What Did We Eat Today?

[PRgal]

On Saturday, my husband and I decided to order in Mexican.  I wanted to try a restaurant's vegan tacos and was unaware how spicy it was.  Let's just say my mouth was MORE than on fire.

Yesterday, we had the MOST DELICIOUS brunch at a fast casual place.  The ricotta toast - ricotta topped with berry preserve and hazelnuts - WOW WOW WOW!!!  Dinner, however, was leftovers thawed from the freezer and heated along with a fresh salad and roasted carrots.  Today?  More leftovers.  

[biakbiak]

Not feeling up to going out so tonight will be a lowkey night catching up on Watch,em but that doesn't mean we cant have a feast: tartlets with cream fraiche and caviar, roasted duck with orange and ginger glaze, roasted potatoes in some of the duck fat, broccoli rabe, brioche rolls, and a simple chocolate cake.

[MargeGunderson]

Cassoulet is delayed until tomorrow. Instead we had manicotti, salad and garlic bread. Later, sparking rose and some mini cheesecakes from Whole Foods.

[BooksRule]

I had picked up a P.F. Chang's frozen 'Chang's General Chicken' dinner to have for my NYE supper, but when I realized my local grocery had New York strip steaks for $4.98 lb., I had to go pick up some.  So, I had a steak, fries and Neopolitan ice cream for dinner. Chang can wait until another day.

 

[Bastet]

I would have sworn I had a ribeye steak in the freezer from when I (over)stocked up last time they were on sale, but I'd have been wrong.  Boo.  I'm craving one, but I'm not going shopping on New Year's Eve to get it.  I'm pondering pork chops, but I don't have any kale or collard greens, and I really like to have greens with pork.  Maybe I'll do spinach and mushrooms.  Or I may just use the alfredo sauce I have left from my stuffed shells and make fettucine alfredo with chicken, spinach, and mushrooms, and save the pork chops for Thursday when I go the market and can pick up some greens then.

While I decide, the olives in my martinis will tide me over.

[annzeepark914]

Tonight will be Swedish meatballs & gravy, mashed potatoes (I must confess--Bob Evans), tiny green peas, & pickled beets. Last night was Italian--Giada's lemon spaghetti with sauted shrimp. 

[Bastet]

10 minutes ago, annzeepark914 said:

Last night was Italian--Giada's lemon spaghetti with sauted shrimp. 

I just looked that up, and it sounds good (minus the capers, which I don't like).  I don't like traditional spaghetti, but get the occasional hankering for Aglio e Olio with shrimp.  Next time I do, I may try that lemon recipe instead.

[MargeGunderson]

Cassoulet was delicious but so rich! I’m guessing it’s from all of the duck and sausage. I also had a couple of cheesecake bites from Whole Foods. I’m pretty sure I’m done for the day.

[Gramto6]

1 hour ago, Bastet said:

I just looked that up, and it sounds good (minus the capers, which I don't like).  I don't like traditional spaghetti, but get the occasional hankering for Aglio e Olio with shrimp.  Next time I do, I may try that lemon recipe instead.

I'm making lemon spaghetti with lump crab meat I have left over from yesterday. Basically following Giada's recipe. I've done similar before, but this time I am actually going to fry the capers. I have some huge ones (Delallo) that will be excellent in this recipe!

[biakbiak]

Baked eggs with smoked salmon and crème fraîche with homemade english muffins and Bellinis for brunch.

Even though i am from Seattle my grandmother was from the south so hoppin john and collards are required to be eaten on New Years day. Every store was out of ham hocks so I am using smoked turkey thighs.

[chessiegal]

We're still working on our Omaha Steaks gift. Steaks and pork chops are on gone, so tonight we had grilled chicken breasts that I marinated in my favorite - olive oil, lemon juice, mustard, garlic, and rosemary. They were so tender and flavorful I'm impressed with the quality of the Omaha Steaks meat - haven't had them in a long time.

My stepdaughter, raised in Alabama, posted on  FB she was starting with black eyed peas and collard greens. (blech says the girl raised in PA). I'm so glad her Dad doesn't ask for it.

[Bastet]

2 hours ago, chessiegal said:

My stepdaughter, raised in Alabama, posted on  FB she was starting with black eyed peas and collard greens. (blech says the girl raised in PA). I'm so glad her Dad doesn't ask for it.

My dad grew up having black-eyed peas and cornbread on New Year's Day, and that - along with cornbread dressing on Thanksgiving - is one of the nasty-ass family recipes my mom nicely makes for my dad each year.  (He's a terrible cook and she's very good at it, so she does almost all the cooking.)  I have not at all fond childhood memories of the kitchen stinking of those things all day as the crockpot did its thing.  Thankfully, we snacked all day long while watching bowl games, so my mom and I would just have a bit more of that for dinner (although I'd have a piece of cornbread, especially when I started making it and adding jalapeño to it).

I'm still a bit full from the football snacking (that's a tradition I carried on!), so I'll probably just have a salad for dinner -- I have some candied walnuts, so I'll make a simple arugula salad with the walnuts, shaved Parm, and balsamic vinaigrette.

[BW Manilowe]

13 hours ago, chessiegal said:

We're still working on our Omaha Steaks gift. Steaks and pork chops are on gone, so tonight we had grilled chicken breasts that I marinated in my favorite - olive oil, lemon juice, mustard, garlic, and rosemary. They were so tender and flavorful I'm impressed with the quality of the Omaha Steaks meat - haven't had them in a long time.

My stepdaughter, raised in Alabama, posted on  FB she was starting with black eyed peas and collard greens. (blech says the girl raised in PA). I'm so glad her Dad doesn't ask for it.

As someone born & raised in Alabama for 3 years (or almost until I was 3, anyway... my brother, whose birthday was yesterday—NYE—was born where I now live & I’m 3 years & 5 months older than him), I’ll take the black-eyed peas (not to be confused with the rap music group), which look sort of like brown refried beans, with a black dot in the middle—think like a green olive with a pimento in the middle—& don’t really taste like anything, except some might be a little spicy, over collards any day (I’m not very into leafy greens, & every time there’s an E.coli or Listeria recall for any, that discourages me from trying them).

Edited January 2, 2020 by BW Manilowe
To correct punctuation and spelling and add a comment.

[Mindthinkr]

13 hours ago, Gramto6 said:

I'm making lemon spaghetti with lump crab meat I have left over from yesterday. Basically following Giada's recipe. I've done similar before, but this time I am actually going to fry the capers. I have some huge ones (Delallo) that will be excellent in this recipe!

I’m a huge fan of those large capers. I have trouble finding them most of the time. I actually found them at Home Goods. I’ve been thinking about a picatta or puttanesca to begin using them. I’m also ok just putting some in a salad. 

[annzeepark914]

I used to be able to buy "fresh" capers (in some kind of liquid) at Whole Foods and at Wegmans. Now neither store has them. Guess I need to find a mgr to find out why. They're much better, IMO, than the ones in jars (the brine or whatever they're in is not so strong). They were at the olive, pickle, etc., bar. When I made Giada's lemon spaghetti, I also fried some diced pancetta (removed the fat first). A reviewer had mentioned doing that & it was good.

[biakbiak]

Used the leftover duck to make duck fried rice and topped it with a egg fried in duck fat. My eating healthy resolution lasted about as long as it usually does!

[Gramto6]

20 hours ago, biakbiak said:

Used the leftover duck to make duck fried rice and topped it with a egg fried in duck fat. My eating healthy resolution lasted about as long as it usually does!

Yum! That just reminded me I have a frozen duck breast in the freezer. I just may have to thaw that out in the next couple of days. I buy duck fat by the jar, cause I just love it so much!

Edited January 3, 2020 by Gramto6
typo

[chessiegal]

The chatter about chicken piccata inspired me to use my last 2 Omaha Steaks chicken breasts to make it. I used Giada's recipe. It was good, but a bit too lemony. Next time I'll use less lemon juice. I served it with roasted asparagus and garlic angel hair pasta.

[annzeepark914]

I made sweet potato soup with spicy "relish", a Bobby Flay recipe. The relish is small diced sweet potato, fried until crispy, along with some red pepper flakes. It's really good on the soup.

[Lovecat]

On 1/1/2020 at 8:44 PM, chessiegal said:

My stepdaughter, raised in Alabama, posted on  FB she was starting with black eyed peas and collard greens. (blech says the girl raised in PA). I'm so glad her Dad doesn't ask for it.

So are you a pork and sauerkraut girl?  Very popular here in Eastern PA for New Year’s Day—pigs root forward in the dirt and are considered a “luckier” choice for the first meal of the year vs. chickens, who scratch backwards.  The hubs had a hankerin’ for pork and kraut a few days before the new year, so we had ours early and instead had ham and macaroni and cheese for New Year’s.

Tonight I’m making a pork tenderloin with tarragon carrots and a Dijon sauce. Later in the week we’re having creamy mushroom soup, and then a Tuscan chicken stew.

Edited January 5, 2020 by Lovecat

[chessiegal]

1 hour ago, Lovecat said:

So are you a pork and sauerkraut girl?  

Pork yes, sauerkraut no, at least not what my mother served. It stank to high heaven. When we were in Germany a few years ago, I had some that was wonderful. We have a fairly well known German restaurant 2 blocks away, owned by Germans, and I like their sauerkraut.

[MargeGunderson]

BBQ chicken nachos for lunch, baked potato with broccoli and cheddar for dinner.

[biakbiak]

I was supposed to host a GG party but woke up with a horrible cough and sore throat. So I will be sitting on the couch eating a big bowl of pho my boyfriend went and got me. 

[JTMacc99]

I don't know whether or not to give you the sad face for being sick or the heart for the boyfriend bringing you pho @biakbiak.

Yesterday saw split chicken breast for like $0.89 a pound at the supermarket and decided it was time to break out the pressure cooker for some chicken broth. Given all of the stories I've been hearing about people being sick, and the fact that my kids are back to school (aka: the germ warfare testing and distribution center) today, I will be downing as much chicken soup as possible this week in a preemptive strike. (That, and washing my hands a lot.)

[Drogo]

14 hours ago, biakbiak said:

a big bowl of pho my boyfriend went and got me. 

This is the kind of shit that turns boyfriends into husbands.  

[chessiegal]

I made an ATK recipe for red lentil soup with North African spices, served with Caesar salad and seeded multigrain bread. I had a hard time finding red lentils! My regular grocery store was out of them, so I went to Whole Foods confident they would have them. Their entire selection of lentils was empty, with signs saying they were out of stock - see a sales associate for an appropriate substitute. I stood there wondering if I asked a sales associate for a substitute for red lentils, what would they tell me? Finally found red lentils in a third store.

[JTMacc99]

20 hours ago, chessiegal said:

I made an ATK recipe for red lentil soup with North African spices,

That reminds me, I also made a red lentil soup/stew with North African spices recently. It was something I thought would be a huge success, but it turned out to be less so. I think the recipe came from a vegetarian cookbook, but I don't remember for sure.

It actually tasted good, but there was just something off about the way it smelled. I'm going to definitely try again,  as I have plenty of red lentils on hand, but with a different recipe. I'll mine the internet looking for something that lots and lots of people like.

[chessiegal]

The ATK red lentil soup was delicious. The spices were ground cinnamon, ginger, coriander, and cumin. It wasn't vegetarian, as it used chicken stock. I was wondering if vegetable stock would work, but I'm not messing with something that worked.

Tonight it's back to the ATK well with Cook's Country shrimp piccata pasta. (Using up some of the capers I bought for chicken piccata I made recently.)

[biakbiak]

Feeling better so making the Mushroom Wellington I was supposed to make for my GG party with an arugula salad.

[chessiegal]

2 hours ago, biakbiak said:

Feeling better so making the Mushroom Wellington I was supposed to make for my GG party with an arugula salad.

When I first read you were hosting a GG event, I went - Golden Girls? Gilmore Girls? until I realized they were having the Golden Globes. 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[biakbiak]

1 hour ago, chessiegal said:

When I first read you were hosting a GG event, I went - Golden Girls? Gilmore Girls? until I realized they were having the Golden Globes. 🤣🤣🤣🤣

I did once throw my best friend a Golden Girls themed bday party. We went with Italian dishes in honor of Sophia and of course several different kinds of cheesecakes for dessert!

[chessiegal]

2 minutes ago, biakbiak said:

I did once throw my best friend a Golden Girls themed bday party. We went with Italian dishes in honor of Sophia and of course several different kinds of cheesecakes for dessert!

What a great idea! I'm glad you're feeling better.

[Bastet]

18 minutes ago, biakbiak said:

I did once throw my best friend a Golden Girls themed bday party. We went with Italian dishes in honor of Sophia

Better than going with Rose's family recipes -- you won't have many repeat guests if you serve yak intestine crackers, eggs gafloofen and pigs in a svengabluten as appetizers, herring pie casserole as the main dish, vanskapkaka for dessert, and finish the night off for anyone left with spearhuven krispies as a midnight snack.

[biakbiak]

Just now, Bastet said:

Better than going with Rose's family recipes -- you won't have many repeat guests if you serve yak intestine crackers, eggs gafloofen and pigs in a svengabluten as appetizers, herring pie casserole as the main dish, vanskapkaka for dessert, and finish the night off for anyone left with spearhuven krispies as a midnight snack.

Yeah that was quickly dismissed though we did have St. Olaf cups, from the college not the fake town, in her honor. 

[biakbiak]

I got a new wok for Christmas so been making a lot of stirfrys, today was chicken thighs, broccoli, mushrooms, red pepper, ginger, and garlic with Thai chili served over brown rice. 

[chessiegal]

Yesterday my husband wanted to check on our sailboat which is on the hard for the winter, and suggested we go out to eat for lunch. Of course! I suggested a restaurant near the marina that I've been going to since 1988. It has gone through many ownership changes since then, but one thong that's been a constant is a good crab cake. We both ordered a crab cake sandwich, and got, hands down, the WORST crab cake I've ever had. The menu didn't say jumbo lump, but that's kind of a given in these parts, and what I've had  there before. It had a little bit of crab, I'd say mostly claw, with maybe some backfin crab meat. It was mostly bread crumb filler that was so heavily spiced, you couldn't taste the crab. I wrote it up on Yelp when I got home. So disappointing, as there were other restaurants nearby where we could have gotten a decent crab cake.

I made up for it at dinner with a Trader Joe's lemon marinated chicken that was just as wonderful as I've had before - so juicy and tender.

[biakbiak]

Had half a perfect avocado to use up so made a sandwich with toasted sourdough, avocado, bacon, lettuce and bomba sauce mayo for lunch, so tasty.
Scallops were on sale at WF so tonight will be scallop chowder and Instantpot “sourdough”.

[chessiegal]

I'm making a Trader Joe's Cabernet pot roast in the slow cooker. I threw in some baby carrots and diced onion that I had in the fridge. I'm going to serve it with Omaha Steaks potato au gratin and steamed green beans.

[biakbiak]

I hate when I misread a recipe and don’t realize until I start making it, in this case the part where it was supposed to simmer for 3 1/2 hours. So switched to carbonara so we wouldn’t have to wait until 10!

[annzeepark914]

I made chicken caccetoria (sp?) for dinner, along with angel hair pasta. It was the first time I've made it it in years. It wasn't as tasty as I remember it being. I think what was missing was the flavor you get from using chicken with skin, and probably full strength chicken broth (the real deal with sodium & fat!) 

[BW Manilowe]

18 hours ago, annzeepark914 said:

I made chicken caccetoria (sp?) for dinner, along with angel hair pasta. It was the first time I've made it it in years. It wasn't as tasty as I remember it being. I think what was missing was the flavor you get from using chicken with skin, and probably full strength chicken broth (the real deal with sodium & fat!) 

Regarding the bolded: It’s spelled cacciatore. Just trying to help. No offense meant.

Edited January 17, 2020 by BW Manilowe
To change a typeface, add a comment, and remove an extraneous number.

[annzeepark914]

38 minutes ago, BW Manilowe said:

Regarding the bolded: It’s spelled cacciatore. Just trying to help. No offense meant.

And none taken ☺️ I couldn't remember how to spell it which shows me how long it's been since I last made it. Thanks!

[chessiegal]

I'm on a piccata roll. I made a riff on the shrimp piccata pasta I made the other night, subbing scallops for shrimp and adding some sautéed asparagus. It was good.

[biakbiak]

I made a chicken pot pie. It’s the first time I have made one with a double crust, I usually make individual ones or a large one in a cast iron with just a top crust. Delicious and Mary Berry would be proud because their was no soggy bottom.

[chessiegal]

Grilled marinated pork tenderloin, steamed broccoli, and scalloped potatoes au gratin. Weather forecast for tomorrow is 100% chance of rain, sleet, and snow. Tonight's dinner will be enough for leftovers tomorrow. The older I get, the more I choose not to go out in icky weather. 

[annzeepark914]

15 hours ago, chessiegal said:

Grilled marinated pork tenderloin, steamed broccoli, and scalloped potatoes au gratin. Weather forecast for tomorrow is 100% chance of rain, sleet, and snow. Tonight's dinner will be enough for leftovers tomorrow. The older I get, the more I choose not to go out in icky weather. 

Amen! Esp on the weekend when the "weekend warriors" are tearing around at 80 mph (& today when it's sleety & slippery? they haven't slowed down one bit).

[biakbiak]

Having some people over the 49ers game (not a fan but hate GB) some of whom are vegetarian so doing deviled eggs, blue cheese dip, caramelized onions, soy chorizo three bean chili, and apple crostata for desserts

.

[ethalfrida]

I just took a swig of Russian Rye Bread Kvass that I made this week.

Kvass is a fermented probiotic drink. It can get a bit alcoholic and you end up with a champagne-like drink. Not super sweet, kinda like 7-Up and just as refreshing.

This is not the real recipe, just giving an idea of what is involved... a cup of dry toasted rye bread crumbs. The best brand available; bottled spring water; sugar; raisins. The bread is soaked in boiled water, allowed to cool, yeast and sugar added. Refrigerate with the raisins for two days. It has to burped because it ferments really fast.

It is fun to make, delicious and healthy for the gut. There are a lot of recipes for this on the Net along with fruit and beet Kvass. 

[biakbiak]

Sausage gravy over biscuits with a sunny side up duck egg.

[biakbiak]

I made some Giardiniera last week so made an olive salad with that and made a Muffuletta and potato salad.