When you make cauliflower mac n cheese do you omit the pasta entirely?
I used a few of the avocado oil, plain variety for breakfast tacos before leaving for MA. This brand is very tasty. They crisp up in a hot dry pan extremely well. Arrive fresh as all get out.
Cauliflower cheese is a traditional British dish - either a vegetarian main course or, just as often, a vegetable accompaniment usually to roast beef. From time to time, we’ve made a caulflower mac & cheese - like a basic mac & cheese but also with cauliflower. I say “basic” mac & cheese, because that’s not usually what we make - our normal mac & cheese usually includes bacon and courgettes.
Very interesting. I have never tried this. Which cheeses do you use?
WFD is probably the busiest thread - many of the folks here are there as well, as you have recognized I’m sure!
The coconut poached cod sounds really good (as does the rest of your week) - I’m going to take a look!
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I make cauliflower cheese using my mom’s standard method because it’s delicious but not that unhealthy (quick bechamel, not too much butter, a bit of ghee for flavor, a little cheese inside and on top, but not a crazy amount). Most kids in my life eat it just like that, no pasta, but when I don’t know the kids as well, I turn the cauliflower into a sauce and add pasta. So then it’s bechamel plus cauliflower plus some cheese puréed, and that’s the sauce for the mac and cheese. .
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Thanks for the detailed share! Those are some planning goals for novices like me!
I do end up freezing half of many meals, but struggle with using up freezer food. So then I swing the other way and try to minimize leftovers… and am disappointed when the freezer is empty 
Balance, I know.
Love this. I was fairly picky about vegetables and fruits as a child, and have been consciously trying to add something I “don’t like” back to my plate every year. Many of those things I now enjoy and seek out.
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I’m going to give the puree a try. I like cauliflower but never made a sauce base using it.
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I prefer the flavor starting with a light bechamel and pureeing (steamed/microwaved) cauliflower into it (instead of just using cauliflower with some flour or cornstarch, like low carb recipes will suggest).
My sister makes a cheese soup and floats cauliflower bits on top. I bet if I took my immers blender to that I’d be halfway there!
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Strongest cheddar I can find in the supermarket. That’s often a Canadian one.
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Your meal looks delicious @digga! Your upcoming week sounds good too. Think cod is an under appreciated fish, and usually at a good price also. Think you should give yourself a break on Sunday and have leftovers, if you have any. Or go out…
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Is cod fish considered affordable as compared to salmon? In my country, cod fish is considered very premium, such that it is a lot more costly than salmon. I don’t eat that very often, more local fishes from SE Asia instead.
In spite of cod having spent years on the “vulnerable” list of endangered fish, it’s now regarded in the UK as being OK again. My supermarket currently has it at £13.60 per kilo. By comparision, farmed salmon is £12.50 while wild salmon is more than double that at £27.17.
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Interesting on the prices @thwysg and @Harters. Around here I can usually get it for about $3.99 - 4.99, sometimes as low as $2.99 a pound on sale. So much more affordable than salmon or halibut. If I can get halibut at $17.99/lb, I consider it a bargain, it’s about as cheap as it ever gets in the Puget Sound area.
I had been to Dubai last week and for the first time; I tried Chicken Biryani, Indian food, from Desi Lunch Box. There I got carried away by its taste. Truly, the chicken biryani was very tasty and spicy too. From there, I thought to add this to my weekly meal lists. So now my list is like:
Mon: Eggplant Parmigiana (Italy)
Tue: Shiitake Fried Rice with Water Chestnuts (China)
Wed: Paella (Spain)
Thur: Kadai Paneer (India)
Fri: Poutine (Canada)
Sat: Stinky tofu (Southeast Asia)
Sunday: Chicken Biryani (India - https://youtu.be/zTQLcTTdb-Y)
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The best versions I’ve had of biryani are Hyderabadi. There’s just an added richness to the recipe somehow. Lots of internet recipes.
Cod was historically very cheap and plentiful here in New England, but then it was overfished. Now haddock is the replacement most of the time in dishes here that would have once used cod.
I actually haven’t had any codfish in awhile, so not sure of normal prices. Black cod, or sablefish, from the West Coast sometimes makes its way to our markets and I like that fish too.
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I loved reading this!
It’s Saturday but my wife is out for a girl’s day at Winterthur in Delaware. We have a house guest arriving on Monday and next week is Boat Show here in Annapolis which is a big deal here and makes the schedule for our guest and me really hard to pin down. Thinking is underway. The freezer is well stocked but pulling things out requires advance notice. sigh
The meal plan isn’t a plan until my wife and I go over it together. I’m thinking some enchiladas from the freezer in there somewhere. I’m going to make extra ratatouille for tonight for our guest and my wife (I won’t need to eat eggplant again for a year). “Something with chicken” will certainly be on the menu (maybe marsala), maybe linguini with clam sauce (since it portions and keeps so easily). My wife isn’t feeling like lamb so my lamb shoulder roast idea won’t happen - too bad as it would do well for picking from the fridge as people come and go. My wife feels about beef the way I feel about eggplant but she really likes my meatloaf so we might work that in. Again - leftovers and easy picking. My wife may have other ideas.
On any given day we might have three adults eating when they flit through. There is a reasonable chance that we’ll have eight people working here at dinner time and have to feed them. Pizza is always an option but real food is a good thing.
Since the topic is “planning” I thought some insight into OUR planning process, under stress, might be of mild interest.
sail fast and eat well, dave
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