Thai – Spicy basil eggplant with tofu (vegan) 8/6/20

Posted on August 6, 2020 by Beebamom

Spicy thai basil eggplant and tofu with rice

Since we have been creating our international dishes this week, we have run into quite a backlog of leftovers. I am skipping the Chana dal this week and doing a replay of our chicken chili on Friday before finishing up the week on Saturday with shrimp tacos.

Our Thai dish really moves along quickly so you need to have everything prepared to go into your pan before you get started. The recipe for this dish is here but much like me you will probably need to tweak the sauce and make more of it. I also cut up a medium onion to add along with the bell pepper. The chile we added was rather lackluster so we boosted the spiciness with sriracha. So far every time we make spicy Thai basil eggplant it comes out a little differently. Be sure to make notes as to what you have added or changed on the recipe so yours comes out consistently.

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Southwestern – Chicken Chili. 8/5/20

Posted on August 5, 2020 by Beebamom

Chicken chili with garden cherry tomatoes

Our next stop in our tour around the culinary world comes from the U.S. Southwest. This easy chicken chili uses a Costco rotisserie chicken* and canned cannellini beans. I used the Neely’s Chicken Chili recipe which you can find at Food Network. Last time I made chicken chili I used one can of cannellini beans and one can of non-fat refried beans as the thickener. This time, since I did not have any refrieds, I followed the recipe’s suggestion of mashing one can of the cannellini. It came out a little soupier. I finished off my bowl with a handful of tasty, home-grown cherry tomatoes and a dollop of yogurt with cumin.

*Note: The Costco chicken is too large to use the whole thing. I used one breast, shredded. It was plenty for John and me plus we have leftovers.

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Italian – pasta with mushrooms and broccolini. 8/4/20

Posted on August 4, 2020 by Beebamom

Orecchiette with mushrooms and broccolini

I love making pasta with vegetables. It is so simple. You just cook up your onions, garlic, and mushrooms and then when close to when the pasta is done cooking, you add the broccolini. A little olive oil and pasta water makes all the sauce you need. I added a fresh tomato salad for extra color.

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Tropical salmon. 8/3/20

Posted on August 3, 2020 by Beebamom

Pan seared salmon, tropical salsa, rice, broccoli, and cherry tomatoes

John said, first thing, that salmon was not a fish you find in the tropics. This was followed by broccoli not being a tropical vegetable. Undaunted I continued with my plans and I think that this colorful plate looks inviting and tropical! The inspiration for this dinner came by way of a lot of leftover fruit salad that I made for brunch with our son’s family on Sunday. It had mango, watermelon, strawberries, pineapple, apples, blueberries, and nectarines in it. I picked out the blueberries and apples which are definitely not tropical and added a Serrano chile, cilantro, green onion, and salt. It went well with the salmon and everything on the plate. Even though we cannot go to the tropics, we can still eat like we are on vacation.

 

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International weekly menu. August 2-8, 2020

Posted on August 3, 2020 by Beebamom

This week is a trip around the world through dinners we make. We are missing traveling a lot so these dinners will help us reminisce about past trips’ adventures and mis-adventures.

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Vegetable fried (cauliflower) rice with egg. 8/2/20

Posted on August 2, 2020 by Beebamom

Vegetable fried cauliflower rice with egg

Usually I do not go to this much trouble on Sunday but the idea of a plain scrambled egg was just too boring! So kicking off International Week I made an Asian inspired fried rice using my recently acquired cauliflower rice (Trader Joe’s), a bunch of vegetables, a slice of deli ham, and an egg cooked like a pancake and then sliced up. I made a tasty sauce with soy sauce, fish sauce, water, rice vinegar, Splenda, and pepper flakes.

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Seared scallops, broccoli, new potatoes. 8/1/20

Posted on August 1, 2020 by Beebamom

Seared scallops, broccoli with lemon zest, and new potatoes

Well, here it is August and we are no closer to getting through with this pandemic than we were three months ago. Maybe conditions are worse. But we have to eat and I am going to cook my way through this and lose weight at the same time. I am giving myself a little pat on the back because as of this week I have lost 50 lbs!

John made some delectable seared scallops for our Saturday night dinner. No fried scallops this time but seared ones are almost as good. Our portion size was a little larger because John wanted to use up the remnants of a bag. We plan on going to Costco for some new ones next week.

For my part I steamed the potatoes and served them with a squeeze of lemon. I also did a quick sauté on the broccoli and made the florets fancy with a little faux butter and some lemon zest.

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Instant Pot pigeon peas ala Chana dal. 7/31/20

Posted on July 31, 2020 by Beebamom

Pigeon peas ala Chana dal with spinach and peanuts

When we went to India Bazaar we got a very large bag of dried pigeon peas (toor dal). There are not too many toor dal recipes so we decided to prepare them much the same as we do Chana dal which uses dried chickpeas. However, as we came to find out, pigeon peas do not hold on to their texture in the Instant Pot even though we hadn’t soaked them. So we ended up with tasty mush.

Not to be deterred we added a bunch of spinach and a handful of peanuts to give the dish some crunch. I also extended my half cup of rice with half cup cauliflower rice which has some crunch as well. We ended up enjoying our dinner but I do not think we will cook pigeon peas ala Chana dal again!

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Sous vide chicken breast with zucchini and potatoes. 7/30/20

Posted on July 30, 2020 by Beebamom

Sous vide chicken breast with parsley sauce, zucchini, and potatoes

Tonight’s chicken dinner was enhanced with the parsley sauce we made for the sea bass the other night. It is great when you can use a sauce for more than one dinner. The chicken itself is a little bland so having a sauce really stepped up this dinner. The zucchini are the first ones from our daughter’s garden and the combo of the onions, mushrooms, and olive oil gave the vegetables some extra sweetness. Even though we only had about 5oz. of potatoes between the two of us, they rounded out the dinner nicely.

 

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Pasta puttanesca. 7/29/20

Posted on July 29, 2020 by Beebamom

Pasta puttanesca

This is without a doubt one of my favorite vegan dishes! I ate lightly all day so that I could have three ounces of whole grain spaghetti with the yummy, salty tomato sauce laden with chile flakes, olives, and capers. I did not use oil in making the sauce so I drizzled some over the top. I left my plate completely vegan while John shaved some cotija on his. (He says that it tastes like ricotta salata!)

YUM!

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