Hehe, glad to be of service! I did go get a baguette and had another tonight, so I probably have bread for 3 more! Tomorrow will probably be another one. They’re so good, I’m happy to eat them 4-5 days in a row. I might even finish off the pickled daikon and carrots if I keep going.
I may even adulterate one with bacon, but I wonder if that will be too much.
Pork loin a couple days ago, so Cuban sandwiches tonight!
I have about 2.5lbs of slow-cooker spinach saag going right now, and have some boneless, skinless chicken thighs marinating in yogurt, lemon and tandoori spices.
So tonight will be air-fried tandoori chicken with spinach saag and tomorrow will be saag-sashuka.
I got in the mood for a nice homemade chicken pot pie. It’s a good way to use up veggie odds and ends: Red pepper, a stray onion, mushrooms, celery, will throw in a couple handfuls of peas. I use only a top crust over a casserole dish filled with pot pie mixture, and that’s plenty of carbs.
I made the pie crust earlier and chopped all the meat and veg. It’ll go together fast tonight when I’m ready.
I may set some kind of record here for the ultimate low-class dinner, but I had a strange hankering today for junk food. We had a discussion in some other thread I think about the uniqueness of McDonald’s basic cheeseburger – it wasn’t a hamburger in any normal decent sense of the word, but it had a unique junk-food taste and texture to it. It was also my dog’s favourite snack! And I also recalled someone mentioning that at some times and places you could just pick up a bag-o-burgers like that, maybe a dozen or so.
So for some unknown reason I was suddenly inspired to the bag-o-burgers concept for a late lunch/early dinner. Got three McD’s cheeseburgers, nothing else. A bag-o-burgers!
They were truly the ultimate junk food – tasty, and small enough to hold together well, unlike more complicated big burgers. And I’m sure very, very unhealthy. But it was fun, like being at a kid’s birthday party, where nutritional caution is thrown to the winds!
I told the Gemini AI that I had tri-color Rotini, frozen broccoli florets, and shredded cheddar cheese, and I wanted to use the Instant Pot. It came up with a crowd-pleasing recipe for me.
Instant Pot Broccoli and Cheddar Rotini
INGREDIENTS
12 oz tri-color rotini
12 oz frozen broccoli florets (thawed slightly or added straight from frozen)
3 cups chicken or vegetable broth
1 ½ tbsp unsalted butter
¾ tsp garlic powder
¾ tsp salt
¼ tsp black pepper
¾ cup heavy cream (or whole milk)
8 oz (2 cups) sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
STEPS
Pressure Cook Pasta:
Add the rotini, broth, butter, garlic powder, salt, and pepper to the Instant Pot.
Gently press the pasta down so it is submerged. Lock the lid, set the valve to Sealing, and cook on High Pressure for 4 minutes.
Quick Release:
Steam the Frozen Broccoli:
Immediately stir the frozen broccoli florets directly into the piping-hot pasta and liquid.
Lock the lid back on (with the pot turned off) and let it sit for 3 to 4 minutes so the residual heat warms and steams the broccoli through.
Melt Cheese:
Remove the lid and switch to Sauté mode.
Stir in the heavy cream, then add the sharp cheddar cheese one handful at a time, stirring constantly until fully melted and creamy.
Thicken & Serve:
NOTES
Gemini AI
Prep time: 5 mins | Cook time: 4 mins | Servings: 8
This week was the first week of HEB’s hatch chile fest, so last night was a big ol’ pan of queso fundido, eaten as little teeny burritos. We added a can of refried beans to make it just a smidge healthier. I think we probably should have doubled the cheese and pepper amounts to make up for the extra volume provided by the beans, but dang it was pretty tasty nonetheless. We both had an extra helping by scooping it up on corn chips. The extra was put in the fridge for later.
Tonight was a garlic/peppered oak smoked chicken from HEB. We each had a leg/thigh quarter, with some queso fundido and chips on the side. More chicken and queso fundido are sitting in the fridge, so I’ll eat on that for the next few days. I may need to grab some more tortillas.
Had a nice big brunch earlier today – dim sum consisting of pork and vegetable dumplings browned in olive oil and then steamed, spiced up with small dollops of Huy Fong chili garlic sauce and consumed with chopsticks used to dip them in a bowl of soy sauce. So just a small snack-type dinner tonight – potato salad and some slices of keilbassa.
Tonight we went out for Thai food. I had the house noodle dish: “Steamed wide rice noodle with fried tofu, ground chicken, shiitake mushroom, shredded carrot, dry shrimp, bean sprout and green onion. Served with homemade sweet black soy sauce. Topped with crispy garlic.” It was excellent! And there’s enough left over for lunch tomorrow.
I feel like I do a lot of “we had salad” posts here, but we did, and it was great. We’re finally in the season when all the best fresh vegetables are actually ripe and summer-drunk.
All from nearby farms: lettuce mix, cucumber, onion, grated beet, small tomatoes quartered, sliced “snacking peppers”, and blanched green beans. Then added in about a 1/3 of a can of black beans that had been mixed with a little salt, chopped garlic, and diced jarred hot peppers and sitting in the fridge left over from nachos last week. Basic dressing of olive oil, vinegar, dijon mustard and salt. Topped with pumpkin seeds and some crumbled chevre. Side of baguette with butter.
I would love that! My husband probably wouldn’t think it qualified as a full meal, though.
I put together a lasagna and a quiche last night, to bake in the oven together…and then the bloody thing wouldn’t heat! It finally worked after I reset it several times, and now we’ll have to pay a small fortune for an appliance repairman, but at least I’ll be able to bake freely once the weather cools down.
The lasagna was fine.
Tonight I wasn’t very hungry so I snacked on ham salad on crackers. Took me back to my childhood!
Im at the Center County Grange Fair for two weeks camping and working. Nothing is open till Thursday so im having to fend for myself in the camper. We list power last night so I made a simple chicken salad from canned chicken. I’ll be finishing that up tonight as well. Looking forward to bacon and eggs cooked in my old electric frying pan for breakfast tomorrow before work!
It sounds kind of fun though.
Spent the weekend in Vegas, where we dined quite well. Now I’m back home and it’s Bachelor Chow for dinner: ground beef, frozen corn, Minute rice all in a bowl with sauce. Shoveled into face while at the computer.
Today I had jury duty. Pro tip: if you’re serving jury duty in Dallas County and don’t want to be picked, sit as far away from the entrance to the main jury room as you can. I didn’t do it intentionally, I was just looking for a place to sit where I didn’t have to bother anyone to get to the seat. They start assigning juries from the seats closest to the entrance and work their way from there. Enough people showed up, and the whole third of the room I was sitting in ended up going home without having to sit on a jury.
So, since I was up early and already downtown I decided to reward my good luck with a bagel from Starship Bagels. I told my sweetie about it over text, and she said to grab a bunch for later, too. I ordered a half dozen assortment (I told them to just give me what you think I need to try) with a tub of cream cheese, and a Supernova Lox (acme lox, tomato, sliced cucumber, and red onion) on a pretzel bagel with fermented jalapeno cream cheese.
No regrets whatsoever. Ok, not totally true, teeny regret. The pretzel bagel held together too well, and each bite had me chasing the fillings that were falling out the other edge with each bite. Still, totally tasty, and my fingers were a pleasure to lick clean. Next time I’ll pick a less durable bagel as the substrate, even though damn, that salty pretzel bagel was good.
My sweetie and I both had a bagel with cream cheese for dinner. I had the pretzel bagel they’d packed, and she had the zatar one. We traded bites, because both were delicious. Four more bagels to eat (everything, garlic, one that looks like both onion and poppy, and a cinnamon raisin), I should have grabbed a side of lox. Live and learn.
Yum! I’m especially partial to pumpernickel bagels, and open-face so the toppings stay put.
Hehehe, you can choose how you want it put together at Starship (yeah, I just learned that a few minutes ago while looking at their menu). Since I truly love the pretzel bagel, I may just order my next one open faced. 
But sadly, they do not offer pumpernickel, which is a bread that is dear to my heart.
I am having one (1) Stouffers meatloaf (with mashed taters’n’gravy) accompanied by one (1) beef bulgogi empanada, and one (1) peas’n’tater samosa… I feel like I’m hittin’ ALL THE CULTURES tonight.
(I have Polish pierogi in the freezer, too, along with Iceland yogurt in the fridge, but this lil’ tummy can only hold so much.)
Yay! President’s Choice™ beer-battered haddock is back in stock! For whatever reason, it bakes and crisps differently than the regular stuff and I much prefer it for fish and chips now that I’ve perfected the baking technique.
Glad to have it in the freezer but for the next few days I have an assorted sub, turkey sub, and creamy coleslaw and macaroni salad.