Simply spaghetti. 12/1/18

Last night we opened a jar of Bertolli tomato sauce and cooked up some thick spaghetti. I usually make my own sauces but we got a late start on supper so it was the jar for us. I am not ashamed because I do not leave the sauce the way it comes out of the jar. I add onions and garlic, oregano, and maybe a hint of red wine and red wine vinegar to tone the sweetness down. I am liking this thick spaghetti. It has a good chew to it.

As sometimes happens I get so excited when we are having pasta that I forget to take a picture. So here is an old pasta picture.

Spaghetti with tomato sauce

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Sonoma Wine Country. 11/30/18

Since my birthday is a week from tomorrow, we figure that it is a good time to start celebrating early. December will be a month of celebrating and travel so there will not be a whole lot of cooking. But I will be happy to send along some great restaurant dishes and the occasional home cooked meal.

Our day started with a stop at Jacuzzi Winery, home of The Olive Press, where we always stop to sample the olive oils and get our bottles refilled. Today we get a new pressing of Arbequina olive oil. We use these better oils as finishing oils while we use a more generic EVOO for everyday cooking.

Here’s a picture of John next to Santa at the Jacuzzi Winery and The Olive Press.

Santa and John

Next we stop at Imagery Winery to pick up our Wine Club allotment. For agreeing to a certain number of bottles per year you get a 20% discount. Also you get a free tasting of their recent offerings. So John and I try a few sips. It is fun as long as you do not enroll in too many wine clubs or have too many sips!

For a late lunch we try the recently opened Salt and Stone restaurant in Kenwood, CA. I think we make very reasonable choices.

John orders roasted octopus with chickpeas

I order a grilled octopus, mango, tomatoes, and greens salad

After lunch we head for home trying not to get caught in rush hour traffic. Sonoma County wine country is beautiful even in late November and a nice break from the urban/suburban bustle.

Looking out over the fields of autumnal grape vines

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Last of the tomatoes. 11/29/18

We are down to the last of our tomatoes from this year’s crop. To mark the occasion and as a preview to our upcoming trip to Italy I made a dress-your-own salad with oil and vinegar accompanied by a slice of pizza. This is often a go-to lunch when we are in Italy.

Red leaf lettuce, tomatoes, and blue cheese dressed with olive oil and red wine vinegar
Cheese and tomato pizza with Italian sausage


Sadly November tomatoes are not nearly as good as August ones. But our Italy preview dinner makes us happily anticipate the real thing next month!

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Ethiopian lunch. 11/28/18

I do not cook a new dinner because this is the fabulous food I had for lunch!

Ethiopian veggie combo and yebeg tips (crispy lamb)

My daughter and I took a break from outlet mall shopping (where we bought nothing) for a fine Ethiopian lunch at Zeni’s in San Jose. The piles of assorted vegetables, lentils, yellow split peas, salad, and lamb are served upon a large spongy bread called injera. A basket of injera is also served and used as your utensil. You tear off a small piece and use it to pick up a small scoop of vegetables or lamb. The food is exotically spiced and delicious. We had plenty leftover to take home.

While our daughter ate our lunch leftovers for dinner, John and I scrounged around in the refrigerator and ate up the remnants of our turkey casserole with toast.

If you have not tried Ethiopian or Eritrean food, I heartily suggest giving it a go. It is delicious and fun to eat!

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Sweet Italian sausage and polenta. 11/27/18

Here is a nice change if you are tired of the turkey routine, sweet Italian sausage with plenty of sautéed onions, bell pepper, and garlic over a bed of creamy polenta. In order to make things go faster, John starts the sausages in a pan with some olive oil and about a quarter inch of water, while I cut up and sauté the veg in another. The sausages steam while the water evaporates and then they brown. This keeps you from getting too hard a crust on them. We combine the veg and the sausages in my pan at the end of cooking.

John makes the polenta in a 5 to 1 ration to insure it stays creamy. He adds a few sprigs of thyme while it’s simmering and a little butter and Parmesan near the end of cooking.

Sweet Italian sausages with onions, peppers, and garlic over a bed of polenta

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Dinner in a Dish. 11/26/18

When John and I were married we received this cookbook as a gift –

Betty Crocker’s Dinner in a Dish

As far as I can tell I have made two dishes from it in the last 46 years, Tuna with Calico Corn Muffins and Wild Rice-Chicken Casserole. Yesterday John made the casserole with the last of our turkey and all we need to do is heat a piece up for dinner.

Wild rice and turkey casserole

I am including a picture of the recipe which looks like it has gone through the wars. We only made 1/3 of the original recipe because the original recipe is a “crowd pleaser.”

Wild Rice-Chicken Casserole recipe

I have updated the recipe somewhat. We use a box of  Near East’s Wild Rice and Long Grain Rice so it is not 100% wild rice. We also use fresh mushrooms, not canned and omit the green bell pepper. I usually serve it with a spicy peri peri sauce because it is kind of rich and bland. Today I make a vinegary cole slaw to go with it.

Last of the Thanksgiving turkey

Tomorrow, Italian sausages with peppers and onions! I am finished with Thanksgiving!!!

 

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Planning ahead. 11/25/18

Yesterday I thought to myself, if I do not start planning and cooking ahead my whole house of cards is going to fall down.   I am not sleeping well and I need occasional little naps. Often I need a little lie down late in the afternoon when I should be thinking of making dinner, not sleeping. I have plenty of time during the early part of the day. John does too. So between the two of us we concocted two meals right after lunch to last for today and tomorrow. I am hoping that we can continue to do some prep work earlier in the day that will make dinner easier.

Here is what we prepared for tonight –

Fresh tomato sauce with olives, capers, and garlic

And Monday’s dinner –

Wild rice and turkey casserole

And here is tonight’s dinner which with our advance prep took about 20 minutes. It is topped with breadcrumbs and garlic chips.

Spaghetti with fresh tomatoes, capers, olives and garlic topped with breadcrumbs and garlic chips

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More leftovers. 11/24/18

On Friday we had Thanksgiving redo. In order to not have the turkey get over cooked in the reheating process or the creamed onions sauce to break, we sealed them in some bags and used the immersion circulator to heat them up. It worked really well set at 135F.

Now it is Saturday and we are supposed to be preparing spaghetti with olives, capers, tomatoes, and garlic breadcrumbs. But guess what? It is much easier to pull out some more turkey and gravy and serve it over English muffins with some broccoli! I am not proud of this but it seems to be the way I roll these days. Tomorrow I am making the spaghetti sauce first thing in the morning so we do not end up with Chinese take-out!

Turkey breast and gravy over English muffin with broccoli

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Thanksgiving 11/22/18

Happy Thanksgiving! We have finally finished cleaning up and have had our first day of leftovers. Our daughter is taking the remnants of our meal to a Friendsgiving today so all we will have left is some turkey that I plan on making into a turkey and wild rice  casserole in the next few days.

John went piecemeal with the turkey this year buying a whole bone-in turkey breast and four thighs. He de-boned the thighs and stuffed them with cornbread stuffing. The thighs were then rolled, tied, and roasted. It came out great!

Roasted turkey breast and stuffed thighs

Next here are my Brussels sprouts cooking down in a little sugar, salt, butter, water, and dry sherry. Once the liquid is gone they will brown. The 120 B. Sprout halves took two big pans to lay out flat. This was cooked at the last minute.

Brussels sprouts cooking

Our daughter made oven-roasted creamed onions and our son made a Mexican style corn dish. No frozen onions here! She peeled all 60 onions herself. Frozen onions lack texture.

Roasted creamed onions and corn

Here are some mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce. Our grandkids made the cranberry sauce and crescent rolls. Those are the only two things they eat at Thanksgiving. John also made a great turkey gravy to have with the meat, potatoes, and stuffing.

Cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes

In addition we also had hors d’ouevres, a broccoli dish, stimparata (Italian marinated olives), additional stuffing, gravy, red and white wine, three kinds of pie, and ice cream. We serve our dinner buffet style so the food stays hot and there is no passing around.

Daughter at the buffet table

And with this rendition of Thanksgiving I am passing my apron strings on to the next generation and will be a guest next year instead of the host. We shall see what happens!

 

 

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Chickpea stew with turkey sausage. 11/20/18

I finish up the chickpea stew that I made this morning with ditalini, a package of dark greens (no Romaine), and a little turkey sausage to make it hardier. It is actually fine without the meat but I am trying to use up extraneous bits in my refrigerator. It is pretty crowded at the moment what with all the Thanksgiving preparations. After ladling the stew into bowls, we finish the dish with parmesan cheese and some really good olive oil. I am so glad I made this in the morning because by the time it is dinner time I do not feel like making anything!

Chickpea stew with turkey sausage

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