My friend texted asking if we would like to help her with pulled pork leftovers, and proceeded to drop some off. Excellent timing as I had a school board meeting tonight and was able to prep sides (coleslaw and sliced zucchini) before leaving and come home to a complete meal. Awesome. The pulled pork was really good, too.
Now for some of that leftover ice cream… I sent my friend home with the leftover pear cake today.
NYT’s chicken and veg stew - so good! Deets on the NYT COTM thread here.
A little unexpected time tonight since the neighbors mahjong game was canceled. Made this Crispy Rice - not hard but lots of components and bowls. Definitely needed a 3rd Tbsp of gochujang. No peas because I don’t like peas except fresh ones. Used snow and snap peas, watercress. I’ll make this again.
I am sooooooo far behind and this is only day 7 of the month!
Here’s a synopsis.
I rented 3 campsites for Fri-Sat nights. Me, wife, Daughter 2 (weekend visit) on one, then Daughter1 plus husband and my wonderful Grandson on site 2, plus our church’s young associate pastor and his wife on site 3, who are of similar ages and good friends with my D1 & SIL.
So I offered to be in charge of food (as I sometimes (ah… ahem) do). Ahead of Friday, on Thursday afternoon and evening I prepped these three meals: Low country “boil” to be served Friday dinner (“boil” because I prepped the taters/corn by seasoning and par-cooking that night, then mixing in a dispo aluminum pan with the seasoned (mild) andouille and seasoned (raw) 4 pounds of shrimp, topped with about 2 sticks of butter pats, which was finished by steaming about 20 minutes on the camp fire coals); then pulled pork to be served Saturday for lunch; then (mildish) beef chuck 4 bean chili for dinner Saturday night. Mildish chili still had 12 different types of chili fruits in it, but just low key because of the grandson.
Not a dinner, but breakfast both camping days was, using my 30 year old electric griddle, eggs over easy, bacon (the “pre-cooked stuff”, I love it for camping), and my home-made regular American breakfast sausages.
Needless to say, of the 3 parties camping, I did the majority of planning. I told them BYOBevs and snacks, but I got the rest. It works better that way anyway.
Pic is low country boil (steam) leftovers eaten tonight, not original dish. l didn’t bother to get pics of the pulled pork or the chili because they’re so typical. But they were stupid good in both cases. But how can you prove that via photos??
That sounds good.
Where do you live, that you could camp out in April?
Cravings. SOB. I made a roux, added gg, paprika, dried onion, milk and chopped pepper beef. Served over biscuits, with a sprinkle of garlic chives. Buttered peas and tomato, cucumber, red onion, oo&v, dried basil salad. It was ok, would of been better if the beef hadn’t been so salty. I’ll drink a gallon of water tonight.
Aaand last night. I was pretty fragged from having about 2 hours sleep Friday night camping and maybe 3 hours sleep Saturday night, camping. Plus dead headed after all the re-stocking of the camping stuff back to the garage. At this point all I want is a shower and to effing hit the sack.
BUT, my wonderful wife wants BBQ chicken pizza (I have no idea where this idea came from; it’s not a typical pizza for us).
So i take a deep breath and then decide to channel @Desert-Dan (and I mean this in the most complimentary way) and figure out the fastest way to make some decent chicken BBQ and turn this into a decent pizza in a couple of hours.
I cheated by using a store-made, pre-rolled dough, but everything else is mine.
Oops, not the BBQ sauce, I didn’t make my own this time. I used Sweet Baby Rays for speed.
Anyway, the pizza was pretty good, and I hit the bed about 15 seconds after my third slice.
Northern GA. And it was a freaky weak, almost 15 degrees F warmer than average. Like 88°F days and only 70°F mornings. I sweated my ass off despite drinking a gallon of water a day and still lost 3 pounds of water weight.
My 2nd daughter has one of the same campsites next weekend for 6 of her sorority gals, and it’s supposed to be 20 degrees colder! Like 65°F highs and 40F lows. (This is more normal, btw)
Inhqd my first drawing class tonight and it was fun! The instructor got us to do a variety of exercises in class like drawing shapes, drawing an object in one continuous line to learn to look at an object and we had to draw an object using our non dominant hand. Ironically that was the best drawing I drew this evening. I got home and had a late dinner of ratatouille served over spaghetti. Included is a bonus picture of the well executed pear. (Bottom right).
Winner, winner, chicken (and rice) dinner.
Tried a new recipe to make a dish my friend’s mom cooked for me last year. Called Chicken Akhni (Pulao), from what I read up on it, it’s a specialty of the Memon (muslim) community from Gujarat in Western India.
What sets it apart is that in addition to the usual pulao ingredients, it employs a green spice paste and coconut milk.
Absolutely delicious, and not very fussy either. Will be repeated.
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What a fantastic improv/use of pantry and refrigerator ingredients! Sounds and looks delicious.
Looks great! More details on ingredients etc. (or link to a “standard” recipe) for those of us less familiar?
beautiful drawings!
I had a lot of trouble finding a “standard” recipe (even the name varies), but I remember what I ate, so I used this recipe as a guideline and adjusted from there.
I doubled the spices and herbs, and cut back the tomato a lot (because it’s a green masala, so it’s only for the balance of acid).
Tasted like the dish I was trying to replicate, which was gratifying (I’ll confirm ingredients with my friend’s mom when I see her next).
Many thanks!
Y’all are so great at helping folks, and you are in particular.
Many thanks again.
Most welcome, and that’s sweet of you to say.
I am a grateful recipient of lots of help and advice here too!
If you have readymade zhoug or something like that, it would be a shortcut for the spice paste, though it was easy in my mini chopper.
Very inspiring! Great menu. I am taking notes for our camping trip next week.
Thank you! I have never drawn before so my sketches are a little rustic 
But I’m looking forward to practicing a little more.
