Short week for me with long-delayed travel finally scheduled. Goal is finish up the odds and ends in the fridge, and cook and freeze whatever I can’t consume. Focus is on the various vegetables that seem to have multiplied in my fridge!
Ideas for the week:
– Vinegret salad (beets, potato, carrots, onion) + salmon or eggs
– Japanese Korokke-inspired cutlets (leftover sauteed ground turkey) + tomato salad
– IKEA-inspired broccoli potato cakes + leftover Indecision Chicken (COTM) or salmon
– More Garlic Butter Viet Noodles with shiitake mushrooms and bok choy + chicken or shrimp
– Twice-baked Cacio e Pepe Potatoes (COTM Turshen) + salmon or leftover Indecision Chicken (also COTM Turshen)
– Kheema (leftover sauteed ground turkey) Macaroni + roasted cauliflower
For travel food, I’ll probably do some subset of my usuals that are easy, sturdy for travel, and eat well at any temp (in the past: omelette sandwich, chicken quesadilla, pan-fried and sauced dumplings, tamales).
I did finally make the hot milk cake I was obsessing over twice last week – once to take to friends, and again to test an eggless version. Delicious and versatile, and I see myself coming back to it often!
Wish you all a restful weekend, and a calm week ahead.
I really like that upside down potato pizza. If you weren’t about to travel I’d suggest you do both. Not sure how well the latter’s leftovers would work for your travel picnic.
I’m glad you are okay and I hope the flood clean up goes well…such a mess. The flood photos I saw online were really scary. I had no idea that Durham/Chapel was so flood-prone. How far is the drive the nearest open Trader Joe’s?
Your question made me look it up, and apparently there is one in Morrisville. But I don’t want to drive 30 minutes for groceries. I guess if they decide to close this store I would probably make monthly trips though. I tried doing my grocery stop at Wegmans yesterday. It’s a fun place to go for prepared food, but I found it a difficult place to get my groceries. Of course that could be because I don’t know the layout. But why are “Asian sauces” in a different aisle than “Indian sauces”?
I don’t get the cult of Wegmans, and their pricing is not great. The one that opened to great fanfare downtown has a sushi restaurant attached to it, and a fish counter specially for sushi at home, but regular things like salmon and chicken seemed more expensive that even WF (they have cutesy individual packaging of 2 pieces of chicken instead of the usual pack of 3-5, but at a 30-50% price premium people must be terrible at math to pick those instead of having some leftovers).
There’s one opening near me soon (to compete with WF, TJs, and 2 local supermarkets) so maybe I’ll finally figure out why everyone is in love with it.
I wonder if their pricing depends on the market/region. Here in the Boston suburbs, Wegmans conventional produce is far better quality than the other grocery chains and WF/TJs, and the prices are better. For example, a 6-pack of red/orange/yellow peppers is $6.49 vs $9 at Stop n Shop or Roche Brothers. A quart of cherry tomatoes at Wegmans is $4, the same price as a pint at the other stores. Meat, poultry, and dry goods are also priced better. To @LulusMom1’s point, the store layout isn’t always intuitive but the app is very helpful for finding where things are when they’re not where you would expect. I’m a dedicated Wegmans customer! (I know a lot of locals prefer Market Basket but it’s too chaotic on the weekends for me.)
Or not! I do like going once in a while for the sheer amount of choice on the prepared stuff, and their fake meat burgers at the burger bar are good. But it didn’t even have some of the Asian stuff I can get at my regular grocery store. All that space and not as much product. I had looked up where to get the seafood base better than bouillon, and it was supposed to be available there, but nada.
The first Wegman’s I went to was the one in Westwood soon after it opened (and several times since) – and that’s where the pricing first surprised me. (Roche Brothers is a different category, I think – their pricing reminds me of Dean & Deluca or similar specialty grocery stores in nyc.)
@truman I remember an article (I think on Boston dot com?) about 5 years after Wegmans entered the Massachuaetts market in 2011. I’m pretty sure it found that Wegmans was second only to Market Basket on prices, while Whole Foods was the most expensive (no surprise!) and Stop & Shop, Roche Bros, and Shaw’s/Star Market were all in the middle. Can’t recall if other supermarkets were included, maybe Walmart?
While I understand Wegmans no longer ranks right behind MB on pricing, but remains close, the quality of their produce, fresh baked breads, meats and seafood, sweets bakery, their CHEESE counter!, and the ability to purchase alcohol, wine and beer, as well as their amazingly helpful employees, will continue to make Wegmans my 2nd choice after MB…mostly because I have to travel a bit further to my local store in Burlington.
If you have time, read this amazing review of 17 different stores in the MA area I found on Reddit. There’s a lot of background on each store she mentions shopping at with a summarization at the bottom of each store’s review, with hysterically funny and honest writing at times (Aldi). The history of both Wegmans and MB says a lot about both stores’ ownership in their dedication to employees AND customers.
Absolutely phenomenal read! Thanks so much for posting it! Worth every one of those 88 minutes of reading time (actually it didn’t take quite that long).
Wasnt it amazing the detail she gave? And I LOL’d at the 88 minutes, but you’re not far off the mark. I scrolled to the results for those stores I don’t shop at, but read in detail the others.
Sunday:
Piri Piri chicken thighs
Apricot curry coconut beans
Angel hair with roasted tomatoes and olive oil
Salad with homegrown lettuce and tomatoes
Roasted zucchini
Portuguese custard tart and cinnamon roll from a bakery
Monday
Mac and cheese
Roasted Hungarian pork sausage
Asparagus with lemon mayo
Roasted parsnips
Vinegar coleslaw, Hungarian or Polish-style
Tuesday
New potatoes
Maybe Salade Niçoise
Leftovers
I generally cook two or three nights a week, and have leftovers on the other nights.
For tonight, I got a whole dorade that I’ll be roasting with lemon and EVOO. I’ll make some brown rice and English pea pilaf, and maybe some romano beans. This will provide three dinners, but I’ll probably have an ear of COTC on one of the nights.
I also got some catfish trim, and I’ll tempura-fry them with zukes, possibly Yukon gold potatoes, more romano beans. That’s two dinners.
Much later in the week, after I’m done with the fish, maybe something in tomato sauce over pasta. Sausage? Shrimp and calamari? We’ll see.
Wednesday was a shrimp, scallop, chicken and leftover Hungarian sausage paella. I also roasted some chicken thighs dusted with paprika and drizzled with olive oil, to have for lunches today and tomorrow. I had made deviled eggs yesterday, as well, for lunches and snacks.
Purchased slices of Dutch apple pie, jamocha almond fudge cake, and banana caramel torte for the DCs, to last Wed-Fri.
Tonight, Thursday. I’m making a Nova Scotian Hodge Podge with vegetables I picked today, while I tidied up the garden. I’m also making roast new potatoes, and potato salad with 2 litres of new potatoes from a farmer’s market. My own new potatoes are ready now so I’m clearing out what we have on hand.
I’m hoping I’ll have the energy to also make a coleslaw and prepare some cauliflower tonight.
Friday will be a white fleshed- fish of some sort. Maybe I’ll make a Scandinavian chowder with dill.
Hello from the Boston area, where I am feeding 2 adults and 1 small, black cat. It has been annoyingly hot and humid. We’re going out to Comic-Con in San Diego next week, so meals have focused on eating down the freezer, fridge, and pantry. I found this fun notepad BF got me as a stocking stuffer a while back, so I’ve been copying the meal plan onto them to track whether I actually follow through with making the meals!
I should note that the tacos planned for Tuesday got turned into burgers on Wednesday, moving the sole to Thursday. The haddock will probably happen when we get back from vacation now.
Honestly not sure what we’re doing tonight or tomorrow. BF’s vacation technically starts at 4pm today, so I am going to see what he would like to do to kick it off.
I scrolled to the results for those stores I don’t shop at, but read in detail the others.
