Sweet & sour cabbage & tomato soup, and a salad.
Yesterday was chicken and dumplings using a rotisserie chicken and Grands biscuits.
Tonight will be Instant Pot Taco Pasta and Chayote Soup.
I cooked yesterday in order to have meals for the rest of this week for lunch and/or dinner, as it’s a busy week and I won’t have much time in the evenings to cook.
I made a pound of orecchiette and dressed it with a small jar of pesto.
I took 2lb of boneless skinless chicken thighs, salted and peppered and coated with olive oil, and seared them. Then, baked to temp with sliced garlic, more salt, crushed red pepper, dried basil, more olive oil, and 20 chopped castelvetrano olives (sitting in the refrigerator from a picnic meal a week or so ago and needed to be eaten).
Then, I chopped the thighs, and tossed it all into the pasta.
It came out great… a delicious combination of heat (red pepper and pesto/basil) and sweet/richness (olives, dried basil, chicken thighs). Sometimes I do meal prep for the week and by the time I get to meal three, I’m less enthused about the dish and am eating it only because I made it and don’t want to waste. This one I will enjoy from start to finish.
I’m intrigued… what kind of preparation is this? Something like this?
Yeah, that’s similar to how she does it. She does use more than one jalapeno and also adds a milder chile, as well. Chile powder to taste generally equals a tablespoon of it in our house.
But the largest difference between that recipe and my sweetie’s is the lack of meat. She normally spoils me by putting some smoked brisket in them, but a couple of slices of fried bacon works well, too (most restaurants around here seem to go with bacon). But again, that’s for the omnivores. That recipe is perfectly fine for some vegetarian pintos.
Nice! A good bean stew with cornbread sounds like something we’d enjoy a lot. My spouse is vegetarian mostly, with an occasional exception for locally sourced, home-cooked beef. The veggie version would be good, but a small amount of brisket and some smoked paprika would be a nice treat as well. Adding this to our list of meals to try. Thanks for the inspiration!
The last couple of days was tandoori chicken with potatoes, carrots, onions, and rice.
Tonight is sautéed calf liver and roasted broccoli with shredded Parmesan.
I’m heading to the town of my youth on Monday in Las Cruces NM, and will take a chance to sate my appetite (briefly) for good green chile dishes and New Mexican food, so the last couple of days have been Asian or other one off dishes. Night before last was this little piece of excess:
And it was delicious, though I subbed the “Italian Herb Blend” for fresher herbs more customized to my tastes. I had a mid-grade bottle of sherry I got a week or two back that I was using for a different dish, and wanted to use it up. But between that and the cream… it’ll be a rarely made dish.
The first night, I had it over a bunch of 100% whole wheat linguine, and I’ll finish the rest tonight with a serving of Costco’s roasted butternut squash with rosemary and honey.
This is somewhat OT but I’m gonna mention it anyway. I constantly rail against McDonald’s which I generally despise, but I was out picking up some groceries unusually early this morning and decided to stop at McD’s for a bacon’n’egg McMuffin combo with coffee. Glad I did. From what I’ve read from insiders, some (not all) of their breakfasts are among their healthiest offerings, and despite what some say, I love their coffee. You just have to tell them to add only half sugar so that the high school girls preparing it don’t make it to their own syrupy-sweet taste.
As for dinner tonight, as always on Sunday the local supermarket was stocked to the gills with freshly made rice bowls, and at this early hour there was lots of selection. Dinner tonight will be Szechuan beef on fried rice with a dollop of Huy Fong chili garlic sauce, tomorrow will be a new offering I haven’t seen before, General Tso chicken with noodles, not rice. They appear to be thin rice noodles, like those used in Singapore noodle, one of my favourite Asian dishes.
My wife and I were on the same wavelength yesterday-- she said “I’m thinking some kind of fish for dinner” and I said “as a matter of fact, I bought some flounder fillets and I was thinking of making stuffed flounder tonight!”.
Super simple meal, but fit for company. I made it sort of New Orleans style-- I diced up bell pepper, onion, celery and garlic, sauted the veggies in butter with some thyme, rosemary and black pepper. Add chopped up shrimp once the veggies softened up and cooked for just another minute or two-- you want to get the shrimp started but not quite fully cooked. Add a couple splashes of Worcestershire, lemon juice, then just enough breadcrumbs and chicken stock to get a cohesive stuffing going.
Lay down a flounder fillet on a greased baking sheet, sprinkle with Creole seasoning and add stuffing on top. Put a second flounder fillet on top of that (I actually used 3 fillets per stuffed flounder since mine were very small). Finish with Creole seasoning and a little smoked paprika on top, and bake at 400F for about 20 minutes.
Sounds delicious @solost. I do stuffed foods rarely (and fish less so because the wife only tolerates the smell for love of me), but I’ve always had issues with stuffing doneness - either over or underdone, despite using many of the same tricks especially with shrimp which like eggs, are overdone if they look cooked in the pan. Recently, I’ve done a few experiments with making the stuffing into mini-cakes and pan frying them briefly in the pan after extracting the fish with some extra butter and garlic and I wonder if that would work with your flounder dish above. I may want to try that before the Colorado weather makes opening up all the windows to air the house a no-go.
Tonight was Thai Beef Pad See Ew, leftover from dinner yesterday.
Tonight was Trader Joe’s orange chicken and rice.
Tonight’s dinner was not something anticipated, planned for, or scheduled. Creative Cookery on Facebook posted it today, the day after we got five chicken tenderloins from the food pantry, and it turned out we had all the ingredients.
And LET ME TELL YOU, it is one of the best simple meals I’ve made in a long, long time. I loved the sauce so much I got a bowl of noodles and covered them in sauce just so it wouldn’t go to waste.
Honey Dijon L&P Chicken Skillet
This sauce is the BOSS. One of the best sauces I've ever made, and I didn’t even run out of any of the ingredients.
INGREDIENTS
½ cup chicken broth
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (or 6 chicken tenderloins)
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
½ teaspoon garlic powder
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon honey
½ teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon fresh thyme (or ½ teaspoon dried)
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
STEPS
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Season the chicken breasts with salt, pepper, paprika, and garlic powder.
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In a large skillet, heat butter and olive oil over medium heat. Add the chicken breasts and cook for 4-5 minutes per side, until golden brown and cooked through. Remove from skillet and set aside.
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In the same skillet, add the minced garlic and sauté for 30 seconds until fragrant.
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Stir in heavy cream, chicken broth, Dijon mustard, Worcestershire sauce, honey, smoked paprika, and thyme. Bring to a gentle simmer.
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Stir in Parmesan cheese and let the sauce thicken for 2-3 minutes.
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Return the cooked chicken to the skillet, spooning the creamy sauce over the top. Let simmer for another 2 minutes to absorb the flavors.
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Garnish with chopped parsley and serve warm.
NOTES
Creative Cookery on Facebook
Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cooking Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes
Kcal: 420 kcal per serving | Servings: 4-6 servings
[ pardon me for this isolated snip]
My wife loooooves her some richly flavored sauces. To the point that prior to commitment to vegetarianism, when I’d cook a sauced dish for the two of us, it was always doubling (or more) the sauce portion so she could poor it over pasta or sop it up with bread, and she hardly cared about the entree at all!
Of course, in hindsight for us both, similar events are where we should have realized she doesn’t actually like the flavor and texture of meat, duh.
But yeah, anything I make with quality grated cheese (no pre grated if at all possible!) and a volume of heavy cream are starting off with a lot of +++ right from the start, such as the creamy sherry chicken I linked to previously.
But I have to compensate for two quality chile relleno plates and a luscious fried sopapilla stuffed with tender carne adovada and drenched in green chile sauce, plus other indulgences of my week back in New Mexico. Until then, 'tis going to be lower fat, lower carb, and absolutely lower calorie options until out trip to Austin around Halloween.
It was very simple, and we agreed delicious tonight. Boneless NY strip with a side of green beans sautéed in butter with Everything Bagel Seasoning.
Tonight is just a burger with blue cheese. Maybe a little popcorn later.
So night before last, I made a batch of easy smoked pork with adobo. Take a boneless chunk of pork sirloin, say about 2lbs, (butt is better, but strangely rarer to find in stores right now), cube it (1/2" to 1" chunks) brown in a skillet with a bit of fat, set in slow cooker.
Take a 3 each or so largish ancho chilies and pasilla, break off the stems and pour out any loose seeds. Break into chunks (use gloves) and toss in the remaining fat/juices in the skillet, toasting lightly and bringing out the flavors, and put into a small food processor/blender. Lastly, one small yellow onion goes into the same skillet, sliced thing along with 4-5 cloves of garlic, scrape up any leftover goodness from the pan.
Lastly, in the blender food processor, add one whole can of chipolte chiles in adobo sauce (the small cans that is), and blend into a paste.
Everything goes in a medium slow cooker now - the pork (already there), the onions and garlic, and the chiles and toasted + blended chiles in spice. Add about 2 cups of a decent but not great hard cider (acid and sweetness) or apple juice if you prefer. Add about a tablespoon of salt (it’s a lot of food) or more or less to taste.
Let it cook for 2 hours on high, plus 6-8 on low, or 10ish if all on low. Add salt (if needed) and extra flavors to taste (this is strong stuff, but if you want More of anything…), serve with soft tortillas, corn chips, lime wedges, and chopped cilantro, along with some cotija cheese or whatever suits your preference.
This was dinner two days ago. I pulled 80% of the meat, and 10ish percent of the “sauce” into the meal, and will of course have many leftovers…
Last night I used the rest of the fluids though, adding 2 cups of homemade stock and one can of decent chicken broth. Shredded some of the reserved pork (about 3-4 oz) and added it to the broth. Added the juice of a whole lime, and one can of white hominy drained and rinsed. Simmered for about 30 minutes, and serve with the same sides as above for a quicker and easier version of posole soup.
Made the last few days of cooler weather very pleasant, and since most of the work was done ahead of time in a slow cooker, easy to eat when I’ve been up and down for the last 48 hours with a case of “bleh” from my dual Seasonal Flu/Covid shots Monday.
Happy Oktoberfest! Tonight I have prepared rouladen, rotkohl, and mashed potatoes (I’m sure there’s a German word for mashed potatoes), accompanied by a Hofbrau Oktoberfestbier (Ignore the Old Style mug, that was just the only beer mug I had).
Kartoffelstock.
Looks yummy!
Does your plate have a rose on it?