Shrimp tacos with mango salsa and spicy beans (also leftover tabbouleh)
On Friday John was in charge of cooking the shrimp perfectly and searing the tortillas. Great job, John!
I took care of the vegetables making the salsa out of a can of fire-roasted Rotel, a lovely ripe mango, cumin, sriracha, and Tabasco sauce. For the spicy beans I used a drained and rinsed can of black beans, a handful of our homegrown cherry tomatoes, green onions, cumin, and sriracha. Both dishes needed several pinches of salt. I warmed the beans in the microwave since we are still under an excessive heat warning. (It was 105F today!)
Finally, we brought a little Middle East to our Mexican inspired dinner by finishing up the tabbouleh from last night.
This is a great hot weather meal! There is no cooking at all. Making the tabbouleh is kind of an ordeal what with all the chopping. I mostly used the food processor so it takes much less time than doing all the chopping by hand. The hummus was store-bought.
It was a good thing that it was a no-cook meal that I prepped early because the electricity went out (again!) around 4 PM. Luckily it came back on after about 3 hours so we did not have to throw all the stuff in the refrigerator into the trash (again!)
It was 108F on Thursday and today (Friday) it is currently 103F. We are having shrimp tacos tonight. I hope the electricity manages to stay on!
Grilled flank steak, grilled Russet potato, and sautéed zucchini
Tonight John was at the grill cooking the flank steak and putting a char on a Russet potato that I had microwaved earlier. I also made zucchini that our daughter had grown in her garden. First I sautéed onions and garlic in a combo of olive oil and butter. Then I added the zucchini that I had sliced and salted to drain away some of the excess water. It was an enjoyable dinner that went very well with an Imagery 2016 Cabernet Franc.
Two weeks ago I made an arrabiata pasta sauce which I served over spaghetti. I had made enough sauce that I could freeze a container for another dinner. On Fourth of July John cooked up five hot Italian sausages and we had two left over. Now all I needed was a a day when the temperature was not in the triple digits.
Luckily today was cooler. I defrosted the sauce and cut up the sausages in small chunks. John cooked up a pot of celletani (which is exactly the same as cavatappi) and I warmed up the sauce. It was so delicious and a nice break from all the salad-y dinners we have been having lately!
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 dinners featured a grilled medium rare hamburger and corn on the cob (although on the actual Fourth we had a whole ear of corn)This picture from the internet is pretty much how my Caprese salad looked. I used basil from our herb garden!Watermelon, red onion, cucumber, mozzarella, and almonds in a nuoc cham dressing
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!
Thai basil eggplant with crispy tofu
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—
Do not be shy with the salt. It needs a lot of salt.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.
Omnivore 