I run a local food/home chef group, and yesterday was the second potluck I organized. We had a couple returnees from the inaugural potluck & a bunch of newbz. A cornucopia of dishes were brought, including fantastic falafel & hummus from two restaurateurs who recently moved to the area, a great rendition of mapo tofu made by a Vietnamese member, smoky pulled pork, gravlax w/REAL pumpernickel & sweet mustard sauce by yours truly, and a fabulous flan. I even got to try my first ever green bean casserole (quite good but very rich), but drew the line at a butternut squash casserole that “could pass as dessert” according to its creator. Not a fan of sweet sides.
Overall another lovely evening with strangers and friends.
Reminds me of the time when I was almost 9 months pregnant. It was winter and I was picking up pizza for dinner. I slipped on a patch of ice, but hell if I was going to ruin a perfectly good pizza. I managed to shift my fall from forward to backward, fell square on my butt in slush, and I didn’t drop the pizza. Dinner was saved!
Tonight I made a lovely shrimp pulao with chiles and garlic from the October COTM (Maunika Gowardhan’s THALI and WEBSITE), which I have written up here. We had it with a simple spring mix, tomato, and shallot salad.
Pre-travel pantry/fridge clean out dinner, resulting in bucatini & chitarra al pomodoro. Infused olive oil with rosemary, thyme & a couple smashed up garlic cloves, sautéed a whole onion sliced thinly, added tomato paste & Calabrian pepper, splash of red, the last of the FM tomatoes (grated), capers, kalamata olives, feta, TJ’s frozen basil.
Tacos! it’s been a while. BF made a sort of guisado with leftover pork we had from a couple of dinners, with lots of salsa fresca, and a little side salad of odds and ends. I added a dollop of creme fraiche to my tacos as we were out of sour cream and crema. Good sub.
Busy day in the kitchen yesterday! DD2 and SIL came down for the day, seeking help and cooking companionship cooking for a sick friend and his wife. They brought some fantastic breakfast pastries from a neighborhood bakery, so we got a good start on our culinary adventures. We made 3 pans of moussaka, 3 pans of pastitsio, 2 pans of chicken souvlaki over rice pilaf, with fresh green beans, 2 loaves of oven ready garlic bread, and 2 poppyseed cakes. The moussaka and pastitsio look nearly identical due to the bechamel and cheese topping. The garlic bread is not pictured. For dinner we sampled the 2 casseroles, with garlic bread, and ended with cake. Life was pretty good yesterday!!
It’s just me, and I prefer chicken to roast turkey. Alas, TJ’s has sold out of the maple mustard marinated spatchcocked chicken. But I did notice, and snag, the last Empire kosher turkey breast half. I broke it down into the tenderloin and two other thicker pieces, now frozen. There will at some point be soup (including the removed rib/breastbone section in the stock), à la king, and curry.
While at TJ’s in early November 2021, I bought a stalk of Brussels sprouts and their smallest spiral sliced quarter ham. Two days later I entered the hospital for an arrhythmia procedure that should have involved an overnight stay. Things went south; after coding, resuscitation, an ICU stay, nursing home, return to ICU with a collapsed lung, and two more stays in different nursing homes, I didn’t get home until after President’s Day. I had left the bagged sprout stalk on the chilly indoor stairs, assuming they’d be there only a couple of days before I disassembled it. It was dried out goo. The ham is STILL in my fridge. I’ve been putting off unwrapping and examining it, which is all the more stupid as when I left the nursing home, I was thinking it might still be edible. Then spring came and I didn’t want to invite critters by having the ham in the trash cart. This may be the week to face the music!
