Tonight John grilled some chicken thighs and I made broccoli and a corn casserole. The dinner was not a total success because the chicken got over-cooked and the corn was a little rich. However, it was dinner and we will learn from our mistakes.
Grilled chicken with BBQ sauce, steamed broccoli and kernel corn with chive cream cheese
I love eggs and snausage for breakfast, lunch, or dinner! Just to be clear, I am not recommending dog treats for dinner. Snausage is the name John and I use to identify vegetarian sausage from carnivore sausage. We use Morningstar Original sausage patties. One takes about one minute in the microwave.
My love affair with soft scrambled eggs goes back to a trip several years ago to Vienne, France. Michelin-starred Chef Henriroux at La Pyramide Hotel likes to come down to the kitchen some mornings and make breakfast. His eggs cooked low and slow with constant agitation produce creamy small curds.
Creamy scrambled eggs by Chef Henriroux from La Pyramide Hotel, Vienne, France
I am never patient enough to cook the eggs so slowly but I do try to keep them on the soft, creamy side.
Soft scrambled egg, snausage, Pugliese bread toast
Fast and easy, breakfast is for dinner!
I have not made up a weekly menu since the middle of November. That is not surprising, I guess, since Thanksgiving, The Birthdays, and the Trip to Italy have intervened. To get us off to healthy 2019 I think it is time to start again. With the menu in place I know what to shop for and what to get psyched about. As usual it is not set in stone and I have given myself a little wiggle room with a leftover dinner on Friday.
Our daughter-in-law’s sister is an expert cake maker/decorator. She has appeared and won a competition on Food Network. For her nephew’s (our grandson’s) birthday she always makes amazing cakes. This year’s cake was the cartoon character, Pusheen. Pusheen appears in GIFs and as stuffed animals. This is her amazing cake.
Pusheen birthday cake
The best part of a birthday cake is the eating and this one excelled in the interior as well. Inside was a multi-layered lemon rainbow cake in keeping with the rainbow Pusheen theme of the party.
Lemon rainbow cake interior
It was a very happy birthday!!
Spaghetti with meat sauce
Having eaten Italian food for three weeks in December I took a little break from it after we got home. Now I think enough time has passed to start making it again. The sauce I make is based on ground beef. The rest of the components are onions, garlic, tomato paste, red wine, olive oil, oregano, dried chili flakes, diced tomatoes, and tomato sauce. It is seasoned with salt and pepper plus I use a little fish sauce to deepen the umami flavor. I cooked it for about three hours and made enough for three dinners.
A portion of the sauce was cooked together with al dente thick spaghetti and some pasta water. The dish is finished with some good olive oil and Parmesan cheese and served with Pugliese garlic toast.
We still have some of the red beans from January 1st left in the refrigerator. Today I take the rest of the beans, the smoked sausage that I forgot to put in the red beans and rice I made, and onions, carrots, celery, and beef stock to make somewhere between and soup and a stew. It is fast and easy. My only problem now is that I have left over sausage and bean soup!!!
Sausage and bean stew with Pugliese bread
Have I really not made this dinner since November 12 last year? Wow, this is something usually I cook every week or at least every two weeks. My life must have gotten very busy!
John puts a chicken breast which we will split in the immersion circulator set to 150F. Now the chicken can wait until the rest of the dinner is done. Today we are cooking the peeled and chopped rutabagas in some water in the microwave. These are tough buggers that take over half an hour on high. At the end I steam the broccoli and finish it with a little butter. John makes a little chicken gravy.
This dinner is really comforting and follows the guideline of putting vegetables on half of your plate.
Chicken breast with gravy, rutabagas, and broccoli
