Grilled Smashburgers and Caesar Salad. 6/25/24

Posted on June 26, 2024 by Beebamom
Grilled smashburgers and salad

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 | Leave a comment

Classic chicken dinner. 6/24/24

Posted on June 26, 2024 by Beebamom
Sliced rotisserie chicken with gravy, mashed potatoes, and broccoli

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!

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Vietnamese Rice Noodle Salad with Chicken. 6/23/24

Posted on June 25, 2024 by Beebamom
Vietnamese rice noodle salad with chicken

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.

Everyone gets to construct their own salad!

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 , | Leave a comment

Weekly Menu. June 24 – 30, 2024

Posted on June 23, 2024 by Beebamom

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!

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Shrimp in a Saffron Pernod Sauce. 6/21/24

Posted on June 22, 2024 by Beebamom
Shrimp in a saffron Pernod sauce

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 | Leave a comment

Hot dog, sauerkraut, and salad. 6/20/24

Posted on June 21, 2024 by Beebamom
Hot dog, sauerkraut, and salad

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 | 1 Comment

Chili? 6/19/24

Posted on June 20, 2024 by Beebamom
Chili?

Why can we not make chili that tastes like chili!? The problem this time was that we used the trimmings from our Father’s Day ribs and the BBQ sauce remnants on our Qbits (John’s name for the leftovers) made the whole pot of chili too, too sweet. Granted I do not like sweet things to begin with but this was way over the top for me. I tried all sorts of remedies—more salt, Tabasco, fish sauce, and even instant coffee grounds but nothing wiped away the taste. Since John ate 3 bowls I think he liked it fine. Next time I am commandeering the kitchen and following a recipe that has no hint of sweet!

P.S. The salty tortilla chips on top helped some.

Posted in American, Legumes, Pork, Southwest U.S., Vegetables, Weeknight dinners | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Grilled NY Strip Steak. 6/18/24

Posted on June 19, 2024 by Beebamom
Grilled NY strip steak, grilled baked potato, asparagus

Yummy meal tonight. We took advantage of a sale on these steaks for 6.97/lb. at Safeway. They came in a pack of four so it was kind of a gamble. This first steak which was about 1 lb. was a good size for the three of us. We each got 4 slices and a bit of bone to nibble on. John cooked it on the grill in about 6 minutes and then let it rest for 5 minutes. It turned out a perfect medium rare.

An easy way to grill a baking potato is to cut it in half, score it, and add a little olive oil and salt on the cut side. Then microwave it until a knife slides in easily. John took over at this point putting the potato halves on the grill to get some char. The asparagus was simply steamed in a little water.

Posted in American, Beef, Easy, Grilling, Methods, Vegetables, Weeknight dinners | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Vegan Chickpea Stew. 6/17/24

Posted on June 18, 2024 by Beebamom
Chickpeas with ditalini and greens

This is one of our go-to vegan dishes. It is packed full of a variety of vegetables and is filling due to a can of chickpeas and a half cup of soup-sized pasta. The vegetable broth is enhanced by adding a can of Rotel. This is a great way to use up vegetables that may be getting tired. Whatever you have on hand just chop it up and add it to the pot!

Posted in American, Legumes, Pasta, stew, Vegan, Vegetables, Vegetarian, Weeknight dinners | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Father’s Day faux cookout. 6/16/24

Posted on June 17, 2024 by Beebamom
St. Louis style ribs with Texas caviar and tortilla chips

I started out thinking that for Father’s Day we would grill some meat and corn plus serve a salad for John, our daughter, our son, who is also a dad, and his kids. But then I started thinking about all the work that would make for John since he is our griller. So I asked him if he would prefer ribs from the deli that we could just heat up in the microwave and the answer was an emphatic, yes! Then the grilled corn morphed into corn chips, and the only thing I ended up making was Texas caviar, a glorified two bean salad. Our daughter made a chocolate cake which we served with dark chocolate pretzel ice cream.

Everybody loved everything! Well, the grandkids did not eat the salad but that was okay because now we have plenty of leftovers. We had a great time sitting on the patio talking and laughing for hours. Happy Father’s Day!

Posted in American, Easy, Holidays, Hot weather meals, Legumes, Pork, Salad, Vegetables | Tagged , | Leave a comment