My gf made dinner last night. It started out as a Greens&Beans dish with kale and cannellini beans, to which she added some hot sausage and gnocchi. She played with the sauce, incorporating a bit of cheese. It was fantastic! Another meal that we will never have again.
I often start with Trader Joe’s frozen Asian stuff (usually Kung Pao or Mandarin Chicken) and then tart it up with whatever vegetables I have around, toasted raw peanuts or sesame seeds, and serve with rice and sometimes egg rolls. Did that tonight, as a matter of fact.
Another good meal. I made @not_what_you_d_expect’s Cuban Black Beans. I’ve made them in the fall ever since he posted the recipe 11/2020. Always tasty and the aroma is exquisite.
Served over rice, with Zucchini Fritters and baked Apples for dessert. For a change of pace I stuffed the apples with cashew butter.
Iced vodka with lime juice to drink.
Last night I reheated the fried rice that I made the night before, only we didn’t have enough shrimp left over so I sautéed some more, And I made some frozen eggrolls. The chicken ones from HEB are pretty damn good!
Tonight shall be KFC. I have decreed it. 
Made scalloped potatoes with cubed ham. Quite tasty.
Just for something completely different, mac & cheese with oven-baked chorizo sausages, baked on a bed of coarsely chopped white onion and green pepper and drizzled with a garlicky tomato sauce.
There’s more sausages than mac & cheese. The rest of the sausages will be had another day with BBQ beans and fries or roast potatoes.
Today was dine-in take-out Chinese with a buddy while his wife was taking someone to the airport. Sweet-and-Sour chicken, fried rice, hot & sour soup, a spring roll and iced tea. With the guy on wok duty all of 15 feet away, your food gets to you hot.
Pulled pork, beans and a biscuit. Burp.
Grilled jerk chicken sandwich and pork verde soup/stew. With an IPA.
Corn dogs!
(the state fair starts today, it just seemed appropriate)
My friend’s food truck was at a favorite brewery last night.
My gf had the Tuna 2 Times Poke Bowl.
I had the Ôra Midori Poke Bowl.
We shared some very nice Striped Bass Sashimi (not on the menu).
ETA: beer to drink.
For tonight (and the rest of the week forthcoming, as long as it lasts), braised beef short ribs and Anthony Bourdain’s tartiflette. Substituting brie and taleggio cheese for the reblochon. Side salad to go with, to get the necessary veggies in.
Neither of us felt like heating food, much less cooking. So we drove over to Jimmy’s Food Store and got an Italian Stallion sub to split. We both knew we wouldn’t want to heat food tomorrow, either. So we grabbed a Muffuletta to split for dinner tomorrow (we got the 9", it could probably work for both lunch and dinner).
Well, once again the chorizo sausages and mac & cheese got delayed – twice. I got too much stuff from the deli. So last night was actually a hot roast beef and cheese sub with a Greek Acropolis salad, which contains a great many things in a refreshingly tangy yogurt dressing, including red, green, and yellow peppers, black olives, Spanish onion, leek, and cubes of feta cheese. I normally just tolerate salad but I was surprised at how tasty this was.
Tonight was the rest of the salad, which was so filling that I still haven’t had the assorted Italian sub I meant to have with it.
Good thing the sausages are in the coldest part of the fridge, which is almost 0°C. They should be fine tomorrow.
Tonight was leftovers from last night’s grilled jerk chicken sandwich and pork verde soup/stew. Even better today!
Tonight we had friends over (a buddy is an electrician… he helped me replace some lighting in exchange for social time), so I spent a few hours preparing stuff.
I made a “chicken pot pie”, but without chicken to accommodate my pescatarian spouse. Followed the Joy of Cooking recipe, but used mushroom stock, and sautéed up a pound of crimini mushrooms (cut into forkable chunks) as an additional veg to add in lieu of chicken. I also diced up some potatoes but I forgot to actually put them in before cooking. Topped the thing with pepperidge farm frozen puff pastry. I could see making my own pastry/pie crust/biscuit being impressive, but from the freezer was definitely good enough and much simpler.
(It struck me following the recipe that before you add in any additional veg or meat, that you basically make a cream of [mushroom in my case] soup. Make a roux then wisk in stock, then wisk in milk, then season to taste).
Paired it with a kale salad with fresh apples, roasted beets, crutons, parmesian, toasted squash seeds (made from a previous meal’s scraps) and a lemon honey dressing.
Our friends brought an apple crisp.
A friend gave me an Asian cookbook she didn’t want any more and I tried one of the glazes in it tonight on some baked salmon. Needs a little adjusting for our tastes, but it was good. Creamed spinach and cucumber salad for sides.
Went to a new place with an interesting concept. Instead of a brewery that also has food, this place is a foodie-restaurant that also brews a few quality beers.
It was an idea of a chef I know who got the attention of a guy with the financial ability to make it happen.
We had potato soup that was really good. It had chunks of potatoes in a smooth potato base. There was a bacon taste, but I didn’t see any bacon. I asked the chef about that and he was happy I’d noticed. He incorporated bacon fat from bacon used in other dishes.
Then we had Western Burgers made from freshly ground bison. We asked for them rare, and he somehow accomplished this with a really hard char on the surface. I’m going to have to ask him his way of accomplishing this.
They have five beers. We each had a pumpkin beer (it’s that time of year, sadly). I was impressed by the pumpkin beer. The spices were not overly done, and so it was more of a squash beer. It could have passed as a Porter! Also had their IPA which was fine, nothing special. They also had a saison that sounded good as well as a dark strong Belgian (12% ABV). There’s also an Oktoberfest beer.
Tonight was more breakfast for dinner, with eggs, pumpkin pancakes and Neese’s sausage. Apples and mandarin oranges on the side.
I was thinking apple butter would go nicely as a condiment for the pancakes, but my next visit to a grocery was Trader Joe’s and they didn’t have any. They did have something called Cinnamon Bun Spread, though, which appears to be a combo of cinnamon, cream, butter, a few different natural sweeteners, and vanilla, so I got that. It was really good, and not too sweet.
Last night I made Cranberry Chicken. I bought the Catalina salad dressing a couple of months ago but had never gotten around to using it.
Cranberry Chicken
Adapted from Easy Cranberry Chicken - might sound weird, but it's a family favorite dinner.
Servings: 6
INGREDIENTS
8 ounce bottle Catalina salad dressing
1 packet dry onion soup mix (about 1.25 ounce)
15 ounce can whole-berry cranberry sauce
3 pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs
salt and pepper
STEPS
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Preheat the oven to 350° F. Grease a 9×13-inch glass baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.
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In a medium bowl, combine the Catalina dressing, dry onion soup mix, and cranberry sauce. Mix well, then pour into the prepared baking dish.
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Season the chicken thighs on both sides with salt and pepper then place in the baking dish in a single layer. Turn the chicken thighs over to coated all sides well with the sauce.
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Bake the chicken uncovered for 1 hour or until the chicken has an internal temperature of 165°F.
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Serve the chicken and sauce over rice, mashed potatoes, or noodles.