In the oven: Trader Joe’s Jalepeno Feta Flatbread sprinkled w/soy chorizo. This evening’s libation is the ever tasty Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.
Mexican cottage pie: beef and corn, lots of seasonings, layered with garlic mashed potatoes.
Absolutely no nutritional value, and guaranteed to induce a warm, filling stupor afterwards. BUT IT SMELLS SO GOOD!!! /kicks the oven and tells it to hurry up
Roomie is a slow eater. I don’t exactly shovel it down, but more than half the time nobody’s waiting for me to finish. She wolfed down the salmon and asparagus. She was hungrier than she thought she was, she can murder a salmon anytime, and she likes it when I make it with the lemon-dill sauce.
Now I’m baking coffee cake.
You know, I’ve never baked a coffee cake. I’m going to have to try that.
Well, yesterday was Saturday, and on Saturdays, mudgirl and I (and hubby, if he’s home) go out to lunch. He wasn’t home this weekend, so it was ‘just us girls’, and I had a coupon for Ruby Tuesday. I know the place gets a lot of bad press around here, but I happen to think their steaks are very edible, and their lobster mac and cheese is awesome. So I ordered the 7oz sirloin with lobster mac and cheese (comes with two sides), knowing I was going to have at least half to bring home for dinner. My lovely daughter ordered appropriately, too. So we had leftovers from lunch!
Tonight, it’s a cheese and noodle casserole, kind of like the tuna casserole most kids like. But mudgirl doesn’t like tuna, so I do it with chicken. I like it just as well either way.
I cheated. I just followed the directions on the Krusteaz box. I did finally get a chance to use my pastry cutter thing, to cut the butter for the topping. It came out pretty good. I should have doubled the topping and tripled (or is it trebled?) or quadrupled the chopped pecans. In the early-'80s a neighbour gave my dad some sourdough starter. I made a few coffee cakes from that, from scratch, and they were much better. But we wanted dessert, and Krusteaz mix is what we had in the cupboard.
Black bean stew with brown rice tonight. Future MIL makes it with beans (obviously!) celery, carrots, bell peppers, OJ, cumin, and other spices.
And carrot cake with cream cheese icing.
Let’s see… I have 4 hamburg/sausage patties I cooked up Sunday night. I also have 4 russet potatoes baking in the oven. Finally, I have a mixed bag of frozen veggies (green bean, asparagus, corn?, carrots, I think).
I think I’ll chop up 2 of the potatoes and lather with butter while still piping hot, then cut 2 patties up and fry long enough to reheat and add to the potato with a few squirts of ketchup. Then add the cooked veggies as a side.
It won’t be pretty, but hopefully it’ll be tasty.
Chicken in coconut ginger sauce with mashed sweet and white potatoes with turmeric.
I’m going to bake coffee cake tonight. My husband eats it for breakfast every morning. I bake a lot of coffee cake. It’s got whole wheat flour and silken tofu in it, so it’s not massively unhealthy.
I threw together a red curry/sweet potato/peanut thing. We’ll have it with brown rice and some kind of green vegetable on the side.
I’m gonna go ahead and file this meal as ‘choked down, only make when desperate’. Bleh!
Another appearance of what I made Sunday: shredded chicken (crockpotted thighs), lots of curry powder, spinach, dried cranberries, chunks of apple over rice.
Pretty frikkin’ tasty for an improvised recipe.
It’s far too hot to consider cooking, so I suspect it will be the same as last night: cold meat and salad.
Seared tuna with a scallion/soy/sesame oil sauce. And popcorn for afters.
Stopped by a pizzaria and picked up a couple slices.
Would it be all right if I asked for either recipe? Both sound great, but I know it’s a real pain to type out a recipe.
Tonight was Crunchy Chicken Tenders. This is actually based on another EatingWell recipe that I couldn’t seem to find which actually did call for the tenders. I baked 'em 20 minutes total and used Panko bread crumbs. The honey mustard is fabulous; I never had real grainy mustard until last year. Don’t bother with greek yogurt if you don’t have it, thin with water as needed. Brown rice and peas on the side. Precooked frozen brown rice is a godsend.
I think I’ve finally mastered my own ranch dressing. 4 tablespoons milk, little less than 1/3 cup of low fat sour cream, a capful (more if you like tang; I make it 1.5 capfuls) of cider vinegar, and a few shakes of Penzey’s dried chives and Buttermilk dressing mix plus salt and pepper to taste.
The coffee cake, which I can make in my sleep now, is:
Preheat oven to 350F
Mix together
two cups of whole wheat flour
two cups white flour
one and a half cups white sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
Add:
2 cups liquid (I use water with silken tofu blended in)
2 eggs
2/3 cup vegetable oil
Blend it all together. Pour it into two round cake pans and if you feel like it top it with sliced fruit or berries. Then sprinkle on top a mixture of 2/3 cup flour, 1/3 cup white sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon and maybe 2 tbsp oil, blended together. You get a coarse oatmeal-looking mix.
Bake for 35 minutes. It’s a damp, crumbly cake.
I made a wonderful veggie soup the other night, and am still eating it:
Onions and garlic diced and sweated in olive oil to start, then 1 beer and about 5 cups of water
turnips
med-large sweet potato
broccoli
fennel
chard
1/4 cup yellow split peas
1/4 cup lentils
salt and pepper
liberal sprinkling of turmeric
simmer for about 45 minutes and done.
Been eating with crackers or sourdough.
I just added a spoonful of cream cheese to a bowl I heated up, and that’s good too!
We had potato, leek, and bacon soup, with grilled cheese sammiches. I guess it’s been a few months since we’ve had bacon in the house, as the youngest cat has apparently never smelled it before, but she did express an interest in trying it. She made a complete pest of herself.
I put about a cup of shredded carrots in with the leeks as they were cooking, and I think that they looked pretty against the rather plain looking soup. It snowed here on Monday night or Tuesday morning, and there’s still snow and ice on the ground, which is quite unusual. Generally it will snow overnight, and any that sticks to the ground will melt in the afternoon sun. So it was perfect weather for soup and grilled sandwiches.
Lissla Lissar, that sounds fantastic. I think I’ll try it this weekend. Regular cake pan or bundt?