Last night was Kung Pao Shrimp at our favorite Chinese place. Tonight will be an orgy of baseball gluttony at Petco: hot dogs, garlic fries, pretzels, beer, more hot dogs, more beer…
I’d planned to have leftover jambalaya or leftover lasagna for dinner last night, but roomie was asleep. I knew she was probably tired of jambalaya and I could have eaten it, but I wanted to give her the option. So I made a snack of a toasted English muffin with a little catsup, some Tillamook Cheddar, and pepperoni on it. I didn’t feel like ‘having dinner’ after that. I had an oatmeal-raisin cookie and a little New York Chocolate Fudge Chunk ice cream a little while later.
I’ve just finished the jambalaya for breakfast.
Dinner tonight will be…
Ground beef cooked with minced onions, salt, pepper, and garlic; served in a pocket pita with lettuce, diced tomato, and tzatziki. Sriracha will undoubtedly find its way into mine.
Pork adovada with green chili, pintos, rice, sour cream, tortillas. Yeah, we’re eating out.
It’s Saturday: hamburgers on the grill, weather permitting, and it does tonight.
I think the only thing I’d need to pick up is a habenero and a ginger root, because those don’t keep long, so I don’t keep them around unless I have immediate use.
And I am so going to do that!
Tonight was a big…and I mean big…pot of goulash. Made for everyone, but because it was for the kids, too, I kept the seasoning minimal. They wanted corn in it, as well as the mushrooms and celery I put in, and that was new to me. Also quite yummy! I might season the gallon of it that’s left over with some chili-type spices, yum.
Shrimp, garlic, peppers, and onions over cheese grits last night.
Roomie liked the burger pitas. She had two half-pitas. She’s never had tzatziki before. Had I known that, I would have made falafel. I offered a choice of falafel pitas, or burgers. She liked the sound of both – though she’s never had falafel – so I compromised.
Beans are in the slow-cooker now. Only half a batch, but that will be plenty. 1/2 pound of 15-bean medley, 1/2 pound diced ham steak, 1/2 cup chopped onion, 1 clove minced garlic, 1/2 tsp. chili powder, 3/4 cup diced tomatoes (with juice), a bay leaf, some lemon juice, and water. The beans came with a seasoning packet, so I’ll add half of that at the end.
You won’t be sorry! It’s a very adaptable recipe. Use any protein you want: beef, pork, chicken, tofu…it works well with all of them. Served atop a pile of rice with a beer on the side…perfect.
Final count from last night was:
1 Friar frank
1 Super Friar frank
1 order Garlic fries
1 pulled pork sandwich, with slaw
1 order of Super nachos
1 Super pretzel, with jalapenos and cheese
4 beers
1 Sprite
1 churro
Not bad for two people who are supposed to be on diets. 
Just as a comeback on my microwaved potatos and carrots covered with tinned hot curried chicken.
It was quite honestly one of the vilest things that I’ve ever eaten.
And I DID eat it every bloody bit of it, as I was brought up never to ever waste food
(My mum knew all about those starving African kids who’d have been only to happy to even have the chance of eating my leftovers).
It was totally foul, and thats not a play on words.
Well, mudgirl and I ended up with so many leftovers from our lunch yesterday that we had those for dinner instead of me cooking! So tonight will be the brined pork chops, as well as some mashed potatoes, a pan gravy, and steamed corn. Simple and tasty!
Taomist, about your ginger not lasting long: buy a big piece, peel it, and keep it in the freezer; it’ll last just about forever, and it slices, dices and grates pretty much like fresh, and tastes just as good!
Today making a beef roast in the crockpot with the requisite onions, potatoes, carrots, and cream of mushroom. So simple it’s almost embarrassing, but hey less work means less work, and it’s damn tasty, so there. norinew has inspired me to put the whole chicken in the freezer (I haven’t been told to save it, heh) in the crockpot later this week. Yum.
Oh, btw, not tonight, but this coming weekend when hubby and middle daughter are home, I’m planning on making a lasagna. I’m going to try a slight variation this time, and hope it will turn out well. I’ve often put a layer of pepperoni on top of the lasagna, but I saw a cooking show where the cook incorporated pepperoni, and this is what he did: he crisped the pepperoni in a big pan, then browned the meat for the meat sauce in the rendered fat. How indulgent is that? Gotta try it!
My lasagna is not particularly good for you (I do use whole-wheat noodles, at least pretending no one sitting at the table is going to go into cardiac arrest!), but OMG, it tastes good!! I only make it about three or four times a year, and love it!
As long as you season it properly (don’t be shy with the salt and pepper, use plenty of herbs, be sure to season inside the cavity, too!), I don’t think you’ll be disappointed!
If you’re feeling ambitious, you can put an onion (peeled and halved) a couple ribs of celery (halved) and a lemon (halved) into the cavity. It makes a mighty tasty chicken and the drippings are wonderful, but if you don’t have the stuff or the desire to do it, that’s OK, too! 
Leftover stir-fried veggies in garlic sauce and rice. I’m going to add some chicken to it as well because I need to use up the chicken.
What brand do you use norinew? I use Hodgson Mills but I’m not a big fan. I can’t remember but I feel like they were the only w/w brand at the store the last time I bought them, which was months ago.
That pepperoni sounds like the missing ingredient, honestly. Reading over that I thought “:smack: how have I never thought of that?”
Back in college when I didn’t cook often I would make big batches of tuna helper, lasagna and cabbage rolls and freeze them in individual portions.
Yeah, I don’t care for the Hodgson’s Mills, either. But I tend to use either Barilla Plus (which is not, strictly speaking, whole wheat, but it also has lots of Omega-3 and other good stuff added), or one of the major brands; they all seem to be coming out with whole wheat or at least whole grain blend pastas now.
I joke about cardiac arrest, but really, I use lean ground beef, and I drain it well after I brown it, so even though the flavor from the rendered pepperoni fat is in there, a lot of it drains off. And I’ve gotten a lot of the fat out of the pepperoni itself by crisping it in the pan then draining it on paper towels.
I can’t take credit for the pepperoni idea. My husband asked me one time, because we had leftover pepperoni from pizza night “Hey, why don’t you throw some of that on top of the lasagna?” So it was his brain-child. It’s excellent, though!
Every couple of months, my local Kroger has “mixed pork chops” on sale for $1.99/lb. They are bone-in (more flavor) and they are huge and they are tasty.
Tonight, because it’s just mudgirl and me home, I brined two of them: I filled a pot with 6qts of water, 1/4C salt, 1/4C sugar, and about a half-dozen whole black pepper corns. I heated the solution so that salt and sugar would dissolve completely, then cooled the brining liquid and brined the chops for about 45 minutes.
Removed chops from brining solution, dried on a bed of paper towels, patted dry with more towels. Seasoned with salt, pepper, and Italian Herb blend. Seared in a super-hot pan with 1TBSP melted butter in it. Then I finished them in a 300 degree oven for about a half an hour.
They came out of the oven so tender that I could easily cut it with a butter knife! And the chops were so huge that I had half of the bigger one, and mudgirl had half of the smaller one, and we’re both stuffed! Of course, that’s wonderful news, because it means pork chops for breakfast! Yay!
Mmm, I love pork chops. We’re big pork eaters at my house. I buy a lot of those very thin boneless chops, which can be tricky because they can very easily be tough and flavorless. But I found that dipping them in egg and then panko crumbs and pan-frying them really makes them good. Or flash-frying them with a sauce of some type. Later this week I am making this peanut butter shredded pork in the crockpot, over rice, except I always use a pork roast of some type rather than the tenderloin in the recipe, and I add red pepper flakes for spiciness.
I had to look up two words in this post, but it sounds good. I’m going to try it out next week!