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Lentil Stew with Turkey Sausage. 6/28/24
We have not made this dish in quite a while. It’s not really a summer dinner entree but we had a turkey sausage that needed using so we went ahead. At least we did not need to turn the oven on!
This is one of our concoctions that we do not have a recipe for. What’s in it depends on what is in the fridge. For this rendition we used onion, garlic, fennel, carrots, and celery. Usually we put cremini mushrooms in the stew but they were so old and shriveled that I just threw them out. We made a double batch so that there would be plenty left over for lunches.
We started out by sautéing half of the turkey sausage in some olive oil. We save the other half for adding towards the end of cooking so its flavor will not get cooked out. In the grease from the sausage we sweat all the vegetables. Then we added 4 cups of stock and 2 cups of lentils. We cooked this for an hour and a half adding some water when it started looking too dry.
It was so delicious! The carrot added a lovely sweetness to the earthy lentils and salty sausage. We did not have as much left over for lunches as I had anticipated because it was just not possible to deny ourselves a second bowl!
Posted in American, Easy, Legumes, Methods, Poultry, Vegetables, Weeknight dinners
Tagged lentils, turkey sausage
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Spaghetti Arrabbiata with Salad. 6/27/24
I love strand pasta. John is more of a “shapes” man. So we always have a pasta debate before making dinner. I think that smooth sauces should get strands and piece-y sauces should get shapes. My argument won the day so we ended up making spaghetti. Yay!
The arrabbiata sauce is spicy. Along with crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, onions, garlic, bell pepper, and poblano chile I added a teaspoon of red pepper flakes, 2 large squirts of sriracha, and 5 shakes of Tabasco. I made the sauce on Tuesday morning so it had two days to improve. It was really tasty and not as spicy as you might imagine.
To round out our dinner I assembled a packaged Buffalo flavored salad. That’s chicken wing Buffalo dressing not some odd bovine flavored sauce!
Tilapia with Pesto, Rice, Asparagus. 6/26/24
We have cubes of pesto in the freezer that we made over the last couple of growing seasons. This particular pesto is a basil, almond, garlic, olive oil, parmesan combination. Pesto can be made with basil, parsley, even oregano and you can chose the nuts you like best. Pine nuts are quite expensive so we opted for almonds.
The tilapia roasts in a 400F oven for 10 to 12 minutes depending on the thickness. When it was done it got a good smear of the pesto. Even though the pesto had darkened from its original bright green it still tasted delicious.
Rounding out the dinner was a portion of rice and quite a few spears of asparagus. The pesto tasted good on them too!
Posted in American, Easy, Fish, Methods, pescatarian, Vegetables, Weeknight dinners
Tagged tilapia
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Grilled Smashburgers and Caesar Salad. 6/25/24
On Tuesday John took our cast iron grill and heated it up on our gas grill. When it was piping hot he took balls of seasoned ground beef and put them on the grill. Then he squished the balls of ground beef until they were thin-ish. These smashburgers cooked briefly on the grill. The idea is to get the outside and edges crispy.
In the meantime I sautéed some onions and made a Caesar salad. I added a handful of kale to the salad greens so that the salad would have some heft.
So what was the verdict on the smashburgers? All three of us voted for John’s traditional thicker medium rare burgers. They are much juicier. And as much as I liked the sautéed onions I like the bite of the raw ones better. Next time we have hamburgers (Fourth of July) we will go back to our favorites, or as the grandkids call them, Zaydeburgers.
Posted in American, Beef, Easy, Grilling, Hot weather meals, Methods, Vegetables, Weeknight dinners
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Classic chicken dinner. 6/24/24
It was actually much hotter than 92F on Monday. I think it hit 100F again. Ugh, summer, my least favorite season of the year.
This is the second dinner from our rotisserie chicken and we have also had one lunch for the three of us. It’s such a bargain! In order not to heat up the kitchen too much I used dehydrated potato flakes for the mashed potatoes. I cooked the broccoli on the stove.
Tomorrow John is making smash burgers on the grill and I am in charge of a salad. Finally on Wednesday the heat is breaking and we have a few days to cook what we want in the kitchen!
Posted in American, Easy, Hot weather meals, Poultry, Vegetables, Weeknight dinners
Tagged chicken
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Vietnamese Rice Noodle Salad with Chicken. 6/23/24
Since it was 100F today we decided on a no-cook dinner. John had picked up a rotisserie chicken from Costco earlier in the day and our daughter very kindly offered to de-bone it and shred one of the breasts. I discovered that she is much better at this than I am. I think I will offer her the job of chief chicken de-constructor!
The salad consists of salad leaves, cucumber, carrot, bean sprouts, rice noodles, Fresno chile, and cilantro. The composed salad is dressed with nuoc cham, a combo of fish sauce, minced garlic, water, rice vinegar, lime juice, and sugar.
The recipe is from the website thewoksoflife.com. It is much more complicated than my version since it starts with raw chicken that you marinate and cook. Using a rotisserie chicken simplifies dinner prep and keeps the kitchen cool.
Posted in Asian, Easy, Hot weather meals, Methods, Poultry, Salad, Vegetables, Vietnamese
Tagged chicken, rice noodles
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Weekly Menu. June 24 – 30, 2024
I have included our local high temperature just to remind myself that if it is going to be hot at dinner time I should be doing some prep in the morning. Since forecasting when you live in an area with micro climates is very iffy, I chose the least optimistic forecast highs (the hottest.) The difference among my four weather apps is as much as ten degrees. I would love to think that all this week will be in the70s but realistically that is not going to happen!
Posted in Weekly menu
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Shrimp in a Saffron Pernod Sauce. 6/21/24
This is one of our favorite dishes to make. It is so delicious! We decided to double the amount of vegetables from 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup and the tomatoes from 1/2 cup to 1 cup. Unfortunately we did not double the amount of liquid in the sauce. It still tasted great but we were all wishing there was more sauce. Next time we will add the cup of cream PLUS either a cup of shrimp stock or a bottle of clam juice.
I am including my updated recipe which includes directions for doubling the sauce. I guess you could merely double the cream but that seems awfully rich! The recipe is a little sketchy due to the fact that we got it from a restaurant and they were not overly specific. Over time we have worked on it until it is currently in this form. It is one of our go-to dishes for company, special occasions, and just when we want to treat ourselves.
Posted in American, pescatarian, Recipes, Shellfish, Special occasion, Vegetables
Tagged shrimp
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Hot dog, sauerkraut, and salad. 6/20/24
I was going to rave about our all-American dinner celebrating the first day of summer until I realized that our dinner idea was imported to the U.S. like much of our cuisine. First of all a hot dog, also known as a frankfurter, is a sausage or wurst from Germany. And sauerkraut translated to English is sour cabbage. We use the German word and don’t even bother with the English translation. The salad continues the theme with an abundance of cabbage (kraut.) I also added a cut-up mango. Mangoes originated in the region of Myanmar, Bangladesh., and northeastern India. We get most of our mangoes from Mexico.
Since the U.S. is a big gemisch (another German word!) of peoples from all over the world, it is true that our dinner was all-American!
Posted in American, Beef, Easy, Hot weather meals, Salad, Uncategorized, Vegetables, Weeknight dinners
Tagged hot dogs
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Omnivore 