I think this is my favorite of the bowls we make. But I keep changing my mind. It used to be that I liked the tofu bowl the best. Anyway salmon, tofu, or shrimp all the bowls are pretty yummy.
There is a little rice on the bottom and then arranged around the edges are shredded cabbage, edamame, avocado, and cucumber with the salmon in the middle. Over the top I sprinkle green onions, jalapeño, and cilantro. The dressing is a soy vinaigrette with sesame oil garnishing the top.
We bought a rotisserie chicken earlier in the week and used one breast shredded for our Asian chicken salad and the wings, thighs, and legs for various lunches. Now we needed to eat the other breast for dinner without significantly heating up the kitchen. Could we make this dinner only using one burner on the stove for a short amount of time. Yes we could!
John manned the stove and heated the chicken in gravy on the stove over a low flame. I made the potatoes out of dehydrated potato flakes in the microwave. Finally, and I have never done this before, I microwaved the broccoli.
I was really afraid that the broccoli would come out either over-cooked, not cooked enough, or a combination of both. I managed to get it just right by putting it in a dish with a couple of tablespoons of water and a little bit of butter. I put a bowl up side down over the whole dish to create some steam. Then I microwaved it on half power for two minutes, checked it for doneness, then gave it one more minute at half power. The broccoli turned out great!
This heat is getting tedious. We rarely have more than three days of hot weather in a row. Now we have had five days of triple digits and more to come. We are hunkered down in the house turning the air conditioning on and off according to our electric company, PG&E. And trying to think of dinners to make that won’t heat up the house.
Our son came over for our Fourth of July celebration. The rest of his family was at a reunion of his wife’s clan. So as I am wont to do I made too much food for just the four of us to eat so we had a replay of the Fourth on the Fifth.
After some wine and before-sies of potato chips and dip, Doritos, and Manchego cheese and crackers we settled in to burgers, salad, and corn on the cob. Watermelon would be our simple dessert. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures on July 4. The only difference between the two meals was that I made a Caprese salad on the Fourth and moved the watermelon into a salad for July 5’s dinner.
Both nights’ salads were really good. The watermelon definitely needed to move from dessert to side since the watermelon was not particularly sweet. It benefitted from the salty sweet nuoc cham.
We had fun with our little celebration but it is not the same without the whole family here. Also the fact that we had to eat indoors since it was 106F made it seem less like our traditional Independence Day party.
Today we went out in the insufferable hot weather. While out we made three attempts at getting lunch. First place was closed, no explanation. The second had finished its lunch service a few minutes earlier and told us that they were only doing take-out. Finally we collapsed into Bangkok 101 and discovered they made our favorite dish and they were willing to make it for us. The dish is Thai basil eggplant with crispy tofu. Yum! All of our walking around in the heat was worth it!
After having this late lunch on a very hot day we were looking forward to a light dinner. I had made gazpacho in the morning and it was hanging out in the refrigerator getting acquainted with its various ingredients. Here’s my easy gazpacho—
This bowl is similar to our other Asian bowls except we use shredded chicken, add bean sprouts, and substitute rice noodles for rice. The rice noodles I use are ready in about 20 minutes of soaking in hot water. When I first made the dressing it was more Vietnamese. The main ingredient was fish sauce. I like fish sauce but I like it better if it is a flavoring component. So I changed from the fish sauce-y nuoc cham to a soy based vinaigrette.
Other items in our bowl are jalapeño peppers, zoodled cucumber, carrots, julienne Romaine lettuce and for some additional texture I added a sprinkle of slivered almonds.
Whenever I ask John what he would like as a vegetarian entree he always says Chana dal. I often try to steer him in a different direction but today I caved so Chana dal it is. While I like Chana dal it is really not a hot weather dish.
Chana dal are dried split chickpeas in a spicy sauce which is served over rice or kale. Since it is going to be “damn hot” today I get up early and get it into the Instant Pot where it cooks under pressure for 18 minutes. Later I am definitely glad that I made dinner in the morning and all we have to do is heat it it in the microwave.
Our grilled steak was a little rarer than usual but still tasted great. The broccoli also spent some time on the grill after I had parcooked it in the microwave. Since we were trying not to heat up the kitchen I made some convenience mashed potatoes.
Our menu called for eggs tonight but I was just not feeling it. We really enjoyed our steak dinner.
Not much to say about this lazy dinner. Frozen chicken wings and a packaged salad. I always take the flats since they are my favorite parts. It works well since John likes the drumettes. Foster Farms Take Out brand has been reliably good. Buying the large package at Costco is much more economical than the smaller bags at the grocery store.
Easy dinner using Foster Farms frozen Buffalo chicken wings and Taylor Farms Mediterranean salad. More economic than going out for a similar dinner or getting take-out. Sometimes the cook needs a breather!
Omnivore 