Sunday’s dinner was kind of a mishmash of items. Since I had two ripe avocados that needed using we started out with a first course of guacamole and tortilla chips. I used a packet of spicy Mucho Guacamole for the two avocados.
Tortilla chips and guacamole
Today I am also experimenting with seeing if reintroducing gluten back into my diet will have an ill effect. For lunch I had a vegetarian banh mi with its delicious roll and my dinner entree is soft scrambled eggs with rye toast. Maybe I will be fine tomorrow and maybe not.
I started off dinner prep by steaming the new potatoes. They took about 20 minutes. After they were done John roasted the sea bass in a 400F oven for 13 minutes. I made the salad while the fish cooked.
This was a delicious dinner. We love Chilean sea bass but it is getting so expensive that we may have to find a new favorite.
I enjoy cutting up vegetables so I really got a lot of enjoyment preparing this chickpea stew. The basic components of this dish are chickpeas, any vegetables you might have that need eating, a can of petite diced tomatoes, a starch, and some vegetable or chicken broth.
For our stew I used a can of Rotel for some spice, carrots, celery, onion, zucchini, and spinach. Since I no longer eat gluten I exchanged ditalini for a brown rice/quinoa mix. I also salted the zucchini ahead of time to draw out some liquid so the zucchini pieces wouldn’t turn to mush.
Honestly I like this stew better with small pasta and would recommend making it that way if you do not have a gluten sensitivity.
Bell pepper stuffed ground beef, rice, and tomato sauce
I made these stuffed peppers yesterday morning and reheated each pepper half for two minutes in the microwave. My steps to making these fairly light stuffed peppers are to cut 3 peppers in half and clean out the large ribs and seeds. Microwave the pepper halves for 6 minutes in a 9 x 9 square glass dish. While the bell peppers are softening in the microwave, sauté 1/4 lb. ground beef, diced onions, any usable chopped leftover parts of the peppers, oregano, red pepper flakes, and salt. Combine the meat mixture with 1 1/2 cups of cooked white rice and your own or jarred tomato sauce.
Fill the 6 halves with the meat and rice mixture and pour any excess sauce over the top of the stuffed peppers. Bake in the oven, covered, at 350F for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake an additional 10 minutes. Garnish with Parmesan cheese, basil, and a drizzle of olive oil.
You would be surprised at how far that 1/4 lb. of ground beef goes. It flavors and gives texture to the peppers. I used to use way more beef and I actually like these stuffed peppers better.
Today we went to Costco and picked up one of their rotisserie chickens. Once home, I dismantled the chicken saving one breast for tonight’s dinner, shredding the other breast for enchiladas next week, putting the legs and thighs aside for John’s lunches, and freezing the bones to make stock when I have enough. John made a packet of chicken gravy which he squeezed a bunch of lemon into and also added some capers. He warmed the chicken through in the gravy/sauce on low heat.
I took some of his leftover rice and mixed it with some riced cauliflower and then microwaved it. The broccoli was simply steamed.
The Kenwood Restaurant closed 10 years ago but before they did we asked for and they graciously gave us the recipe for their delicious Kenwood shrimp. We make it every once in a while and it is delicious.
Because this is a pretty fancy dish for a Tuesday I started in the morning by cutting in small dice the fennel, onion, red bell pepper, tomatoes, and celery. That’s a lot of chopping especially since we decided to make a double recipe since our daughter was joining us for dinner. But I was really happy that I had done it in the morning around 6:30 PM when we started to prepare dinner.
John makes the most perfect hamburgers! They are juicy and medium rare. What a fine dish to close out the summer and celebrate Labor Day!
For my part I made coleslaw with a dressing of mayo/yogurt, vinegar, and celery seed. I like to make my own coleslaw because my dressing tends to be much lighter and not so sweet as the stuff you buy at the deli counter. In addition I made a cucumber salad with red onions. (We currently have a lot of cucumbers from the garden.) And finally I pleaded for chips instead of tater tots so we did not have to turn on the oven.
It was a really enjoyable meal and there was not a scrap left over!
Scrambled eggs, turkey kielbasa, cherry tomatoes with basil
It is hard to keep coming up with different things to do with eggs every Sunday. Sometimes I just have to go back to the basics. Tonight’s BFD is simply soft scrambled eggs. The secret to not getting a dried out hard scrambled egg is to turn off the burner way before it looks done but keep scrambling the eggs in the residual heat in the pan. If it turns out there isn’t quite enough heat left to get the eggs to your liking then just turn the heat back on for 20 seconds and then turn it off again.
I also needed to use up a 3 ounce piece of turkey kielbasa so I chopped it up and cooked it before the eggs. When they were browned I took the turkey kielbasa pieces out and wiped the pan and then cooled the bottom of the pan under some cool water. Otherwise the eggs would start to cook too quickly and I would lose the soft curds.
My plate was still looking to empty so I added some sliced home-grown cherry tomatoes sitting on a base of home-grown basil. I lightly dressed the tomatoes and basil with sherry vinegar and olive oil. And of course you cannot forget to salt both the tomatoes and the eggs.
Omnivore 