Tonight we gave into the hardcore carnivore within each of us and made lamb chops with a baked potato and asparagus.
Broiled lamb chops with baked potato and asparagus
Since we do not have a reliable cooktop here John broiled the lamb chops in the oven, I microwaved the potatoes, and I only used the cooktop for the asparagus. Our daughter scooped out her potato and made it twice baked style with butter, onions, and cheese. I think we all enjoyed this change of pace dinner.
Lentils with chicken sausage, onions, carrots, and celery
Although we are trying to convince ourselves that we are on a “vacation” and not running away from fire and smoke, I still want to eat in a healthy manner. Because of the pandemic and my diet, dining out is not a good choice. But cooking in a strange kitchen is hard! The A/C in the kitchen blows across the gas cooktop making it difficult to get a constant heat source. The lentils I cooked tonight cooked at least twice as long, absorbing the cooking liquid but not ever really softening.
Later I tried to hard boil some eggs and put a small pot on to heat. After 15 minutes it still had not come to a boil! I finally gave up and put the eggs in and cooked them for another 15 minutes. The water never came to a boil! The eggs were cooked but just barely. Anyway, just saying, that it has been a cooking adventure.
You may have noticed that I did not publish a weekly menu or any updates for a few days. We have been dealing with the fires and smoke in Northern California. Over the weekend our air had fallen into the hazardous range so we decided to find some better air on Monday. After packing up important papers and sentimental items in case our house burned down, we left for St. George, Utah. We rented a condo with a kitchen so now I am able to get back to my usual routine. (BTW the fires are getting under control and we plan on returning next week.)
Sauteed shrimp, yellow rice, broccoli
Cooking in a strange kitchen temporarily is a challenge. The pots and pans are different and you do not have the wide array of spices and condiments that you have at home. I really do not want to buy too much basic stuff so we are lacking things like ketchup and mayo, oregano, cumin, and lots of other things. On Monday night after our long drive we just bought some prepared food but on Tuesday we were ready to tackle something homemade. The result was sauteed shrimp, with yellow rice (by Vigo), and broccoli. It turned out fine and we had so much broccoli that our daughter had it as a healthy side to blue box mac and cheese!
Hopefully we will be cooking for the rest of the week in our new clean air digs.
Pinto bean tacos, spicy tomato rice, and diced mango
Our taco meal was surprisingly filling and satisfying. The canned pinto beans were cooked with onion, garlic, Serrano chile, and cumin. The beans went into stovetop toasted corn tortillas and then garnished with salsa, cabbage, and cilantro. One of our sides was white rice with fresh tomatoes, Serrano chile, and cumin and the other was refreshing diced mango seasoned with salt, cracked pepper, and a squeeze of lime.
Chickpeas with assorted vegetables and pasta
Each time we make this dinner it is a little different from the last time. This time we added a can of tomatoes with chiles which gave it a nice zing. Sometimes we add fennel instead of celery, this time we added celery and zucchini. Our finishing greens vary as well—kale, or chard, but tonight I was lazy and just bought a container of mixed hearty greens. So what I am saying is chickpea stew/soup is endlessly variable and always a welcome addition to the week’s menu.
Pan-seared salmon, creamy parsley sauce, rice/cauliflower rice, broccoli, and snow peas
This was a quick cooking dinner. There was, of course, some prep time for making the sauce, seasoning the fish, cutting up the veg, and steaming the rice. John took care of the rice in the morning so all we had to do was re-heat it in the microwave. (I added some cauliflower rice to my portion of rice so I could have more!) The salmon cooks in about 5 minutes which is enough time to get the broccoli and snow peas cooked as well.
The sauce turned out really well. I used 2 tablespoons of light mayo, 1/2 teaspoon of yellow mustard, a chopped up dill pickle spear, a handful of chopped parsley leaves, a tablespoon of water, and a dash of salt, garlic, and curry powder to make the creamy sauce. I think capers would have been good in there too! The sauce really lifted the dinner into the “fancy dinner” realm.
The fires here in Northern California are getting close to us and we will pack an emergency go-bag this afternoon. We are hoping that the fire takes a different course or gets under control before it gets to our town. It is 14 miles away currently but the wind is pushing it in our direction. It is better to be prepared and have a plan.
Asian-inspired cold pasta with crunchy raw vegetables
I was looking through recipes trying to find another hot weather dish when I came upon Mark Bittman’s Cold Sesame Noodles with Crunchy Vegetables in NY Times Cooking. Of course the recipe had me making a fancy sauce, using a ton of oil and tahini, and Asian noodles. What I did have on hand was a bottle of peanut sauce, a box of whole grain linguine, and a number of crunchy vegetables.
In the morning John cooked up 5 oz. of linguine, cooled it down, and kept it from sticking to itself with one teaspoon of sesame oil. The slicked up linguine went into the refrigerator to await dinner time. While he was busy with the pasta, I chopped up some scallions, red bell pepper, snow peas, and cucumber. (I peeled and de-seeded the cucumber then salted it so that excess water would drain off.) Shortly before dinner we took the pasta out to get it closer to room temperature and right before dinner stirred in 2 tablespoons of peanut sauce and the raw vegetables. A little sriracha gave it a nice spiciness and peanuts were added for extra crunch. Garnish with mint or cilantro.
This is a great hot weather dish to make ahead. Both you and your kitchen will stay cool!
Stir fried vegetables and shrimp with a combination of white rice and cauliflower rice
I love what we call a GBOF, a giant bowl of food. Each of us who become overweight, get there in different ways. For some it is desserts and others too much snacking. Or maybe it’s fried foods and butter laden vegetables. In my case, I do not snack or eat fried foods, and I almost never eat desserts. I just do not like sweet things. For me, my problem is eating too much of a good thing with a side of wine. My members when I used to work for Weight Watchers would always say, “You shoudn’t be fat!” But as I said, each of us gets overweight in our own way.
So, back to my GBOF. I still eat a lot but I have changed what is in the bowl. Tonight I made my bowl with a lean protein and added a lot of different vegetables-onion, leek, scallion, bell pepper, carrot, celery, snow peas, broccoli, and cabbage. My rice was 1/4 cup white rice and 1/4 cup cauliflower rice. Our stir fry was cooked in 2 teaspoons of oil-1 for me and 1 for John. We used Chinese herbs and spices. It was really good and met my need for a giant bowl of food without doing diet damage.
Now I am working on not going back for seconds!
Avocado toast with a dinner salad
Here we are keeping it cool on another hot night. We have the threat of rolling blackouts from our electric company so we are doing our part by turning our thermostat to 79F, keeping our blinds closed, not using the oven, and sitting in the semi-darkness. As it turns out, enough Californians conserved energy yesterday to keep the blackouts from happening.
Our trendy dinner features avocado toast and a dinner salad. Avocados were 2 for $1 at the local grocery and seemed too good a buy to pass up. Unfortunately, although they were ripe, they were not very flavorful. I dressed my mash with lemon juice and plenty of salt and pepper but they just were not as good as I had hoped. The dinner salad that I made was based on the premise that the avocado toast was not going to fill us up. I figured including a hard boiled egg and some chickpeas would help with satiation. Dinner was colorful and for the most part quite tasty.
Scrambled eggs, vegetable patty, rye toast, and salad
As usual we are having breakfast for dinner on Sunday night. John and I go our separate cooking ways with him always making a omelet and me usually making some sort of scrambled eggs. I have been hungry today so I knew I needed a lot of components to my dinner so it would not be over with so fast. Having a salad with dinner (as much as I hate making salad) is a good way to add some filling food. Since we have all these fabulous tomatoes from our daughter’s garden, the salad making chore is less onerous. I scrambled up a couple of eggs and microwaved the veggie patty. I see the label on the patties says they are vegetarian not vegan but I am okay with that. I spray some butter spray on the toast to make it more palatable. Voila, dinner!
Tomatoes and mushrooms make my salad more exciting!
Omnivore 