I am back home from my little vacation and ending up my week with my usual Breakfast For Dinner! I did a lot of imperfect eating last week and now I need to get back to healthy eating. And what better way to do it than with a great bowl of vegetables with some soft scrambled eggs on top.
This restaurant quality dinner was made by our son for us on the next to last day of our vacation. It was superb! My only contribution was to peel the potatoes and cut up the vegetables. He calls this his fancy dinner which he makes for special occasions such as his wife’s birthday or Valentine’s Day. It is his adaptation of Chef Joey Altman’s scallop dish from the now defunct Oak City Grill in Menlo Park, CA. I loved the butter braised leeks especially. The scallops which we got at the local Harmon’s grocery were large and succulent. He cooked them perfectly using a Thermopen to make sure they were not over cooked (110F in the interior.) The butter sauce had a hint of sweetness from white balsamic vinegar rather than lemon. What a fantastic dinner!
Here are some dinners I made or bought this week while on vacation. Although I am aware of what I should be eating, lunches out and snacks with drinks at “cocktail time” are proving difficult to control.
Now that we are cooking in our rental, dinners are being a bit more manageable. The plan for the rest of the week is pizza (uh oh) tonight, a Thursday night fancy scallop dinner cooked by our son (double uh oh), and on Friday a dinner at a nice restaurant where I should be able to order a piece of fish.
When we get back this weekend it will be time to get back on the losing weight part of my food plan rather than the maintenance plan. A week or two of writing down what I am eating and not going over the amount I should be eating will get me back to my goal again. No panic, I can do this!
John and I are heading off for a few days so my next post will not be until some time next week. Now on to Thursday’s dinner.
Another delicious vegetables and penne creation. I sautéed the mushrooms, kale stems, onions, and garlic while the pasta was cooking. When the penne was drained it went in the pan on top of the kale leaves. The pasta along with some pasta water wilted the kale and the pasta water formed a light sauce.
Today’s hot weather dinner was another foray into plant-based burgers. Last week we tried Morningstar’s Incogmeato and our reaction was meh. The Beyond Meat burger was better especially if you like well-done burgers. For those of us who like our hamburgers medium rare it was less successful. John said he still would prefer a real meat burger and I still prefer a veggie burger that tastes like vegetables.
The majority of cooking was done outside on the grill so inside stayed cooler. I cooked the potato through in the microwave and then John finished it on the grill. I ate my dinner with a knife and fork instead of picking up the burger and eating it out of hand. It takes me much longer to eat this way and gives my brain a chance to realize that I am full. (A little veteran dieter tip!) The salad was good with some cherry tomatoes fresh from our daughter’s garden. All in all it was an okay dinner.
We have thrown our menu out the window because it is too hot to be heating up the kitchen by turning on the oven or the stovetop. So we opted to get take-away sushi and I made a salad with nuoc cham dressing.
We made an easy dinner tonight. John cooked the chicken in a pan and made the sauce out of packet of chicken gravy substituting Marsala wine for part of the water. I steamed the broccoli and reheated leftover rice. I just noticed that we forgot to add mushrooms to the sauce but it was good anyway.
At the end of this week we are taking a little vacation. We’ll be staying in a self-catering condo so the cooking will continue but I am not quite sure yet of what we will be cooking. So this week coming up starts out in typical fashion with Chicken Monday but fades into To Be Determined at the end. Vacation means a little more excitement in the day to day cooking so stay tuned!
Who doesn’t love taco night?! When we have tacos I set up a make your own taco bar so it is up to me to get all the condiments ready and cook the beans while John is responsible for cooking the shrimp and heating up the tortillas.
I eat my tacos tostada style with a knife and fork while John has his in true taco style. Using a knife and fork makes mine last longer. The spicy black beans consist of sautéed onions, garlic, cilantro stems, and cumin followed by a can of black beans and half of a can of Ro*tel original.
This was an enjoyable and filling meal. Having the diced avocado made it especially good!
Since this blog is all about eating healthy, losing weight, and maintaining a weight loss, I thought I would post a wrap-up of my weeknight dinners. I want to stress that all the pictures of delicious dinners are photos of my actual plate. So when I say in my tag line “It’s what I eat” I mean exactly that.
Omnivore 