Delicious dinner tonight! When my friend was visiting this summer we bought a pack of three steaks and this one was left over and frozen. What a treat to have a good steak from Costco and not one of the gristly ones that the supermarket is always trying to push for $8.99/lb. Spending the extra money was worth it!
John was in charge or grilling the steak and the potato halves. I had microwaved the potato in advance so it just needed salt and olive oil plus a quick sear on the grill. I also made up the Taylor Farms Southwest Salad which I embellished with a cut up tomato and puffed onion petals.
This soup/stew is a favorite of John’s. It is filled with lots of vegetables, a can of drained chickpeas, and a half cup of ditalini. For the stock we use a can of Rotel for a spicy tomato kick, 2 cups of water, and 2 cups of stock either chicken or vegetable depending on if you want to keep it vegan. Same goes for using Parmesan rinds and gratings.
Tonight Sarah made one of our favorites, pasta with sausage and greens. It is so simple but so good. While the pasta was cooking Sarah sauteed onions and 6 ounces of sausage that she later mixed with the cooked and drained pasta along with olive oil and a little reserved pasta water. Italian cuisine is full of recipes for making simple ingredients shine.
Looks like we are having seafood intensive dinners for the beginning of the week! Luckily these are all dinners we like a lot. With my recipe you get to control the amount of cream you add, light, medium, or more!
Mustard sauce is easy to make and not too rich. It gives our fish dishes a nice tang. John is always happy when I make it. You can see from my picture that it also tastes good on rice and vegetables!
Seared scallops with tartar sauce, new potatoes, and asparagus
We used to get large frozen scallops in a clear plastic bag from Costco. They have disappeared for at least a year. We decided to try the Kirkland frozen scallops. They are smaller but they turned out really tasty. John does a great job searing them in a little olive oil and butter. I steamed the new potatoes and sauteed the asparagus.
This was a delicious dinner and I am sure we will have it again!
I thought today I would post everything I eat. Maybe it will give me some insight as to why I have such problems with maintaining a healthy weight.
Breakfast ingredients and finished dish
Cooked oatmeal, yogurt, Splenda, walnuts, cinnamon, and blueberriesFinished oatmeal
Lunch ingredients and finished dish
4 oz. Trader Joe’s Ready Veggies, 2 cups chicken stock, 2 oz. thin spaghetti broken into thirdsVegetable soup with pasta
I also ate an apple with lunch.
Dinner
So far everything is going well. However as dinner approached we run into a problem. In my mind I am going to make a couple of hard boiled eggs and serve them on a salad that includes hummus, tomatoes, and a mix of greens. We receive a phone call from our daughter who has been in San Francisco visiting friends. She has taken BART in and plans to come home on the train as well. She gets to Embarcdero station and the train stops and the passengers are told to get off as there is no service due to communications being down in the Trans-bay Tube. Everyone has to find another way home. She decides to take the ferry from SF to Oakland but we will need to pick her up at the ferry terminal there. So dinner goes out the window and we scurry to get to Oakland. An hour and a half later we are all home.
John is rummaging around in the refrigerator and pulls out three left over hot dogs and buns from last week. So he is going to have 2 hot dogs on 2 buns, sauerkraut, and leftover mashed potatoes. I feel like one hotdog on a bun is not enough so I also make a piece of turkey sausage which I put on a hamburger bun. I also make a salad.
Hot dog, turkey sausage on buns and a lettuce salad
We also have some popcorn and a I have a diet soda.
Our roof started leaking in November. Unfortunately the workers who fix such leaks were booked up until January. Luckily January was a dry month and the roofers were able to take care of the side of the roof that had cracked tiles. Unluckily the rain had penetrated through the ceiling in a couple of rooms leaving unsightly cracks and bubbles. This week we were able to get workers who could repair our ceilings. Since one of those ceilings was in the kitchen we did not do much cooking on Wednesday and Thursday. With our limited ability to use the kitchen, here is what we ate,
Vegetarian pho with sriracha
We went out for pho. Since our favorite place was closed for Lunar New Year we tried a different restaurant. It was fine but not as good as our fav pictured below.
My favorite vegetarian pho!
On Thursday the ceiling was finished by 6PM but since we thought it was going to take longer we were not prepared for making anything elaborate. We settled on our second tray of Rao’s eggplant Parmesan. Our first tray had been plagued with soggy breading so we made the second without its plastic film, took it out of its plastic tray to a glass dish, and cooked it in the oven. For the first 45 minutes it was covered with aluminum foil and then we took it off for the last 15 minutes. Since it was not done we raised the temperature to 400F and cooked it for another 15 minutes. Ultimately we added more sauce and stuck it in microwave. Bottom line? We are not buying it again.
Omnivore 