegally. Was glad to drive away and get home. The interment is Feb. 2, here in FL at the National Cemetery, and all of the attending family will be at my house. I have to say that after this past week, I am nervous about it.

Food has been a non-event, am actually looking forward to cooking but I need to grocery shop as I had winnowed down the supplies before leaving town.

SpecialK, welcome back, we missed you) Sorry about the family drama, sometimes I wonder why adult people, who would never act this way at any other gathering, still behave this way at family reunions, like they want to prove something. My husband’s family can bring so much drama that I can only meet them one by one and some people not at all.

I am bored to the point I would be happy to go back to work but they said they want me back strong snd rested so I am thinking about more cooking and healthy recipies. Anything you have that is vegetarian, fighting bc please bring it on, again I vote for more recipies. For example I will now always add pears to my sallads, I saw it in all Lacey’s sallads and thought that it was a great idea. And even I try so hard I do not bring myself to like kale( The chips are good but just having it raw in a sallad it is like I am chewing fabrics( Any ideas? I am trying to eat healthy and lose weight, today’s fasting btw did not go so well, by 6PM I caved and ate

Cherry

Special - glad to see you checking in & that you're back home safe & sound. Families are a never ending source of drama. Sometimes it's like walking on egg shells the entire time you're together.

Cherry - I agree. I just don't care for Kale. I can only eat it very finely chopped in a salad mix. I do spinach instead.

Houston has snow again - or really ice accumulation. Woke up to 30 degrees which shortly decreased to 28, and sleet which kept up most of the day. All the schools are close & all non-essential City services suspended. Roofs covered & icicles hanging from the buildings. The streets are covered with sheets of ice - maybe black ice but I'm not going out to see. I expect this isn't a big deal for those of you in the North, but no one here has a clue how to drive on ice. So even though I have lived in snow country, I cancelled my Prolia injection across town at the Medical Center and never left the house. Looks like schools & City services will be close again tomorrow - or at least delayed start. We're supposed to get sun tomorrow with a projected 37, but 20 degrees tonight so it will take a long time to thaw.

Lunch was a clean the fridge meal - marinara, mushrooms, lots of leftover chicken, all simmered & served on angel hair pasta. What were those meals called earlier in this thread? Maybe Pick Ups??? Anyway - perfect hot comfort food for a cold day. A friend brought me some Mexican stew w/black eyed peas for tomorrow. I eat very little meat and her dish is very meat heavy - both beef & pork. I'm boiling some more black eyed peas to add to the dish along with some hot green chili salsa.

I was going to cook tonight, but then I got distracted. The orange tree in our backyard is full of ripe fruit and there are now roof rats (also called ship rats) in the area. So, today I pulled down as much fruit as possible to make the rats feel as unwelcome as possible.

I've taken down about 145 pounds (65Kg) of oranges and I'm only about 1/4 done. I juiced about 1/2 the oranges I've taken down so far and I have 4 gallons (12 liters) of orange juice...so tomorrow when I finish, I'll have about twice that amount.

After that I don't know what I'll do with the rest of the oranges on the tree. The food banks are overflowing with oranges and they don't need any more, so that option is not available. When my parents, and Sharon's dad were alive, I would juice most of the oranges on the tree and get about 35 gallons (140 liters) and that would last us most of the year.

Maybe I can talk some of the neighbors into eating oranges or taking some orange juice. I'd rather not throw the oranges into the garbage, but if that is what it takes to keep the rats from being well fed...I will do so.

I do need to cook tomorrow as we ate more of the lasagna tonight and neither of us like to eat the same thing too many days in a row. I noticed some flank steak in the freezer tonight, so I'm thinking I'll use that...maybe marinate it in some orange juice and cilantro most of the day and make tacos.

I have more than enough orange juice and I grow cilantro (also called coriander or Chinese Parsley) in a large pot in the back yard, so I won't need to buy much at the store.

It seems that death brings out the worst in families. When my grandmother died, my mom and her brothers ended up not speaking for two years afterwards over some stupid argument over her belongings. She very wisely gave me a quilt that she had made and I'd admired, long before she got sick, or I would have gotten dragged into it too. Same thing happened in DH's family when his mother died. "God help you choose your friends because the devil picks your family."

Carole, I could have written your post about your food rut and missing salads. I did branch out last night and made chili and cole slaw. Two nights ago I made lamb shanks and white beans and while tasty, seemed much like a variation on chili.

Minus, I certainly hope that weather is long gone by the time I come that way next month!

Minus, I was glad you cancelled the Prolia shot. It's in the teens here this morning. The New Orleans morning news is all about the weather. Schools are closed. Major roads are closed.

I ran a trickle of water last night but our pump, located in an outside building, appears to be frozen, despite the various lights set up to keep it from freezing. We have a flow well so we still have a slow flow of water from the taps. The sun is out and it's supposed to warm up to slightly above freezing. The furnace is working. Power is on so we are good. Some people in the various parishes have power outage.

I'm a little concerned about the employees at the nursing home (my mother's residence) being able to get to work over icy roads.

I think the term for leftovers that we all found so interesting was "jump ups." I thought about it as I warmed up the gumbo for dinner last night. The gumbo was better than when we had it on Sunday freshly cooked. And there is more to warm up for lunch.

This afternoon I plan to cook a pork roast. The fatty butt roast that is so delicious. The fat cooks out and leaves the pork moist and tender. I'll chop green onions and garlic and season the mixture with salt and cayenne pepper. Cut deep slits in the roast and poke in the seasoning. The oven is set for 350 degrees and the roast will cook in about 3 hours. I use a heavy roasting pan with a lid.

The side will be carrots, steamed in a skillet and flavored with a little butter and small amount of Splenda brown sugar blend. Candied flavor but not a lot of calories. I like carrots but forget about using them as a side.

I have the same problem with liking Kale but we don't have really fresh and young kale available in our supermarkets. It's usually in a bag and chopped. Fresh Market has a better selection but I seldom shop there because of the location.

Meatball broth is a new concept for me. We would tend to use chunks of beef called "stew meat" in our supermarkets.

Eric, if I lived near you, I would happily take some of those oranges! I buy the big bags of navel oranges at Sam's Club.

BringOn2017, now I am intrigued about your location, I thought maybe you were in Australia, but one has to respect the anonymity of these boards.

I can stew rabbit in either cream and tomato sauce or adding sour cream and flavored tomato paste in the end. I will probably send my husband to buy one, it is only found in some stores downtown here. And if you add some thinly sliced onion rings to these veal slices it will be even sweeter, I know this recipe too, I even cook it with pork.

I have great recipe for gravlax so whenever anyone decides to make one I'll be happy to share mine. It really tastes even better than it looks and if you add some grated beet roots as a finale step it will turn red on the outside and pinky orange on the inside.

eric, I cannot even imagine all these oranges, have never seen any orange orchard in my life, some additional trees on vacations but to have so many oranges you do not know what to do with them, I bet they all are organic too))) I will not tell you how much they charge for organic oranges here, last time I bought the ordinary ones because the organic ones just looked so miserable.

We are still eating leftovers at our place, the youngest had some hot dogs and I am happy to eat my borsch even though kale managed to spoil it. This is very strange because when I use cavolo nero it just looks so sofisticated in any soup or stew, but kale just does not. I am still determined to see if I find any dressing that really makes it taste good but so far raw kale is just not my thing. I had a pear with large wedge of Saint Agur I had left from New Year eve, well it did not get bad or anything so I decided to eat it, it was delicious, and I still have some left.

Tomorrow I pan to fry some rösti but instead of potatos I want to use some carrots, celery root, maybe some beet roots, with other words some veggie rösti, or as they call them here raggmunk)

With all of the "negative" comments about kale, I wanted to put in my two cents, since I started buying/eating kale a few months ago and love it. For a salad, I strip the leaves from the stalks, and then wash and dry the leaves. I then "massage" the leaves with my fingers for maybe 2 minutes. (If you google massaged kale or massaged kale salad, some recipes say to add a little lemon juice and salt to help soften the leaves, but I feel that really isn't necessary). I then add some grated carrots and some cut up red cabbage. The colors are really vibrant together. You can add some dried cranberries for more color. I also add nuts or seeds, whatever I have at home, like pine nuts, walnuts or shelled & salted sunflower seeds, then toss with your favorite dressing. You can also add anything else that you like for variety...avocado or pieces of apple, cherry tomatoes, garbanzo beans, pieces of left over chicken, roasted red peppers, pieces of pear + feta cheese, quinoa, etc....the combinations are endless. Then there is Portuguese kale soup! I slice spicy non-cured (no-nitrate) sausage, diced onion, white potatoes cut into small pieces, canned petite diced tomatoes, kidney beans, cut-up kale (stalks removed), a few bay leaves, salt & pepper & hot pepper flakes if you like heat, and chicken broth. Simmer until potatoes are done. Yum, especially in winter.

Chisandy Treat them like flowers. Cut of stems to bring a fresh stem and refrigerate them in a glass of water until you are ready to use. Will last at least 2 weeks.