After last night’s expensive dinner we opted for one much more economical. Lentils are probably the cheapest way to serve protein plus they cook up quickly with no soaking or pre-cooking. This is especially true of red lentils. (Red lentils are not red. They look salmon colored and cook up yellow.) Red lentils are split and not as firm as brown or green lentils. This makes them a good choice for soups and stews. Here is my recipe for Afghani dal.
We got October off with a bang by making our favorite fish. Chilean sea bass is expensive so we do not have it frequently and it is always a treat. John and I made a special trip to Costco where they have a large selection of pieces. We bought a piece that was just over one pound and about an inch and a half thick and had no tapering sides. This way we knew the three pieces we cut out of it would cook evenly.
John cooked it in a 400F oven and it took 15 minutes to be cooked perfectly. In the meantime I steamed some potatoes and asparagus. We served the fish and vegetables with squeezed lemon juice and butter. It was a delicious dinner and nice to treat ourselves to something special.
Sarah has introduced us to this new website (or app), 2G2G or too good to go. It is devoted to trying to eliminate food waste. Retail restaurants and stores make up surprise bags of food leftover from the day or evening and sell it on line for $6-$10 a bag. (At least that is what I have seen.) You go and pick it up. The other day she got a $6 bag from a bakery. It was an enormous bag of all types of bread and rolls. We will need to freeze most of it but we certainly will not need to buy bread for weeks!
This is why we had our hamburgers on ciabatta rolls. We have had difficulty with hamburger buns disintegrating before we finish the burger patty. I thought using the sturdy ciabatta rolls would work better. They did not. They were both tough and flimsy. Back to the drawing board with that idea! I think next time I will try Kaiser rolls (hard rolls) which are softer but still have a sturdy crust.
Anyway, the burgers were a little overcooked which I blame on our non-functioning patio light. Cooking in the dark is hard! The salad was great and the potato chips were a brand by Chip’s. Who is this Chip’s person. I need to write him or her to suggest dropping the apostrophe and to use more salt on the chips!
Sarah made a delicious dinner of spaghetti and meatballs. She used some shortcuts like Rao’s vodka sauce and Rosina’s Italian meatballs which made the prep go more quickly. It turned out delicious and it was lovely to have the night off!
Saturday is our new take-out day. I usually feel a little cooking burnout by the end of the week so I thought Saturday would be a good day for having dinners that I would not normally make at home. Saturday we had banh mi sandwiches from Lee’s Sandwiches. Normally I get their vegetarian banh mi but due to some sort of renovations going on the vegetarian banh mi was pulled from the menu. I decided on grilled pork instead. It was fine but not as good as my usual vegetarian sandwich.
Banh mi are Vietnamese sandwiches filled with various meats, pickled vegetables, jalapeño slices, and cilantro. They seem a combination of Vietnamese foods and French rolls probably from the fact that Vietnam was a long time possession of France. It is definitely a good combination!
Sarah did the cooking tonight. Using Muir Glen chili starter simplified the dish. After browning the ground beef she added beans and the chili tomatoes. Since this can of chili starter was mild she added some chipotle powder. I served mine over kale to increase the vegetable portion. We also had shredded cheese, tortilla chips, and sour cream. Easy and delish!
Lamb is our favorite meat to grill. The grilling, along with lamb’s slight gaminess, is a great pairing. We buy these loin lamb chops at Costco. They come from New Zealand and are reasonably priced. John does a great job grilling them to medium rare. For my part I steamed some broccoli and microwaved new potatoes until they were just done through. John then put them on the grill for a delicious char.
This shrimp dinner is always a hit at our house. This time I doubled the delicious sauce so we would have plenty. I have posted it before so if you’d like to see the recipe refer to my earlier blog post.
Ah, it is Autumn and the leaves are changing color and the temperature hovers around 100F. I have explained in the past how September is really hot in Northern California. On Tuesday we experienced the hottest day of the year and Monday wasn’t much better. If you do not live in close proximity to the ocean you can expect to be really hot in September.
Foodwise this means that I need to find dishes that do not take much cooking and definitely do not need cooking in the oven. Here’s what we did to beat the heat.
Monday we augmented and heated up in the microwave the Sicilian swordfish sauce from last week. This time we put it on quickly seared tilapia and precooked rice
On Tuesday we experienced a “Smart Day.” This is when PG&E, our electric and gas utility company, asks us not to run appliances and air conditioning during peak usage hours. So we started out the day by going out to lunch at a sushi restaurant where we enjoyed a bento box.
Keeping in the spirit of not cooking and not using electricity we had hummus, pita, tabouli, and tomatoes for dinner.
On Wednesday it is supposed to cool down and we are really keeping our fingers crossed that this spell of hot, hot weather is the last for this year.
Omnivore 