We have spent all day yesterday flying across the country and we have landed in San Juan, Puerto Rico where we board our ship. It is easy to overeat on a cruise ship. The food is endless. My plan for lunches is to eat the fish of the day and some salads and vegetables. I do a good job today with a piece of nicely cooked salmon, a piece of broccoli, a little warm fennel and onion, and squid salad. I am feeling pretty good about myself!
Salmon with vegetables and salad
John is working at his office today so I am flying solo tonight for dinner. This pasta fagioli is based on a recipe by Giada De Laurentiis of Food Network fame. You can take a look at her recipe here. The changes I make are to add carrots and celery, use cannellini and kidney beans, sub out the chicken stock for half veg stock and half water, add Parmesan rinds to the stock, and sub in ditalini for macaroni. Although it is easy to make this soup vegetarian by leaving out the pancetta, the pancetta does give it an incredible depth of flavor. But if you do use the pancetta, do not use additional salt!
This turns out so delicious!! Plus I have an additional portion of it to freeze or serve with tomorrow night’s purchased sandwiches!
Pasta fagioli
Eating asparagus always tastes like springtime. I am old enough to remember when asparagus was only available for a few weeks and during that time it seemed like asparagus was omnipresent in every meal. Now, of course, we can eat it almost any time of the year (but not for $1.99/lb.!)
I cut the asparagus into the same shape as the penne and really only cook it while adding the penne, pasta water, pepper, and parmesan together to make a sauce. It turns out kind of like cacio e pepe except with penne instead of strands and asparagus.
Penne and asparagus
As I said we are keeping things pretty simple this week. We start dinner off tonight with a bagged salad that I enhance with various toppings.
Salad
The weather is lovely today so it is great for grilling. John cooks us each a burger and I add a bit of onion and lettuce to mine.
Burger with onion and lettuce
After preparing dinners from all over the world this week, we come back to a humble chicken dinner to finish off the work week. John bakes the chicken thighs in the oven and then crisps the skin under the broiler. I reheat the rice from Thursday and steam some broccoli.
We are child-watching Saturday night while our son and his wife go to a wedding. I am making Beeba’s much loved mac ‘n cheese (the blue box) for the kids and toting along some of our leftover lasagna for adult dinner. That being said, no new posts until Sunday or Monday when we will be having a short week since we are leaving on Thursday for vacation.
Roast chicken thighs, basmati rice, steamed broccoli
Biryani is an Indian dish thought to have been brought to India by Arab traders and has an etymology stemming from the Persian word for rice. Since it is the first day of Spring, it is also Nowruz, a new year’s celebration which is observed by more than 300 million people from the Balkans to the Black Sea Basin to Central Asia to the Middle East. Plus the Indian Spring festival of Holi is also occurring. I am always looking for an inspiration to cook something and today’s shrimp biryani seems like a good way to celebrate Spring.
Shrimp biryani
John marinates the shrimp in the same spices I am using for the rice – ginger, chili powder, smoked paprika, turmeric, salt, and garlic. I am making the basmati rice in the Instant Pot using those spices plus a can of tomatoes, water, onions, and lime zest which is standing in for curry leaves today. When the rice is cooked, I add some lime juice to it and John quickly sautés the shrimp. Our Spring dinner is garnished with cilantro and lime wedges.
When we were planning this week’s menu, John suggested we have a family favorite that we hadn’t had for quite a while. Hmm, Kenwood shrimp? Eggplant parmigiana? BBQ ribs? I suggest lasagna – end of discussion.
Lasagna
Who does not love lasagna with its tangy sauce and creamy cheese? Plus it is a one pot dinner if you use the parboiled noodles. The last time we ate lasagna was for Christmas dinner in Florence. It is always a good time, special meal. I make the sauce in the morning and assemble the lasagna at dinner time. It is so good!
Piece of lasagna
I bet you are thinking of making lasagna for yourself right now!!
Today is not all about baking (see my other post, Nana Banana Cake) we also need to eat dinner! While John is taking lead on the dinner making the sausage and polenta, I have a supporting role in the onions, peppers, and garlic.
Dinner cooking on the stove
John makes his polenta with a 5:1 water to polenta ratio and starts the sausages in some water and later browns them off. The polenta is deliciously loose and the sausage are well-cooked but not dry. The topping of onions, peppers, and garlic is yummy.
Sweet Italian sausage with onions, peppers, and garlic on polenta
Nana Banana Cake
On Saturday is our daughter’s birthday. Last week I bought a couple of bananas hoping that they will ripen enough for me to make one of the few desserts that I know how to make – Nana banana cake. John’s mother, also known as the Dragon Lady, was a terrible cook but she did make a great banana cake. When John first told me his mother was totally inept in the kitchen (except for the banana cake) I thought he was kidding. But over the years the kids and I experienced first hand how horrific her cooking was. She would cook her masterpieces all at once but never serve them at the moment. Then she would serve them all at once a few days later. So a meal might consist of a rewarmed steak, a bowl of tuna salad, a few green beans, some applesauce, and whatever else was left mouldering in the refrigerator.
By the time our kids were 8 and 11 they knew to fear dinner at Nana’s. We have a rule in our house never to eat at any restaurant with the words, Cap’n, Mom’s, Kitchen, as well as Mr or Mrs., and the distinction of being “homemade” especially if spelled “homade.” In what has become a meme in our household, an eleven year-old Jonathan proclaimed at the table that eating at Nana’s was like dining at Cap’n Mom’s Kitchen obviously for the best homade food.
But I digress. The bananas are ripe and even though it is a few days early I make banana cake, daughter blows out a candle, and we dig in with a fond remembrance of John’s mother.
Omnivore 