Sarah made delicious lasagna for our dinner tonight. Who doesn’t love lasagna!? Luckily we were able to hold ourselves enough in check that we will be able to have a leftovers dinner on Sunday.
This delicious chickpeas, vegetables, and pasta stew can be easily made vegetarian or vegan.
John’s grilled hamburgers are a favorite at our house. We like ours medium rare with mayo, ketchup, and red onion.
Just an easy home style dinner tonight. John warmed the sliced chicken breast in chicken gravy and I made instant mashed potatoes and steamed broccoli and cauliflower.
Next in our dinners that don’t heat up the kitchen too much is sesame (BLANK) bowl. Sunday night’s bowl featured shrimp but we also make it with salmon and tofu. In the bottom of our bowls we put pre-made rice heated up briefly in the microwave. The vegetables come next – shredded cabbage, thinly sliced cucumbers, and edamame. Then we add quick cooking sautéed shrimp. Our dressing is a soy vinaigrette with lots of ginger. Finally on top we put a drizzle of sesame oil, furikake, green onions, jalapeños, avocado, and cilantro.
It’s a delicious salad with an interesting dressing that does not heat up the kitchen! Here is my recipe for the soy vinaigrette.
My friend, Sophia, is visiting me for the next two weeks. Of course I want to make her all of my best dishes. But it is really hot here. Probably close to 100F today so I cannot make anything that involves heating up the kitchen. My solution? Gazpacho and salad. I make my gazpacho thick and hearty ignoring the directions to put the soup through a sieve. The soup is a combination of fresh tomatoes, canned tomatoes, a can of Rotel, a cucumber, some onion and garlic, salt, and a little olive oil. I spin it in the blender until it has the consistency of a thick soup. I garnish it with chopped cucumber, cilantro, and olive oil. A nice salad rounds out the meal.
Friday was a conserve-energy day which means that between 4pm and 9pm you are supposed to turn off the A/C and other electricity. PG&E made this easy for us since we had a power outage twice during that period. So it is a good thing that we planned ahead for take-out.
Each of us have a favorite sandwich. Sarah likes the grilled chicken, John likes the pâté one, and my favorite is vegetarian. These Vietnamese sandwiches are on a French roll and have pickled vegetables, sometimes a smear of pâté, cucumber, jalapeño, and some sort of dressing. They are so delicious that I forget to take a picture.
Hot night? Hot dog!
Sarah eats bowls almost every day. Sometimes they are Asian inspired, other times Mediterranean, and tonight we all enjoyed the chicken burrito bowl that she introduced us to recently. These are great meals to make when the weather is very hot.
Our bowls started with warmed rice followed by warmed black beans. Then I put on some shredded cheese, corn kernels, cabbage, rotisserie chicken, cilantro, and salsa. Usually I add tortilla chips but I forgot them. Except for some chopping the prep is very easy. It is really just an assembly dish. The summer is heating up so I imagine we will be eating lots of bowls.
August 5th was National Night Out and one of our neighbors organized a party for our cul-de-sac. People brought food to share and two of our city’s policemen came around to say hi and chat with us for a while. We have lived here for 32 years and it is the first time we have had a block party. Our block is pretty small with only twelve houses and not everyone could come but we had around a dozen people.
Some people brought sandwiches for themselves. Others ate the shared offerings. John and I brought shrimp cocktail, Chardonnay, and fresh cut-up vegetables with a dill dip. The shrimp were definitely a hit with the yellow jackets!
Omnivore 