Angel hair pasta and meatballs with tomato sauce
Yes, this is a go-to dinner when there is not enough time to make something else. I think I need to take the time to make some meatballs and freeze them instead of using these frozen ones from a bag. I ended up coughing the next morning and wonder if there is something in the list of ingredients that bothers my asthma.
South Indian thali
How delicious does that look!? Today daughter and I had lunch at a South Indian restaurant. I haven’t been out for a lot of Indian food and was pleasantly surprised at how terrific this dish was. This is thali. It is vegetarian and consists of many dipping sauces and a bowl of basmati rice plus a couple of pieces of naan. The dipping sauces were really delicious. Some were spicy and others sweet. Of course it was way too much for me to eat but now that I’ve tried this dish, I am eager to go again and try something else.
Seasonal vegetables with rutabaga/sweet potato chipotle mash and chicken breast with cilantro sauce
I have railed against those insipid saucersful of vegetables that restaurants call seasonal vegetables before. Let’s be clear, that dish of zucchini or yellow summer squash with horrid baby carrots and perhaps the odd bit of bell pepper or broccoli has nothing to do with what happens to be growing at the moment. It is either what they have leftover or what is cheapest or what comes out of a frozen bag (shudder!) If you are going to make this pathetic melange at least use fresh ingredients and put a little effort into it.
I took out the seeds and salted the zucchini and left it to sit for an hour or so to release some of its liquid and firm up. Into an oiled pan first go the onions and poblano chile for a little spice. When they are soft add the rinsed and patted dry zucchini and a carrot. (OMG, I actually spent a whole minute peeling and cutting it up instead of using tasteless baby carrots!) Cook this until crisp tender. Then I added the sliced garlic and halved cherry tomatoes. I seasoned the dish with a little chipotle powder and salt. It tasted good!
The rest of the meal included a mash of leftover rutabagas and a microwaved sweet potato. John sous vide the chicken breast and served it with a lime/cilantro sauce.
Pretty tasty Chicken Monday!
Seasonal vegetables
Penne pasta with mushrooms and onions
I see the pasta is a little blurry due to steam rising off of it. I am always in a hurry to eat pasta and did not wait to take the picture until it stopped steaming. Tonight we both ate dinner but each made our own. John was eating left over Chinese food and I am avoiding Chinese takeout because it triggers my asthma for some reason. So I guess from now on I will have to make Chinese food at home so I can control all the ingredients. There was a little penne left in the box from the other night so I made it simply with some sautéed mushrooms, onions and kale mix. It was fine.
Penne and cannelloni beans with vegetables
The real trick to this recipe is to make a sauce using the pasta water. I probably used about one cup. The water has the starchy goodness from the pasta and is further enhanced by the sweet starchiness of the beans. Along with a little olive oil the sauce is light and tasty. I sautéed the mushrooms, onions, garlic, and carrots. The penne was cooked very al dente and right before I dumped it on top of the vegetables I add cherry tomatoes, the cannellini beans, and a lot of a kale and arugula mix (Kale Italia.) With the heat fairly high I kept adding the pasta water until the penne was done to our liking and there was a little residual sauce. This was a real winner.
We have a sandwich place out here, Lee’s Sandwiches, that makes banh mi, the Vietnamese sandwich. It comes on a crunchy, flaky French roll and often has some sort of liver spread, pork cold cuts, pickled vegetables and spicy pickled jalapeños.
I have been craving this salty, spicy, sweet sandwich but know that the version I get at Lee’s Sandwiches is much higher in calories than I want. So I have been working on building my own. An important component is the Thai pickled vegetables.
Thai pickled vegetables
I started with a recipe from Ted Allen of Food Network. It called for a brine of equal parts sugar, water, and vinegar and 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt. You heat the liquid up until the sugar and salt are dissolved. Well, Ted must like his food way sweeter and a lot less acidic and salty than I do. So I kept adding salt and vinegar until I got a flavor combination I liked. Then you put your julienned vegetables in the brine and set them in the refrigerator for at least a half an hour. I used cucumbers (which I should have cut up smaller), carrots, land onions.
For my banh mi I use a pita half with a little smear of liverwurst, a half piece of turkey from the deli, the pickled vegetables, and some pepperoncini.
It’s not quite as good as Lee’s but it hits all the flavor components I crave. Sometimes I eat the vegetables as snack!
Snack of pickled vegetables, cherry tomatoes, and pretzel sticks
Last day of February and on the menu was polenta with sweet Italian sausage with a side of zucchini.
Polenta with sweet Italian sausage plus a side of sautéed zucchini
Tonight John is in charge of sausage and polenta and I am taking care of the veg. From a DiningLite point of view, this is a small portion of polenta and one sausage with more than half the plate covered with vegetables. Controlling portion size is the key.
Instead of watery pale limp zucchini, I made some robust, firm, browned zucchini. Here’s the secret. Split the zucchini in two length-wise and scrape out all the seeds. Put the zucchini in a colander and salt it with kosher salt. Let it sit over a bowl for at least one half hour. You will be surprised at how much liquid comes out. Rinse off the zucchini and pat dry. Start your vegetable by putting some sliced onions in a pan that has a teaspoon of olive oil and a teaspoon of butter in it. Add the onions, when they are soft and translucent add the zucchini and as the zucchini starts to brown add the sliced garlic and pine nuts. Continue to cook another few minutes until the garlic and the pine nuts are slightly brown. Do not let the garlic or pine nuts burn because they will become bitter. You will find that the zucchini has good texture and a nutty flavor.
Sautéed zucchini with onions, garlic, and pine nuts
Sous vide chicken breast with broccoli and rutabagas
I was looking back and I see that I had this exact same dinner on February 2nd. What can I say? It is a favorite for Chicken Monday (or chicken anyday.) So since this is the same old-same old I thought I might talk about rutabagas.
Rutabagas, swedes or neeps are a cross between turnips and cabbage. A staple in Northern Europe they are eaten as a winter vegetable in the U.S. Most often they are boiled and mashed with potatoes or carrots and butter. For a 3.5 oz. serving they only contain 38 calories. So they taste like a starch but calorie count like a vegetable. They have a sweet cabbage-y kind of flavor and are high in vitamin C.
After peeling the outer and under skin I cut them into small pieces an microwave them in a covered dish for 10 or so minutes on high with a little water and salt. Then I mash them up and add a little butter. I have also made them in the pressure cooker which is much faster but entails more clean-up. As you see I serve them with some chicken gravy. As a child we only had rutabagas on Thanksgiving so it always gives my meal a holiday feel even though I probably eat them twice a month.
Yum, rutabagas!
Chicken and lamb kebab platter
Today our son came over for some tennis and lunch. He got to choose the luncheon spot. We ended up at a Mediterranean place and I had the lamb kebab platter. (I know this shows lamb and chicken but I forgot to take a picture and this is what I could find on the internet.) It was tasty although some of the pieces were a little tough.
Needless to say we were not hungry for dinner. We had an abbreviated breakfast for dinner. I am having trouble with asthma and I am trying to find foods that will help the condition. I will see how that works out starting tomorrow.
Curried fried rice
We are in the process of taking down our old window coverings and getting shutters next week. John is up and down the ladder and I am in charge of having bits and pieces handed to me and me handing up other bits and pieces as we move around the house. At the end of the day, who wants to cook!?
So we rummage around the refrigerator. We have three different rices! There is white rice from Chinese take-out, brown rice from earlier in the week, and curried rice from two nights ago. Mix them all together, add some Asian flavors, and an egg, and we have dinner!
Omnivore 