It’s been a busy week going right into a visitors week and I’ve stressed myself down to 1 meal a day, plus maybe a snack if I remember.
Trying to prep a bit over an otherwise still-busy weekend, because if there’s food ready when I’m buried in work, then I’ll eat, otherwise I’m likely to skip.
A few ideas (because visitors in for the week also means many meals out):
— South Indian-inspired Beetroot chicken curry + chapatis (freezer) + rice
— Sushi bowl with salmon (extracted from a broiled collar) and wasabi napa cabbage slaw
— Kheema Shepherds Pie and / or Kheema Macaroni (using frozen sauteed ground turkey + Rao’s arrabiata + spices)
— Last 2 hot dog rolls (): maybe a Japanese-flavored spicy tuna sandwich and… a hot dog? lol – if I make it to the store.
Craving something baked, maybe homemade bread, will mix up some dough and see.
Might also be baking for the visitors if requested (banana bread, lemon muffins, brownies).
Wish you all a relaxing weekend and a good week ahead.
Actuals for Aug 5 week, cooking for 2 in MN. Where as mentioned up-thread by @Autumm2 the temperatures turned “Fall-like”, making oven meals more appealing. Lots of semi-homemade meals, taking advantage of freezer and pantry items. Lots of novels reading for fun. As I look at next week’s calendar, it’s going to be challenging to work-in cooking time around appointments and meetings. I may try some slow-cooker recipes.
Mon: Pork tenderloin roast, (commercial) mashed sweet potatoes, apple and fennel salad on greens with manchego cheese and lemony red wine vinaigrette. The salad recipe was one featured at the cooking class a couple weeks ago. Great combo. Tenderloin and sweet potatoes were repeated / reheated for dinner Tues.
Tues: Gyros (using packaged frozen slices) w homemade cucumber tzatziki, naan, cherry tomatoes, red onion, black olives. I made the mistake of getting mini-cucumbers BOGO and struggled to use them up. This helped. BAKED blueberry pecan whole wheat muffin-tops.
Wed: (Commercial) Chicken curry with coconut and mango, farro (previously cooked & frozen), peas w cashews, sliced fresh orange. More farro and rice got cooked after supper, then most frozen, so meal could be repeated as Thursday lunch.
Thurs: Salmon, burst tomato galette, shredded packaged Mann’s Rainbow veggies salad. Diced fresh peaches with whipped cream. Repeated as Friday lunch. I made the galette in 2 stages, cooking the filling and preparing the crust dough in the morning, chilling it all day then doing final assembly and baking in late afternoon to serve right out of the oven.
Fri: Harvest Day Beef Stew which includes peach, pear (apple), sweet potato, sweet corn, zucchini, and tomato. With naan. A half recipe makes 6 generous servings, so this was also weekend lunches.
Sat/Sun - Meat-filled commercial ravioli and tortellini, with pricey (from groceries R&D budget) jarred pasta sauce - Dave’s Gourmet organic heirloom red. Spinach salad, baguette.
Hi Everyone! Busy week here, and travel plans that Debbie tried (but failed!) to interrupt. Lulu flew to Las Vegas with a friend for a couple of nights (!!) and LLD and I went to Chicago. Meanwhile it rained and rained and rained here at home, and trees were going down all over the neighborhood, so the power was out. I was glad none of us were at home for most of it. We’re home now and hoping to enjoy the last few weeks before she’s off to college. Here’s what we ate while home:
Sun: LLD made burgers and tater tots and we watched the Olympics. I feel like this time around was the most fun I’d had watching them in years.
Mon: penne with turkey bacon, cabbage, and rosemary
Tues: Bacon and tomato sandwiches, corn on the cob. Summer!
Wed: For Andrea Nguyen COTM I made her stir-fried tofu, shrimp, and peas from Asian Tofu. It was delicious! I always love when a COTM gets me to try something I otherwise would pass by, and it ends up being a hit.
Thurs/Fri everyone was away. Sat. I nibbled on popcorn and LLD made himself egg sandwiches.
Sun: likely carry-out
My friend who was in the hospital is now home, so she’s better able to eat what she wants. I truly appreciated all the ideas for her. Hope everyone has a great week.
Only one month to go until homecoming weekend. I bought my train ticket to Montreal, I booked my hotel and I purchased tickets for four homecoming events that I would like to attend. I would like to find out what cultural activities are on while I am in Montreal and I will also have to look into dining options especially in Old Montreal and Chinatown. I am hoping to go to the World Press Photography exhibition in the Bonsecours market in Old Montreal and I might tie in a meal while I am there. Or I might go to Chinatown which is nearby. I have fond memories of dining out in Chinatown when I lived in Montreal so I am leaning towards that option. Onto my menus for this week:
Today: I went back to the Korean grocer I went to last week. The store is quite big for an ethnic grocery store with an impressive selection of Asian groceries. They also have a refrigerator near the cash with prepared foods (kimchi, scallion pancakes, etc.) and a display case at the cash with the fried chicken I purchased last week. It is really warm out today so I thought I’d like to go back and try some of their cold dishes so I bought a spicy pork kimbap, a wakame salad, and a daikon salad. I’ve had the salads before and they are very good but the kimbap is new to me. It is very good and I would like to try the others they have out (beef, tuna, crab, spam) although I think I will skip the one with spam. I’ve never had it before and I am not really interested in trying it. Tonight I will have a caesar style vegetable salad for dinner. The recipe is from a salad themed cookbook by Sunset.
Saturday: I will be heading off to a farmers market just west of Ottawa with a friend tomorrow. They are having a garlic festival this month so we plan on taking it in and we will do a little shopping while there. I will have a homemade chicken soup for dinner. I bought a whole chicken earlier this week since it was on sale for $1.99/lb (cheap by Canadian standards) so I broke it down into legs, breasts, and wings which have all been frozen and I saved the carcass for soup. I will use the celery, carrots, onion and garlic from my CSA and some nappa cabbage and ginger from the Chinese grocer.
Sunday: My day will be spent trip planning. I will have a basa fillet en papillote for dinner.
Monday: Peanut butter noodles with cucumber.
Tuesday: Amansala salad with the two chicken wings I have in the freezer.
Wednesday: Our director’s last day before moving on to a new job. He has asked for a send off breakfast so our meal out will be at a deli near the office. Dinner will be a Russian salad.
I’m back from a 5 day holiday, and I cooked dinner last night for the first time since Saturday.
Thu:
Lemon oregano chicken thighs
Spaghettini
Fried tomatoes with garlic
Crustless tomato pie with mayo and Scottish cheddar
Delicata squash with butter and maple syrup
Zucchini lathera, slow cooked with olive oil, lemon and black pepper
Corn on the cob
Nanaimo bar from a bakery.
Fri:
Mixed seafood with tomato and feta, a riff on Rhodes-style shrimp
Greek rice/ pilafi
Peach pie from the farmers’ market
Last week I put off a trip to Aldi until yesterday and finally got a lot of missing components so after three meals featuring potatoes, baked and mashed, peas, bagged salad, hamburg, rotisserie chicken and freeze dried ravioli with jarred marinara I can cook again.
Last night I made a giant zucchini stuffed with mild Italian sausage. Refrigerator biscuits from a can which will reappear later at breakfast…
Tonight breaded pan fried chicken tenders,
hash brown potatoes and caesar salad. Rolls
Sunday meatless is baked ratatoiulle, side is tbd.
Monday mac and cheese and leftover ratatouille.
This is as far as I like to get now that we are retired but advised DH that egg dishes will be back on the menu.
Hi Everyone, I hope you’re enjoying your weekend. It’s a beautiful day in Chapel Hill, NC. The UNC students are back in town and it doesn’t feel sleepy here anymore. Here is what we ate this week:
Mon: smoked trout and apple salad (A. Roman), baguette
Tues: umami garlic noodles with mushrooms and baby bok choy. Thanks to @Saregama for linking to the recipe in the Andrea Nguyen COTM thread.
Wed: turkey and provolone Italian subs, fennel salad
Thurs: carry out fancy pizza
Fri: shrimp scampi orzo with tomatoes and spinach (Dinner in One)
Sat: LLD is making salmon, roasted Brussels sprouts with Parmesan, and (yep!) tater tots.
I baked Smitten Kitchen’s blueberry boy bait for a potluck, and it was a big success. Going to try her chocolate chip sour cream coffee cake on Monday for my pickleball group. I’ve been wanting to make it for ages and happy to have an excuse.
Actuals for Aug 12 week, cooking for 2 in Minnesota. Where I’m deciding what to make with the gift of a large-ish zucchini from a friend - first of the season from her garden. My week of meetings worked in nicely around planned meals, no slow-cooker dinners required.
Monday: lunch - ginnyhw’s “Dinner Burgers” – (burger patty melt with cheddar on bread then grilled like grilled cheese sandwich). Salad. Peaches & cream, red grapes Dinner - Shredded Italian Chicken sliders, caprese salad w/ spinach, grape tomatoes, tater tots
Tues: tortellini w/pasta sauce, salad, Corn on the cob
Wed: Sushi, Corn on the Cob, salad. Dessert fresh blueberries & whipped cream over lemon Bundt (previously made and frozen) BAKED Very Blueberry scones Smitten Kitchen
Thurs: Spicy Shrimp with black beans and corn. I double the lime juice, use 2 T. dried cilantro. Tortilla chips, red grapes. Bedtime snack - blueberry scones.
Fri: lunch - Turkey on bakery cranberry walnut bread w/ cream cheese. Spinach salad. Sunchips. Peaches and grapes. Dinner:- OUT – burgers, onion rings, sweet potato fries, chocolate malt
Sat: Sheet pan Chicken fajitas (onions, peppers), in warmed hard taco shell with rice, black beans and corn on the side. Guac. Ripe olives.
Sun (today): Gyros with cucumber sauce, naan, sliced red onion, ripe olives, tomatoes
Day 8 of 10 of our house-guest arrangements. The pace has been frantic (in a good way), and things are going well. This is a young and lively couple with lots of energy, and good energy at that.
We just returned from a multi-day trip to beautiful British Columbia, which included a full day fishing in Ucluelet. This year’s catch resulted in about 35 lbs. of trimmed halibut filets and an equal amount of King salmon filets – all arriving home in good order in our coolers (frozen and vac-packed in Ukee before the long slog home). We did a much better job of prepping our freezers this year, and there was none of the drama we suffered last year when it came to putting away the fish – yay!
Actuals and planned for four (soon to be two) adults in the PNW:
FRI: Out at a local grill – comfort food and drinks after a day on the water.
SAT: On the ferry home – Polish dogs and Lays potato chips.
SUN: Home! New England Style Fish chowder! Focaccia.
MON: Pizza. Chopped salad from the garden.
TUE: Back to the 2 of us: chicken soup using up the leftovers from Marcella’s two-lemon chicken.
WED: Cabbage stir fry.
THUR: Wings in the oven. A local charcoal-grilling ban remains in effect, even though we had a doozy of a rain-thunder-and-lightening storm last night, which did a good job putting out local wild-fires.
Hi, everyone! I didn’t post for the last 2 weeks as we were first on vacation and then in post-vacation recovery mode. Vacation: we went to Austin and San Antonio, TX, and ate a lot of meat (bbq) and Mexican food. The surprise highlights of the trip were the LBJ Presidential Library and an actual rodeo. And in the “it’s a small world” world that I live in, when we went to the Lady Bird Johnson wildflower center in Austin, we met an older gentleman volunteering as a guide who was wearing a Harvard baseball cap… turns out he used to live in our town, about 1.5 miles away from us.
Last week, I had two dinners out: one with a friend who was in town for work, and one with coworkers celebrating our summer interns. My intern was super brave and tried a lot of sushi including octopus - he’s much braver at 21 than I am at well past 21! The meals I cooked were low-key: pasta and meatballs, chicken tacos (the NYT recipe for honey-chipotle chicken tacos in the InstantPot), and nachos.
This week’s plan for two adults and a 14yo in the Boston burbs:
Sun: pulled pork (I made a huge batch yesterday), coleslaw, cornbread. DH and I went to BJ’s (warehouse club not restaurant) yesterday and he impulse-bought a 6-pack of Dolly Parton’s cornbread mix.
Tues: “big salads” which will probably include chicken - note to self, make extra tomorrow. DS mentioned yesterday that he thinks he’d like to try salads, but needs to find a dressing he likes… so we got home and he taste-tested the four bottles we had in the fridge. Ken’s Simply Vinaigrette Italian was a winner! (He has always been good about eating vegetables, but salads were a no-go because he wouldn’t try salad dressing. I’m not sure where this new bravery came from but I’ll take it!)
Weds: chicken parm wraps - saw this on Instagram, basically chicken parm ingredients in a burrito. Veggies on the side to make it healthy-ish.
It is, and assembles quickly. I usually make half-recipe of the shrimp (be sure to cut spices in half, too) and full recipe of the black beans and corn part, so we finish the shrimp same-day and there’s extra of the rest to reheat and pair with fajitas or tacos.
Very nice of you to say! We’ve had a good time, but I think we’re all exhausted. This afternoon they went off on their own to enjoy the charm of our small town, while DH and I took advantage of the opportunity to bag a nap.
Su: leftover Chana masala, newly made Baingan Bharta, rice, paratha (from frozen)
Mo: Zucchini boats with spicy Italian sausage - zukes from my local buy nothing group. Air fryer roasted oyster mushrooms
Tu: spouse on his own as I have first rehearsal of the season with my choral group
We: Younger son‘s girlfriend‘s last night in town before heading back to college in PA. So we’re going to our city‘s BEST pizza place for dinner
TH: mid afternoon flight to MSP to visit a friend who moved there a couple of years ago. Dinner at here place; something Greek made by her sister who is an amazing cook
FR & SA: food from the MN state fair! I am so excited; I have two days worth of food and activities mapped out
): maybe a Japanese-flavored spicy tuna sandwich and… a hot dog? lol – if I make it to the store.
