Lentil “meat”loaf with extra glaze for the kiddos. Corn, mushrooms with thyme and mashed potatoes. Broccoli slaw with cranberries, feta and pumpkin seeds. There was a half of a leftover avocado left from breakfast on the counter this morning. Didn’t want to waste it, so figured it could go on the salad.
Cooking with lentils made me want lentils. Lentil sloppy joes for my dinner tonight with homemade cheese buns. I think I nailed them!
Will make some coleslaw to put on the joes, and cut up some sweet potato fries after the dog park. Bruno loved the scraps. He’s settled in for a nap now, so I’m going to clean the fridge.
Happy Hump Day, all! We are one day closer to retirement, for those who celebrate!
Spiced sole and braised endive, adapted from the Le Bernardin Cookbook
I roasted the sole in the last 12 minutes the endive was oven braising. The endive was very brown when it came out, so I will probably cut back the cook time by 10 minutes or so next time. It also meant I could skip the browning step in the recipe.
I love braised Belgian endive. I basically only make two things with it: that mandarin salad, and braised BE with lots of butter, lemon juice, and salt. I usually just braise till tender, but yours makes me want to get a sear on it next time!
Thanks! The recipe as written in the book calls for placing the halved, trimmed endives cut side down in a greased 9"x13" pan. Then season with salt, pepper, sugar, and a spice blend (coriander, ginger, and cinnamon - I used a garam masala). Pour in 1 cup chicken stock and the juice of half a lemon. Dot liberally with butter and place uncovered into a 450F oven for an hour. That was too long. I could have pulled it at 45 minutes (and that was after I only had set it to 425F to account for my convection fan). Still very tasty though, although I missed the braising juices that had mostly evaporated at that point.
You could absolutely leave the cinnamon off. The sole that is part of the recipe gets dusted with more ginger, cayenne, and ground star anise, so I felt like the whole thing was intended to kind of evoke garam masala and just used that. But, you could just use whatever flavors you like!
Prime rib, roasted at 225 F for a few hours then high heat at 425 F for a while. Garlicky spinach, Yorkshire pudding (tried new recipe and tried muffin tin liners- mixed results ) and baked potatoes. Horseradish and gravy.
Another frigid day made extra-wretched by random strangers’ unpleasantness — but I try to focus on the good things, small as they may be
I was happy to be able to help out my elderly neighbor again, whose original ride couldn’t get her car to start, and she needed a ride home from her massage appointment mid-day. Thank goodness my schedule remains flex, and I simply told my sis I’d be calling her later in the day. It was nice catching up with both & getting offline for a while.
My sweets wanted to cheer me up and offered to pick up anything I would want for dinner, and I briefly considered sending him out for a hot bowl of ramen, which I haven’t had in at least a year (I KNOWWW!!! ).
But I didn’t want him to have to leave the house again with the disgusting temps outside, plus I’d remembered we still had a decent variety of frozen dumplings (crab & pork XLB, and pork & shrimp shu mai), so we just had a few of those from the bamboo steamer plus the leftover bok choy and broccoli from…. whenever
The parchment paper worked like a charm again, but we’ll have to figure out a better method to transfer the soup dumplings onto our plates, bc the delicate skins broke on about half of them One that didn’t break exploded when my PIC bit into it — splattering soup and pork chonk debris all over his Sunday sweatshirt
Looking forward to some couch, cat-cuddles & movie time now.
I made a BIG ASS ‘kitchen sink’ salad with the below ingredients (except the Jamon, which I pulled after taking the picture since it wasn’t opened yet) I made enough for two dinners.
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One that didn’t break exploded when my PIC bit into it — splattering soup and pork chonk debris all over his Sunday sweatshirt 
