Sweet and salty grilled pork with herbs and citrus. 10/14/18

Posted on October 15, 2018 by Beebamom

This is a new recipe for us adapted from one I saw on The NY Times Cooking site. We do not usually cook pork because most cuts of pork are dry and tasteless. For this dish, though, we can use boneless pork spare ribs which come from a much tastier part of the pig. All it takes is a quick marinade in a fish sauce/brown sugar/lime juice concoction before John cooks on the very hot grill for a very short amount of time. In the meantime I make some rice and clean the hearty greens and herbs. Put it all together and you are done!

  • Sweet and salty grilled pork and citrus on a bed of rice, greens, and herbs
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BBQ chicken, Brussels sprout slaw, smashed potato salad. 10/13/18

Posted on October 14, 2018 by Beebamom

 We are supposed to be making Instant Pot Shrimp Biryani tonight but we cannot find curry leaves. Plus buying U-20 shrimp costs about $25.00 for a frozen pack. So while we are out at the store we have to change gears and find something else to prepare.

What we decide on after a good bit of dithering are chicken thighs on the grill with BBQ sauce, smashed new potatoes with olive oil and lemon thyme, and an extension of our leftover cole slaw. After looking at the quantity and  prices of cabbage I decide to buy eight Brussels sprouts and shred them on my mandoline. Sprouts and cabbage are in the same family and the result is that the cole slaw is improved by the addition of the hardier Brussels sprouts.

  • Grilled BBQ c;hicken thighs, smashed potato salad, Brussels sprout cole slaw
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It is still summer here. 10/12/18

Posted on October 13, 2018 by Beebamom

Here it is almost the middle of October and the high temperature yesterday was 89F. That is much too hot for this time of year. All the magazines and websites have articles extolling hardy fall dishes and I have no inclination to make them. Our daughter’s  tomatoes are still prolific so we are having gazpacho.

Gazpacho is so simple. I just put a bunch of vegetables, a little vinegar and oil, some hot sauce, and our daughter’s tomato purée in the blender. Since it is a little thick I add a bit of V8. What a quick dinner! (For a vegan soup omit sour cream)

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Gazpacho with a swirl of olive oil, a dollop of sour cream, and cucumber garnish

To make our dinner a bit more satisfying I make smashed chickpeas with olive oil and oregano plus tomato in a toasted pita pocket.

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Smashed chickpeas with olive oil, tomato, and oregano in toasted whole wheat pita

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Burger, slaw, chips. 10/11/18

Posted on October 12, 2018 by Beebamom

John grills the hamburgers. I make the cole slaw. We open a bag of chips. Dinner. (At least the cole slaw is homemade!) 

  • Grilled hamburger, cole slaw, chips
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Mushroom farrotto 10/10/18

Posted on October 11, 2018 by Beebamom

In farro with mushrooms the farro is taking the place of rice which would have made this dish mushroom risotto. Farro is a tasty grain and kind of looks like brown rice’s big brother with a nuttier flavor and a more pronounced chew. The nice thing about farrotto is that you do not have to stir it constantly like risotto. After sautéing the mushroom, garlic, and onions it just cooks at a low simmer for about 50 minutes and then you uncover it, turn up the heat, and reduce the leftover liquid while stirring hard to create a sauce.

It is pretty homely looking so I made a salad to brighten our plates up.

  • Green salad
    We are still getting tomatoes from our daughter’s plot

  • Farro with mushrooms and a green salad

We used some chicken and beef stock and some pancetta to bolster the flavor of this dish but you could easily make this vegan by using vegetable stock and make it heartier by using additional stock from soaking dried porcini mushrooms. The jumping off point for our dish is NY Times Cooking, Farro with Mushrooms. (Unfortunately no longer a free site)

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New recipes menu. 10/10/18

Posted on October 10, 2018 by Beebamom
We have three new recipes on a week that begins on a Wednesday and ends the following Monday. It is kind of a hybrid week since it is starting in the middle of one week and ending on Monday. John has told me that he does not want our weeks to begin on Monday going forward because it is a bad food shopping day. Okay, we will see how this works. Anyway here are this week’s entrees. There are three new recipes. I am excited!!
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Currying flavor. 10/9/18

Posted on October 10, 2018 by Beebamom

John and I arrive back in California around 10 AM which means we got up really early this morning to drive to Las Vegas for our flight. We need something simple for supper. Curried chicken and rice fits the bill!

My contribution is chopping the onions and carrots. I have hurt my back so am spending limited time standing up. So many hugs to John for taking the lead role in dinner tonight. It is a combination of chicken, rice, onions, garlic, raisins, and carrots cooked all together with a curry spice blend – an easy and enjoyable one pot meal.

  • Curried chicken and rice
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Mexican night. 10/7/18

Posted on October 8, 2018 by Beebamom
Since we are going home on Tuesday, this will be my last post until Wednesday. We have scrubbed the kitchen sparkly and cleared all the decks of everything in anticipation of a photographer coming to take pictures so we can sell our house. No eating in this house! Our final dinner is shrimp tacos with spicy black beans. John uses the grill to cook the skewered shrimp and toast up the tortillas. They both taste so good done this way that I think it will be our default way of making shrimp tacos.
  • Shrimp tacos and spicy black beans
For my part I season the black beans with cumin and add a can of Rotel and a little hot sauce. I make crema with yogurt, cumin, and salt. We have purchased some mango salsa which goes really well with the shrimp. A little cabbage, cilantro and a squeeze of lime and we are done!
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Steak, potatoes, salad. 10/6/18

Posted on October 7, 2018 by Beebamom
What could be more American than steak, potatoes, and a salad. The surprising thing, though, is that this dinner turned out much more delicious than any comparable dinner of recent memory. What is up with that?! John sous vide the steak but because it is a last minute substitution for the scallops we are supposed to have, he starts it from frozen and he cooks it at 125F for 2 1/2 hours. This is followed by a quick sear on the grill. Wow, is it good! Our rib eye cap weighs only 10 ounces raw and we split it between us. We take small bites savoring the depth of flavor.
  • Rib cap steak, steamed new potatoes, salad
My contributions are some steamed potatoes which I cut up, oil, and salt first and a salad using up bits and pieces of what we have left – some salad greens, parsley, cabbage, a little cucumber, a couple of small tomatoes, and some feta. Somehow tonight our dinner is the perfect storm of deliciousness.
Posted in American, Beef, Easy, Grilling, Kitchen tips, sous vide, Vegetables | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Planned-overs. 10/5/18

Posted on October 6, 2018 by Beebamom
On Thursday as I was making the couscous for dinner I thought that I would put in some vegetables to give it some color and texture. But I was also thinking, I know I will have leftover couscous and I can turn the couscous with its vegetables into a soup. For lunch today with the addition of a little turkey sausage I made couscous soup with vegetables and turkey sausage. We call this combination affectionately, sludge soup because the couscous tends to fall to the bottom.
  • Turkey sausage and couscous soup
And speaking of planned-overs, for dinner we defrost a container of spaghetti sauce. I made a large amount of  spaghetti sauce in June and froze three containers worth. We had one container the first day we arrived in Utah, one tonight, and I will save the other one for when we are back at the end of October.
Spaghetti with meat sauce
Not only do John and I consider planning, shopping, and cooking fun, we also save a ton of money by not eating out. The dollars it costs to make your own meal are about 1/6 of what you would  spend at a restaurant. I figure the amount we save must be at least $5000 a year. That it more than enough for a vacation!!
Posted in Beef, Easy, Italian, Kitchen tips, leftovers, Pasta, Vegetables | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment