Tonight we dressed up our leftover Autumn soup with a strip of bacon each. I made a double batch last week which makes about 10-12 servings. The recipe below is the full fat version. I use about 1/4 of the butter and cream recommended and it still tastes delicious.
In addition to our bowls of soup we also had some store bought hummus and pita plus I made a tabbouleh salad.
When we have tacos I like to make a condiment bar on the kitchen counter that way everyone can fix their plate the way they like. John cooked the shrimp and warmed the tortillas while I cut up the taco accompaniments. (I know that arugula and golden beets do not go with tacos but the beets were left over from Sunday and I needed to use them!)
In the back row are arugula, avocado, and sliced golden beets. In the middle are crema (yogurt mixed with salt and cumin), a small bottle of spicy avocado sauce (just bought this today. It is good!), salsa, and shredded cabbage. The lone item in the front is cilantro.
Dinner was a success! John cooked the shrimp perfectly as usual and the salsa, crema, and avocado sauce worked well on everything.
While I will never be fooled by vegetables parading as pasta, if you mix zoodles with actual pasta what you get is a very tasty dish that takes a while to eat. I am definitely a fan of a big bowl of food.
I bought my hand zoodler back in June and am glad that I remembered to use it on Wednesday. I sautéed mushrooms, onions, and garlic seasoned with red pepper flakes and oregano and then waited until the pasta was ready to join the vegetables to put the zoodles in. If you try cooking them you are liable to end up with mush. A little olive oil, basil, and pasta water was all that was needed to make a light sauce.
I made the vegan version of the sesame bowls I have been making. The bowl pictured here is waiting for its scallion-ginger-soy vinaigrette. We have one of these almost every week rotating through tofu, shrimp, and salmon. My daughter mentioned today that avocados are on sale this coming week. I rejoined that I could not make the same thing over and over again. She said why not? Good question! The bowls are simple to make and delicious!
Super simple, easy dinner tonight! After shaking the vegetables in a bag with olive oil and salt I laid them out on a foil-lined and sprayed sheet pan for a 25 minute roast in the oven pre-heated to 425F convection. The vegetables got some good browning and were done when I could pierce them with a knife easily. As soon as the vegetables were done I microwaved my piece of turkey sausage for 90 seconds. I made a combo of Dijon and whole grain mustards to dip my sausage into. Yum!
This week’s menu includes five vegan or vegetarian meals, one shellfish, and one turkey sausage dinner. Including more plant-based meals now seems like the norm and I am very happy about that.
Although we are not religious, we still like to celebrate the holidays of both our traditions. Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish new year and begins the Ten Days of Awe which end up on Yom Kippur. As with all good holidays, the emphasis is on food.
I discovered a few years ago that in the Sephardic tradition there are foods that have special meaning for the holiday. So we no longer just have apples and honey but also beans, gourds, fish (goldfish crackers), beets, dates, and several more. Plus, you are supposed to make puns out of the food names! What fun! John was our leader and the kids and grandkids were willing participants.
Our daughter made a round challah which was delicious!
For dinner we had what we call Autumn Soup. It is a mixture of apples, sweet potato, rutabaga, onion, butternut squash, and carrot pureed in stock and then enriched with cream and butter. It is yummy!
We also had a large salad and I even made an apple tart for dessert. We are wishing for ourselves and the rest of the world peace, prosperity, and happiness in the coming year.
Growing up we never ate fish. Zero. Nada. My father was forced to eat fish as a child and he never got over the trauma. In fact even our cat was not allowed to eat canned cat food that had fish in it. My dad just could not tolerate even the smell. Needless to say I do not have an instinctual knowledge of cooking fish. I leave that up to John.
It certainly seems easy. He seasons up the fish and bakes it in a 400F oven for 15 minutes and, voila, the fish is cooked perfectly. In the meantime I get to steam the potatoes, sauté the green beans, and make a mustard sauce. Somehow that does not seem like an equal division of labor! But it works for us.
The mustard sauce is a tablespoon of whole grain mustard, a tablespoon of Dijon mustard, a squirt of yellow mustard, a teaspoon of mayonnaise, and a splash of water to thin it out. John loved it and put it on everything. It was definitely great on the fish and the potatoes.
On Friday night we were watching Roger Federer’s last professional match which was a very happy/sad event. We have been big fans for a long time. Needless to say, thoughts of making dinner went out the window and we decided just to have some Buffalo chicken wings that we had bought in a big frozen pack from Costco. It was quick and easy and better than ordering a pizza.
Here is a picture I took of Roger Federer at Indian Wells at the BNP Paribas Masters Tournament March 16, 2010. 😢
Tonight’s dinner is all about ease. Buy a large jar of salsa verde, corn tortillas, shredded Mexican blend cheese, and pulled leftover cooked chicken, a rotisserie chicken, or the easiest, a pack of cooked white meat chicken from Costco. Shred the chicken. Put a layer of salsa verde down in a 9 X 13” baking dish. Heat the tortillas over an open flame until they are supple. In each tortilla put some chicken, salsa verde, and cheese. For extra flavor add chopped onions and Serrano chiles. Roll them up and put them in the baking dish seam side down. When you have completed all your tortillas cover them with salsa verde and sprinkle on any remaining cheese. Bake in a 350F oven until the cheese is melted and the casserole is bubbly, about 1/2 hour. I fit 12 enchiladas in my dish which is slightly smaller than standard size.
For the spicy black beans I use two cans of rinsed black beans and a cup of tomato salsa or a can of Rotel. I doctor this up with a teaspoon of cumin, a squirt of sriracha, five shakes of Tabasco, and salt to taste. Heat on the stovetop. Add a little salad and a piece of lime for squeezing and dinner is ready!
Omnivore 