Steak, waffle fries, rutabagas, asparagus, kale, and bernaise
What can I say? We are leaving on Friday and clearing out the refrigerator and freezer. BTW the asparagus was awesome!
Angel hair pasta with tomato sauce and meatballs
I was not feeling well on Valentine’s Day so I just made something easy. Since we did not have a jar of spaghetti sauce, John made a sauce with some onions, garlic, tomato paste and jarred diced tomatoes and tomato sauce. It was fine.
For a vegan/vegetarian version of this dish omit the turkey sausage.
Lentil stew with carrots and turkey sausage on kale
Here is an easy, fairly quick, and filling stew. Although we prepare it with turkey sausage, it is easily made omitting the sausage for a vegan dish. First we sweat the onions and then add the celery, carrots, garlic, and turkey sausage. After picking over and washing the lentils, add them to the pot with enough water to cover by two inches. Add a bay leaf, a little thyme and season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil and then lower to a simmer for about 25-30 minutes or until the lentils are cooked through. I ladle out a couple of scoops onto a bed of kale and serve some bread along side. Drizzle the whole bowl with extra virgin olive oil.
Tonight is a night for nibbling. We start with a Spanish tapa, pan con tomate. (Bread with tomato) We had this especially in Barcelona when we visited Spain back in 2010. Here’s the picture of our tapas from the restaurant, Matamala.
Assorted cured meats and pan con tomato at Matamala in Barcelona
And here’s our pan con tomate tonight! It is much cheaper to vacation eating in our own kitchen!
Pan con tomate
It is really simple, just rub some toast with garlic and tomato and brush with olive oil.
Now we switch gears for a couple of pot stickers compliments of the frozen bag of LingLing Potstickers in our freezer. First you steam them in some water and oil and then after the water boils away, you brown the bottoms.
Potstickers (we were a bit over-zealous with the browning)
Finally we have hot and sour soup which is our planned-over from our Chinese dinner last week. The dinner tonight keeps us busy cooking and eating for a long time!
Hot and sour soup
Turkey meatloaf with broccoli and carrots
Boy, do I love meatloaf. But meatloaf is not a friend of trying to eat healthier. So I have been working on a ground turkey version. We ended up making a large meatloaf using 2 lbs. of lean ground turkey. This way we will have lots of leftovers for sandwiches. Along with your usual meatloaf ingredients, I added 1 lb. of mushrooms chopped finely in the food processor. I cooked these until they stopped exuding liquid. They have good umami flavor. I also added about a teaspoon of fish sauce which also deepens the flavor.
I cooked the meatloaf in a cast iron Dutch oven. It was supposed to get to 170F but the first time I stuck in my Thermo-pen, it was already 190F so it turned out a little drier than it should have. I need to make a note on my recipe sheet to test it earlier.
Another way I am trying to cut down is by having plenty of vegetables instead of a starch on my plate. We’ll see how this goes as I am an avid carbohydrate lover.
Here it is Friday and I haven’t made dinner for two nights in a row. I think before Wednesday I had cooked twelve days in a row so I guess I am entitled to a rest. Wednesday we had Moo Shu Pork and Mongolian Beef from our local Chinese restaurant and on Thursday we went out to lunch so we just picked at things we had in the refrigerator for dinner.
Here is what I had for lunch at Posada – Contemporary Southwest, a restaurant in Livermore, CA.
Mahi mahi fish tacos with watermelon salad
Two things first off, the picture was taken with my husband’s phone and it is not nearly as good as my iPhone for photography. Secondly, that is his beer. I drank water.
The dish consisted of pan fried chipotle mahi-mahi atop corn tortillas with chipotle mayo, pickled cabbage slaw, smoky sweet pepper sauce and side of watermelon salad. It was all very good. The fish was not at all greasy and was moist with good chipotle flavor. The corn tortillas were small but delicious! The watermelon salad was fine. I am not a big watermelon fan so John ate half of mine.
Good lunch with good friends makes for an enjoyable afternoon!
I pushed Chicken Monday to Tuesday this week because we needed to eat up the leftover fish stew. (And it was easier to heat up something rather than make a whole new meal!)
Boneless skinless chicken breast cooked sous vide and rutabagas and broccoli
Once the water comes up to temperature we sous vide the chicken for an hour and a half. It is important to remember to start early or else you’ll be eating around 8 PM! I cooked the rutabagas for 20 minutes in the microwave after they were peeled and cut in fairly small pieces. I also added some kale to the broccoli for some dark greens power boost!
I don’t usually post any recipes on my site because most of the food we make is pretty straight forward. I sometimes use a recipe when I am trying something new but we always end up changing it as we go along tasting our results. I keep a binder full of recipes that I have copied off the internet. The most important thing about them is that I record how I changed the recipe to suit our taste. So what my point is – start with a recipe as an idea but make it your own!
Roasted cauliflower
Cauliflower has been on sale this week – 2 heads for $3! I bought a couple to have for snacks. John and I enjoy our “cocktail hour” and instead of eating some chips or cheese and crackers with our glass of wine sometimes I make roasted cauliflower. After preheating the oven to 500F convect, I pop in a sheet tray of cauliflower florets that have been tossed in olive oil and salt. It takes 15 or so minutes. When it looks like it is burnt, it’s time to enjoy your vegetable snack. So good!
Here is our pot of fish stew left over from last week. John added some additional cod and shrimp and I added a leek, drained tomatoes, celery, and a half of a yellow pepper. We warmed it up and enjoyed it a second time. Now there are more leftovers! I think we’ll freeze those.
Fish stew simmering on the stove
It tastes great with a couple of pieces of good bread
Remember the chicken cacciatore from Friday night? Here is the sauce from that dinner being used again in a yummy pasta dinner.
Pasta with sweet Italian sausage
We had part of a box of cellentani, three sweet Italian sausages, and a little of the cacciatore sauce. Sounds like a dinner to me! I added some additional tomatoes to the sauce and some water to thin it out. It worked fine with the sausage. The fennel in the sauce really complemented the sausage. John browned the sausage first and then we finished it in the cacciatore sauce. After adding the al dente pasta everything was ready.
We avoided watching the Stupor Bowl and thus eating all the snacks that might have come with it. Good for us!
Hamburger on a bun
I have to admit it, I do love a hamburger on a bun with some mayo, ketchup and onion. We started tonight’s dinner with a salad and followed it up with this lovely fellow. Tasty!
And speaking of tasty, here’s what is on the menu for this week –
Kap’n Mom’s Kitchen Menu
I guess you will notice that there is nothing vegetarian or vegan for this week. Several of these meals are adaptable, though. Pasta with sweet Italian sausage can be made with a vegetarian sausage instead and same thing with the lentil stew. The shrimp and white beans could be tofu and white beans. It’s up to you!
Omnivore 