I’ve considered making them at home, but just never have. They don’t seem that much more complicated than other “yeast plus more steps” doughs like soft pretzels - maybe some weekend…
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DH calls this “the butter gutter”.
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Gonna be another busy week. Simple, simple, simple meals.
For two adults in San Diego:
This week’s breakfasts: TBD. Won’t have time to bake until Weds, probably. Might pick a few items up at a bakery tomorrow.
S:(tonight) Dinner at a wedding reception. Pretty decent for a sit-down meal at a wedding. Here’s to hoping that it did not come with a side of Covid. I know a bunch of people who are sick again, but this was a family wedding that was important. 
Su: Eggs scrambled with spinach, cheese, and sausage. Served with sourdough toast.
M: Potstickers (purchased) with veggies, served in broth.
T: Macaroni and cheese with peas, topped with crab and garlicky breadcrumbs - seafood
W: Lentil soup - vegetarian
Th: Anniversary of our first date. We’ll be going out to lunch and picking up something for dinner.
F: Tostadas with beans and leftover chile colorado from the freezer, topped with cheese and guacamole
Have a good week!
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I laughed about the broccoli. Sounds like a good week.
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Actuals for Feb 6 week, cooking for 2 in MN where we both enjoyed separate lunches out, reconnecting with friends, so had something new to chat about over dinner. A couple more weeks to go in the great freezer clear-out of 2023. Lasagna, salmon , steak and chicken will be featured from now to March.
Mon: freezer/deli meal Crispy Fish strips , Potato Salad, Seafood salad w crackers, Coleslaw
Tues: Mushroom Swiss burgers (on home made buns), onion rings (from freezer), Romaine lettuce salad with tomatoes and cucumbers
Wed: Reheat leftover (from my lunch out) nachos (chipotle BBQ Beef & black beans), dabs of seafood salad over romaine lettuce with tomatoes and cucumbers.
Thurs: Salmon, sweet potato, coleslaw, fresh orange sliced
Fri: tortellini in tomato-basil soup, tuna spread (with some leftover salmon) on homemade buns
Sat: Pulled pork (from freezer) black beans & corn, stuffed in green peppers on a bed of rice
Sun (today): Tacos made with remaining pulled pork mixture, slice avocado, toppings. Brownies w/ vanilla ice cream. Still deciding on what we’ll have while watching Super Bowl commercials (game, what game?)
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Greetings, people.
Back from my pie and pastry baking adventures at the KAF baking school, and as is typical of their classes, plenty of baked goods made their way home with me. Those will be dedicated to breakfasts and lunches for the next few days. Dinners will be more fridge, freezer and pantry cleanout.
Cooking for two adults in the PNW:
FRI: Caldo verde with chorizo and halibut.
SAT: Pasta with roasted garden tomatoes. Caesar salad.
SUN: Beef on the grill. Caesar salad.
MON: Pizza. Caesar salad.
TUE: Bourbon pork tenderloin. Roasted potatoes. Green beans, Applesauce. Inspired by @LindaWhit on the WFD thread.
WED: Rao’s Famous Lemon Chicken (Saveur). Rice. Baby peas.
THUR: ATK’s fish filet on potato raft. Green beans. Thanks to @Amandarama for this great recipe.
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G’day mates and matesses.
Friday - plaice fillets, ne wpotatoes, spinach, lemon & herb butter sauce
Saturday - A French-ish theme to dinner. Coquilles St Jacques (freezer). Lamb chops (a rack if we can find one), hasselback spuds, petit pois a la Francaise. French cheese. Frecnh dessert (maybe creme brulee - but depends on what the supermarket has)
Sunday - pasties
Monday - sausage & lentils.
Tuesday - braised beef, croquette spuds, veg (all from freezer)
Wednesday - out (local Italian)
Thursday - chicken breast. Aubergine cassoulet (freezer - originally a veggie main course but should work as an accompaniment)
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Wow, somehow I missed that you were doing KAF baking classes. How was the experience??
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I’m so glad you enjoy that fish and potato recipe! I keep going back to it. Cod, potato, lemon, and butter. What’s not to like!
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I really enjoy the KAF classes – I find it one of the more fun activities which I do.
I started out several years ago (pre-covid) with four multi-day courses in sourdough and artisan breads - both beginning and advanced. I learned a lot, and became a much better bread baker as a result. Having that exposure left me pretty confident with handling most bread recipes I encounter, and an ability to troubleshoot as needed.
This most recent foray into pies and tarts let me experience a lot of techniques with which I was familiar, but hadn’t tried. I’m a hands-on type of learner, and the actual performance of things goes a long way with me. Now I’m looking forward to fruit season with confidence, and think I will enjoy putting things into practice.
Would someone with a ton of experience get much out of these courses? For the advanced sourdough/artisan bread courses, I’d say “maybe”. For the other baking classes I’ve tried (pies & tarts, cinnamon and sticky buns), I’d say “maybe not so much”. That said, if you enjoy baking, hanging out with other bakers, experiencing different techniques and perspectives while letting someone else do all the dishes, I’d say you’d most likely find these courses enjoyable.
I am eyeballing a one-day cake class coming up later this year, and next year would like to do the French Pastry Intensive (multi-day) course.
I wrote a little bit about it here on the new “Cooking and Baking Classes” thread here.
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French Saturday sounds awesome. A special occasion, perhaps?
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Nope. Saturday night has long been our “big meal” of the week, which often includes what other Britons might have as a “Sunday Roast”. We’ve just decided that we’ve got into a bit of a rut about Saturdays and we need a reset. This one had started out as an online supermarket’s “meal deal” which included the St Jacques, the lamb rack and a dessert. But, by the time it came to delivery, they had run out of product, which is why I’m being a bit vague.
I’m already thinking of next week’s Saturday where I reckon I may go down a Middle Eastern route. That’s something I usually prepare midweek but, with a bit of effort in the cooking, it can become a Saturday Special.
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I took a KA bread baking class (basic white bread) in Vermont one summer on a family vacation to New Hampshire, and going to the facility was like Disneyland for me. Did I learn that much? Not really, but I enjoyed the experience immensely–and as you say, having someone else do the dishes (and cooking the bread in a real professional oven) is amazing. I set up a virtual pie baking class for my extended family during Covid, and I have to say that my pie crust game is so much stronger now.
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I did one in-person class with my sister - it was a great way to spend time together. The virtual class with your family is a great idea!
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Happy Friday everyone and it is snowing in Ottawa, Canada - again. Ugh. I have always prided myself in being a hardy Canadian but this winter, when it snows it snows. And there is nary a snow plow in sight so walking in the snow this morning was like walking in quick sand. I decided to take the bus today and the three short blocks from home to the bus stop felt like 30 blocks. The city of Ottawa used to be pretty good at plowing the streets but not this winter - bah humbug! This weekend I am on fridge and freezer cleanup since I had a mishap with my bag of oatmeal earlier this week (and in a paper bag none-the-less 
(why does Quaker do that?). I keep my oatmeal in the fridge so when I took it out the bag got stuck to the glass shelf it was on so it split right open. Thankfully the spillage was contained to the shelf the oatmeal was on but what a mess! I still have a few flakes of oatmeal to clean up so tomorrow I will be hosing down the inside of my fridge. And Sunday I hope to finish my tour of Chinatown. I planned on going last Saturday but the sidewalks were still icy so I took the bus to one store and got the necessities then headed home. Hopefully today’s snow will be plowed by Sunday so I can pick up the chili oil I like then stock up on curry pastes and sriracha and whatever else I am out of. Onto my menus for this week:
Today: Today’s take out lunch is a soup and sandwich from the food court downstairs. I didn’t feel like plowing through snow again to get take out but the Thai place in our building makes nice lunches. There was no curry today since it’s quiet at the office. I guess a lot of people decided to stay home today so I opted for the soup and sandwich combination of a Thai chicken soup and a Tandoori chicken sandwich. I guess I like chicken 
Dinner tonight will be a salad.
Saturday: Either salmon and soba noodles or spring roll bowl. I have the ingredients for both so I will surprise myself.
Sunday: I bought some bbq’d ribs at the Chinese grocery store last weekend and there were only enough left for two servings so I bought them all and put half in the freezer. I will pick up a side dish while I am out and about - hopefully kimchi.
Monday: white beans in tomato sauce, veggies tbd.
Tuesday: Out for dinner with my dinner club. We are going to a new-to-me Italian restaurant which I am very excited about since it has been getting good reviews. (For those who are familiar with Ottawa, we will be going to Dreamland Café.)
Wednesday: Stirfried lo mein noodles with vegetables and pork chop. I made this last week with bagged coleslaw and it was a flop. I have never seen cabbage wilt before so I started with what looked like a cup of veggies shrank to about a 1/4 of a cup. I still have half a bag of coleslaw left so I am deciding if I still want to use it in a stirfry or if I want to buy a couple of cabbages.
Thursday: Beef stew (beef, onion, mushrooms and a bit of beef broth) served over egg noodles.
Have a nice snow free weekend everyone.
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Snowing in LdnOnt, too!
Fish tonight. Not sure what kind yet. The 9 sea scallops I bought (~$23 Cdn) at my favourite indie grocery store were off last week. The pickerel was fine, but I’m turned off buying their shellfish now. I will let them know about the scallops today.
I’m so tired of my own cooking.
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I’m sorry to hear about the scallops experience. I used to buy mussels from the fishmonger (Lapointes Fish in the Byward Market) fairly regularly when I first moved to Ottawa. They used to sell mussels for $0.99/lb so the days I would go shopping in the market I would pick up a pound of mussels to take home for dinner. One time I went in and there was only one bag of mussels left and there was a little voice in my head saying I should buy something else but I chose to ignore the voice and bought the mussels. Needless-to-say I got very sick after. I continue to buy fish and shellfish from the same store to no ill effect so I guess I just got a bad batch.
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London, with a population of 423 000 people, as far as I can tell, only has 3 good independent fishmongers right now. 1 is too far, and this happened at one of the other 2.
One Loblaws also has a good selection, but I’ve had 5 separate disappointments since March 2020 mostly due to the new and young employees not knowing enough, or not knowing how to punch in the correct code, so I’m avoiding the Loblaws until they get staff that knows when something is off, knows when something shouldn’t be sold, knows the customer is often if not always right,etc. LOL.
We eat fish every Friday, and I’m guessing I’ve cooked fish 140 of the past 156 Fridays. Fish & Chips around once every 8 weeks, and maybe 5 other fish take-out dinners over the past 3 years.
Sometimes it is a bad batch. With mussels, toss the ones that have broken shells or are open before cooking, and toss the ones that don’t open after cooking, and if you smell ammonia before or after, toss them.
I have had really bad luck with sockeye salmon the past 3 years in both Toronto and London. Any Faroe Island, Irish or Scottish Atlantic salmon has been excellent.
Hi, all! Cooking for 2 in Chattanooga, where I now feel lucky to just have gotten a lot of rain instead of snow! The theme of the week is pork, which may not be ideal for someone whose doctor just mentioned she should watch her cholesterol…smaller portions!
Breakfast: King cake! Most of this will be shared with friends.
Saturday, February 18: Pork cutlet Cuban sandwiches, braised greens to counteract 
Sunday: More pork, this time in meatball form with cabbage; maybe potatoes; rice pudding with persimmon or mango purée depending on what’s available at the store today
Monday: One-pot sausage and mushroom pasta from Cook’s Country; some kind of veg on the side
Tuesday: scrounge
Wednesday: Mushroom and caper frittata; maybe a celery rémoulade?
Thursday/Friday: TBD
Hope everyone stays warm and dry this week! Happy cooking!
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Let me know how dreamland cafe is! It’s very close to my mother’s apartment…
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