I inventoried and purged my freezer today and pulled out various things that need using. So dinner was packaged red beans and rice with added Trinity, seared Andouille, and sides of Creole-seasoned broccolini, a hush puppy, and creamy dilled cucumber salad. Chocolate-chip banana cake for dessert.
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Head start on the chocolate chip celebration! Pix?
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I made fennel oregano lemon pork shoulder, roasted potatoes, mixed cooked greens, roasted eggplant with tomato, and a Southern-style custard-type mac and cheese with leftover pasta.
Basically this with a little more cheese and no dry mustard. First time to make a custard -type mac & cheese. We liked it.
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Your wish is my command.
What’s this celebration you speak of?
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Funny you should bring this up; I was just thinking about a custard style ham and mac playing on chicken Cordon Bleu flavors.
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I had some brussels sprouts that were getting long in the tooth and no idea how I should use them. I also needed to get some protein in me as for breakfast all I had was some cantaloupe and I had walked 17.70km/11mi this afternoon.
So first I steamed 12 oz of brussels sprouts and next sautéed them in some butter. I then mixed in 2 beaten eggs and some crumbled queso fresco (I seasoned the entire mixture with S&P).
It came out much better than I expected and I was happy with the results.
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Your classic, diner-style, wilted spinach salad.
Garden greens with mushrooms, shallots, hard boiled eggs, bacon, and bay shrimp. A warm vinaigrette of bacon fat, red wine vinegar, dijon, sugar, salt, and pepper. French bread croutons.
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My somewhat disastrous last attempt at pasta, with some red pepper sauce I made and froze a while back, and ricotta from our road trip to Valley Shepherd. I’ll just pretend it looks like this on purpose.
Salad! From my balcony! Little gem is doing well so far, tarragon’s going crazy, dill very respectable (all that is in the salad).
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Quick and simple stew with kohlrabi, carrots, leeks, linguica, bay leaves, juniper berries and parsley cooked in vegetable broth
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Interesting comment about the frozen crab and preservatives. I haven’t looked into buying frozen shellfish yet but the last time I was in Costco I was looking into getting more frozen fish fillets. I usually buy basa loins and the only ingredient listed on the package is basa loin fillets. I looked into getting some frozen salmon fillets because I like salmon and I actually eat salmon fillets more than any other type of fish fillets so it would be convenient for me to buy a bag full of them. But the frozen ones they had at the Costco I went to all had preservatives in them so I passed. I’m not on any special diet, I’m just trying to eat foods with as few preservatives as possible.
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Most commercial frozen seafood unfortunately seems to needs preservatives to keep it fresh tasting. The shellfish start to degrade very quickly so that’s why the preservatives would be added.
I rinse my pre-frozen calamari, shrimp and scallops until the water doesn’t have bubbles.
I don’t mind breaded or battered frozen fish or shellfish.
I don’t tend to like frozen salmon, it tends to be dry once it’s prepared. Would be okay for fish cakes but I tend to use canned salmon for those. I also haven’t been too happy with frozen halibut.
I’m sensitive to some sulfites so it’s trial and error for me in terms of which frozen foods set off my hives. I don’t have a reaction from frozen shrimp or frozen scallops at home, so that’s good!
I’m more concerned with where the fish and shellfish are raised, and what they’re eating, than preservatives used in processing.
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So which preservatives are named on the ingredient list ?
We use lots of frozen seafood in our restaurants.
The only preservative that I know of in frozen seafood (crabs, scallops, fish, etc.) is salt and sometimes sodium tripolyphosphate, but we tend to avoid the latter.
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I’m not Phoenikia but I recall seeing sulfites or food colouring on the list of ingredients on the bags of salmon fillets I saw in the store. I haven’t been to Costco since March and I can’t seem to find many salmon fillets on their website, certainly not the brands I saw in the warehouse, so I’m going by memory.
This is often found in both “fresh” and frozen salmon, esp. the farmed variety.
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A quick look on the costco webpage doesn’t show preservatives on the ingredients lists, so I am curious which are used as sulfites (and others) would gave to be named on the package
I haven’t gone to Costco in a couple of months so I am going by memory. I just remember seeing either food colouring or additives of some sort in the fish fillets. I was sure it was sulfites but I could be mistaken.
That “Red Beans and Rice” looks like Dirty Rice and Jambalaya had a Baby! 
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Oh my those look divine. On my list. Thanks for sharing!
National Chocolate Chip Day is tomorrow, May 15!
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Agreed! It was tasty for being a quick throw-together.
