A week or so ago we made a Thai soup to represent our country winner. Although we ate most of the vegetables and all the shrimp we still had broth left over. We used it as the base for tonight’s soup.
We added new shrimp, a few cherry tomatoes, some kale, snow peas, and green onions. Except for being quite salty, it came out well.
For the original post and link to the recipe see Tom Yum Soup 3/26/21.
On Sunday we decided to have our eggs in the form of cake. Our daughter made this delicious yeast cake/bread called Colomba di Pasqua, or dove of Easter in Italian. It was so good! We ate a lot of it.
Her Colomba di Pasqua is supposed to look like a dove but all the examples looked pretty much like blobs. The interior is filled with raisins and citron and the coating is sugar and almonds in syrup.
Because we were pretty much gorging on this sweet Easter bread, I only made Brussels sprouts for a main course. These were my special sprouts which were cut in half and put cut side down in a pan with a little water, a sprinkling of sugar, salt, and with butter dotting the top. Put the lid on and cook until almost tender. Uncover and when the water is nearly evaporated add a little dry sherry. Then the sherry evaporates and the Brussel sprouts caramelize on the cut side in the remaining essence of sherry, sugar, and butter. Yum!
Incredibly yummy Brussels sprouts
John and I are hoping to go out to dinner after some wine tasting and then stay overnight at a hotel on Thursday. Woohoo! I am excited about doing something that will be at least semi-normal. We are both fully vaccinated but expect to wear masks when in public, social distance, and wash hands frequently. The dinner reservation is still up in the air, though. Fingers crossed!
This week’s menu includes three vegetarian/vegan meals, two seafood, and one chicken. The dinners are definitely on the lower calorie side as I am trying to build up a buffer against extra eating on Thursday.
Friday night’s dinner was just what we needed to get us back on our diet track after a prolonged venture into too many dangerous foods. (I’m looking at you wine and matzoh with butter!)
In addition to the lentils we used turkey sausage, mushrooms, onions, carrots, garlic, and kale stems in the stew. After cooking the combo in chicken stock for about 25 minutes, I served the stew over raw kale leaves which wilted slightly under the hot lentils. John finished his bowl with some good olive oil and Trapani sea salt while I just sprinkled mine with kosher salt.
Showing amazing willpower neither of us had seconds. We now have plenty in the fridge to add more chicken stock to and turn our stew into a soup fot Saturday’s LFD! (Leftovers For Dinner)
Having scallops for dinner always makes it feel like a special occasion night.
Seared scallops and sautéed asparagus in a lemony tartar sauce
It takes just minutes to cook these U-10 scallops and John did a great job. They were sweet and moist, just cooked through. I sautéed up some asparagus and made a thinned out tartar sauce that i pepped up with a bit of sriracha.
Sometimes having two perfect ingredients is all you need.
Whole grain penne with mushrooms and asparagus
Is pasta night my favorite night of the week? I think so! Pasta has so much going for it. It is carb heavy and I love carbs. It is so quick to make. Most pastas only take about 10 minutes to cook. And it is infinitely variable. There are so many different pastas that can be prepared in so many different ways. Versatile, easy, quick, delicious, and even economical! What’s not to love?!
While John heated up the water and cooked the pasta I prepped and cooked the vegetables. Mushrooms, onions, garlic, asparagus, chop, chop, chop, saute, cooked pasta in, swirl around, done.
Because we wanted a little more flexibility in regard to our eating matzoh, we decided to pitch the tortillas and go with a taco bowl and eat some matzoh on the side.
We started with some rotisserie chicken breast that we bought in a pack from Costco and warmed slowly in chicken broth with cumin and chile flakes.The base of our bowl was a little leftover rice and some black beans. Both were spiced with salsa and cilantro. We topped the bean and rice with the shredded chicken, salsa, and mango. A little chopped cilantro finished the bowl. The matzoh was served as a cracker accompaniment.
John and I had a disagreement over how to cook the salmon. I read somewhere that you should cook it in a 400F oven for 10 minutes an inch on a rack that has been sprayed with an oil spray over a sheet pan after bringing the fish to room temperature. John wanted to put salt in the bottom of a cold pan and slowly cook it over medium heat. Since I am not the protein cooker in our house, his method won out.
Unfortunately, the method he used forced out a ton of the white stuff (albumin) that comes out of salmon. I have read that some is going to come out regardless of the way you cook it and the best way to minimize it is to brine the fish for 10 minutes before cooking it. Use 1 tablespoon of salt per cup of water and it will dissolve the surface proteins that cause the albumin to ooze out.
The fish tasted great but looked pretty sad. I tried to cover it up with lemon slices and parsley.
Pan-roasted salmon with white rice and broccoli
Last week was a fun eating week but now it is back to more sane eating. We will, however, have a special Italian bread, Colomba di Pasqua, for Easter brunch. It is supposed to look like a dove but mostly it looks like a bread blob.
Saturday night we celebrated the first night of Passover with a Seder and a festive meal.
Grilled lamb chops, mashed potatoes, asparagus with sauce gribiche
Since this was a festive occasion we were not counting calories and enjoyed our mashed potatoes with cream and butter and the asparagus topped with sauce gribiche, a vinaigrette enriched with a hard boiled egg.
I enjoyed setting our table using John’s mother’s candlesticks and my grandmother’s china. Our table looked lovely and brought back memories of holiday celebrations gone by.
Our dinner started with matzo ball soup.
And finished up with our daughter’s fabulous almond macaroons.
We had a wonderful time even though it was just the three of us. Next year we are hoping for a celebration that can include all our family members and the virus which has decimated so many families will have been subdued.
Omnivore 