I post a weekly menu in the kitchen. I can easily refer to it when I am making a shopping list and our daughter checks off the dinners she would like to participate in. However, the menu is not etched in stone and depending on unexpected events, the weather, and general cooking malaise we are flexible. In fact two of the dinner we were supposed to eat last week have migrated to this week’s menu.
For this dinner we make a very loose polenta so it acts like a thick sauce. It is delicious with the sautéed shrimp and broccoli. As an added element I toasted up some French’s fried onions. So far I have not been able to brown them rather than cook them until they are black. They go from golden to black very quickly. If they look perfect in the pan it is probably already too late.
Since I am not supposed to do much these first couple of days after my cataract surgery I left most of the prep up to the rest of the family. Here is what our prep looked like—
Now it was just a matter of heating up some rice and individually selecting what we wanted in our bowls. I chose marinated tofu, shredded cabbage, cucumber, cilantro, Fresno chile, green onion, avocado, lime, soy vinaigrette, and sesame oil. It was quite yummy and we have enough components for our daughter to compose another dinner tomorrow night.
Today’s division of labor was my doing the prep and pre-cook on the sweet potato and cauliflower while John prepped the lamb chops and cooked everything on the grill.
The loin lamb chops turned out perfectly medium rare and the sweet potatoes were great with some char. I was hoping that the cauliflower would pick up more brown from the grill. We used a slotted grill pan to cook them but I think we need a different technology for cooking vegetables. The pan must have agreed since it broke. I think I will look for a hinged grilling basket so the vegetables get more exposure and can be turned over.
Uh oh, I am getting behind with my posts again! It must be due to unexciting dinners. On Sunday instead of our usual eggs we used up the rest of our Costco rotisserie chicken. This week’s chicken yielded two dinners and two lunches. Quite a bargain for $4.99!
This week has a couple of events. Sunday the 16th is Father’s Day and I am trying to come up with food that will let John relax instead of cook. But it also needs to be something that the grandkids will eat so it is currently up in the air until I hear back about whether they like ribs. The other event is that I am having cataract surgery on Wednesday so I want to make something light for Tuesday and then we will just get take-out on Wednesday.
Because our menu has adjusted due to the screaming hot weather, some groceries got used and some didn’t, there was takeout and repurposing of dishes.
It is a beautiful evening here in NorCal. No humidity and temperatures in the low 70s. A nice night for grilling some burgers and having a salad that incorporates leftovers. We start off with chips and guacamole. I thought we were using the avocados in some tofu bowls but it never happened. And I know that all of us love guacamole.
Along with our Mexican starter and an all-American grilled hamburger we are having leftover Middle Eastern parsley salad or tabbouleh. Since there is not enough for a portion for each of us, I am going out to my herb garden and clipping some additional parsley, mint, oregano, plus whizzing up some salad greens. Additional garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, and salt should give us enough.
Hopefully next week we will be able to stick to our menu. If not? I will try to follow the saying of “waste it, want not.”
After giving up on cooking Wednesday and ordering take-out, on Thursday we tried a new recipe found by our daughter for an Asian chicken salad. Earlier in the day we had bought a rotisserie chicken at Costco and I had shredded up one breast so part of the work was already done.
It turned out really well. The recipe calls for cooking the chicken but it is much easier if you use an already cooked one. The rice noodles are boiled in the recipe but I just soaked mine in hot water. It also calls for quite a bit of sugar but I suggest you start with a third of the amount and then add more to get it to your sweetness tolerance.
We will definitely make this again. Hopefully I will write down the amounts of sugar and other modifications I made and edit and publish the recipe again. But until then—-
https://thewoksoflife.com/vietnamese-rice-noodle-salad-chicken/
California is experiencing a heat dome which means that it was in the upper 90s on June 4, 2024. The last thing I wanted to do was make the house hotter by using the stove or oven. I opted for a dinner of store bought hummus and pita with a homemade Middle Eastern parsley salad, tabbouleh.
Making the salad is a little prep intensive but a food processor lightens the load. Here is the recipe I use.
Last week our favorite brand of pasta, Barilla, was on sale for $1.27/lb. Since I love pasta we bought the 4 boxes allowed and cooked up 6 ounces that were sauced with the ground beef and tomato sauce I made last week for our stuffed peppers.
As an aside, since grocery prices have increased, it is important to flex your economic power by stretching your proteins. I took 1 pound of ground beef and used half of it to make 8 stuffed pepper halves which were a dinner and two lunches. The other half pound was used for this spaghetti sauce. Actually if I had added another can of tomatoes I probably could have squeaked out another pasta meal.
Omnivore 