That’s a looker! I will try this soon. Thank you!
Sure! I’m making it this week for the teachers 
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More about that Monday “curried tuna salad” please?
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Hi, everyone. We had a pretty good week, though I wish it would just warm up already! Everyone’s flowers are so confused.
DS is leaving Monday morning at the crack of dawn for a school-sponsored trip to the Southwest national parks*. He’s sort of excited, but also a bit nervous about spending his whole vacation week with classmates and teachers (40 kids, 4 teachers). They return next Sat AM and we are taking advantage of his absence, sort of… lots of meals he would (or does) hate.
Sun: garlic line steak and rice noodle salad (SK)
Mon: going to watch the Boston Marathon at our friends’ house. Dinner will be buffalo chicken pizza and celery succotash salad (Rachael Ray)
Tues: breakfast for dinner! Pancakes (trying the Chrissy Tiegen mochi pancake boxed mix) and sausage. Maybe some fruit?
Weds: pasta with pesto and white beans, maybe salads
Thurs: DH and I are taking a quick overnight trip to Providence, RI (only an hour away). Not sure about dinner, I found two options (one fancy, one low-key) but it depends on timing as we want to do a ghost tour!
Fri: RISD art museum, food tbd. Home for dinner - Thai takeout
*footnoting for his itinerary: flying to Phoenix. Sedona, Flagstaff, Grand Canyon / rafting trip, more of the Grand Canyon, Bryce, Zion. Home from Las Vegas.
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Another busy week ahead. Convenience and comfort are the priorities for our meals.
For two adults in San Diego:
Breakfasts: Will likely start off with toasted bread from a favorite bakery.
S: takeout - pepperoni pizza
Su: Huevos rancheros with refried beans and Hatch sauce from freezer - vegetarian
M: Tuna melts with fruit - seafood
T: Italian chopped salad (salami, tomatoes, carrots, cheese, croutons, chickpeas) - salad
W: Salami and spinach pizza w/salad
Th: Pasta with TJ’s pesto chicken, spinach, peas
F: Soup with pesto chicken, veggies, and gnocchi - Soup
Have a good week!
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Hi everyone
I had forgotten how nice it is to have a plan when staring into nothingness or toomuchness of the fridge 
The weather is slowly turning to spring, but there’s still a nip in the air and wind and rain making me want warm things.
Rolling forward a few ideas I didn’t get to last week because of way too much eating out.
Ideas for the week:
– Wonton wrapper lasagna (Marcella-ish bolognese and besciamella already made, just have to assemble but I’m out of parmesan)
– Spicy chicken salad (scallions, sriracha, sesame oil) with homemade garlic mayo, made with Cantonese-style poached chicken
– Curry chicken noodle soup with fresh lemongrass (using the poaching broth)
– Bengali mustard fish + dal + rice
– Pan-fried noodles with mixed mushrooms
– Smoked paprika and garlic seasoned roasted chicken thighs with bread salad
– Miso black cod (freezer) + snow pea salad + rice
– Something Turkish for COTQ – maybe Manti with leftover wonton wrappers, or Kisr and Chicken Adana Kabab, or Tepsi Kabab if I’m feeling really lazy
– Something eggy for DOTQ – Made chawanmushi already, possibly a souffle (this or this
I baked another orange olive oil cake to send for my cousin’s kids because my SIL was in town, which scratched my baking itch.
Wish you all a peaceful and delicious week.
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Cooking for one in Reston, VA
I’ve been kind of winging it the last couple weeks which has resulted in some rather haphazard meals (e.g., peanut butter sandwich before heading to theatre) and some produce that languished in the fridge drawer and got tossed. My CSA bag gets ordered over the weekend and arrives on Thursdays, so I am going to try hard to make my menu plan when I order rather than after it arrives. Asparagus has shown up and it is one of my favorites so it is going to feature in upcoming meals until the season is over and I am sick of it.
Sunday, Apr 14: Out to book club - someone else doing the cooking (Yea!)
Monday, Apr 15: Seared Miso Sesame Shrimp and Asparagus from “Dinner in One”
Tuesday, Apr 16: My weekly walking group in the afternoon so need something easy - Sheet pan roast cabbage and chicken sausage
Wednesday, Apr 17: Trying to make more bean dishes. Kidney Bean Curry from “Made in India”. I haven’t made this one before.
Thurday, Apr 18: Leftover curry
Friday, April 19: Bi-weekly zoom happy hour so need something easy to eat when it ends at 7. Salad and maybe soup from freezer
Saturday, April 20: Streetcart Chicken and Rice from “Smitten Kitchen Every Day”
Sunday, April 21: leftover chicken
Monday, April 22: Warm Farro Salad with Asparagus, Peas, and Feta - https://www.seriouseats.com/farro-salad-asparagus-peas-recipe
Tuesday, April 23: leftovers
Wednesday, April 23: Salmon with horseradish cream
Thursday, April 24: Crunchy Peanut-crusted Tofu with Asparagus from “Dinner in One”
Hope everyone is well and enjoying spring. Our farmers market opens in 2 weeks and I can hardly wait for some good strawberries and sugar snaps. I love spring produce!
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It’s a standard mayo-based tuna salad with celery, red onion, apples, dried currants (that may be too much for DH), and curry powder.
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Actuals for April 8 week, cooking for 2 in MN where warm to hot Spring weather has us with our windows open and enjoying some serious porch-sitting. Wed - Fri we cleared out a modest amount of junk and give-away stuff for our section of the city’s curbside cleanup, kicking up dust and uncovering some additional items we’ll never use again and are trying to sell. I acquired a cough and laryngitis so put off Friday’s planned grocery run, but there’s still plenty of food to keep us well fed. I also learned, to my great surprise, that all these years when my husband commented on spice / pepper levels he intended that just as him noticing, not that he disliked. He asked “do we have any hot sauce, peppers?” this week and is now adding tablespoons of Tiger Sauce to tamer main dishes (like oven beef stew). I just gained a whole new layer of flavors to experiment with.
Mon: Gyros on naan, with cucumber sauce, Feta, sliced ripe olives, tomatoes. Rice.
Tues: Leftovers clear out
Wed: Costco Chicken, sweet potato, asparagus.
Thurs: Oven Beef stew, Shredded carrots/apples/craisins salad
Fri: A pasta salad Tri-color rotini with turkey pepperoni, diced tomato, diced cucumber, sliced black olives. We add shredded mozzarella on ours. And had warmed baguette on the side plus red grapes. I used Copycat equivalents for the Salad Supreme Seasoning topping and the Italian Dressing.
Good thing I made notes the first time, since there was quite a bit of math involved. For about 6 main-dish servings I made a half recipe of the pasta/veggies mixture, a half-recipe of the Seasoning mix, and 3/4 of a half recipe (i.e., 3/8 recipe) of the dressing, which is plenty.
Sat: Beef stew, naan, fresh orange
Sun (today): Polenta-stuffed pepper shells, tilapia, fruit salad NOTE recipe has typo – should be 1.5 C cornmeal for 3 C water
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That kidney bean curry isone of my favorite things to eat. I hope you like it!
I’ll be looking forward to hearing how you like the Dinner in One recipes.
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This sounds like a nightmare 8th grade math homework problem.
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Looks seriously good
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Turns out either is correct!
“A crostata is an Italian version of the French galette that can be sweet and savory, too. We’ve baked sweet crostatas filled with apricot jam or strawberry jam, as well as an umami-rich scallion and soy filling.”
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I only do math on special equations.
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My favorite subject in school, got my degree in it and I still enjoy the exercise of calculation to get “for two” sized recipes for most cooking. But when trying to quickly pull together this dinner involving 3 sub-recipes with a total of 25 ingredients it was REALLY good to have the quantities for part-recipes already written down. The tasty results and not needing to go buy packets of prepared mixtures were worth it for me.
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Both of us have been away for several weeks in different places with a dog sitter in charge of our home and kitchen. It’s the beginning of our birthdays week, so on the way home from my flight into Providence before we got home we stopped for our first dinner out. We had a late lunch out on Friday and I made an ATK recipe for a rustic Italian bean soup with cornbread for dinner that night. We treated ourselves again for DH’s actual birthday on Saturday at the Bookstore restaurant in Wellfleet Harbor. Had the rest of the bean soup for lunch.
After another birthday lunch out today in Chatham at the Impudent Oyster, we had leftover steak sandwiches from steak and bulky rolls from the freezer - added some provolone and made coleslaw from a bag and Marie’s dressing. We did a freezer dive and an inventory of our refrigerator - we got groceries on the way back from lunch, so we have meals sorted thru Thursday:
Monday -
Lunch: asparagus/cheddar omelets with toasted English muffins, leftover Cole slaw
Dinner: Bone in pork chops cooked in Portuguese recipe with tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, bay and cinnamon. We like a curried rice pilaf with it. Will freeze half of the pilaf for another meal.
Tuesday -
Lunch: tuna melts and Pacifica roasted red pepper tomato soup
Dinner: A meatloaf from the freezer, DH will make Chef John’s mushroom gravy. I’ll make mashed potatoes and we bought a nice bag of fresh green beans.
Wednesday -
Lunch : Grilled cheese with butternut squash soup (boxed Pacifica brand)
Dinner: Leftover meatloaf, mashed potatoes. gravy and green beans.
Thursday - my birthday. DH is playing 18 holes of golf. I might treat myself to a solo late breakfast somewhere. We haven’t decided where we’ll go but an early dinner out…
Friday is a new day and we will have to take an inventory - we have a friend who can’t drive anymore and lives alone. We pick up her groceries and her mail for her on Friday mornings - sometimes prescriptions too and so we tend to get our groceries on Fridays, as well.
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I recently shared a Cincinnati chili recipe with my mom… original recipe called for 3 lbs of meat, but I had written down amounts for 1.5 lbs and 2 lbs. I do like the Recipe Keeper app because it does the scaling for you - but sometimes can give odd measurements like “1 cup and 3 1/2 tablespoons” .
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When I was younger, I would have dutifully followed those directions.
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I do when I’m baking. But cooking, especially when it’s spices… I feel like by now I know what I can safely eyeball or round up/down.
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I’m getting a bit better at sizing down recipes for one. I will still make the full four servings (or six or whatever) of some recipes because I like having leftovers to heat up in the microwave on the days I know I will be getting home from work late or if I have to heat up dinner quickly then run off somewhere. Every other day I like making something different each night but as @truman mentioned, you can get odd measurements. Thankfully I cook (as opposed to baking) where the measurements are forgiving so I can add a little more or less spice, etc. to suit my tastes.
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