So...whats for dinner?

The kitchen appliance rearrangements sounds like my moving cars around. :-)

Seriously considering ditching the air fryer or at least giving it to Gordy when he moves out. The Breville Smart Oven Air air-fries very well (and clearly visibly at that). Might use the freed-up space to haul the ol' Kitchen Aid out of the basement and start baking again.

Today is Pie Day (pi, 3.14). WF has fruit pies for $3.14 off. Blaze Pizza (you have to dine in, though) is selling all its regular thin-crust pizzas for $3.14. Had I not eaten an omelet this morning, I might have considered making quiche for late dinner tonight. But seeing as how we had pizza last week and I don't want a whole pie in my house, I might just head over to Hoosier Mama Pies for a half slice of coconut, passionfruit meringue or chocolate cream, and a pourover coffee. Their pies are to Baker's Square as Au Cheval's burgers are to Mickey D's.

We ate the rest of the veggie burgers tonight.

Today was a "chore day", kitchen cleaning, oven cleaning, laundry, vacuuming and dusting throughout the house and cleaning about 1/2 of the windows.

I've never tried an air fryer. It sounds like I'm not missing much by not having one. :-)

And, no, the Subaru doesn't have the Eyesight option, nor does it have the blind spot monitoring. The only ones at the dealer with those two options were also equipped with every other imaginable option as well and that brought the final price up to more than I wanted to pay.

I was looking in one of my cookbooks tonight and it says that unsoaked black beans are ready to eat after 20-25 minutes in a pressure cooker at 15psi/100kPa. The next time I do black beans, I'll give that a try. It also warned to reduce the amount of spices cooked with the beans, but it offered no suggestions as to how much to reduce the spices. I guess I'll have to do some experiments. I don't want add so much pepper flavor to the beans that I turn them into an oven cleaner. :-)

Betty Crocker would have approved of our chicken/pasta casserole we had for the main course last night. It was basically mac and cheese with leftover cooked chicken. DH enjoyed it and I did, too. I used elbow macaroni from the pantry. Only problem is that we ate about a third of it. Leftovers. The side was a bag crunchy salad with kale, added avocado and blue cheese.

Funny how we differ in our appliance rearrangement. My Kitchen Aid moving to a bottom cabinet. ChiSandy's emerging from storage location. I have probably not used mine in a couple of years.

No dinner menu yet. May try fried shrimp in the air fryer.

Hi, all. Sorry to have missed out on Pie Day, but I had my *final* chemo on Monday (!!) and have been off food for the last couple of days.

Made some rice pudding in the Instant Pot yesterday for something simple and easy to digest, but should have left the cinnamon out and just sprinkled it on top. Managed a mushroom/gruyere omelet for lunch today, so I think I'm back on the upswing.

We belong to a CSA for fish and are getting black cod today. I usually make it with miso, Nobu-style but am considering a "Hong Kong Marinated Sablefish" recipe with soy, rice wine, fresh OJ & orange zest. Will serve with rice and maybe a cucumber salad.

Made the roast I had planned for yesterday in my new Crock-Pot. Roast is on the Keep Warm setting until hubby gets home

I had the same problem when I went to eat Chinese food with my parents. Mom spoke some Chinese and dad was fluent. :-)

Magari, I hope you did a happy dance on Monday! Sharon (my wife) did one on her last chemo day and a more enthusiastic one about 10 days later.

I'm pressure cooking some pinto beans. I put in a clove of garlic, a bay leaf, a teaspoon of salt and a couple of Serrano peppers. I hope I'm not making it too spicy. Sharon LOVES pinto beans. If the beans turn out OK, I'll use those, otherwise I'll cook some rice to go with parchment wrapped salmon cooked in the oven.

I was looking through the book that came with the pressure cooker and in the "cleaning" section, I found this picture. I'm guessing the pressure cooker is more than a few years old! :-)

The steak had not yet defrosted, so I made spaghetti cacio e pepe instead--this time using enough Pecorino & black pepper (must've used half the grinder), plus butter, a dash of black truffle salt and a drizzle of black truffle oil. I cooked the spaghetti (Garofalo, imported from Naples--sold in multi-pack bundles by Costco) for the label's recommended 11 min. in the Fasta Pasta--which because it starts with cold water usually requires a tad longer than on the stovetop (but the latter also requires much more time for the water to boil). But this time, considering that I needed to add the cooked spaghetti to the pan and build the sauce around it, it came out a bit too far past al dente. Also, because the rough bronze-die-cut surface of the Garofalo makes the pasta more porous than the smoother surface of the Dreamfields, I think next time I will nuke it for only 8 or 9 min. It might have a little crunch at the core, but by the time its time in the skillet is done it'll be al dente.

Speaking of spaghetti, has anyone found a whole-wheat version that doesn't go straight from gritty crunch to mush without even a short al dente sweet spot? I tried ATK-recommended Bionature (imported, sold at WF, 10x the price of the Garafolo from Costco), but only once did it even come close--and starting at 6 min. I literally had to test the strands every 15 seconds on the stovetop, which is pretty much impossible with the Fasta Pasta (having to stop & restart the microwave lengthens the cooking time).

Going out for it tomorrow. Bob hates it, but he'll be working late.

Nancy, that doesn't seem like much of a ringing endorsement for TJ's ww pasta, if all the ww pasta around is no better than mediocre. That you "detest the stuff" but do like regular pasta (the primavera) tells me volumes more.

Had a Greek salad with extra tomato as an appetizer.The grass-fed strip steak I was going to cook was still mostly frozen, and I don't like the texture of microwave-defrosted steak, so I thawed out a Snake River Farms Wagyu burger patty instead. (Hey, it was chopped already, so texture wasn't an issue). Sliced a mushroom, deglazed with a little water (shouldn't use wine on cast iron) and added some truffle butter to the meat juices/fond. Trying to raise my hemoglobin, which had fallen back from 12.2 to 11.4, after cutting back on red meat, Switched from Feosol Complete (with "Bifera" iron--combo of heme + non-heme) which has only 27mg elemental iron, to a carbonyl iron + Vit. C pill that provides 65 mg. Snake RIver Farms' Wagyu is grain-finished but hey, every once in a while...

Earlier in the day, one of my guilty pleasures: whole wheat matzo (Yehuda is pretty good) with melted provolone.

That "Jeffersonville pie" is so intense it's nesrly cloying. It's a 6-incher, and there's still 3/4 of it left (after cutting into it twice). Will have some "Enlightened" cold-brew coffee ice cream instead, maybe sprinkle a little ground decaf espresso atop it. Tried "Coconut Bliss" dark chocolate non-dairy, but too much of the coconut flavor comes through.

I like soba too, in context (usually with sesame broth & sesame-crusted seared ahi--my version of "tuna noodle surprise"). I don't view it as "pasta," so I don't care if it's not al dente.

I too dislike wheat pasta. I know it's healthier, but if I don't eat it there's no point.

I was gone most of yesterday on errands like car oil change, then spend the rest of the daylight outside. So dinner was Trader Joe's Tempura Chicken with Sweet & Sour Sauce. Only 360 sodium. Real white meat chicken 'tenders' to bake in the oven for 15-18 minutes, then pour the sauce over it. I served it with a Minute Rice Fried Rice small "bowl" that was the perfect size - 60 seconds in the micro.
Yum!!! I have 1/2 left that I didn't 'sauce', so I'll have it today with salad, or with spaghetti sauce.

I was also surprised about the reduced spices for beans. For the chicken, the spices seem to just disappear. But, when I tried the reduced spice pressure cooked beans...I sure did notice the pepper and garlic in the beans.

The only difference that I can discern between beans and chicken is that the beans absorb a huge amount of water. I don't know if that is really the difference.

The sous vide (store bought) corned beef was the best I've ever made. Absolutely perfect in every way. The home cured one was flavorful but so salty as to be inedible, no doubt due to my miscalculations in reducing the recipe to accommodate a two pound instead of a five pound piece of meat. Live and learn, I will try again one day.

The real star was the rye soda bread with currants that I made. Delicious with a smear of Kerrygold salted butter. Thinking of you Minus.

OMG! I just re-did my long post and added pix from the paella dinner (and one of a previous paella DH made since I got busy and never paid attention to taking a pic of the “centerpiece dish”)....AND since the page changed, all was again erased. So. I will try again...with none of my “tonight” comments in response to posts I just read. So very frustrating!

First off, I am so relieved for you, Special, that DD is back Home! I was feeling your worry!

Sorry to take a while to get back here. And decided I would write this narrative in my ipad "notes" then copy/paste it onto site to avoid the posting disaster I experienced the other night...so frustrating. I should learn to do this and avoid that "disappearing post" problem.

Of course I've forgotten half of what I wrote Tuesday evening...but basically, the paella dinner went well.

I made too many hors d' ouvres: several Spanish cheeses with assorted crackers, roasted and also smoked almonds, assorted olives, marinated mushrooms, prosciutto wrapped melon, cheese stuffed dates topped with chopped pecans, and dried apricots, figs, etc. One never knows what people can/will eat, so I went for variety, and that was fine. We've been eating the leftovers all week. The cheeses and prosciutto wrapped melon were most popular. Everyone chose to drink red wine for both apps and dinner.

The paella was served in two paelleras which DH placed on the table so guests could just help themselves to as much as they wanted, which worked out well. I served a basic three lettuce green salad with olives, tomatoes, thin sliced spanish onion (in a separate dish), and a lemon vinaigrette. Lastly, a crusty bread, purchased, since I ran out of time to bake one.

For dessert I made a crema catalana topped with raspberries, served with lime shortbread cookies (which I think came out a bit dense).

We'd spent some time decorating the LR and DR with a minimal Spanish theme, and put luminaries along the walk to the front door..... a bit hokey, but fun. I was happy to actually be ready to receive the guests literally two minutes before the doorbell rang! And we were both wiped out when it was over. Not a great night to push the clocks ahead! I think the dinner recipe research and prep probably seemed to take more effort due to my "cockeyed" vision which is very gradually adjusting to normal since my cataract surgery.

Sunday we dragged ourselves into Boston for the Celtics' game, stopping at The Harp for our fave casual meal...mine being that bourbon glazed salmon over veggies (hold the rice!). Then little did I know how the evening would transpire. As I headed to our seats, two very large men needed to let me pass by them, and they chose to move out of the row into the aisle, which was then tightly crowded for them, sooooo I decided to not further inconvenience them but instead step up onto the floor of our row and over the empty aisle seat (not a herculean feat). Well, not realizing that my depth perception was not its acute self, I ended up clipping the back of that seat with my boot toe and went flying, hitting every surface (thankfully many padded ones), of the bank of seats, arm rests, cup holders, etc., before landing on the concrete floor next to a recently emptied greasy pizza box! Yuk!

The upshot of all this is that I am bruised from head to shin, with a bruised face, rib, knees, and a cantaloupe-sized hematoma on the side of my right leg. Lotsa pain and swelling!

I did stay for the game, icing my various injured sites....and had a serious talk with the opthal doc at my Monday appt. about the difficulties with my current vision. Well, apparently, in a few weeks my brain is supposedly going to adjust to my "new" eyes. Sure hope so! Meanwhile I will not be scaling anymore seats at TD Garden!

Nance, loved your pineapple upside down cake, a favorite dessert my mother used to make. I can recall how pleased and proud I was as a young woman making my first one, seeing it turn out of the pan so beautifully!

And yes, my never-opened Insta-pot would certainly enjoy the company of Carole's currently retired appliances. No judging! 😉. More and more, I just use my pans/pots and knives, graters, etc. for cooking. And an air fryer??? Not a clue what that is....

In addition to healing my injuries, (Ibuprofen has been my friend this week), I've managed to catch a virus, so I've had a sore throat and headache all week. I felt the need for a brothy soup tonight so made us a nice onion soup.

Will try to post a few pix from Paella Night.....

No I won't.....just a paella one since I have very bad luck posting pix tonight and have run out of patience!