Greetings, People. Spring has arrived in our corner of the world.
In the garden, the spinach and asparagus beds are producing, the brassica seedlings are being transplanted, and peas/carrots/onions have raised their tiny heads. Most of our fruit trees and berry bushes survived the winter (raspberries being the exception and we have just replaced them) - judging from the buds, promising harvests are on the horizon.
I purchased a second cherry pitter this week, as DH has come to the realization that (after many years to the contrary) he likes sour cherry jam. He who enjoys the jam shall also help pit the cherries – amen!
Cooking for two adults in the PNW:
FRI: Jacques Pepin’s Maman’s Cheese Souffle with roasted asparagus, sauteed spinach, and gruyere cheese. Green salad. Some kind of bread to go with. One of my favorite meals.
SAT: Mesquite-grilled chicken hot-wings on the Big Green Egg. Veggie sticks.
SUN: Washington Posts’s Pasta Alla Gricia (Pasta with bacon and kale).
MON: Burgers on the grill. Convection oven fries. (Rolled from last week.)
TUE: Chicken Caesar salad (leftover grilled chicken from the freezer). Croutons from homemade bread.
WED: Steak on the grill with veggie kebabs.
THUR: Leftover chicken-zucchini meatballs from the freezer. Asian inspired? Traditional noodle soup? It’s a Buck Dancer’s Choice.
Jealous! It is -20 celsius (-4 Farenheit) in Ottawa today. I had to pull out my extra warm wool blanket last night and it is the end of March Hopefully your warm weather will work its way my way soon.
Do you mean convection oven? Unless you are at a convention eating fries
That being said, back to the original comment - I think my dislike of canned refried beans is a texture issue; they’re too smooth for my tastes. The color doesn’t help.
It is now freezing cold in Ottawa - I think someone forgot to tell Mother Nature that it is actually spring We do get the odd cold spell and at least one more snowfall at this time of year. I am just tired of putting on 12 layers of clothing every time I go outside. I missed last Sunday’s movie since I left home too late to make it to the movie theatre in time so I am putting it back on my itinerary for this weekend. I had an enjoyable gallery visit instead of a movie though. The gallery I went to has a retrospective of Japanese-Canadian artist Norman Takeuchi who is originally from British Columbia but has been living most of his life in Ottawa. I didn’t realize he was such a prolific artist. Most of his paintings are abstract - not really my cup of tea - but I can see how his Japanese heritage influenced his art especially when his family was interred in the 1940s.
Onto my menus for this week:
Today: Take out lunch is Korean fried chicken so I will have a healthy salad for dinner.
Tomorrow: The memorial service of the late Brian Mulroney (former Prime Minister) is tomorrow morning so I will watch. He had a lengthy career as a lawyer both before and after politics and was well connected in the business community so it will be interesting hearing the eulogies. Off to the market to do my grocery shopping then I will have a risotto for dinner.
Sunday: I am going for brunch with one of my meetup groups. The restaurant we are going to has eggs florentine on the menu and I haven’t had it in a long time so that’s the dish I am leaning toward at the moment. After brunch, I will try again at seeing the movie One Life. Shrimp salad for dinner.
Monday: Off to the movie theatre again! This time to see “The Queen of my Dreams”. I will be going to a late afternoon screening right after work so I will probably pick up takeout on the way home.
Tuesday: I don’t know what I was thinking signing up for another meet up - also movie related! The group I am going with is planning on seeing One Love (a movie about Bob Marley) then dinner after. I may be all movied out by then so I will have to see how I feel on Sunday as to whether I will go or not.
Wednesday: No plans today! I’ve been spying a recipe in one of my cookbooks for ages called “Vegetable vermicelli” which is basically roasted veggies in a soy based sauce IIRC then served over vermicelli noodles.
Thursday: No plans again! Chicken tikka for dinner.
Have a nice week everyone. Hopefully it is warm where you are.
Hi, all! Cooking for 2 again in Chattanooga, where we’re having traditional spring weather (I saw a New Yorker cartoon saying March was great because you could “binge all four seasons” in a day? week?). In other words, continuing to meal plan for what I want to cook/eat more than what I think the weather will be…
Breakfast: Custard-filled doughnuts from Ottolenghi Sweet
Saturday, March 23: Cheese fondue with the fixings and some kind of vegetable/salad for balance. Does anyone have a trick to keep fondue from separating? I’ve seen a bunch of Swiss videos where they add the cornstarch to the wine instead of to the cheese and I’m thinking about trying that…
Sunday: Coconut curry chicken from Dinner, rice, asparagus with labneh from Extra Good Things, caramel chocolate coffee cake
Monday/Tuesday: Leftovers/out
Wednesday: Turkish menemen (tomato scrambled eggs) from Family, potentially flatbread of some sort
Thursday/Friday TBD.
You can do the cornstarch in the wine, but we’ve had success skipping the cornstarch and using a couple tablespoons of flour with the shredded cheese. I think it stabilizes it better over the course of the meal.
I had bought a box of imported fondue last winter, and never found the right time to do a proper fondue. One day I boiled some pasta and stirred it into the warmed fondue cheese. Would do it again.
I have made it to Spring Break. Too tired to try new recipes, so Trader Joe’s to the rescue. Might indulge in a few lunches out. Will try to keep work to a minimum, although I really do need to catch up on grading and committee work. SIGH!
For two adults in San Diego:
Breakfasts: Will start off with toast made with chocolate bread from a local bakery.
S: (tonight) takeout - BBQ chicken flatbread
Su: Ramen with leftover carnitas and veggies - soup
M: Shrimp tacos, with cheese, onions, peppers, guacamole - seafood
T: TJs spinach tortellini with Boursin cheese and peas - vegetarian
W: Pasta with red sauce, TJs turkey meatballs, and spinach
Th: Egg scramble with chicken sausage, spinach and cheese, with hash browns.
Hi everyone, it’s good to be back to normal cooking/eating/life after a crazy 5 weeks. I went to Sicily on my own in February for almost 2 weeks, came home to find Lulu sick with covid, then caught it myself. Tested negative 1 day before we were leaving on our Spring Break trip. Phew! Got back late Monday night, and spent the week trying to catch up. Finally feeling like things are settling down, and the post covid fatigue is slowly melting away. I hadn’t gotten my latest booster and LLD had. He didn’t get covid. Get your boosters. Here is what we ate:
Tuesday: pasta puttanesca
Wednesday: coconut chicken curry soup over rice, salad with Asian dressing
Thursday: dinner out, belated birthday steak for LLD
Friday: shrimp with chinese chives, rice, roasted green beans
Saturday: LLD made salmon, roasted Brussels sprouts with Parmesan (amazing), naan
Tonight will be carry out. College decisions come out this week, and it’s feeling a little prickly in the house. Hope everyone has a wonderful week!
Actuals for Mar 18 week, cooking for two in MN where winter has returned/arrived with small snowfalls that are providing much-needed moisture to our parched lawn and plants. Tonight’s much-hyped forecast of 12 inches of snow overnight got downgraded to 2 inches - we’ll see which prediction was closer Monday morning. Today’s meals will (hopefully) clear out accumulated half-servings of leftover sides.
Mon: Tacos - Adobo-rubbed shredded pork, rice/rotel/black beans casserole, guac (2nd in a tasting test of grocery guacs – I’m tired of unripened avocado failures)
Supper - Cucumber seafood soup, from Joy of Cooking cookbook, grilled cheese sandwiches
Tues: Teriyaki pork w rice, spinach salad, broccoli
Wed: Halibut, asparagus with hollandaise, hot crash potatoes
Thurs: Chili, cornmeal muffins
Fri: Terrific tuna salad - Caesar salad romaine (bag) with tomatoes, potatoes, green beans, h.b. eggs, tuna & capers, bread machine Sweet Oatmeal (7-grain) bread
Sat: Lunch - Chili & cornbread, Dinner - last of the pork adobo in hardshell tacos, rotel rice/black beans, tossed salad
Sun: (today) - Chicken breast, potatoes, holladaise and asparagus, bag Caesar salad w tomatoes. Supper - Leftover Chinese takeout, leftover green beans
Hopefully your warm weather will work its way my way soon.
