A big Yay for getting time back! And I love how you’ve stuck with the vegetarian/seafood meal thing each week.
I wore a mask to indoor Pickleball last week, and one of the guys playing asked “so what’s with the mask?” I politely mentioned covid while gritting my teeth. Please continue to be the person who cares.
Hi from Chapel Hill, NC. You may remember that LLD was away last weekend. Well, he brought back an unwanted guest: he’s got covid. He’s feeling pretty miserable. I woke up with a very sore throat, but tested negative. Aside from that I’m feeling fine, but of course have canceled everything for the coming week, and will retest tomorrow just in case. We’re all hanging out in different rooms, masking when not, and doing our best. Better now than 2 years ago. Here is what we’ve eaten:
Tuesday: chicken fricassee with olives, saffron, lemon (150 Best Recipes) with rolls
Wednesday: roasted chicken sausages over polenta with tomatoes, eggplant, and garlic
Thursday: one of our favorite restaurants is closing (St James) so we had dinner out. Eek in retrospect
Friday: Bulls game, tacos
Saturday: roast chicken with potatoes, anchovies, lemon, rosemary- this was from the Guardian, and delicious
Sunday: ordering in pizza
Wishing everyone a wonderful week. Fall is slightly in the air here and I love it.
Ugh, sorry your house has been invaded. Hope LLD (and all of you) feel better soon.
Be well. Hope you escape it, but if not, hope it’s mild.
(I had a childhood friend in town last week dropping her kid to college, and she and her husband tested positive right after I met them for dinner – but I had met my friend who’s post two brain procedures by then. Luckily, negative on my front – I was only worried about having exposed my recovering friend.)
Sorry to hear LLD has covid. I too got sick recently waking up with a sore throat last Saturday (8 days ago) which has morphed into asthma. I tested negative but decided to pick up some inhalers then hunker down to play the self isolation game. Better safe than sorry, right? I hope you all get better soon.
Well, it’s been a while because I spent many evenings the past few weeks visiting a friend who’s having multi-stage surgery for early onset Parkinson’s. Daily cooking to take over, some takeout, some eating other people’s cooking, but no planning. Mentally and physically exhausting, which sounds silly and self-indulgent to say when someone else is actually going through the real ordeal.
Some actuals and a tentative plan now that my evenings are my own again for a while.
Fri - Dinner party at a friend’s. They ordered in really good Sichuan food, including a dish or two I had never tried before.
Sat - Quiet day to myself, so I decided to cook Caribbean for DOTQ: Salmon with green mojo + Mofongo cakes + chocolate cake for dessert
Sun - Lamb t-bones with rosemary + either cappellini with uncooked tomato sauce OR pan amb tomate (if I can revive the half dead leftover baguette slab) + roasted cauliflower
Mon - Working dinner at a Thai restaurant
Tues - Viet lemongrass pork chop + garlic umami noodles + slaw (all Andrea Nguyen, some from VFAD)
Wed - Bengali mustard salmon + spinach dal + rice
Thurs - Viet leftovers
Fri - Bengali leftovers
Weekend - Just made plans to visit a friend and her parents at the Jersey shore and then meet my college roommate for a couple of days together at the beach, and I’m really looking forward to it — it will be my first actual vacation since before COVID, even if it is only 3 days total.
Wish you all a relaxing last week of summer!
Thank YOU for continuing to wear masks. I wear them any time I’m inside and in crowded outdoor settings, and I don’t see that changing any time soon. hugs
I’d never had the chance to teach online pre-pandemic. I really enjoyed it, honestly, even though it took a lot of work to re-invent all of my courses. I’m a community college prof, and my students have those complex lives you mentioned. They really benefited from the asynchronous online modality. However, I’m also a STEM prof, and our transfer institutions won’t accept online labs anymore. So, I’m back primarily in person, but utilizing all the good tools from being online.
Good luck to you!
Hope all of you have a smooth time of it. Sending good thoughts.
Thanks for that Friday curry ground beef with potatoes and peas recipe link, dustchick. Always happy to find a fast new-to-us ground beef recipe.
Actuals for Aug 22 week, cooking only a couple of times this week for 2 in MN with many fun casual meals out. Husband’s birthday choices, a meet-up with an old-as-me college roommate, and a pizza & beer campaign event at a new craft brewery. I am volunteering for a candidate, and meal-time meet & greet events are starting to fill the calendar. While this week’s event was good, my plan is to eat early at home with my husband whenever possible. I spent far too many years working long hours through supper-time and we’d have separate solo dinners. One of the true joys of retirement has been sharing mealtimes together.
Mon - Beefburgers (loose-meat “maid-rites” style, with stirred-in veg beef soup, mustard and ketchup), tater tots & cheese curds, fresh apples
Tues - Husband’'s birthday favorites OUT for lunch, Carryout for supper - TGI Friday’s ribs, Chocolate brownie with ice cream, Pizza Hut pizza,
Wed - me - lunch OUT w/ college roommate. Dinner - Beefburgers, corn on the cob, sliced fresh peaches, mixed fresh fruit salad (red grapes,kiwi, apple)
Thurs: me OUT Campaign event at new Brewery (pizza & beer), he- beefburger, corn on the cob
Fri: Shredded rotisserie chicken w/ Rotel/brown rice/black bean casserole (made/frozen in early July). Spinach salad w/ tomatoes. Fresh cherries.
Sat: lunch OUT (husband’s birthday celebration choices, continued)– Smashburger, sweet potato fries, milk shake. Dinner - Hard shell tacos filled with shredded rotisserie chicken w/ Rotel/brown rice/black bean casserole.
Sun: lunch - Chicken marsala w/ mushrooms & onions, over coconut rice (cooked with onions, oregano). Cream cheese stirred into the cooked rice. Asparagus. Chicken from Dinner a Day p 262
supper - Individual “grinder” sandwiches on whole wheat buns – salad topping made with shredded cabbage mix, in place of lettuce. https://www.juliapacheco.com/italian-grinder-sandwich/
We’ve had it once before. Pretty tasty!
Fingers crossed you stay negative, and LLD’s case is mild!
Hi, all! Cooking for 2 in Chattanooga. All plans are TBD as we seem to have brought Covid back as a souvenir–at least DH has, poor guy. He’s struggling a bit with his asthma, but his health care provider has told him that Paxlovid is reserved for non-vaxxed people here, arghhh. I’m still negative and hoping to cook during the week; if not, we have TJ’s meals in the freezer!
Actuals: We loved Oleana and also ate/got food at Gracie’s, House of Dumplings, and Bow Street Market, for the Boston-based crowd. We also cooked and loved the fusilli with burst tomatoes from Dinner. It was a great weekend despite the invader coming home with us…
Plans:
Wednesday, August 31: Pearl couscous and zucchini salad from Milk Street; if I have the energy, I’ll do an elote thing as well.
Thursday (September already! Yikes!): Dal with zucchini (I will probably tinker with the recipe); rice
Friday: Chicken Normande (a kind of chicken/apple shepherd’s pie thing) from an old Bon Appétit as comfort food and a welcome to September. Will maybe do roasted plums over ice cream for dessert.
Hope everyone recovers quickly/stays healthy! Happy cooking!
Oh, sorry to hear about DH…I hope he recovers quickly and you remain well!
Please tell what you got at the Boston restaurants! We live close to Bow Market and I’m hoping to persuade the older adult male here that Oleana would be nice for our two September birthdays. I’m glad you had a good weekend; it was hot!
We got so many things at Oleana: highlights were the topik, the salad, and the feta saganaki. DH didn’t love it as much as the rest of us did, so if your adult male is similarly meat-based, maybe go for a big plate rather than small plates?
We just got snacks at Bow Street: kimchi poutine, squash pizza, shrimp cocktail. It sounds like more than snacks when I write it, haha.
Thanks, that sounds great! We got that topik from Oleana for take out early on in the pandemic and it was so good. Adult male loves the Oleana hot mezze Sultan’s Delight`Tamarind Beef, Smoky Eggplant Purée, Basil. I’m mostly vegetarian myself but I love a few bites of that dish.
That Chicken Normande you are planning for Friday sounds wonderful, even for me who mostly thinks chicken is boring.
I hope your DH and LLM’s LLD recover quickly from Covid. All three of us here in Boston are having symptoms so we will test yet again.
I’ll repeat what I said to LLM - hope you escape it, but if not, hope it’s mild (and certainly for Mr. mbc). I’m really surprised by how many folks I know who are getting sick related to travel. And yet, I know it’s not the travel itself, but some combination of lowered inhibitions and other people not masking or testing when they know they have symptoms. But that’s a discussion for another day and place.
If there was only one change allowed, mine would be to add tempering at the beginning or the end (save the mustard seeds and curry leaves from the recipe for this, one or two of the chillies, and if you want to amp it up, some of the onion and garlic too).
The September discussion has been started… where did the summer / August time go?!!
Well, I’m totally off the rails, folks. This will mostly be next week’s plan now 
