This week’s menu has a carry-over from last week. We were supposed to be making the Greek fish stew last Thursday but something came up and we ended up with take-out. We will have it on Monday this week instead. This week has 3 seafood meals, 2 vegetarian, 1 chicken, and 1 red meat meal.
I had been looking for a while for some whole grain orecchiette like we had ages ago when we traveled in Italy. The orecchiette pictured above is the kind that you can get at your local supermarket. It is not whole grain.
I once found some made by Delallo at Safeway but it has been discontinued. So I decided to try Amazon which, as it turns out, has several different brands.
I decided on Manta orecchiette because it is artisanal and cut with bronze dies plus it comes from the heart of orecchiette country in the town of Aradeo near Lecce in the province of Apulia. This is where I first had orecchiette with greens.
When John went to cook it, there were no instructions on how long it should be boiled. I guess the people at Manta assume that all Italian cooks would know to cook it until it is done. We started checking it at 8 minutes, then 10, then 11 1/2 minutes. We decided to drain it at that point (reserving a cup of the pasta water) and put it in the already sauteed mushrooms, onions, and garlic.
Long story short, the pasta was not done and even though I kept cooking it in the sauce for another five minutes, it was still not totally merely al dente. I guess we should start checking at 12 minutes and probably cook it for at least 15 minutes. Obviously I am no Italian housewife.
Except for the pasta being undercooked slightly, it was delicious. We each had 3 ounces of pasta and there was plenty of mushrooms and greens to make a really enjoyable sauce enhanced with some EVOO and grated parmesan cheese.
John and I made this recipe last week with salmon and decided to try it again with shrimp. Although I like the salmon rendition better, this shrimp one is very good, quick, and easy.
The shrimp cooks very quickly so it is good to get the rest of the components ready first. We usually have some cooked rice in the refrigerator and I sush-i-fy it by adding some sweetener and rice vinegar.
For the dressing, it is a combination of 1/2 teaspoon of toasted sesame oil, 1/4 cup soy sauce, 3 Tbl white vinegar, 2 Tbl of a neutral oil, 2 Tbl minced fresh ginger, and 2 Tbl of chopped scallions. After you have your “sushi rice” and dressing made then all you need to do is assemble the other ingredients which are shredded cabbage, chopped avocado, and thinly sliced Persian cucumbers.
Now cook the shrimp quickly and put it on top of the rice followed by the cucumbers, avocado, and cabbage. Ladle some of the sauce over everything and dust with sesame seeds or my favorite, furikake.
Note: We usually run out of the dressing so we make a double recipe.
We made a double recipe for the three of us and figured we would have leftovers. It was so good that there was only one little ramekin’s worth left. It is great when you make a dish that is good for you and delicious to eat!
Easy dinner tonight! I roasted the butternut squash after cutting it in half lengthwise, scooping out the seeds, and seasoning it with salt and nutmeg. It cooked in a 425F oven for about 55 minutes. I mashed it up with a little butter.
I used a little butter in the broccoli as well. The orange and green on the plate look so inviting.
John grilled the lamb out back on the patio. It was seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and cumin. It was rosy pink inside and so good!
Sometimes when you try to adapt a recipe to your heathy eating lifestyle you end up almost ruining it. Here is the original recipe. https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/roast-chicken-cacciatore-red-wine-butter. We decided not to use a whole chicken roasted in the oven but chicken breasts in the immersion circulator. We put red wine, herbs, and garlic along with a little oil in the bag with the chicken and let it cook to 159F.
Since we needed the herbs and chicken drippings from the sous vide bag, we sat the chicken in a warm oven while I finished making the sauce and reduced it. Then we put the spaghetti and the chicken in sauce. At the end the sauce needed some sriracha to make it spicy and additional salt but it came out pretty okay. The spaghetti was also good. But the chicken had turned into strange, tasteless sponges.
John put a bunch of oil and parmesan cheese on his which helped. If you are planning on making this dish just follow the recipe. Back in my “before” days, I made this chicken cacciatore using the actual recipe. It turned out much better.
While I am not a big fan of a bowl of raw vegetables (salad), I do enjoy a big bowl of cooked vegetables and broth (soup). Now that it is getting chillier and as Standard Time approaches more soups and stews will be in our weekly menu.
This soup starts by sautéing onions, mushrooms, and garlic in olive oil spray. From that point on I add the broth and the vegetables according to hardness— carrots, kale stems, celery, and broccoli. In the last minutes I add the leafy greens and my pre-cooked chicken. Obviously this could be turned into a vegetarian/vegan dish by omitting the chicken and using vegetable stock.
Mmm, soup, so warming and cozy.
My original plan was for turkey sausage with BBQ beans and sauerkraut. Since I have been trying to cut out some carbs throughout the day, John and our daughter had the BBQ beans and I made some coleslaw to accompany my turkey sausage and sauerkraut.
After hearing on a food program that the best sauerkraut is in a can, I searched on line to find out how to enhance the canned sauerkraut. This is the recipe I use – https://www.loavesanddishes.net/how-to-cook-canned-sauerkraut/ The apple gives a sweet flavor pop and the caraway seeds are a must.
Here is the recipe for my coleslaw. It is for quite a bit of cabbage. I usually make it using a bag of shredded cabbage and 1/2 of all the rest of the ingredients.
Cole Slaw
2 lbs. cabbage, shredded
3 medium carrots, shredded
½ cup chopped parsley
1/4 large onion cut in narrow strips
Dressing
1 cup light mayo ( I usually cut the light mayo 50/50 with non-fat Greek yogurt.
2T Dijon mustard
2T cider vinegar
1 teaspoon celery seed
Salt and pepper and some optional sugar if you like your coleslaw sweet
Mix together dressing ingredients. Stir dressing into cabbage, onions, carrot, and parsley.
Having scallops for dinner always seems like a special occasion. In fact we opened a nice bottle of Chardonnay to drink with it. Due to the wine drinking, I decided to forego the new potatoes and make myself a double vegetable plate. John and our daughter went with the original concept.
Since he was cooking 15 scallops John seared them on a flat top grill pan. Normally he uses a frying pan when it is just the two of us. The grill got a little hotter than the pan does and so the scallops are a little darker and firmer than usual but still very tasty.
I cut the broccoli into larger pieces than I usually do so I could cook the beans and the broccoli together without the broccoli getting overcooked. Since three of us were eating, I added a tablespoon of butter and a little water to cook the vegetables.
The tartar sauce is a recipe that I asked for and received from the Fish Market, a seafood restaurant out here on the West Coast. We have always loved their tartar sauce. The secret is yellow mustard. They only gave me the ingredients, not the amounts of each ingredient. So the recipe below is my approximation.
Omnivore 