Almost the entire week coming up is forecast to have temperatures over 100F. Monday and Tuesday will probably be over 110F. That is hotter than it has ever been in the thirty years we have lived here. Needless to say we are looking at meals that are no-cook or that can be made in the early morning and reheated in the microwave. It should start to cool off a bit next weekend.
Granted this is not a pretty plate of food but it tasted good. We needed a dinner that would have minimal cooking because it was over 100F. Originally John was going to put the shrimp on skewers and cook them outside on the grill but standing over a hot grill on a super hot day seemed like a bad idea. So he gave them a quick sear in a skillet.
I made salsa slaw which is a combination of light mayonnaise, medium salsa, and cabbage. It is surprisingly good. I topped mine with some thinly sliced basil because we had some left over from our bounty that we made into pesto. The cauliflower rice has some of the salsa in it as well as tomatoes on top. The salsa turned it an unfortunate color but gave it some flavor.
We are in the midst of a very hot spell which is forecast to last for a week! Since we are expecting many triple digit days and we are supposed to be conserving electricity, John and I will be trying to make dinners that have minimal cooking. Tonight’s dinner is one of them.
This salad is based around extra firm tofu that has been marinated in soy sauce, a few drops of sesame oil, ginger and garlic. The other components of the dish are shredded cabbage, red onion, avocado, cucumber, Fresno chiles, and edamame. They all go on top of some rice (which we cooked in the morning and heated up in the microwave.) The salad is dressed by first drizzling on some olive oil and then ladling a dressing composed of soy sauce, ginger, green onions, sesame oil, a dash of sweetener, and a little water. It is almost the same thing as the marinade. As garnishes I used some chow mein noodles and furikake.
In celebration of it being September and in anticipation of Autumn we made soup even though the temperature outside was 104F! This is a light clam chowder with only 2 to 4 tablespoons of cream in about 4 servings.
Since we had some shrimp stock in the freezer we used it instead of clam juice. Also instead of bread we substituted oyster crackers. And since we were feeling indulgent we used 4 tablespoons of cream.
After two weeks without making pasta due to the heat we decided that we really wanted our Pasta Wednesday! Tonight’s fusilli was joined by asparagus, mushrooms, onions, and garlic as a sauce with some pasta water and olive oil. Because I like to eat a lot I made my bowl with kale on the bottom, then the pasta, and decorated the top with cherry tomatoes. Yum! It was so good!
Although we did not make tacos for Taco Tuesday we still went with a Mexican/Southwest theme with chicken chili. As a base I started with the Neely’s white chicken chili recipe. You can find it on the Food Network site. We like our chili thicker than the recipe’s thickness so we added a can of fat free refried beans and a handful of crushed tortilla chips. Our daughter had the chili over a bed of rice but John and I opted for kale and garnished the chili with some medium spicy pico and a drizzle of sriracha.
Tuesday was a busy day for me and I did not get around to posting Monday’s dinner. It was an especially tasty dinner with a nice thick piece of Chilean sea bass that we got on sale from Whole Foods. I do not shop at Whole Foods very often due to their rather high prices but I always keep an eye out for sale items. The fish guy there is always happy to cut you pieces just the way you want them. John cooked the sea bass pieces in a 400F oven for about 15 minutes and they came out perfectly, succulent large flakes of delicious fish.
For my part I prepared the asparagus. In case you do not know, when asparagus pops out of the ground in the spring a variety of stalks come up. Some are thin, others medium, and some are thick. There is no baby asparagus so if you are just buying the thin ones, they are really no different from the thick ones, just skinnier. In order to get the most out of my asparagus buck I peel the bottoms where they look woody. Underneath you can find perfectly good, tender asparagus. You can see where I peeled the ends in the picture above.
Finally, when I was at Grocery Outlet the other day I picked up a frozen package of riced broccoli with onions, carrots, and quinoa. It comes unseasoned so it needed quite a bit of salt. But it was a nice change from riced cauliflower. I also added a quarter teaspoon of butter to the fish, the asparagus, and the broccoli mix. Just a little butter goes a long way to making everything taste even better!
If this looks a lot like Saturday’s dinner it is because I had leftover shredded chicken and chow mein noodles. But it is not totally the same. The base of this salad is spinach, arugula, Romaine, mint, and basil. I dressed it with a drizzle of olive oil and a combination of soy sauce, half of a lime’s worth of juice, garlic powder, and ginger powder. I did not bother on combining the oil and soy parts because they do not emulsify. I put the oil on first and then the soy mixture and tossed the greens around to get it mixed together. I am really liking this new way of dressing the salad. I can control the amount of oil I am using much more easily. Then I piled the chicken on top followed by a scattering of chow mein noodles and furikake.
I lost one pound this week eating exactly what you have seen in the pictures. We also had popcorn for before-sies and wine with many (but not all) of these dinners. Losing 1-2 lbs. a week is a sane way of getting myself back to my goal weight.
I made this salad for the first time last night. The original recipe is from Food and Wine but I added a few more vegetables and replaced the peanuts with almonds and the fried shallots with chow mein noodles. Using shredded rotisserie chicken and replacing the fried shallots with chow mein noodles makes this a completely no-cook meal great for hot nights.
It is a lot of chopping, though. Shred the cabbage and carrots, or buy it pre-shredded, thinly slice red bell pepper and cucumbers (my additions), mince the garlic and ginger (my addition), shred the chicken and you are looking at more than a half hour of chopping work!
Instead of serving this as a composed salad, I put all the components out on our kitchen island and let each of us make our own salad. I was pleased that dinner got rave reviews. We decided that next time we might try tofu instead of chicken and maybe use a soy vinaigrette instead of fish sauce as a base. That way we can keep the dish totally vegan/vegetarian.
Omnivore 