Weekly Menu Planning – August 2022

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!

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Hope all of you have a smooth time of it. Sending good thoughts.

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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.

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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/

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We’ve had it once before. Pretty tasty!

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Fingers crossed you stay negative, and LLD’s case is mild!

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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!

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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).

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The September discussion has been started… where did the summer / August time go?!!

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Well, I’m totally off the rails, folks. This will mostly be next week’s plan now :crossed_fingers:t3:

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Those are the tweaks I made, besides shredding the zucchini and caramelizing it with the onions! Could have used more chillies but was otherwise good!
I agree on the inhibitions comment: We generally don’t eat at restaurants, etc. when we’re in Tennessee, but the places we visit tend to have lower numbers and we let our guard down. Live and learn, I guess…

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This one, right?

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That’s the one! At least it’s my inspiration, haha

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Haha - that was my other one, but I held back! I don’t like the texture of chunky zucchini when it gets squidgy, but it is common in some regions (for eg sambar in the south has chunks of vegetables including eggplant and squash).

Since I started eating zucchini a few years ago, I actually love the extra flavor it adds to dal - can’t tell what the extra oomph is unless you cooked it yourself! I usually grate and sauté down zucchini when I have too much and freeze it, so I can add it to dal and other things on demand.

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I didn’t mean it was you, I meant that we have all done that (and rightly so for mental health, I think) but when other people make the decision not to take precautions when they know they have symptoms, one can’t really control for that, and that is the wildcard at the moment.

Happened to me with a visiting friend recently - I ignored my instincts about her cough because she insisted it was reflux related. Of course, she and her husband both tested positive a day later - but tested only at my insistence, because I had been around a medically compromised person after meeting them. I had a business dinner a few days later, and even though I had tested negative twice by then, I informed my associates because they both have elderly parents living with them. They chose to delay the dinner by a few more days, which I totally understood.

Another friend was shameless enough to tell me me that her family and close friends (30 odd people) were pretty sure they were covid positive before her niece’s (300 person) wedding but they decided not to test or talk about it, because what were they going to do - cancel the wedding the day before? no way. They did test after everything was over, and 90% of the immediate circle were indeed positive. I don’t know whether I was more afraid or angered by how many older or immune compromised people they had put at risk without a second thought - when they could just have notified those people of the risk, and let them make their own decision to participate or not.

My parents are attending their first large family function since before the pandemic, and I’m just praying that no one there is as stupid and dangerous as my own friends seem to have become.

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YES, it was. We both enjoyed it! And leftovers reheated very well next-day. Thanks again

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I wear a mask, too. I truly do not understand why so many people don’t do so. It is not arduous to wear the mask if one wears it correctly.

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