I feel energized, so dinner will be pork chops & mashed 'taters w/gravy, all washed down with one of the wines from my Advent calendar.
Last night my gf made Faux Veal Parmesan (aka Chicken Parmesan). I like the veal dish, but she prefers to not purchase veal despite the fact she occasionally uses cow milk.
The after dinner critique was brutal. She used frozen, breaded chicken patties. When I do Chicken Parm I go all out and use boneless/skinless chicken breast which I bread.
Pittsburgh brewery Cinderlands’ Full Squish to drink.
Cheers!
We had sautéed chicken livers with steamed spinach and macaroni & cheese. I’m trying to decide what to have tonight. Something with ground beef, I think.
Well, my gf wanted to make up for the chicken parm fiasco the other night. She bought some real chicken and made a Thai Coconut Chicken dish that was great.
I made some carrots in the air fryer, tossing them first in some olive oil and brown sugar.
Chilled vodka to drink.
I visited my favourite little deli again today and scored more cabbage rolls in tomato sauce and this time they had latkes (potato pancakes) which one serves with sour cream and chives or chopped green onion. I’ll be going all Eastern European ethnic for the next few days!
Shrimp/sausage gumbo with brown basmati rice.
Chicken Corn Chowdah. Genesee Cream Ale to drink.
My gf made herself a can of Progresso Jambalaya for lunch yesterday. She claimed it was too spicy for her, while Progresso soups are usually too bland. She was going to contact Progresso to complain. I dug the can out of the garbage……
Chicken parm sandwich for me.
Fried chicken strips, broccoli salad, and fruitcake.
I was browsing YouTube shorts and came across a video of an Italian woman making Pasta alla Genovese. I wasn’t familiar with the dish and I couldn’t understand what she was saying, but I was intrigued, both because it looked delicious and because I loved the way she pronounced the name of it: something like ‘pasta alla zhen-oh-VAY-say’.
So I found an English recipe for Pasta alla Genovese online and made it last night, as much because I wanted an excuse to say the name in my best bad Italian accent as anything. “What’s for dinner tonight?” “I’m making pasta alla zhen-oh-VAY-say!” And wow, was it good. Going into the regular rotation.
Beef Tips over noodles. Side salad. Pinot Noir.
I’ve copied that recipe for my files, thank you!
My attitude to cooking is usually quick-and-easy prepared stuff, but sometimes I’ll go into a fit of cooking frenzy and make something like this. I love pasta and this sounds like a much more interesting alternative to pot roast!
ETA: That excellent website has a convenient “Print” option for their recipes. I printed it to PDF and filed it away.
Cool, I hope you enjoy the results as much as I did!
One note about that particular recipe- I used it for the ingredients, but I didn’t follow it exactly-- it called for not searing the meat first, and every cooking instinct in me said that was just wrong, so I went ahead and seared the meat, and made a fond out of the pan browning. I think my sauce was better for it, but the author of the recipe specifically stated:
Most beef braises from Western European culinary traditions call for an initial searing step before braising, but this isn’t necessary for Genovese. In side-by-side tests, I actually preferred the ragù I made with beef that wasn’t browned before braising; it tasted more like a cohesive sauce rather than a stew cosplaying as pasta companion.
Mybe someday I’ll also try the dish without searing the meat first, but I am highly skeptical that not searing would have better results than searing. I also have no idea what “a cohesive sauce rather than a stew cosplaying as pasta companion” is even supposed to mean. Let me know how yours turns out, especially if you follow the ‘no sear’ instructions.
Lasagna Soup. It was delicious. Basically lasagna in a bowl.
Take-out Chinese. Sweet & Sour Chicken, to be precise.
I oven-baked a potato last night and then “noped” out of it, so I’ll re-heat with copious butter, some bacon, and the last green onion in da haus.
Also, both mozzarella and Provolone.
I may hafta go get more green onion. It’s kinda crucial.
Lox and cream cheese on toasted pumpernickel bagel.
Leftover Lasagna Soup. I love it! Last night specifically with garlic bread.
I thought I was the only one who loved finely chopped green onion on baked potato (with sour cream, of course!). I believe chives is traditional, but since I have no other use for chives but always have fresh green onion around, that’s what I always use.
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I happened to be close to one of my favourite supermarkets the other day, normally a bit out of the way, so picked up another one of their great prepared turkey dinners with mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and little thing of gravy that’s never enough, but I now have half a dozen little miniature cups of turkey gravy in the freezer to add to it. Man, I love that gravy!
But not for tonight. I also asked at the deli counter if they had Montreal smoked meat, and by golly they had a big hunk of the delicious stuff. I got them to slice up 400 grams and tonight will be a very thick smoked meat sandwich on a toasted onion bun with lots of Dijon mustard and a cup of tomato bisque.