This shrimp dinner is always a hit at our house. This time I doubled the delicious sauce so we would have plenty. I have posted it before so if you’d like to see the recipe refer to my earlier blog post.
Ah, it is Autumn and the leaves are changing color and the temperature hovers around 100F. I have explained in the past how September is really hot in Northern California. On Tuesday we experienced the hottest day of the year and Monday wasn’t much better. If you do not live in close proximity to the ocean you can expect to be really hot in September.
Foodwise this means that I need to find dishes that do not take much cooking and definitely do not need cooking in the oven. Here’s what we did to beat the heat.
Monday we augmented and heated up in the microwave the Sicilian swordfish sauce from last week. This time we put it on quickly seared tilapia and precooked rice
On Tuesday we experienced a “Smart Day.” This is when PG&E, our electric and gas utility company, asks us not to run appliances and air conditioning during peak usage hours. So we started out the day by going out to lunch at a sushi restaurant where we enjoyed a bento box.
Keeping in the spirit of not cooking and not using electricity we had hummus, pita, tabouli, and tomatoes for dinner.
On Wednesday it is supposed to cool down and we are really keeping our fingers crossed that this spell of hot, hot weather is the last for this year.
We did our celebrating of Rosh Hashanah on Friday night because on Monday, the actual date, it is supposed to be in the upper 90s and too hot for baking and making soup. Sarah made a lovely round challah in the morning and I made our usual Autumn soup and a plateful of symbolic foods. We toasted each other and hoped for a more compassionate and peaceful 5786.
It has finally cooled off for a few days so I thought I’d make soup. This clam chowder is one of our favorites. Here’s the recipe from my blog entry last January.
Oops! I did not post the recipe in January so here it is instead—
John grilled the steak, I made the potato, and Sarah assembled the salad. Fast, easy, delicious dinner for a hot night.
Sarah made her dinner a couple of days early since she was making a salad and it is very hot here this Tuesday. She found a recipe for a ramen noodle salad which reminded her of the days when I used to make something similar. I looked through my blog but I have not made it since I started this blog in 2011. So I think I made it as a kid friendly dish probably before we moved to California some 30+ years ago.
The ramen noodles are used straight from the package and they soften somewhat in the vinaigrette. She used cabbage and kale for her greens, leftover rotisserie chicken chunks, shredded carrot, cucumber, and cherry tomatoes. It is a fun crunchy salad to eat and we got to talk about “the old days” when she and her brother were kids.
I cannot find a digital version of the recipe from Better Homes and Gardens but here is the recipe that she used. https://www.budgetbytes.com/ramen-noodle-salad/
I have gotten behind so I am using today’s post to catch up.
Saturday, September 13, 2025. Hot dogs, spicy pinto beans, and salad
Sunday, September 14, 2025. John’s birthday Lunch at Posada
Monday, September 15, 2025. Weekly Menu
Monday, September 15, 2025. Classic chicken dinner
I made this a couple of weeks ago and it turned out really tasting good so I decided to make it again. Still good! There is some chopping and you have to wait for the potatoes to cook through but the whole prep and cooking time shouldn’t be more than an hour. I cut up my veg earlier in the afternoon so everything was ready to go when it came time to cook it. This time I added one russet potato to the mix thinking that it might thicken the juice a bit but I really did not see any difference so I think I will stick with the small Yukon gold potatoes that I do not have to peel. I also added some fresh tarragon that we can get from the community garden.
Sarah made this delicious chili using Muir Glen Chili Starter (medium spicy), browned ground beef, undrained black beans, and a little salt. That’s it and it was probably the best chili that we have had in a long time. Here’s a page from Muir Glen with info about their chili starter. https://www.muirglen.com/products/muir-glen-chili-starter
She found the 28 oz. can at Grocery Outlet for $.99 (yes, ninety-nine cents!) and bought two, one mild and one medium. She browned and drained the excess fat from the ground beef and added the tomatoes and beans. As extras on top she chopped up some onion and cilantro and served those separately with sour cream and tortilla chips. We just could not get over how good it was. We ate the whole pot!
Omnivore 