Cabbage rolls and salad – 11/13/16

Posted on November 15, 2016 by Beebamom

I cannot believe I did not take a picture of the cabbage rolls John made! We ate them on Sunday and Monday. Using our leftover rice from our Chinese takeout and some ground beef and cabbage that I had bought because I had coupons, John plunged the cabbage into boiling water and peeled the leaves off. He made a great sweet and sour sauce and cooked the cabbage rolls in the pressure cooker. I was off having my hair cut and colored. So we had dinner for two nights and all I have to show for it is the salad I made.

Kale salad with croutons and ricotta salata

Kale salad with croutons and ricotta salata

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Steak cooked in a non-traditional way – 11/12/16

Posted on November 12, 2016 by Beebamom
Ribeye cap with smashed red potatoes and broccoli

Ribeye cap with smashed red potatoes and broccoli

Costco sells this prime ribeye cap coiled up. It is super delicious. In order to keep it from turning into charred outside and raw inside on the grill, John used the sous vide method. He set the steak jacuzzi on 122F and we let it cook for 1  1/2  hours. Then he slapped it on a hot grill for a couple of minutes to brown the outside. It was perfectly cooked all the way through! I made smashed red potatoes with olive oil and steamed some broccoli. We also opened a nice bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon to go with it.

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Eat it twice! – 11/10/16

Posted on November 11, 2016 by Beebamom
Chickpea, turkey sausage, and ditalini soup

Chickpea, turkey sausage, and ditalini soup

We ate this on Tuesday and we are eating most of the rest of it tonight. We added some more kale and some pieces of turkey sausage so it would taste new. We even have enough left over from this to have it one day soon for lunch!

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Chickpea stew with ditalini and kale – 11/9/16

Posted on November 10, 2016 by Beebamom

If you like to chop vegetables up then this is the dish for you! I did all the prep work while John was at work and so almost the entire dish was dump and sauté according to length of cooking time needed. In addition to the vegetables in the actual recipe, I also added a few bits of mushrooms and snow peas that I had languishing in the refrigerator. No meat, no dairy, this is a great dish for all dining enthusiasts.

Chickpea stew with ditalini and kalehmvddzrtdyfxfus

Chickpea stew with ditalini and kale

 

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Election Day chicken – 11/8/16

Posted on November 9, 2016 by Beebamom
Sous vide chicken breast, mashed potatoes, and spinach

Sous vide chicken breast, mashed potatoes, and spinach

Maybe we should be eating crow given the loss of our preferred candidate. Or humble pie. It was Republican candidate Herbert Hoover who promised “a chicken in every pot” if he was elected in 1928. That didn’t work out so well for the country. Trump’s “pie in the sky” might not work out either.

Our dinner was a chicken breast, mashed potatoes leftover from veal shank night, spinach. A little leftover chicken gravy topped it.

 

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Remember last week’s white Bolognese? – 11/7/16

Posted on November 9, 2016 by Beebamom

The white Bolognese sauce from last week made a comeback tonight as traditional red Bolognese.

Penne with Bolognese sauce

Penne with Bolognese sauce

This was no elaborate transformation. I just added a can of tomatoes, some water, herbs, and tomato sauce. I served it with penne which I like way more than rigatoni. It was delish and super easy.

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Veál shanks, mashed potatoes, and green beans – 11/5/16

Posted on November 7, 2016 by Beebamom
Veal shank, mashed potatoes, and green beans

Veal shank, mashed potatoes, and green beans

We have had these veal shanks in the freezer for ages and finally decided to cook them. I whizzed up onion, carrot, celery, and garlic in the food processor to use as a flavor base.  After searing the meat John also added chicken stock and white wine as the braising liquid. He cooked the veal in a  slow oven for three hours and it came out really tender. The gravy was made out of the puréed braising vegetables. The potatoes were steamed and then mashed with low fat milk and a tablespoon of butter. The beans were cooked in a little water and olive oil. This is a pretty fancy dinner for a no-occasion night!

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Quick pad Thai with shrimp – 11/4/16

Posted on November 6, 2016 by Beebamom
Quick pad Thai with shrimp

Quick pad Thai with shrimp

I have made this dish 4 or 5 times since I discovered it through an email from Food & Wine. As long as you have the mise en place done, the cooking moves along very quickly. The sauce, instead of tamarind, consists of brown sugar, fish sauce, and lime juice.  How much of each is a personal preference. Since I do not like things sweet, I cut down on the brown sugar. We used shredded peapods and carrots for some extra vegetables and rice noodles were the starch.

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Rigatoni with White Bolognese – 11/2/16

Posted on November 3, 2016 by Beebamom

I have been to Italy over 20 times but I have never been to Bologna. I do not even know what there is to see there!  Maybe next time I shall make sure it is on my visit list.  One thing I do know is that I like Bolognese sauce so when I saw this recipe for white Bolognese on the NYT cooking website I thought I would give it a try.

Rigatoni with white Bolognese

Rigatoni with white Bolognese

Making the sauce was quite time consuming. There are a lot of steps where you have to add a lot of liquid and then let it reduce all the way down.  It’s not like you are doing a lot of active cooking but you need to be in the kitchen to keep an eye on things. Although the recipe did not call for it, I should have de-greased the pot early on because it turned out a little oily.  Between all the tasting to tweak the flavors, I was basically full before we had dinner.

The dish tasted quite good but for the leftovers I think I might put tomatoes in to make it more traditional and serve it with penne instead of rigatoni. Also, I think to make a lighter dish I might use ground turkey and chicken or turkey sausage with plenty of fish sauce to cut the sweetness.

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Chicken Tuesday – 11/1/16

Posted on November 2, 2016 by Beebamom

Once again we did not manage to get the chicken on the proper day. Perhaps I will give up on Chicken Monday altogether. Secretly, I would like to make it Meatless Monday but John is unconvinced.

Sous vide chicken, steamed broccoli with almonds, and butternut squash

Sous vide chicken, steamed broccoli with almonds, and butternut squash

Tonight we had the typical chicken recipe and veg and starch combination. John sous vide one large chicken breast and made some gravy out of a packet. I steamed the broccoli and added some almonds for crunch. The butternut squash that I had left over from the orrecchiette last night was augmented by some frozen diced squash so that there was enough for two servings. It was just kind of a ho-hum chicken dinner but comforting nonetheless less.

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