What's For Dinner #75 - the " Thanks and Giving Season" Edition - November 2021

you just sealed the deal. Sister and I are going to order in Sichuan for Thxgiving!

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I gotta post while I have a sec before I can look through everyone else’s awesome dinners…I had mom and dad here for the last 2 days so I could take dad to a medical appointment today.

Monday lunch was dine-in at our local Chinese restaurant, which has slipped in quality, but we got some Szechuan fish and fried rice to go for lunch on Tuesday. That was decent (although still not a good as previously). Here’s the fish while re-heating. The 2 big white chunks at 1 o’clock are some nice quality tofu.

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Monday dinner was my new go-to…roasted tomatoes/red bell pepper/feta/generous garlic/dried chickpeas that I had already prepped/liberal lashings of olive oil/sprinkling of habanero. Cod thrown on top for the last few minutes. The whole thing tossed on top of some Barilla protein spaghetti. Even with sad grocery store tomatoes, it was good.

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Tuesday dinner - in between work, tending to mom and dad, and then kid duties, I managed to make a beef stew (NYT Melissa Clark’s Ale Beef Stew). I think my last WFD post was along the lines of “the things we do for love” (faux-Mexican chicken soup). Well, the parental units love beef stew so that’s what I did (some HO may notice that I am a pescatarian). They and B loved it.

I rarely remember to take a photo of plated food.

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Some of each, please.

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Peppers
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Repeat of lion’s head mushrooms, bucatini, pecarino
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Tonight was a “Let’s get rid of it!” night. Not glamorous, but effective. Chicken breasts were defrosted and marinated in balsamic vinaigrette. That pouch of yellow rice hanging out in the pantry? Gone. That crown of broccoli sitting in the fridge for a few days? Sautéed in garlic and oil. Hell, Let’s throw it into the rice and add that quarter of a bag of shredded cheddar.

The theme even extended to drinking. I realized I had two bottles of whiskey on my bar that had barely a pour left inside them. James E. Pepper 1776 Rye and Gentleman Jack. Both disposed of. It was a whiskey night after all, with the temperature hitting the 30s today and our furnace deciding it did not want to kick on! :expressionless:

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Mapo tofu. Which unfortunately has the same cadence as “Let’s Go, Brandon,” and now I don’t even want to live on this planet. The mapo tofu came out very good, despite the descent into the abyss.

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Funny that - mine chose not to work last night either. :unamused: It got down to 29° in my neck of north of Boston overnight and it was chilly-willy in the house this morning. The HVAC guy will be there “after hours” (i.e., on overtime rates) after 3:30pm this afternoon. Hope yours gets repaired soon (and I hope is just a simple cleaning and reboot as well!)

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It is fixed as of this morning! A wire came loose or something, so no big deal. It was chilly in here too, but I’d rather be cold than hot! Good luck!

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And mine ended up being a clogged port to the inducer motor. So I now have heat as well (as well as having it repaired on regular hours vs. off-hours at OT pricing!).

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A hodge of a podge dinner after getting home later than I wanted from work.

Carrots sliced into very thick pennies, then quartered.
Baby red potatoes cut into small chunks.
Carrots and potatoes boiled until par-cooked.
To which some frozen peas and corn was added at the last 30 seconds.
Augmented with leftover peas and corn.
Drainage on the veg.

Back into the pot with leftover chopped roast chicken.
Added leftover chicken gravy.
Added the last drib-drabs of some heavy cream.
Added a sploosh of buttermilk.
Seasoned with dried thyme and s/p.
Warmed over low heat.

Poured into a single Pillsbury pie crust (thought I had 2 in the box).
Baked at 350° for about 20 minutes.
Used a tube of flattened Wegmans can 'o biscuits for the topping.
(Should have rolled them together for another crust. But whatever.)
Baked at 400° for 12 minutes or so.

Let sit for 10 minutes.
Plated.
Sloppily.
Sprinkle of minced fresh parsley still surviving the cold to pretend I’m fancy.
(I’m so not.)
Fancy or not, it tasted very good.

Wine.

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I’ll take a plate of that! Chicken pie is pure comfort.

More comfort here. More or less ham, tomato, cream, white wine sauced pasta.
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Beautiful cold weather dish!

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For Diwali, I made Butter Chicken even though it’s probably more British-Indian than actual Indian. Served with Jasmine rice (ran out of Basmati!), my own version of Bhel Puri, and Jaipur Vegetables and naan from Trader Joe’s. It paired nicely with a dry Riesling-- wine twice in one week, surely a personal record!

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Pasta with zucchini (the seeds/flesh scraped out, cut very small and used as part of the sauce, the zucchini “shells” briefly cooked with the pasta), leek, Italian sausage, small amount of tomato, parmesan, rosemary, parsley, garlic and a splash of heavy cream

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We had some friends over for dinner rather than going out. It was supposed to rain so sitting outside was not likely to happen and this seemed like a better option than eating in a restaurant on a Saturday night.

On our way home from Boston a couple of weeks ago, we stopped in Newark and brought some Portuguese food home. It’s been a long time since we’d been there and we realized how much we missed the food. That led me to make a traditional paella for dinner. It came out pretty well though the socarrat could have been a bit crispier.

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Gorgeous. Just looking at this makes me happy.

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Another print and frame.

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We thoroughly enjoyed a fabulous 5 course Burgundy tasting dinner at Bistro D’Azur in South Orange, NJ, featuring Beef Bourguignon, coq au vin, escargots, poached cod with white wine, onion, bacon lardon, fine herbs, and Brussel sprouts. For dessert we enjoyed various mignardises including epoisse, chocolate truffle, and poached figs. It all went great with some excellent wines.







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I use the Pillsbury Grand biscuits for my chicken pot pie crust(s), and yes I do roll them out into a sheet.

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One of my fav’s…chicken francese of linguine.

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