I am back home and ready to start cooking with John again. We have decided on two new recipes this week, Curried Tomatoes and Chickpeas and also Sicilian Swordfish. Should be exciting!
Sarah likes to make all sorts of “bowls” for her dinners. On Wednesday she made burrito bowls for John and her. A burrito bowl consists of everything you might find in a burrito over rice. In this burrito bowl she included crushed tortilla chips, lime, corn, black beans, cilantro, shredded rotisserie chicken, tomatoes, cabbage, and sour cream.
John made this sheet pan dinner for Sarah and him the other night. I wish I could have been there. it looks so good! Here are John’s notes about the dinner.
I do not know how much more cooking John is planning on. I know he got a pizza and is figuring on Chinese take-out in the near future. As for me, I am still with my grieving friend in South Carolina where we are making our way through numerous casseroles. I will be back on Saturday so I figure John and I will be back to our weekly menu and nightly dinners next week.
John is taking over cooking duties this week while I am away. Tonight he makes one of his favorites, orecchiette with sausage and greens. This is a dish we first had in Puglia, the heel of the boot of Italy.
Boil orecchiette until al dente (these took 16 minutes).
In the meantime, saute hot Italian sausage in a little olive oil.
Add some sliced garlic, minced onion and chili flakes; cook until just done.
Add kale, toss and warm through.
Add pasta, toss, garnish with olive oil and grated parmesan.
On Tuesday John did most of the chopping for our dinner of chicken lo mein. I was hurriedly packing for a trip to the East Coast to be with my dear friend whose husband had died a few days before. I have made this dish a couple of times lately and you can find the recipe in the related link below. The dinner was fine and we had enough for John to have a leftovers dinner while I was gone.
I got an email this morning with a picture and explanation of what John did with the leftovers for his dinner on Wednesday night. Here is what he said—
Recipe:
Warm leftover lo mein in a large frying pan.
Scramble and season two eggs.
Add to lo mein and stir over medium heat until cooked.
Serve and garnish with whatever crunch is around:
sesame seeds, chopped peanuts, crispy chicken skin, french fried onions, scallions.
He says the dark bits are the fried up chicken skin. At least I know he is not starving while I am away. As for me I am helping to eat the casseroles that so many friends have brought over. I am certainly not starving either!
We enjoyed St. Patrick’s Day with this traditional dish. The recipe we used is this one from NYTimes Cooking with the exception of omitting the glaze in Step Four.
This is a quick and nutritious dinner. John roasted the salmon in a 400F oven for 11 minutes and it turned out pink and juicy. During this time I steamed the broccoli, reheated some previously made white rice, and made the mustard sauce. Here is my recipe for the mustard sauce. I do not usually have cornichons so I just leave them out. Keep tasting it until you get the combination of mustard, salt, acid, and sweet you like.
Somehow most of my carefully planned menus fell by the wayside this week. First there were no rotisserie chickens, then there was torrential rain, followed by a holiday celebration. Here is what we ended up eating.
Now we are back on schedule and will finish out the week with salmon on Saturday and Breakfast for Dinner on Sunday.
We were supposed to be having chicken enchiladas for dinner tonight. Sarah and I were tasked with picking a rotisserie chicken from Costco. But when we got there the chicken cupboard was bare and so we had to come up with a dinner on the fly. Good thing we had the tomato and ground beef sauce from the stuffed peppers last week. I made a quick substitution of whole wheat penne with the meat sauce and everybody was happy.
I have always been surprised that a lot of people do not care for lamb. Too gamy is usually the reason. Around our house a lamb dinner is always greeted with an enthusiastic response. We buy lamb loin chops at Costco and .John cooks them on the grill. Yum, are they good!
Tonight’s dinner of lamb, potatoes, and asparagus hit the sweet spot for all three components. It is always heartening to get such a thumbs up for all three elements of dinner.
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Omnivore 