Autumn soup. 11/3/25

Posted on November 4, 2025 by Beebamom
Autumn soup with squash bread

It is definitely Autumn what with our changing to standard time, cool mornings and pleasantly warm afternoons. Given the season and John’s recent oral surgery it is definitely time for Autumn soup! This soup is kind of a lot of prep. There is a lot of peeling and chopping but once that is done it just burbles along for a while and when the vegetables are soft I purée it with a plunge blender. Then add the half and half or cream,the lemon, and if you like sweet things, the maple syrup.

I am including the original recipe with some deviations. For our soup today I added extra stock and cut the half and half to 1 cup. I substituted a turnip for the rutabaga and left out the maple syrup. I did not sieve the soup.

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Weekly Menu November 3-9, 2025 (and Sunday night’s BFD)

Posted on November 3, 2025 by Beebamom
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Last night I had a pretty straight-forward BFD (breakfast for dinner). I often jazz mine up while John is content with endlessly making an omelet.

My BFD

This is two eggs scrambled with a bit of cheese, two tiny sausage patties, and a piece of country style bread with butternut squash and butter.

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Penne and chopped up meatballs with tomato sauce. 11/1/25

Posted on November 2, 2025 by Beebamom
Penne with chopped up meatballs and tomato sauce

Since we are still taking it easy with soft food due to John’s oral surgery, I made a simple dinner of penne, chopped up Rosina meatballs, and Rao’s tomato and basil sauce. Not much work eating this and not much work making it either!

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Clam chowder. 10/31/25

Posted on November 2, 2025 by Beebamom
Clam chowder

Well, boo, here it is Halloween and nobody came to our door. Sarah and John will have to eat the candy I bought. Clam chowder is our spooky dinner for Halloween night.

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Out to lunch. 10/30/25

Posted on October 31, 2025 by Beebamom
Ethiopian veggie platter plus lamb and chicken at Zeni, San Jose

Sarah’s friend Mark has been here for a few days. One of the mandatory events for his visit is a lunch at Zeni, an Ethiopian restaurant that we all adore. We ordered their veggie platter served on and with injera. We also got some lamb, chicken, and a salad. It was soooo good. I cannot make this at home since I have no source for injera, the spongy bread that is used as a utensil.

We had a great time and eliminated the need for dinner. As you can see from the picture below, we really enjoyed our Ethiopian lunch.

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Tilapia with mustard sauce, rice, broccoli. 10/29/25

Posted on October 30, 2025 by Beebamom
Tilapia with mustard sauce, rice, broccoli

Since John is healing from oral surgery we will be eating soft things this week. The broccoli was the only potentially hard food so I cooked it thoroughly and chopped it up with butter and sour cream in my mini prep. John pan cooked the fish until it as just done and I made a mustard sauce and reheated rice. It all came together well and we enjoyed our mushy meal.

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Deconstructed hot dog. 10/28/25

Posted on October 30, 2025 by Beebamom
Deconstructed hot dog

John had oral surgery today so I was on my own while he just ate an omelet. Casting about for something to eat I saw a piece of turkey sausage. But no bun! So I cut up both sausage (hot dog) and a piece of bread (bun) and heated them in the microwave. I added a garnish of yellow mustard and relish. It tasted pretty good!

Posted in American, Easy, Weeknight dinners | Tagged | 4 Comments

Shells with sausage and broccolini. 10/27/25

Posted on October 28, 2025 by Beebamom

We are back home after our wonderful trip to Utah with our son. Sarah’s friend Mark is staying with us for a few days and she was so gracious to make dinner for all four of us. Our pasta dinner consisted of medium shells, pork sausage, and broccolini. It was like we were transported back to Puglia! We always look forward to Sarah’s pasta meals.

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Grilled steak, tots, and salad. 10/25/25

Posted on October 28, 2025 by Beebamom

We have had a lot of great dinners during our trip. We are celebrating our last night with a delicious ribeye steak that John cooked on the grill. I took care of the tater tots and salad. We are already planning our next year’s adventure. We are so fortunate that both our adult children love to spend time with us and create memories.

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Piccata redo. 10/24/25

Posted on October 25, 2025 by Beebamom
Chicken piccata with noodles and broccoli

Well, this worked out much better than our previous try! We found some sliced chicken breast that John floured and pan-fried. We kept the chicken pieces warm in the oven while I rustled up the rest of the dinner. First I rehydrated the noodles in some chicken stock and added broccoli florets. In the pan that the chicken had cooked in I added some butter and chopped onions, capers, and garlic. Then I added white wine, a half lemon’s worth of juice, and some of the noodles chicken stock. I was hoping that the chicken stock had picked up some of the starch from the noodles. I reduced the sauce briefly and then plated the noodles and broccoli combo, followed by the chicken, and then the sauce. Some parsley garnish finished the dish.

Wow, it was astonishingly good! I think I will make it again when I get back home.

In exciting lunch news we found a restaurant in St. George that makes banh mi. The service was really slow but the banh mi were acceptable but not quite as good as Lee’s.

Rib eye banh mi

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