Delicious medium rare grilled hamburger and a lovely Romaine and kale salad with chopped carrots, homegrown tomatoes, cucumber, and scallions — the quintessential summer dinner.
This is an excellent hot weather meal. There is no cooking at all! If you follow my blog you know that my sesame bowl has three iterations salmon, shrimp, and tofu. Each is delicious.
Asian Sesame Bowls
Guess what. It’s hot again. The rest of August has been pretty tolerable but Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday this week it is back to the upper 90s. As a result I am shifting to my hot weather dishes.
Gazpacho is pretty simple to make. You just put all the ingredients in a blender and let it rip. Give it a taste and adjust the seasonings and put it in the refrigerator until dinner time. Add some garnishes when serving. I made small dice of cucumber, Serrano chile, and onion. Plus I added a drizzle of olive oil.
If it is too thick thin it out with V-8 or tomato juice.
After a mostly not-too-hot August it looks like next week will be pretty unbearable. Since Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday will be in the upper 90s we are switching back to our don’t-heat-up-the-kitchen meals.
Having homemade pesto in the freezer helped to streamline this dish. Here is the way our dinner came together.
While the water was coming to a boil John zoodled the zucchini and I sautéed onions and garlic. As the pasta was cooking, I put the frozen pesto in with onions and garlic. It was defrosted by the time the spaghetti was cooked. Then John drained the al dente spaghetti, reserving a cup of the pasta water. He added the pasta to the pesto mixture. I cooked the pasta and pesto together adding some of the pasta water to get a good consistency. Then I shut off the heat and added the zucchini noodles and mixed them in with spaghetti. If you try cooking them they disintegrate. The zoodles are warmed through just with the heat from the other cooked elements.
Dinner number two from our rotisserie chicken is enchiladas made with the white meat that I shredded yesterday. John and I have an assembly line where he toasts the tortillas over an open flame and then I stuff them with salsa verde, chicken, onions, and cheese. I tuck them tightly in a 9×13 baking dish that has a coating of salsa verde on the bottom. We make 16 and then cover the top with more salsa verde and the remaining cheese and onions. I bake them in a 350F oven for 40 minutes.
Chicken enchiladas are always a hit at our house. These are a little spicier than usual since the cheese has habanero chile bits in it. Plus there are enough leftovers for John to have a tasty lunch tomorrow!
Tonight is dinner number one from our Costco rotisserie chicken. Sarah is our expert chicken disassembler and now we have bags of dark meat, white meat, and shredded white meat (my job is shredding) in the refrigerator and additions to our stock-to-be in the freezer.
John makes the gravy from a packet and gently warms up the sliced chicken breast. He made the rice yesterday so it only needs warming in the microwave. I am running low on vegetables so I make a combination of broccoli, carrots, and shallot. In less than 30 minutes dinner is ready.
Gosh, we are having tasty meals this week! John grilled the steaks to a perfect medium rare and tended over the potato I had baked earlier so that the surface slightly charred. I made what my family calls IDBS, incredibly delicious Brussels sprouts. The flavor of the sprouts is enhanced with butter, sugar, salt, and dry sherry.
Tuesday’s dinner was supposed to be salmon with a mustard sauce. I ask John to take out a couple of pieces of salmon to defrost. He cannot find it. John is notorious for not being able to find things in the refrigerator and freezer so I am not concerned. I will find the salmon myself I think. No such luck! A quick pivot to sea scallops saves the day!
His job is to cook the scallops. My job is to cut up and cook the broccoli, prepare the mashed potatoes, and make the beurre blanc. I call unfair division of labor! John reconsiders and takes over the potatoes.
Costco is not carrying the scallops that we have used forever. Our previous ones were U-12s, big and luscious. These new ones are a bit smaller but at least are not packed in preservative. John cooks them for a smidge too long but they still come out pretty tasty.
I am scrambling to get the broccoli in the pan and figure out how to make a beurre blanc. The sauce needs some oversight or else it will split. It is basically an emulsion of white wine and white wine vinegar and butter with some minced shallot and a tablespoon of milk or cream as a stabilizer. The butter needs to stay cold and is whisked into the liquid off heat. There are a lot of recipes for beurre blanc on line. It turns out that it is pretty easy to make and mine does not break.
Our dinner turns out really tasty and we are happy with it. But we are still hoping that Costco will bring back the large bags of scallops!
This was an easy peasy dinner made by boiling the hot dogs, toasting the buns, eating the leftover bean salad from our cookout yesterday, and warming up a can of sauerkraut.
Actually I use a recipe for improving canned sauerkraut. You can find it here. https://www.loavesanddishes.net/how-to-cook-canned-sauerkraut/
Omnivore 