Vegan whole grain penne with mushrooms and broccolini. 7/22/20

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Beebamom

Penne with mushrooms and broccolini

I really enjoy eating a big bowl of pasta but my healthy eating plan wants me to eat fewer carbs. What to do? First, select a whole grain pasta and second, make a sauce which is loaded with vegetables – your eyes will see a big bowl of pasta, your tummy will be satisfied, and your psyche will be happy. Our pasta contained about a 2 ounce penne portion for me with a load of onions, garlic, mushrooms, and broccolini stems and florets. The sauce was made with pasta water and a drizzle of olive oil. Win, win, win!

 

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Chicken breast with rice and broccoli. 7/21/20

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Beebamom

Chicken breast with rice and broccoli

I know it is chicken breast again! Last week to make it a little different I ate the chicken with BBQ sauce. This week I ate it with soy sauce. At first we were going to have rutabagas instead of rice but it turned out that they were so woody that we had to throw the whole lot of cooked rutabaga out. That made me angry! Luckily John had made some rice earlier in the day for some concoction he was having for lunch so at least we had a last minute back-up.

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Red lentils with kale and mushrooms. 7/20/20

Posted on July 20, 2020 by Beebamom

Red lentils and kale

Red lentils are an excellent quick-cook dinner. Cooked along with onions, garlic, ginger and a spice mix of turmeric, cumin, cayenne pepper, and salt, the lentils are ready in about 15 minutes after you add either your vegetable or chicken broth. A ratio of 2.5 parts liquid to 1 part lentils will give you a slightly soupy mixture. Stir in a little lemon juice after they are cooked for a little acidity.

We served the lentils with sautéed kale. First I sautéed mushrooms, onions, and garlic. Then I added the kale stems and a little water so the stems could steam. When they were tender I put in the chopped kale leaves and sautéed everything together for about 3 minutes.

 

 

 

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Weekly Menu, July 19-26, 2020

Posted on July 20, 2020 by Beebamom

This week features four vegetarian meals three of which are vegan, two seafood, and one chicken dinners. I really like all these meals but am especially fond of the Thai spicy tofu and eggplant dish. It is an adaptation of our favorite dinner at our local Thai place (which we have not been to in such a long time! ) New dish this week is pan roasted salmon with a curried cucumber yogurt sauce.

 

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Fresh, vegan sauce for penne. 7/18/20

Posted on July 18, 2020 by Beebamom

Pasta is one of my favorite foods to eat. But I really have to watch the sauces that I pair with it so I do not exceed my caloric intake for the day. For me, what could be better than a bowl of whole grain penne with a fresh, vegan sauce made from a couple of teaspoons of olive oil, onions, bell pepper, garlic, homegrown tomatoes and zucchini, plus a little pasta water?

Vegetable sauce cooking

In the time it takes to heat the water and cook the pasta my sauce is ready to be tossed with the penne. I foresee many great pasta dinners in the future using delicious, summer vegetables!

Whole grain penne with vegetable sauce

 

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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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