Anniversary scallops! 7/17/20

Posted on July 17, 2020 by Beebamom

Since it is our anniversary we are having a special dinner. Usually we try to dine out at some fabulous restaurant for our special occasion. But not this year. So we made our favorite dinner which is panko breaded, deep-fried scallops. So good.

We started out with shrimp cocktail and crudités with cocktail sauce. The wine we are drinking is a 2015 Stonestreet, Broken Road Vineyard, Chardonnay. It was yummy!

Shrimp, crudités, and cocktail sauce

Stonestreet Chardonnay

We have an old electric wok which we use for our very infrequent frying. John plugs it into an outlet on the patio so that we don’t have cooking oil all over the kitchen. After breading the scallops they only take a couple of minutes in the hot oil. I steamed up some new potatoes and grilled the asparagus. Since we were dining al fresco, most of cooking was done outside.

Even though we could not dine at a fancy restaurant we still had a wonderful meal for a fraction of the cost. Hopefully next year the pandemic will be behind us and we can look forward to dining out and traveling again.

Fried scallops with tartar sauce and grilled asparagus, and steamed new potatoes

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Chicken breast with rice and broccoli. 7/16/20

Posted on July 16, 2020 by Beebamom

John sous vide the chicken breast, the rice was left over from the other night, and I made a lot of broccoli. There were no leftovers tonight! We topped our broccoli with Parmesan cheese and I had bbq sauce on my chicken. John went with sriracha.

We have been cooking every day for about 120 days–no dining out, no take-out, no convenience food. After all this time it is hard to be creative.

Chicken breast with rice and broccoli

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Split chickpea stew (Chana Dal). 7/15/20

Posted on July 16, 2020 by Beebamom

I know this dinner appears often and that is because of all the dals we make this is our favorite. Tonight it had kale stems cooked with the stew in the Instant Pot and the cut up leaves sauteed in another pan. I also added the broccolini tops I had left over from the orecchiette meal. John made some white rice to soak up the juices. Yum!

Chana dal with kale, broccolini, and white rice

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Salmon with mango salsa. 7/14/20

Posted on July 14, 2020 by Beebamom

First, let me say that we did eat on Monday and I forgot to take a picture! Our son took the day off from work and came over to play tennis and enjoy an al fresco lunch (which was our main meal.)  John and the kids had New York style sweet sausages in buns and I had a piece of turkey sausage with no bun. I made some tasty enhanced canned sauerkraut and our daughter made a fattoush-like salad but without the bread with produce from her garden.  Here is a picture of sort of what we had on Monday from 2019.

Here is the recipe I used for the sauerkraut. https://www.loavesanddishes.net/how-to-cook-canned-sauerkraut/   I added some crushed juniper berries and extra caraway seeds because it needed some bitterness. BTW canned sauerkraut is supposed to be tastier than the sauerkraut you get in glass jars or bags because it does not contain chemicals to keep it from turning brown.  The ingredients are cabbage, salt, water and nothing else.

Sausage with and without bun, sauerkraut, and whole grain mustard

Okay, on to Tuesday! We tried a new recipe that came to me via email from Whole Foods. They had fresh salmon on sale so they suggested we might try Baked Salmon with Warm Mango Salsa. Here is their recipe. https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/baked-salmon-warm-mango-salsa.

The first time you make something there are bound to be errors. In our case the timing for cooking our piece of salmon was off. Although still tasty, the salmon was overcooked. We will know for next time to bake it for fewer minutes. The salsa was super good and I made some tasty black beans to keep dinner in a Caribbean vibe.

Baked salmon with warm mango salsa, rice, and black beans

Posted in American, Easy, Fish, Kitchen tips, Legumes, pescatarian, Recipes, rice, Vegetables | Tagged | Leave a comment

Lentils with veg (optional turkey sausage)

Posted on July 13, 2020 by Beebamom

Here the humble brown lentil is our dinner star. They cook in about 20 minutes. The supporting cast is carrot, onion, celery, spinach, garlic, mushrooms, tomatoes, green onion, and optional turkey sausage.

Lentils with veg plus optional turkey sausage

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Anniversary Weekly Menu. July 12-18, 2020

Posted on July 12, 2020 by Beebamom

John and I eloped on July 17, 1972, forty-eight years ago. I know that most if not all of the people who follow my blog were not even alive yet when we decided that we were going to get married and not our families, our differences, nor our finances were going to stop us. Look at us now-still happily cooking together every night, still playing tennis together when we can, and still enjoying each other’s company.

Crossing Lake Champlain on our honeymoon

 

 

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Scallops, new potatoes, collards and corn

Posted on July 10, 2020 by Beebamom

Next week is our anniversary. Since we cannot go out to eat anywhere we are making one of our favorite meals, fried scallops with new potatoes and asparagus (or some vegetable.) Tonight’s dinner of sautéed scallops is almost as good and also one of our favorites. The scallops make both dinners extra-special. They are sweet and delicious and low in calories too! How often does that happen?!

Sauteed scallops with new potatoes and collards and corn

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Orecchiette with broccolini and mushrooms. 7/9/20

Posted on July 9, 2020 by Beebamom

I first ate orecchiette with bitter greens in October, 2011 in the quaint town of Alberobello, Italy. Alberobello is the home of the Trulli, conical buildings which house everything, restaurants, hotels, churches, and especially gift shops. It is a great tourist attraction.

The Trulli houses of Alberobello, Italy

In one of these restaurant Trulli we stop for lunch. The essence of Italian food is local and uncomplicated. Orecchiette with bitter greens and olive oil is just such a dish. In our rendition we include mushrooms for more bulk and a difference in texture. The sauce is made with the pasta water and good olive oil is drizzled on top.

Orecchiette with broccolini and mushrooms

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Chilean sea bass with rutabaga and snow peas. 7/8/20

Posted on July 8, 2020 by Beebamom

This was a delicious fish dinner. We had bought a bag of frozen Chilean sea bass at Costco and had three pieces left. John marinated them briefly in olive oil, garlic powder, paprika, lemon zest, salt, and bay leaf. The cooking was done in a 400F oven for 12 minutes for the thinner pieces and 15 minutes for the thicker piece. I made a mayo, lemon juice, mustard, parsley, caper, olive oil sauce and reheated our leftover rutabaga and sautéed snow peas. The dinner was a great success! It was so easy and took little time at all. I always feel daunted by the idea of cooking fish but this simple dinner is changing my mind.

Chilean sea bass, rutabaga, and snow peas

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Gujarati dal (split pigeon peas) 7/7/20

Posted on July 7, 2020 by Beebamom

This dal is made with split pigeon peas or Toor dal. It has the usual spices plus peanuts, chile, and tomatoes.  After sautéing the tempering and spices the rest of the ingredients go into the Instant Pot for five minutes under pressure. I used this recipe – https://pipingpotcurry.com/gujarati-dal/ With the exception of the peanuts, I thought this was a lot like Chana dal. We served it with baby kale and white rice and a garnish of lime and cilantro.

Gujarati dal

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